The Cosmic Ark Read online

  “You can only take one of us?” Liam said. “We’re not very heavy. Surely—”

  “I’ll go,” Ant said. “Liam, I’ve got this. Madison, stand back.”

  “No, this was my idea,” Liam told him, tightening his grip on two tentacles that trailed below the face like a thick, slimy beard. “Get out of here, you two.”

  He stared so fiercely at Ant that his friend dropped his gaze and nodded.

  “We can’t let you go by yourself—” Madison began.

  Ant came around and grabbed at her, pulling her roughly away. “There’s no time to argue. Let Liam handle this. Come on.”

  As soon as they backed off, hope flared in the jellyfish creature’s eyes. It rose quickly, pulling up its tentacles—and Liam with it. His feet lifted off the ground, and he hung on, gasping. “Don’t you dare drop me,” he warned. “Just fly straight up to the wormhole.”

  He got no response except for an unfathomable stare.

  Liam wished he’d thought to ram his feet into footholds so he wasn’t dangling like this. His fingers dug into the tentacles so hard that he was sure it must hurt the ponderous creature. It said nothing though, just shot upward like a helium balloon cut loose from its tethering.

  The cloud brightened. Something whipped by, humming noisily, some kind of giant bug with spindly legs. Then a ghostly woman with trailing robes—the banshee—rushed toward him, her mouth wide open. As she closed in, her wails ripped through the air, hurting his ears, but he had no way to clap his hands over them to block it out. He shut his eyes tight instead, hoping the banshee would leave him alone. Something cackled hysterically somewhere below, and a frantic barking began.

  Up and up he went, and his ears began to pop. The cacophony of screeches and wails faded. At last he opened his eyes. The fog was still brightening, losing its yellowish hue. Liam rose into peace and quiet, clinging to the reluctant gas-beast.

  The wormhole appeared.

  It was a fuzzy darkness at first, but gradually it clarified into a perfect circle about fifty feet across, hanging in midair at a slight downward angle. As always, it looked like someone had pulled a plug so that reality was being sucked upward and out, forming a watery funnel that disappeared into blackness.

  The yellowish cloud was narrow here and so insubstantial as to be barely visible. The bulk of it had fallen to Earth under its own weight, taking with it a menagerie of curious animals. It was just unfortunate that the wormhole was directly above Liam’s house.

  Unfortunate? he thought. Yeah, right.

  The jellyfish creature seemed reluctant to enter the wormhole, but Liam was so afraid now, and his arms so tired, that he let loose with a string of expletives that surprised him. His ride rose and drifted sideways a little, angling into the wormhole. As soon as it crossed the threshold, Liam’s stomach dropped as the two of them were sucked inside.

  The usual race through a swirling tunnel lasted no more than a second or two. They emerged from the wormhole inside a vast square chamber illuminated in sickly yellow by hundreds of deep-set, ceiling-mounted light fixtures, each circular and glowing softly. The floor was a featureless shiny metal that reflected the yellow glow from above. The thirty-foot-high glass walls revealed similar rooms beyond, each filled with yellow fog and shadowy figures.

  Liam twisted around. The wormhole yawned across the room, a little to one side, filling two-thirds of the space. It was almost lying flat, giving the impression that a giant trapdoor had opened up in the floor.

  Beyond the wormhole, the fourth glass wall separated him from a corridor outside. Liam looked for an exit door somewhere, a way to escape this chamber. He was soon disappointed. There was no way out that he could see. The place was like a prison.

  A prison . . .

  The idea stuck.

  Okay, so all the beasties were jailed here, he told himself, and somehow a wormhole appeared and they all escaped.

  He floated there while his tentacled ride struggled to free itself from his grasp. He held on, not ready to part ways.

  Since he was weightless, he had to assume he was in some kind of gigantic spaceship. The idea of it both thrilled and terrified him. The natural laws of pressure didn’t apply where wormholes were concerned, but they always tugged at reality anyway, so in this case the effect was similar; the wormhole had opened up like a breach in the hull and sucked the cloud out.

