“Xian.” She pronounced it like Shan.
“Xian, where did you get these buckets?”
Ptero answered instead. “Made them at the fire furnace—to help with my feeding formula. I cook it all over the same fire but separate the different foods, so I made dividers.”
While the primitive couple held Bach in conversation, Star felt compelled to return to the narrow room. She slipped through the crevice for one more look at the ogham alphabet, then studied various hieroglyphs on the walls. She easily interpreted some: a man and woman locking hands, a dinosaur with a baby, a series of eclipse phases taken from a nearby planet, a volcanic eruption. But among the painted and chiseled designs she noticed a different art form: a heat-branded image depicting a right hand with a cross and circle in the palm. The symbol of hope. She rushed to tell Bach, but as soon as she stepped back into the amethyst chamber, he motioned for her to examine the bucket.
Star noted the symbol Bach had found, then led him, Ptero, and Xian to the wall in the narrow room and pointed out the right hand with the crossed circle. Bach touched it and felt a form of energy coming from it. “Our sign!” He spoke excitedly to Xian and Ptero. “We’re here to take you with us. We’re on a mission from the Creator and we’ve come to take chosen people back to Dura—both of you.”
“When will we leave?” asked Ptero.
“As quickly as possible,” Bach said. “And we must bring your animals. But we weren’t expecting a volcano in the middle of everything. Where are those baby animals? We have to hurry.”
The ancient pair motioned for Bach and Star to step back from the box-like stone table, then Ptero slid the heavy rectangular slab from the top. The huge slab rolled away with little effort, amazing Bach. On closer look, he noticed a carved trench around the table’s top with marble-sized stones inside that worked like ball bearings. More surprising was seeing dozens of baby prehistoric animals—none larger than the tennis-ball-sized phroo—and various-sized eggs inside the box.
Ptero pulled nine small, twig cages and six animal-skin pouches from beneath the table, then caught a baby dinosaur the size of a chameleon and handed it to Bach. “I’ve found a way to keep animals small so they’ll not require as much food.”
Bach marveled at the miniaturized Stone Age animals as he helped put them into the twig cages and pouches.
Star cradled the squirming black phroo in her hands, then held it at eye level and looked into its big purple eyes. The frightened critter squealed and rolled into a ball. “It’s good the animals are all small. I don’t know where we would have put those larger species at full size,” she said.
Star had barely finished her sentence when Ptero swung the pouch from his shoulder. “Look,” he said, removing the writhing white phroo from the bag. “Caught him.” The wriggling furball sprang from his hand and scurried across the floor into the main chamber. Bach and Ptero hurried after it, but weren’t fast enough. The phroo balled up and rolled behind a boulder the size of a refrigerator. Ptero dropped to his knees and strained to reach behind the boulder. “Come back,” he cried out. He looked at Bach. “We’ll never get him.”
Bach grumbled, “We have to.” He slapped his hands on the boulder, trying to scare the phroo from hiding, but the critter stayed put. “Let’s put his mate’s cage nearby. Maybe he’ll come out for her.” An explosive blast outside seemed to respond to his plan. The cave’s walls and floor shook, and Star and Xian hurried to the entranceway. A second volcano had erupted to the left of the caves.
Knowing that the two walls of lava bearing down on the caves would soon enclose them, Ptero rushed to a granite slab standing upright alongside the door. “Hurry,” he bellowed to the others. The four lined up shoulder-to-shoulder and leaned on the slab with all their weight, but it didn’t move.
Determined, they pushed again and again, feet sliding, falling down, and shoving until their insides hurt. Finally, Bach yelled, “Push in short bursts! Heave-HO!” The slab slid an inch. The next “Heave-HO,” gained another inch, then another, until the doorway was sealed. Yellow and red lights flickered through cracks in the rocks like flashbulbs, and a wave of lava slammed against the cave. Within seconds, the darkened cavern seemed a merciless purgatory.
The thought of roasting to death propelled Bach onward. “Quick,” he snapped, herding everyone into the narrow chamber. “It’ll stay cool there the longest.” He turned back to the main room. “I’ll plug up the cracks. Gotta keep out the smoke and lava.”
