Bronwyn enjoyed the ride, but was getting beaten up by the waves. She tired quickly and lost her grip, torn from the back of the Dolphin in the next swell. She went under and couldn’t right herself. Rhodi was there instantly, driving the girl to the surface. Bronwyn sputtered when she broke into the open air and gasped, trying to catch her breath. The group racing up the beach slid to a halt, as one, waiting for word on Bronwyn’s health. Once reassured, they continued, but at a much slower pace.
Rexalita dove underwater and the Dolphins swam to the side, leaving Bronwyn by herself as a great head moved in below her, gently touching her feet and lifting her out of the water. Bronwyn sat down, then laid down, spread-eagled on her stomach to maintain her balance on the Whale’s broad head. The world seemed to fly beneath her as she became one with the Whale.
G-War was envious that Bronwyn had the greatest seat on the planet.
Those on the beach knew it when they saw it: a finger of land extending into the sea, where the sheer sides of a rock formation stood high above a dark blue that suggested deep water. Braden looked at the cliffs over his head, unsure of how to get the people and equipment on top and then to the Whale.
“We really could use that hover car right about now,” Micah said. Braden looked at her oddly. “Okay, I can’t keep it a secret. I asked Holly to build a hover car for us to make these trips more quickly. There! Are you happy?” Micah snipped.
Braden knew when to discuss issues and when they were best left to later. “I didn’t say anything. I agree, a hover car would make this much easier.” He studied the landscape before him, looking for a way up.
A tidal surge threatened to swamp the group as Rexalita swam up the inlet toward them. Despite the deep water, she filled the space. She wedged herself against the shore, then leaned toward the rocky outcropping. Bronwyn effortlessly stepped across where three Hawkoids flew around her and landed nearby. She bowed to them.
Braden cupped his hands and yelled upward, “Wait right there. I have an idea!” Micah looked at him and held her hands out in a sign of surrender.
‘Thought voice, lover. There’s no need to yell,’ she said over the mindlink. The Wolfoids snickered nearby.
Damn! Braden thought to himself as he pulled a length of the Amazonian rope from the wagon. He tied a piece of driftwood to the end and tossed the rope past the young girl. She wrapped it around a rock and tied it off as she’d learned to do with the Aurochs harnesses. Braden tested it by being the first to climb up. When he reached the top, he bowed.
“Now, send up the equipment from the scientist’s wagon,” he yelled back down. Micah shook her head, resigned with the fact that her partner was fascinated with yelling.
Chrysalis waved off Micah. “We will just use our raft to get there. The equipment is sensitive and we don’t want it bouncing up those rocks. We’ll get ourselves to the ship.”
Micah clenched her fists. She’d had about enough of the scientists and the knowledge that they selectively shared. They didn’t have enough common sense to know to unhook Denon when they rested and they didn’t think it important to tell the others that they had a boat. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths until she could think without fixating on the thought of punching a scientist in the face.
“Hey, look!” Braden yelled as he pointed seaward. The ancients’ ship was slowing as it navigated the inlet toward them. It was much wider than Rexalita so it could enter only as far as the mouth, but it was within a stone’s throw. All the rigmarole with the Whale and the boat and Dolphins, when the original plan of swimming to the ship was sufficient since it rested this close to them. G-War climbed onto Aadi’s shell while Zyena offered Fea a ride. Treetis begged until Skirill landed.
The Hawkoids took a running start to get airborne, beating hard to lift above the sand and the sea, then gliding toward the wide deck of the ship. They slid to a landing, the ‘cats jumping away before touchdown and running when they hit. Aadi swam slowly through the air, while G-War crouched atop the Tortoid’s shell.
The Rabbits used their small hands to help pull them up the rope to join Braden on the outcropping. Next was Pik, an accomplished climber as all Lizard Men were. Their taloned feet found toeholds between rocks as easily as on rainforest trees. And finally the Wolfoids climbed the hill. As they stepped onto the patient Whale, a loud bugling filled the air. Brandt’s head was raised and he was bellowing his dismay.
