Abduction

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 try,” 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.

“Exactly,” Arak said.

“How?” Perry asked.

“From a failed experiment,” Arak said. “A number of thousands of years ago, a contingent of liberal-minded individuals from Atlantis endured the surface adaptation with grandiose plans of modifying earth surface sociological development. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bust. After several hundred years of fruitless endeavor, it became painfully apparent there was no way to alter the second-generation humans’ penchant for violence. So the whole experiment was abandoned. Yet a number of Interterran legacies remained after the island they’d raised was sunk, like our architectural forms, the concept of democracy, and a smattering of our own primitive mythology including Cerberus.”

“So there was a factual basis for the Atlantis legend,” Suzanne interjected.

“Absolutely,” Arak said. “Atlantis pushed up one of its seamount exit ports to form an island just outside the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.”

“Hey, come on!” Richard complained. “Let’s cut the jawboning! Either we’re going in here or Mike and I are going back to the main hall where all the action is.”

“All right, I’m sorry,” Arak replied. Then to Suzanne he added, “We can talk more about the Atlantean experiment at another time if you’d like.”

“I’d very much like to do that,” Suzanne said. Then as Arak was opening the door she leaned toward Perry. “Plato did put the island of Atlantis outside the Strait of Gibraltar in his dialogues.”

“Really?” Perry questioned. But he was distracted by the sights and sounds of the scene beyond the bronze door. It was hardly morbid as Suzanne had feared. Instead it was a joyous gala reminiscent of the one the group had attended the evening before, although on a smaller scale. The room was only the size of a large living room. The hundred or so people assembled were dressed in the usual garb save for one individual who stood out sharply. He was dressed in red instead of white. In the back of the room built into the wall opposite the door was a large donut-shaped apparatus that reminded Perry of an MRI machine. Next to it was a table with a box and a book similar to the ones Arak had shown the group in the vault below.

“Arak!” the man in red called out as he caught sight of the new visitors. “What a pleasant surprise!” He immediately excused himself from the people he was chatting with and headed over toward the door. “And you have brought your wards! Welcome!”

“My gosh,” Suzanne whispered to Perry as the man in red neared. “I met him last night.” Suzanne distinctly remembered him as one of the two men who’d joined her and Garona. “He hardly looks like he is about to pass on.” To her he appeared to be the picture of health and the archetype of masculine attractiveness with thick dark hair, flawless skin, and sparkling eyes. She guessed he was in his late thirties.

“This is hardly a mournful wake,” Perry commented.

“Thank you, Reesta,” Arak said. “I didn’t think you would mind if our visitors looked in on your party. Did you meet them at the celebration last night?”

“I had the honor of meeting Dr. Newell,” Reesta said. He bowed to Suzanne and then extended his upright palm.

Self-consciously, Suzanne touched her own palm with his. He beamed.

“Let me present Perry, Donald, Richard, and Michael,” Arak said. He pointed toward the men as he spoke. Reesta responded by bowing to each in turn. Richard and Michael were not paying much attention. They were more interested in the female guests, several of whom they’d seen the previous night.

“Sufa and I have decided to show our visitors some of our culture,” Arak continued. “We’re doing it before much explanation. We thought it might reduce the disbelief usually encountered in orientation.”

“A wonderful plan,” Reesta commented. “Come in! Please.” He stepped out of the way and graciously gestured for them to enter.

“So they have no idea what this celebration is for?” Reesta asked as the second-generation humans filed into the room.

“Not really,” Arak said.

“Ah, such wonderful innocence,” Reesta commented. “It’s so refreshing.”

“But we did just come from a visit to my niche,” Arak added. “Yet I purposefully did not give them a full explanation.”

“A masterful approach,” Reesta commented while winking and giving Arak a nudge with his elbow. Then he looked at the group, before locking eyes with Suzanne. “Today is an important day for me. Today this body of mine dies.”

Suzanne could not help but recoil at this news. Not only did the man appear perfectly hale, but he acted it as well. The announcement even got Richard and Michael’s attention.

“Ah, but do not despair,” Reesta said, smiling at Suzanne’s unease. “Here in Interterra it is a reasonably happy time, more in the realm of an inconvenience or nuisance. And for me it is none too soon. This body was somewhat of a lemon from the beginning. I’ve had to replace many of the organs and the knees twice. Every day it seems that there is another problem. It’s been an endless struggle. And I’ve just heard this morning that the downtime has dropped to only four years due to lack of current demand. For some reason, no one is dying these days.”

“Only four years!” Arak exclaimed. “That’s wonderful! I was wondering why you decided so abruptly. Only last week you’d said you were thinking about doing something over the next couple of years.”

