Abduction

“You let her get away?” Donald cried. He stood up from where he was squatting next to Richard. He was incensed.

“I couldn’t stop her,” Michael said. “She must have called the damn taxi the second she left here.”

“Christ!” Donald said. He put a hand to his forehead and shook his head. “Such incompetence! I can’t believe it!”

“Hey, I did what I could,” Michael complained.

“Let’s not argue,” Perry chimed in.

“Shit!” Donald shouted as he stormed around in a circle.

“I should have decked her,” Richard choked.

Donald stopped his angry pacing. “We’ve hardly started this operation, and we’ve already got a crisis. There’s no telling what she’ll do. We’ve got to move and move fast! Michael, you get your ass back to the Oceanus and don’t let anyone near it!”

“Roger!” Michael said. He grabbed his crossbow and quiver and darted back out into the night.

“We need hostages and we need them fast,” Donald said.

“What about Arak and Sufa?” Perry said.

“They’d be perfect,” Donald said. “Let’s call them over here and hope Suza

“What about Ismael and Mary Black?” Perry suggested.

“The more the better,” Harvey said.

“Fine,” Donald said. “We’ll call them, too. But that’s all the room we have in the Oceanus.”

Suza

Despite what she’d said on the spur of the moment back in her cottage, she wasn’t sure how she felt about anything other than her abhorrence at the idea of being a party to more death. Yet despite her confusion, in order to flee by air taxi she’d had to come up with a destination quickly to get the craft to seal. The first place that had come to her mind was the black pyramid and the Council of Elders.

By the time the air taxi deposited Suza

As she mounted the causeway leading to the pyramid she noticed the entire area was deserted. As a major Interterran governmental center, she’d assumed there would be people available twenty-four hours a day. But this hardly seemed to be the case even after she’d entered the gigantic structure.

Suza

Walking into the circular colo

The silence was complete.

“Hello!” Suza

“Can I be of assistance?” a young girl’s voice asked calmly.

Suza

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Suza

“Escape is difficult from Interterra,” Ala said. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. It was a gesture so childlike that Suza

“They plan to use the submersible we arrived in,” Suza

“I see,” Ala said. “It would still be difficult, but perhaps it would be best if I send some worker clones to incapacitate the vessel. I will also call the Council for an emergency session. I trust you will be willing to stay and confer with us.”

“Of course,” Suza

“This is an unexpected and disturbing development,” Ala said. “Why have your friends decided to try to escape?”

“They say because of their families and because they have not been given a choice. But they are a very varied group, and there are other issues as well.”

“It sounds as if they don’t yet realize how very lucky they are.”

“I think that’s fair to say,” Suza

An air taxi settled down and opened in the dark and deeply shadowed museum courtyard. Two heavily muscled worker clones disembarked. Both carried sledgehammers, but only one set out for the Benthic Marine submersible. The other kept the air taxi from leaving by maintaining a grip on the edge of the taxi’s opening port.

The first worker clone wasted no time. Reaching the submersible he went directly to the housing for the main battery pack. With practiced hands he opened the fiberglass access panel to expose the main power co

But the heavy hammer did not come down in its normal arc. Instead it slipped from the clone’s hands and fell to the ground with a thud the moment a crossbow bolt pierced the clone’s throat. With a gasping sound he staggered back, clawing at the imbedded missile. A mixture of blood and a clear fluid like mineral oil gushed forth, drenching his black coveralls. After a few awkward steps, the clone toppled over onto his back. Several twitches later, he was still.

Michael cranked the crossbow drawstring back and positioned another bolt. Thus armed he stood up from his hiding place alongside the museum wall and cautiously approached the downed clone. Michael had neither seem nor heard the air taxi: it had landed just out of sight. He felt lucky he’d looked back at the submersible the moment he did, for he had been dozing on and off despite his efforts to stay alert.

Keeping the crossbow trained on the clone, Michael reached out with his right foot and gave the body a kick. The clone didn’t respond although there was another small surge of blood and fluid from the through-and-through neck wound.

Taking one hand away from the crossbow to give himself better balance, Michael gave the body one last, good kick to make sure there was no question about its status. To his shock, the crossbow was ripped out of his hand.

Startled, Michael whirled around to find himself facing a second clone, who’d tossed the crossbow aside and was raising a sledgehammer over his head. Michael instinctively put his hands up although he knew it would be no defense against the coming blow. Back peddling he tripped over the fallen clone and fell across the downed worker, losing his helmet in the process.

Michael desperately rolled to the side as the hammer came down with jarring force, crunching the already incapacitated clone. As the second clone regained his balance and retracted his weapon for another blow, Michael pushed himself up on one knee and drew his Greek short sword. As the clone again lifted the sledge over his head, exposing his abdomen, Michael lunged forward. With Michael’s full weight behind the thrust the sword buried itself to its hilt. A mixture of blood and clear oil gushed onto Michael’s chest.