Arrival (34 page)

“Way to go, Jack! Way to go!”

Jack stumbled through the shallow water, dragging his pack behind him. The water grew shallower as he got closer to shore, until he was finally standing on dry ground. Jack dropped his waterlogged pack onto the shore, untied the rope from his waist, and retied it around the nearest tree. “Okay, Will!” he called from shore. “It’s your turn!”

Will had been so excited by Jack’s success that he had completely forgotten that he would have to do the same. And his recent experience with the water had not been very encouraging, to say the least. But, Will told himself repeatedly, there was no other choice.

Will put his pack on backwards, just as he had watched Jack do only minutes before. Walking to the opposite side of the rock, Will kept telling himself that he could do this. Unfortunately, the rest of his body didn’t seem to be listening.

He stood there, frozen with fear, staring out across the surface of the rock at the flowing green water beyond. From his perspective, the distance across that first bit of fast moving water seemed immense.

“Are you ready?” Jack called from shore. There was no answer. “Will! Are you ready?” he asked again.

Will could hear Jack calling to him from shore, but he was unable to answer.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Will managed to answer meekly.

“Then let’s do it!”

“I don’t know, Jack.”

“What?”

“I don’t know about this!”

“What’s the problem?”

“I don’t know!”

“Come on, Will. I did it!”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Jack, I’m not quite as adventurous as you!”

“Sure you are!” Jack assured him. “Besides, it’ll be easier for you!”

“How do you figure?”

“All you have to do is jump in! I can pull you in from here!”

“But can you do it before I reach the rocks downstream?”

“No problem!” Jack promised. “Trust me!”

“Stop saying that!” Will protested.

“What?”

“Every time you say ‘trust me’, something goes horribly wrong!”

“Okay, don’t trust me! Trust yourself!” Will still didn’t move. “Come on, Will! You wanna stay on that rock forever?” That still didn’t move him. “What would your son think?”

That was all it took. Will took a deep breath, and broke into a clumsy dash across the uneven surface of the rock, letting out a half-hearted battle cry as he leapt from the rock and sailed across the water below.

Much to Jack’s surprise, Will flew even farther than he did, landing well past the rushing water. But unlike Jack, Will dove in headfirst, the force nearly yanking the pack out from under him. He came up with the pack under his waist, as he floundered to keep his face out of the water to breathe. Within seconds, Will realized his predicament and shifted the pack back under his torso, stabilizing his position as the current carried him downstream.

On the far shore, Jack quickly pulled in the slack left over from Will’s amazing leap. He dug his heels deep into the soft shoreline as the drag of the current tightened the rope.

Will began kicking like a madman, his arms flailing at his sides in a comical attempt to swim. It had little effect on his course, but the extra propulsion was unnecessary, as Jack was pulling vigorously from the shore, hauling Will in little by little. A minute later, Will was splashing into the shallow water.

“Stand up!” Jack shouted from shore. “Stand up!”

Will stopped kicking when Jack’s words sunk in. He looked about at the water around him. Finally realizing where he was, Will relaxed a moment, swinging his legs out to the side and letting them settle in the water directly beneath him, floating on his backpack. His feet bounced across the rocky bottom as he continued his lazy arc toward shore. Finally, he dismounted his pack, planted his feet firmly, and stood up, his arms slipping out of his pack as he rose.

Will couldn’t believe he had made it to shallow water. His pack, now out of his grip, bumped against his legs and circled around them, dangling from the rope between him and the shore.

“You did it!” Jack congratulated him.

“Will stepped forward, grabbing his pack along the way, dragging it behind him as he carefully made his way to where Jack stood.

Jack grabbed him with both arms in a powerful bear-hug as Will stepped up out of the water. “Jesus, Will! You should’ve seen yourself! Man, you flew further than I did!”

“I did?” Will coughed in surprise.

“Hell yes! You launched like a rocket, my friend! Christ, and you dove right in! I mean headfirst!” Jack laughed. “It was beautiful!”

“Really?” Will was still dazed, refusing to believe he was standing on solid ground, safe from the raging waters that had nearly taken both their lives. He turned around to face the river as Jack released him from his congratulatory embrace. He watched as the green and white water flowed behind them, unchanged by their recent intrusion.