“It’s one of those things that never seems to be convenient,” Reesta said. “I had been putting it off, I have to admit. But now I can’t pass up this current, short downtime offer.”

“Excuse me,” Perry said. “I’m confused, but how long do you people generally live in Interterra?”

“It depends on what you’re talking about,” Reesta said with a twinkle in his eye. “There’s a big difference between the body and the essence in terms of life span.”

“Each body generally lasts two to three hundred years,” Arak said. “But there can be exceptions.”

“As I’ve had to learn the hard way,” Reesta added. “I’ve only gotten one hundred and eighty out of this one. It’s been the worst one I’ve had.”

“Are you suggesting that mind-body dualism is a fact in Interterra?” Suzanne said.

“We are indeed,” Arak said. He smiled like a proud parent. Then to Reesta he added: “Dr. Newell is a quick study.”

“That’s apparent,” Reesta said.

“What the hell are you people talking about?” Richard asked.

“If you’d listen instead of gawk you might have a better idea,” Suzanne said.

“Pardon me!” Richard said, faking an English accent.

“What do you mean by essence?” Perry questioned.

“I mean your mind, your personality, the full complement of your spiritual and mental being,” Arak said. “Everything that makes you you. And here in Interterra essences live forever. They are transferred intact from an old body to a new one.”

Both Suzanne and Perry erupted with a slew of questions, then Perry tried to defer to Suzanne. But Arak raised his hands to quiet them both.

“Remember we are intruders here,” he said. “I’m sure you have many questions. That’s the purpose of this visit. But it is rude to interrupt this private time, and I will explain more of the details later.” Then he turned to Reesta. “Thank you, my friend. We won’t bother you any longer. Congratulations, and have a good rest.”

“There is no need to thank me,” Reesta said. “It is an honor for me that you have brought these guests. Their presence makes this occasion that much more special.”

“We’ll communicate later,” Arak said. “When are you going to die?” He began to herd the group back through the door.

“Sometime later,” Reesta said casually. “We have the room for several more hours. But wait!”

Arak stopped and turned back to his friend.

“I just got an idea,” Reesta said with excitement. “Perhaps our second-generation guests would like to see me die.”

“That’s a very generous offer,” Arak said. “We certainly do not want to impose, but it would be instructive.”

“It’s no imposition,” Reesta said, warming to the idea. “I’ve had enough of this party, and they can surely keep going without my physical presence.”

“Then we accept,” Arak said. He waved for Richard and Michael to come back since the bored divers had moved out into the hall.

“I hope this isn’t gruesome,” Suzanne whispered to Arak.

“Certainly not in comparison to what you people watch for entertainment in your surface world,” Arak said.

Reesta used his wrist communicator before making a circuit around the room to press palms with everyone present. This caused a building sense of excitement. Then he approached the table with the box and the book. As he did so the crowd began to cheer. First he cut a lock of his hair and put it inside the box. Next he entered a date in the book and the cheering reached a crescendo.

A door appeared next to the MRI-like machine and two worker clones stepped into the room. Both carried golden goblets which they gave to Reesta. Reesta held the goblets aloft and the crowd went silent. Then Reesta drained both vessels, one after the other.

Applause followed the drinking. Reesta bowed to his guests and even to the secondary humans. Then the two clones helped him climb into the three-foot wide opening of the MRI-like machine. He entered feet first and slid in until his head was well within the lip. At that point a mirror dropped down so that Reesta could look back at his guests and his guests could see his face. After a final wave, Reesta closed his eyes and appeared to settle down as if in sleep.

One of the worker clones stepped to the side of the apparatus and placed his hand palm down on a white square. Almost immediately a hum could be heard followed by a reddish glow that filled the apparatus’s aperture. A moment later Reesta’s body went rigid and his eyes flew open. This tetanic state was maintained for several minutes, after which Reesta’s body went flaccid, his eyes sank in their sockets, and his mouth sagged in death.

The murmuring crowd fell silent. The red glow within the opening of the machine faded and the hum dissipated. Next, a powerful sucking sound could be heard, followed by the thump of a large valve closing, and Reesta’s body disappeared from sight. One minute it was in plain view, the next minute it was gone.

The crowd remained still and mute. Seconds ticked away. Suzanne was confused emotionally as well as intellectually. Death in any form disturbed her. She hazarded a glance at Perry. He shrugged his shoulders in equivalent bewilderment.

“So, is that it?” Richard queried.

Arak gestured for him to be silent and to wait.

Michael shifted his weight and yawned.

All at once there was a simultaneous activation of everyone’s wrist communicators, including those of the secondary humans. Although Ismael and Mary Black had given them the simple instructions to use the units-which involved merely speaking into them in an exclamatory fashion-no one had actually tried them yet. So when Reesta’s voice issued forth, the five were taken aback.

