She told him, "From what I can tell, Trevor, your universe is the only place where man started on Earth. Everywhere else, humanity evolved on Sirius."

  He glanced to the cracked, drooping ceiling. "Maybe on my universe man did start on Sirius but got transplanted to Earth. Maybe before we were even people, back when we were just microbes in the primordial soup."

  She guessed, "And in this universe, the Chaktaw taken from wherever they are really meant to live and put here."

  "Sure, why not?" He nearly laughed as they huddled together and tried to figure out the madness Armageddon had opened them to. "Us and the Chaktaw, we're not all that different, at least not biologically. Now the Duass, they're pretty goofy looking but I'm guessing they aren't so far from us, either. Same with all the other organized aliens I've come across. This environment- Earth — would suit any of us. Damn, this is just plain nuts."

  Trevor figured that somewhere the Old Man laughed his ass off.

  Nina scratched her blond hair and asked, "Okay, I get that, but back on Sirius-my home-we have grizzly bears, we have wolves, and we have horses. On your Earth, you have the same; grizzly bears, wolves, and horses. But here, on this Earth, the Chaktaw have Huskers and Giant Lizards and stuff like that. Why don't they have horses and grizzly bears?"

  Trevor remembered the many reports he received from Anita Nehru and the research teams at Red Rock.

  "Because the seed is the same. Look, you plant an apple tree seed and you get a certain type of tree with apples. Plant a cherry tree and it’s a different tree with a different fruit. Both need water, air, and sunlight to grow but they are different. Both humans and Chaktaw need air and water, the type of stuff you'll find on Sirius or here on Earth. I'll bet Chaktaw and human DNA isn't too far off. But still, we start from different seeds so no matter where we grow, we get horses and the Chaktaw get Huskers. The people and animals change, but we can survive on the same type of stage."

  "Stage?"

  "Look at it, Nina. Everything is basically the same. It’s like whoever is controlling all this wanted each species to have the same starting point, so that no one would have any type of environmental advantages. Just the higher life forms all on their own."

  "But why only higher life forms? Why not insects and stuff?"

  He held his hands in the air and worked his fingers as if trying to grab something.

  "There must be a line between those things that are just part of the environment and those things that impact that environment. Maybe it has something to do with a level of sentience. Hey, Disney taught me that it’s all a circle of life. Maybe there are a few breaks in that circle."

  "Disney?"

  "You come from a horrible, forsaken world." His smile, however, showed that he joked. "Tell me about Sirius. What else is different?"

  Nina wrung her hands. After a moment, she reluctantly told him, "Okay, well, you’d have to get used to the extra moons and the other two suns you can see in our sky."

  "Two more suns? You have three?"

  "One is a white dwarf, the other a brown. They’re both pretty dim but every fifty years the white one gets close and we get magnetic storms like you wouldn’t believe."

  He asked, "Who decided to send your people to this planet? Who said you had to fight?"

  "You have to understand…" her voice trailed off. He let her collect her thoughts. After a deep inhale she went on, "Things got bad at home. I told you there were City-States. Well, there was a big war. Some called it a war of unification, others a conquest. Still, seemed like a good idea to me. Point is, as the war went on the cities either joined or got rolled over. Very nasty."

  "What about you? What side, I guess, what side were you on?"

  "I joined on to help unify. Thought it'd be good to pull our resources. Besides, the guy leading the whole thing had a way of winning you over; making you believe in the cause."

  Trevor swallowed hard and started to ask, "Was that…um…"

  "No. Not you. You came later. I never heard of Trevor Stone until one of the City-States put up a fight. Heard he was a nobody who just took up a gun to defend his city. In the end, he didn't have a chance, but his reputation grew. That made it easy to follow him here."

  "Eventually, you unified?"

  "Yes," she went on. "The corporations fell in line, the City-States joined together, and we had what you would call a country. Not long after that, the rumors started. Aliens. Then the chance came for people to come to this world and carve out a new life."

