Noah's Ark

by Vijaya Schartz

  Kostas guided his two wide pallets into an empty space between groups of settlers in the second half of the forming column. He set the sensors on automatic to synchronize their speed with the objects and people in front and behind in the convoy. Then he jogged ahead along the slow-moving convoy, grateful for the exercise.

  By the time Kostas caught up with his group of settlers, they'd already covered three hundred yards on the short march toward the looming citadel, herding their sheep and goats. Chickens and other fowl cowered in cages piled high upon antigrav pallets and partially covered with thermal blankets. He heard the frantic snorts of pigs and detected their stink coming from another pallet of cages. The remaining loads among his assigned group consisted of the fresh meat of cattle killed in the crash, sacs of grain, and bales of hay.

  Kostas spotted a handful of officers directing the flow from the side of the column, helping and answering questions. He quickly caught up to them. To his disappointment, Trixie wasn't among them.

  “Where is the captain?” His gaze searched up and down the convoy. He wasn't really worried about her. His eagerness was strictly professional.

  The tall black officer with long beaded braids sticking out of his parka hood pointed to the other side of the line, toward a slender silhouette in government issue thermal gear. Dark blue. That confirmed Kostas' suspicions. The captain was Fleet... or had been. Selective breeding, first rate education, top brass.

  He crossed the column through a space between groups. As he approached the captain, she was in a heated discussion with McLure, who flaunted a luxurious sable coat with a hood and fur boots.

  “Professor McLure,” Trixie was saying, with only a hint of exasperation, “we can only carry so much on this first trip. I'm sorry you had to choose among your precious cargo, but we may be able to return for the rest tomorrow.”

  Kostas offered a half salute. “If it's safe enough, I'll come and get it myself, Professor. For now, whatever you have here is all we can carry. Survival comes first.”

  “I can't expect people like you to understand.” The man relented with a grunt and spun away, shaking snow from his expensive fur coat.

  Kostas glanced at the man's retreating back and smiled at Trixie. “Captain, may I have a word?”

  “Make it brief.” She rubbed her gloved hands together.

  “I took the liberty of loading two large pallets of weapons.” Kostas pointed to the place in the column where he'd positioned them.

  “How typical!” Trixie's voice erupted loud and cutting in the cold air, with a hint of exasperated sarcasm. “I specifically requested survival supplies only.” She counted on her gloved fingers. “Livestock, food, medicine, tools...”

  Her attitude sluiced Kostas like an icy shower. Tempted to clam up, he decided otherwise but struggled to keep his tone neutral and low. “You'll need these weapons if whoever shot us down comes looking for us.”

  “We were shot down by automated defenses on the small moon.” Trixie shook her head in obvious frustration. “No one manned the guns. We detected no ships in the vicinity.”

  Trusting his instincts, Kostas refused to capitulate. “Still...”

  “Still what?” She took a quick breath. “You military types are all alike. Shoot first, think later. These pallets could have carried more food rations.”

  Kostas ground his teeth then struggled to keep his voice civil. “I beg to disagree, Captain. Whoever built that moon station did it for a reason. Some advanced civilization staked a claim on this planet, and they may return at any time.”

  “If they ever return.” Trixie's visible efforts to calm herself failed as her voice rose again. “That battery of cannons might have been on the moon for centuries. That race may never come back, or not in this millennium. But without food, many of these people will die of starvation or related disease before the end of the winter.”

  “Hold it, Captain.” Kostas wouldn't let her blame him for doing the right thing. “We still might be able to get the rations tomorrow.”

  “Orders are orders, soldier.” Her voice dropped to a quiet but threatening level. “I expect you of all people to follow them to the letter.”

  Kostas refused to apologize for his actions. “May I remind you, Captain, that we are not on your ship anymore. You have no authority on land, and I am the survival expert on this expedition.”

  She just stared at him, open-mouthed. Afraid he'd say something he might regret, Kostas tightened his jaw and held Trixie's glare without flinching. She didn't flinch either. So much fire in those cool blue eyes. Damn! She was beautiful when angry.

