“Before I arrived?” Suzanne questioned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Arak added quickly. “Nothing at all. Perhaps we should remind your colleagues that it was the breakup of Pangaea that formed the present continental configuration.”
“That’s true,” Suzanne agreed while she eyed Arak searchingly. She had the uncomfortable sense that there was something Arak was not telling her. She looked over at Donald and Perry and wondered how much even they were taking in. Arak’s presentation was clearly beyond Richard and Michael. They looked like bored schoolkids.
“Well, then,” Arak said, marshaling some enthusiasm by rubbing his hands together. “I can only imagine how all this information affects you people. Having one’s preconceived and accepted notions dashed is a daunting experience. That’s why we have been insisting on going slowly with your introduction to our world. I’d venture to guess that you’ve already had enough talk, too much perhaps. At this point I think it would be better to show you some of the ways we live, firsthand.”
“You mean go out into the city?” Richard asked.
“If that will be agreeable to everyone?” Arak said.
“Count me in,” Richard said eagerly.
“Me, too,” Michael echoed.
“What about the rest of you?” Arak asked.
“I’ll go,” Suzanne said.
“Of course I’ll go,” Perry said when Arak looked at him.
When it was Donald’s turn he merely nodded.
“Wonderful,” Arak said. He stood. “Now if you’ll give Sufa and me a few minutes by remaining in your seats, we’ll make the arrangements.” He extended a hand toward Sufa, and she rose as well. Together they exited the small conference room.
Perry shook his head. “I feel shell-shocked. This whole situation keeps getting more and more unbelievable.”
“I’m not sure I believe anything,” Donald said.
“Ironically enough, it seems to me to be too fantastic not to be true,” Suzanne said. “And it all makes a certain amount of scientific sense.” She looked over at Ismael and Mary Black, who had been sitting patiently. “Please, folks, tell us your story. Is it true you are from the surface world?”
“Yes, it is,” Ismael said.
“From where?” Perry asked.
“From Gloucester, Massachusetts,” Mary said.
“No kidding,” Michael said. He sat up. “Hey, I’m from Massachusetts, too: Chelsea. Ever been there?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Ismael said. “But I’ve never been there.”
“Everybody from the North Shore has been to Chelsea,” Michael said with a snicker. “Because one end of the Tobin Bridge sits on it.”
“I’ve never heard of the Tobin Bridge,” Ismael said. Michael’s eyes narrowed in disbelief.
“How’d you two end up down here in Interterra?” Richard questioned.
“We were very lucky,” Mary said. “Very lucky indeed. Just like you people.”
“Were you diving?” Perry asked.
“No,” Ismael said. “We ran into a terrible storm en route from the Azores to America. We should have drowned like the others on our ship. But, as Mary said, we were lucky, and we were inadvertently rescued by an Interterran interplanetary vehicle. We literally got sucked into the same exit port you people did and were then revived by the Interterrans.”
“What was the name of your ship?” Donald asked.
“It was called the Tempest,” Ismael said, “which turned out to be rather appropriate considering the fate. It was a schooner out of Gloucester.”
“A schooner?” Donald questioned suspiciously. “What year did this happen?”
“Let’s see,” Mary said, “I was sixteen. That makes it eighteen hundred and one.”
“Oh, for chrissake,” Donald muttered. He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his bald head. He’d shaved it that morning. “And you people wonder why I’m skeptical?”
“Mary, that’s about two hundred years ago,” Suzanne said.
“I know,” Mary said. “It’s hard to believe, but isn’t it wonderful? Look how young we look.”
“You expect us to believe that you are over two hundred years old?” Perry questioned.
“It’s going to take time for you to comprehend the world that you are now in,” Mary said. “All I can say is that you should try to avoid making any hardened opinions until you’ve seen and heard more. We can remember how we felt when we were being subjected to the same information. And remember, for us it was even more astounding since your technology has come a long way in the last two hundred years.”
“I second Mary’s advice,” Ismael said. “Try to keep in mind what Arak said at the beginning of the session. Time has a different meaning here in Interterra. In fact, Interterrans don’t die the way they do on the surface.”
“My ass they don’t die,” Michael whispered.
“Shut up,” Richard whispered back through clenched teeth.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
To Perry and the others the air taxi looked the same as the one they’d been in the day before, but Arak said it was a newer model and far superior. Regardless, it whisked the group in a similarly effortless and silent fashion from the visitors’ palace grounds into the bustling city.
“Immigrants usually spend an entire week in the conference room before venturing out like this,” Sufa said. “It can be taxing to the intellect as well as the emotions. We hope we’re not pushing you too fast.”
“Do you have any thoughts about this?” Arak asked. “We’re certainly open to suggestions.”
The group eyed each other, each hoping another would respond. As Sufa intimated, the situation was stupefying, especially with the cloud of other air taxis zipping by in every conceivable direction. The fact that there were no collisions was astounding in and of itself.
“Doesn’t anybody have an opinion?” Arak persisted.
“Everything is overwhelming,” Perry admitted. “So it’s hard to have an opinion. But I believe from my perspective, the more I see, the better. Merely experiencing your technology like this air taxi makes everything you’ve said more credible.”
