Abduction

“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 co

“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.”

CHAPTER NINE

Suza

As a geophysical oceanographer Suza

“Please give our secondary humans the courtesy they deserve,” Arak called out to his fellow Interterrans as he moved forward into their midst. “Back up and give us room!” He motioned for the people to give way, and they silently complied.

“Please!” Arak said gently to Suza

As if watching herself in a movie Suza

Can this truly be happening? she kept asking herself as she followed Arak. Is this a dream? Everything was certainly surreal enough, yet there was no doubt she could feel the cool marble on her bare feet and the caress of a gentle breeze on her cheeks. Never had she felt such subtle sensory details in a dream no matter how realistic it had been.

Sufa turned to Suza

“What do you mean, ‘second-generation humans’?” Suza

“Now, Sufa,” Arak chided gently. “Remember what we decided! These guests are going to be introduced more slowly to our world than we’ve done with others in the past.”

“I remember,” Sufa replied. Then to Suza

The group soon emerged onto a spacious verandah that opened up into a stupendously colossal underground cavern so immense, it gave the impression of being outdoors. The illumination was like daylight although there was no sun. The domed ceiling was a pale blue like the color of the sky on a hazy summer day. A few thin clouds floated lazily with the breeze.

The verandah was at the side of a building located on the outer edge of a city. Stretching out from the balustrade was a bucolic vista of rolling hills, lush vegetation, and lakes with a few towns in the near distance. The buildings were constructed of black basalt, highly polished and fashioned into a mixture of curves, domes, towers, and classically columned porticos. In the far distance a series of conical mountains rose up from wide bases to fan out against the dome above to form gargantuan supporting columns.

“If you’ll all wait for just a moment,” Arak said. He then spoke softly into a tiny microphone on an instrument attached to his wrist.

The five “second-generation humans” were spellbound by the unexpected beauty and breathtaking dimensions of the subterranean paradise. It was beyond anything that their imaginations could have possibly conjured. Even the divers were speechless.

“We’re waiting for a hovercraft,” Sufa explained.

“Is this Atlantis?” Perry asked, his mouth agape.

“No!” Sufa said, mildly offended. “This is not Atlantis. This city is Saranta. Atlantis is due east from here. But you can’t see it. It’s behind those columns that support the surface protuberances you people call the Azores.”

“So Atlantis does exist?” Perry said.

“Well, of course,” Sufa said. “But personally I don’t find it nearly as agreeable as Saranta. It’s a young, upstart city with rather brazen people if you ask me. But you’ll have to judge for yourselves.”

“Ah, here we go,” Arak exclaimed as a domed, saucer-like craft silently materialized at the base of the steps. It arrived so quietly, only those who happened to be looking in the proper direction saw its arrival.

“Sorry it took so long,” Arak said. “There must be a particularly high demand at the moment for some reason. But please, after you.” He gestured down the steps toward an open entrance port that had miraculously appeared on the side of the saucer.

The group descended the steps and boarded the craft, which was hovering motionlessly several feet off the ground. It was about thirty feet in diameter with a clear, domed top similar to the kind of purported UFOs seen on the covers of tabloids at grocery checkout lines. Inside was a circular banquette cushioned in white with a black, round central table. There were no controls.

Arak was the last to board, and as soon as he did, the entrance port disappeared as silently and as mysteriously as it had appeared.

“Ah, it’s always the way,” Arak complained after glancing around at the interior. “Just when we’re trying to impress you we get one of the old hovercrafts. This one is on its last legs.”

“Stop complaining,” Sufa said. “This vehicle is perfectly serviceable.”

Suza

Arak placed his hand, palm down, in the center of the black table and leaned forward. “Visitors’ palace,” he said. He then leaned back and smiled. A moment later the scenery outside began to move.

Suza