I overestimated the sudden release of the elephant’s weight, and the Morning Star surged left, smashing into a small stand of trees. I pulled the ship right and she turned sluggishly. I needed to get back on the ground.
With one check of the monitors to make sure I wasn’t going to land on anyone, I dropped the Morning Star back to earth.
“Engines down.”
I surveyed the damage. Big trouble, any way I looked at it.
Sam, Hamilton, and Dad ran into the clearing. Dad, dressed in a winter parka, had a spear in his hand. A shaggy man in furs ran behind them, also carrying a spear. They all stopped and stared.
Too worried about Dad’s reaction to the mess I’d made of things, I opened the outside hatch remotely and waited for them to come up to the cockpit.
I stared at the damage on the holoscreens. The elephant had fallen to the ground and wasn’t moving. Would never move again.
Tears ran down my cheeks, and my shoulders shook. I couldn’t help it—too much had happened. Mom was kidnapped. I’d killed the elephant. And who knows how much damage the animal had done to the ship, our only way off this planet. If I just hadn’t parked the Morning Star so close to the trees—
I heard the door open behind me and turned to see Dad.
“Noah?” He rushed forward when he saw my face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry, Dad.” I choked. “I didn’t mean to. I’ve ruined everything.”
He leaned over and hugged me.
“That poor, hairy elephant…”
Dad smiled at me. “You mean the mastodon?”
I nodded.
He held my shoulders and looked me in the eye.
“I’m sure you didn’t mean to kill him. Sometimes it’s unavoidable.”
“But… what about the ship?”
“I’d just as soon you hadn’t run the Morning Star into the trees,” he said, “but I’m sure Sam will figure out how to patch everything up. You’re safe, that’s all that matters right now.”
“But what about Mom? We have to go rescue her!”
“Your mother’s a strong woman. She’ll most likely figure out a way to rescue herself.”
I didn’t get it—why wasn’t he worried?
Hamilton and Sam came in, still breathing hard. Sam looked like she’d been crying.
“What took you so long?” Dad said.
Hamilton frowned. “We were right behind—”
“No, what took you so long getting here, to Earth? I sent Moses after your mother almost two weeks ago.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Hamilton said. “We set the coordinates to the exact time he calibrated from your blood sample. Unless…” He paused and looked toward the ceiling. “We didn’t appear where we should have, either. Earth wasn’t where it was supposed to be.”
“That makes sense,” Dad said. “Wrong time equals wrong place. But why?”
“Moses was damaged when he returned.” Hamilton thought for a moment. “Perhaps the sample was contaminated.”
“Damaged how?” Dad said.
“It looked like he was hit by some kind of electrical shock. We had a hard time retrieving information from him—part of your message was scrambled.”
“That’s why you didn’t know your mother had been captured?” Dad sighed. “I’m so sorry I hit you with the news like that.”
“So what happened?” I said.
Dad sat down in the pilot’s seat and swiveled toward us.
“After Haon killed that doe, your mother went back to the DUV II. We wanted to run a scan of the area to make sure Haon was really gone. I stayed out in the field to locate another deer.”
He shook his head.
“I should have gone with her, but we figured if anyone was in danger, it’d be me. Not fifteen minutes later, I heard a rumble and turned around to see the DUV II rocketing toward the sky. I tried to contact your mother on the comm but got no response.” He looked away from us, out the window—maybe he was more worried than I thought.
“I ran to the clearing where we’d landed. There was fresh snowfall—her tracks led straight to the clearing and didn’t leave, so I decided she had to have been on board. I also found another set of tracks, much bigger, and knew it was Haon. There were drops of blood interspersed with his tracks—”
Sam gasped, and Hamilton went pale. Dad held up a hand.
“I’m certain they were from the deer Haon killed. I’m guessing he followed her on board, otherwise she’d have seen his tracks leading up to the hatch. Once on the ship, he must have overpowered her.”
