Tablet of Destinies by Traci Harding Page B

toy that they literally flew to the scholar’s side.
    â€˜Splendid.’ Tory expressed her delight, but remained seated and waited for all to join her on the lounges. ‘Floyd never disappoints.’
    Noah struggled over to take a seat, avoiding colliding with or squashing either of the excited beings that were hovering about him.
    â€˜Sacha, Psyche, give Noah a chance to settle and set up his tool.’ Tory beckoned the Devas back to her. ‘You are only delaying the demonstration by hounding him,’ she explained, whereupon the twins returned to settle on her lap and wait for their instructor to be ready for them.
    Noah put the portable computer down on the coffee table and the screen popped up to expose the keypad.
    â€˜Ooh!’ gasped the twins in unison, intrigued by the development.
    He opened a case containing several different CD-ROMs and optical storage disks, and selecting a CD he placed it into drive to load. ‘I’d nearly forgotten how to use a keyboard … and if you thought I was a slow typist fifty years ago, there is no hope for me now,’ he joked, as the computer finished booting up.
    Sacha had drifted away from Tory, having taken an interest in Noah’s case of disks. The little Deva perused the titles on offer, then made a selection.
    Tory found it interesting that Sacha had chosen an encyclopedic dictionary. ‘Noah, look.’ Tory motioned with her eyes towards the boy.
    â€˜Would you like me to load that up for you, Sacha?’ Noah offered, whereby the Deva nodded, and handing over the disk, he began to clap excitedly.
    Once the program had been activated, Psyche joined Sacha in front of the computer. They placed their hands on the monitor and the information contained in the encyclopedic dictionary began flashing across the screen faster than the program or the system were capable of running.
    â€˜They are controlling the hard drive psychokinetically,’ Tory uttered, mystified.
    â€˜But this system is not equipped with PKA capabilities!’ Noah sat back to give the Devas some room, hardly believing what he was witnessing. ‘Holy Goddess, they’re up to H already.’
    Tory raised herself from her chair and moved over behind the one in which Noah was seated to see forherself the stream of text and images that were flashing across the screen beneath the hands of the probing Devas. ‘They must be able to connect and manipulate artificial intelligence at an atomic level.’
    â€˜Just imagine what they could do to us,’ Noah uttered over his shoulder to Tory, trying not to sound fearful about the realisation that he was at the mercy of a couple of three year olds with such capabilities.
    â€˜Maybe we should have censored that disk, as it does not refer to this planet, but Gaia,’ Tory pointed out to Noah’s great distress.
    â€˜Shit.’ He noted the Devas had reached the letter T and quickly switched off the computer.
    Sacha and Psyche were most upset and began moaning in protest.
    â€˜Wrong planet and time frame,’ he explained, producing two PKA orbs from nowhere that contained the standard encyclopedic dictionary used as a reference in the Institutes on Kila.
    The Deva accepted the more advanced learning tools with pleasure and settled down quietly to absorb the information that was contained thereon.
    â€˜Phew,’ said Noah. ‘I only intended to show them how to operate the system. I didn’t plan on subjecting them to the primitive concepts of Gaia’s civilisation.’ It worried him how quickly the situation had gotten out of hand. ‘There isn’t anything in our encyclopedic dictionary that should be too primitive for their consumption. Still,’ he cocked an eye in speculation, ‘as perfect as I feel the life we lead on Kila is, our civilisation and beliefs will appear as barbaric to themas the Dark Ages of Briton appeared to you. More backward even!’
    Tory