Stranded (A stand-alone SF thriller) (The Prometheus Project Book 3)

by Richards, Douglas E

  They loaded overstuffed backpacks, sensors for detecting X-ray levels in space, a portable force-field generator, self-inflatable dwellings, and stores of water into the back of a Hauler and pulled up in front of the zoo building. As usual, the building projected an endless series of realistic holograms of alien animals near its entrance, advertising its function as a zoo.

  Dan had already instructed the guard manning the zoo building, Lieutenant Lebron Williams, to blend in as much as possible so as not to arouse the suspicions of anyone passing by. When the Isis expedition neared, Dan ordered him to stay out of sight and watch carefully through binoculars to be sure that only the eleven people authorized for the trip went inside. He didn’t want to tip off anyone on the expedition that anything was out of the ordinary. After they had entered, Lebron could man his post once again.

  After several trips back and forth through the portal, the team’s belongings and equipment were safely stowed in two trams parked within the dome-shaped shield on Isis. These were the only two trams on the planet, but they were large enough to easily accommodate both the team members and their supplies. While the trams were standard alien equipment on each of the zoo planets, each planet seemed to have them in different sizes and different numbers. Some had only one. Some had dozens.

  Mr. Resnick, the two other physicists, and Miguel took the lead tram. They would be on the lookout for a good location at which to set up the X-ray detector. Mrs. Resnick, Regan, Cam Kincaid, and the three biologists piled into the one behind.

  Mrs. Resnick had put one of their two Med-Pens in her backpack, but she pulled the other one from her pocket. She inserted it into a canvas emergency kit they had brought with them, letting everyone know that she had done so. In addition to a Med-Pen, the emergency kit contained bandages of every type, gauze, several flares, and a variety of human medications.

  “Hey Ryan,” said his sister telepathically. “Looks like there’s an empty seat next to Michelle Cooper.”

  Ryan glanced at Michelle Cooper’s steely blue eyes. Now that he realized who she was, he could see the similarities between her and Alyssa. She was a million years older, of course, and not nearly as pretty. She was also decidedly less friendly.

  “Um … that’s okay. I think I’ll go with Dad,” he broadcast back.

  “Chicken! This is your chance to get on her good side. Don’t blow it.”

  “Are you coming?” said Mrs. Resnick to her son.

  “Sure,” said Ryan. He wished it weren’t true, but his sister had a point. He exhaled loudly and took a seat beside Alyssa’s mother. Maybe he was just imagining that she didn’t like him. The first few times they had met she had treated him like a celebrity. Although she hadn’t been there when the alien invader named Tezoc Zoron had captured the entire team, she had heard all about it. She had told Ryan that his actions during that crisis were legendary, and deservedly so. She had really liked him then. He had no idea why this had changed.

  “Hi,” said Ryan, smiling pleasantly.

  Michelle gave him the slightest nod. “Hi Ryan,” she said. She wasn’t outwardly hostile, but something about her body language made it clear to him that she wasn’t open to further discussion. It was as if he had a really nasty case of body odor but she was too polite to tell him; turning ever so slightly and moving as far from him as she could without being obvious about it, instead.

  Could it be that she had always disliked him? Maybe she had only been pretending to like him in the beginning because she worked for his mom? Regan thought she just didn’t approve of having kids on the team, and Regan was usually right. Maybe Michelle Cooper had just forgotten some of the contributions he and his sister had made.

  He glanced at the red crystal medallion in the front of the vehicle that hung down from the roof like a circular rear-view mirror. These crystals allowed the trams to pass through the force-fields. Without one of the red crystals, the shield could only be breached using a furious onslaught of energy from high-powered lasers and other advanced power generators. Their father had been convinced that the shield opened when it detected a tram trying to pass. But Regan had proved him wrong. She had discovered that the crystals were the key, not the trams. These crystals were like universal garage-door openers, able to get through any force-field barrier.

  It was possible that Michelle Cooper hadn’t heard about this contribution. If not, maybe she could use another reminder that kids could play an important role on the team. And since it was Regan who had been responsible for the discovery, he wouldn’t be bragging.

  Everyone else in the tram was now engaged in conversation except for Alyssa’s mother—and Regan, of course, who wanted to eavesdrop on his efforts to win the woman over.

  Ryan took a deep breath and turned to the icy woman next to him. “You know,” he began, “Regan actually discovered how these trams get through the force-fields. This was when Tezoc was threatening to—”

  “Thanks, Ryan,” she interrupted, “but I know all about your sister’s discovery.” While her tone was pleasant enough, Ryan saw nothing but contempt in her eyes. She flashed a quick smile that Ryan was convinced was fake. “Sorry to cut you off, but I’m not really up for discussion at the moment. I’m trying to focus on Isis right now,” she added pointedly. “I’m a biologist who studies alien life. And here we are on an alien planet. You get that, right?” she finished, as if speaking to a five-year-old.

  “Yeah. I get that,” said Ryan. “Totally.”

  “Real smooth, Ryan,” broadcast Regan as their parents each activated a holographic control and the caravan of two trams began moving forward. “What are you thinking? How about starting a conversation by asking her how she’s doing or something?”

