Nodal Convergence (Cretaceous Station Book 1)

by Terrence Zavecz

  ‘Aye, I’ve heard some of this before Mark but thanks for placing it in my own world. But you know I have a wee bit of a hard time following you too closely when me senses pick up those bonny smells wafting over this-a-ways.’

  ‘Why Ian, I haven’t heard you slip into that highland brogue in years. You must be in a very good mood.’ Mark replied with a warm smile. ‘Come on. Let’s enjoy the sun a bit more while we walk over and see what smells so good.’

  They walked in the warm sun and cool breezes while others around them worked to unload the ship. There was no ill feeling by the workers for they knew the two men well. Mark was quick to stop and help when he saw difficulties or the need for a small joke. To Mark, this was his way of truly understanding the mood and difficulties of the project. Joke, gripe or outright complaints were all welcome to the conversation.

  A trail wove through the brush providing spectacular views of the rocks and ocean below. Then, as they crossed a rise in the hill, Mark saw a small boy running through the brush as fast as he could. As they watched, a dinosaur came across in hot pursuit of the boy and leaped through the air knocking the child to the ground.

  ‘Hey, hey stop!’ Ian let out a cry and waved his arms to distract the attacker as they ran over to the rescue. Then two other dinosaurs came running over the crest on all four feet bound for the attack.

  Mark reached for his pistol and stopped when he heard the laugh.

  The boy let out a shout filled with obvious glee as only a child can do. A laugh that was weirdly echoed by the next two attacking dinosaurs. All four of the wrestlers were about the same size but the boy easily got up and grabbed the nearest dinosaur about the neck when the other two landed and all went down once again into a tumbling mass on the ground.

  ‘Well, the jokes on us.’ Ian said. ‘Looks like they’re all having a grand time of it.’

  ‘These must be the Hypes and, if I’m not wrong, that’s the Zavtek boy in the middle of it.’ Mark commented as he bent down and picked the boy up.

  The three little Hypes jumped up and down in excitement and Gabriel turned with a big smile on his face, ‘Oh, hi Mister Nolen’.

  ‘Gabriel, I didn’t know a boy could get this dirty. Does your mother know you are out here acting like a little Indian?’

  ‘I’m not an Indian! I’m a dinosaur!’ Gabe shouted with a bigger smile on his face.

  Ian was worried, ‘Do you think this is ok? We don’t know anything about these animals except for the stories we’ve gotten from Sara the last day or so. Suppose they get carried away and bite or hurt the boy?’

  ‘I think it’s ok Doctor. We haven’t had a single case of serious aggression on their part. They even let us into their nests. We seem to have met a friend here.’

  ‘Did you hear the way they laughed. Sounded just like Gabe, didn’t it?’ He said as he returned Gabe to the ground and tried to pick up one of the Hypes. ‘Wow, they are fast little tykes!’

  Gabe went over to the cliff edge and picked up a stone. As quickly as he could, he threw it at a passing bird. One of the Hypes also picked up a stone and, as naturally as Gabe, threw it at another bird flying by.

  ‘Did you teach him that Gabe?’ Ian asked.

  ‘No, Fozzy does it all the time but I can throw them further.’ He replied. ‘Come on guys!’ They ran off back into the bushes with a mix of whistles and laughs.

  Ian watched them disappear into the brush and commented, ‘Looks like the first intelligent aliens to meet the human race are encountered right here on the earth.’

  ‘Yeah, how about that.’ Mark replied. ‘Come on, I’m getting hungry.

  * * * * *

  Dinner was set out on a clear rise overlooking the ocean. They decided to call it a “Day of Thanksgiving” after an old American custom. Open fire pits grilled sea food and the hadrosaur meat to a golden brown. Other ovens were set up to use the hot rays of the sun to create baked dishes and casseroles. Foodstuffs brought out from the ship’s stores in the form of potatoes for filling, some vegetables and fruits completed the menu. Several types of fruit pies would cap off the celebration. Eventually they would find locally edible vegetables. Fruits and seeds, according to Sara, were developing by this time but they were small and none were enclosed in large fleshy fruits. There were plenty of bees around so they would eventually plant some of the seeds they brought.

