5
A New Beginning
There was the sound of a pressure seal being broken as Peter's compartment opened. A man in white came over to him, released his restraints, and unhooked the tubes and wires connected to him. Peter sat up. He felt weak and very hungry. The man helped him out of the compartment and as he stood up precariously, the man said, "Welcome to Tarizon!"
Lok had said it would take more than a year to get to Shisk on the planet Tarizon, but it seemed to Peter just yesterday that he'd been transported aboard Earth Shuttle 21. As he waited in line for someone to escort him off the ship he thought of home. It made him sick to think so much time had passed and that his family probably thought he was dead. His father knew the truth, surely, but they'd forbid him from telling anyone. Tears began to well in his eyes as a desperate sadness came over him.
Oh, Dad. Such a secret you'll have to keep from Mom. How will you bear it? Will I ever see you and Mom again? . . . Why did this have to happen? Why did you let the CIA do this to us? It's not fair. I don’t want to be here. I want to come home!
The line began to move and they filed into the large room where Peter had first met Lok. It was there he'd looked out the portal and seen Earth in the distance. Lok wasn't anywhere to be found this time, however. Instead a lady named Lurh gave them their disembarkation instructions. She was pleasant enough, but all business. Lurh pushed a button and a door appeared in front of them. A pale green humanoid creature about a foot taller than Peter stepped inside and motioned for them to exit through the door. Peter recoiled at the sight of the strange man who looked human but not of a race he’d ever seen before.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Lurh said. “This is Durisk. He’s a Seafolken. He’s human just like us, but his race has adapted to life in the sea. He won’t hurt you if you do what you’re told.”
Whatever he was, the sight of this huge creature made Peter uneasy. He slipped by him quickly and was astonished to see Cheryl Windsor, his father’s client who had disappeared during her trial, and her children in line ahead of him. They were complaining about being hungry. Lurh overheard their complaints and said not to worry—they'd be eating soon enough.
As they stepped out onto the tarmac, Peter looked up, anxious to see the Tarizonian sky, but it was overcast and there was nothing to see but a dim greyish mist with two moons side by side barely visible through it. The moons were almost touching and then Peter realized they were on a collision course and would soon be one behind the other.
"Look," Lurh said. "It's the Super Eclipse. Take a good look. It only happens every 434 cycles."
Everyone stopped and gazed upward as the two moons became one black circle with a thin halo. A few moments later they began to separate again and the sky lightened.
"I can't believe we were able to see it. The air pollution usually hides our moons," Lurh noted.
Peter looked up again and the moons were gone. An eerie sensation came over him. He took a deep breath. The air was thick and stifling and he wondered if it was always so polluted. Lurh led them across the tarmac to a large building. Peter thought it was some kind of space terminal. He looked back at Earth Shuttle 21 and saw the entire ship for the first time. It was gigantic. There were at least a hundred of the little hatches like the one from which they'd just disembarked. He made a mental calculation and estimated the ship could carry at least twenty-five hundred passengers. Most of the hatches were open now and people were leaving. He wondered if they were all involuntary guests or willing passengers. It gave Peter hope to know there was a ship going back to Earth on a regular basis. He told himself that some day he'd be on one.
Lurh led them into the terminal to a decontamination chamber where they were segregated by sex, disrobed, and given a chemical shower. It reminded Peter of gym class back at Hillcrest High School except the water there wasn't florescent green. When they were cleansed to the satisfaction of the inspectors on duty, they were issued new clothing—loose fitting white slacks and matching pullover shirts like the kids wore who were taking karate lessons. They were comfortable at least, so nobody was complaining.
Once they were all dressed, Lurh took them to a cafeteria the size of a Tom Thumb Supermarket. Peter was glad as he was so hungry he would have eaten a mutated rat, had he seen one. The spread of different types of food was impressive—assorted fruits and vegetables, meats, cheeses, and desserts of every description. They didn't look familiar to Peter, but they all looked and smelled quite appetizing. As he was selecting his dinner, Peter saw Jimmy Falk, his friend from back home who Peter thought had died, setting his tray on a table. He headed his way and sat down beside him. Jimmy had a vacant look in his eyes.
"Jimmy? Is that you?"
Jimmy looked at Peter for a moment and then his eyes lit up. "Peter?"
"In the flesh," he said. "I thought you were dead?"
"Dead?"
"Yeah, the Jeep accident. They said you died on impact."
Jimmy frowned and said, "Is that it? We're all dead? Is this heaven?"