“Come on, buddy.” Jack interrupted. “Let’s pitch camp before it gets too dark.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

“We need to build a fire and get dry before it starts getting cold,” Jack added.

Jack opened his backpack to begin setting up their camp for the night. Slowly, Will turned back from the river and joined him.

“Hey, Jack?” Will asked.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s make that our last water adventure, shall we?”

“You’ve got a deal, my friend.”

CHAPTER TEN

“
Mac!
” Frank’s voice crackled over the comm-set. “
Look to the west!
”

Mac pulled away from Sara, looking over his right shoulder. The sun was in his eyes, but he could hear a buzzing sound, a mechanical noise, coming from the direction of the bright, afternoon sun. He held up his hand to shade his eyes. There was a small dot to the right of the sun, like a bird high up in the air. The dot grew larger, with more features becoming discernible as it drew near.

“You see him, yet?”

“No,” Tony answered as he manipulated the aircraft’s flight controls. “Wait, there they are.”

Frank looked at the monitor in the center of the remote control unit. There, standing along the edge of the plateau, was Mac, looking right at the drone’s camera, with Sara kneeling next to him. “Can you see it?” Frank asked Mac asked over the comm-set.

“
Yeah! Hey, Tony! I don’t suppose that thing has a hundred and twenty kilogram lift capacity?
”

“Sorry, pal,” Tony answered.

“Where’s the ATUV?” Frank asked.

“
Sorry, it’s a submarine now. So, how the hell do we get out of here?
”

“Standby, Mac,” Frank promised. “We’ll find the shortest way around the flood for you. Just give us a few minutes.”

“
Take your time,
” Mac answered sarcastically. “
No hurry, we’ll just rest here a bit,
” he added.

“Head east along the southern edge of the flood,” Frank instructed Tony. “I want to see where all that water came from.”

Mac watched the ARD turn slightly left, losing a little altitude as it headed northeast toward the edge of the flooded depression. “Don’t worry, Sara. They’ll find us a way out.”

Sara held her ribs with her left hand, wincing in pain with each breath. “Jeez, Mac. I think you broke one of my ribs, you big ape.”

“Sorry,” Mac apologized sincerely. “I was trying to save your ass back there.”

“Yeah? Well who asked you?” she complained.

“Well excuse the hell out of me.” he defended. “What was I supposed to do? Leave you behind to drown?”

“Who says I would’ve drowned?”

“Oh, come on, Sara!”

“Did it ever occur to that pea-brain of yours, that I might be able to take care of myself?”

“For crying out loud! The water nearly swept us both away! I was doing you a favor!”

“Some favor!” Sara winced.

Mac noticed her pain for the first time. “Are you okay?” he asked as he bent down to help her.

“Get away from me!” she ordered, pushing him away. “You’ve done enough damage already.”

“No problem, lady,” he snapped as he picked up his pack and began to walk away, heading deeper into the canyon. “No problem at all!”

Sara sat back down, paying no attention to Mac as he stormed off. She carefully pulled her soaking wet jacket off her shoulders, her ribs stabbing her with only the slightest movement. She lifted the side of her shirt to visually inspect her left side. There was a large reddened area staining her skin. “Shit,” she whispered to herself as she let her shirt down and laid back, rolling carefully onto her right side to rest.

“Can you get inside that thing?” Frank asked.

“No way,” Tony objected. “I’ll lose the signal for sure.”

“Won’t the default instructions kick in?”

“Those were written for open sky, Frank. Not the inside of a cave.”

Frank stared at the monitor. “I don’t think that’s a cave, Tony.”

“What?”

“Look, the water is flowing out of it, not in. That’s no cave, that’s a tunnel.”

“What? Then where the hell is the water coming from?”

“You see the rock along the inside of the tunnel? That looks like lava rock. I’ll bet you that’s a lava tube. The mountain was probably a volcano at one time. That tunnel probably goes clear through to the ocean side of the mountain.”

“But how did the water get in there? The tide doesn’t come that far up. Even the depression is higher than that.”

“I don’t know. Can you fly over to the shore side?”

“No way. We’ll lose the signal as soon as it dips down below the ridgeline.”

