The sky before them appeared to be an ocean of rolling, pewter-colored clouds, sporadically illuminated by jagged streaks of light. The continuous rumble of thunder no longer seemed to have a beginning or end.
"Can't you take us above this?" Tarla shouted.
Without turning around to her, the pilot yelled back. "What the hell do you think we're trying to do? Just get back there and buckle yourself in! Damn!" He pounded his fist against the altimeter.
Tarla's gaze fell to the control panel and she saw the reason the pilot was swearing. Some of the indicator hands were spinning madly while other controls seemed to have stopped functioning completely. What in God's name was happening?
She was about to obey the pilot's order when the thunderous rumble around them rose to a deafening roar and the vibration became so violent, she was positive the plane would be pulled apart any moment. Sheer terror now kept her standing there, clinging to the back of the navigator's seat.
All of a sudden the clouds began to part and roll to the sides as if an unseen hand was opening a pathway for the plane. There was light beyond the clouds and, the wider the gap grew, the brighter the light became, until there was a hole in the sky big enough for the aircraft to fly through, but the light was nearly blinding in intensity.
As if someone flipped a switch, the vibrating abruptly stopped and the plane picked up speed with a tremendous jerk.
"Full flaps!" The pilot shouted. "Reduce power! We've got to slow this mother down."
Nothing the crew did seemed to make any difference. Tarla found herself pinned against the cockpit door and comprehended that the increased gravitational pull meant they were going faster and faster toward the light.
She watched the navigator fight the g-force to bring his hand up to his forehead then make the sign of the cross. A hundred different thoughts tried to form at once in her mind but only one was coherent.
After surviving the third world war, they were all going to die anyway.
Chapter 2
Innerworld, Planet Terra (Earth)
"Governor Romulus here." It felt like he'd been waiting for this call from Outerworld Monitor Control for days instead of hours.
"The team has completed all scans. There is not a single trace of evidence remaining. The aircraft and all its passengers were being tracked one second and gone the next. It definitely was not a result of the conflict. No country involved has the technology to accomplish such a total erasure."
"Were the coordinates confirmed?"
"Yes, sir. Directly above our tunnel off the coast of China but nothing took place on our end to cause it."
Twelve powerful magnetic fields had been used to create tunnels in and out of Innerworld, the Noronian colony in the center of Terra. Occasionally an Outerworld vessel was in the path when the doorway opened, but apparently that had not been the case this time.
"I was able to find a few vague historical references suggesting that other, much smaller craft may have mysteriously disappeared from that precise spot in the past, but there is nothing in our records to support those assumptions."
"And the passenger list?"
The OMC agent cleared his throat. "I am sorry, sir. It's been verified. One of the passengers was an Innerworld emissary. Tarla Yan was on board when the aircraft vanished."
"Oh Rom, I am so sorry."
Rom felt Aster's empathy as clearly as he heard his mate's words in his mind.
Aloud, Aster said, "She may be perfectly fine somewhere, just like I was when I went for a cruise off the Bahamas and ended up here."
By remembering that long ago day, he was able to force a half-smile. When the yacht she'd been on was accidentally pulled into Innerworld, he had already known something major was about to change in his life. He just hadn't realized how major it was going to be.
At that time, he had been a provincial chief administrator and Tarla had been his assistant and very close friend. She'd been exceptionally efficient and supportive but it was always obvious that administration wasn't giving her any sense of fulfillment. After he and Aster were formally joined and became the Co-Governors of Innerworld, Tarla had tried a committed relationship with one of the other transplanted Terrans, even moving out to a mining camp with him for a while, but that hadn't lasted either.
Tarla was one of the few people Rom had ever met who envied the Outerworld Terrans and the unstable, chaotic lives they led. She'd always wanted less control rather than more. With his endorsement and considerable training, she became an Outerworld emissary, living a "normal" Terran life as an emergency room nurse while secretly being an observer for Innerworld.
That was over two decades ago. At first, she'd made a point of paying him a visit whenever she returned to Innerworld but he now realized it had been at least three years since she'd been back.
When the current Outerworld war broke out, Tarla hadn't hesitated to accept the more dangerous assignment of observing the action from a front-line position since her cover as a trauma nurse more than qualified her to do so.
Many Outerworlders held the belief that the war could have been prevented, but after millennia of observing Terrans, politically-minded Noronians, like Romulus, knew there was nothing anyone could have done. By 2050, people of Asia and Eastern Europe were in dire economic straits and ripe for a takeover by a hungry, overcrowded country. China made its move so unexpectedly, it was weeks before the rest of the world realized that the sleeping dragon had truly awakened and no country on the planet could feel safe from its voracious appetite. While the United States government discussed whether to reinstate the draft, China simultaneously invaded Japan and Germany and there was no longer a question of non-involvement of any Outerworld country.
After three years of wasted lives and massive devastation, the dragon was somewhat caged but still very dangerous. Months of negotiating between China and the United Nations ended with a barely acceptable, yet absolutely imperative, compromise. China's borders were extended to encompass all of Asia, the Middle East and Africa and, in turn, the dragon would keep its claws off Europe, the Americas and Australia.