  "Another war?"

  "I think it all depended on how you looked at it. Some people saw it as exploring a new land. Maybe they didn't have much back home, maybe they lost everything in the war. I'd say the bulk of the people who came over were pretty much desperate. Of course, they were promised all types of riches and the start of a brand new life."

  "And you?"

  "I've always been a soldier, Trevor. I guess I fell for the idea that we'd come over here and carve out a kingdom for ourselves. That's what you-I mean, our Trevor-promised. He had a way of making your blood boil; to make you want to follow him anywhere."

  Yes, Trevor remembered Five Armies and a hundred battles since. That's why the Old Man likes me so much.

  She continued, "It was billed back home that the Chaktaw here were a threat to mankind, and if we didn't wipe them out they would someday wipe us out. I guess I don't believe it any more but that hasn't mattered in a long time. It's been survive or die for years now."

  She stopped, perhaps overcome with guilt or regret or just exhaustion.

  Trevor said, "So whatever is going on, someone has used each of these universes to give these different civilizations a chance to fight for their lives. A laboratory experiment? An arena?"

  "I don't know, Trevor. I'm sorry I ever came here. I'm sorry I brought you here."

  "Me too," he said but the aches, pains, and fatigue in his bones kept the shot from carrying too harsh a tone; he did not have the energy for shouting anymore today.

  Trevor rose to his feet, grabbed his tightly wound bed roll, and moved to the other office, saying, "We need to get some sleep."

  "The motion sensors are in place," she referred to the small boxes placed in the hallway earlier. "If anything heads toward these rooms the sensors will wake us up."

  "Okay. Good. We move out at first light."

  They slept in separate rooms.

  – With howls, shrieks, and various moans drifting across the city, Trevor struggled to fall asleep. Worse, only minutes after falling asleep, he found himself pulled awake, his mind conscious of a soft sound coming from nearby.

  His eyes blinked open and he lay still, listening. What was that sound? Was some strange snake slithering toward his sleeping bag?

  Wait, no, could it be…did Nina snore?

  No…not a snake…not a snore.

  Trevor slipped from his bed roll and moved as stealthily as if he sneaked in on a Devilbat nest. He came to the open door separating their rooms and peered into hers. The light of a Chem Lantern cast the office in a soft glow. He saw Nina lying in her sleeping bag facing a wall.

  The sound that had caught his ear came from her. The sound of her crying, despite struggling to keep the noise to herself.

  He stood and watched this woman who had, at first, enthralled him, then seduced him, then enraged him. Among the mysteries of this parallel Earth, Major Nina Forest seemed the biggest enigma. Very much like the woman he knew back home but different. In those differences he had also discovered secrets about himself, ones he wished remained buried.

  "Yes, I'm human. Just like you in every way."

  "I don’t want to be all alone. Not again. I couldn’t stand that again. I’ll do whatever you want, just please don’t leave me alone."

  Another sob. Another muffled heave.

  He remembered her after the failed assault on the Duass city. The way she had cringed in the face of his anger. The way she had cowered.

  Of course.

  He walked across the chamber to her sleeping bag. Her breath halted as she heard his approach but she did not turn.

  Trevor lay down and then rolled in behind her. The two wore their battle suits although both had removed some of the padded armor so as to make sleeping more comfortable.

  He felt her shiver as his body warmth mixed with hers, yet she did not say a word. He slipped his arm over her shoulders and squeezed gently. She wiggled closer and sighed.

  "I…I didn’t mean to wake you," a sniff punctuated her whisper.

  "You didn’t love the Trevor of your world. You never did."

  She protested weakly, "Yes I — sniff — yes I did."

  He spoke in an almost fatherly voice with a tone he had not used in a long time. A tone of compassion. "Don’t lie, Nina. Don’t lie to yourself. You and I both know the truth. I can see it now. I can see it clearly. For your sake, it’s time you see the truth, too."