“What are you going to show us?” Suzanne asked.
“That was a difficult decision,” Arak said. “It’s why Sufa and I took so long arranging things. It was hard to decide where to start.”
Before Arak could finish, the hovercraft came to a sudden stop then rapidly descended. A moment later the exit port appeared where previously there had not even been a seam.
“How does the door open like that?” Perry asked.
“It’s a molecular transformation in the composite material,” Arak said. He gestured for everyone to disembark.
Perry leaned over to Suzanne as he got up. “As if that’s an explanation,” he complained.
The air taxi had deposited the group in front of a relatively low, windowless structure sheathed in the same black basalt as all the other buildings. Its sides were about a hundred feet long and twenty feet high, and they slanted in at sixty degrees to create a squat, truncated pyramid. There was little pedestrian traffic. Even so, the moment the secondary humans appeared, a crowd began to form.
“I hope you people don’t mind being celebrities,” Arak said. “As I’m sure you realized from last night, all of Saranta is thrilled about your arrival.”
The gathering crowd was boisterous but polite. Those closest to the visitors eagerly put out their hands in an effort to press palms with them. Richard and Michael were happy to oblige, especially with the women. Arak had to act like a border collie to get the group through the door, particularly the two divers. The crowd respectfully stayed outside.
“I’m liking this place more and more,” Richard said.
“I’m glad,” Arak said.
“Everyone is remarkably friendly,” Suzanne said.
“Of course,” Sufa said. “It is our nature. Besides, you people are extraordinarily entertaining.”
Suzanne glanced at Donald to see his reaction. All he did was give an almost imperceptible nod, as if his suspicions were confirmed.
Inside, the group found themselves in a large square room with a black interior instead of the usual white. It was quite plain, with no decoration, furniture, or even doors save for the entrance. A number of Interterrans were standing in the room facing blank walls. When they saw who had arrived, they became animated.
Arak hustled the five through the well-wishers to an empty section of wall and murmured into his wrist communicator. To the group’s astonishment, the wall before them opened the same way the air taxis had. Arak shepherded them into a small cubicle beyond.
“Sometime you’ve got to explain to me how this opening and closing works,” Perry said to Arak. Perry put his hand on the wall once he’d stepped into the smaller but equally blank room. The material’s texture and heat conductivity suggested to him something akin to fiberglass.
“Certainly,” Arak said, but he was distracted by talking into his communicator. A moment later the wall sealed over and the room plunged.
Everyone instinctively grabbed onto whomever was next to them as they became practically weightless.
“My god!” Michael blurted. “The room is falling.”
“It’s only an elevator,” Arak said.
All the second-generation humans laughed self-consciously.
“Hey, how was I supposed to know?” Michael complained. He thought people were laughing at him.
“Getting back to the decision of what to show you first,” Arak said. “Sufa and I decided to do the opposite of what you might do on the surface. Instead of showing you life from the cradle to the grave, we thought we’d show you life from the grave to the cradle.” Arak smirked at this apparent illogical inversion and Sufa joined in.
“We must be going rather deep,” Suzanne said. She was too preoccupied by the surroundings to respond to Arak’s comment. Although there was no noise or perceived movement, the comparative weightlessness gave a clue as to the speed of the descent.
“We are going deep indeed,” Arak said. “As a consequence, it will be a bit warm down here.”
Eventually the descent slowed, and everyone braced themselves instinctively. Perry put his hand back on the wall and felt a pulse of heat prior to its opening up. Arak and Sufa led the way out.
Brightly illuminated corridors stretched out in three directions: straight ahead and to either side. Each was a study in perspective. Multiple other corridors could be seen oriented at right angles.
Waiting at the elevator was a small, open vehicle. It suggested the same technology as the air taxi since it was silently suspended several feet off the floor. Arak motioned for everyone to board. Perry and Suzanne climbed on along with Sufa, but Donald hesitated, effectively blocking Richard and Michael. He looked up and down the apparently endless hallways. As Arak had warned, the air was warm. The top of Donald’s head glistened with sweat.
“Please,” Arak said, gesturing again toward a seat on the small antigravity bus.
“This looks like some kind of prison,” Donald said suspiciously.
“It is not a prison,” Arak assured him. “There are no prisons in Interterra.”
Michael glanced at Richard and gave a thumbs-up sign.
“If it’s not a prison, what is it?” Donald asked.
“It’s a catacomb,” Arak said. “There’s no need to be concerned. It is entirely safe, and we’ll only be here for a short, instructive visit.”
Reluctantly, Donald stepped up into the bus. It was apparent he wasn’t much more thrilled about being in a burial vault as he had been about being in a prison. Richard and Michael followed. Once Arak was seated, he spoke into the microphone on the console. Within seconds they were shooting along the corridor like a silent express train save for the sound of the wind.
The reason for the vehicle was apparent after they had been underway for a few minutes. Traveling as quickly as they were at a speed magnified by the proximity of the walls, they covered a great distance in what turned out to be an enormous, subterranean labyrinthine grid. After a quarter hour and a half dozen dizzying right-angle turns, the vehicle slowed and stopped.
