Robin Cook - Abduction

“Wait a second,” Donald said suddenly. “I don’t like to rain on anyone’s parade, but I don’t think this little show you’re putting on here proves anything at all. It would be too easy to pull this off with computer-generated images. Why don’t you cut all this gibberish, and just tell us who you represent and what you want from us.”

For a moment no one spoke. Arak and Sufa leaned over and consulted with one another sotto voce. Then they conferred with Ismael and Mary. After a short, hushed conference, the hosts repositioned themselves back in their chairs. Arak looked directly at Donald.

“Mr. Fuller, your skepticism is fully understandable,” Arak said. “We’re not sure everyone else shares your suspicions. Perhaps later they can influence your opinion. Of course there will be more proof as your introduction proceeds, and I’m confident that you will be won over. Meanwhile, we’d like to beg for your patience for a while longer.”

Donald did not respond. He merely glared back at Arak.

“Let’s move on,” Arak said. “And allow me to give you a capsule history of Interterra. To do that we must begin in your domain, the earth’s surface. Life there began about five hundred million years after the earth formed and took several billion years to evolve. Your earth scientists are well aware of this. What they are not aware of is that we, the first-generation humans, evolved about five hundred and fifty million years ago during evolution’s first phase. The reason your scientists are unaware of this first phase is because almost the entire fossilized record of it disappeared during a time we call the Dark Period. More about that later. First we have some images of these early times of our civilization, but the quality is not good.”

The light dimmed progressively. In the gathering darkness Suzanne and Perry exchanged glances, but didn’t speak. Their attention was soon directed at the floor screen. After another flickering interval a scene appeared taken at eye level, depicting an environment similar to the one the visitors had seen in Interterra. The main difference was that the buildings were white instead of black although the shapes were similar. And the people appeared like normal human beings-they weren’t all gorgeous and they were engaged in a variety of everyday tasks.

“Watching these scenes makes us smile at our own primitiveness,” Sufa said.

“Indeed,” Arak agreed. “We didn’t have worker clones at that ancient time.”

Suzanne cleared her throat. She was trying to sort through everything Arak was saying. As an earth scientist, his lecture collided with everything she knew about evolution in general and human evolution in particular. “Are you suggesting that these images we’re seeing are from five hundred and fifty million years ago?”

“That’s correct,” Arak answered. He suppressed a laugh. He and Sufa were apparently amused by the antics of an individual trying to lift a block of stone. “Excuse us from finding this so funny,” he said. “We haven’t seen any of these sequences for a very long time. It was back when we had something akin to your nationalities, although they disappeared after the first fifty thousand years of our history. Wars disappeared at the same time, as you might imagine. As you can see, the surface of the earth was very different from the way it is now, and it is that appearance that we have re-created here in Interterra. Back then there was just one supercontinent and one superocean.”

“What happened?” Suzanne asked. “Why did your civilization choose to go underground?”

“Because of the Dark Period,” Arak said. “Our civilization had almost a million years of peaceful progress until we became aware of ominous developments in a galaxy close to ours. Within a relatively short time a series of cataclysmic supernova explosions occurred, effectively showering earth with enough radiation to dissipate the ozone layer. We could have dealt with that, but our scientists also recognized that these galactic events also upset the delicate balance of the solar system’s asteroid population. It became evident the earth was to be showered with planetesimal collisions, just as had happened when it was in its primordial state.”

“For crying out loud!” Richard moaned. “I can’t take much more of this.”

“Quiet, Richard!” Suzanne snapped without taking her eyes off Arak. “So Interterra was driven underground.”

“Exactly,” Arak said. “We knew the surface of the earth would become uninhabitable. It was a desperate time. We searched the solar system for a new home without success, and had not yet developed the time technology to search other galaxies. Then it was suggested that our only chance for survival was to move underground, or actually under the ocean. We had the technology so we did it in a miraculously short time. And very soon after we moved, the world as we knew it was consumed in deadly radiation, asteroidal bombardment, and geological upheaval. It was a close call even under the protective layer of the ocean, because at one point the ocean came close to boiling away from the intense heat. All life forms on earth were destroyed except for some primitive bacteria, some viruses, and a bit of blue-green algae.”

Suddenly the screen went blank and the illumination in the room returned.

Everyone was quiet.

“Well, there you have it,” Arak said. “A concentrated capsule of Interterran history and scientific fact. Now, I’m sure you’ll have questions.”

“How long did the Dark Period last?” Suzanne asked.

“A little more than twenty-five thousand years,” Arak answered.

Suzanne shook her head in amazement and disbelief, yet it all made a certain amount of scientific sense. And most important, it explained the reality she presently found herself in.

“But you stayed under the ocean,” Perry said. “Why didn’t your people return to the earth’s surface?”

“For two main reasons,” Arak said. “First, we had everything we needed and we’d become accustomed to our environment. And second, when surface life evolved anew, the bacteria and viruses that developed were organisms to which we had never been exposed. In other words, by the time the climate would have permitted our reemergence, the biosphere was antigenically inimical to us. Perhaps deadly is a better word, unless we were willing to go through a strenuous adaptation. And so here we remain, very happy and content especially since here under the ocean we are not at the whim of nature. Of all the universe we have visited thus far, this small planet is the best suited to the human organism.”

“Now I understand why we had to go through such a strenuous decontamination,” Suzanne said. “We had to be microorganism-free.”

“Exactly,” Arak said. “And at the same time you had to be adapted to our organisms.”

“In other words,” Suzanne continued, “evolution occurred twice on earth with essentially the same outcome.”

“Almost the same outcome,” Arak said. “There were some differences in certain species. At first we were surprised about this, but then it made sense in that the original DNA is the same. Multicellular life evolved from the same blue-green algae in both instances and with approximately the same climatic conditions.”

“Which is why you refer to yourselves as first-generation humans,” Suzanne said, “and to us as second-generation humans.”

Arak smiled with satisfaction. “We counted on your understanding all this as rapidly as you have, Dr. Newell,” he said.

Suzanne turned to Perry and Donald. “Scientific studies confirm some of this,” she said. “Both geological and oceanographic evidence suggest there was an ancient single continent on earth, called Pangaea.”