“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 Suzanne hasn’t talked to them first. We’ll have them come to the dining hall.”

“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.”

Suzanne’s pulse was racing. She’d never felt such anxiety. She knew she was lucky to have gotten away from the group and couldn’t help wondering what would have happened had she not been able to. She shuddered. They seemed to have become strangers, even enemies in their single-mindedness to escape and their concomitant willingness to murder.

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 Suzanne at her destination, she was more composed. The transit time had given her an opportunity to think more rationally. She reasoned that the Council of Elders more than anyone should know how to handle the crisis quickly and without injury to anyone.

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.

Suzanne walked down the gleaming white marble corridor. She saw no one. Approaching the huge, paneled bronze doors, she began to wonder what she should do. Knocking seemed ridiculous given the scale of the surroundings. But she need not have been concerned. The doors opened automatically just as they had that morning.

Walking into the circular colonnaded room beyond, Suzanne advanced to the center and stopped in the same place she’d stood that morning. She looked around at the empty chamber, wondering what to do next.

The silence was complete.

“Hello!” Suzanne called. When there was no answer she called again, louder. Then she called out again, this time at the top of her lungs. Thanks to the dome, she heard her voice echo clearly.

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

Suzanne turned. Behind her, framed in the huge portal, was Ala. Her fine blond hair was in disarray, as if she’d just been pulled from her bed.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Suzanne said. “I’ve come because of an emergency. You must stop my fellow secondary humans. They are about to attempt an escape, and if they do, the secret of Interterra will be lost.”

“Escape is difficult from Interterra,” Ala said. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. It was a gesture so childlike that Suzanne had to remind herself she was dealing with an individual of extraordinary intelligence and experience.

“They plan to use the submersible we arrived in,” Suzanne said. “It is at the Earth Surface Museum.”

“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,” Suzanne said. “I want very much to help.” She thought about bringing up the tragic deaths that had already occurred but decided there would be time for that later.

“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,” Suzanne agreed.

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 connector. Then, stepping back, he raised the sledge over his head in preparation of rendering the unit inoperable.

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.