  And dumped a slew of dangerous beasts on Earth, right over his house.

  He allowed the gas beast to drag him around for a while. The chamber was so big that it took a full minute to float to the far end, and there the floating jellyfish creature bounced off the glass wall and began its slow trek back.

  It was then Liam took a good look at one of the adjacent chambers. The yellow cloud-fog pressed against the glass, silent and perfectly still. Within, the shadows of multiple creatures large and small stood or lay at random angles, frozen in time.

  “What is this place?” Liam asked softly.

  He received no response. The gas beast shifted its watery gaze from side to side, apparently preoccupied.

  Liam tried again, relaxing his grip on the tentacles a little. “Are you a prisoner?”

  Again, no response.

  Sighing, Liam turned about, trying to decide what to do. If this were some kind of holding cell, it explained the lack of exits. He was, in effect, as much a prisoner as his gaseous friend. The thought frightened him, and again he tightened his grip. He could throw himself back out of the wormhole, but without the gas beast he’d plummet to the ground and—

  He frowned. That wasn’t right. Not all the escaped creatures had wings. There had been plenty walking or scampering about on the grass. How had they fallen safely?

  They descended with the cloud.

  He shook his head. That would mean the cloud was substantial enough to cushion them somehow, and he found that hard to believe. Liam and his friends had walked around in it quite easily. It may be the thickest fog in history, but it was no more than that.

  Or was it? As the gas beast floated across the chamber, Liam glanced from side to side at the neighboring cells. The fog certainly was thick, rendering all its captives motionless. Once released to the atmosphere, he guessed its heavier-than-air mass had fallen to ground, smothered his house, and spread outward, thinning all the time—and the monsters had woken.

  The question was whether or not the owners of this spaceship, the zookeepers or whatever they were, knew their hull had sprung a leak and dumped some of its precious cargo. More to the point, would they do anything to retrieve it?

  “Hello?” he yelled. The gas beast jerked and thrashed its tentacles. He scowled at it. “Hey, calm down. I’m just trying to get someone’s attention.” He drew in a breath and yelled again. “HELLO? ANYONE OUT THERE?”

  Half a second later, every subdued green light in the chamber turned bright white, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the glare. A deafening klaxon sounded, much louder than the banshee and bat-monster combined, and he automatically let go of the gas beast and clapped his hands over his ears. By the time he opened his eyes again, his ride was halfway to the other end of the chamber, its rounded body heaving in and out, tentacles wriggling underneath.

  Liam sucked in a breath as red lights trained on him.

  Chapter 5

  The red lights were blinding for a second, but when Liam squinted and looked down, he saw a pattern of crisscrossing lines across his entire body. He jerked about, frustrated by his weightlessness, unable to escape the scan.

  The laser lights shut off and the klaxon fell silent. A silence followed.

  Two robots hurried into view in the corridor beyond the glass wall. They were highly polished and about the size and shape of large human men. They had no legs, though. Instead, they floated easily along the hall.

  Liam heard nothing through the thick glass. He flailed his legs and arms in an attempt to move closer. He had no idea if they would help him or not, but it was worth a try.

&n
bsp; The robots arrived at a panel on the wall, one that was lit with an array of green and red, clearly some kind of control center. To his surprise, he recognized numbers. Ordinary, Earth-type digits illuminated in bright green:

  2/65

  He had no idea what the numbers meant, just that they were human. This seemed significant somehow. He’d read somewhere that math was the only true universal language no matter how far across the galaxy you traveled, that two plus two equaled four even if the symbols used to represent the numbers were utterly different. But to see ordinary, recognizable digits glowing from a control panel on this spaceship full of weird and wonderful creatures took him by surprise.

  2/65

  What did it mean? The robots studied the display then spun to study him with their gleaming, featureless faces. Liam could see they were upset by the way they jerked around, evidently in some kind of panic mode.

  “Yeah, your prisoners escaped,” he said, his voice echoing softly.

  A flickering to the right caught his eye, and he twisted around to see the wormhole about to expire. Panic swept through him. He’d seen enough of them to know that he had mere seconds to get to it and escape.

