The Jovian Legacy

THE
JOVIAN LEGACY

First published in Wellington, NZ in 2007

Copyright © by Lilla Nicholas-Holt, 2014

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

ISBN

Published by Lilla Nicholas-Holt

All rights reserved. No part of this
publication

may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system

or
transmitted in any form by any means

electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording or otherwise, without

prior permission from the publisher.

The
Jovian Legacy

Thank
you to Sue Turner of Kaeo, Northland, NZ, who was a huge help with
her literary knowledge, and instrumental in my final product.

Chapter 1

W
ell,
this is what Jack decided. He’d been playing around on his
computer all Saturday. His parents had taken a three-month trip on
their fifty-foot yacht, with their last destination the Bahamas, but
had disappeared without trace of the yacht or any debris, five years
earlier when Jack was only twelve. He’d been cared for by his
Aunt Pippa until he
’
d
reached the age of seventeen, an age when his future should have been
full of promise. The day after his birthday Jack moved out,
determining he was capable of looking after himself. He’d
moved into a flat in town and spent most weekends by himself,
absorbed in his computer, and experimenting with different programs.
He was even capable of doing a bit of hacking if he really wanted to,
but decided against it. It wasn’t really in him to break the
law. He was quite happy to focus on space research, which interested
him a great deal.

One
Saturday afternoon Jack came across something he had never
encountered before when he tripped into a program by accident.

A
surge of adrenaline rushed through him. “No-one’s going
to believe this!” he exclaimed, blowing through his pursed
lips. He locked his hands together behind his head and sunk back
into the sofa in amazement. He decided, for now, to keep it quiet.

Jack
saw a message awaiting him that was in a strange, foreign language.
After some enthusiastic searching he found a conversion format that
allowed him to decipher it: “
Our
universe adapter has picked up information and we invite you to
participate in our research in off-shore planet life by following the
instructions herein.”

To Jack it didn’t
appear to originate from anywhere on this planet, but where exactly
it had come from he didn’t know. It had totally bamboozled
him. Understandably shaken by his new discovery, Jack was unsure as
to whether to proceed in participating in such a program. He left
the house for a while to mull things over.

They’ll
think I’m a nutter,
he
thought.

He
decided to go ahead, but told himself he must keep the whole thing to
himself.

After
a few restless nights he chose his time. At six o’clock on a
wet and chilly Friday morning, he rolled out of bed and prepared
himself for the unknown. As he logged onto his computer he felt
excitement combined with a fair bit of fear, and his fingers trembled
as he typed in the instructions given by the unknown identity. A
message box came before his eyes: “
Please
type in a date of your choosing.”
Jack
typed a date in the field below it: ‘26th July 1988’,
when he was just six years old and lived on a farm with his parents.
Another message box popped up with the words: “
Please
type in a duration of time, e.g. twelve hours.”
Jack typed ‘one hour’ in the empty field then
apprehensively applied his virtual reality helmet. He hit the
‘enter’ key.

Within
an instant he is there, waking up as a six-year-old. Jack jumps out
of his bed, delighted to see his familiar teddy, lying
unceremoniously on the floor where he had thrown it out during the
night. He remembers it was something he used to always do.

“Holy cow!” Jack cries out,
looking out of his old bedroom window in a house on a farm where he
used to live as a boy. The smell of fresh farm air and morning dew
takes him right back to the day.

Man,
I used to take all this for granted,
he says to himself, fascinated, his little hands gripping the
windowsill. Jack hears footsteps, and turns to see his father. He
cannot believe his eyes. He hasn’t seen his father in years,
someone who is supposed to be dead. It causes his mind to spin,
seeing a younger version of his father through his six-year-old eyes,
who, at present, seems so big and tall.

Ben
Dunlop looks quizzically at his son. “What’s the matter,
Jack? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” he laughs.
“Are you coming to help me milk today? You said last night
you wanted to.” Jack manages a nod and starts to get dressed,
turning away from his father, hiding his tears of happiness.

Keen
to get the day started and not waste any precious minutes, Jack runs
into the kitchen to eat his breakfast. There he sees a lady - his
mother, her back turned to him and flipping eggs in a frying pan.

Mum!
He missed her so badly. He missed the delicate fragrance she always
wore, a present from his dad.

Tabu.

The
soft curls of her dark, strawberry blonde hair rest at the nape of
her neck, her apron tied neatly in a bow at her back. As she turns
(seemingly in slow motion to Jack) a lump forms in his throat. He
wants to run into her arms and smother her with kisses, but knows she
would be taken aback at such a random act of emotion, so he simply
stares.

His
mother smiles at him. “Good morning Love, would you like an egg
and a piece of bacon?”

“Yes
thanks,” Jack stammers, eyes wide, still trying to grasp the
situation. With a curious glance at him she places his plate of
bacon and egg in front of him and turns to pour the tea.

Ben
Dunlop sits across from his son, accepting his mug of tea. He tells
Nancy he needs to go across the swamp into Dreyburn’s property
to fetch a cow that had wandered over there in the night. Jack can
only take in bits of information, trying to absorb the whole thing.
The clock on the wall ticks over to 7.30. Remembering that he had
keyed in one hour, Jack realises he only has about forty-five minutes
left. He is bursting to ask his parents all kind of questions, but
knows he can’t.

