The two men followed Donald and found themselves in a futuristic, circular room thirty feet in diameter with a domed ceiling. There were no windows. A single row of a dozen molded seats surrounded a dark, slightly convex central area.
Arak and Sufa were sitting directly opposite the entrance, in seats with consoles built into their arms. To Arak and Sufa’s immediate right were two people the divers had never seen before. Although this couple was dressed in the usual white, they were not as attractive as the other Interterrans. Suzanne and Perry were seated to Arak and Sufa’s left. Donald was to the far right, sitting by himself with lots of empty seats between him and the others.
“Please, Richard, Michael,” Arak called out. “Take your seats. Anyplace you’d like. And then we’ll begin.”
Richard made it a point to pass several empty seats to take one next to Donald. Richard nodded to him, but Donald responded by shifting his weight away from the diver. Michael took the seat next to Richard.
“Welcome again to Interterra,” Arak said. “Today we are going to challenge your intellects in a very positive way. And in the process you will soon learn how very lucky you all are.”
“How about starting by telling us when we’ll be heading home?” Richard said.
“Shut the hell up!” Donald growled.
Arak laughed. “Richard, I do appreciate your spontaneity and impulsiveness, but be patient.”
“First we’d like to introduce everyone to two of our distinguished citizens,” Sufa said. “I’m certain you will find talking with them extremely helpful since they, like yourselves, have come from the surface world. May I present Ismael and Mary Black.”
The couple stood for a moment and bowed. Michael clapped from habit but immediately stopped when he realized he was the only one doing so. Suzanne and Perry regarded the couple with wide-eyed curiosity.
“Mary and I would like to extend our welcome as well,” Ismael said. He was a rather tall man with gaunt, hatchetlike features and deeply set eyes. “We are here because we have experienced what you are about to experience, and because of that we may be able to help. As for a general suggestion, I would encourage you at this point not to try to absorb too much too quickly.”
Michael leaned over to Richard and whispered, “Do you think he’s referring to that fabulous hand cream stuff we used last night?”
“Shut up!” Donald snapped, emphasizing each word. “If you men keep interrupting, I want you to move away from me.”
“All right already,” Michael said.
“Thank you, Ismael,” Arak said. Then looking at each of the visitors in turn he added, “I hope you will all take advantage of the Blacks’ offer. We feel that a division of labor will be helpful. Sufa and I will be available for informational issues whereas adjustment issues will be best handled by Ismael and Mary.”
Suzanne leaned over to Perry. There was a new look of concern on her face. “What does he mean, ‘adjustment issues’? How long do you think they intend to keep us here?”
“I don’t know,” Perry whispered back. He’d been struck by the same implication.
“Before we begin I would like to present each of you with a telecommunicator and an eyepiece,” Sufa said. She opened a box that she’d brought to the meeting and lifted out five small parcels, each with a name printed in bold letters across the top. Carrying them in her arms she walked around the room and handed them out to the designated recipients. Richard and Michael tore theirs open like kids attacking Christmas presents. Suzanne and Perry opened theirs with care. Donald let his sit unopened on his lap.
“It’s like a pair of glasses and a wristwatch without a face,” Michael said. He was disappointed. He tried on the glasses. They were aerodynamically shaped with clear lenses.
“It’s a telecommunicator system,” Sufa said. “They are voice activated, and each is mated to your individual voices, so they are not interchangeable. We’ll be showing you how to use them later.”
“What do they do?” Richard asked. He tried the glasses on as well.
“Just about everything,” Sufa said. “They connect with central sources whose information will be displayed virtually through the glasses. They also provide communication with anyone else in Interterra by sight and sound. They even do such mundane things as call air taxis, but more about them later.”
“Let’s get started,” Arak said. He touched the pad on the console in front of him and the darkened convex area turned a phosphorescent blue.
“The first thing we must talk about is the concept of time,” Arak said. “This is perhaps the most difficult subject for people like yourselves to grasp because here in Interterra time is not the immutable construct it appears to be on the earth’s surface. Your scientist, Mr. Einstein, recognized the relativity of time in the sense that it depends on one’s position of observation. Here in Interterra you will confront many examples of such relativity. The simplest, for example, is the age of our civilization. From the perspective of earth surface references, our civilization is incredibly ancient, whereas from our reference point and those of the rest of the solar system, it is not. Your civilization is measured in terms of millennia, ours in millions, and the solar system in billions.”
“Oh, for chrissake,” Richard complained. “Do we have to sit through all this? I thought you were going to tell us where the hell we are.”
“Unless you comprehend the basics,” Arak said, “what I’m going to be telling you will be unbelievable, even meaningless.”
“Why not work backwards,” Richard said. “Tell us where we are and then the other stuff.”
“Richard!” Suzanne snapped. “Be still!”
Richard rolled his eyes for Michael’s benefit. Michael showed his impatience by uncrossing and recrossing his legs.
“Time is not a constant,” Arak continued. “As I said, your clever scientist Mr. Einstein recognized this, but where he made his mistake was thinking that the speed of light was the upper boundary of motion. It is not the case, although it takes a huge quanta of focused energy to break the boundary. A good analogy from everyday life is the extra amount of energy necessary for a phase change that takes a solid to a liquid or a liquid to a gas. Pushing an object beyond the speed of light is like a phase change into a dimension where time is plastic and related only to space.”
“Good grief,” Richard blurted. “Is this a joke?”
Donald stood up and took a seat far from the two divers.
“Try to be patient,” Arak said. “And concentrate on time not being a constant. Think about it! If time is truly relative then it can be controlled, manipulated, and changed. Which brings us to the concept of death. Listen carefully! On the earth’s surface death has been a necessary adjunct of evolution, and evolution the only justification of death. But once evolution has evolved to create a sensate, cognitive being, death is not only not needed, it is a waste.”
At the mention of death Richard and Michael sank lower into their seats. Perry raised his hand. Arak immediately acknowledged him.
“Are we permitted to ask questions?” Perry asked.
“Absolutely,” Arak said agreeably. “This is to be more of a seminar than a lecture. But I ask you only to question what I have already said and not question what you believe I am about to say.”
“You talked about measuring time,” Perry said. “Did you mean to imply that your civilization, as you put it, predates our civilization on the earth’s surface?”
“Indeed,” Arak said. “And by a quantum of time almost incomprehensible to your experience. Our Interterran recorded history goes back almost six hundred million years.”
“Get out of here!” Richard scoffed. “That’s impossible. This is all a bunch of bull crap. That’s older than the dinosaurs.”