  He had no chance.

  The robots raced about. One docked with the control panel by way of a rod that projected from its chest. Instruments lit up. Meanwhile, the second robot faced the glass to manually eyeball the situation.

  The wormhole flickered wildly then began to close, shrinking in size, imploding. When it was half the width, it halted and brightened again.

  Liam blinked. He’d never seen that before. Its closure had been arrested midway—by the robots.

  The gas beast, forgotten until now, wheezed across the chamber. “No!” Liam cried. “Don’t leave me! I need you to—”

  The gas beast crossed the threshold and vanished in the blink of an eye, escaping to Earth. The robot facing the glass shook violently, clearly agitated. Over its shiny shoulder, the digits on the panel changed.

  1/65

  In a flash, Liam knew what the numbers signified.

  There were sixty-five prisoners in this cell, but only two life forms are registering on your computer at the moment, he thought. One now that the jellyfish has gone.

  He desperately wanted the readout to say 0/65, meaning he’d be on his way to Earth as well. Why had he come here? He’d achieved nothing except to alert these jail guards to the breakout.

  Flailing wildly again, he fought with his weightlessness and tried to inch his way closer to the wormhole. It wasn’t far, no more than twenty feet. In fact he was already moving because of his earlier contact with the gas beast; he’d let go when the klaxon sounded, and it was pure luck that they’d been moving toward the wormhole at the time.

  In the vacuum of deep space, inertia would carry him forever at the same speed. Here in this chamber he had air. The air kept him alive, but it also caused drag and slowed him down. Yet the wormhole, even at half size, was sucking greedily. Liam felt its tug, and he punched the air. “Come on, come on!”

  The klaxon sounded again. He covered his ears, wincing. What was the point of all that noise? The robots knew the situation, were already working hard to remedy it. What difference did a deafening alarm make?

  He realized seconds later that it must be an automatic warning. Thick yellow fog was hissing into the chamber from above, venting from what must be hundreds of tiny holes in the smooth ceiling.

  “No, no, NO!” Liam shouted. “I’m not one of your prisoners!”

  The robots ignored his pleas. They were intent on working at the control panel while the yellow fog slowly thickened. As it did so, Liam began to feel resistance as he flailed. Feeling like he was swimming in cotton candy, he worked up a sweat in his efforts to close the gap between him and the wormhole.

  It was working, but far too slowly. The air thickened with every passing second. His movements became more assured but, conversely, he felt more and more that he was becoming stuck.

  Fifteen feet. He was definitely closer.

  He had to pause for breath. As he did so, something flashed to his right. He twisted around, startled to find he wasn’t alone anymore. A black-furred doglike creature lurked in the chamber with him, thankfully over in the far corner. It roared at him and thrashed, whipping its long tail about. Its back and shoulders bristled with long, porcupine quills as it struggled to swim through the murky air toward him, its long, curved claws reaching for him…

  The creature was already fading from sight, becoming a shadow in the gloom. That didn’t stop it bellowing and thrashing, but Liam felt it would never manage to cross the chamber and cause him harm.

  Breathing hard, he returned his attention to the glass wall. The robots were still busy, and the display on the control panel had changed.

  2/65

  Another flash made him jump as a beam of pure white light shot out from somewhere behind him, perhaps from the ceiling, arcing across the chamber and straight into the wormhole. There, it bent wildly on its journey to Earth as though refracted through a glass prism.

  Another shadow appeared. Liam couldn’t make out what it was, but he took a long, deep breath and tried to settle his racing heart. Whatever the creature was couldn’t reach him.

  3/65

  Two more flashing beams shot into the wormhole, and the display changed again. This time the newcomers were close. One he recognized from earlier, a strange childlike creature with a large head, the other tall and skinny with two legs and four arms—or perhaps six legs. A Stick Insect. It squirmed and emitted clicks and growls.

  Flash, flash, flash. Flash-flash.