  “Captain!” A short and stocky bundled up officer ran toward them.

  Trixie turned toward the officer and hurried away.

  Kostas marched back to his assigned group of civilians. How disappointing... the captain was just a pretty little rich girl from Earth with no combat experience, and a chip on her shoulder. Not their best chance of survival in this kind of situation. “Damn!”

  Low gray clouds weighed the sky like a closed dome, hiding the twin suns, but it looked like late afternoon.

  Soon, the head of the convoy stopped, and the rest staggered to a stop behind them, struggling not to bump into each other.

  An officer ran toward Kostas. “The captain wants your input.”

  “No shit.” Kostas wondered why she'd even call upon him after cussing him out. While jogging alongside the crewman toward the front of the column, he hoped the captain finally realized she needed his unique skills.

  He approached the group of officers standing at the edge of a precipice. A deep gorge, fifty feet wide, plunged several hundred feet deep. The gigantic crack in the rock separated them from the mountain range and the fortified citadel clinging to its slopes. At the bottom, flowed a narrow river. Judicious use of a natural fissure for defense purposes.

  The captain sighed. “Any ideas, Mister Kostas?”

  “A hundred come to mind.” He chuckled nervously. “But some of them you don't want to hear.”

  She didn't seem amused. “Quickest, easiest way to cross this void?”

  By the gray late afternoon light, Kostas pulled the binocs from his belt and observed the smooth wall jutting from the opposite rim of the gorge. It surrounded the entire city. The monumental tower gate directly across the chasm was blocked by a wide drawbridge of heavy metal plates in vertical position. He wondered what the people who lived here before feared, to hide behind these forbidding walls. Did he need to be afraid as well?

  “The technology looks simple.” He cleared his voice. “Chains, pulleys, counterweights... the drawbridge looks serviceable, but I would advise against heavy equipment rolling on that old thing.”

  “Can you deploy that bridge?” Trixie's stance and tone challenged him.

  “I'll have to see it up close, first, to figure out the mechanism.” Kostas allowed himself a small smile as he lowered the binocs and dropped his tactical rucksack. Out of it, he pulled a small crossbow with a grapple hook secured to a long line. “I can cross the void on an antigrav pallet, then climb to the top of that tower to lower the bridge.”

  “Simple, but not that easy.” The defiance in Trixie's tone scraped like dull blades on Martian ice. “Antigrav pallets are not made for such depths. Are you sure you can do it?”

  “I won't know until I try,” Kostas grumbled, hating himself for reacting to her taunts. “You have a better idea?”

  Of course, she didn't. The captain chewed her lower lip and motioned to a crew member. “Clear a small antigravity pallet for him, and give him a radio.”

  Kostas clipped the offered radio to his belt, shaking his head. “It's going to be a bumpy ride.”

  “Don't take ridiculous risks... we need you alive,” she said softly. “Good luck.”

  Kostas picked up his pack and flung it over his back then he climbed on the antigravity pallet. Not a recommended stunt. Pallets were made for inert loads. He crouched on the metal plate like a dune surfer in a sandsto
rm and readied himself for the plunge.

  * * *

  Trixie's heart skipped as Kostas dropped from view into the precipice. Fighting her fear of heights, she forced herself to step to the edge and adjusted her binocs to watch him glide near the bottom in a wide curve, then rise gradually at a steady angle, all the time holding the sides of the antigravity plate. Wraith! What if it flipped?

  She watched the fluid motions of his body as he adjusted his balance for the slant and followed the curves of the rocky bottom to rise again as if on a wave. She'd never seen anyone do such tricks on a floating pallet. Soon, he reached a flat ledge across the void, just under the walls. He steadied the pallet and dismounted.

  He pulled out his small crossbow and aimed at the top of the surrounding wall. The bolt flew high, uncoiling the cable, arcing above the wall. When he pulled back on the line, the grapple had caught. He tested the line with a few expert tugs, then activated the winch and let the mechanism lift him smoothly up the cable toward the battlements.