"No, I don't think so. They said something about Tarizon—it's got to be another planet somewhere. I've never heard of it."
"I don't understand."
"You and me both. I think we were abducted by aliens. What I gather is they do this a lot. They have shuttles going back and forth to Earth."
"Shuttles?"
"I know its mind boggling. What's the last thing you remember back on Earth?"
Jimmy thought a moment and replied, "Driving with Steven back to camp."
"Right. Do you remember the accident?"
He shook his head. "No."
"Did you see the spaceship?"
"No. I don't remember a spaceship."
"Man, this is so weird. They had a funeral for you. I saw them bury you. Steven was tried for your murder. Luckily my Dad got him off or he'd have gone to Huntsville."
"Why would Steven murder me?"
"He didn't. It was all BS. They claimed he was pissed off because you took his girl away from him—what's her name?"
"You mean Susan?"
"Right. Susan Weber."
"So, Susan thinks I'm dead?"
Peter took a deep breath and replied, "Yeah, I'm afraid so."
Jimmy stood up abruptly. "Oh, God. I've got to contact her—tell her I'm alive!"
"It's too late. We're too far away from Earth. I'm sure my family thinks I'm dead, too."
Jimmy frowned and sat back down. "Why did they bring us here?"
"Well, I think I'm here because of my Dad," Peter replied. "They want him to do something for them back on Earth. I don't know why you are here unless it has to do with your father. He may be a Tarizonian."
"What?"
"I'm not sure, but my Dad suspected your father was an alien—and not the kind from Mexico. Now it seems even more likely. I bet he'll be here soon to pick you up. I saw his wife and kids here earlier. I don't see them now, so I imagine they've been picked up already."
"Cheryl?"
"Right. She was on trial for your father's murder, except he wasn't murdered. I think he was on the ship with us. It's all very confusing, but I think he'll be picking you up soon. Then maybe you'll get some answers."
"I don't know. Dad doesn't confide in me much. Just about everything he tells me is a lie."
"It may be different now that you're back here on Tarizon."
Jimmy knew what Peter had deduced was true. He'd suspected it for years but tried hard to ignore it. Having an alien for a father wasn't something you wanted to tell your friends about. A week before he'd gone to boy scout camp his father let it slip that he might be transferred. When Jimmy pressed him for more information, he told him the details hadn't been worked out yet, so not to tell anyone about it—particularly his mother. That got him to thinking. If he was being transferred, why wouldn't he tell his wife? She'd be the first one to give the news to.
Jimmy sighed. "Maybe so, but I'll still never see my mother again."
Peter
nodded. "At least you have your father and your brothers and sisters."
"Half brothers and sisters," Jimmy corrected him.
After awhile their hunger became more important than solving the mystery of their abductions—at least for the moment. They began to nibble at the strange fare they'd gathered on their trays. After awhile they decided the food was actually good, so they cleaned their plates and went back for seconds, and then thirds. By the time they were summoned to leave the cafeteria, they were so stuffed their stomachs ached.
Their next stop was some sort of waiting room. There were sofas, chairs, tables, lamps, magazines, and photographs on the walls. They were told to take a seat until each was called. Peter sat down and picked up a magazine. It was printed in a language he couldn't read but there were a lot of interesting pictures. He assumed the photographs were of Tarizon.
The first article was about a volcano. There was a picture of it spewing lava out over the countryside. Smoke billowed up from its cone. Although he couldn't read the article the pictures told the story of the tremendous devastation that the volcano had caused for many miles around it. Peter remembered his dad telling him about the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington state. He had been flying to San Francisco the day it erupted and he said there was so much smoke and volcanic ash coming from the volcano that it left over a foot of soot on the ground for a hundred miles in every direction. While Peter was grappling with the magnitude of this, he heard his name called.
Peter looked up and saw an open door and a man standing in it. He motioned for Peter to come. Peter got up and walked over to him. He was an average looking man—black hair, medium build, mustache, and was holding a file in one hand. He pointed to a chair and Peter took a seat.
"Welcome to Tarizon, Mr. Turner. I'm Samilh, you can call me Sam. I trust your trip was uneventful."
"I guess so, I don't remember more than a minute of it."
"Well, it's the only practical way to transport large quantities of people between the planets. You can imagine what it would be like if you were awake for over an Earth year in that little compartment."
"True," Peter admitted. "You'd be sitting across from a lunatic right now."
"Well, actually your body would have been torn apart molecule by molecule. You wouldn't be a lunatic, you'd be dust," he said and then opened the file he had been holding. "I see your father is in service to the repopulation effort."