“Hello, my friends,” Reesta’s voice said. “All is well. Death was successful and without complication. See you all in four years, but don’t forget to communicate.”

A general cheer arose from the primary humans, and they enthusiastically touched palms with each other in obvious celebration.

“Death’s no big deal down here,” Michael whispered to Richard.

“Yeah, but I think it’s got to be done in this special way,” Richard whispered back.

“This is a good time for us to leave,” Arak said. As unobtrusively as possible, he shepherded the secondary humans out into the hallway and then directed them back toward the elevators. Suzanne and Perry were full of questions, but Arak put them off. He was too busy keeping Richard and Michael moving. Donald was his usual stony self.

It wasn’t until they were back in an air taxi that conversation was possible. Even before the craft’s entrance sealed over Perry said, “I’m afraid this visit has posed more questions than it has answered.”

Arak nodded. “Then it was successful,” he said. He put his palm onto the central, circular black table and said, “Spawning center, please!” Almost immediately the saucer sealed, rose, then shot off horizontally.

“What actually did we witness back there?” Suzanne asked.

“The death of Reesta’s current body,” Arak said. He sat back and began to relax. He was unaccustomed to the stress of being out in public with such a large, uninitiated group of secondary humans.

“Where did the body go?” Richard asked.

“Back into the molten asthenosphere,” Arak said.

“And what about his essence?” Perry asked.

Arak paused as if he were searching for words. “It’s difficult to explain these things, but I suppose you’ll get the idea if I say his memory and personality imprint was downloaded into our integrated informational center.”

“Holy shit,” Michael exclaimed. “Look down there in front of that building! It’s a goddamned ’Vette!”

Despite everyone’s intense interest in Arak’s explanation, they couldn’t help but respond to Michael’s outburst and follow his pointing finger. What they saw was a barnacle-encrusted vintage Chevrolet Corvette on a basalt dais in front of a building that appeared like a haphazard pile of children’s blocks.

“What’s a ’Vette doing down here?” Michael asked as they zipped past. “It’s a sixty-two,” he continued. “I had one just like it but in green.”

“That building is our Earth Surface Museum,” Arak explained. “The automobile is the one object that we feel currently symbolizes your culture.”

“It’s in sorry shape,” Michael said. He sat back down.

“Obviously,” Arak said. “It had spent a good deal of time underwater before we salvaged it. But getting back to Perry’s question. When the worker clone started the death sequence, Reesta’s entire mind in terms of memory, personality, emotions, self-awareness, and even his unique way of thinking was extracted and stored en masse available for total recall.”

The secondary humans stared at Arak in stunned silence.

“Not only can Reesta’s essence be recalled,” Arak continued. “He can be consulted and even chatted with through your wrist communicator prior to his recall. Or better yet, he can be not only communicated with but viewed in his last body configuration via the media center in each of your quarters. Central Information creates a virtual image in conjunction with whatever conversation you are having.”

“What if someone dies before they get to that download machine?” Richard asked.

“It doesn’t happen,” Arak said. “Death is a planned exercise in Interterra.”

“This is all too much,” Perry said. “What you are telling us is so far from believability that for the moment I don’t even know what to ask.”

“I’m not surprised,” Arak said. “That’s exactly why Sufa and I decided to start showing you things rather than just telling you about them.”

“I have a hard time believing the mind can be downloaded,” Suzanne said. “Intelligence, memory, and personality are associated with dendritic connections in the human brain. The number is staggering. We’re talking about billions of neurons with up to a thousand connections each.”

“It’s a lot of information,” Arak agreed. “But hardly overpowering by cosmic standards. And you are right that dendritic arrays are important. What our central information does is reproduce the dendritic arrays on a molecular level using isomeric, double-bonded carbon atoms. It’s like a fingerprint, we call it a mindprint.”

“I’m lost,” Perry said.

“Don’t despair,” Arak encouraged. “Remember, this is just the beginning. There will be time for you to put all of this into context. Besides, our upcoming visit to the spawning center will show you what we do with the mindprint.”

“What’s in that Earth Surface Museum we passed?” Donald asked.

Arak hesitated. Donald’s question had interrupted his train of thought.

“I mean, what’s specifically on display?” Donald said. “Other than the water-soaked Corvette.”

“Many different objects,” Arak said vaguely. “A cross-section of things representing secondary human history and culture.”

“Where have they come from?” Donald asked.

“Mostly from the ocean floor,” Arak said. “Besides maritime tragedies and war, you people have been progressively and foolishly using the ocean as your garbage dump. You’d be surprised what refuse says about a culture.”

“I’d like to visit there,” Donald said.

