Robin Cook - Abduction

The beautiful people, as Perry called them to himself in his confused musings, had initially surged forward to crowd around the head of the stairs like a group of teenagers anticipating the appearance of a rock star. But as Perry and the others neared the top they shrank back. Even this confused Perry since they retreated as if in fear or at least in attentive respect like people would do around a trained but potentially ferocious animal.

Perry mounted the top step and stopped. Ten feet away the throng of beautiful people were arranged in a semicircle. No one moved. No one spoke. No one smiled.

Perry had assumed their captors would be the first to speak. He hadn’t planned to go first but eventually decided to break the ensuing uncomfortable silence with a tentative, “Hi.”

His greeting brought on a few giggles from the beautiful people but not much else. Perry turned to glance back at his colleagues for suggestions. Suzanne shrugged. Donald had nothing to volunteer. He still seemed far more mistrustful than Perry felt.

Perry turned back to the crowd. “Does anyone speak any English?” he called out in desperation. “Any English at all or maybe some Spanish?” Perry could speak a little.

A couple stepped forward. Both appeared to be in their midtwenties, and like everyone else, they were shockingly handsome. They had archetypally perfect features which reminded Perry of images he’d seen on ancient cameos. The man had blond hair of medium length. His eyes were an intense sky blue. The woman had fiery red hair with a prominent widow’s peak. Her green eyes were as bright as emeralds. Both had rosily radiant, flawless skin. Back in L.A., there would be no question: these two were movie star material.

“Hello, friends, how are you?” the man said with a perfect American accent. “Please don’t be afraid. You’ll not be harmed. My name is Arak and this is Sufa.” The man gestured toward the woman next to him.

“I’d like to say hi, too,” Sufa said. “What would each of you like to be called?”

Perry was stunned to hear such regular English come out of their mouths. It was oddly reassuring to hear something so familiar, given the alien quality of everything they’d encountered since the Oceanus sunk.

“Who are you people?” Perry managed.

“We are inhabitants of Interterra,” Arak said. His resonant baritone was not dissimilar to Donald’s.

“And where the hell is Interterra?” Perry demanded. Without meaning to, his voice had a harsh edge. It had suddenly occurred to him that perhaps this whole setup was some kind of elaborate joke, rather than the kind of trap Donald feared.

“Please!” Arak said solicitously. “I know you are confused and exhausted, and you certainly have a right to be after what you’ve been through. We are well aware how taxing the decontamination sequence can be, so please try to relax. There’s a lot of excitement in store for you.”

“Are you expatriate Americans?” Perry asked.

Both Arak and Sufa slapped their hands over their mouths in a vain effort to contain their laughter. All the beautiful people close enough to hear Perry’s question did the same.

“Please excuse our laughter,” Arak said. “We don’t mean to be rude. No, we are not Americans. We Interterrans happen to be quite accomplished in your languages. English in all its varieties happens to be Sufa’s and my specialty.”

Suzanne leaned next to Perry’s ear and whispered: “Ask them again where Interterra is.”

Perry complied.

“Interterra is beneath the oceans,” Arak said in response. “It resides in a gap between what you people call the earth’s crust and the earth’s mantle. It’s an area your seismic scientists call the Mohorovicic discontinuity.”

“This is an underground world?” Suzanne blurted. She looked up at what appeared to be a patch of sky filled with sunlight. She was stupefied.

“Undersea is more correct,” Sufa interjected. “But please… we know you will have many questions. They will all be answered in due time. For now we graciously beg for your forbearance.”

“What’s forbearance?” Richard asked.

“It means patience,” Sufa said. She smiled graciously.

“But we do need to know how we should address each of you,” Arak said.

“I’m Perry, president of Benthic Marine,” Perry said while patting his chest. He then identified the others by their full names.

Arak stepped forward and presented himself directly to Suzanne. He was a good head taller than she. He held his right arm outstretched with his palm facing her. He gestured toward it with his other hand. “Perhaps you will do me the honor of an Interterran greeting,” he said. “Press your palm against mine.”

Suzanne hesitated and furtively glanced at Perry and Donald before complying. Her hand was a good deal smaller than Arak’s.

“Welcome, Dr. Newell,” Arak said once their hands had met. “We are particularly pleased that you have come to visit us.” He bowed and took his hand away.

“Well, thank you,” Suzanne said. She was confused yet flattered that she’d been singled out for an individual welcome.

Arak backed away. “Now, my honored guests,” he said. “You will be taken to your quarters, which I’m sure you will find agreeable.”

“Wait a sec, Arak!” Richard called. He raised himself up on his tiptoes. “There’s a gorgeous brunette somewhere around here who’s dying to meet me.”

“And there’s a raven-haired beauty that I want to meet,” Michael said.

The two divers had been scanning the crowd for the women since they’d come up the stairs. To their chagrin they’d not been able to spot either one.

“There will be plenty of time for socializing,” Arak said, “but for now it is important to get you to your rooms since you’ve yet to eat and properly wash. There will be a gala celebration for your arrival later, which we hope you will all attend. So, please follow me.”

“This will only take a couple of minutes,” Richard said. He started forward, intending to walk around Arak and Sufa and mingle in the crowd. But Donald grabbed him as hard as he had when they were downstairs.

“Knock it off, sailor!” Donald snarled under his breath. “We stay together! Remember!”

Richard glared back for a moment, fighting the urge to tell Donald to drop dead. He was so close to connecting with that beautiful woman, it was hard to deny himself. Self-restraint had never been his strong point. But once the intensity of Donald’s gaze gave him pause, he relented.

“I guess some chow’s not a bad idea,” he said to save face.

“You’d better stay in line, bro,” Donald snapped. “Otherwise you and I are going to be banging heads.”

“Just for the record,” Richard said. “I ain’t afraid of you.”

Suzanne put one foot ahead of the other as she followed Arak and Sufa but she felt disconnected, as if her feet were not solidly on the ground. It wasn’t dizziness that she was feeling, but it was close. She’d heard the psychiatric term depersonalization and wondered if she was suffering some variation of it. Everything she was experiencing felt so surreal. It was as if she were in a dream, although her senses seemed very tangibly engaged. She could see, smell, and hear just like normal. But nothing else was making sense. How could they be under the ocean!

As a geophysical oceanographer Suzanne was well aware that the Mohorovicic discontinuity was the name given to a specific layer within the earth that marked an abrupt change in the velocity of sound or seismic waves. It was located approximately two and a half to seven miles beneath the ocean floor and about twenty-four miles beneath the continents. She also knew that its eponymous name came from the Serbian seismologist who’d discovered it. But despite having a name, no one had any idea what the layer represented. As far as she knew, neither she nor any other geologist or seismologist had ever considered the possibility it was an enormous, air-filled cavern. The idea was too preposterous to have been seriously entertained.