The Jovian Legacy Read online

  THE JOVIAN LEGACY

  First published in Wellington, NZ in 2007

  Copyright © by Lilla Nicholas-Holt, 2014

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  ISBN

  Published by Lilla Nicholas-Holt

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system

  or transmitted in any form by any means

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

  recording or otherwise, without

  prior permission from the publisher.

  The Jovian Legacy

  Thank you to Sue Turner of Kaeo, Northland, NZ, who was a huge help with her literary knowledge, and instrumental in my final product.

  Chapter 1

  Well, this is what Jack decided. He’d been playing around on his computer all Saturday. His parents had taken a three-month trip on their fifty-foot yacht, with their last destination the Bahamas, but had disappeared without trace of the yacht or any debris, five years earlier when Jack was only twelve. He’d been cared for by his Aunt Pippa until he’d reached the age of seventeen, an age when his future should have been full of promise. The day after his birthday Jack moved out, determining he was capable of looking after himself. He’d moved into a flat in town and spent most weekends by himself, absorbed in his computer, and experimenting with different programs. He was even capable of doing a bit of hacking if he really wanted to, but decided against it. It wasn’t really in him to break the law. He was quite happy to focus on space research, which interested him a great deal.

  One Saturday afternoon Jack came across something he had never encountered before when he tripped into a program by accident.

  A surge of adrenaline rushed through him. “No-one’s going to believe this!” he exclaimed, blowing through his pursed lips. He locked his hands together behind his head and sunk back into the sofa in amazement. He decided, for now, to keep it quiet.

  Jack saw a message awaiting him that was in a strange, foreign language. After some enthusiastic searching he found a conversion format that allowed him to decipher it: “Our universe adapter has picked up information and we invite you to participate in our research in off-shore planet life by following the instructions herein.”

  To Jack it didn’t appear to originate from anywhere on this planet, but where exactly it had come from he didn’t know. It had totally bamboozled him. Understandably shaken by his new discovery, Jack was unsure as to whether to proceed in participating in such a program. He left the house for a while to mull things over.

  They’ll think I’m a nutter, he thought.

  He decided to go ahead, but told himself he must keep the whole thing to himself.

  After a few restless nights he chose his time. At six o’clock on a wet and chilly Friday morning, he rolled out of bed and prepared himself for the unknown. As he logged onto his computer he felt excitement combined with a fair bit of fear, and his fingers trembled as he typed in the instructions given by the unknown identity. A message box came before his eyes: “Please type in a date of your choosing.” Jack typed a date in the field below it: ‘26th July 1988’, when he was just six years old and lived on a farm with his parents. Another message box popped up with the words: “Please type in a duration of time, e.g. twelve hours.” Jack typed ‘one hour’ in the empty field then apprehensively applied his virtual reality helmet. He hit the ‘enter’ key.

  Within an instant he is there, waking up as a six-year-old. Jack jumps out of his bed, delighted to see his familiar teddy, lying unceremoniously on the floor where he had thrown it out during the night. He remembers it was something he used to always do.

  “Holy cow!” Jack cries out, looking out of his old bedroom window in a house on a farm where he used to live as a boy. The smell of fresh farm air and morning dew takes him right back to the day.

  Man, I used to take all this for granted, he says to himself, fascinated, his little hands gripping the windowsill. Jack hears footsteps, and turns to see his father. He cannot believe his eyes. He hasn’t seen his father in years, someone who is supposed to be dead. It causes his mind to spin, seeing a younger version of his father through his six-year-old eyes, who, at present, seems so big and tall.

  Ben Dunlop looks quizzically at his son. “What’s the matter, Jack? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” he laughs. “Are you coming to help me milk today? You said last night you wanted to.” Jack manages a nod and starts to get dressed, turning away from his father, hiding his tears of happiness.

  Keen to get the day started and not waste any precious minutes, Jack runs into the kitchen to eat his breakfast. There he sees a lady - his mother, her back turned to him and flipping eggs in a frying pan.