‘What about us?’ he asked, demanding an answer.
‘Can you swim?’ Micah asked, having never seen the King of the Aurochs in water deeper than his knees. The Aurochs looked at each other and shrugged in their way, waving their horns about.
‘Never tried,’ Brandt finally answered.
Braden stepped back onto the rocks and climbed down to the sand. “Come, my friend. We’ll swim together. It’s like running, for you. Take a deep breath so you float and before you know it, we’ll be there.”
Braden and Brandt waded into the surf behind the Whale until Braden was swimming and Brandt was up to his neck, then his head. He kept walking boldly forward until he was completely underwater.
‘Braden!’ the great King cried in his booming thought voice. Braden dove under the water, but couldn’t budge the Aurochs. A massive black wall came at them, and Braden cringed as he expected the impact to be painful, the surge of water before Rexalita’s tail softened the blow as she scooped Brandt out of the water. Brandt sucked in air through an open mouth, making it look like he was screaming. The Whale backed slowly out of the inlet, wiggling as the Aurochs crouched, terrified of falling off the broad, flat tail and disappearing into the ocean’s depths. Rexalita also struggled as the Aurochs was far heavier than she imagined any of the land creatures would be.
Braden stayed back from the Whale as she created her own tidal surf that threatened to swamp him. He stroked his way wide of Rexalita’s deliberate motions while she worked to get the King of the Aurochs on board.
When the Whale deposited Brandt on the ship’s broad flat deck, he danced away from the unguarded edge, staying as far from the ocean as possible, the whites of his eyes visible as he looked at the ocean in fear.
Braden finally made it, swam up to the deck, and climbed aboard. The deck was only slightly above sea level and had no hand rails. It was flat and wide enough to, with a long and deep keel, stabilize the ship.
‘We’ll wait here, my King, for your courageous and triumphant return,’ the Queen offered. The three remaining Aurochs stepped away from the ocean’s surf. They’d planned on swimming to the ship. Seeing that Aurochs didn’t float, they changed their plan.
The ship slowly backed out of the inlet, giving the Whale space to turn and dive until her head was even with ship’s bottom deck. One by one, they stepped onto the deck, all of them dry and thankful for the ride. Bronwyn stayed on Rexalita’s head. The others looked at the two scientists struggling to unload their gear. Braden was soaked and preparing to strip out of his wet clothes, when Micah cocked an eyebrow at him. He looked at Bronwyn, then stopped.
But that wasn’t what Micah was thinking. “The longer they take the longer it will be before we can go find my father.”
Braden walked back toward the edge of the ship and dove from the deck into the water, making sure to splash water toward G-War as Aadi finally approached. Two drops hit the ‘cat.
‘I will cut you. While you sleep, I will cut you,’ the ‘cat threatened.
‘No, you won’t, partner mine. Any time you want to board the ship, I have some loving I need to share with you,’ the white ‘cat purred.
Brandt snorted and blinked his eyes clear. No matter the danger, leave it to the ‘cats to keep life in perspective.
Braden waded ashore, growing more and more impatient with each step. He told the scientists to put their boat together while he unloaded the wagon. The Aurochs looked at him and shrugged.
No hands.
He carried each progressively heavier item to the place where Chrysalis and Patti Ma
y stood looking at a bright yellow square. Braden could tell by the expressions on their faces that they were accessing their neural implants. Holly must have given them limited access to facilitate aspects of this trip since the survivors had been blocked from direct access to Holly. As Braden thought about it, this was the first time any of the survivors from Cygnus VI had ventured beyond New Sanctuary.
They must have been terrified, and Holly, by giving them access, provided them some level of comfort. He relaxed and waited, but only a few heartbeats before Chrysalis leaned down and pressed a button on a small panel. The package popped open and hissed as it started filling with air. Braden jumped back and watched.