Arak shrugged. “As you wish,” he said. “You’re the first visitor to voice such a request. Considering the wonders of Interterra that are now available to you, I’m surprised you are interested. Certainly there’s nothing in there that you are not already entirely familiar with.”

“Everybody’s different,” Donald said laconically.

A few minutes later the air taxi deposited the group at the front steps of the spawning center. It was housed in a building that resembled the Parthenon, only it was black. When Perry mentioned the resemblance, Arak told him it was again the other way around, similar to the Greek adaptation of Cerberus, since the Interterran spawning center was many millions of years old.

Like the death center, the structure was sited in a less congested section of the city. Regardless, once the secondary humans appeared, they again attracted a crowd, forcing Arak to be put to the task of maneuvering Richard and Michael inside the door and out of reach of the primary humans’ eagerly outstretched hands.

This interior was the antithesis of the death center’s. It was bright and white like the buildings at the visitors’ palace. The other difference was that many more worker clones were in evidence here, busily scurrying from place to place.

Arak hustled the group into a side room with a vast number of small stainless steel tanks that looked like miniature bioreactors to Suzanne. They were attached to each other by a complicated tangle of piping in what looked like a high-tech assembly line. The air was warm and moist. A number of worker clones were monitoring various gauges and dials.

“This is not the most interesting part,” Arak said. “But we might as well start at the beginning. These tanks hold our ovarian and testicular tissue cultures. Eggs and sperms are randomly selected and their chromosomes are scanned for molecular imperfections and then microsomally shuffled. The re-formed germ cells are then checked before allowing them to fertilize. If anyone would care to take a peek, there’s a view port available.” Arak pointed toward a binocular eyepiece along the assembly line apparatus.

Suzanne was the only one who took him up on the offer. She bent over and peered within. Inside a tiny chamber below the microscope objective she could see an oocyte being penetrated by an active sperm. The process happened rapidly. A moment later the zygote was gone, and two new gametes were injected into the chamber.

“Anybody else?” Arak asked after Suzanne straightened up.

No one moved.

“Okay,” Arak said. “Let’s move along to the gestation room and a more interesting phase.” He led the way down the length of the gamete room to a room the size of several football fields placed end to end. Within the room were numerous rows of shelves supporting countless numbers of clear spheres. Between the rows walked hundreds of worker clones checking each sphere in turn.

“My word!” Suzanne murmured as it dawned on her what she was seeing.

“The replicating zygotes coming from the fertilization process are checked again for chromosomal molecular abnormalities,” Arak explained. “Once they are determined to be free of any imperfection whatsoever, and they have reached the requisite number of cells, they are implanted into a sphere and allowed to develop.”

“Can we walk along the spheres?” Suzanne asked.

“Of course,” Arak said. “That’s why we are here, so you can see for yourselves.”

Slowly the group walked down an aisle several hundred yards long with lines of spheres on either side. Suzanne was fascinated and appalled at the same time. Each sphere contained a floating embryo of varying size and age. Plastered to the base of each sphere was an amorphous, dark purple placenta.

“This is all so artificial,” Suzanne said.

“Indeed,” Arak said.

“Is all reproduction in Interterra done by ectogenesis?” Suzanne asked.

“Absolutely,” Arak said. “Something as important as reproduction we’re not about to leave to chance.”

Suzanne stopped and looked in at an embryo no more than six inches in length. She shook her head. Its tiny arms and legs were moving as if swimming.

“Does the process trouble you?” Arak asked.

Suzanne nodded. “It’s mechanizing a process I think that’s best left to nature.”

“Nature is uncaring,” Arak said. “We can do so much better, and we care.”

Suzanne shrugged. She wasn’t about to get into an argument. She started walking again.

“These are like the spheres you guys were in,” Perry said to Richard and Michael.

“No shit!” Richard said.

“Please!” Suzanne barked irritably at Richard. “I’m getting tired of the language you fellows seem compelled to use.”

“Sorry to offend your majesty,” Richard shot back.

“These containers are similar but not the same,” Arak said quickly. The last thing he wanted was any kind of an altercation in the spawning center.

Suzanne stopped abruptly and peered into one of the spheres. She was aghast at what she saw. Inside was a child who looked at least two years old. “Why is this child still in the sphere?” she questioned.

“It’s perfectly normal,” Arak assured her.

“Normal?” Suzanne questioned. “At what age are they…” she struggled for the right word, “decanted?”

“We still say born,” Arak said. “Or, as a more technical term, we say emerge.”

“Whatever,” Suzanne said. Seeing the child imprisoned in the fluid-filled sphere made her shiver with nausea. It seemed so cold, calculating, and cruel. “At what age are the children freed?”

