Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble (Noah Zarc, #1) (8 page)

When we left the ship, Adina was still shaking her head. She just didn’t seem to be able to get her mind around the idea of flying, but that was okay. Maybe someday she could try it for herself. I smiled as we walked down the trail toward the cave.

The rest of the morning, Adina and I gathered firewood and helped dig up vegetables, a tough-looking type of potato and things that looked like some kind of onion. I also helped slice up the mammoth meat for better storage. Around midday, Adina asked Dad if she could take me to see the Mammoth’s Tusk, whatever that was.

“Back before sunset,” he said.

She grabbed a small sack and stuffed in a couple of strips of dried meat, along with a few of the potatoes we’d dug up, then led me down a trail that went in the opposite direction of the trail to the ship.

“Come on, Noah, we’re going to my favorite place in the whole world.”

The trail slowly wound its way down into the canyon, and I felt the temperature rise the further down we went. After about an hour, I took off my gloves and shoved them in my pockets.

“You should live down here, seems like it’d be more comfortable.”

“It is,” Adina said. “But there aren’t any good caves, and the mountain cats like to hunt near the river.”

I’d been looking for signs of a river, but it was hard to see. Nearly everything was white with snow, and there was a misty fog a hundred meters or so below us.

“Are the cats dangerous?”

“Only if they catch you out by yourself.” She glanced back at me. “Sometimes if they’re really hungry they’ll attack two people at once.”

I gulped and looked around. Adina grinned.

“Oh sure, try to scare the new guy.”

She giggled. “Sorry. We do need to be cautious, but I know where they usually hide. As long as we don’t startle them, they
should
leave us alone.”

I caught her glancing at my legs.

“I’ve been this way since I was born,” I said. “Mom explained it was some kind of birth defect—means something went wrong with me when I was still in her belly.”

“So you’ve never walked?”

“Well, we have a suit I can wear. It allows me to walk, almost as if my legs worked. But it’s awkward and uncomfortable.” She looked upset. “Since I’ve always been this way, it doesn’t really bother me much.”

“And you have this
chair
you can ride around on.”

“Mom says when I stop growing I can go to Mars for an operation. They can give me new legs. Then I’ll be able to walk just like you, almost.”

She thought for a moment. “But won’t that feel wrong, if you’ve lived your whole life without doing it?”

“I guess.” I hadn’t thought about that. “I just get so frustrated sometimes. Like people don’t think I can do everything they can.” I kept my eyes on the trail.

“I think you can do anything you want, Noah. I’ve never known anyone as amazing as you.”

Warmth filled my face. She smiled and turned away, probably to hide the red in her own cheeks.

A half-hour later, I heard what sounded like distant thunder. Adina picked up the pace.

“We’re almost there.”

The trail wove through a maze of tall rock spires, many of which were slick with green moss. A cold breeze blew against my face.

At last, we rounded a corner and Adina stopped. I looked up and beheld the Mammoth’s Tusk.

“I can see how it got its name,” I said. “It’s amazing!”

Rising for nearly a hundred meters above us was a turquoise blue and white-streaked wall of ice where a waterfall should have been. Its top seemed to taper into a point. The column of ice also dropped below us and disappeared into a shroud of white mist another twenty-five meters below. Light from the midday sun gleamed and glittered along its surface. In places, I saw water rushing past the outer shell of ice.

“Is the waterfall always frozen?”

“Most of the time, yes,” Adina said. “If we had the time, we could hike to the bottom of the canyon. Most of the ice at the base has melted this time of year.”

“I can see why this is your favorite place. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Adina smiled and handed me a piece of dried jerky from her pack.

“I sometimes come here and imagine there’s another world beyond the ice—that if I found a way behind the waterfall I’d discover a land that was warm and green. I could go live there forever.”

“Wouldn’t you miss your people?”

She didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes.

“I suppose I would. There are those who treat me like their own child, but I know it can be hard for them. Two winters ago, when we struggled to find enough food, I remember the look in their eyes. Why should they feed me when their own children might starve?”

She looked down, hiding the pain in her eyes.

“Sometimes I think it would be better if I were gone. I do my part, but how much can a girl like me accomplish? That’s why I was out on the hunt yesterday. I wanted to try to prove my worth.”

We sat and listened to the pounding water. At last, she looked up toward the sky.

“We should be heading back. Your father was right, we don’t want to be caught out here after dark.”

We worked our way back up the trail while the sun moved toward the western edge of the canyon. Adina was quiet for the most part. I watched her, trying to understand what life must be like for a girl with no parents in such a wild place.

As we got close to the cave, my chair gliding easily behind Adina, we rounded a rock—and Adina put her hand up and froze. When I started to say something, she threw a hand back and covered my mouth. I followed her gaze up the trail.

