Stranded (A stand-alone SF thriller) (The Prometheus Project Book 3) (13 page)

“Just my luck,”
broadcast Ryan bitterly. He sighed.
“Look … Regan … I have to go. I’m not sure how many hours I have until it gets dark, but I have to come up with some sort of plan long before then. I’ll contact you with an update later.”

“Good luck, Ryan,”
she replied. And with that their connection ended.

Ryan looked around. He was still on a barren section of the planet. So far he hadn’t seen any native wildlife but this wouldn’t last forever. They had seen their share of big game in areas like this on their way out from the portal. He guessed that even the planet’s most fearsome carnivores didn’t want any part of the raging river of scorching lava and were keeping as far away from it as possible.

But Ryan knew he wouldn’t stay lucky forever. Soon enough he would encounter a predator and it would attack. It would have speed, strength and other formidable physical weapons that evolution had perfected over millions of years to allow it to survive in a hostile environment. And he would have his fists, a lighter, and a red pocketknife that contained two blades, a screwdriver, and a bottle-opener. The bad news was that he had no hope of survival. The good news was that if he needed to open any
bottles
, he was in great shape.

He had to find protection and he had to find shelter. A cave might be ideal, but he doubted he would be lucky enough to find one—at least not right away.

He needed a torch. The tiny flame from a lighter wouldn’t scare off a rabbit. More than that, he needed a roaring fire to protect him and to keep him warm during the long night.

And that meant going back into another forested section of the planet for wood and other kindling. Into
the habitat of the gray-furred, silver-eyed pack animals they had just finished battling. Ryan didn’t want to go anywhere
near
where they might be, but he knew he didn’t have a choice.

The nearest section of accessible rainforest was the area they had traveled through when they first exited the Isis shield. He began jogging in that direction. He needed to have his fire raging and a large pile of kindling gathered by dusk.

As Ryan ran, it occurred to him that his best bet was to spend the night with his back against the force-shield. This way no animals could approach him from behind. If he built a semicircle of fire in front of him, he might be protected. He could use his pocketknife during the night to fashion a spear or two from broken branches.

He jogged about two miles to the very edge of the forest, for once glad of all the running he had been forced to do in Phys Ed. He skirted the tree line, not wanting to enter until he had found a stick nearby to use as a torch. He soon found one and with the help of his lighter had it flaming only a few minutes later. The alien wood made excellent tinder. With his torch blazing he quickly made his way to the shield, half a mile deeper into the forest.

Fortunately, Ryan didn’t encounter any dangerous wildlife. He spent the next hour gathering wood into a massive pile against the shield, along with stones to use as weapons. He then arranged the kindling in a semi-circle
about ten yards out from him and set it blazing. This accomplished, he sat with his back to the shield and began whittling two spears from straight, solid branches.

Twenty minutes later the gray-furred pack animals appeared.

Just as before they emerged from nowhere and began their telltale clicking noises, far louder and more penetrating than such noises had a right to be and completely unnerving. Ryan counted fourteen of them. They were respecting the fire, but they held their ground.

Rage swelled up in him.
“Leave me alone!”
he shouted at the top of his lungs. He hurled rocks into the pack as hard as he could, but even if he made contact, it didn’t help. The animals would disperse for a few minutes and then return, as if nothing had happened.

He screamed at them again and turned to the shield, beating his fists against it in blind fury as if this would somehow open it. His hands were now in considerable pain but he didn’t stop until he could barely lift his arms any longer.

After fifteen minutes of circling the fire—at a healthy distance—the pack sensed they wouldn’t be getting at Ryan any time soon. But instead of leaving, they laid on the ground facing the fire. Their eerie silver eyes reflected the raging flames and their bared teeth conveyed an insatiable desire to tear out Ryan’s throat. Their prey was surrounded, and they were going to patiently wait
him out. It was an excellent strategy. Ryan wasn’t going anywhere. No matter how much fuel he had gathered for his fire, at some point it would die out.