  "I don’t…I just…I’m afraid. That’s all, I’m afraid."

  "You grew up shy and lonely, an outcast," he told her in much the same manner he had once told the same story to his Nina in the midst of a raging thunderstorm. "You didn’t know why, but you felt different from everyone else."

  "How…how do you know that? How..?"

  "Because the woman I loved…my Nina…she had the same beginning. She grew up the same way. You two are the same in many ways but now I realize why you are also different."

  "Different?"

  "Yes. Do you want to know? Do you want to see? Are you brave enough to see?"

  He gave her a nice hug to help her find that bravery and continued, "The more I became like the Trevor you knew, the more you feared me. I could see it. At Erie Coast…"

  "I deserved to be yelled at."

  "No, no," he stroked her hair. "That’s wrong. I screwed up, Nina. My plan was a long shot. The type of long shots I always take. You were a ruse to draw their main forces away from the center of town. When they withdrew to the fortress, there was nothing you could do. If I had been of my right mind I would have known that. Instead, I refused to take responsibility for my mistakes. So I blamed you. I lashed out at you. I’m sorry."

  "Don’t be sorry, you wouldn’t have been acting that way if I didn’t trick you into it."

  "There you go again, apologizing for me. I’ll bet you apologized for your Trevor all the time. But he still bullied you. He probably hit you once in a while, didn’t he? But more than that, he messed with your mind, Nina. Knocked you down and kept you there."

  "He was a great man. Great men are different than the rest of us. Look at everything you’ve accomplished. Sometimes great men just do things different. They’re allowed."

  "No. Your Trevor was not a great man, Nina. He was a brute. A vile man. I say that because there’s a big part of him in my belly and it don’t sit too well with me."

  "You’re different. You…I couldn’t change you. In the end, you didn’t become him. Just like me and your Nina. We look the same, but we’re completely different."

  "That’s where you’re wrong. You are the same. The same genes, the same body, the same mind. I’ll bet you had the same childhood: good parents who tried to help you get over the feeling of being an outcast. But with each year you felt yourself different from the other kids. Even then, you were thinking like a warrior. Getting ready for the coming fight."

  "How do you know all that?"

  "Because that’s what my Nina was like. But then, at some point, things changed and the two of you ended up different."

  She swallowed hard and wanted to know, "What happened?"

  He found it ironic that he was telling her the truths of her life. Perhaps sometimes it takes an outsider to see the larger picture. The way Lori Brewer or Dante or even Knox or Jon kept his life in perspective back home. A perspective he lacked on this parallel Earth.

  "You gave in. You decided it was more important not to be alone than it was to be true to yourself. Let me tell you, if I had ever raised a hand to my Nina she would have tied me in a knot. She was faster and stronger than me, the same way I know you're faster and stronger. Yet you let him beat you down because you were afraid to be alone."

  She did not say a word. He went on.

  "The things you did with your Trevor, you did them to keep him. You did them because you thought that’s what it took. You let him use you like an object; you let him…let him degrade you. To cheapen you. Because you were afraid to walk away."

  He felt her flinch. A sigh from her lips became a sob.

  "You let him define who you are. Then you did everything he wanted, no matter how it made you feel. You let him use you, and why? Because you were afraid to be alone."

  She shivered, as if a chill had worked its way beneath her armor. Then it came out. She muffled each burst as best she could but she could not hide from him. Not any more. The tears flowed and her chest heaved. The woman he knew to be so strong and brave fell to pieces as she confronted the only nightmare that had ever managed to scare her. The nightmare of loneliness.

  "I…I have hated every second…ever…every day…of my life," she spoke between breaths. "Every…day. I never knew how to…how to…"

  Trevor answered for her, "How to fit in?"

  She wiped a hand beneath her eyes.

  "So you let him use you like a toy, just so he wouldn’t chase you away."

  "I thought…he wanted to do things. I did them. I thought he’d love me for it."