By now his eyes were starting to fill up.
“I felt so helpless.”
We all waited for him to continue. In a way it was comforting that Dad seemed as lost as I felt, but it was sure unsettling.
“That’s about it,” he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “I sent Moses after you, and I’ve been here ever since.” He looked out the window and his mouth made a crooked smile, or maybe it was a grimace. “I did make some new friends, though.”
I guessed he meant the shaggy man with the spear I’d seen earlier.
“The fact that Moses was damaged concerns me,” he said. “Obviously Haon wants your mother for something and doesn’t want us to find her.”
“Maybe he just wanted the DUV II,” I said. “She was at the wrong place at the wrong time.” I wasn’t sure I liked what that might mean. If Haon didn’t need Mom, then maybe he’d get rid of her.
“It can travel through time,” Hamilton said. “There aren’t many ships that can do that.” He hesitated, then said, “Except Haon must’ve already had a ship that could time travel. So it was Mother he was after.” His face brightened. “Which means she’s still—”
“Of course your mother is fine,” Dad said. “But if Moses was damaged, Haon knows we tried to follow him and he’ll be expecting us.”
He went quiet. I watched him and thought about how worried I’d been the past couple days. Then it hit me: he’d been here two weeks. He’d been worrying about Mom all that time and probably worrying about us, too. Sometimes it’s easy to forget parents have feelings too.
He looked at me, and I smiled. He smiled back.
“Okay, first things first. We need to assess the damage to the Morning Star.” He glanced out the window. “And I need to have a talk with my friends.”
He patted his chest and hip pockets.
“Where did I put those things? Ah, here we go.” He produced a small clear bag, pulled out several tiny objects, and handed one to each of us. “Place this in one of your ears.”
“A neurotranslator?” Hamilton said. “I didn’t know you finished them.”
“Can’t let my son have all the patents.” He grinned. “I’ve been tinkering with them for a few months now. I call them Triple-B’s.”
We all knew better than to even try to guess. Dad looked at us, grinning. He was feeling a lot better. So was I.
“Bye Bye Babble,” he said, then jerked his thumb at the window. “These cavemen will give you the perfect opportunity to try the Triple-B’s out.”
I fumbled with mine as I tried to fit it in my ear.
“Here, let me help you with that,” Dad said, and there it was—snug in my ear. “The trick with the neurotranslator is calibration. The more you use it, the better it works. All commands are sent to the translator via thought—like your neuro-implant, Noah. If you want to talk with someone, just concentrate on the person’s words, and the translator handles the rest. That allows you to control whose words you hear—otherwise, if you were in a room of people all speaking at once, the translator would run out of processing power and probably freeze up. Comprenez vous ce que je dis?”
I stared at Dad’s lips, concentrating on his words. At least I tried to concentrate. It was hard when all I saw was his big shaggy beard sticking out all over his face. He really needed a trim.
“Comprenez vous ce que je dis? Do you understand what I am saying?”
&nb
sp; “Oui.” I smiled. I’d thought “yes,” but when I spoke the Triple-B instantly translated English to French.
“Wouah! Cette chose est étonnante.” Sam said. “Wow! This thing is amazing.”
“The default speech processing is in whatever language it just translated. So if you just heard French, it will translate your words back in French. If you want to switch back to your native tongue, you can turn it off by thinking ‘Babble off.’ As you use it more you’ll be able to switch to any language in its memory banks just by thinking that language. Like this: Jetzt spreche ich auf Deutsch.”
All of us started speaking different languages. It was confusing the first minute or two, then we focused on one language at a time and did just fine.
“Looks like you’ve got the hang of it,” Dad said. “Let’s try it on our friends outside.” He headed toward the door and yelled over his shoulder as he left the room: “N’oubliez pas vos manteaux d’hiver. Don’t forget your winter coats.”
I thought about Dad’s reaction when he came aboard the Morning Star. I was sure I’d be in trouble. I should have been in trouble. But I wasn’t.