  “I know. I always act like an idiot around her. Even when I had no idea Alyssa was her daughter. Knowing she doesn’t like me stresses me out.”

  “Maybe it’s time to find some other girl to like.”

  Ryan frowned. “No. I could still be okay,” he broadcast hopefully. “Aren’t girls supposed to be attracted to guys their parents don’t like?”

  Regan laughed. “You’ve been watching too many bad movies, Ryan. And I don’t think you’d fall for a girl like that.”

  Ryan was about to reply.

  But he couldn’t!

  The strange force he had felt when the Hauler had hit him was back. His body seemed to stretch out and threatened to pull completely apart. He wanted to gasp, but he couldn’t do that either.

  But he realized in horror that there was one thing he could do.

  He could see the heart, lungs, and ribcage of the person in front of him with perfect clarity.

  CHAPTER 9

  An Ideal Location

  In less than a second it was over.

  Ryan patted his own body once again to be sure he was solid as his heart pounded away furiously in his chest.

  “Did you feel that?” he asked anxiously.

  “Uh-huh,” replied Regan, her mind reeling in shock.

  “It was like when the Hauler hit us. Exactly the same. I felt like I was being stretched apart in some weird way and I could see through things again.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Mom,” said Regan out loud. “Did you just feel anything funny?”

  Mrs. Resnick shook her head. “No, Honey. But I’m in the middle of a conversation, okay,” she added.

  “Sorry,” said Regan.

  “I don’t get it,” she broadcast. “This is even freakier than before. The Teacher didn’t do it this time. The Teacher isn’t even on the planet.”

  “So whatever happened to us in Prometheus, it might keep happening. What if we’re not stable anymore? What if this happens more and more often? Until … I don’t know … we become ghostlike—permanently.”

  “But it wasn’t random,” pointed out Regan. “It happened exactly when we were going through the shield. That has to be important.”

  Ryan hadn’t been paying a
ttention to where they were when it happened, so he hadn’t been aware of this. What could this mean?

  “Maybe becoming not-solid is the way we always get through the shield,” he suggested. “How anything gets through. Maybe that’s what the crystal really does. It makes objects ghostlike for an instant until they pass through.”

  “Then why didn’t we ever experience this before?” asked Regan. “And why were we the only ones who experienced it now?”

  “Good question.”

  Regan tilted her head in thought. “I have an idea,” she broadcast excitedly. “Maybe the Teacher changed our brains again. It talked with us telepathically—did something to our minds so we would have a compatible frequency—and then we became telepathic. The telepathic signals were always there, we just couldn’t pick them up.”

  “So you’re saying that the crystals have always caused our bodies to become ghostlike and pass through the shield, we just didn’t sense it before. But when the Teacher had to jerk our bodies into this state, it changed the structure of our minds again.”

  “Exactly,” she replied. “We weren’t telepathic. Now we are. We couldn’t sense being turned into a ghost. Now we can.”

  Ryan considered. “I guess it’s as good a hypothesis as any,” he broadcast finally. “We’ll have to see if it happens again the next time we cross the barrier.”

  With that the siblings stopped talking, telepathically or otherwise, and focused on their surroundings.

  The gravity on Isis was slightly lower than on Earth and the air contained slightly more oxygen. The temperature was comfortable, if not a little chilly. The sky wasn’t blue but instead had a reddish cast to it; similar to how parts of the sky could appear when the sun was setting on Earth. And while the vegetation was similar to tropical vegetation on Earth, yellow replaced green as the most popular color.

  The Isis portal was within a section of rainforest, but they had exited this to a more open area fairly quickly. To their left, a towering volcanic mountain range seemed to go on forever. Three peaks, rising above all others, gathered rain clouds around themselves like blankets. These clouds would provide the water to quench the thirst of the broad swaths of rainforest.

  Barren landscapes broke up the rainforest periodically—areas that were in the path of lava flows. The flows were usually a few yards below the surface, but even so, little or no vegetation would grow anywhere nearby. And there were no roots to break up the array of pink, orange and black lava rocks. After the incident with Carl, the expedition knew to steer well clear of these. And other than the half-mile section they had passed through when exiting the Isis shield, they avoided the rainforest as well.

  A half-mile to their right, dozens of miles of cliffs stood guard over a reddish-hued ocean far below. Glowing orange lava, mostly traveling through underground lava tubes, burst through the cliff face at dozens of locations hundreds of feet above the surf. From there it fell to the sea in thick, molasses-like waterfalls. Where it entered the ocean, thousands of gallons of seawater were turned instantly into blistering steam that rose and formed billowing sea-monster shapes above the cliffs.

  Isis teamed with large wildlife of every kind, as their mother had told them. The variety was astonishing. It was as though all the animals of Africa, North America, and Australia were concentrated on a single land mass. And judging by the number of species with massive jaws, fangs and other spiked natural weapons, the planet appeared to have more than its share of carnivores.

  But as their mother had promised, the humans were completely ignored. Not a single animal attempted to approach the tram—not that this would have done them any good.

