Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble (Noah Zarc, #1) (12 page)

She laughed. “We sometimes make rope out of grasses to help bind hides together. And since everything floats here, I was able separate the strands and braid them together letting the third strand just hover while I worked with the other two.”

“Now you’re talking like Hamilton—I hear the words, but have no idea what you’re saying.”

She giggled. “I wouldn’t worry about it unless you plan to grow your hair long enough to require braids.”

“Fair enough.”

“Preparing for final jump,” the computer said.

“Here we go!”

The great red planet shimmered before us, then blue-green sparks engulfed the ship, obscuring everything on the screens. A few heartbeats later, we popped out above the planet.

“Destination reached. It is now 10:24 A.M. June 17, 3024 CST”

“Bring us into orbit over the southern hemisphere, please.”

Adina drew in her breath sharply.

“How far have we come?”

I unbuckled my harness, then flicked my fingers at the display.

“Well, at the moment, we’re about two hundred million kilometers from Earth.”

“And is that far?”

I laughed. “
Extremely
far.” I thought for a moment. “The moon is about three hundred eighty-thousand kilometers from Earth.”

She said, “I’m sorry, but that still doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“Here.” I brought up a display of Earth, a tiny representation of the moon spinning around it. “This is how far the moon is from Earth. Now watch.”

I pulled back from Earth, further and further away until it was just a tiny blue dot. The moon was impossible to see. I then pointed to a small red dot.

“This is Mars.”

Her eyes grew wide. “That is an
extremely
long way away.”

“What’s even more amazing, and I’m not sure I know how to explain it, is that we’ve also moved over eleven thousand years into the future.”

She just stared at me.

“Okay, real quick. You and I are about the same age, twelve?”

She nodded. “I’ve seen twelve winters.”

“So if you’re twelve years old…” I brought up a graph that had two dots on it.

“Here’s when you were born, and here’s how old you are.” I pinched my fingers together and shrank the graph down.

“Here’s where you would be if you lived to see one hundred winters.”

“No one lives that long.”

“Not on your world, but on mine that’s almost considered young.” I zoomed out, more, then more, until the dot for one hundred years became indistinguishable from the left-hand edge of the graph.

“And here’s where we are now. The year 3024 AD.”

“You’re right. I don’t understand.” She looked out toward the red planet, which slowly spun below her. “But I know I’m a very, very long way from home.”

“Is that good or bad?”

She smiled at me. “I am
extremely
glad to be here.”

I started bringing up displays, which I then overlaid on the image of the Martian surface below.

“Hamilton said my mom was at a remote facility in the Gecko desert. Because we don’t have an exact location, we may need to go down and ask around before we can find her.”

I studied the screens for a while, then pointed to a small town on the edge of a mountain range that ran north to south along the eastern edge of the desert.

“New Cairo. It looks like they have a small spaceport. My guess is Haon might go there from time to time to get supplies.” I looked at Adina. “We need to come up with a story. Why we’re alone with our own ship. Twelve-year-olds don’t usually go flying around the solar system by themselves.”

“What if your mother was sick and we were looking for roots or herbs to make her well?”

I thought for a moment.

“Most of our major diseases have been eradicated, but if we were on a ship on a deep space mission, and my mom came down with an unexplained illness… That might work.”

I studied Adina. Her dark, glossy braids…

“How about we make it your mother?” I pointed at my blond hair. “We’re obviously not related, so maybe I brought you to get help for your mom? And we heard that Haon had experience in deep space travel.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

“Let’s go, then.” I tapped the holoscreen and initiated the landing sequence. Minutes later, we were falling through the Martian atmosphere. The red glow surrounded us when the ship was engulfed in flames.

“My mom said there was a time when Mars didn’t have much of an atmosphere. People couldn’t breathe the air at all, and even now it’s not safe to be outside for long. Over time, though, scientists were able to change that.”

Adina frowned. “Not being able to go outside would make me crazy.”

I pulled the yoke left and banked through a hazy reddish cloud. She craned her neck and looked out the window.