More than ever, Norona, and more importantly, Innerworld, needed courageous, highly-trained, emissaries throughout Outerworld, observing and reporting back from ground-level points of view.
Thus, for personal and political reasons, Romulus wanted Aster to be right, that Tarla truly was "perfectly fine somewhere."
Chapter 3
Tarla tried to block out the voices buzzing in her ears. She wasn't ready to wake up yet. Rather than fading away, however, the voices kept getting louder. After several more minutes of attempting to stay submerged in murky sleep, she reluctantly swam to the surface.
Even after opening her eyes though, she wasn't certain she was awake. There were vaguely familiar faces around her, but the structure they were in was totally unfamiliar. It was obviously an enormous wooden barn, complete with horses, cows, stalls, and straw covering the ground. She just couldn't remember why she and the others were there.
A second scan of the building brought another oddity to Tarla's foggy mind. Light was being provided by lanterns with burning candles in them, secured along the walls and on wooden posts. There wasn't a window or door in sight.
She forced aside the question of where she was and focused on the people. Some seemed very excited though she couldn't distinguish the words. Others, like her, were just rousing from sleep. Regardless of how conscious they were however, everyone seemed to bear an expression of confusion.
Tarla's eyes touched on a young man about twenty feet away, who was fretting more than most. Private Higgs. The name popped into her head along with an image of him losing his balance and spilling coffee from two paper cups in his hands.
But in that picture he was wearing a soldier's uniform and now he was dressed in light blue cotton pajamas, at least that's what his outfit appeared to be. Glancing at the others and checking her own attire, she noted they were all dressed similarly, in loose-fitting pants
and short-sleeved, vee-necked shirts, like hospital scrubs. Although the colors differed, they were generally soft pastel shades. Hers was peach.
She sat up and rubbed her temples as she concentrated on the image of Private Higgs that had come to her. That image blurred into others. Patients, swathed in bandages like mummies. Rows of cots. Logan McKay lying on one of those cots with blatant need. Logan, asleep in a seat with metal cuffs on his wrists and ankles. An aircraft. Instruments going crazy. The storm!
As the pieces of her memory joined together, she rose unsteadily to her feet. Surely the plane they were on had crashed into the ocean. Hadn't they been hit by a series of lightning bolts? How had they all survived? How had they gotten into this barn? How—
The bewildered gaze of her friend, Robin, met her own from across the shelter and the two women rushed toward each other. The tight hug they shared said more of their fears and relief to see each other than words ever could.
"This is very weird," Robin said as they stepped apart. "Am I in your nightmare or are you in mine?"
Tarla shook her head. "Actually, I'm toying with the theory that everyone on the plane died and this is some sort of transfer station before we're sent off to an after-life."
Robin expressed her disbelief by cocking one finely arched, auburn eyebrow.
"I just woke up," Tarla responded to the unspoken skepticism. "My brain's still only at half speed." She nodded at the large group around Private Higgs. "Let's see what they think." A man's voice stopped them before they took a step.
"Tarla? Captain Yan?"
Tarla turned around to see a slightly-built young man with dark brown skin and a shaved head. His eyes begged her for help in the same way a thousand wounded soldiers had in the past three years, but he didn't appear to be in physical pain.
"You are Tarla, aren't you?" he asked, a bit less certainly.
"Yes, I'm Tarla." She wondered why he didn't look at all familiar to her.
He gave her a shaky smile then reached out and shook her hand. "I recognized your voice. It would be pretty hard not to since it was the only thing that kept me from going crazy the last few weeks. I guess everyone tells you what a beautiful voice you have, but I just had to let you know how important it was to me."
Tarla gave a slight frown as she tried to remember him.
His grin broadened to reveal one crooked incisor. "I'm Willy."
She took a step back and scrutinized him from head to toe. "That's impossible." Looking at Robin, she explained, "Willy was one of the patients on the plane. He suffered severe chemical burns. He was barely alive, let alone able to walk and talk."
"That's right," Willy said excitedly. "I don't understand it, but I'm healed. And so are the others. At first I thought maybe I'd just been unconscious for a long time but that doesn't explain why there aren't any scars. Then I thought, maybe there was no war and I was never burned. You know, like it was all a bad dream. But everyone else remembers the same things I do."
"Did I say very weird?" Robin murmured to Tarla. "Let me change that to incredibly spooky."
With a wave of her hand, Tarla led Robin and Willy over to the group that now included most of the survivors. When she spotted three of her nurses, she moved next to them. Giving each a light pat on their shoulders, she tried to offer a semblance of reassurance. She didn't know any more about how they'd gotten here than they did but at least she had the advantage of knowing that a healing such as Willy experienced wasn't all that extraordinary in an advanced civilization.
She suddenly realized the possible explanation. Based on what Higgs' had said about The Devil's Triangle, they might have been on top of one of Innerworld's tunnels. They could have been accidentally pulled into her home! Tarla automatically reached for the ring she kept on a chain around her neck but it wasn't there.