In the deepening shadows of a boulder, something moved. Visions of mountain cats with sharp teeth and vicious claws filled my mind. Adina picked up a fist-sized rock and moved toward the boulder. I followed as quietly as I could. The hum of my chair echoed off the canyon walls.

As we drew closer, I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing but I knew it wasn’t a cat. As I tried to edge around Adina for a better look, my chair caught an outcropping of stone on the embankment and released a small avalanche of gravel and rocks. It made an awful racket when the scree slid off the trail into the canyon below.

The shape spun around and lunged at us. I caught a glint of metal just before Adina hurled the rock. A loud clang echoed through the canyon. Adina leapt forward. She grabbed a larger rock and smashed it down on the metal shape that had fallen to the ground.

I shot up beside her. It was a robot—an assassin-bot, to be specific. A small door opened in the robot’s chest.

“Look out!” I shoved my chair against Adina, knocking her to the side. A blue-green burst of light exploded from the opening. Before the robot righted itself, I grabbed the rock off the ground and smashed the machine three or four times. The assassin-bot buzzed, crackled, and lay still. Adina moved over beside me.

“What
is
it?”

I looked at the smoking hulk of metal and wire. It was the same model that chased me when I went to get the marmosets.

“Something sent here to kill my family.”

Dad agreed that Haon must have sent the assassin-bot. He just wasn’t sure if it had been left behind when Haon took off with Mom or sent back to stop us from rescuing her.

“We’ll have to keep our eyes open tonight,” Dad said. “And the sooner we leave, the sooner these people will be safe.”

Hamilton stared at him. “That bot could have killed or seriously injured Noah.”

“I know that.”

“Is the Foundation’s mission really worth risking our lives this way?”

Sam and I looked at each other and groaned.

“Go on, Hamilton,” Dad said.

“We all agree that there’s a need to repopulate the earth with some kind of life, but doesn’t Haon have a point? Why waste an entire planet, a perfectly viable ecosystem, on animals? Mars is finally getting bearable, but Venus is still just as inhospitable as the day it was colonized.”

He waved an arm around the cave. “Look at these people. Even with the extreme cold, it’s still far, far better suited for life than Mars or Venus.”

Sam said, “Mars is getting there—“

“Getting there, sure. But it’s still hundreds if not thousands of years away from being fully habitable—and again, what about Venus? At least here people won’t die if they leave this cave.”

“The Poligarchy has their reasons,” Dad said. They’d been down this road dozens of times.

“So I’ve heard,” Hamilton said. “‘We must atone for our past sins. We must keep Earth from being destroyed again.’”

It was a mantra we’d had driven in our heads our whole lives by the Poligarchy.

His voice rose. “It has nothing to do with past sins—they’re afraid of losing power. They’re already struggling with Venus. What would happen if people colonized Earth as well?”

“We’d be right back in the mess that caused the Cataclysm in the first place!” Dad shouted. “Nations against nations—war, strife, starvation! It’s the single, unified Poligarchy that keeps us together, keeps us from becoming cavemen again!”

Hamilton was glaring at him. “So we just settle for—”

“Enough!” Dad said. “We’re not having this discussion here.”

And it was over. But Adina looked ready to cry.

“A tale,” an old woman yelled as we were all finishing dinner. Again, just like the night before, everyone picked up the chant.

Adina managed a weak smile, then looked back at the crowd. The old man I’d noticed the night before stood up.

“I have a story that will lighten the dark night.” He nodded toward me. “The lad’s tale last night brought to mind an old, old story I heard from my father’s father when I was but a boy.”

The man spread his arms—his furs flowing behind him like a cape.

“Back when the world was young and the sun lived nearer Earth, the land was warm and covered with bountiful food. The creator had given dominion of the world to men.”

A hush fell over the cave.

“However, men were wicked and did not praise the creator for his goodness.”

Several people shook their heads. Shadows danced across the cave walls while the man spoke.

“In his heart, the creator decided he must destroy mankind to cleanse Earth of their wickedness. Yet the thought grieved him. He pleaded with men to put away their evil deeds, but they would not heed him.

“One day, the creator sat on a mountain, looked over his creation, and wept. His tears flowed down his cheeks like the mightiest river, and Earth flooded. It was then that the creator saw not all was evil. The animals he had made were still beautiful. He did not wish for them to be destroyed, so he gathered his tears and held them behind a great dam. He then searched far and wide for one righteous man to help him.”

The children of the tribe sat in rapt attention. The story seemed familiar to them, and it was starting to sound even more familiar to me.