Wearing his E-suit space gloves, Bach stuffed every pebble and stone he could find into crevices around the slab. In the savage heat, the cave’s oxygen level fell to a critical low. Drenched in sweat, he grew light-headed and confused. His eyes flickered open and shut and he staggered backwards, leaning against the wall as he slid to the floor. The white phroo scurried past his feet. The white phroo? Am I hallucinating? Then he saw it again, pawing at its mate’s cage. The little critter’s purple eyes focused on him as if pleading for help before it scurried back behind the boulder. The caged female lay panting on her side.
Bach mulled over the white phroo’s appearance in his foggy mind. NASA’s “think-aloud protocol” kicked in. “That phroo came for his mate, but didn’t stay. Why’d he go back?” Wobbling to his feet, he grabbed the caged female and moved her to the cooler inner chamber. Then he headed back to the boulder, snatched off a glove, and wedged his arm behind the crevice all the way up to his elbow. The air inside felt cool and clammy, almost refrigerated.
Leaning hard on the huge rock, he pushed with all his might, but it didn’t budge. He bellowed from scalding lungs, “Star! Everyone! Out here. Hurry!”
The others rushed to the boulder and, together, rocked it back and forth until momentum rolled it aside, exposing a cool, dark passageway two feet wide and five feet high. A chilly draft streamed from the shaft into the sweltering cave, swirling the stifling air into a foggy mist. Bach saw the white phroo balled up three feet inside the shaft. He scooped it up and handed it to Xian.
Bach and Star hurriedly removed their headgear, and all four revived themselves with deep breaths of the tunnel’s cool, subterranean air. Then Bach hunched over and stepped into the shaft. “I’ll be right back.”
“Careful,” Star said.
After he’d moved a few feet in, the others lost sight of him. When several minutes passed with no communication, Star, Xian, and Ptero eyed each other without words.
Star yelled into the shaft. “Bach, hurry.”
No reply.
Pacing, she nervously rubbed her hands on her hips, then leaned in and yelled again. “Bach?” She looked at the others. “Something’s wrong.” She entered the passageway, calling into the darkness. “Bach?”
No answer.
Farther in, she called again, “Bach, where are you?”
His voice echoed back as if he were a mile away. “It’s cool all the way—continues on. Get the others and the animals.”
Star stepped back into the cave and helped Xian and Ptero gather the twig cages and pouches. The three were ready to go when Bach returned.
“Hurry!” he said as he set foot inside the ovenish cave.
Star entered the shaft first, followed by Xian, then Bach and Ptero, all carrying pouches and cages. “Careful,” Bach warned, “It’s a gradual incline through slippery muck.” Bending low and unable to see, the four moved deeper and deeper into the tunnel. The only sounds were their struggling breaths, and from their feet sucking up and down in the sediment.
Feeling her way along the slime-coated walls with one hand while carrying one cage under her other arm and another in her hand, Star came to a narrow area where she had to angle her body and reposition the cages to fit though. She called back to the others, but at the same time pitched forward with an unexpected cry.
“Star, you okay?” came the sound of Bach’s voice.
“I’m okay. I caught my foot on flat rocks and dropped the two cages.”
“I found them,” Xian said
from behind.
Star rustled around in the darkness. “I’ll move the rocks.” An odd silence followed. “Bach. They’re etched or inscribed.”
Bach squeezed past Xian and ran his hand over two flat limestone tablets. When he added them to his load, an ominous rumble shook the tunnel. “Another one’s erupted. Let’s move!”
The four pressed on in the darkness, crouching, crawling, and climbing through the narrow cavity of oozing muck. The loads they carried now weighed like millstones around their necks, and Bach complained. “This has to end somewhere. It’s taking too long.”
Minutes later, warm air and a faint orange light flowed into the shaft from above.
Then, with hands and legs covered in slime, the four emerged atop a thirty-foot mount. Two miles at their backs, the pyroclastic flow marked off its territory with a roaring vengeance and the area of caves where they’d been was ablaze.
Bach and Star replaced their headgear. She yelled over the rumbling, “I can’t tell which way to go through all the ash and smoke.”
