Tablet of Destinies by Traci Harding Page A

and her husband, Dumuzi, had been trying forever to conceive. The fairylike features of the Devas’ radiant little faces were very expressive and they were actually more beautiful and perfect in appearance than human babies of the same age. Although they could never replace the gaping hole that Avery and Lirathea had left in Tory’s life, the Devas were certainly proving a delightful distraction until such time as she figured out how to locate her own children.
    She realised now that she’d done the right thing in keeping the Devas in a positive, informative and loving environment. Had her husband had his way, the harsh, cold, segregated environment of a bio-containment laboratory would have generated enough destructive stimuli to have had an irreversible effect on the young and impressionable psyches of the twins. Tory also knew how delighted Maelgwn would be to have been proven wrong.
    Both babes had sprouted blonde hair and the pupils of their large almond-shaped eyes had turned violet like Tory’s. The rest of their form was now very human in appearance, although their fingers and toes were especially long and slender. Their sharp, pointed teeth had transformed into human teeth and the tails of the Devas had vanished. It was as if the little beings were making a concerted effort to fit in with the human race.
    Cleo, at the Institute of Astronomy, had been consulted on the conundrum of what to name the pair. They had manifested days after Avery and Lirathea had been born, and therefore it would be completelyinappropriate to call the celestial babes by those names. Going back over the events of the morning when the Devas had arrived, Noah had managed to estimate their time of birth, give or take fifteen minutes. Cleo then compiled a list of names suitable for babies born within this time and, from the meanings given for the names selected, it was easy for Tory to know which ones were meant for the twins. The beings had manifested simultaneously, so once Tory had found the name most apt for the male Deva — Sacha, ‘the helper of mankind’ — the female name that corresponded to the same time of birth was Psyche, which simply meant ‘the soul’.
    On the third day of Sacha and Psyche’s development, things got really interesting, for although the beings were approaching three years of age in appearance, they had yet to speak a word, although they had no problem comprehending anything they were told.
    Both Tory and Noah wore thought-wave neutralisers in an attempt to shield the celestial babes from telepathically probing their thoughts and stumbling onto negative stimuli buried in the dark recesses of their minds. However, there was no way of knowing if the thought-wave neutralisers were effective enough to protect the Devas from human thought and memory altogether. By the very nature of their origins, the Devas were bound to be psychically gifted beyond human comprehension.
    Whilst thought-wave neutralisers prevented the wearer from probing the minds of others, it did allow for some telepathic communication. Such projected thoughts made a more solid wave that could be detectedabove the lesser brain wave functions that the device was designed to scramble. But, the babes hadn’t attempted telepathic transfer, only using the basic sounds and sign language akin to that of a human infant who had yet to learn to speak. The only way Tory could join with the Devas and probe their minds for information would be to remove her restraint. To open her mind, or any other human’s for that matter, to the Devas would be completely irresponsible.
    Noah appeared in the nursery, this particular morning, with an old portable computer that Floyd — Head of Communications Technology on Kila — had managed to resurrect for him. ‘More research texts,’ Noah announced with glee, holding his archaic piece of equipment up triumphantly.
    The two Deva babes were so curious about his new