PARADOX - Chapter 52

Chapter 52

May 11, 2012 – Arianni Base – Near Eclipse Island - Australia



Less than an hour later, the door to their room opened. A young man dressed in a strange uniform beckoned for them to follow him. In the small corridor they reunited with the others. They followed behind the young man and walked down the ramp of the airship into a gigantic underground airfield. The field was as bright as day with no visible lighting, but it appeared to emanate from the walls and ceiling. The tarmac stretched for hundreds of yards to the right and left. Two ships approximately the same size as the one they exited waited near, and a score of smaller ships could be seen in the distance. There were very few personnel around the ships or in the docking bay.

Several guards ushered them towards a large opening in the wall that appeared to be an elevator. Chester noted that a squad of the strangely dressed men, Arianni he assumed, halted Cencio, Khan, and their men and demanded their weapons.

“Weapons of any kind are not permitted.” Ariana walked up to them. “They are only issued as needed for special missions.”

“Like for killing people for no reason.” Carney cast an appraising look at Ariana. He was querulous and had obviously run out of chewing tobacco and unable to get to his equipment for resupply.

Ariana did not answer him but guided them into the elevator. There were at least twenty buttons on a wall panel, several up, but the majority going down. The tight quarters reminded Dorbec that a hot bath was well overdue. It didn’t take a sharp sense of smell to pick up the tang of dried sweat and other sour body odors.

Ariana led them down a clean hallway that opened into a wide underground area. Had they not known they were underground, the atmosphere of wide open spaces, polished marble flooring, decorative walls, and succulent smells made them feel like they were browsing in a suburban mall. The place was decorated like a Parisian street, with little shops, sidewalk cafes, with small alleys leading off to other shops. Small groups of curious onlookers smiled at them as they passed. They were dressed in just about every conceivable attire, from comfortable one-piece jump suits, to skirts, slacks and even tunics.

Finally she took a smaller corridor leading off from the mall and stopped at a decorative door. “These are your quarters.” She addressed the five team members. “Your officers will be one door down.  Feel free to shower or bathe. An attendant will arrive shortly to arrange for a clean change of attire. Should you need something, please make your request known at that time. There are enough rooms and bath facilities here for each of you.”

“What, no prison?” Oddball remarked. “Like, you’re just going to let us run free?”

Ariana grinned. “No need for a prison. There’s no possible way you can leave this Base without one of the airships, which you do not know how to operate. We believe you are civilized enough not to cause harm to our people. You are free to go wherever you choose so long as you do not endanger yourselves. Our streets are decorated according to the different nationalities of your surface nations. We find it adds variety and a much better atmosphere. The shops and cafes are free. We do not use money here. We ask only that you respect the rights of others and act in a kind and courteous manner.”

“Separating us from the officers?” Carney remarked. “So we can’t plan an escape?”

Ariana glanced at him as if he had made a childish remark. “The Brotherhood demanded that we separate you. For whatever reason, I am not privy. As a rule, we do not separate officers from crew or leaders from others. We are all equal in Arianni society.”

She nodded for Chester and Dorbec to follow her and strode to the next door down the hall. “These are your quarters. The same applies to you as your men. Members of the Supreme Council will be requesting your presence in several hours.”

“Merci, Mon Cheri,” Dorbec smiled. “Will we be seeing you again soon… I hope.”

“I will be at the Council meeting. I must talk with my ground crew then I too need some rest and refreshing.”

“Some dish!” Chester remarked as they entered the room. “If I wasn’t married…” He left the remark unfinished.

Dorbec gave him a sideways look. “Married? Not me, at least not at the present. I am not, cherchez la femme; how do you say…looking for the woman? But, I think I would make an exception for this one, Bon Dieu oui!” He touched his lips and blew a kiss into the air.

While they were showering and performing their toilet, their uniforms were taken awah and cleaned and pressed. There was a large holographic television in the sitting room and Chester asked an attendant how to operate it. The attendant turned it on, and at Chester’s request, tuned it to his favorite news network.

The news was old, just a rehash of the same stuff he’d seen before. A special news flash interrupted the female anchor in mid sentence. “We repeat, the Secretary of Defense was just found dead in his D.C. townhouse. When he did not respond to calls earlier this morning, his aide went to his home to check on him. He was allegedly found lying on his living room floor. The cause of death is an apparent heart attack, although no autopsy has been performed. Speculation is rife about his replacement, but inside sources indicate that it will probably be billionaire Franklin Xavier, a long time friend and close confidant of the President.”

“A good man,” Chester muttered. “We can’t afford to loose good men like him. It’s a shame.”

Dorbec shook his head in agreement. “I met him in Chad several months ago. He seemed to be in very good physical shape at that time. They say he had a strict exercise regimen and was very careful about his diet, a retired military man.”

An hour later, two people, a man and a woman dressed in military uniform, appeared at the door. The interesting thing about the doors was that when someone wanted admittance the doors turned opaque. People on the inside could see the visitor, but the visitor could not see into the room. “We are here to escort you to the Council,” the female stated. They obviously did not expect a reply. They knew that the occupants heard their statement clearly.