  Although there were no detectable force-fields around the trams, no animal had ever been able to get within ten yards of one on any planet. No animal, that is, except humans. Whether the trams recognized humans specifically, or intelligent life in general, was unknown, but highly advanced alien technology was clearly behind this inexplicable effect.

  Taking Regan’s lead, their father had experimented on the trams and discovered a small white crystal that provided power to the vehicles. The power of these crystals seemed limitless, like batteries that never died. When the white crystals were removed the trams wouldn’t move. But even without their power source, the trams somehow still managed to provide a zone of safety around themselves, keeping all animals at bay.

  After they had traveled for about thirty minutes Mr. Resnick called a stop. They were about three miles away from the portal on a large, barren stretch of land that was roughly in the shape of a rectangle. One side bordered a rainforest. Behind another side a mountain range rose majestically into the red sky until it was out of sight behind wispy Isis clouds. Yet another side looked down on valleys that ended at the cliffs above the ocean. The land was flat and didn’t contain lava rocks. It was protected from the wind by several natural features. Because it overlooked two valleys, the biologists could observe any number of species in the distance interacting with one another.

  An ideal place to set up camp.

  Everyone emptied out of the trams. The three physicists removed large cases in which sensitive equipment had been carefully packed in Styrofoam. They hauled the cases thirty yards away—within sight of the rainforest on that side of the clearing but not too close. They immediately unpacked and began to assemble the X-ray detector under Cam’s protective eye. He held a tranquilizer gun in one hand and the canvas emergency kit in the other.

  The four biologists pulled pad computers from their backpacks, with built-in camcorders, and wandered off in search of the perfect place to observe their favorite wildlife. Miguel watched carefully for any signs of trouble.

  Ryan and Regan wandered off on their own, but their mother caught up with them ten minutes later. “I want to show you something,” she said. She pointed to a valley below them to the south and motioned for them to follow her. “I’ve spotted a herd of animals that are very unique. We call them—”

  A scream pierced the reddish alien air! A shrill shriek that was earsplitting in its intensity.

  The members of the expedition were spread out, but everyone jumped at once as though they had received an electric shock.

  The scream repeated.

  It was coming from just inside the rainforest.

  And it was unmistakably human.

  CHAPTER 10

  Attack

  Everyone rushed to the rainforest to investigate, with Miguel and Cam in the lead, putting on an impressive display of pure speed. The unnerving screams continued as the two members of security passed the tree line and entered the thick yellow forest. They searched frantically for whoever was doing the screaming but saw no one.

  Where was the screamer? The screams were coming from the area in which they were now standing. They were sure of it.

  Within thirty seconds the other members of the expedition, who had come from different parts of the large clearing at different speeds, had all joined the two men.

  The screaming stopped abruptly. As quickly as it had begun.

  Yet they had still failed to find it source.

  “Are we sure it was a human scream?” asked Cam anxiously.

  “No doubt about it,” said Donna Morgan, still breathing hard. “It was a woman’s scream. But it wasn’t one of us. Was another expedition here ahead of us?”

  Cam shook his head. “There’s no one else here. I’m positive.” He raised his eyebrows. “No one from the Prometheus Project at any rate.”

  “Could whoever was screaming have been dragged off by an animal?” asked Miguel.

  “No,” said Amanda Resnick. “The animal life here ignores humans completely.”

  “Let’s spread out and comb the area,” said Miguel. “Look for anything that might help us understand what just happened.”

  The search had only begun when Bob Zubrin shouted, “I found something.”

  He was under an exotic tree, with circular yellow leaves the size of Hula Hoops. Everyone joined him in seco
nds. He picked up a strange, tan-colored object that was roughly spherical and about the size of a soccer-ball and handed it to Miguel.

  It seemed to be nothing more than a makeshift, uneven ball of padding. Miguel examined it. A black electronic device was buried inside this cushioned cocoon, which was open on one side so a speaker on the device would not be blocked. Miguel reached in and ripped it free of the tape that held it.

  It was digital tape recorder! It was on but no sound was coming out. Miguel reset it to the beginning and hit the “Play” button. Nothing. He moved it ahead five minutes and tried again.

  A shrill scream emanated from the recorder at such high volume it almost deafened him.

  Miguel had a sick look on his face as he quickly hit the “Stop” button.

  Someone in their group had done this! They had neared the tree line, activated the padded recorder, and tossed it into the dense growth. It had run for four or five minutes until it reached the long stretch of pre-recorded screaming, which it had broadcast with chillingly realistic sound quality.

  But why would someone do this? There were only two reasons Miguel could think of. As a sick practical joke. Or to create a diversion!

  Miguel had a very bad feeling about this. He hastily took an inventory of the people around him. Two were missing: Michelle Cooper and Nathaniel Smith. “Let’s get back to the trams,” he ordered. “Now!”

  As the group turned to retreat, three animals emerged from behind trees, heading straight toward them. They were about the size of wolves with thin gray fur and gleaming silver eyes. Unlike wolves, they didn’t have elongated snouts—or snouts of any kind for that matter—which only seemed to leave more room for massive mouths filled with sharp, jagged teeth. They had four legs that ended in feet that were padded and clawed like those of a leopard. They issued a low-pitched clicking sound that was as intimidating as a rattlesnake’s rattle.