When it was Donald’s turn he merely nodded.

“Wonderful,” Arak said. He stood. “Now if you’ll give Sufa and me a few minutes by remaining in your seats, we’ll make the arrangements.” He extended a hand toward Sufa, and she rose as well. Together they exited the small conference room.

Perry shook his head. “I feel shell-shocked. This whole situation keeps getting more and more unbelievable.”

“I’m not sure I believe anything,” Donald said.

“Ironically enough, it seems to me to be too fantastic not to be true,” Suzanne said. “And it all makes a certain amount of scientific sense.” She looked over at Ismael and Mary Black, who had been sitting patiently. “Please, folks, tell us your story. Is it true you are from the surface world?”

“Yes, it is,” Ismael said.

“From where?” Perry asked.

“From Gloucester, Massachusetts,” Mary said.

“No kidding,” Michael said. He sat up. “Hey, I’m from Massachusetts, too: Chelsea. Ever been there?”

“I’ve heard of it,” Ismael said. “But I’ve never been there.”

“Everybody from the North Shore has been to Chelsea,” Michael said with a snicker. “Because one end of the Tobin Bridge sits on it.”

“I’ve never heard of the Tobin Bridge,” Ismael said. Michael’s eyes narrowed in disbelief.

“How’d you two end up down here in Interterra?” Richard questioned.

“We were very lucky,” Mary said. “Very lucky indeed. Just like you people.”

“Were you diving?” Perry asked.

“No,” Ismael said. “We ran into a terrible storm en route from the Azores to America. We should have drowned like the others on our ship. But, as Mary said, we were lucky, and we were inadvertently rescued by an Interterran interplanetary vehicle. We literally got sucked into the same exit port you people did and were then revived by the Interterrans.”

“What was the name of your ship?” Donald asked.

“It was called the Tempest,” Ismael said, “which turned out to be rather appropriate considering the fate. It was a schooner out of Gloucester.”

“A schooner?” Donald questioned suspiciously. “What year did this happen?”

“Let’s see,” Mary said, “I was sixteen. That makes it eighteen hundred and one.”

“Oh, for chrissake,” Donald muttered. He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his bald head. He’d shaved it that morning. “And you people wonder why I’m skeptical?”

“Mary, that’s about two hundred years ago,” Suzanne said.

“I know,” Mary said. “It’s hard to believe, but isn’t it wonderful? Look how young we look.”

“You expect us to believe that you are over two hundred years old?” Perry questioned.

“It’s going to take time for you to comprehend the world that you are now in,” Mary said. “All I can say is that you should try to avoid making any hardened opinions until you’ve seen and heard more. We can remember how we felt when we were being subjected to the same information. And remember, for us it was even more astounding since your technology has come a long way in the last two hundred years.”

“I second Mary’s advice,” Ismael said. “Try to keep in mind what Arak said at the beginning of the session. Time has a different meaning here in Interterra. In fact, Interterrans don’t die the way they do on the surface.”

“My ass they don’t die,” Michael whispered.

“Shut up,” Richard whispered back through clenched teeth.

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.