Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble (Noah Zarc, #1) (18 page)

“We need to get out of this crater.” Dad shook his head. “Noah, help me.”

I glanced at Mom. Even through her visor I could see how pale she was.

I helped lift Adina into Dad’s arms. She groaned.

“Meet me back at the
DUV III
. I need to make sure she’s all right.” Dad fired the rockets on his suit and flew over the ridge of the crater and out of sight.

Mom reached for me. I squeezed her gloved hand, turned, and looked at the frozen figure of Haon lying at the base of the crater.

“What about him?”

“Haon should be stable for a while.” She glanced up at the churning smoke. “It’s more than he deserves. The nano-virus has probably spread a hundred kilometers already.”

“So that’s it? We failed?” I couldn’t believe that after all we’d been through, this was how it would end.

“It looks like it.” Tears slid down her face. “Even though you got Haon with that freeze-ray, it wouldn’t have stopped the virus after it was dispersed. Besides, the heat of the volcano would instantly thaw any of the nano-bots that might have been frozen.”

She looked off in the direction Dad and Adina had gone.

“Let’s go make sure your friend is okay.”

We hiked back to the ship. I felt like I was moving through ten times Earth’s gravity. What had happened to Dad? Why was he so old? Was Adina okay?

What about Obadiah? Well, I knew
he
wasn’t okay. No animal was.

I watched Mom as we worked our way through the blackened terrain. I could tell she was just as sad as me.

“What happened?” I said when we were clear of the volcano.

She didn’t seem to hear me at first.

“With Dad?”

She sighed. “I think your father went back in time—a long way back—and waited for Haon to appear. It’s just the kind of thing he’d do.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense.” We reached the
DUV III
and entered the ship’s airlock. “Why would he go back so far?”

“Because I had to.”

We looked up to see Dad walking down the stairs from the cockpit. He wore a white jumpsuit with tubes, wires, and pistons running along his arms and legs. Small servos whined when his legs bent and straightened. Out of the EV suit, his hair looked even whiter. His face had deep lines and his eyes were droopy. But when he smiled at Mom, I saw the dad I knew. And when Mom stared at him, her eyes filled with tears.

“How long?” Her voice cracked when Dad reached the bottom of the stairs and moved toward us.

“Nearly a hundred years.” He pulled Mom to his chest with hands spotted by age. His fingers didn’t quite open all the way as he caressed her hair.

“No.” She sobbed. “There had to be another way.”

“I don’t understand, Dad. What do you mean a hundred years?”

Dad looked at me, his brow wrinkled.

“It was something your mom said. Something she didn’t even mean for me to hear.”

Mom pulled back and looked up into his face.

“During your transmission to me, Hannah. You said to yourself if you had a hundred years, you might be able to come up with an antivirus.” He smiled at her. “Of course, time is something I had plenty of. We also knew Haon was somewhere between the present and a hundred years ago. I thought maybe I could catch him in the past, stop him before he had a chance to do any harm.”

He continued to stroke Mom’s hair. I was trying hard to understand.

“I travelled to the year 2932. For the past ninety-two years, I’ve waited to do what I could to stop Haon.”

“But it was all for nothing,” I said. “He never went back in time, did he?”

“We did see him a couple of times. Exactly ten years ago, he appeared not far from Earth. We scrambled some ships after him. I joined the chase on the prototype of the new DUV VI. When we reached him, he was already in battle with other ships just like the one I was on. It was eerie, seeing ships I knew hadn’t been built yet. Now I know I was actually on one of them.”

“Wait,” I said. “You were fighting alongside yourself?”

He smiled. “I know it’s hard to get your mind around. But when you were chasing Haon this morning and he jumped while entering the atmosphere, I knew exactly where and when he’d jumped to. I knew it was futile to follow, because I’d already witnessed the outcome of the battle, but I jumped anyway.”

Again his face filled with sadness.