“Preferably not until four,” Arak said. “We wait until the brain is mature enough to receive the mindprint. We also don’t want the brain cluttered with unorganized natural input any more than necessary.”

Suzanne exchanged a look with Perry.

“Come!” Sufa called out. She beckoned them over. “There’s an emergence imminent. I’ve tried to delay it as much as possible; you’ll have to hurry.” Sufa turned and darted back in the direction she’d come.

Arak urged the group to follow with the intent of passing quickly through a room he called the imprinting room in order to get to the emergence room beyond. But Suzanne faltered on the imprinting room threshold taken aback by the spectacle.

The room was a quarter the size of the gestation room. Instead of sealed spheres with embryos the space was filled with transparent tanks containing angelic-looking four-year-olds. Each child was suspended in fluid but in a fixed position. Umbilical cords and placentas were still present despite the children’s relatively advanced ages.

“I’m not sure I want to see this,” Suzanne said as Arak gently prodded her.

The others silently gathered around the first tank with mouths agape. The child’s head was immobilized as if prepared for stereo tactic brain surgery. His eyes were held open with lid retractors, and the eyes themselves were fixated with limbal sutures. From a gunlike apparatus, beams of light were directed through the side of the transparent tank and into each of the child’s pupils. The beams flickered with a rapid, alternating frequency.

“What’s happening here?” Perry asked. It looked like torture.

“It’s perfectly safe and painless,” Arak said. He joined the group and motioned for Suzanne to do likewise.

“The kid looks like he’s being shot with an arcade gun,” Michael said.

“From your violent culture I can understand why that would be your assumption,” Arak said. “But it couldn’t be further from the truth. To extend the previous analogy about downloading that I used at the death center, this child is merely receiving the download of a mindprint from an individual whose essence had been stored in Central Information. What you are seeing here is the recall procedure.”

Suzanne advanced slowly with a hand over her mouth. She felt like a child at a scary movie: afraid to watch but unable to take her eyes away. Gazing at the immobilized toddler she shuddered. For her, the image was the embodiment of biotechnology gone amuck.

“As you saw at the death center,” Arak continued, “it only takes seconds to extract the mindprint. But implanting it is another matter. We have to rely on a primitive technique using low-energy laser since no one has ever come up with a better access route than the retina. Of course, the retinal route makes sense since the retina is embryonically an out-pocketing of the brain. The process works, but it’s not fast. In fact, it can take up to thirty days.”

“Jeez!” Richard commented. “The poor kid has to be strung up like that for a month?”

“Believe me, there is no suffering involved,” Arak said.

“What about the child’s own essence?” Suzanne asked.

“We’re giving him his essence as we speak,” Arak said, “along with an extraordinary fund of knowledge and experience.” He smiled proudly.

Suzanne nodded, but not in agreement. She saw the process as pure exploitation. For her it was a kind of parasitism, attaching an old soul to an innocent newborn. The mindprint was abducting the infant’s body.

“Arak! Hurry!” Sufa called insistently from a doorway at the opposite end of the room. “You’re missing the event!”

“Come on!” Arak urged to the group. “This is important for you to see. It’s the finished product.”

Suzanne was happy to break off from the disquieting image of the fixated child. She hurried after Arak, purposefully avoiding looking into any of the other tanks. Donald, Richard, and Michael lingered, mesmerized by the sight. Michael lifted his finger and reached out with the intention of interrupting the laser beam. Donald batted his hand away.

“Don’t screw around, sailor!” Donald growled.

“Yeah,” Richard said, “the kid might miss his piano lessons.” He laughed.

“This is freakin’ weird,” Michael said. He walked around the tank to see if he could see into the barrel of the laser gun.

“Well, look on the bright side,” Richard said. “It’s a lot easier than going to school. If it doesn’t hurt nothing, like Arak says, I would have gone for it. Hell, I hated school.”

Donald looked at Richard scornfully. “As if I couldn’t have guessed.”

“Come on!” Arak called back to the three men from the distant doorway. “You need to see this.”

The three men hurried after their hosts. In the next room they found Arak, Sufa, Suzanne, and Perry standing around a satin-upholstered area at the base of a stainless steel slide. The slide came out of the wall; its upper end was closed off by double swinging doors. Sitting in the center of the cushioned depression was a darling four-year-old girl already dressed in the typical Interterran manner. It was apparent she’d recently arrived by sliding down the slide. A number of worker clones were in attendance.

“Welcome, gentlemen,” Arak said to Donald and the divers. He pointed to the little girl. “Meet Barlot.”

“Hey, sugarplum,” Richard said in squeaky, babylike voice. He reached out to pinch the girl’s cheek.

