ALIEN ABDUCTION (Captured by Aliens) (15 page)

The women all looked at each other. 

“A new city?”

“A new life?”

“New--Chalcydon?”

“Oh, kids, I think something just changed for us in a big way,”
Ebony whispered, hugging herself tight.

“I am telling this to all of you women, right here, right now, out
in the open, in front of everyone,” Fallon said.  “That way, there will be no
gossip heard nor rumor spread.  There will be no doubt of what the truth is.  My
men and I took you from King Kore’s harem because without you, there will be no
new life--not in our new city or anywhere else.”

At last, Ebony spoke up.  “So--we’re just goin’ from one harem to
another?”  Her temper was beginning to rise, as was the fear and uncertainty
among all of the women.

“You are going to no harem,” Fallon said.  “You will be married to
the man--or men--of your choosing.  You will be wives, not slaves.  But once we
arrive at New Chalcydon, you will be expected to produce as many children as
possible--and by as many different men as possible.”

All of the women gasped.  Their jaws dropped open.  “What do you
mean?” demanded Jane.  “That still sounds like slavery to me!”

“We are a very small group with very few women,” Fallon said,
unwavering.  “With such a small gene pool, we must maintain as much diversity
as possible in our offspring.  The breeding can be done artificially if you
wish, but all of you will bear children by different men.  Your husbands have
already agreed to this.”

The women began to murmur and talk among themselves, and some of
them began to wail at the thought of yet another extreme change in their lives--but
Fallon stomped his booted foot on the metal platform.  The sound rolled and
echoed throughout the corridor, and everyone fell silent.  Even the weeping
women quieted down and simply clung to each other.

“You women are not captives.  You will have a free life the same
as anyone else once we arrive at the new settlement.  But there can be no new
life without you, and so you must come with us.  You are needed.  There is no
future without you.

“I allowed the men to choose the women they wanted during the hike
to get here, which allowed both you and them to start bonding.  And it worked
far better than even I had hoped--all of you women seem quite content with your
mates.  Aren’t you?”

Ebony saw all of the girls glance around at the tall, strong men
who stood with them, and none of the women seemed at all distressed.  She
herself glanced at Fallon, and then at Damon, but neither of them reacted in
the slightest.

Finally, Ebony spoke up.  “Well, now,” she said, pitching her
voice so that it echoed slightly off the walls of the vast corridor.  “You say
we’re not captives.  You say we’re going to have husbands and not be part of a
harem.  And you say we’re all going to go off and live in a brand new city--a
city where everyone is free to live the kind of life they want.

“But I’ve just got one question: Where
is
this place?”

Fallon looked straight at her.  “It is far enough away to be
safe,” he said, “so far away that even the Zhala riders could not make the
trip.” He glanced out over the crowd, as if he were trying to make eye contact
with everyone listening.  “It is on the opposite side of the planet from where
we stand now.  It is in the middle of the desert.  It is the same place that
King Kore’s fighters abandoned me and my men and left us to die.”

More astonished talk from the crowd, both the women and the men.  “The
Desert of Fire?  You cannot mean that!  No one can live there!  The heat, the
monsters, the complete lack of water--there is nothing there at all but
scorching sand--surely you do not mean to take us to the Desert of Fire!”

“I do mean to take us all there,” Fallon said, “and it will not be
a desert much longer.  It has been undergoing a great transformation for many
months now.  A small city has already arisen and is awaiting our arrival--the
city of New Chalcydon.”

“A new city?” one of the miners said at last.  “How could you and
a handful of men build an entire new city?”

“He’s joking with us!” cried another miner.

Fallon stared at them.  “I am not joking,” he said.  “And as to
how I and a few men could build an entire city--the answer is, we didn’t.  The Nexus
Lamians did.  We paid them with the chalcedonite that you have worked so hard
to dig out of this mountain, and they have built us a small but very beautiful
city.  There is even a stand of trees and a very deep well to feed both the
trees and all of us with sweet water.”

“And how will we get there?” cried Ebony. 

Another of the miners joined in.  “That’s right.  Even if this is
true, Fallon, and you and your men have paid the Grays, the Nexus Lamians, to
build us a city out in that furnace of a desert that covers so much of this
planet--how will we get there?”

“Yes,” said another miner.  “There’s an ocean in one direction and
that hideous desert in the other.  Do you have a boat?  Or a flock of trained
Zhala?  Or do we have to walk the whole way?”

“And if we do try to travel there, what’s to stop King Kore and
his men and his Zhala riders from scorching us into ash once we leave the
safety of this mountain?”

Fallon smiled a little, even as the noise level rose around him as
everyone started talking at once.  “Listen to me,” he said, raising both hands
towards the crowd.  “I know you have all had the same thoughts that our dark
beauty, Ebony, and several of the miners have just voiced.  Yet you have
trusted me all this time and never questioned my judgment--and now I will show
you that your trust was not misplaced.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Fallon stepped back a few paces on the metal platform.  “Bring
them up!” he shouted, and then Ebony--and everyone else in the corridor--looked
up and caught their collective breath.

