Free Set the Sky on Fire (Fire Trilogy Book 1) by L K Walker Page B

ability too. We don't know why, but you humans didn't develop that little skill.”
    “What? We're primitives by your standards?”
    “No, no, that’s not what I’m saying. Different, that is all. We are two very similar species that exist parallel to your own.”
    “Sorry, I’m just feeling a little protective.” Ari wasn’t making this easy for him. The whole ‘I’m from another world’ thing wasn’t sitting quite as comfortably as she had first thought.
    “Your world, more or less, lies between the seethers’ and ours, like a pivot point.”
    “So, are they all the same?” Ari asked.
    “My world is bright, the atmosphere is thin and doesn't filter the light as it does here. This impedes our vision during the day, so we evolved other senses in order to identify one another.”
    “Like smell?”
    A smile spread over his face, drawing back full lips over a white set of teeth.
    “No, it is not quite like that. You are confusing us with dogs. I mean emotions, feelings. We can locate each other by the feelings we put out. Humans put out those same feelings.”
    Ari nodded.
    “The worlds themselves are very different. For instance, mine has very little anger and suffering, whereas the seethers’ world, from the information we have gathered, is overrun with those sensations. Your world is like a buffer between the two, having both pain and happiness in equal measure. It’s like a continuum.”
    “You say it like it’s a good thing.”
    “Do not be so sure that it’s not.” He looked at her. “Anyway, centuries ago some of the scientists from my world came here to explore and research Earth in order for us to better understand our similarities and, ah, our differences.”
    “Are you sure you don’t think of us as a lower species. We do that with apes.”
    “I said we don’t. Do you want the story or not?”
    “Sorry.”
    “We thought there was only one means of entry to Earth, and we had it secure. We still don't know how, but there was a lapse in the lock holding the boundaries tight between all three worlds. A small hole opened up. We think some of the seethers upset the programming when trying to get out of their hellish existence.”
    “To take over Earth.”
    “We don’t know whether they were aiming for Earth or for my world. We just know that is their goal now.”
    He turned his eyes to hers. Ari’s frown of concentration encouraged him.
    “You are coping very well with the concepts,” he assured her.
    “Coping with the concepts?” she retorted. “I'm tossing up whether or not I should run off screaming there's a nutter on the loose.”
    “But you're still here.”
    “I'm still deciding,” she laughed. Ari's comfort with the stranger grew the more he talked. She even gave him a reassuring smile. When he returned it, her heart upped its tempo.
    “I hope some of this is starting to make sense.” He finally looked away.
    “It shouldn’t, should it?”
    “Do you want me to tell you more?”
    Ari nodded.
    “So some of the seethers escaped into this dimension. At the same time, there seemed to be an opening of the gates of our world. A few of us, researchers like me, already lived on Earth. Others, nearest to the rift, came through from our side to help out where they could and tried to close it. Most of them were security personnel who hadn’t been here before and up until then had had no intentions of visiting. Suddenly, the rift closed trapping them here. They tried everything they could think of to get back. We all did. Even for those of us already here, it had never been a permanent assignment.”
    “You’re stuck here, away from your home.”
    “This is my home now. I have lived here longer than I did there. This is all I remember. Fighting for life helps you to forget what it is you have lost.”
    “When it happened, when you realised you couldn’t go home, you didn’t think about it then?”
    “None of us had any idea that the seethers had come through too. None of