“You had to talk with Holly to push one button?” he said in disbelief. The boat, little more than one person wide and twice as long, filled quickly. They attached a small motor to the back and pushed it into the surf, then Braden handed them equipment a piece at a time until the boat was filled. Rexalita had moved to deeper water and the ship now stood within the opening to the inlet. Braden wanted to toss the equipment onto the deck, but the scientists would have had heart failure.
Two trips later and the equipment was aboard the Warden. The raft was safely secured aft of the tower where the well deck was. The two wagons looked abandoned on the shore, well above the water line. The three Aurochs stood, watching. Finally Bronwyn climbed off Rexalita’s great head onto the deck where she stroked the creature’s forehead. She waved goodbye and the Whale sunk below the waves, disappearing from sight.
The ship turned and slowly accelerated from the inlet toward the open ocean. The Dolphins easily kept pace and then swam into the ship’s well deck, an area of the main deck directly behind the sail that was open to the sea, gradually deepening the farther aft one went. It allowed for boat launch and recovery protected from the open ocean. Bronwyn dangled her legs in the water as the Dolphins propped their bodies half out of the water, wedged onto the deck next to their favorite human.
Braden and Micah opened their neural implants. ‘Where are we going, Holly?’
‘Why don’t you ask your new friend if she knows where the undersea city is?’ Holly suggested. Micah passed it to Bronwyn, who chose to ask the Dolphins instead of the Whale.
‘Yes, but they don’t go there. It is very dangerous. They kill sea animals that stray too close.’ Bronwyn shivered. ‘They say that there is an island very close to the undersea city, and they are willing to take us there, if you’d like.’
“An island?” Braden wondered. He asked Holly, who searched the images for anything that might be the island in question. He explained his reasoning.
‘The undersea tractors that transported the people from White Beach have a limited speed. I’ve calculated a maximum arc based on that speed and the length of time the people could survive inside. Then I’ve cross-referenced all images and hello, here we are. Due west of you, about two-hundred fifty kilometers offshore, is an island that I’ve not charted before. Not saying that it wasn’t there, but it was low profile. We are now turning all sensors toward it and would you look at that!’ Holly paused as if Braden and Micah were supposed to actually be looking at something.
‘Holly, whatever you’re looking at, we can’t see it,’ Micah said in an exasperated tone.
‘Oh, that was one of my new human expressions. No, obviously you can’t see it. I shall remove that phrase from my lexicon. What I’m looking at are low-level emissions coming from the island, the type that suggest there is some type of ancients’ power source and equipment. There are numerous hot spots that indicate both human and animal inhabitants. I think your best course of action will be to visit the island first,’ Holly suggested.
“There’s no doubt about that,” Braden said out loud. “The island, Bronwyn. We would love it if Chlora and Rhodi can take us to the island. I think we’ll find something there, maybe we’ll even find what we’re looking for.”
Bronwyn started chatting with the Dolphins while the ship seemed to set itself on a course that Holly had already determined. Brandt stayed on deck, swaying gently as the ship rocked through the waves. A salty breeze drifted past as the other companions started exploring their new home.
Braden climbed the stairs to the top of the sail, the main superstructure above the water. It was roomy and comfortable. When he reached the bridge, he noted that it looked similar to the bridge on the RV Traveler, but to a greatly reduced scale, with positions for three people, but the glass bubble was the same and the workstations seemed to have a variety of Old Tech needed to drive the ship.
Braden sat in the captain’s chair. It embraced him and rolled gently with the ocean swells. Ahead, the open ocean awaited.
An Ocean Voyage
The first to get sick was Treetis, followed closely by Ferrer and Brigitte. Braden was amazed that a white Rabbit could look green, but they managed, and not just because they were tending to the garden deck that they said was already well cared for.
Then G-War fell under the spell of the wind and waves. He yowled like a lost kitten to express his misery of being at sea. Fea seemed unaffected and took the opportunity to highlight the weaker sex when it came to ‘cats.