And when it did, there would be absolutely nothing he could do to stop them.

C
HAPTER
15
Flying Bloodhounds

A
lyssa Cooper returned home from school over an hour later than usual. Her grandmother promptly informed her that her mom wouldn’t be coming home that weekend—and her grandma was
not
happy about it. Alyssa suspected her mother and grandmother had exchanged some very angry words.

Apparently, their mom had decided to attend a conference for the weekend and couldn’t be reached by phone. Alyssa wasn’t all that surprised. Her grandmother may have been angry, but at this point Alyssa was more relieved than disappointed. At least there wouldn’t be the almost constant fighting that seemed to go on whenever their mother was around.

When her grandmother left the room, Alyssa removed a clear plastic container from her backpack, riddled with tiny air-holes. She had picked it up on her
way home from school, which was why she was so late. Inside about forty honeybees crawled around, buzzing irritably. She entered the kitchen, placed the container carefully inside the refrigerator, and sat down at the table.

All in all, thought Alyssa, it had been a horrible day. On the plus side, her dentist appointment had gone well, and she had had a good conversation with Ryan Resnick who was cute, nice, and had a good sense of humor too. She had the feeling he was really smart, also, despite the fact he didn’t often show it in their English class. She had talked to a few other kids about him and they all said the same thing. It was almost as if the courses he was taking weren’t worth his time or effort. As if he was preoccupied with far more important matters than just high school. Sometimes he spoke and acted just like any other fifteen-year-old kid, but sometimes he spoke and acted a lot older. As though he had one foot in the kid world and one foot in a far more serious one. And he seemed completely resistant to stress. As if no issue that would trouble a normal high schooler could compare to what he had already been through.

Alyssa laughed at herself as she realized she was reading far too much into his behavior. Ryan Resnick was probably just a nice, smart kid who didn’t try very hard and was so confident he didn’t let anything bother him.

But as for herself, she was nearing the breaking point when it came to Brewster, Pennsylvania—and when it
came to her mother. She couldn’t take much more of this. And Kelsey wasn’t doing any better.

Alyssa had been naturally cheerful all of her life. From a very young age when she was around the house and in a
really
good mood, which was often, she would burst into song—something that never failed to drive her sister crazy. But not anymore. Definitely not anymore. Only when she was at school could she manage to be like her old self. Only at school was she able to temporarily forget about her home life and her hatred of Brewster. But the moment she returned home all her frustrations and angers came rushing back, and her mood blackened instantly.

Alyssa was outgoing and had been performing in plays since she was eight. She started taking dance classes when she was nine and had won several competitions over the years. She was especially good at jazz and hip-hop. But that was back in Chicago. Back in a city that had numerous dance competitions and a thriving junior theatre. Not here in the sticks. Not in a place where there were no good dance instructors and little opportunity to perform at any level.

She hated it here. With a passion. And she hated what the move had done to her mother. Whenever she thought about it she felt like throwing something through a window. Or breaking into tears.

While Alyssa had channeled her athleticism into dance, Kelsey had become a tennis and soccer star. Even
though there were fewer teams and fewer opportunities to play these sports in Brewster than there had been in Chicago, she would still be okay in this regard. But Kelsey was less cheerful than her sister by nature, so she was impacted by the strain of their parents’ divorce and their troubled home life at least as much as Alyssa.

Alyssa was determined to get out of Brewster the first instant she had the chance—and that meant college. College would be her escape from this horrible place. Nothing would stop her from leaving because she would leave nothing to chance. She would work harder than she ever had to excel in school, so she could get into any college she chose. And if money became a problem, she wouldn’t let that stop her either. She would get an academic scholarship.

And the Science Fair competition was her key to achieving this goal.

But she had recently come to believe her project wouldn’t be good enough, which made her the most frustrated of all.