  Trixie had no doubt about his genetically enhanced status. Looking at him go, she could judge his physical strength, balance, and agility. No ordinary man could do that, especially in frigid conditions. Besides, such esthetic perfection could only be enhanced. He wasn't even thick with muscles, just broad-shouldered, and very strong.

  She berated herself for locking horns with Kostas. She knew she needed his expertise and his muscle, but she didn't trust military types... or tycoons like her father, for that matter. They always seemed to have a hidden agenda and saw everything as a threat. But mostly, they thought the rules didn't apply to them, and they used imagined threats to seize power, and exert control over everyone else.

  This business of lugging weapons from the ship had pushed her buttons and frayed her nerves. What was it with military men and their obsession with weaponry? Couldn't they believe in the remote possibility of peaceful cohabitation between planetary races?

  If hostile aliens decided to attack, these weapons would not last long against a full offensive. And initiating first contact with weapons' fire would ruin any chance of peaceful rapport. It might even get them all killed. Marooned, without an army to back them up, they would be as helpless as children.

  She glanced at the gathered settlers behind her. Some switched their weight from foot to foot to keep warm. Others seemed in a state of shock, unaware of their surroundings as they waited in the pink twilight.

  Trixie remembered the magenta halo she had witnessed from space, like an aura between the zones of light and darkness. She wondered what phenomenon caused it. Was it due to the changes in temperature? Or to the planet's magnetism, like the Northern Lights on Earth?

  Just in case Kostas might be right about alien presence, Trixie didn't want to attract any unwanted attention to the group of survivors. She radioed to her officers. “Tell everyone, no artificial light or fire until they are safely indoors. We can manage by the pink twilight.”

  She hoped Kostas would deploy that bridge soon. In any case, an hour from now, without the illuminations of civilization, under an overcast sky blotting out stars and moons, the night would be as black as space.

  The waiting gnawed at her nerves. What was taking so long? She keyed her radio. “Kostas? How's it going? We are losing daylight.”

  “Don't get your panties in a bunch, Captain,” Kostas answered. “Coming right down.”

  A loud clatter made Trixie glance at the gate tower across the divide.

  The moans of chains and heavy catching gears and cogwheels pierced the cold air. By the faint light, she could see that the long metallic frame of the drawbridge shook. Against the pinkish gray sky, the end of the drawbridge slowly separated itself from the top of the gate tower at a widening angle.

  It took several minutes to lower the bridge level with the edge of the southern rim where they stood. Then a roar of appreciation rose from the settlers as the heavy plate alighted with a tremor and a clang, to rest firmly on their side of the gorge.

  When Trixie raised her binocs to assess the gate tower at the other end, she realized that a heavy metal grate still blocked the entrance. It looked like another contraption from Medieval or Roman times. She searched for the word. Her history lessons seemed so far away. Then the name for that device came back to her... a portcullis, that was it. A portcullis.

  Before she could worry about the grate, a scraping of heavy machinery filled the night, and the portcullis rose, clearing the gate.

  “Proceed onto the bridge,” Trixie ordered in a clear voice, her breath fogging in front of her face. The temperature was dropping quickly.

  The order bounced down the line and the first group with their livestock and loaded antigravity pallets stepped upon the heavy metal plates, their feet drumming like a stampede.

  A weight she hadn't realized she carried floated off Trixie's shoulders. She breathed easier within the limitations of her taped ribs. They would be safe for the night. In the morning, all would seem clearer. She marched along the column as the settlers hurried the pace, no doubt heartened by the sight of their refuge from the cold.

  * * *

  Kostas watched the survivors from the top of the battlements over the gate. Some rushed inside in the fading rosy glow, eager to discover their new abode and make it their home. Others drudged along, grateful to have survived the worst, as if everything from now on would be easy. They had no idea how difficult it would be to colonize this frozen rock. Kostas knew better. Nothing worthwhile ever came easy.