  Mum! He missed her so badly. He missed the delicate fragrance she always wore, a present from his dad.

  Tabu.

  The soft curls of her dark, strawberry blonde hair rest at the nape of her neck, her apron tied neatly in a bow at her back. As she turns (seemingly in slow motion to Jack) a lump forms in his throat. He wants to run into her arms and smother her with kisses, but knows she would be taken aback at such a random act of emotion, so he simply stares.

  His mother smiles at him. “Good morning Love, would you like an egg and a piece of bacon?”

  “Yes thanks,” Jack stammers, eyes wide, still trying to grasp the situation. With a curious glance at him she places his plate of bacon and egg in front of him and turns to pour the tea.

  Ben Dunlop sits across from his son, accepting his mug of tea. He tells Nancy he needs to go across the swamp into Dreyburn’s property to fetch a cow that had wandered over there in the night. Jack can only take in bits of information, trying to absorb the whole thing. The clock on the wall ticks over to 7.30. Remembering that he had keyed in one hour, Jack realises he only has about forty-five minutes left. He is bursting to ask his parents all kind of questions, but knows he can’t.

  His father finishes his breakfast and gets up to go. “Can you let Bud off his leash, Jack, while I start the tractor up? I’ll meet you by the gate.”

  With the last precious moments of seeing his mother, Jack runs out the front door and sees his old beloved dog. Bud is just a bitser, but very loved. After he unleashes him, Jack is knocked to the ground by his overzealous mate. Together they run over to meet Jack’s father by the gate, hopping on the tray of the tractor.

  Jack is an only child. He’d once had a sister, Danielle, but she’d died of cot death. As a result, Jack was somewhat overprotected by his mother. Reflectively, Jack thinks how she used to worry over every little thing that went wrong in his life. If he came home from school to report that one of the village boys had stolen his lunch, his mother would go over to the boy’s house and confront the parents. Jack didn’t really have a chance to stand up for himself, and for this reason was picked on.

  They go around a bend, the tractor chugging down a steepish part of the farm to the swamp, the large wheels flicking up bits of clay in its wake. The strip of kikuyu between the two wheel-tracks sweeps under the tractor and tray, brushing Jack’s legs as they pass over it. On the other side of the swamp in the Dreyburn paddock stands one of their cows, blissfully grazing.

  “This is going to be a tricky one,” says Ben. “I’ll have to go all the way round and Bud’ll have to take her across.”

  Jack’s dog expertly guides the cow through the swamp back onto their own property, so Jack and his dad continue rounding up the other cows for milking. The morning sun invigorates him, and Jack wants to be here for the rest of his life, when suddenly he is brought back to reality.

  Jack sat in front of his computer, his virtual reality hel
met still on, motionless for a minute or so.

  “What the hell was that?” he said aloud. Numbly he typed in his return in the instructed field, and waited for an answer.

  “Thank you for participating in Part 1 of our research for off-shore planet life,” it read. “Please await new instructions from our scientists. This will be dispatched within twenty-four hours.”

  Jack went outside. He was only seventeen but felt like a confused old man as he tried to come to terms with something that was totally off the wall. He became aware of a black Volvo Estate with blackened windows parked across the street. As he looked across the driver’s window slid up, the driver returning his gaze. The car started up and drove off.

  Weird, he thought, wondering who they were and what they were doing in his neighbourhood, and especially wondered why they seemed interested in him.

  The next day there was another message awaiting him. “We wish to continue our research. Are you in readiness to proceed?”

  “Yes,” he typed.

  “Please apply virtual reality device and type in a date and duration of time.”

  Jack thought hard for a moment. He really wanted to continue his day with his beloved family, long ago gone, but instead he typed in the date, ‘16th June 1982 - 30 minutes’, and pressed the ‘enter’ key.