  The beams of light were rapid-fire now, the prisoners being yanked back into their cell through some kind of teleportation system. No wonder the robots had wedged the wormhole open—they wanted their precious cargo back and couldn’t do that if the gateway closed down.

  Flash-flash. Before long, the number read 32/65 and was still climbing fast.

  The room was already half full. Even as Liam watched, the first digit shot up another five notches. Behind him, shadows loomed everywhere. The closest was mere feet away, almost within reach. He stared at it with distrust, and it stared back, a shaggy creature that looked like a yak with flippers. Just how random was this menagerie? What was to stop the vicious predators from tearing into the docile herd grazers?

  47/65

  It occurred to him that the prisoners had frozen. The fog was so thick now that Liam could barely see through the nearest glass wall. The wormhole, though, was closer, a mere ten feet away.

  His heart leapt. The wormhole was sucking the fog out, dragging him closer, while fresh fog hissed into the chamber from above.

  It was a battle. Like someone had pulled the plug out of a bathtub, fog and monsters alike crept toward the whirling eddy. The obvious solution was to let the wormhole collapse, but then some of the cargo would be forever lost.

  52/65

  Another beam of light shot into the wormhole, fishing for fugitives. Liam tried to resume his swimming but found his limbs had locked up. He was absolutely helpless, hardly able even to blink. The fog pressed against his face and smothered his nose and mouth, and he began to panic at the inevitable suffocation to come. His phobia kicked in, and sweat trickled down his face as his hands and neck grew ice cold.

  Yet he continued to breathe easily, and his eyes—frozen open—seemed well enough lubricated that he had no need to blink.

  Suspended animation, he thought. That’s what this is. Some kind of stasis. All these holding cells full of monsters, frozen like exhibits being transported across the galaxy. And now I’m one of them.

  The digits changed again. It was with great effort that he managed to focus on them. His eyeballs seemed to be glued in place, but he was allowed a twitch at least. Enough to see that his fate was nearly sealed.

  61/65

  In his periphery, one of the shadows drifted closer to the wormhole, accelerating as it approached. Though utterly helpless
, it was probably jubilant as it crossed the threshold and vanished back to Earth.

  60/65

  Liam tried to laugh but couldn’t. The robots were finding it more and more difficult to find and latch onto the remaining fugitives. And while they dithered, the wormhole continued to vacuum the cloud and its prisoners. Liam himself was drifting closer and closer, and he began to hope that he, too, would be free in just a moment.

  A beam of light and a flash.

  61/65

  Almost as soon as Liam saw the new total, a massive shadow followed in its wake. Liam tried to tear his gaze from the control panel and peer sideways, but the thick, misty substance prevented his eyeballs from swiveling. Still, he sensed that something enormous was right behind him. The bat creature had been nabbed.

  At least it’s not wrecking my roof anymore.

  Another flash, and a shadow appeared close to the glass where the robots were hovering. Liam could see this creature clearly because the fog was so thin in the vicinity of the wormhole. It was the gas beast.

  He couldn’t help feeling sorry for it. The poor, ugly thing was back. And the readout was close to full.

  63/65

  Liam mentally crossed his fingers. Come on, come on, just a few more feet and I’ll be dragged across the threshold.

  The wormhole yawned invitingly, and he wished he could just reach out and dive in. It flickered briefly but held solid, the swirling tunnel within sucking at the fog.

  Then it happened. With a thrill of excitement and relief, he sped into the wormhole, not for the first time feeling like he was entering a water flue at an amusement park. He drew in a sharp breath as he tore along the wormhole and shot out the other end.

  As quick as that, he was safe. Except that he was falling to his death.

  Chapter 6

  62/65

  This time he could only imagine the counter as he tumbled in midair, glimpsing endless woods, narrow roads, an enormous lake, and clusters of buildings before plunging back into the yellow cloud that had enveloped his house and yard. To his surprise and enormous relief, it buffeted him, slowed his descent. That strange, now almost comforting feeling of being smothered came over him. It must have been this way for all the prisoners as they came down earlier—coddled within their protective cloud, landing safely, then slowly working their way loose as the cloud spread out and thinned.