  He spotted Trixie and her crew, directing various groups, allocating temporary lodgings, according to the number of people and animals in each party. They could not explore in the dark. Exploration and proper assignments would have to wait until morning.

  For now, Kostas preferred to stay out of the way. He entered the guardhouse atop the east tower, where he intended to bunk. As he glanced out the bare opening serving as a window, he could barely see the wreck. He also noticed the pulley at the top of the stone window frame... handy. Then he closed the wooden shutters.

  Kostas dumped his rucksack in a corner, pulled a torchlight out of it and set it on the rough-hewn table, facing up. The indirect light, reflected on the ceiling, spilled on the two benches and four bunk beds, the large fireplace, and the stack of cut firewood next to it on the dark stone floor. Who had cut the firewood? How very odd.

  A knock at the door made him turn. “It's open.”

  Trixie, the lovely captain entered and closed the door behind her. How did she manage to look so pretty in a parka, after a day like this? She smiled, her clear blue eyes illuminating the entire room. “Are you okay in here?”

  “I've bunked in worse barracks.” Kostas struggled to keep his heartbeat steady.

  “Still, it's cold.” She rubbed her hands together. “The settlers have lit their fireplaces. Some are cooking meat. They invited us to share their collective meal. Especially you. They want to thank their hero.”

  “I'm no hero. I do my job, that's all.” Kostas sat on the bench and motioned for Trixie to sit across the table. “Doesn't all this bother you?”

  By the lamp glow, her features tensed. He could now see the worry in her pale face, the slight disarray of her short blond hair. “What could bother me? We finally got a lucky break in finding this place.”

  “It's almost as if this citadel was waiting for us, ready to go.” Kostas needed to warn her. “How could it be locked from the inside when there are no people left? Everything is clean and in good repair. This is not an abandoned ruin by any standard, despite its age. And who cut that firewood?”

  Trixie chuckled. “You see mischief everywhere.”

  Kostas sighed. “It's my experience that when things look too good to be true, they usually are.”

  He considered the possibility that he might be in a coma from the crash, dying, while his mind concocted this entire scenario, but he didn't share that depressing thought.

  Trixie smiled straight at him and his heart skipped
. “In the mountains of Earth, there are public log cabins kept stocked with food, firewood and blankets, ready to accommodate lost or weary travelers needing shelter in a storm.”

  “You put too much stock in the goodness of mankind.” Kostas snorted. “Or alien kind in this case. Why would anyone out here care about our wellbeing? That, to me, is highly suspicious.”

  “We had a long, trying day. Why don't you relax and come eat with us?” She rose, extending her hand, inviting him to do the same. “In the morning, we'll see everything more clearly. Then we'll explore this city and see what we've got to work with. In my opinion, this place is a good omen. An excellent start.”

  Kostas grunted but rose from the bench. He didn't take her hand. He may not be able to withstand the heat it would generate at his core. His stomach rumbled. After weeks of ship fare, he would welcome fresh barbecued meat. Besides, he didn't want to be labeled as difficult to work with. As the survival specialist for this expedition, he wanted to be a team player.

  He turned off the flashlight. When he opened the door, a chilly wind hit him. He let Trixie out first and followed her on the wall walk. From atop the rampart, they looked over the vast plain. Despite the dark night and the clouds blotting the stars, the snow reflected enough of a glow that his enhanced vision could barely distinguish the dark wreck of Noah’s Ark in the distance.

  A subtle but familiar sound made him glance up. Kostas grabbed Trixie and pulled her down below the battlement.

  “What is it?” Her voice trembled slightly as she looked up at him.

  “Incoming!” He crouched and sheltered her with his body, not sure where the attack was coming from, or where it was going.

  Overhead, a stream of projectiles streaked through the night sky like pieces of a comet. He reluctantly released the lovely captain when he realized they weren't the target. Together they rose, following the trajectory of the fiery missiles. They hit Noah’s Ark in an explosive cloud of orange and yellow fire.