Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble (Noah Zarc, #1)

by Pease, D. Robert

  Sometimes I wondered about the government’s edict that no human could live on Earth again. The Poligarchy decreed that the planet had to be saved for the animals we rescued from the past. It seemed wrong, somehow, to keep people from living on a world so perfectly suited for human life. Dad said it had to do with the guilt we felt for our role in the destruction of Earth. I wasn’t sure I felt responsible for something that happened hundreds of years ago, but I certainly agreed we should do what we could to bring the animals back. Besides, questioning the Poligarchy could have terrible repercussions, so Dad told me to just avoid the topic.

  I shook my head clear. There were people a lot smarter than me working on the problems of the solar system.

  The temperature in the arctic habitat was near freezing, so I pulled a warm parka off a hook just outside the door. I entered the pod and surveyed the room, if it could be called that. Already it looked like a pristine, subalpine forestland—I could barely make out the bulkhead above, and all the trees and undergrowth blocked out most of the walls.

  An electric Jeep Dad brought back from one of his excursions to the late twenty-first century sat next to the hatch. Obadiah ran in circles, excited to go for a ride. I moved to the driver-side door, opened it, and pulled myself from my chair into the seat. Leaving the magchair by the hatch, I slammed the door. Obadiah scampered through the window to the seat next to me.

  The Jeep was retrofitted with sensors for my neuro-implant, so I pressed the power button and imagined putting my foot on the accelerator. Of course my lifeless legs didn’t move a muscle, but the Jeep lurched forward. It wasn’t made for a twelve-year-old driver, so it was a little hard for me to see over the dashboard—but hey, if I could pilot spaceships, surely I could drive a clunky old car. I’m not sure why Dad likes these beaters so much. Give me a star-runner any day. Or a thermsuit.

  We bounced through the woods on a dirt road, little more than a game trail. Obadiah kept his eyes out for squirrels or chipmunks in the undergrowth, but this was a new habitat. Aside from Sam, Obadiah, and me, there were no living creatures in the forest around us. Of course, he didn’t know that, so his whole body shook with excitement as he dashed back and forth between the open windows.

  I laughed at him. “Life’s pretty great when you haven’t got a clue, Obadiah.”

  His big pink tongue flopped around when he looked at me.

  “What am I saying? You get all the food you want. You sleep in a warm bed. The most you ever have to worry about is whether or not I’ll give you a crust off my PB&J. You’ve got it all figured out.”

  Satisfied he’d put me in my place, he licked my face and went back to looking out the window. Frozen potholes cracked and splashed while the Jeep trundled along.

  “Locate Sam.” The screen on the dashboard positioning system lit up, and after a few seconds, a small red dot appeared with little light rings pulsating around it. I whistled.

  “How’d she get so far already?”

  The Jeep rattled along for a quarter-hour. The heater didn’t work, and it wasn’t the same as rocketing through space, but I was having fun. Finally, up ahead, I saw Sam climbing over a stone ridge. Dozens of robots surrounded her: planters, sculptors, and dozers (my favorite).

  She swiped her gloved fingers over her wrist-comm and the robots headed off down the trail. I brought the Jeep to a stop, looked around, then yelled out the window.

  “This is amazing!”

  She turned with a scowl on her face.

  “What?” I said.

  “Don’t try to suck up to me now, Noah. What took you so long?”

  “Hey, a kid’s gotta eat.”

  “You can eat when Mom and Dad get home.” She looked around at the forest. “This place is a mess. Help me get it cleaned up.”

  “I think it looks great. Mom and Dad’ll love it.” I stayed seated in the Jeep.

  “Get out here and help me pick up these tools?” She bent to retrieve a shovel, then realized I wasn’t moving.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t bring your chair.”

  Uh oh, here it comes.

  “I asked you to come down here and help! How are you going to do that if you can’t even get out of the car?” She stomped over and threw the shovel in the back of the Jeep. “Come on Noah, use your brain.”