“Ah, yes, the ridgeline. Follow the base to the north until you reach the forest, Tony,” Frank instructed. “Then turn toward the beach. I want to check the tide level there, at least.”

Mac wandered into the canyon that cut into the southern mountain range. It was lush, with tall blue-green grass carpeting its floor. Tall trees lined either side, giving way to the sharp incline of the granite cliffs at the canyon’s edges. It was a small canyon by geographical perspectives, maybe fifty meters across and eighty meters deep, coming to a point at the far end. Short of climbing up its face, Mac couldn’t see any way out without braving the floodwaters that had nearly swept them away only minutes earlier.

It was, however, a picturesque little canyon, a separate little world onto its own. Mac wandered through it, committing the canyon’s details and resources to memory as he explored. If Frank and Tony couldn’t find a way out for them, they could very well be stuck there awhile.

“
Mac?
” Frank’s voice crackled.

“Yeah.”

“
I’ve got some bad news, pal.
”

“Give it to me.”

“
There is no way out of that canyon, unless you want to swim.
”

“No thanks. I’ve had enough of the water for awhile.”

“
Yeah, I hear ya.
” The comm-set was silent for a moment. “
You know, we probably won’t be able to get you out right away. Probably not until tomorrow, at the earliest.
”

“Yeah, I figured as much.”

“
Have you got a plan for the night?
”

“I’m checking out the valley as we speak.”

“
Have you got your pack with you?
”

“You bet your ass I do.”

“
Good boy.
”

“Don’t worry about us, Frank.” Mac assured him as he continued to explore. “We’ll be alright. You just figure out a way to get us out of here.”

“
Will do.
” The comm-set went quiet again. “
Just one thing we can’t figure out, Mac.
”

“What’s that?”

“
The water.
”

“It’s seawater, Frank. It had to come from the ocean.”

“
Yeah, we figured that much out. That cave at the eastern end of the depression must be a tunnel that comes out on the ocean side of the mountain. I just can’t figure out how the tide got that high, and so quickly.
”

“Did you try looking up?”

“
What?
”

“At the moons. Look at the moons. See anything different about them?”

“
Negative. There still hanging there in the sky, side by side.
”

“Proxima is on the wrong side. It was to the
east
of Dista an hour ago.”

There was a long pause.

“
You’re right,
” Frank finally replied. “
That would do it, I bet.
”

“Freaky, ain’t it?”

“
Mac, I had Tony fly the drone to the beach,
” Frank told Mac over the comm-set. “
The tide has climbed all the way up the beach, nearly to the edge of Sherwood Forest! Ten more meters and the whole valley will be underwater!
”

“We need Will here to figure out how often that’s going to happen,” Mac commented. A sour expression came over his face as he realized what he had just said. The last thing Frank needed was to be reminded of Jack’s loss. “Sorry, Frank.”

“
That’s okay. Listen, stay safe out there. I’ll get back to you once we figure out how to get you out of there.
”

“We’ll be here.” Mac pushed his mic aside and sighed, as he resigned himself to the situation. He would have to find shelter for the night, perhaps even build one. The sun was still forty-five degrees above the horizon. Looking at his watch, he realized they had only a few hours of daylight left. It was time to get busy. His first instinct was to fetch Sara, but she had made it clear she wanted him to stay away. And if that was the way she wanted it, so be it. Besides, if she needed his help, she could find him. It was a small enough canyon. Still, he would find shelter roomy enough for two, just in case.

* * *

“How long until the water recedes?” Lynn asked from her seat at the wardroom table.

“No way of knowing,” Frank admitted. “On our last pass, it was still coming in, though it has slowed a bit.”

“Christ, Frank. Is that the best you can tell me?”

“Sorry, this just isn’t my area. Hell, it isn’t any of our areas.”

“I know a little about geology,” Tony interjected. “If that’s lava rock, and we’re pretty sure that it is, then it’s not going to hold all that water for long. It’s going to seep down through to the old topsoil trapped underneath.”

“How long will that take?” Maria asked.

“It depends on a lot of things,” Tony admitted as he leaned back in his chair at the far end of the wardroom table. “That rock must’ve been there for a while. The old topsoil is sure to have become somewhat compact over time. So it’s not going to soak up as much water, assuming that it is the usual topsoil underneath.”