  As the station personnel completed their assignments and arrived at the dinner, they were greeted with a Lei of locally picked flowers complements of three of the botanists. Flowers were abundant on the plateau and the ocean proximity soon transformed the dinner theme into that of a luau. The kids picked up on the enthusiasm of the botanists and they helped pick and then twine the stems together for most of the afternoon. Columbine, tigerlily and daffadills were in abundance along with orchards and other exotic blooms as yet unnamed.

  ‘Hey John!’ Brittany called over to her brother. ‘Are you going to be working in there all night. Your first hours off the ship and you don’t seem to care about the scenery or our new home. You could have been helping us make the leis.’

  The tool room was empty except for a few folding tables and some smaller computers that John Wenford, Brittany’s twin brother, had carried out from the Argos.

  ‘Just wait, I’m almost done. We need to add a little life to this party and I had a neat idea for a NanoHive program.’ He called out to his sister.

  ‘Well, hurry up. Doctor Nolen is about to open the dinner and he wants to say a few words beforehand.’ Brittany called in and then walked off.

  John walked out with the NanoHive arrayed across his shoulders like a robed mantle and moved to the center of the food court just moments before Mark arrived.

  Mark stood in front of the group. The dinner was buffet style and the aromas from the food setting behind Mark floated softly on the breeze. The sun would soon be setting behind the mountains and the slight rise of the eating court provided a majestic view of the ocean with the river mouth and sunset.

  ‘This is the first evening that we all stand together on a younger, warmer world than we come from. This is indeed a historic occasion for mankind because of what we have accomplished in the last three years and what we will accomplish ….’

  With the start of Nolen’s speech, the NanoHive swarm lifted from John’s shoulders to form a flickering display in the late-day sunshine. John had them programmed them so that their skins were highly reflective but each had a pattern of thousands of microscopic parallel lines running across it. As each tiny robot caught the sunlight, the finely etched lines diffracted the beams of sunlight back into the air breaking the white light into flickering rainbows of color. Mark was startled into silence and a sound of wonder lifted from the watching crowd.

  ‘They use the same principal as the diffraction gratings of a spectrometer.’ John whispered to his sister. The air around them was a sparkling rainbow of colors that exploded out to settle in the surrounding trees and brush.

  Then the music began. The low easy strains of Blue Hawaii rose from the air around them as though they were sitting in the center of an orchestra. John’s amplified voice rose with the music.

  ‘The UltraPhonic Sounds of Doctor Mark Nolen and the GraviDynamics NanoHive bring you the best music in the solar system. Welcome to the first Cretaceous Station Luau!’

  The sound of drums rose around them into a strong crescendo and erupted into the Hawaiian War Chant that drowned the exclamations of the crowd. The flickering NanoBots transformed their patterns to create three-dimensional images of giant Hawaiian warriors dancing before a tropical fire.

  John turned to his sister with a sly smile on his face. ‘I set the program up to break down our recordings of the tune. They simulate orchestral behavior over a hundred cubic foot volume with one HiveBot every foot. The individual HiveBots each play their own concordant part of the music by micropulsing the air. A hundred thousand point-sources recreate the original orchestral-wave pressure bundle packets. The resu
lt is an exact replication of the original pressure transients at any point in the volume just as they occurred when they played the piece. Good music, huh?’

  ‘Yeah John, The show and music are beautiful no matter how you describe it.’ Brittany replied without taking her eyes from the show.

  The Sun slowly set behind the western mountains, a land where no man’s foot ever touched. The music grew with the shadows to sing into the evening sky an ancient blend of tones that rose to the brightest stars to dissolve into the soft warmth of the evening’s passage. The trees, brush and very air began to glow with the crescendo and sweet primitive drums that would not exist for a hundred millennium. The melody carried on the breeze filling the air with carnival, symphony and raw tribal melodies of the warm pacific seas as Tiki Torches flamed into life with their soft glow to mark the beginning of the meal.