It was exactly the same when I crashed the DUV I. Even though I’d lost the ship in New Mexico and we had to abandon it to the United States government, Dad was much more relieved than mad. Of course it wasn’t like I was ever in any real danger—still.
Parents! I’d never figure them out.
Once outside, I was shocked by the cold. Even the arctic habitats on the ARC weren’t this cold. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. This land had been covered in ice fifteen hundred meters thick only a few decades earlier. I hoped my chair wouldn’t have any trouble functioning in the extreme temperature.
Dad walked toward the mastodon, where three men and a boy stood guarding it. They looked up, saw Dad, and waved. The man who’d followed him into the clearing held up his spear and shouted, then pointed at the huge felled beast.
I felt awful. The mastodon’s dead eyes seemed to stare right at me.
The man lowered his spear and said, “Shelee pundak draxeem.”
The translator crackled to life in my ear: “This is our meal.”
Dad turned toward us. “Did you understand that?”
We all nodded.
“They’re speaking a form of Hebrew. When I heard it the first time, I couldn’t believe it—to hear that language this far north, and this far back in time.” He turned toward the men again. “It has been a successful hunt.”
My Triple-B instantly translated his ancient language back to English.
“I was working with Jobar there to herd the mastodon toward their hunters. Of course I didn’t expect you to land the ship right in his path.” He gave me a hard look, then cracked a smile.
Again the man with the spear spoke. His voice translated immediately.
“Tonight we will celebrate a gift from the land.”
I saw the boy grin—
No, under all that shaggy hair he was actually a she.
“My son provided the meat.” Dad puffed out his chest and patted me on the back. “He brought down the beast.”
“Then he must be our guest of honor for a grand feast tonight—this meat will feed our tribe from dark moon to dark moon.”
“We would be honored to join you.” Dad pointed to the Morning Star. “We need to see how badly our vessel has been damaged. Please let us know when you’re ready for us to join you.”
“Of course. It will take time to carve the gift.”
We waved and turned back to the Morning Star.
“Priority one is your mother,” Dad said. “We need to get off this ball of ice and rescue her. Hamilton, why don’t you and Sam take a look at the ship’s diagnostics and see what it’ll take to get her back to the ARC? Noah, you’re with me. We’ll see first-hand what kind of damage we’re dealing with.”
Sam and Hamilton disappeared into the ship while Dad and I walked toward her tail section. He ran his hand along the Morning Star’s smooth, composite skin.
“She looks like she’s seen a bit of action. You might have come in a little too hot.”
I shook my head. Not likely.
I looked over at the mastodon now swarming with men and women who’d entered the clearing. Already they were carving off long strips of meat.
“I’m like him,” I said.
Dad looked at the elephant, then at me.
“Like who?”
“Haon,” I said. “I saw what he did to that deer.”
“Look at me, Noah.” Dad waited until he was sure I was listening. “Haon kills animals for the fun of it. He loves to see living creatures bleed and die.”
He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me toward the carcass.
“Do you love seeing that creature lying there dead? Did it bring you joy when you killed him?”
“No,” I whispered.
“I didn’t think so.” He nodded towards the women who were now hauling some of the meat away. “There’s nothing wrong with hunting to eat, to live. For thousands of years man hunted to survive. Until we were able to synthesize meat, most people still ate cows, pigs, chickens, sheep. Haon thinks all animals should be killed, not for food but for sport. And he loves the killing.”
I took a deep breath and looked at the men and women carving the mastodon. They’d all starve if it weren’t for the animals they hunted. I watched the girl I’d saved earlier, carrying a hide filled with strips of meat. She would die.
“Thanks, Dad.”
His face softened, and he smiled. “Let’s see what’s what with the ship.”
He ran his finger along a gouge in the Morning Star’s side. He stopped at a hole about the size of his fist. Ragged metal and composite tile fell away when he probed the damage.