“I still hoped I could stop him from destroying two of our ships. Maybe, just maybe, everyone had been wrong, and the future can be changed in the past.” He shook his head. “But of course it can’t. We damaged Haon’s ship, but he still got away, and two of our ships were destroyed, just like it happened ten years ago.

“Those men were the bravest pilots I’ve ever known. None of us knew who was going to get killed, only that two wouldn’t make it back.” He paused for a moment, his eyes filling. “I didn’t know about the other two who died this morning before Haon jumped back in time.”

He wiped his eyes and managed a weak smile.

“But it wasn’t for nothing, Noah. We stopped him. You’re safe.”

“But we didn’t stop him.” I had a painful lump in my throat. “The virus is covering the planet.” And Obadiah, my best friend, was dead.

“Maybe so, but according to Randy, it shouldn’t make a difference.”

Mom pushed back from him. “Randy?”

Dad laughed. “It’s going to take a long time to explain, but I’ve got someone you need to meet.” He moved toward the hatch. “He should be here any minute. He went to retrieve our frozen captive.”

We all stepped outside just as a ship crested a hill, flying from the direction of the crater. It was one of the new, large DUV-class ships.

Moments later it landed and the hatch opened. A figure in a white EV suit stepped from the ship. He strode forward confidently but with a bit of a stoop. His visor was up, and I saw the smiling face of a very old man. He reminded me of the storyteller in Adina’s tribe.

“Hannah.” He moved toward Mom, his arms outstretched. She looked astonished.

“Dr. Fletcher!”

“In the flesh.”

“But, you’re…”

“Dead?” He smiled. “I assure you, I am very much alive.” Dr. Fletcher’s eyes twinkled as he pushed along the container that held Haon’s frozen body.

“What a relief to finally talk to you without holding back the truth.”

Mom kept looking back and forth between him and Dad.

“You mean to tell me you’ve known my husband since before I was born, and you never told me?”

“That’s right.” He laughed. “I thoroughly enjoyed watching you two awkward twenty-somethings trying to woo each other—knowing the whole time you’d end up together.”

I looked from Dr. Fletcher to the box he pushed. I shivered at the sight of Haon’s face through a glass window in the lid of what looked to me like a coffin. It was actually a cryogenic freezer. Somehow the idea of a dead or nearly dead body just inches away made it hard to focus on the doctor’s story.

“I assure you he’s fine,” Dad said when he caught me glancing at Haon. “He’ll wake up with an awful headache when he’s thawed, but he shouldn’t suffer any lasting harm.”

“More than he deserves,” Mom whispered, then turned back to Dr. Fletcher. “But what about your death?”

“Well, that’s simple enough. After Prime Senator Sarx shut us down, I knew I couldn’t stop what we were doing. We were making good progress on an antivirus to Haon’s nano-bomb, but still had a long way to go. We figured the Poligarchy would leave me alone if I was dead.”

“An antivirus?” I felt a small surge of hope.

“Oh yes. Of course it was your Mom’s work that got us pointed in the right direction. It took decades to perfect, but when you pulled that trigger, freezing Haon, you also released a nano-bot antivirus, specifically designed to destroy what Haon released.”

“So the virus has been neutralized?” Mom looked afraid to hope.

Dr. Fletcher frowned. “To be honest, I’m a bit concerned about the conditions at the release point. We didn’t test the reproduction rates in a volcanic environment.”

My heart sank.

“It’s possible the intense heat might have allowed Haon’s virus to achieve critical mass before the antivirus could infect it—”

I heard the sound of claws scrabbling on the steel deck of the ship. I turned just as Obadiah hurtled toward me. He jumped in my lap, placed his paws on my chest, and started snuffling and licking.

“There’s your proof, Hannah.” Dr. Fletcher laughed.

For a while I just lay there, hugging Obadiah and letting him lick my face.

We did it!