  “Don’t you think I know I can’t get out of the car?” I let my voice rise. “Don’t you think every day I wish I could just hop down and—”

  “Oh, don’t play the poor helpless cripple card.” She finished loading the rest of the tools. “You handle yourself just fine, and you knew perfectly well I needed your help. You just use your shriveled legs as an excuse.”

  I sat stunned. “I…”

  She was right. I did try to get sympathy for being in a magchair, but she had no idea what it was like —always relying on someone else or some piece of technology just to move.

  She saw the look on my face.

  “I’m sorry, Noah.” Her face softened further as she looked around the habitat. “Do you think the deer will love it?”

  “Of course they’ll love it. It’s just like home, except no wolves or lions to eat them.”

  “Lions don’t live in the same environment as the Irish deer.” She smiled slightly. “They’ll be safe here. Nothing, and no one, will harm them.” I couldn’t tell by her face what she was thinking.

  “Sam,” I said, “you’re not really worried about Mom and Dad, are you?”

  “Of course not!” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Noah. I am a little worried, but they’ve been late before.”

  She climbed into the passenger seat.

  “You remember when they went after the blue whales? Dad said it would be a piece of cake and they’d be back before we had the habitat done. And if we didn’t hurry, he’d stick them in your bathtub.”

  I laughed. “They had to go back four times before they finally got Jada corralled in the ship’s hold.”

  “She was one stubborn whale,” Sam said.

  It still didn’t sit right with me. With the whales, they hadn’t actually been late coming home—they just had to keep going back. But knowing I wasn’t the only one who was worried made me feel a little better.

  The great blue whales swam along a transparent composite wall, oblivious to the tiny humans marveling at their grace.

  “I’m always surprised how small Jonah is,” I said. “Well, for a whale.”

  Sam laughed. Her mood had definitely lifted on the ride to the whales. It hadn’t taken much prodding to get her to come for a visit—this time, anyway. I never knew if she was going to bite my head off or give me a hug. Dad said it was a girl thing—whatever that meant. Far as I knew, seventeen-year-old females might as well be aliens. I’d never figure them out.

  “You think Jonah’s small?” she said. “I remember when Mom and Dad brought you home.” She looked at me with that look girls get when they see something cute—doe eyed with goofy smiles. “You were the smallest baby I’d ever seen. Grandma and Grandpa were watching Ham and me on the ARC while Mom and Dad went to Mars. Told me they’d be back with my new baby brother in just a few weeks.”

  Sam cocked her head sideways. “You know, now that I think of it, I don’t remember Mom even having a big belly. That must’ve been why you were so small, you came early.” She slugged me in the arm. “That’s the last time you were early for anything.

  “I remember Mom bringing you to my room.” Sam’s eyes had that far-off look again. “She let me take care of you. Ham and even Dad didn’t seem to want to have much to do with you at first. Maybe they thought you’d break easily, since your legs didn’t work.” Sam frowned, then ruffled my hair. “I got to help give you baths, feed you, even changed your diaper.”

  “Can we talk about something else?” I said.

  Sam laughed. “Sorry, I hadn’t thought about that in so long.” She looked back at the whales and smiled. “Jonah is getting so big.”

  I watched J
onah swim along with his mother. The baby whale was over six meters long. “How many whales do you think this habitat will hold?”

  Sam glanced away from the calf and his mother after they crested the surface to get some air. “Mom would have a better idea than me, but I think somewhere around ten. From what she says, our biggest problem with the whales is their food supply. We have to keep the krill reproducing at a faster rate than the whales eat it.”

  “I wonder where Abner is?” I said.

  “He can’t be far.” Sam pressed her face against the transparent wall and put her hands around her eyes. “Yup, there he is.”

  The giant whale appeared out of the gloom and joined mother and baby.

  “It boggles my mind sometimes, you know?” I said. “All these animals, even the great blue whale, on one ship.”

  In my opinion, the ARC was humankind’s greatest achievement, in the thirty-first century or any other century for that matter. The fact that the ARC could be so large and still travel through time still amazed me. The ship was my parent’s brainchild. Sometimes I wished I had their smarts, but then I’d think that would probably make me like Hamilton.