  He feels warm, incredibly warm, and wet. And claustrophobic. Jack finds himself in a confined space, with water sloshing around him. He hears an unfamiliar sound. Groaning. A woman groaning and crying out in pain. Jack becomes anxious as muscles pulsate and contract around him. In the confined space he feels his body being forced down a cavity. Strange noises, creaking sounds like an old house at night surround him. He doesn’t want to be in this situation, and remembers he had keyed in thirty minutes.

  I should’ve keyed in one!

  Jack is forced to continue his journey into the unknown: A huge surge of muscle, a cry of pain, and then someone’s gloved hands on his head. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut against the brightly lit room. The hands expertly manoeuvre his entire body out from the warm but tiny environment, and he hears himself cry. It is a baby’s cry. His own baby’s cry. Jack realises he is being born! He then comprehends he had typed in his own birth date.

  Baby Jack is wrapped in a soft cloth and placed in some warm arms to cradle - his mother’s arms. Jack feels overwhelmed, and opens his eyes to her. He sees a fuzzy outline of her smiling face, and senses her immense love for him.

  Although garbled to him, beautiful soft words are being spoken - his mother’s voice. He hears his father’s voice, and other voices in the room that he doesn’t recognise.

  Love exudes through his mother’s hands, and all too soon he feels another pair of hands gently lift him away, taken and placed in warm water - his first bath. He involuntarily lets out a howl, to the extent of giving himself a fright. He hears soothing noises. The nurse quickly bathes and pats him dry, wrapping him in a soft clean nappy and handing him back to his mother.

  Jack feels hungry. He is aware of the course of action, and starts to feel uneasy about it. His inherent senses kick in, and Jack begins to suckle. The sweet colostrum fills up his belly, and, feeling spent, he drifts off to sleep.

  Jack removed his virtual reality helmet and sat there with it in his lap, mulling over the last half-hour of events, feeling a twinge of excitement as he wondered what would have happened had he chosen to type in thirty days instead of thirty minutes. Jack sometimes wished to be a baby again, something a seventeen year old male should keep to himself. He missed his mother so badly.

  Outside, the Volvo Estate was parked across the street again. This time someone sat in the passenger seat, keying into a laptop while the driver observed Jack’s flat. It drove off. A flash on his computer screen drew his attention back. A hazy image of two people - male and female. Whoever they were, they were gone in an instant. Jack logged into different programs to try and re-establish a connection, but to no avail.

  He went outside for a walk, zipping up his hoodie against the chill, the late afternoon sun beginning to sink down behind the totara trees in the distance. So absorbed was he that he didn’t realise how far he had walked.

  Jack’s parents had been threatened by the bank with a mortgagee sale, so in desperation had sold the farm to the adjoining farm owner. With the leftover funds they bought a yacht named ‘Bermuda’s Choice’. Aptly named, owing to the area where they had gone missing. Jack’s parents were aware they had sold the farm too cheap, but Hughie Dreyburn needed a run-off, and due to pressure from the bank, were relieved when he had made the offer. In turn, the farmer was very pleased with his purchase. Jack was deeply disappointed when the farm was sold, and devastated when his parents went missing. The traumatic event changed him emotionally.

  His physique was of slim build, six foot one and still growing. Jack had hazel eyes, a perfectly straight nose and well defined lips that split into a gorgeous wide smile. At seventeen he had a full-bodied head of curly brown hair that would, if let grow long, fall into a mass of glorious disarray. His nature was especially loving, but due to the trauma he had suffered he sometimes grew sullen, digressing into an emotional dark hole. This was the unsociable Jack.

  That night, nonetheless, he settled into bed, mulling over his most incredible day yet, and felt a pang of excitement with the promise of more to come.

  During the night something woke him; the sound of his computer buzzing. Jack felt sure he had turned it off. He pushed himself up, squinting at it. Displayed on the screen was the image of the two people again, coming into focus. Not looking much older than the day they had left, his parents were looking back at him with thrilled expressions.