Brandt made a monumental effort not to throw up, but refused to eat and even stopped moving about the deck. He stood frozen in a half-crouch, as if trying to look like a statue, while he focused one hundred percent of his attention on not getting sick.
Bronwyn was completely indifferent to it, spending a great deal of time in the water with the Dolphins. Aadi stayed on the first deck. He floated above the fray, hanging onto a rope to keep from getting blown away. He watched the ocean calmly, although he much preferred the heat of the desert.
The Hawkoids spent time either flying or outside perched on one of the many railings. The swaying of the ship didn’t bother them either.
The two scientists disappeared the second they came aboard. It appeared that the ship had a freight elevator that went up two levels into the sail and down five levels to the sections under the sea where the laboratory spaces were located.
Pik stood on deck, mesmerized by the sight of the ocean all around. He tried taking off his skin suit, but quickly discovered that despite the water, the sun and salt dangerously dried his skin, threatening his very life. He rehydrated his skin suit using one of the many available fresh water spigots, once Braden showed him how they worked.
Braden took advantage of the fabricator, but everything had a fishy taste to it. Whereas a fabricator on land used soy and a variety of other plants, the ship’s fabricator must have used fish and sea life. Braden asked the fabricator about various fish dishes and he tried a little of each until he found one that tasted like something Mattie made. Even Micah liked it.
Holly informed them that they should arrive at the island in a mere twenty-six hours, by tomorrow evening. Braden asked Holly how long they’d been underway. He said four hours. Less than the length of an afternoon and already most of the companions were incapacitated. It felt like they’d been on board forever. With Holly’s help and a three-dimensional map of the Warden, they found the docking area for the mini-submarines. Both ports were empty. Micah threw up her hands in frustration and kicked the bulkhead.
‘Holly, do you have any way of finding where the mini-submarines might be?’ Braden asked.
‘If they were transmitting, we would have already picked them up. I’ll search the Warden’s records and see if they documented their last trip.’
“Let’s find our room. The captain’s quarters?” Braden wasn’t dissuaded by the discovery that the mini-subs weren’t on board. He had never expected them to be. He figured there would be a way, even if they lowered a communication device to the undersea facility so Holly could communicate with it, take it over like he did the RV Traveler.
“Don’t look so down. If there’s a power source on an island that Holly didn’t know was there, what do you think that means?” Braden asked.
Micah brightened up. “The island is connected t
o the undersea facility.”
“My thoughts exactly. We’ll know tomorrow. In the interim, I suggest we find ways to avoid the pukers.” Braden nodded suggestively and once in the captain’s quarters, they couldn’t get their clothes off fast enough. It was rare to have such time alone.
Braden woke early, having slept like a rock in the captain’s oversized bed. He walked through the spaces of the ship alone, barefoot and bare-chested. His first stop was the galley, as it was named, for some fabricator-produced coffee. It didn’t have that fish taste, as they’d ordered a broad range of food the previous daylight to clean out the system.
While Braden sipped his coffee, he checked on the others. Pik relaxed on the deck, not far from the King of the Aurochs, who appeared to be sleeping. Pik nodded as the human passed.
The ‘cats had found their way to the garden deck, which took up the entire space just below the surface of the sea. It was a massive space that Braden took a while to work his way through. The ‘cats, Rabbits, and Wolfoids found solace in each other’s company as they slept close together, nearly in one big pile. Braden wished them well and hoped they awoke with their sea legs and could function. Fea raised her head and blinked her big green eyes at him, then nodded slightly. She had her two boys, G-War and Treetis, right where she could keep an eye on them.
‘Thank you for coming for us,’ she said softly in her thought voice.
A ‘cat with manners, Braden thought. ‘My pleasure and I’m happy that you joined us.’
Braden continued below deck, where he found sterile corridors and laboratory spaces with great windows to the undersea world. It was dark outside so he could barely see anything except what ambient lighting showed. Small fish had taken a liking to the ship and darted in and out of the light in front of the window. Braden watched for a while, finding the motion of the fish to be peaceful, even hypnotizing.
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