Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble (Noah Zarc, #1) (5 page)

I nearly laughed at what I saw outside the ship. It was like one of those so-bad-it’s-good movies from the middle of the twentieth century, the kind Dad loved. A half-dozen men with long shaggy hair and beards, dressed in heavy animal furs, were throwing everything they could find at the ship. A couple of boys were doing their best to follow the men’s lead.

“I’m being attacked by a bunch of cavemen.”

“What?” Sam sounded out of breath. “What do you mean, attacked?”

“Attacked as in they’re throwing rocks at the ship.”

“Noah?”

“Dad!”

“Are they doing any damage, son?”

I studied the scene from each external camera.

“Hard to tell,
Dad
.” Man, I loved saying that. “I can’t see outside the ship so good, but I don’t think so.”

“Fine, just sit tight for a minute.” I heard him whisper for a few seconds. “Noah, I think the best thing to do is just stay there. If it looks like they’re starting to do any damage, fire up the engines. That should scare them off.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the sound of Dad’s voice. “Can I talk to Mom?”

He was silent for a moment. “Didn’t Moses tell you?”

“Tell us what?”

I could hear Sam and Hamilton asking the same question.

“Haon has your mom. He took off with her in the
DUV II
.”

Dad said something about explaining once they got back to the ship, but I barely took it in. Mom was fine in the video we saw. At least she sounded fine. How could Haon have kidnapped her?

I tried to distract myself by watching the men outside. They’d realized they weren’t doing any damage and were standing around the ship, either staring at it in disbelief or arguing.

I turned on the external microphones. Just as I reached for the translator, Sam’s voice came over the comm.

“Noah, get the
Morning Star
in the air! Something big is headed your way.”

I launched myself to the pilot’s seat and grabbed the yoke.

“You heard her, let’s get going.” The shipboard computer ignited the lifters. A cloud of snow and steam billowed from under the
Morning Star
.

Outside, the cavemen backed away. Then, just as I was about to ease the ship off the ground, I heard thudding over the roar of the engines. The men outside heard it too—they ran back toward the ship and huddled together. I hovered a meter or two off the ground. Before I could give the ship more thrust, I heard a thump and the
Morning Star
tilted.

Turning to the external monitors, I saw a boy splayed across the ship’s left wing. His eyes were wide with panic.

“What are you doing?” I yelled.

Quickly, I eased off the thrust and settled back toward the ground, but before I touched down, the source of the thudding became all too clear. A giant, brown, fury animal burst through the trees beside the ship and headed straight for the
Morning Star
—and the caveboy clinging to the wing.

“Get out of here!” I yelled. But he was frozen with fear, and couldn’t hear me anyway.

A flash of tusks made up my mind for me. I twisted the yoke clockwise. The
Morning Star
swiveled right, taking the boy with it. A crash rocked the ship when what could only be described as a huge, hairy elephant smashed into the rear of the ship. I jerked the joystick sideways, and the wing dipped to the ground.

The boy slid off.

I tried to level off, but the
Morning Star
wouldn’t respond. The external monitors at the rear of the ship showed the elephant was still there, thrashing about. Each jerk of its head sent shudders down my spine. One of the elephant’s tusks had pierced the skin of the ship—it was stuck.

I had no choice. That thing would shake the
Morning Star
apart, and if it did we’d be stranded.

“Fire rear thrusters at five percent.”

Gouts of flame erupted from the back of the ship and engulfed the elephant. In two seconds its fur ignited in a ball of yellow fire. The
Morning Star
lurched forward, and the panic-stricken creature pulled free.

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?”

“
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.”