“Please,” Barlot said as she ducked Richard’s hand. “It’s better not to touch me for fifteen or twenty minutes since I’ve just come out of the dryer. The nerves in my integument need a chance to adapt to the gaseous environment.”

Richard recoiled.

“These three men are also newly arrived earth surface visitors,” Arak said as he gestured toward Donald, Richard, and Michael.

“My word,” Barlot said. “Isn’t this an occasion! Five surface visitors at the same time. I’m happy to be so honored on my emergence day.”

“We were just welcoming Barlot back to the physical world,” Arak explained.

Barlot nodded. “And it’s wonderful to be back.” She examined her tiny hands, turning them over and then stretching them out. She then glanced at her legs and her feet. She wiggled her toes. “Looks like a good body,” she added. “At least so far.” She giggled.

“I think it looks like a superb body,” Sufa said. “And such beautiful blue eyes. Did you have blue eyes last body?”

“No, but I did the body before that,” Barlot said. “I like variation. Sometimes I allow the eye color to be selected randomly.”

“How do you feel?” Suzanne asked. She knew it was a stupid question, but under the circumstances she couldn’t think of anything else to ask. She was distracted by the marked contrast between the puerile voice and the adult syntax.

“Mainly, I’m hungry,” Barlot said. “And impatient. I’m looking forward to getting home.”

“How long have you been in storage?” Perry asked. “If that’s the right word.”

“We call it being in memory,” Barlot said. “And I’m assuming it was about six years. That was the advertised waiting time when I was extracted. But to me, it seems like it was overnight. When we’re in memory our essences are not programmed to record time.”

“Do your eyes hurt?” Suzanne asked.

“Not in the slightest,” Barlot said. “I suppose you’re referring to the flamelike scleral hemorrhages I undoubtedly have.”

“I am,” Suzanne admitted. The whites of both Barlot’s eyes were fire engine red.

“That’s from the limbal fixation sutures,” Barlot said. “They were probably just removed.”

“Do you remember being in the fish tank?” Michael asked.

Barlot laughed. “I’ve never heard the implant tank referred to as a fish tank. But to answer your question, no! My first conscious memory in this body, and in all previous bodies for that matter, was waking up on the conveyer belt in the dryer.”

“Is the experience of extraction, memory, and recall at all stressful?” Suzanne asked.

Barlot thought for a moment before responding. “No,” she said finally. “The only stressful part is that now I have to wait until puberty to have any real fun.” She laughed, as did Arak, Sufa, Richard, and Michael.

“This is our home,” Sufa said from a hovering air taxi as the exit door materialized. She pointed to a structure similar to the cottages at the visitors’ palace minus the large lawns. It was clustered Levittown-style with hundreds of others just like it. “Arak and I thought it would be instructive for you to experience how we live and perhaps have a bite to eat. Are you all too tired or would you like to come inside for a visit?”

“I could eat,” Richard said eagerly.

“I would love to see your home,” Suzanne said. “It’s very hospitable of you.”

“I’m honored,” Perry said.

Donald merely nodded.

“I’m starved,” Michael said.

“Then it’s decided,” Sufa said. She and Arak climbed from the hovercraft and motioned for the others to follow.

Similar to the quarters at the visitors’ center, the interior was uniformly white-white marble with white fabric and lots of mirrors. Also the main room opened to the outdoors with a pool extending from the inside to the outside. The place was sparsely furnished. Several large holographic displays like those the group had seen in the decon quarters were the only decoration.

“Please come in,” Sufa said.

The group filed in, taking in the surroundings.

“It looks like my apartment in Ocean Beach,” Michael said.

“Get outta here!” Richard scoffed while he playfully cuffed him on the top of his head.

“Are all Interterran homes open to the exterior?” Perry questioned.

“Indeed,” Arak said. “As ironic as it may seem we who dwell inside the earth prefer to be outdoors.”

“Makes it kind of hard to lock up,” Richard said.

“Nothing is locked in Interterra,” Sufa said.

“Nobody steals anything?” Michael questioned.

Both Arak and Sufa giggled. They then self-consciously excused themselves.

“We don’t mean to laugh,” Arak said. “But you people are so entertaining. We can never anticipate what you are going to say. It’s very endearing.”

“I suppose it’s our charming primitiveness,” Donald said.

“Exactly,” Arak agreed.

“There’s no thievery in Interterra,” Sufa said. “There is no need because there is plenty for everyone. Besides, no one owns anything. Private ownership disappeared early in our history. We Interterrans merely use what we need.”

The group sat down. Sufa called for worker clones, who appeared instantly. Along with them came one of the pets the secondary humans had seen from the air taxis. Up close it was even more bizarre looking, with its curious mixture of dog, cat, and monkey traits. The animal loped into the room and made a beeline for the visitors.