Bach looked out over the surrounding area. “I can’t either.” He pointed ahead in desperation. “Let’s get more distance between us and the lava and try to figure it out.”
They descended the mount single-file and Ptero caught up with Bach at the bottom. “Isn’t your ship at the co-op landing site?”
“No. There was a small active volcano near there, so we landed several miles beyond in a valley with one barren region.”
Ptero stopped walking. “Did you see a fireball trail?”
Bach slowed and looked back at Ptero. “Fireball trail?”
Ptero nodded. “Our pathway to the place of worship. A fireball made from colored stones.”
“Yes, yes. The trail with the gemstone comet,” Bach said. “It’s right near the ship.”
Ptero pointed straight ahead. “That way.”
#
The four hastened down the comet trail, then stopped at the rocky ridge in front of the ship. Exhausted from carrying the extra load, Bach set the heavy stones on the ground to catch his breath before climbing the mount’s steep face.
Ptero looked at the stone tablets, excited and curious. “Our leaders have searched for these for generations; they’re depicted on our most ancient mount.” He knelt for a closer look. “It is said they are the Creator’s laws.”
“Awesome!” Bach replied. He pulled the remote control from his pocket, reloaded his arms with the cargo, and the four proceeded up the ridge. He had his finger on the button to open the ramp, but stopped short at the top at seeing two huge apes standing near the ship.
Ptero and Xian seemed more shocked than Bach and Star. Ptero looked at Xian in disbelief. “Who are they?”
She eyed them curiously, “I’ve never seen them before.”
The docile apes quietly watched the four on the ridge. The smaller one clutched something in its left hand.
Bach opened the ramp, grumbling. “We don’t have time for this!”
The ancients stumbled down the ridge and raced past the apes into the ship.
Concerned that the apes may cause trouble, Bach descended first, with Star close behind. He set his cargo on the ground and cautiously strode onto the ramp. Both apes stepped onto the ramp at the same time. When they showed no signs of aggression, Star moved to Bach’s side.
Breathing hard with apprehension, Bach looked at Star and shook his head. “Help me get them off the ramp. We have to get out of here!”
“Let’s lead them off.” She set down the twig cages she carried and extended her right hand to the smaller of the two.
The small ape mimicked Star’s outstretched right hand. Inside its leathery palm was what appeared to be a mark made by a branding iron—a cross in a circle.
Bach noticed it first. “What?” he shouted louder than intended as he grabbed the ape’s hand and examined the mark.
The larger ape moved forward.
Trying to get a good breath from behind his headgear, Bach thrust out his hand as if to say, stay back. The ape immediately held up its hand in the same way. It also had a crossed circle seemingly branded into its hand.
“This is crazy!” Bach said, looking at the ape’s hand again. “They have the symbol. But we already have our two people.” He looked around, wildly confused, as the fiery disaster bore down.
Star looked again at the symbol in the primates’ palms. “We can’t leave them.”
The smaller ape stepped closer and looked into Bach’s eyes as if communicating. Then, it was as if the Creator shone a light on Bach’s thought processes and he remembered the instructions he’d received on the mount. “Oh, God!” he yelped excitedly. “Star, this is part of the Creator’s instruction. He said to resolve trials through spiritual discernment. This is a trial.”
“This is when you pray,” she replied.
Bach whispered a prayer. When he opened his eyes, he knew that the symbol in the apes’ palms met the Creator’s requirement for passage onto the Ark. “Hurry,” he said to Star. “We’ll take them.” Yet he couldn’t help wondering, What are apes doing here and how did they get here?
As Bach and Star rushed up the ramp with the primates, the smaller ape stopped for a moment and handed Star a pocket-sized fur pouch closed by a drawstring. Something rattled inside. Star hurriedly tucked it inside her E-suit.
Bach led the animals to their module, and Star retrieved the cages and stone tablets from the ramp. The volcanic air had warmed by ten degrees. She rushed to the cockpit and closed the ramp just as Bach returned from the animals’ module.