“The ground looks so barren—does nothing grow here?”

“There are places along the equator, up that way—” I pointed north— “where tiny plant life grows. Mostly mosses and fungus, but nothing like Earth. They say someday there’ll be plants growing everywhere, and maybe even rain or snow will fall.”

“I can’t imagine a place so dry. It doesn’t seem like a good place to live.”

Now that I thought about it, maybe it wasn’t—at least, not to some people. I didn’t mind, but then, I hadn’t really spent a lot of time on Mars.

The ruddy clouds around the
DUV III
cleared, and we could see the spaceport. I scouted out a place to land. New Cairo was covered in a series of clear domes, some three or four kilometers across. Two shield bubbles shimmered, indicating a landing pad. I maneuvered the
DUV III
through the shield with green lights flashing on each side.

Inside was a bustling port. Ships of every shape and size lined up along the landing strip. I found an empty spot to land and moved the
DUV III
between two much bigger ships. I set her down and powered off the engines.

“Welcome to Mars.”

“I can’t believe there are so many people,” Adina said. “I wouldn’t have thought there were this many people anywhere.”

“This is nothing compared to the main city.” I unbuckled and worked my way into my chair. As always, I felt way too heavy after the weightlessness of space.

“Once you get used to gravity again, you’ll find that walking around on Mars is much easier than on Earth. It only has about one third the gravity.”

Obadiah ran around and whined, excited to go exploring.

Adina stood up, her legs wobbly.

“It may take me a while to just learn how to walk again. This
gravity
makes me feel all weighed down.”

I grabbed a small pack from one of the cupboards and filled it with things we might need.

“Let’s get going. Who knows what Haon’s doing with my mom?”

I want to get this over with and get back to the way things were.
But even as I finished the thought I knew there’d be no going back. My life was changed—forever.

I moved down the circular stair, Adina and Obadiah just behind. The outer airlock opened, and air rich with the smell of rocket fuel and humanity flooded my senses.

“We need to find some kind of gathering place. Somewhere Haon might go on a regular basis. A parts depot, maybe a bar or a restaurant.”

We moved down between the ships. Obadiah padded along behind us. I tried not to draw attention, but everywhere I looked people stared at us. At first I couldn’t figure out why, then I realized they were looking at Obadiah.

“Of course,” I whispered to Adina. “Most of these people have never seen an animal, except in pictures and holoscans. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea bringing him.”

“How much for your cat?”

I turned toward a teenage boy leaning against the hull of a ship.

“He’s not for sale,” I said. “And he’s a dog.”

The boy pushed off the ship, walked toward us, and fell into step beside me.

“I thought dogs were much bigger and you could ride ‘em.”

“You’re probably thinking of horses.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” The boy looked sideways at Adina. “You don’t look like you’re from around here.”

She looked at her feet and kept walking.

“
We’re
not from around here,” I said. “We just came in from a trip to the Rigel Kentaurus system. She’s never been to Mars before.”

“A spacer, huh?” He nodded his head toward her. “Let me be the first to welcome you to Mars. The name’s Draben.”

She looked at him a moment and nodded. “I’m Adina.”

I stuck out my hand. “And I’m Noah.”

Draben shook my hand. “Where’d you get the
dog
? I’ve seen a lot of things in New Cairo before, but never anything like him.”

“My dad gave him to me when I was a kid. I honestly can’t tell you where he got him.”

“Well, you’re one lucky kid. Keep your eyes on him. There are probably a lot of people around who’d love nothing better than to take him off your hands.” He rubbed his thumb and fingers together. “He’d be worth a boatload of chips.”

I didn’t like the look Draben gave Obadiah.

“I will. Obadiah’s my best friend. Besides, if anyone tried to take him, he’d bite their hands off.” As if to prove it, Obadiah bared his teeth when Draben reached out to pet him. Better change the subject.

“Can you tell us a good place to eat—maybe somewhere we can get information?”

Draben looked up and down the row of ships.

“Down that away.” He nodded to our right. “Mo’s. He makes the best synthburgers in New Cairo, and he knows everything that goes on in the port. If it passes through here he seems to know about it.”