"I guess. I really don't know much about it."
"As you may have noticed it's quite dark outside although it is midday. This isn't the way it's always been on Tarizon. Two hundred years ago Tarizon was a planet much like Earth—clear skies, clean rivers and lakes, majestic mountains full of game, and endless grasslands."
"What happened?"
"There were the worldwide wars that lasted many decades but, shortly after unification, we had what you would call on Earth a series of super volcanic eruptions. Unfortunately it was not just one or two volcanos but thirteen. Millions of people were killed from the tremors, tidal waves, and wild fires, but the worst tragedy was what it did to our atmosphere. It is so full of ash and toxic chemicals now that rarely do you see our sun. You can imagine what that did to agricultural production. For many cycles, which are similar to Earth years, we lacked sufficient food to feed our people and millions starved to death. Our population has been declining rapidly and even though we've come up with new ways to feed our people, the toxins in the atmosphere have made most of our men and women very weak and sickly. Infertility is a major problem.
“Fortunately, the worst is behind us and the atmosphere is gradually getting back to normal. The polar regions are already almost clear and, if weather conditions are favorable, we could see clear skies as far north as Lortec and the Beet Islands soon. Our scientists have also made great strides in cleaning up our water and filtering the air that we breathe. In ten or fifteen cycles we may see the sun again on a regular basis over all of Tarizon and our population will stabilize once again. That's why the Repopulation project is so important.”
"Why couldn't you have just left me alone? I wouldn't have told anyone about what you were doing."
"You say that, but is it really true? Could you have kept such a secret from your family and friends?"
Peter shrugged. He knew deep down the man was right, of course. He didn't know for sure he'd have kept the secret. He would have tried for his father's sake, but who knows what he'd have done if push came to shove. "Still, you don't have the right to kidnap people and haul them off to another world. We have rights, you know."
"It certainly was regrettable that we had to bring you here, Mr. Turner. We don't like having to do this. We are a civilized people, but there was simply no choice. Let me assure you that while you are our guest on Tarizon we will do everything in our power to make your life here pleasant and fulfilling."
Peter glared at Sam wondering if it would be wise to show his anger. His father had always advised against it. His advice when someone made you angry was to count to ten before speaking, or better yet, say nothing. Peter had too many questions he needed answered, so he counted to ten and then asked evenly, "So, are you saying at some point I may be able to go home?"
"Perhaps. That depends on you and your father."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it's complicated and probably a bit premature to discuss that now. The purpose of our visit is to welcome you to Tarizon and assign you temporary quarters pending permanent assignment."
"Do I have any say so in my permanent assignment?"
"Probably not," Sam said and shrugged. "Tarizon is in crisis, Mr. Turner. You will go where you are assigned and do what you're asked to do. If that is not acceptable . . . well . . . lets just say, you won't like the alternative."
There was a glint of a smile on Sam's face that Peter didn't like much. It seemed he was to be a prisoner and forced to work as his captors willed. He wondered what that work would be and what his temporary quarters would be like. In his mind's eye he saw a prison cell and bars. He just prayed he was wrong.
After the interview Peter and Jimmy were instructed to go with a group of thirty other passengers for transport to their temporary quarters. Peter scanned the group to see if there was anyone else he knew. Most of the group were young like he and Jimmy and seemed just as scared and disoriented as they were. He didn’t see any faces that looked familiar. Ahead he saw two maintenance workers working on an escalator. The men stopped and looked up as the group approached. Peter felt the men’s eyes on him almost immediately.
Suddenly, there were bright flashes of light. Peter jerked around to see where they were coming from. Two soldiers were trotting toward them with guns shooting out pulsating beams of light. One of beams hit Jimmy knocking him off his feet. He screamed and writhed as he held his smoldering stomach. Peter fell to the ground beside him and tried to calm him. Others around him were also being hit and were falling left and right. The two workers rushed toward them, tore Peter away from Jimmy, and pushed him through an emergency exit.
“Where are we going? Who are you?” Peter protested.
“We’re here to protect you,” one of the workmen replied. “We need to get you away from here immediately.”
“What about Jimmy?” Peter screamed trying to break free of the two men. “Why are they trying to kill us?”
“There’s nothing you can do for him,” the workman said, pointing an odd shaped flashlight at Peter. There was a blue flash and he collapsed like a rag doll. The two men picked Peter up and carried him outside to an awaiting vehicle that rushed him away.