In the dark shadows of the deepest part of the corridor, from the
direction of the cold black lake where Fallon had taken her and where she’d
nearly lost her life, Ebony saw an enormous, silvery, floating metal vehicle
move slowly into view.  It was as though someone had taken a city bus and
reshaped it into a flattened cube.  She saw a couple of small square windows on
the side nearest to them, and what looked like the silhouettes of men standing
at those windows to operate the flying device. 

And close behind the first device came a second one, identical to
the first.

Both of the shining silver vehicles hovered in the air, well above
the floor of the cavern.  Ebony thought she felt, more than heard, a very low
vibration in the air, but other than that there was no sound from either
vehicle.  And then she became aware that both of the huge vehicles were wet and
gleaming in the rows of lights inside the mine, so wet that drops slid off of
their silvery surfaces and fell like rain onto the cavern floor below.

She looked closely at them.  When she’d fallen into that hideous
black water, she remembered her feet touching some surface--but it had been so
slick that she’d slid right off and nearly drowned…

“You hid them in the lake!” Ebony cried.  “You hid two great big
square flying saucers inside that coal-black lake!”

Fallon looked down at her, and smiled.  “You are right, Ebony
Raines,” he said.  “We could find no better place to hide something so valuable
than inside a vast mountain and under a lake as black as night.”

Then Fallon looked up and began pacing across the metal platform. 
“Each flyer carries two pilots and as many as thirty-three
passengers, if they do
not bring too much with them.”

“But--where
did you get them?” cried Michelle, the tall redhead in the green scrubs.

Ebony
grinned. 
Girls are gettin’ brave today, speakin’ out!

Fallon
stopped and looked at Michelle, though his words were for the entire gathering. 
“We got them from the Nexus Lamians.  They are not difficult to operate.  Two
men can work together to get a flyer where they want it to go.  The vehicles
practically fly themselves.  And as you have seen, they can go almost anywhere. 
They can hover while traveling over land, they can fly anywhere you wish, and
they can travel underwater as easily as they can go anywhere else.”

He looked
out at the crowd again.  “Yes.  You are right.  I can hear your questions.  This
is what happened to all the chalcedonite you have been pulling out of this mine
for the last few years.  It has bought us a city and it has bought us a way to
get there.”

This time
it was one of the miners who stepped forward.  He was a tall, broad-shouldered,
aged man with solid white hair and dark eyes that had seen far too much.  “You
have a city.  You have a pair of flyers,” the old man said.  “And what is to
stop that brother of yours and all his men from shooting down the flyers and
taking over the city?”

Fallon
grinned at the man.  “I’m glad you asked me that, Rolf.  But you only spoke of
two things we obtained from the Lamians.  Yes, we got a city.  Yes, we got two
flyers.  But we also got this.”

He
stepped back on the platform, and nodded towards the first flyer.  “Show them.”

The low
vibration increased in pitch for just a few seconds, and then a tremendous
flash filled the corridor.  It was followed in an instant by the sound of an
explosion far away, outside the entrance to the mountain.  “Go and see for
yourselves,” Fallon said to the breathless crowd, and after just a moment’s
hesitation the miners and the other workers all turned and ran towards the
entrance.

Ebony and
the women followed them.  The rest of the women stopped near the back of the
crowd, but Ebony pushed her way through to the front and got a good look.

“Oh!” was
all she could say.

A great
tall column of smoke and dust boiled up out of the valley far below.  As it
began to clear, Ebony could see that a section of forest the size of a large
house had simply been obliterated.  “Well,” she murmured, turning around with
the others to walk back inside the mine.  “I guess we might be safe enough
after all, with something like that lying around.”

The crowd
gathered in front of the platform and the two flyers again, and Ebony could see
Fallon’s look of pride and hope.  “We were not so foolish as to think the king
and his warriors would leave us alone out of kindness and good will,” he said. 
“The third thing we bought from the Lamians was the very best system of defense
that we could get.  It’s on the flyers and it’s on the city walls.  And it will
keep all of us safe.”

The men
in the crowd all looked at each other, and seemed to be nodding in approval. 

“And
neither will this mine be abandoned,” Fallon continued.  “Once we are settled,
men can be brought out here for three-day shifts to make certain we have all
the chalcedonite we will ever need.  And if we need more weapons to keep this
mine safe, we can easily get them just the way we got these.”

He
paused, and looked out over the assembly one last time.  “Is there anything
else you want to know?”

After a
brief silence, only one man spoke up.  “When do we leave?” asked the man, and
the rest of the crowd started cheering. 

Fallon
grinned, and actually looked happy and excited.  “There are five hundred
twenty-one of us in this place,” he said, “and each flyer can take thirty-three
passengers in addition to the two pilots.  Each flight takes five hours to
reach our city of New Chalcydon.”