  Mark Nolen, slightly upset by the event but still in a good mood, walked softly behind Sara Wenford.

  ‘So this is the caliber of your progeny. Quite impressive but please answer me Sara. I thought the Hypsilophodonts numbered only about a dozen.’ He whispered into her ear.

  The edges of the food court, lighted by the softly glowing dinner lights, were filled with Hypes. They encircled the festival. Their heads and hands raised into the air. The day-bright feathers on their backs raised above their swaying bodies as they stood mouth-open, hypnotized into song by the feel, sight and sounds of the melodies. A low sound rose from them as their mouths moved, mimicking the strains of the strange, yet fascinating music so new to their ears.

  Sara was speechless as word of the entrance of the new dinner guests spread across the Station personnel. There was no feeling of panic in the humans but the wonder of the moment rose within all.

  Mark walked over to the chef and pulled the sleeve of Mary Li’s arm. She turned her head as if she didn’t actually see him and then focused as if a spell had been broken. Mark spoke softly but above the music, ‘Come on Mary. Let’s set up a few tables with food for our guests. We still have some salad and fruit baskets in storage?’

  Several of the others overhead Marks command. They broke and rushed over to help setup tables for the Hypes. Others grabbed trays and filled them to carry them over to the Hypes who were still mesmerized by the light and sound display.

  ‘Molly, try this.’ Mark handed a peach to the Hype. She looked confused so Mark took a bite from it.

  He handed Molly another peach from the tray and she put the whole fruit into her mouth and, as she bit down, the sweet juices entered her mouth and her eyes got very big. She slowly chewed the entire fruit with a look of pure ecstasy on her face.

  ‘Well,’ Mark said to Sara, ‘did we just give them the fruit of the gods? I think we made a hit. She didn’t even notice the pit. Let’s begin our meal. It looks like the Hypes are going to listen to the music for a while.’

  As they walked over, Mark passed and grabbed a young boy by the back of the collar. ‘John Wenford, get over here. You just ruined my speech. Who’s going to listen to me now? You therefore get to stand in front of me in line. Here’s a plate! This is going to be embarrassing when we put it into the log. I had a fantastic speech recounting all of our achievement so far. It would have been historic! Keep moving John, I’m hungry.’

  Much to his chagrin, Mark received many complements on his speech and the opening ceremonies.

  Some servers came around with trays of appetizers and Sushi. Shellfish, crab and something they called eel were the hit of the party.

  Mark motioned to a server. ‘Take some over to the Hypes but make sure none of them have toothpicks.’

  The Hadrosaurid eggs turned out to be quite good. Three of them were found to be fertile and were being hatched in a quickly setup incubator by the kitchen. Sara didn’t have the heart to tell Mark about the hatchlings. Mary managed to use the remaining eggs to create a delicate soufflé. Fran tried the dish and attempted to take the entire batch until Brittany got the idea across to her that there were other foods around.

  The cooked hadrosaurid had a slightly exotic taste that set it aside from an everyday turkey dinner just as buffalo is different from beef. The white tender meat was fried, breaded and baked to balance the main fare of lobster, giant crab and numerous types of shellfish.

  Throughout the meal, kids and Hype chicks ran about in a festive free-for-all of tag. They were watched and policed by all the adults as small communities are wont to do. A parent always knew the whereabouts of their child because of the Hive Tabs.

  Alex strolled over to Rachel Zavtek with a mischievous smile on his face. Rachel was deep into conversation with Molly Pasteur when Alex interrupted. ‘Hey Rachel, have you seen Gabriel lately?’

  A look of puzzled interest filled Rachel’s face as she turned to Alex. Then her face turned to one of panic as she looked to the group of boys wrestling on the ground where she had last seen the boy. ‘Oh my God … ‘, she started saying when Alex motioned over toward another group of Hypes.