Whoever changed her clothes must have taken it. And without her Innerworld ring, she couldn't transmigrate or even contact her handler.
Though residing on the surface of Terra had been her assignment for twenty-two years, she still thought of Innerworld as home. Life there had been extremely easy compared to that of most Outerworld natives. She'd never experienced illness, fear, hunger, poverty or even lack of comfort. Life in Innerworld was peaceful, safe, fairly predictable... and dreadfully dull. How very anxious she had been to experience passion, excitement and adventure, all the wondrous things she imagined would be hers as an Outerworlder.
And for a very long while it was fascinating and fulfilling and she loved the unpredictability of her second life... except for not being able to maintain any long-term relationships. Because of her secretive work for Innerworld and the fact that Noronians age at half the rate of Terrans, she had to relocate several times to avoid suspicion. Her current identification showed her age to be a completely believable thirty-four and she had a solid background story that she maintained to ensure she didn't forget which lie she'd told to whom.
Although her life as an Outerworlder had been filled with surprises and uncertainties, nothing had prepared her for the horrors of war or the frightening changes that were bound to occur as a result of the China Compromise. After three long years of unending hardship, she was actually looking forward to returning to Innerworld or perhaps even an extended visit to Norona.
The more she thought about it, the more she really, really hoped they had landed in Innerworld. But her intuition warned that was not the case. And her logic told her this was not like any recovery room she'd ever seen back home. Her spirits plummeted again as she realized that, if this was home, there would have been a medical team or at least android caretakers waiting for them to awaken. If this was home, anyone who saw the ring would have known she was one of them.
Separated from the group, on the opposite side of the barn, four men were huddled together. They appeared to be having an intense conversation while keeping an eye out for any eavesdroppers. Tarla was fairly sure all four were convicts.
Also standing apart, but quite alone, was Logan McKay. He looked bored, leaning negligently against the post of a horse stall, yet Tarla had the distinct feeling that he was absorbing everything and simply waiting for the dust to settle before committing to one group or another. She looked away for fear he might catch her staring, but then her gaze darted back to him as another realization came to her. He wasn't wearing cuffs or shackles! A glance back to the four convicts confirmed what she feared—the prisoners were just as free as she was.
Her concern escalated as she noted that the two military police officers were now unarmed.
"It doesn't matter where we are or how we got here!" Corporal Gianni shouted to be heard over the multitude of speculations being thrown back and forth. "Everyone just break off and try to find a way out."
"Hold it!" yelled a man from behind Tarla.
She turned to see that the small group of convicts had approached. Their spokesperson was a tall, muscular man with a blond buzz cut, who had a very threatening demeanor. He instantly commanded everyone's attention. The crowd parted as he pushed forward, followed by his three companions. Corporal Gianni stood his ground and tried to appear taller than his medium height.
"What do you want, Wilkes?" Gianni asked defensively.
"Nothin' much, 'cept I was wonderin' who the hell put you in charge?"
Tarla swore she could actually feel the tension gripping the people around her as everyone began inching away from the two men. No words were spoken for several seconds, during which the crowd seemed to divide into two distinct sides.
"The way I figger it," Wilkes said, "I outrank you."
"Like hell," Gianni countered. "You were stripped of your rank at the court martial, and everyone here knows it."
He looked from side to side at the people he referred to as if hoping for a show of support.
When he didn't get it, Tarla guessed that the corporal wasn't much more popular than Wilkes. Accustomed to being in a military environment, however, the soldiers were prepared to obey the orders of t
he superior officer whether they admired that person or not. They simply needed to know who was in charge.
It looked as though Wilkes and Gianni were about to resort to physical violence to answer the question of command, when another man spoke up.
"Excuse me, gentlemen."
The voice bore a British clip and belonged to a nice-looking man with short, ash blond hair. As he strode into the center of the ring of people, Tarla could see that he was nearly as tall as Wilkes but considerably leaner. She recalled seeing him on the plane mainly because Robin had made a comment about personally helping him relax before they reached the States.
"I believe this matter can be settled without fisticuffs," the Brit stated politely but with supreme authority. "I am Major Geoffrey Cookson... and I outrank you both."
Wilkes snorted. "That's easy to say while you ain't wearin' no bars to prove it. You ain't even American."
"Since we have no idea what country we're in, the matter of my birthplace is irrelevant. However, if it will ease your mind, I am a naturalized citizen of the United States as well as an officer of its armed forces. Now unless someone outranks me, I—"
Wilkes gave the major's shoulder a shove. "Not so fast, limey. You may have the rank but I got somethin' more important... strength." His three friends took a step closer to his back to emphasize his point. "I'll be givin' the orders from now on."
Major Cookson had no intention of backing down or using violence to maintain his authority.
"This is really quite unnecessary under the circumstances. Until we determine the logistics of our situation, arguing over power is a waste of time and energy that could be better spent investigating our surroundings."
LOGAN (The Innerworld Affairs Series, Book 5) Page 2