“Care to offer a guess?” Lynn asked.

“If it is normal topsoil?” Tony looked to Lynn, who nodded. “Then maybe a few days before it goes down enough for them to at least wade across. Maybe longer, but I doubt any sooner than that.”

“Frank, is there any way to get supplies to them? Something to help them out until then?”

“None that I can think of, sorry.”

“Maria. Can they live off the land if necessary?”

“Yes, I suppose. But I wouldn’t advise it. We just don’t know enough about this place yet.”

“Jesus,” Lynn complained. “We’ve been here over a month now. Don’t we know anything yet?”

“Lynn, be realistic,” Laura warned. “We’re talking about an alien ecosystem, here. As much as it
looks
like what we know Earth to have been, it
isn’t
Earth. We haven’t even begun to discover how each organism here interacts with the others, let alone how they affect the entire ecosystem. Eating something indigenous at this point would be like taking off your helmet to see if there was breathable oxygen.”

Lynn let that one sink in for a moment. “Any suggestions?” she asked, throwing her hands up in frustration.

“Build a boat?” Tony suggested, half joking. Lynn gave him a disapproving stare, causing Tony to shrink back down in his seat. “Just a thought.”

“We
could
make a raft,” Frank chimed in. “Maybe use the chutes from the cargo pods. They’re waterproof. We could glue them into long tubes and inflate them, maybe.”

“They wouldn’t hold the pressure,” Tony disagreed. “Better to use the float rings from the pods. They won’t be easy to remove, but they’re perfect for the job. Hell, that’s what they were made for.”

“I like it,” Lynn agreed. “Get on it,” she ordered. “Everyone helps. We’ll stay up all night if we have to. Just tell us what you want us to do.”

“Tony and I will get started removing the float ring from the first pod. The rest of you start removing the carbon-fiber deck plates from one of the other pods. We can use them as the floor of the raft.”

“Won’t it let water into the raft?” Maria asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Frank explained as he rose from his seat to get started. “We’ll be floating on the pontoons we make out of the float rings. It doesn’t matter if we get wet, as long as we get safely across.”

“How
are
we going to get across, once you get the raft ready?”

“I can use the water pump from the potable water system inlet down by the river. Mac shut it down until he can clean it anyway. It puts out a pretty high pressure. If I can rig up a jet, we can ride across using the jet as propulsion.”

“How were you planning to steer it?” Lynn asked.

“We can work all of this out as we’re building it, Lynn.”

“Then, let’s get started,” Lynn ordered.

Frank exited the wardroom, heading for the forward hatch with Tony following right behind him. “Mac, this is Frank,” he called as he pulled his mic closer to his mouth.

“
Go ahead, Frank.
”

“We’re gonna build a raft to come get you.”

“
No shit? How long is that gonna take?
”

“Probably take most of the night, if we’re lucky. We’ve got to take a few float rings off of the cargo pods.”

“
Yeow, tough job. Glad I don’t have to do it.
”

“Hunker down, help is coming.”

* * *

It had been over an hour since Mac stormed off in a huff. More importantly, Sara hadn’t heard a peep over the comm-set in nearly as long. She reached down to press the call button on her comm-set control pack, but it wasn’t there. Stunned, she looked down at her waist, but it was gone. She looked around her immediate area, and found nothing. “Damn it,” she cursed, realizing she must have lost it while escaping the flood. Suddenly, she felt very alone.

“Mac?” she called out as she looked around. Receiving no answer, she climbed to her feet, her body resisting the effort as her injured ribs shot pain through her left side. “Mac!” She called out again. “Mac!” Her voice echoed off the canyon walls, adding to her sense of loneliness. “Great,” she muttered. Bracing her sore ribs with her left arm held close against her body, she headed off into the canyon in the same direction Mac had gone earlier.

“Mac!” she repeated every few minutes as she strolled along, each step sending pain shooting through her ribcage. After thirty minutes of searching, she began to wonder if he had found a way around the flood without her. She wouldn’t be surprised, not after the way she had snapped at him. It wasn’t easy for her to admit it to herself, but she knew she had been unfair to him. But surely he wouldn’t leave her behind. If his efforts at rescuing her had indeed been instinctive, then how could he possibly abandon her?