  A group of young Hypes sat together on the edge of the crowd. They were eating appetizers and fruit and singing in a strange fashion. In the center of the group sat Gabriel, once again covered in dirt from head to toe, an apple in one hand and wordlessly singing his heart out as he and the Hype next to him sat shoulder to shoulder.

  ‘Friends for life.’ Alex said to Rachel and he walked off to find Tom.

  * * * * *

  Alex found Molly Pasteur and Tom Bracken seated at a table next to the deserts. ‘I take it you guys want to be first in line for the goodies.’

  ‘What?’ Said Tom, ‘Oh, you mean the deserts. Ok, you caught us. By the way, what was it you wanted to see me about?’

  ‘I guess we can let Molly in on it.’ Alex said as he sat next to Molly. ‘Do you remember the cave and grotto we found when we went down to the beach the first day? Well, the only ones who actually went into it were Brittany and me. The grotto was quite beautiful with its sandstone but in the darkness I saw a streak of white running through the rock face. I went over to look at it and sure enough, it was a vein of quartzite. Now the interesting part of this is that along the edges of the quartz were pockets of this stuff.’

  Alex pulled his hand from his pocket and set down a walnut-size yellow nugget. ‘This is a two centimeter, single crystal gold nugget. First of all I’ve never heard of a single crystal nugget this size and secondly I never heard of gold being found in southeast Texas’

  ‘Oh my gosh that’s amazing. What do you mean by Texas?’ Molly asked.

  ‘That’s where we are Molly. Someday this is going to be south-central Texas. The point is they never found gold in Texas to my knowledge.’

  ‘Wait a minute Alex.’ Tom chimed in. ‘Did you find this in that cave?’

  ‘No, I found it in the grotto and the vein seems to go back into the mountain. Now only the three of us know about it. How are we going to get it out before everyone else finds out about it and how are we going to stash it so that Dan doesn’t detect the added mass when we head back uptime.’

  ‘How come Jon and Brittany didn’t see it?’ Tom asked.

  ‘When we entered the grotto some animal dashed out along side of us and jumped into the water. Well, Jon ran in the other direction about as quickly as the animal ran out to the sea. I was knocked into the grotto wall and there the vein was behind some boulders. Brittany never saw it and I didn’t mention it. By the way, watch out for Jon if you go out on patrol. He didn’t do well at all here and when we went up the river. You can’t rely on him and if we aren’t careful he could get someone killed.’

  ‘That grotto’s going to be real popular.’ Tom mentioned. ‘Someone else is going to find it eventually.’

  ‘I was able to shift a few rocks over top of it. Yeah, it won’t last forever so we need to get what we can as soon as we can. We can hide it up here and figure out how to take it back with us later on.’

  ‘OK, looks like we’re going to have some problems with the sand crane in th
e coming week?’ Tom said innocently. ‘I expect we’ll be having to go down and fix the bucket a few times.’

  ‘I’ll look around for a safe place to put the nuggets. We need to make sure that we’re the ones working on the crane.’ Molly said. ‘How much do you think is down there?’

  ‘I have no idea but the nuggets were in a cleft about six inches wide and two feet high. It may go back deep into the Cliffside. We won’t be able to take too much from it or the hole is going to be obvious but there should be enough to make us more than comfortable after we get back.’

  * * * * *

  The recurring rhythms and voice-like flow of the instruments that carried far into the night were alien to this younger world of simple song. Six pairs of eyes stared out at the distant display. One pair considered the display with particular fascination and awe. She knew that great lights came with the day and lesser lights filled the night. All light came from the sky.

  She had seen some lights die and fall across the evening sky but these moved differently. Light came from the sky and did not rise from the land to light the sky. Here the land itself glowed to fill the evening sky. Oh, there were times when the hot flowers ran across the land leaving death and black dirt in its path. Those were times of fear, flight and sometimes pain and death. Those were not times of song.

  These lights flared and moved to light the sky. They changed color while they rose and fell in a strange display that somehow followed the sound of the alien song. The song is strangely continuous without the pause of listening for a reply from others. The feeling somehow is good and without threat.