Robin Cook - Abduction

“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.