They were expecting a large chamber like the House or Representatives or the Senate, but the place they entered was not much bigger than a small school lunchroom. Seating was aligned against one wall, and balcony seats against another. One wall held a large number of computer screens of varying sizes while the remaining wall took their breath away. The entire wall was a magnificent panorama of the underwater ocean. Although it looked like a window looking out onto a beautiful coral reef, it was in reality a giant monitor screen. A large lozenge shaped table sat in the center of the room with a dozen men and women around it. There were at least two dozen seats left vacant.

As they were led to the seats at the end of the table, Dorbec spotted Ariana sitting among their hosts. He winked at her, and received a bright smile in response. As soon as they were seated, the rest of the team, Oddball, Lars, Claude, The Geek, and the Navy Corpsman, John Carney, were led in and seated around them,

Following them, Brother Cencio, Bishop Khan, and several other men entered and took seats around the large table.

“Let the Council begin.” Ordered a regal looking man wearing a business suit. Chester could tell he was tall even while sitting down. He was thin, wore close-cropped hair, and had a tan that did not match his light blond features. Certain he had the attention of everyone at the table, he continued. “Who among you will speak for the Americans?” he asked.

“Colonel Chester Schmitt,” United States Army,” Chester replied, figuring his rank might mean something even among these people.

“And I, General Jean Marcel Dorbec, will speak for the French.” Dorbec boldly smiled at Chester then at the Councilor. “My first two questions are, who are you and why the hell are we here?”

Chester bowed his head to hide a wide grin. It would be like Dorbec to take the initiative.

The Councilor, who had yet to identify himself, waved a hand at Arianna. “Leader Arianna, will answer your first question.”

“For the record, we are the Aianni.” She stood and walked over to face Dorbec. “We have been on this planet for two hundred thousand years. For the past twelve thousand years we have lived in underground bases. Our only contact with the surface people is to send out observers to monitor their activities.”

“Why are you hiding underground like hermits?” Dorbec interrupted. “With your technology, you could assist your fellow human beings on the surface. We could use a hell of a lot of assistance.”

“We left the surface when our advanced civilization was destroyed. Your mythology names us the Atlanteans from the civilization of Atlantis. We are the same people but, as you see, we do not call ourselves Atlanteans, and never have. There are only about fifty thousand of our people left. We, as noted, are a very old civilization. It took us almost two hundred thousand years to finally give up war, conquest, slavery, and many other repugnant human traits. We have developed into a completely peaceful people and will not kill in the name of survival. Consequently, the surface world holds extreme dangers for us. Our ability to take life even in self defense has disappeared.”

“Yet you align yourselves with killers like Brother Cencio and Bishop Khan!”

“All for the cause of peace.”

“So, if I’m hearing you correctly, you can’t kill anymore, but you can evidently let others kill for you?” Dorbec sat back in his seat scowling with an angry look.

“You’re really no better than the Nazis,” Chester injected. “You think you’re the master race and a step above the rest of the people of the world.”

“We worked with the Nazi’s after they fled from the destruction of their homeland,” the Councilor answered. “We hoped to use them to achieve world peace, but, they took our technology and betrayed us. We know all about them, where they are based, and we know their ultimate goal is world domination.”

“Didn’t World War II teach you anything?”

“We do not get involved in international affairs. We try to distance ourselves as much as possible from the political and social upheavals of the surface world. We worked with the Nazi’s because they called themselves Aryans. We created the Aryan race twenty thousand years ago by interbreeding with other humans, and they were a very peaceful civilization. The word, Aryan, came from our name, the Arianni.”

“Your peaceful little Aryans turned into brutal Nazi killers. If you had more contact with the surface you would have known that. Surely you must know that Brother Cencio and Bishop Khan work for an organization which wants to achieve the same goal?”

The Councilor motioned for Ariana to return to her seat. “The Brotherhood is interested in one thing only, and that is world peace. Of this we are certain.”

“Dream on,”Oddball smiled.

“So, how about answering General Dorbec’s second question. Why did you kidnap us and bring us here?”

One of the men who accompanied Cencio and Khan into the room stood and bowed to the Counsel. He was a short rotund man, but the weight appeared to be more muscle than fat. He wore an expensive business suit; a custom tailored Giorgio Armani to be exact. “We need you to complete a mission for us. You and your team will be accompanied on the mission by Brother Contadino, Bishop Khan, Commander Ariana, and a few other select personnel.”

“Why us?” Dorbec asked. “You’ve got manpower to spare.”

“This is where it gets sensitive,” the man stated. “We need you, General Dorbec, for your genetic material, and we need the others to lend you military support. Our personnel, with the exception of Bishop Khan, do not have the requisite training and skill levels.”

“Again, what mission?” Chester demanded.

“To make a long story short, your mission will be to travel back in time to assist in the assassination of Jesus, the founder of Christianity, and Muhammad ibn Abdullah, the founder of Islam.

“Holy crap!” Oddball blurted.