  Stone ran his hands along her shoulders and arms in a comforting caress.

  "Me and my Nina," his eyes glazed over with wonderful memories. "We had all sorts of fun together. But through it all, we had respect. I always respected her. To be with her, together, I mean-wow-we had fun. But we sometimes just sat and talked, for hours over a bottle of wine. We played racquetball together and went horseback riding. I’d give anything for just one moment with her again. If only…if only to talk to her."

  This time Trevor fought to stave tears. He concentrated on her, on holding her tight, on forgetting for the moment how she had deceived him. After weeks of nothing but anger, violence, and lust, he found his soul cleansed by offering compassion; something he rarely had the opportunity to do. The kindness he showed her, despite all she had done, provided a counter balance to the evil he had wrought since coming here. In a way, he found it healing.

  "You really loved her, didn’t you?"

  "Yes. I loved her, very much. But you know what else? I liked her. I liked just being with her. And I respected who she was. I didn’t want to change her; I wanted her to share with me the person she was. And she did. It took a lot for her to do it, but she did."

  "I’m nothing like her," she did not ask, she stated a fact.

  He corrected, "That’s not true. You’re very nearly the same person, you just made a different choice. Our memories and our experiences make us who we are. You made a decision my Nina avoided. So yes, you’re different but I know you have the same strength that she has."

  "The same…strength?"

  "Yes," he insisted. "The strength to be who you are. Don’t let someone else define you. Don’t let someone else cheapen you."

  "Strength…" she turned the word around in her mouth.

  "You have it. You showed it once, didn't you?"

  She turned around in her sleeping blanket to face him. The glow of the lantern flickered in her blue eyes and sparkled off streams of drying tears.

  "Come on now," he said to her. "Go ahead, tell me. You need to. Don't worry, I figured it out a while ago."

  She nibbled at her lower lip, cast her eyes down, then back to him. And then Major Nina Forest admitted, "I killed him."

  He touched her cheek and encouraged her to, "Go on."

  "One day, after a battle, we were alone. He said I was…he called me a worthless…"

  "Shhh," he kept her from finishing whatever cold insult the Trevor Stone of this world had berated her with.

  She said, "I don’t know what happened. Maybe it was the heat of the battle. I had just finished killing…killing things. I felt invincible for a moment, like I sometimes do when I’m fighting. I felt… comfortable."

  "You’re a natural soldier, just like my girl. That’s who you are."

  "He laughed at me. Real mean, like. And I don’t know… I hit him. I knocked him right down to the ground. He looked at me…he was, like…shocked or something. For a few seconds…like…he was afraid. Afraid of me. Then he got up and he was pissed. He told me he was going to cut me for that. So he came at me with his blade and then, and then I realized I had a knife in my hand and he swung at me with his knife and the next thing I know I stuck my knife in him and his mouth just fell open and he had this look in his eyes and the blood came and then he was on the ground and he was dead and I didn’t know what-"

  "Good for you," he interrupted the long string of words that came from her mouth in an ever increasing panic. "You protected yourself."

  "No," she shook her head but not too vigorously. "I killed him. And you know what? I was glad. For a while, I was glad to be free of him."

  Trevor figured the rest, "But with time things started to fall apart and every one said it was because of Trevor. And you were alone. Without him no one cared about you; you were a nobody. So after a while, and when you found out about the dimensions and all, you decided maybe you should try and bring Trevor back. Maybe it’d be good for your people. Maybe you wouldn’t be alone any more."

  She did not need to nod or answer in any way because they both knew how right he was.

  "Nina," he spoke softly. "On behalf of all the other Trevors of existence, I forgive you."

  She chuckled, sort of.

  "What he did to you all those years, what he put your people through and what he did to this planet…well, I don’t blame you one bit. I don’t think any one could."

  They paused and listened to the sound of their own breathing for several seconds. The Major managed her emotions but her curiosity got the better of her.