“Sark!” Arak bellowed. “Behave!”

The animal obediently stopped in its tracks and, using catlike eyes, it regarded the secondary humans with great curiosity. When it stood up on its hind feet, which were monkeylike with five distinct toes, it was about three feet tall. Its doglike nose twitched as it sniffed.

“This is one weird-looking animal,” Richard said.

“It’s a homid,” Sufa said. “A particularly fine homid, actually. Isn’t he adorable?”

“Get over here, Sark!” Arak cried. “I don’t want you bothering our guests.”

Sark immediately darted behind Arak and, standing on its hind legs, began scratching Arak’s head.

“Good boy,” Arak said contentedly.

“Food for the guests,” Sufa commanded the worker clones, who quickly disappeared.

“Sark looks like a bunch of animals rolled into one,” Michael said.

“That’s one way to put it,” Arak said. “Sark is a chimera developed eons ago and cloned ever since. He’s a remarkable pet. Would anyone care to see one of his best tricks?”

“Sure,” Richard said. To him the animal looked like a biology experiment that went haywire.

“Me, too,” Michael echoed.

Arak stood and motioned for Sark to head outside. As he followed the animal he asked Richard and Michael to join him out in the yard. The divers dutifully got up and trooped into the garden, where they found Arak busily searching for something in the depths of a fern thicket.

“Okay, here’s one,” Arak said. He straightened up, clutching a short, rubberized stick in his hand. He stepped out onto the grass. “Now you men are not going to believe this. It’s very entertaining.”

“Try us!” Richard said dubiously.

Arak bent down and extended the stick to Sark. Sark took the stick with great excitement, chattering like a monkey. Then after a windup he threw the stick to the far corner of the yard.

Arak watched the piece of wood until it came to a complete halt. Then he turned back to the divers. “Quite a throw, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not bad,” Michael agreed. “At least for a homid.”

The corners of Richard’s mouth curled into a wry smile.

“Wait until you see the rest,” Arak said. “Just a second.” Arak ran out to where the stick had fallen, picked it up, and carried it back. He then returned it to Sark. The animal wound up and threw the stick back to approximately the same spot. Dutifully Arak trotted out and retrieved it for the second time. When he returned he was slightly out of breath. “Can you believe it?” he asked. “This cute little devil will keep this up all day. As long as I get the stick, he’ll throw it.”

The two divers looked at each other. Michael rolled his eyes while Richard swallowed a laugh.

“The food is here!” Sufa called from inside.

Arak extended the stick toward Richard. “Would you like to give it a try?”

“I think I’ll pass,” Richard said. “Besides, I’m starved.”

“Then let’s eat,” Arak said agreeably. He tossed the stick back into the fern thicket and headed back inside. Sark followed.

“This place is getting weirder by the minute,” Richard mumbled to Michael as they skirted the pool.

“You can say that again,” Michael said. “No wonder they didn’t care when I took the gold goblets last night. Nothing belongs to nobody. I’m telling you, we could make a fortune down here, and they wouldn’t care.”

Along with food, the worker clones had brought a folding table, which they’d placed in the center of a ring of seven contour chairs. Arak and the divers joined the others. Sark climbed the back of Arak’s chair and began scratching behind his ears. Everyone helped themselves to the food and started eating.

“Well, here’s where we spend most of our time,” Arak said after a short awkward silence. He sensed the secondary humans were a bit confounded by the day’s events. “Does anyone have any questions for us?”

“What do you do here?” Suzanne asked to make conversation. She was happier to stick to small talk rather than tackle the larger issues swimming in her head.

“We enjoy our bodies and our minds,” Arak explained. “We read a lot and watch a lot of holographic entertainment.”

“Don’t people work in Interterra?” Perry asked.

“Some people do,” Arak said. “But it is not necessary, and those who do, only do what they want to do. All menial work, which most work is, is done by worker clones. All monitory and regulatory work is done by Central Information. Thus, people are free to pursue their own interests.”

“Don’t the worker clones mind?” Donald asked. “Don’t they ever strike or revolt?”

“Heavens, no,” Arak said with a smile. “Clones are like… well, like your domestic pets. They were made to look like humans for esthetic reasons, but their brains are much smaller. They have limited forebrain function so their needs and interests are different. They love to work and serve.”

“Sounds like exploitation,” Perry said.

“I suppose,” Arak said. “But that is what machines are for, like automobiles in your culture, which I don’t believe you feel you exploit. The analogy would be better if your automobiles had living parts as well as machine parts. I’m sure you have to use your cars or they’d deteriorate. Same with worker clones, only it’s leisure they cannot tolerate. They become despondent and regress without work and direction.”

“It is uncomfortable for us,” Suzanne said. “Since they appear so human.”