“Long did he toil in his quest. Just when he thought there was not a single righteous man left on all Earth, he found a hunter whose skill was beyond compare. Although the man spent his life hunting, he did so only to feed his family, and he loved the animals and thanked the creator for his blessings each time he slew a beast.

“The creator told the hunter of his plan to destroy Earth, and the hunter begged him not to do it. Nevertheless, the creator said it would be done. He could not hold back his tears forever. Even then the dam that held the mighty flood at bay was weakening.

“‘Then allow me to gather up the animals and keep them safe,’ the hunter said. ‘They should not perish due to the evil of men.’

“The creator smiled because the hunter’s heart was pure. The creator found a huge tree that reached toward the heavens and felled it with one stroke of his hand. Then he gouged out its heart and formed a boat. ‘You and your family will be safe here, along with all the animals.’

“‘But this will not contain every animal on Earth,’ the hunter said.

“The creator saw the truth of the man’s words, but the dam was beginning to crumble. ‘Then take just one male and just one female of every kind,’ the creator said. ‘In that way they may at least live on through their descendants.’

“So the hunter used all his skills and gathered two of every animal on the boat. When the last one was aboard, the creator sealed them in with tree sap, then allowed the dam to burst. His tears covered the whole Earth. So great was his sadness, he sent the sun away so she would not see him grieve. The waters of his tears froze, and the hunter’s boat came to a rest on a sea of ice.”

The old man looked around, pausing a moment to catch everyone’s eye.

“We are the descendents of that hunter, and the animals we hunt are the descendents of those saved by the creator. And that is why we must always honor our kills and our creator lest another flood of tears be unleashed upon Earth.”

The old man sat down. Everyone thumped the ground in appreciation. I looked at Dad—he sat smiling, a bemused look on his face. Of course I’d heard the story of Noah’s Ark before. The whole idea of the
ARC
project had grown out of Dad’s name and his love of the animals that once roamed Earth. But I’d never have believed someone in 8500 BC would know that story.

I wanted to tell them what we did, why we were there, but I knew Dad wouldn’t approve. He always said, ‘What if something we say changes events in the future? Just by being here we’re risking making a mess of things back home.’ To which Hamilton usually replied, ‘The leading consensus among astrophysicists is that we cannot
mess
up
future events by our actions in the past. If we have visited the past and changed anything, then it’s already happened, and our present was already affected by it.’ Then he and Dad would get into a heated debate that usually ended with each of them saying that neither stand was definitive, therefore we should be careful when interacting with the past.

To be safe, I always made sure to steer clear of anyone who looked at all like me. I wouldn’t want to go and do something that might get an ancestor killed so I never got born.

Still, the idea that these people knew the story of Noah and the flood—and that my family was the modern day equivalent—was something really hard not to talk about. Later that night before we went to sleep, I told Adina I’d heard a similar story when I was a kid.

“We called it the story of Noah’s Ark.”

She raised an eyebrow. “But that’s your name, and the name of your father.”

I thought for a minute. If she figured it out on her own, it wasn’t really telling, was it?

“Do you have any idea why we’re here? Why we came in our ships from the stars?”

Adina watched the fire for a minute, then her eyes lit up.

“To gather animals? Are you collecting animals and taking them on your ship, like the hunter in the story?”

I grinned, then held up my hands and motioned for her to lower her voice.

“That’s our family’s job. We travel around and collect a male and a female of every animal, then take them back to our ship—the really big ship I told you about.”

“How many animals do you have?”

“You know, that’s a good question. I’m sure Hamilton or Mom would know for sure, but I’ve never heard a count.” I stared at the roof of the cave and thought about all the habitats I had to check before launching the
ARC
. “It has to be in the hundreds, maybe even thousands.”

“Oh, I would love to see them.” She gasped. “Wait—why are you collecting the animals now? Is there going to be another flood?”

“What? No!” Not from her perspective, anyway —it’d be thousands of years before the Cataclysm. I smiled. “I promise you have nothing to worry about.”

We sat in silence and watched stars beyond count appear in the sky. The warmth of the fire had me sweating again. I wriggled out of my coat and handed it to Adina.

“I want you to have this.”

“I couldn’t, Noah. You’ll freeze without it.”

“We’re leaving first thing in the morning. Then I’ll be back on our ship, safe and warm, while you’re here.” I turned from the firelight to hide my face.

She was quiet for a moment, but finally she took the coat from me, leaned forward, and kissed my cheek.

“I’ll never forget your kindness, my hero from the stars.”

I swallowed a huge lump in my throat.

“Who knows, maybe we’ll see each other again someday.”

Tears welled in Adina’s eyes. She jumped to her feet, then dashed off into the shadows of the cave.