Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble (Noah Zarc, #1) (6 page)

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.

I lowered my chair, picked up a bundle, and placed it on my lap.

“Can I help?”

“Sure,” she said. “Our cave isn’t far.” She smiled. Dark eyes smiled too, under a mop of ratty brown hair. I watched her turn and walk down a trail through the woods and found myself wondering what she’d look like without all that hair all over her face.

I shook my head. What difference does it make what she looks like? I was thankful she couldn’t see
my
face. My cheeks felt so warm I knew I was blushing.

Looking anywhere but at the girl, I pushed my chair down the trail.

Not far
turned out to be three kilometers. By the time the trail ended at the edge of a canyon, my arms burned from steadying meat that wanted to slip off my lap at every turn. The girl, on the other hand, didn’t look like she’d broken a sweat.

“Just down here.” She giggled when she saw me struggling.

I followed her when she climbed down a narrow trail in the canyon’s side that switched back and forth until eventually it dropped about forty meters. Smoke drifted toward the sky. She smiled at me again.

“We’re almost there.”

I caught an aroma that made my mouth water, then we rounded an outcropping of stone and saw the cave.

Set back into the rock and rising nearly fifty meters, the cave looked like a big amphitheater. Dozens of people were moving back and forth, preparing the meal. A massive fire burned in a pit toward the front of the cave, and women tended slabs of meat suspended over the flames on long, blackened poles.

I followed the girl to a bank of snow just off the near side of the cave. She dug a hole and laid her meat inside. I groaned in relief when I slid the meat off my lap into another hole she’d dug.

“Nice refrigerator,” I said.

She looked at me and frowned. I realized the Triple-B didn’t know how to translate the word, so it just gave it to her in English.

“Sorry,” I said. “That’s the name we give a place to keep stuff cold.”

She laughed. “We don’t have any trouble keeping things cold.”

I really liked her laugh. I didn’t have any real friends my age, only my brother and sister, Obadiah, and lots and lots of robots.

“My name’s Noah. What’s yours?”

“Adina, daughter of none.”

“Adina’s a nice name. Is
None
your father’s name?”

She laughed again. “No, I’m the daughter of
no one
. My mother died while giving me life, and my father died on a hunt shortly after. So I am a daughter of none.”

“I’m sorry. That sounds awful!”

“I was so young, I don’t remember them at all.” She grabbed my hand. “Come on, I’ll show you our cave.”

I followed her through the crowd. They all stared at me when we passed. Even though my chair must have mystified them, no one said anything. I wasn’t sure I’d be so understanding of something so alien.

“This is where I sleep.” She showed me a pile of furs, neatly folded next to a worn stone shelf. A few possessions lay on the rock.

“Here’s a doll my mother made for me before I was born.”

She held up a small object, vaguely person-shaped, carved from bone and strapped together with strips of leather.

“And here’s my father’s favorite skinning knife.” She handed me a piece of flint chipped and shaped like a crude knife. “Careful, it’s sharp.”

I took off my gloves, tucked them in my coat pocket, and touched my finger to the edge.

“Wow, it really is.” I set the knife down before I cut myself.

“And here’s where we get water.” She skipped over to a depression at the back of the cave, where a long thin band of gray clay separated the stone of the cave’s roof from the floor. All along it, water seeped and filled up a small pool.

“Taste it.”

I dipped my hands into the water. It was cool but not as cold as I’d expected. I drank. It was really good—full of minerals, crisp and refreshing.

“That’s amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted water that, well… had a taste.”

She shook her head. “Water without taste? How boring!”

I looked around the cave. The walls toward the back were covered with crude paintings: men fighting mastodons with spears, people dancing around fires, scores of handprints of every size.

I turned toward the crowd of people swarming the cave—all working on some project or another. Some sat on the ground, grinding grain in worn depressions in the stone floor with smooth round stones in their hands. Others were mending fur garments with bone needles and some kind of thick, twine-like thread. Kids carried wood for the fire.

At first glance, I thought the shaggy-haired people didn’t have much of a life. They probably struggled every day just to survive, yet they seemed happy. I watched them for a few minutes, laughing and talking with one another.