Mom looked at Dad and her smile faded. I knew she was thinking the same thing I was—we beat Haon, but was it worth Dad’s losing a hundred years of his life with us? I bet it was hard to suddenly be married to a man over three times her age.

“Now I won’t catch you,” I said.

Dad looked at me. “What’s that?”

I looked into his lined face. “I always had this idea that one day I’d catch you in age. When I turned ten you were forty, which meant I was a quarter of your age. When I turn thirty, you’d have been sixty, so I’d be half your age. When I’m seventy, you’d have been a hundred, so I’d have been almost three quarters your age. Now I’ll never catch you.”

Dad laughed, then saw the look on my face.

“I’m sorry, son.” He reached out a gnarled hand and mussed my hair. “I missed you so much.” His voice caught. “All these years.”

He looked at Mom, who had a tear running down her cheek. They just stared at one another for a long moment.

“Speaking of missing people,” Dad said. “We need to get back to Mars and pick up your brother and sister.”

The damage to the
DUV III
turned out not to be as bad as it looked. Dad decided we had time to get her patched up before we flew her back to the Arc and picked up Sam and Hamilton. He asked me to help with repairs. We worked in silence outside on the front landing pylon for quite a while before he stopped and looked at me.

“Your mother told me what you’ve been through. I know you have a lot of questions about Haon, about who your mother was—”

“I talked to him.”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “You
what
?”

“Back on Mars, before we rescued Mom. I talked to Haon.” I glanced away. “He didn’t seem…He wasn’t the monster you and Mom always said he was.”

“Noah—”

“Just listen, Dad.”

He closed his mouth and let me continue.

“Sure, he’d gone about everything the wrong way. He was angry, he was out of control, but there was another side of him too. He was desperate, sad even. There were things about Venus, things about… my mother that just didn’t seem fair. The way the Poligarchy treats them...”

Dad nodded.

“I was so mad at you. Haon almost made me believe you were the reason my mother had died.”

Dad waited but his expression didn’t change. I guess a hundred years might make me more patient too.

“You always defended the Poligarchy. Every time you and Hamilton get in an argument, you come down on the side of the government. So if they did what Haon said they did…”

“Then I’m no better than they are?”

“When I saw you lying on the ground, I realized the lengths you’d take to protect us. I knew you would never do anything to hurt me—you’d never do anything to hurt anyone.

“Haon may have some good reasons to be angry, but it doesn’t justify what he tried to do. Haon may be my father, but you’re my Dad.”

He reached over, pulled me to his chest, and hugged me tight.

“I’m so sorry, Noah.” His arms tightened around me. “You’ve done a lot of growing up the past few days, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

We stood there for a few long minutes, then I stepped back and wiped my eyes.

“I want to get out of this suit and back in my chair. It just doesn’t feel right anymore.”

A couple hours later we had the
DUV III
ready to go. I was feeding Obadiah in the galley when Adina walked in.

“Your dad seems different somehow.”

I just stared at her. “Well, yeah. He’s aged nearly a hundred years since we saw him last.”

“I don’t mean that,” Adina said. “He seems quieter, sad almost. You’d think he’d be overjoyed to see his family again.”

“He’s been through a lot. And there are other things on his mind.”

“I know. Your mother told me. He’s not your father.”

“Don’t say that! Of course he’s my dad. That man who just tried to destroy the earth could never be my father.”

I looked at her face.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just going to take me a while to sort it all out.”

“I’m the one who should be sorry.” She took a step toward me and reached for my hand. “If you want to talk sometime, I’ll be here.”

My cheeks burned at her touch. “Thank you, Adina. For everything.”

She blushed too and turned away.

On the flight back to the
ARC
, which was orbiting Earth, I thought about everything that had happened. Sitting next to Dad I realized I’d been feeling sorry for myself, but I hadn’t really stopped to think about what he’d done—what he’d given up to protect us from Haon. As we neared the
ARC
, I looked over at him.