Third Moon Rising by Ezra E Manes

Author:Ezra E Manes [Manes, Ezra E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ezra E Manes
Published: 2013-11-03T04:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

THE AIB

Carlos woke to a dimly illuminated room. The close personal encounter with Gloria earlier in the day immediately came to mind. He smiled at the thought, then stretched and yawned. Something didn’t feel right; he was alone in bed. He was the early riser of the two and a light sleeper, and should have noticed Gloria getting up.

He reached to turn up the lights. The light control was not there!

He felt around the head of the bed for a few moments, trying to find the control, and then sat straight up. He was in a small room that had neither door nor window nor any other openings apparent in the walls, ceiling, or floor. What was this, a dream, or had the Zilans whisked him away somewhere?

He looked around for a control mechanism to turn up the illumination, but none was apparent; the surrounding surfaces appeared to be uniformly smooth.

Great, guess I’m in the dark in more ways than one, he thought. To his surprise the room immediately brightened, and his growing bewilderment deepened as he discovered the off-white walls, floor, and ceiling were indeed uniformly smooth. Could Eve be involved?

Eve, are you monitoring my thoughts? No answer came.

He looked up the ceiling, which appeared to be iridescent. On impulse, he went over to the opposite wall and ran his hands over its surface from the floor to as high as he could reach. The wall material near the corner about halfway up was porous, allowing air to flow into the room. There must be another such panel where the air exhausted.

As he turned back toward the bed, it registered in his confused mind that he was wearing clothes, a loose-fitting, light-blue tunic top and dark-blue trousers, and a pair of dark-blue slippers. He had gone to sleep in his own bed with no clothes on, as had Gloria! This only deepened the mystery about what had occurred to place him here, wherever here was.

His thoughts turned again to Gloria with concern about what might have befallen her. To his astonishment, the wall at the head of the bed turned translucent to reveal a similar room with the only furniture being a bed. The figure on the bed was that of Gloria, still asleep and apparently oblivious to the situation. Was this all a dream, all in his mind?

His thoughts jumped to the other team members. Were they in similar rooms as well? The translucent wall went briefly opaque, then translucent again, showing another member of the team in an identical room. This process repeated nine more times, showing the other members of the team. All were sleeping as if they had no worries. Everyone was accounted for, even the two who had been on the New Horizon.

This was becoming weirder by the minute. Each change occurred immediately after he thought questions or concerns about something. Could someone or something be listening in at some level to his thoughts and responding generally to his questions and concerns?

I might as well test the thought.

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