Alyssa was interrupted from her reverie by her sister charging down the stairs. Kelsey entered the kitchen pulling a blue hooded sweatshirt over her head. Alyssa remained seated with a frown on her face and didn’t say a word.

“Where were you?” said Kelsey irritably. “I thought you wanted to do a practice run before our big field test tomorrow. Now it might get too dark and too cold.”

Alyssa didn’t respond. If anything her frown deepened.

“What’s wrong,” said her sister.

What
isn’t
wrong, thought Alyssa, but managed not to say this out loud.

“Are you mad because Mom’s not coming home again this weekend?” asked Kelsey.

Alyssa shook her head no. “Are you?”

“No,” said Kelsey, now frowning as deeply as her sister. “It’s probably a good thing.” She paused. “So if that’s not it, what
is
wrong?” she asked again.

“What’s wrong is that I’m beginning to think my flying bloodhound idea is stupid. It’s not good enough to win at any level.”

Kelsey’s eyebrows came together in confusion. “What are you talking about? It couldn’t be going better. All of our tests have worked. I still can’t believe it,” she said in wonder. “The field test will work, too, Alyssa. You’ll see.”

“It’ll work,” said Alyssa. “It just won’t matter.”

The project
was
good. Even very good. But it wasn’t great. And all Alyssa could think of for the past several days were its flaws. Flaws she should have seen from the very beginning.

Ever since their mother had told them about the famous Pavlov and his dogs years before, Alyssa had been fascinated by classical and operant conditioning and had been determined to use these ideas to create a winning Science Fair project.

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian scientist who had won a Nobel Prize in 1904. He was very interested in digestion and studied dogs to learn more about it. Whenever a dog was given food, it would start to salivate, or drool. The saliva made the food easier to swallow and contained enzymes that would help break down certain parts of the meal. This process was automatic, like breathing, and dogs had no conscious control over it.

It wasn’t long before Pavlov noticed his dogs began to drool even
before
they were served a meal. In fact, after further study he realized the dogs began to drool whenever they saw a lab coat. He was fascinated, because the dogs’ meals were always served by people wearing lab coats. Somehow the dogs associated a lab coat with food and their involuntary drool responses were activated.

Pavlov immediately began to study this phenomenon, now called classical conditioning, and did so for the rest of his career. In one of his first and most famous experiments, widely known as Pavlov’s Dog, he rang a bell as he fed his dogs, meal after meal. Sure enough, before too long, his dogs began to drool whenever the bell was rung, even if he no longer gave them any food.

From the early days of Pavlov the field had expanded by leaps and bounds. While classical conditioning operated on involuntary responses,
operant
conditioning worked on voluntary behaviors, using rewards and punishments to actually change complex behavior.

Alyssa was determined to come up with an unbeatable project in this field. She started by surfing the web for interesting applications that she hoped would spark ideas—and soon, she found one.

An application that could be summed up in three words she never thought she would see together.
Bomb sniffing honeybees
.

Bomb-sniffing honeybees?

This had caught Alyssa’s attention immediately. At first she thought it was just a bad joke. But after reading about it on several official web sites she knew that it was real.

It turned out that a honeybee’s sense of smell was every bit as good as a dog’s. Their antenna could detect unimaginably small amounts of a scent in the air, which helped them zero in on pollen. So in the 1990’s, scientists, funded by the military, had trained honeybees to sniff out bombs.

Using sugar-water as a reward, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratories were able to train individual bees to stick out their tongues whenever they smelled a bomb or plastic explosives. Since a bee’s tongue, or proboscis, was even longer than its antenna, this was easy to detect. By harnessing three bees inside a small box with a camera trained on their tongues, the box was turned into a magical, bee-powered, bomb sniffing device.

Working with individual bees using video cameras was fairly advanced, but there were simpler techniques.
Earlier, scientists had used sugar-water to train bees to recognize the scent of a chemical left by a number of different types of bombs. The scientists then tried to train the bees to swarm around the source of this scent whenever they found it. And it had worked!