Small rooms budded off each corridor, and into one of these Arak directed the group. Donald made it plain he was not happy to be so isolated and stayed by the entrance.
The walls of the small room were filled with niches. Arak went to a particular niche chest-high and pulled out a box and a book. “I haven’t been here for a long time,” he said. He brushed off dust from both objects. “This box is my tomb.” He held it up. It was black and about the size of a shoebox. “And this book contains a list of the dates of all my previous deaths.”
“Bull!” Richard blurted. “Now you want us to believe you’ve risen from the dead! And not once but rather a bunch of times. Come on, man!”
Suzanne found herself nodding as Richard put words to her own reaction. Just when she was beginning to believe everything she’d been told, Arak had to come out with a statement that totally defied credulity. She glanced at Perry to see if he had the same response. But Perry was transfixed by the book, which Arak had placed in his hands.
Arak carefully opened the lid of the box, looked in, and then passed it around for the others to examine. Suzanne glanced in reluctantly, unsure of what she was going to see. It turned out to be only a mat of hair.
Arak and Sufa both smiled. It was as if they were deriving enjoyment out of their guests’ confusion.
“Let me explain,” Arak said. “In the box is a lock of hair from each of my former bodies. The bodies themselves have been returned to the molten asthenosphere, which is not far from where we are standing. As you might expect, everything is recycled in Interterra.”
“I don’t understand this book,” Perry said. He flipped through some of the pages, glancing at the columns of handwritten figures, which made no sense as dates in the Gregorian calendar. As an added complication there were hundreds of them.
“You’re not supposed to,” Arak said with a playful smile. “Not yet. Or at least not until we go up to the main processing hall.” He took the book from Perry and replaced it along with the box in the niche.
Confused, the group followed Arak out of the small room and reboarded the antigravity vehicle. The inbound trip seemed to take less time than the outbound and soon they were back to the elevator.
“If we’re supposed to get something out of this little visit, it didn’t work,” Suzanne said as they entered the lift.
“It will,” Arak assured her. “Have a little patience.”
They exited the elevator onto a busy floor thronged with primary humans and a few worker clones. It was so crowded it was difficult for the group to stay together, especially when a number of individuals recognized the secondary humans from the gala the night before and mobbed them in hopes of pressing palms. Richard and Michael were particularly sought after.
Despite this congestion, Arak and Sufa were eventually able to herd their charges over to a large screen. On the screen were hundreds of names of individuals followed by room numbers and times. Arak scanned it for a few moments before finding a name he recognized.
“Well, well,” Arak said to Sufa. He pointed to one of the names. “Reesta has decided to pass on. How wonderfully convenient. And he has reserved room thirty-seven. That couldn’t be better. It’s one of the newer rooms with the download apparatus in full view.”
“It’s about time he passed on,” Sufa commented. “He’s been full of complaints with that body for years.”
“It will be perfect for our purposes,” Arak said.
“Perhaps, with that decided, I’ll run over to the spawning center,” Sufa said. “It will give me a chance to prepare things and let the clones know the group will be over shortly.”
“Wonderful idea,” Arak said. “We should be there within the hour. See if you can manage to have an emergence about that time.”
“I’ll tr
y,” Sufa said. “And what about taking the group to our quarters afterward?”
“That was the idea,” Arak said. “I just hope we have time.”
“See you shortly,” Sufa said as she touched palms lightly with Arak. Then she was gone.
“All right, everybody,” Arak called to the group. “Let’s try to stick together. If anybody gets separated, just ask for room thirty-seven.” Arak set out by easing himself through the cluster of people viewing the screen.
Suzanne made it a point to stay abreast of him as best she could. “Is ‘passed on’ the same euphemism it is in our world?” Suzanne asked.
“Similar is a better word,” Arak said. He was distracted by the divers who were busy pressing every female palm they encountered. “Richard and Michael,” he called. “Please keep up! There will be plenty of time for palm pressing this evening. You’ll be at your leisure.”
“Are we going to witness some kind of euthanasia?” Suzanne asked with misgiving.
“Heavens, no!” Arak said.
“Ismael and Mary said that you people don’t die the way we do,” Suzanne said.
“That’s for certain,” Arak said. Then he had to stop and walk back to where Richard and Michael had been surrounded. As he was busy freeing the two divers Suzanne leaned toward Perry.
“I’m not prepared to witness any morbid scene,” she said.
“Me neither,” Perry agreed.
“Maybe we should have opted for more seminar time before this field trip,” Suzanne said, trying to indulge in a little humor.
Perry laughed hollowly.
Arak got Richard and Michael moving and stayed with them to ward off enthusiastic fans. Suzanne and Perry followed in their wake with Donald close behind. In that configuration they managed to arrive outside room thirty-seven.
Perry looked at the relief on the large bronze door. He recognized it as the three-headed dog, Cerberus, who guarded the underworld in Greek mythology. Surprised, he mentioned it to Arak.
“We didn’t get it from your Greeks,” Arak said with a smile. “No, it was the other way around.”
“You mean the Greeks got it from Interterra?” Perry asked.