“Look, your father’s coming.” Adina looked back toward the trail. Dad walked with a group of men, helping them carry the mastodon’s great tusks.

“They honor your father by allowing him to carry the creature’s pride.”

“Its pride?”

“They say the longer a mastodon’s tusks, the greater its pride. The king of the mastodons was said to have tusks that curled around twice. It was his pride that brought him down when they grew too heavy for him to lift. The beast you killed today was a mighty creature with immense pride. And now your father brings the proof of his son’s deeds.”

She beamed as she watched the men struggle with the long, heavy, curved tusks.

“There will be a great celebration tonight—in your honor, Noah.”

“I didn’t do anything special.” My cheeks were burning. “I was just trying to keep him from hurting our ship.”

“Not just the ship. Don’t think I missed what you did for me today.” She looked down, then up at me through long lashes. “You saved my life. I’ll find a way to repay you one day.”

I turned away, not really wanting her to see the expression on my face.

“Let’s go welcome your father.” Adina ran off toward the far end of the cave. I followed, as did nearly everyone else.

Dad entered amid a sea of voices. He and the other men lifted the tusks into the air. Many were shouting, “To the hunter! To the hunter!”

Dad shook his head and pointed at me when they set the tusks on the cave floor.

“Remember, it was my son who felled the beast, all on his own.”

The people around me turned.

“He is a child,” a nearly toothless old man said.

“A child with a great heart,” Dad said. “He has provided your people with life.”

The crowd erupted in a cheer. Those nearest me lifted me out of my chair and onto their shoulders. They paraded around the cave, which made me feel weird. And then, for just a moment, I felt like everything was going to be all right.

At last they sat me down in my chair and urged me to move toward the fire. The tusks of the mastodon were brought over and placed on the ground around me. Adina ran up.

“You have the seat of honor. Whatever you need, I’ll serve you.”

I grinned. “I wish Sam and Hamilton were here to see this.”

“Do you want me to go get them?”

“No, Dad says they need to stay and fix our ship, but maybe you can tell them the story. They’ll never believe me.”

She smiled. “That I will do. The story of Noah the mighty hunter, hero to our people.”

As the sun set, the valley darkened. People pulled bits of burning wood from the main fire and used them to light other small fires around the cave, and the whole place brightened. It was actually getting hot now, so I took off my coat. Adina ran it to the back of the cave and laid it alongside her things.

She returned when the women tending the roasting mammoth announced it was ready. Adina carved the first piece and brought it to me on a flat stone.

“The first meat!” she said.

Everyone in the cave shouted, “The first meat!”

I looked at the red steak on my lap. And looked—I’d never eaten real meat before. Adina smiled and nodded. I cut a small bite, lifted it into my mouth and chewed, felt the juice flow down my throat.

And groaned in delight.

“This is amazing!”

Adina grinned. “I think I prefer deer, but mastodon is a close second.”

After I began eating, Dad was given the second choice cut. Then the rest of the people lined up to receive generous portions of the mammoth.

Adina sat next to me. “You’ve never tasted mastodon before?”

“I’ve never tasted real meat before.” I finished another sumptuous bite. She looked puzzled.

“How have you lived?”

“I have plenty of different foods to choose from, but all our meat’s artificial.” The look on her face told me the word didn’t translate.

“Artificial means man-made—um, pretend food. Like your doll—it’s not a real person, it just looks like one. Your mother made it.”

“So you make your meat out of bones?”

“No—well, I don’t think so. Actually I don’t know what it’s made of. That’s why I eat PB&J sandwiches mostly.”

“Peebee anjay?”

“Peanut butter and jelly.” I wiped my hand on my sleeve. “Up until now I’d have told you it was the greatest food in the solar system. You have to try one someday.”

She smiled. “I’d like that.”

We sat for a while enjoying our meal. For the most part, the cave was quiet except for the occasional belch, or other unexpected noises.

“Where is your home?” Adina asked when we’d eaten our fill.

“That’s not an easy thing to answer.” I looked up toward the stars beginning to twinkle in the night sky. “I was born on a planet a long way from here.”