His
father finishes his breakfast and gets up to go. “Can you let
Bud off his leash, Jack, while I start the tractor up? I’ll
meet you by the gate.”

With
the last precious moments of seeing his mother, Jack runs out the
front door and sees his old beloved dog. Bud is just a bitser, but
very loved. After he unleashes him, Jack is knocked to the ground by
his overzealous mate. Together they run over to meet Jack’s
father by the gate, hopping on the tray of the tractor.

Jack
is an only child. He’d once had a sister, Danielle, but she’d
died of cot death. As a result, Jack was somewhat overprotected by
his mother. Reflectively, Jack thinks how she used to worry over
every little thing that went wrong in his life. If he came home from
school to report that one of the village boys had stolen his lunch,
his mother would go over to the boy’s house and confront the
parents. Jack didn’t really have a chance to stand up for
himself, and for this reason was picked on.

They
go around a bend, the tractor chugging down a steepish part of the
farm to the swamp, the large wheels flicking up bits of clay in its
wake. The strip of kikuyu between the two wheel-tracks sweeps under
the tractor and tray, brushing Jack’s legs as they pass over
it. On the other side of the swamp in the Dreyburn paddock stands
one of their cows, blissfully grazing.

“This
is going to be a tricky one,” says Ben. “I’ll have
to go all the way round and Bud’ll have to take her across.”

Jack’s
dog expertly guides the cow through the swamp back onto their own
property, so Jack and his dad continue rounding up the other cows for
milking. The morning sun invigorates him, and Jack wants to be here
for the rest of his life, when suddenly he is brought back to
reality.

Jack
sat in front of his computer, his virtual reality helmet still on,
motionless for a minute or so.

“What
the hell was that?” he said aloud. Numbly he typed in his
return in the instructed field, and waited for an answer.

“Thank
you for participating in Part 1 of our research for off-shore planet
life,”
it read.
“Please
await new instructions from our scientists. This will be dispatched
within twenty-four hours.”

Jack
went outside. He was only seventeen but felt like a confused old man
as he tried to come to terms with something that was totally off the
wall. He became aware of a black Volvo Estate with blackened windows
parked across the street. As he looked across the driver’s
window slid up, the driver returning his gaze. The car started up
and drove off.

Weird,
he thought, wondering who
they were and what they were doing in his neighbourhood, and
especially wondered why they seemed interested in
him
.

The
next day there was another message awaiting him.
“We
wish to continue our research. Are you in readiness to proceed?”

“Yes,”
he typed.

“Please
apply virtual reality device and type in a date and duration of
time.”

Jack
thought hard for a moment. He really wanted to continue his day with
his beloved family, long ago gone, but instead he typed in the date,
‘16
^th
June 1982 - 30 minutes’, and pressed the ‘enter’
key.

He
feels warm, incredibly warm, and wet. And claustrophobic. Jack
finds himself in a confined space, with water sloshing around him.
He hears an unfamiliar sound. Groaning. A woman groaning and crying
out in pain. Jack becomes anxious as muscles pulsate and contract
around him. In the confined space he feels his body being forced
down a cavity. Strange noises, creaking sounds like an old house at
night surround him. He doesn’t want to be in this situation,
and remembers he had keyed in thirty minutes.

I
should’ve keyed in one!

Jack
is forced to continue his journey into the unknown: A huge surge of
muscle, a cry of pain, and then someone’s gloved hands on his
head. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut against the brightly lit room.
The hands expertly manoeuvre his entire body out from the warm but
tiny environment, and he hears himself cry. It is a baby’s
cry. His own baby’s cry. Jack realises he is being born! He
then comprehends he had typed in his own birth date.

Baby
Jack is wrapped in a soft cloth and placed in some warm arms to
cradle - his mother’s arms. Jack feels overwhelmed, and opens
his eyes to her. He sees a fuzzy outline of her smiling face, and
senses her immense love for him.

Although
garbled to him, beautiful soft words are being spoken - his mother’s
voice. He hears his father’s voice, and other voices in the
room that he doesn’t recognise.

Love
exudes through his mother’s hands, and all too soon he feels
another pair of hands gently lift him away, taken and placed in warm
water - his first bath. He involuntarily lets out a howl, to the
extent of giving himself a fright. He hears soothing noises. The
nurse quickly bathes and pats him dry, wrapping him in a soft clean
nappy and handing him back to his mother.

Jack
feels hungry. He is aware of the course of action, and starts to
feel uneasy about it. His inherent senses kick in, and Jack begins
to suckle. The sweet colostrum fills up his belly, and, feeling
spent, he drifts off to sleep.

Jack
removed his virtual reality helmet and sat there with it in his lap,
mulling over the last half-hour of events, feeling a twinge of
excitement as he wondered what would have happened had he chosen to
type in thirty days instead of thirty minutes. Jack sometimes wished
to be a baby again, something a seventeen year old male should keep
to himself. He missed his mother so badly.