Ptero and Xian stood nearby, still suffering from heat fatigue. Ptero coughed up stale smoke. “We don’t know those two. We’ve never seen them before.”
Xian added, “I thought we had all the animal species accounted for.”
“We’ll figure it out as we go,” Bach replied. “Time to get out of here.” He pulled off his E-suit and readied for liftoff.
Star hurried Ptero and Xian to their quarters, then stored her E-suit and headgear and took her place alongside Bach.
The Ark ascended to a diminishing view of half of Zarephath glowing like a molten sun.
*****
Star leaned back in exhaustion. “It’s a miracle we made it through all that,” she said to Bach. “The two creatures we just boarded that you call apes are extremely interesting, of higher intelligence than the other animals.”
“Yes, they are,” he replied. “But they’re too big to use the facilities in the E-module, and there are no specialized chambers left anyway, so I placed them in with the animals.”
Star nodded. “Do you think this is their natural state, or were they once a higher life-form that evolved into creatures able to withstand all the toxic waste on their planet?”
“Interesting question. I wish we could ask them.” Bach was quiet for a moment. “Let me share a different theory about apes with you,” he said. “Some anthropologists on Earth believe that primates were the earliest form of man, and that they evolved into the people we are today.”
After a moment’s thought, Star said, “I believe that evolution could occur in either direction, but not to drastic degrees.”
“That makes sense,” Bach replied.
Star listed Xian’s and Ptero’s names on the roster, but unknowingly misspelled them as Shan and Terro. “What’s next on our mission?”
“Started with seventeen days … two left,” Bach replied. An odd sigh escaped, almost as if he tried to hold it back, but couldn’t. “That includes getting back to Dura. We’re not gonna make it. We don’t have enough fuel.” He flashed a laser pen at the suspended panel. “Look at this. Dividing acceleration, times distance to the last planet into energy available, we’ll be on an empty glide heading back to Dura. I can’t shake a weird feeling.”
“Focus on the goal and pray. The Creator will see this effort and his people through.”
“By the way, what’s in the little pouch that the female ape handed you?�
� he asked.
“Don’t know. It’s back there with my E-suit. I’ll get it.”
Star carried the jangling fur pouch back to the cockpit, then sat beside Bach and shook it gently over his waiting hands. A dazzling array of sparkling diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and dozens of other colorful gemstones tumbled out.
She examined the jewels one at a time. “It’s amazing that something this beautiful comes from the ground.”
He picked up a round blue gem. “This one’s the color of your eyes.”
Embarrassed, she changed the subject. “We must keep these safe for the apes.”
“Think about the little phroos who seek out these jewels,” Bach offered. “No wonder everyone wants to own a phroo. I hope our two little ones thrive and start a family.”
Star smiled and wrinkled her nose as she put the gemstones back in the bag. “Can you imagine a baby phroo? A little tiny one?”
He nodded with an electric grin. “It would surely be cute.” Then he turned serious. “I’m still in awe of those stone tablets. Ptero said the engravings might be the Creator’s laws.”
“I’ll try to electronically decode them when we get back to Dura. But what made you bring them along?”
“Don’t know. Just overcome with a feeling.”
Monitoring planet Zarephath for the last time after breaking the gravity field, Star cried out in alarm, “Bach! Look! The whole planet’s an inferno!”
Fearing what was to come, Bach advanced the Ark’s engines to full power.
Not three seconds later, the blazing sphere exploded before their eyes, blasting molten debris into space with the velocity of meteors. Viewed from the rapidly ascending Ark, the flaming planetary fragments appeared to inch through space.
Bach’s stony expression spoke volumes. In delivering the ship from disaster, the powerful launch cost most of their fuel.
*****
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
After reading the journal entry for Ashkelon, their last stop, Bach knew that a unique search effort lay ahead. Seventy-five percent of the planet’s surface was covered by water. An aerial view showed suspension bridges connecting five islands that looked like they’d been cut and pasted onto a watery background, and floating buildings, spillways, boats, and dinghies completed the scene. The landing site for co-op ships was near a small island shipyard where vessels were stored and repaired. Bach set the big ship down there, then disembarked with Star.
Alpha Rising Page 26