  No thank you.

  I glanced over at Sam. “Do you really think Mom and Dad are okay?” I couldn’t help it—it was hard not to worry about them.

  “They’re fine.” She waved her arm taking in the whales, the ship, everything. “All of this wouldn’t exist without them. A little thing like ten thousand years won’t stand between us.” She slugged me in the shoulder again. “Besides, they have to come back so I can tell them about your little adventure in the thermsuit. You’re so in trouble.”

  We stood and watched the whales a while longer. Abner, Jada, and Jonah swam so close to the glass that all I could see was whale, left, right, up, down.

  “How much longer is their migration?” The whales had been swimming for a couple of weeks while the temperature in the tank was incrementally lowered toward the arctic levels of their feeding ground.

  “Just another two or three weeks, then we can really start pumping in the krill. Mom says whales—”

  “Sam, Noah, do you copy?” Hamilton’s voice on our wrist-comms.

  “We hear you,” Sam said. “What’s up?”

  “Get up here right away. Moses is back.”

  Sam looked at me, her face filled with concern.

  “Moses shouldn’t be here.” She sprinted for the nearest magsphere. I launched after her.

  The ship’s interior screamed by in a blur as we sped toward the ARC Control Center.

  I glanced at Sam. She chewed on a strand of hair like she always does when she’s anxious. We sat in silence while the magsphere negotiated tunnels over hundreds of decks. Both of us were thinking the same thing: if Moses was back without our parents, something was wrong. I held Obadiah tight in my lap.

  “It’s okay, boy,” I whispered, pressing my face against his furry ear. “They’re fine.”

  Even at full speed, it took nearly fifteen minutes to reach the control center. The door opened with a whoosh, and Sam dashed in. Obadiah jumped down and waited for me to pull myself into my magchair.

  When we entered, Hamilton was watching an array of holoscreens on the wall. Three-dimensional images sprang forward or receded when he moved his hand in front of them. A battered, dull gray robot lay on a console to his left. It was toddler-sized but shaped like a small plane with smooth sloping wings. Barely discernible on the main body’s scorched sides were the letters M.O.S.E.S., an acronym for Mobile Oriented Spacetime Energy Signal. A flashing green light indicated it was linked with the ship’s on-board computer. The images on the screens were downloading from its memory banks.

  “What’s going on, Ham?” My sister moved to the screens and studied the image Hamilton waved to the foreground. “Why’s Moses here?”

  “I don’t know for sure.” He turned to a small toolbox and began pulling out various implements. “He only arrived twenty minutes ago. Something’s wrong with his memory crystal—he’s been through some kind of electrical shock and his system is damaged.”

  He laid another tool next to the robot.

  “Most of the data I’ve retrieved is what I expected. Mom and Dad entered Northern Europe in the DUV II, exactly when they wanted to—in 8512 B.C. They set up camp on a remote plateau separated from any people groups, then began their indigenous species survey.” He turned and brought a three-dimensional image to the foreground.

  “Here’s the recording of their discovery of the Irish deer.”

  The image on the screen crackled and flickered before clearing up. I watched as a deer the size of a moose materialized on the floor between us. The buck, with antlers maybe two and a half meters across, lifted its head and sniffed the air. Obadiah cocked his head sideways and lifted his nose, trying to smell the deer. He backed up and pressed himself against my chair.

  I patted his head. “It’s okay, he won’t hurt you.”

  Mom’s voice filled the room. “We’ve found a bull—a magnificent example. Noah is trying to tag him so we can track his movements over the next few days. Hopefully he’ll lead us to his herd, and we can find our candidates for transport.” She sounded out of breath, but her voice was filled with excitement. This was her element.

  Hamilton flicked the image back to the screen and turned toward the robot.

  “Moses was on auxiliary power when he returned. I’ve been downloading what I can from his memory while he recharges.” He opened a small panel on Moses’s side, then flipped a switch.