“You have to remind yourself that they are not,” Sufa said.

“Are there different types of clones?” Perry asked.

“They all look essentially the same,” Arak said. “But there are servant, worker, and entertainment clones, male and female. It’s in the programming.”

“With your technology, why not use robots?” Donald asked.

“A good question,” Arak said. “We had androids ages ago; a whole line of them, in fact. But pure machines tend to break down and have to be fixed. We had to have androids to fix androids ad infinitum. It was inconvenient, even ridiculous. It wasn’t until we learned to wed the biological with the mechanical that we solved the problem. The ultimate result of this research and development was worker clones, and they are far superior to any android. They take care of themselves completely, even to the point of repairing themselves and reproducing to keep their population in a steady state.”

“Amazing,” Perry said simply. Suzanne nodded.

The group fell silent. When they were through with their food Sufa said, “I think perhaps it’s time to take you all back to your quarters at the visitors’ palace. You need some time to process what you’ve seen and heard. Also, we don’t want to overburden you on your first day. There is always tomorrow.” She smiled benignly as she stood up.

“You’re right about needing some time,” Suzanne said, getting to her feet as well. “I think I’ve been a bit overburdened already. Without an ounce of doubt, this has been the most startling, staggering, and stunning day of my life.”

Michael hesitated at the door to his cottage. Richard was standing directly behind him. They just had been dropped off by Arak and Sufa.

“What do you think we’re going to find?” Michael asked.

“For chrissake!” Richard complained. “How am I supposed to know until you open the goddamn door?”

Michael grasped the handle and pulled. The two divers stepped over the threshold and glanced around the room.

“Do you think anybody was here?” Michael questioned nervously.

Richard rolled his eyes. “What do think, birdbrain?” he said. “The bed’s made and the place has been picked up. Look, somebody even stacked all the dishes and the goblets you lugged back from the gala and the dining hall.”

“Maybe it was just the clones,” Michael said.

“It’s possible,” Richard said.

“Do you think the body is still there where we put it?”

“Well, we sure as shootin’ ain’t going to know until we look,” Richard said.

“All right, I’ll see.”

“Hold on!” Richard said, grabbing Michael’s arm. “Let me make sure the coast is clear.”

Richard looked around beyond the pool and was quickly satisfied. No one was near, and he rejoined his buddy. “Okay, check the body.”

Michael hastily positioned himself in front of the cabinets opposite the bed. “Drinks, please!” he commanded. The refrigerator door swung open. It was crammed full of various containers of beverage and food.

“It looks like the way we left it,” Michael said.

“That’s encouraging,” Richard said.

Michael bent down and removed several containers exposing Sart’s pale face. The lifeless eyes stared back at Michael accusingly. Michael quickly jammed the containers back to hide the horrid image. Sart’s was the first dead body Michael had seen other than his grandfather’s corpse. But his grandfather had been laid out in a casket in a tuxedo. Besides, the old man had been ninety-four.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Richard said.

“For now,” Michael said. “But it doesn’t mean they might not find him tonight or tomorrow. Maybe we should take him out and bury him in one of those clumps of fern.”

“What are we going to dig with, teaspoons?” Richard asked.

“Then maybe we should carry him over to your cottage and put him in your refrigerator. It gives me the creeps having him here.”

“We’re not going to take the chance carrying him around,” Richard said. “He stays where he is.”

“Then let’s swap rooms,” Michael suggested. “Remember, you killed him, not me.”

Richard’s eyes narrowed threateningly. “We already had this conversation,” he said slowly. “And it was decided: we’re in this together. Now shut the hell up about the body.”

“What about telling Fuller?” Michael said.

“Nah,” Richard said. “I changed my mind about that.”

“How come?”

“Because that straight arrow nerd’s not going to have any better idea of what to do with the body. And I don’t think we have to be so worried. Hell, nobody has even asked about the twerp all day today. Besides, Arak said they don’t have any prisons.”

“That’s because they don’t have any thievery,” Michael snapped. “Arak didn’t say anything about murder, and with all that stuff they showed us about mind extraction, I have a bad feeling they’ll be pretty upset about it. We might get ourselves recycled, like Reesta.”

“Hey, calm down!” Richard said.

“How can I calm down with a dead body in my refrigerator?” Michael yelled.

“Shut the hell up,” Richard yelled back. Then in a lower voice he added, “Jeez, everybody in the neighborhood is going to hear you. Get control of yourself. The main thing is to get our asses out of here ASAP. Meanwhile Sart’s in the cooler, which is going to keep him from stinking up the joint. We’ll think about moving him if someone starts nosing around and asking about him. Okay?”

“I suppose,” Michael said but without much enthusiasm.