“It looks punctured clear through.” Dad bent and looked in the hole. “Bet if we went inside, we’d see light through this thing.”
He straightened up. The suspense was killing me. I felt better about killing the elephant, but killing our only way home?
“I think we can fix this well enough to fly back to the ARC,” Dad said. “I wouldn’t want to burn through an atmosphere on reentry, but going up shouldn’t be a problem. We just need to seal it against the vacuum of space.”
He ruffled my hair. I was too astonished—and too grateful—to say anything.
“Better work those muscles in your jaw. This is going to take a lot of chewing gum.”
“Sam, how long do you think it’ll take to get the Morning Star ready to fly?”
Dad stood in the cockpit surveying the diagnostic report. Hamilton had said the damage from hitting the trees was minimal—it was the hole from the mastodon that needed the most work.
“I took a look, and as you suspected, the hole goes clean through to the rear storage compartment.” Sam pointed to a schematic of the ship. “I thought about just sealing the airlocks, here and here—” She indicated two doors on either end of the storeroom. “I don’t think that’ll quite do the trick.” But if we spot-weld plates on the inside, fill the cavity with expanding gel foam, and seal the airlocks, we should be good to go.”
“But gel foam takes forty-eight hours to cure,” Hamilton said.
“Exactly.”
“Two days before we can go get Mom?” I said. “What about bringing the ARC down?” I took a sip of hot chocolate, then wiped the cocoa mustache off my lips. “We have Hamilton’s thermsuit. I could fly up and bring her down. The ARC’s capable of inner-atmospheric flight, isn’t she?”
“Technically,” Dad said. “But not so fast. What about Hamilton’s thermsuit?”
I kept my mouth shut. Sam’s face split in a wide grin.
“Yeah, Dad, wait till you hear about Noah’s little adventure.”
He frowned. “I’m sure it’s a doozy, but we’ll talk about it later.” He fixed his gaze on me for a few seconds, then continued. “As I was saying, it’s possible to bring the ARC down, but we’ve never done it before. And
then there’s all the additional weight we’ve added to her. Those whales alone might cause trouble.”
“I seriously doubt it, ” Hamilton said. “They’re a fraction of the total weight of the ship. I do agree it’s too great a risk, though. If we lose the ARC, we’re doomed.”
“It’s settled, then,” Sam said. “We get the Morning Star repaired fast as we can, then rescue Mom from that madman.” She looked at Hamilton and me. “I’ll need help.”
I frowned. I really wanted to go to the feast. “But—”
“I’ll help you,” Hamilton said. “Someone needs to be sure all the safety measures are observed.”
“Good.” Dad stood up. “Hail us on the comm if you run into trouble. Noah, let’s go see how they’re doing with your mastodon.” He opened a cupboard and pulled out three long knives. “Maybe they can use help.”
I grimaced at the idea of cutting up the meat but took one of the knives he handed me.
“Why not use a laser-blade?”
“Oh, I think knives will be advanced enough for them.” Dad winked. “We probably shouldn’t let cavemen play with lasers.”
I grabbed my coat and followed him out of the galley. Moments later we were back in the cold.
A horde of men, women, and children had descended on the carcass. I was amazed at how well the crude stone tools they used cut meat off the bone. We approached with our knives. Dad handed one to an old women who was cutting larger strips of meat into smaller, manageable chunks.
“Here, this might make things a little easier.”
She seemed skeptical when she accepted the thin metal blade, but after Dad showed her how easily his knife cut through the meat, her face exploded in a huge grin. Soon she was carving like a chef-bot. A group of people stood around her talking very fast.
“Back to work,” the old woman said. Immediately they scattered.
Eventually we gave up our knives to those more used to cutting mastodon meat, so I looked around for something to do. The girl from the Morning Star’s wing was still carrying loads of meat wrapped in skins on her shoulders.
Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble (Noah Zarc, #1) Page 5