Ebony
frowned.  “Yeah--but when do we
leave?
”

The crowd
laughed, and so did Fallon.  “One hour after darkness,” he said, with a chuckle. 
“The first flights will leave one hour after darkness
tonight
.  Everyone
go back to your rooms and pack up only what fits in two duffel bags--bags that
you can carry on your own.  There is no space for anything else.  Go, now.  We
leave an hour after darkness tonight!”

The men
turned away and began walking back to their rooms or to their work assignments,
and the air inside the cavern was filled with hope and anticipation.  Ebony
watched as the two flyers settled down to rest on the cavern floor.  The low
vibrations stopped, and in the silence she watched doors slide open near the
bottom of each vehicle.  After a few moments the pilots stepped out.  Ebony
could only stare at the open doors, wondering where this new and unexpected
voyage was going to land her this time.

***

A short
time later, Ebony sat beside Rebecca and Cassie and the other five women in the
dining hall.  They’d all filled their plates with fresh bread and baked fish
rolled in nut flour and platefuls of steamed local vegetables.  There wasn’t a
lot of variety when it came to the food here, as there had been in the harem,
but there was plenty to go around and nobody went hungry. 

The table
was filled with intense talk and discussion about the news of their leaving for
an entirely new city, but Ebony only kept to herself and kept close watch on
the door. 

“Ebony,
why aren’t you eating?” Cassie said, pulling off another chunk of hot bread and
drizzling a little of the herbed oil on it.  “It’s all especially good today--or
maybe it’s because we’re leaving and I don’t know what it will be like when we
arrive in New--New Chalcydon.”

“Yes.  A
whole new city,” murmured Ebony.  She took another bite of the baked fish with
its delicious crust made of ground nuts, but kept her eyes on the doors of the
dining hall.  “I’m waiting for Fallon.  I want to talk to him about the trip--the
move--how they managed to keep all of this a secret--what the new place is like--everything!”

Rebecca
glanced up at her, and finished swallowing her own bite of fish.  She was a
tall and serious girl with dark red hair and orange scrubs.  “I just don’t know
how we’re going to do this,” Rebecca said.  “The flyers are amazing--I’d love
to know how they work--but I’m not convinced that all of us aren’t just going
from one harem to another.”

“Fallon
said that we aren’t.”

“And you
trust him?”

Ebony
hesitated, chewing her lip as she thought it over.  “So far, everything he’s
said has turned out to be true.”

“I don’t
know--I don’t trust any of them.”

“But what
else can we do?”  Ebony stood up in frustration and picked up her plate.  “What
better idea do
you
have?  We can’t go back to Earth.  We can’t stay here. 
Do you want to go back to the harem?  Maybe your man Jerel can take you back
there--if you want him to.”

Rebecca
quickly looked away.

“Yeah,
that’s what I thought.” Ebony’s mouth tightened, and she started towards the
door.  “You’ve got yours.  I’m going to go find mine.”

Just then
Damon shouldered his way through the dining hall doors and stood there looking
around.

“Well,
there he is, Ebony,” snickered Cassie.  “Or were you talking about the other
one?”

“Yeah,”
said Rebecca with a grin.  “Back home, I think we used to call that ‘an
embarrassment of riches.’”

“I don’t
care what you call it,” said Ebony, walking away with her plate in hand.  “I
just want it resolved.  And it will be, one way or the other, just as soon as
possible.”

She
walked straight up to Damon and caught his arm.  “Where’s Fallon?”

He
blinked, and stared down at her as though he’d never seen her before.  “Who?”

Ebony
stared up at him.  “Uh--Fallon?  That guy who’s like a brother to you?  Your
comrade in arms?  Your leader?  Your—”

Damon cut
her off and grabbed her arm, leading her out through the doors again, and into
the enormous corridor.  “Fallon is not here,” he whispered. 

“Not
here?  I don’t understand.  With all the plans he just told us about this
morning--you’re tellin’ me he’s not here?”

Damon
pushed her along the corridor by her arm, but in the direction of the gaping
doorway at the entrance of the mine instead of back towards the living quarters. 
“You are right.  You do not understand.  Come with me.”

He
hurried her along to the entrance, and Ebony stepped quickly to keep up.  She
tried to keep the contents of her breakfast plate from falling to the floor of
the corridor when, finally, they were standing just inside the enormous
opening.

Damon
stopped and turned to face her.  “Ebony--from almost the moment we left
Auresial Palace, King Kore set Zhala riders out to find us and destroy us and
take you and all the other women back to his harem.”

She
stared up at him.  “Yeah.  I know.  We saw one while we were on the beach,
right after we left.  What about it?”

“They
never gave up looking for us.  It’s been hard for the men here to go out
hunting, and the food is beginning to run low.”

Ebony
looked down at the nearly full plate still in her hand.  “But we’re leaving
tonight--aren’t we?”

“We are. 
But there is little left for today, and it will take some time for us to build
up the stores at the new city.”

“Then--can’t
we wait until we’ve got enough supplies before we--”

He cut
her off again.  “The Zhala riders grow closer by the day.  We can wait no
longer.  Fallon and his small hunting party are bringing the last of what we
need.”