Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble (Noah Zarc, #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

planning to move the DUV III to operational status before he made the next jump, but then Moses returned with the time-markers for the Irish deer. Dad was too excited to wait, so he and Mom agreed to do the final calibrations on the DUV III’s warp manifold after they returned.”
    “Then take another ship,” I said.
    “No other ship has a hull built to withstand the strain. Warping spacetime around most objects,” Hamilton snapped his fingers, “simply snuffs them out of existence. Only a ship built specifically to withstand the extreme forces can make the jump.”
    “But we’ve got ships much bigger than the DUV class. How come they can’t handle it?” I was getting irritated. We needed to rescue our parents, and he was lecturing us on the physics of time travel.
    “It’s not entirely about size. It’s more about shape. The DUV class is the only ship we have capable of sliding through the time-stream without causing too great a disturbance. It’s no coincidence that Moses and the DUV class ships have the same profile. The only other ship built to the appropriate specs is the ARC herself.”
    “How long would it take to get the DUV III operational?” Sam said. “I thought it was ready to go, except the calibration.”
    Moses said, “Your father was not prepared to trust the reliability of the DUV III ’s warp manifold. Its jumps could be erratic.”
    “So we take the ARC ,” I said.
    “We haven’t moved the ARC in years,” Sam said. “And the last time, we had Mom and Dad with us.”
    “Nevertheless,” Hamilton said, “I think it’s our most logical choice.”
    “Fine,” Sam said. “We’ll take the ARC . We need to get moving, we’re running out of time.”
    Hamilton let out a big sigh. “Haven’t you been listening? We have all the time in the solar system. We could leave in ten years and still reach Mom and Dad at the moment Moses left them.”
    Sam’s face grew red and she spoke through clenched teeth. “We aren’t going to take ten years!”
    “Of course not.” Hamilton backed away. “How long do you think it’ll take to prepare the ARC ?”
    “Shouldn’t be more than a couple of days.” She looked at me, her brows knitted together. “As long as we all do our part.”
    “I’ll work with Moses to process the DNA samples and establish coordinates,” Hamilton said.
    “Fine.” Sam turned toward the door. “Noah, you and I need to get the animals secure and the ship ready to leave the surface of the moon. I don’t care what Hamilton says—we need to hurry.”

    Sam and I worked all day getting the ARC ready to go. It was hard to focus—I had to go over the simplest stuff again and again to get it right. That night I was so tired I didn’t even get undressed, just collapsed in bed. No matter how tired I was, though, no matter how I tossed and turned, I couldn’t get comfortable. I’m not like Sam and Hamilton. They seemed to be able to keep it together, brush off what was on all our minds, but I couldn’t do it.
    I thought of a morning when I was seven or eight, Mom seated at her desk looking through a microscope while I played with some constructo-cubes on the floor. I loved to play in her lab—all the equipment, the whirring of machines—but what I really loved was just being around her. Talking to her.
    “Mom, do you think I’ll ever be like everyone else?”
    She looked up from her work. “Of course not, Noah. You’re—”
    “Special.” I glared at her. “Maybe I don’t want to be special.”
    She got down on the floor and wrapped me in her arms.
    “Everyone enters this world with some kind of handicap,” she said. “Whether it’s the place they live, the family they’re born into, or the weakness of their legs. No one has a perfect life.”
    Even back then, when I was still just a kid, she didn’t sugarcoat the truth.
    “What makes each of us special is how we deal with our circumstances.” She moved hair out of my face. “I probably don’t