“Thanks. Maybe we’ll see you around.” We hurried off to the right, Obadiah close behind.

Draben called after us. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on your ship while you’re gone.”

“There’s something about that boy that makes me uneasy,” Adina said.

“You and me both.” I looked over my shoulder. Draben had disappeared in the throng of people. “The sooner we find out where Haon’s compound is, the sooner we can get out of here.”

The whole outer wall of the port was lined with shops and restaurants. We had to ask a few more people but eventually we found Mo’s. It was dark inside, and my mouth watered when I smelled the grilled burgers. We walked in and looked around for somewhere to sit.

I jumped when a man wearing a greasy apron pointed at Obadiah.

“Eh, you can’t bring that rat in ‘ere.”

“He’s not a rat, he’s a dog,” I said.

“Just the same, he can’t come in ‘ere. You’ll have to put him outside.”

I looked at Adina. “I’ll be back. See if you can find us a place to sit.”

I tugged at Obadiah. He didn’t want to leave a room that smelled of cooked meat.

“Obadiah, come.” He looked at me, then back toward the kitchen, and finally trotted out. I pulled a piece of cord from my pack, tied it to Obadiah’s collar, and found a pole to tie him to.

I looked back in the restaurant and saw Adina sit down at a table by the window.

“At least I’ll be able to see you from in there.” I patted Obadiah on the head. “Be good—and keep an eye out for that Draben kid.”

I went back in and sat across from Adina, moving my chair so I could keep an eye on Obadiah, now on the ground. He had his head on his front paws and a mournful look on his face.

A few minutes later, the man with the apron came over.

“What can I get you?”

“I heard you make the best synthburgers in New Cairo,” I said.

“On all of Mars,” the man said, grinning through yellowed teeth.

“Two, then.” I looked at Adina and smiled. “And a couple glasses of water.”

Mo nodded and moved off toward the kitchen. Adina glanced around the room.

“I’m not sure I like this place. There are way too many people, and none of them seem too friendly.”

“You’re doing better than me. I’ve spent most of my life with only my mom and dad, Sam and Hamilton, and a ship full of animals.”

“I keep forgetting this is all new to you, too.” She pushed a piece of hair out of her eyes. “How old did you say you were when you were on Mars before?”

“Five years old. So I don’t remember it at all.” I glared at a couple of people who’d stopped to look at Obadiah. “Of course I hear stories from my mom and dad all the time. And I had to study Martian history and culture.”

“Is all of Mars this crowded?”

“Actually most of it’s much more crowded than this. The only reason there aren’t more people here is because of the desert—it can be a harsh place to live. Up north, almost the entire northern hemisphere is one huge city.”

The people outside moved on when Obadiah growled at them.

“Mars is smaller than Earth,” I said. “So when people settled here there wasn’t as much room. It wasn’t until people started living on Venus that they had any room to spread out.”

“Venus?”

“It’s another planet. It looks kind of like Earth, but it’s really nothing like it. There, people have to live inside. If you go outside, you die instantly.”

“Then why live there?”

“I’m not sure. I think it goes back to a group of people who wanted to move back to Earth. A lot of other people didn’t want Earth touched, so there was a big fight. The people who’d wanted to move back to Earth figured if they couldn’t move to Earth they’d try Venus.”

Mo set the plates and glasses down in front of them.

“Here you goes, two of Mo’s special synthburgers and a couple of waters.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Mo wiped his hands on his apron.

“You two need anything else, lemme know.” He walked off and I looked down at my plate.

“Well, looks good enough.” I picked it up, took a bite, and scrunched up my nose.

“I think I’ve been ruined.”

Adina took a bite of her synthburger. “
I
think it’s pretty good.”

“What! This is tasteless compared to mastodon.”

“I guess when that’s almost all you’ve ever eaten, just about anything else would taste pretty good.” She took several big bites and washed them down with water. She nearly spit it out.

“Talk about tasteless! This water is awful.”

I grinned. “At least I was right about that.”