  “He should be charged enough to let us know why he returned without Mom and Dad, assuming his speech processors haven’t been fried.”

  A dull hum filled the room as the robot rose off the console and spun vertically. The smooth nose cone split in half, and like a turtle coming out of its shell, an oblong humanoid head emerged.

  “Tr…apped” Moses chirped. “Mis…sion com…promised.”

  Hamilton adjusted a few things in the open panel with a screwdriver.

  “Routing more power to his voice processor.”

  Two apertures on the robot’s face spiraled open. “Your moth…er and father… grave danger.” Hamilton continued turning screws and moving sliders.

  “Haon located your… parents. Haon is after the deer.”

  Sam’s eyes widened. “What do you mean he was there? That’s impossible!”

  “Now do you believe me?” I’d been right, not that it made me feel any better.

  “Not now, Noah. Moses, how did Haon find them?”

  The robot cocked his head sideways. “I don’t have enough information to suggest a hypothesis.” Hamilton stepped back. Moses continued, his voice processor fully functional.

  “All indications are it was Haon himself. He appeared the moment your parents attempted to snare a doe.” The robot turned toward the monitor bank. “Observe.”

  The nine screens went dark, then all of them lit up with a single scene. We moved back when a nearly life-sized image of our father, Noah Zarc, Sr., leapt from the screen to the middle of the room. Snow piled deep all around him and ice crystals hung in his beard and mustache. His brown eyes twinkled beneath bushy eyebrows. His face, just starting to show laugh lines around his mouth and eyes, was beaming in anticipation. He hid behind a tree and motioned off to his left.

  “Hannah, bring her around to your right.” He turned his large frame sideways, obviously trying to hide behind the trunk. I wasn’t too sure how successful he was—Dad had put on a few pounds over the past couple of years.

  “That’s right. Easy.”

  Slowly, a female deer walked into the scene. She seemed to step from the monitors to the control center floor. Dad held a photon-snare and pointed the shimmering energy coil toward the deer.

  “A little closer,” he whispered. The deer hesitantly moved a few more steps forward, her nose in the air, sniffing. Snow swirled around her. Dad got ready to spring with the snare—

  A loud pop filled
the room. Obadiah yelped. I stared in horror at the red spot on the doe’s flank. She turned to leap away, but before she took two steps she stumbled and fell in the snow.

  Dad froze. From the whirling white flakes stepped a huge man wrapped in furs, his face hidden by a shaggy parka hood. In one hand he held a large rifle, an old twentieth-century model with a modern homing scope mounted on top. The man walked to the floor in front of us and nudged the deer’s head with the toe of his boot.

  “Don’t move, Hannah,” I heard Dad whisper. “He doesn’t know we’re here.”

  The man set his gun on the ground, then reached up a meaty hand and pulled back his hood. For a moment I was surprised how much he looked like my dad—the same shape to his nose, the same dark eyes. Then I looked at the dead deer at his feet and realized this man was nothing like my dad. He did, however, look like the man I remembered from years before back on Mars.

  “Haon,” said Dad.

  Moses turned from the monitor-bank. “There is a ninety-eight percent certainty the individual was Haon. All recognition signatures, excluding one anomaly in the DNA catalogue, match his known parameters. Furthermore, the…”

  Moses trailed off and cocked his head.

  “Furthermore the…” Again he stopped. For a robot he was doing a pretty good job of looking confused. “There is something wrong with my memory banks. There was more information, but I am unable to retrieve it.”

  “You’ve suffered some kind of electrical interference,” Hamilton said. “Do you remember getting shocked?”

  Moses sat for a moment, the apertures of his eyes opening and closing.

  “Negative.”

  “What about Mom and Dad?” I looked back and forth between Moses and Hamilton. “Where are they?”

  Moses turned toward me. “They…” Again that pause. “They are trapped in the Ice Age with no way home.”

  The control room went silent. We watched Haon hoist the deer on his back and stagger off into whiteness. Suddenly the steel room around me seemed cold and lifeless.