First Contact - Part 4

The rift breathed.

Eight weeks of reading hadn't prepared me for the breathing. The accounts I'd found described colors and pressures and currents. Every rift different from the last. None had described breathing.

Pressure pulsed through the air at irregular intervals, hitting my sternum. In the pause between pulses, the turbulence dropped off and movement was possible. During the pulse, the air had weight and my body worked against something that wasn't quite wind or sound. The intervals fluctuated between sixty-seven and eighty-nine seconds. I counted the beats without thinking.

The ground had a new texture, almost spongy, as if grass were pushing back against my steps. But even that was variable. One step was firm, solid, the next shifting, the third somewhere in between. I was careful as I walked.

The teal and cyan aurora I'd seen from the outside was colored glass looking out at our world from within, a sinuous window showing the mirage of landscape we'd walked through. Nev and Harko were with me, staring at the changed landscape, outlined in a soft wine-hued magenta. The outlines became yellow-tinged as a pulse washed over us.

[Rift harmonics: 0.067 TFU per second.]

That was new.

The first few minutes of moving in the rift were almost easy, once you adjusted to the ever-shifting footing.

I led. Nev was a step behind me. Harko trailing her. The pause-pulse rhythm worked. When the air went quiet, we moved. When it pressed, we held. The breathing of the rift felt as natural as our own.

Nev had stopped walking.

When she spoke, it was quiet. "I didn't know it would be like this."

Her eyes moved over me. Then to her own hands when she lifted them. Whatever she was seeing, we were both there.

"I'm glad I came."

Behind her, Harko had stopped too. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to.

We started moving again.