  Oh my God, he murmured, the faint words barely escaping his lips.

  Then he heard their voices, “We miss you Jack, we love you.” The screen went fuzzy again.

  “Mum, Dad! Please, don’t go!” he yelled out. The computer buzzed and crackled, and they were gone. A foreign configuration of words and symbols flashed across the screen. Now frustrated and angry, Jack quickly turned the thing off. In the dark he stumbled to his fridge to grab a drink. It contained cans of Coke, a large bottle of Sprite and a few other not-so-healthy food items. His small freezer was stocked full of McDonald’s Special Tuesday 99c cheeseburgers.

  Unable to get back to sleep again, Jack pondered over the time he had said goodbye to his parents. Other people were there, milling around the wharf, gathered to see what was going on. Ben and Nancy Dunlop were on board, clinking glasses with their friends; a lot of chatter going on about their impending journey. By his mother’s side was twelve-year-old Jack. The plan had been three months of sailing around while Jack stayed back with his Aunt Pippa. His parents had intended to buy a small house from what was left in the bank plus the proceeds of the sale of their yacht on their return. Amidst the party atmosphere Jack had had mixed feelings; happy for them but at the same time sad they were going away, and envious of missing out on such an adventure. Although he was welcome to join them, it was really important for him to get good marks at school, as he eventually wanted to attend military school in the US to achieve an MS degree in Space Studies. He suffered from seasickness anyway.

  His mother took him aside and down into the saloon. “I hope you’re going to be okay, Love,” she said tenderly. “You’re a pretty capable young man now, but I’ll always treasure our mother-son closeness. I’ll constantly be thinking of you. Love you very much; you’re the best son any mother could wish for. And Aunt Pippa will take good care of you. Three months will go past really really quick.” Jack struggled to maintain his composure; it wasn’t cool to cry like a baby. He hugged his mother tightly.

  Over the next few days he left his computer alone, giving himself time to come to terms with events of the past few days. When the following Friday came around he felt ready. He was, after all, intent on making contact with his family again, albeit unnerved by the computer image. It suddenly occurred to him that it might be a hoax.
<
br />   You can do pretty amazing things with computers, he thought.

  But then who would want to sabotage mine, especially involving my parents? Jack knew it was just crazy thinking.

  A week later Jack logged into his ‘scientific research program’ again. Another message was waiting for him. Through the language converter Jack read, “We wish to continue our research. Are you in readiness to proceed?”

  “Yes,” he typed.

  An instant reply: “Please apply virtual reality device and type in a date and duration of time.” Exactly as worded before. Jack was feeling by this time a little bolder, more confident. He typed ‘3rd March 1986 - two hours’, applied his virtual reality helmet, and pressed the ‘enter’ key.

  Jack finds himself lying on a camp stretcher inside a tent at a beach. He hears music, talking and laughing. Emerging from his tent he sees people dressed in strange clothing. Although night-time, he can make out their attire; the women in long flowery dresses with ribbons tied around their heads. Long straggly hair adorn the heads of the males, one who wears a long strip of material draped around his neck and threaded through a chunky peace sign that rests at his solar plexus. The people sit around a fire, drinking and smoking. A small rolled-up cigarette is being passed around.

  Jack then recollects when he had earlier been babysat by his Aunt Pippa and her husband. He had been four years old at the time. These younger relatives of his mother, he thinks, were weird, but as they had a son around the same age, his parents had asked them to babysit while they were away at the livestock sales.

  His Aunt Pippa’s older daughter Katy is playing in the sand with a stick, the snapping fingers of the fire catching and lighting up her small shape intermittently.

  Jack looks at his uncle. He thinks he looks terrible. His long hair clings to his head, a well-worn paisley shirt with wide lapels and cuffs is tucked into his bellbottoms, his jeans held up by a wide leather belt pulled to its limit, causing the waistline to pucker. Jack observes the skin and bone form of his uncle passing around the tiny cigarette, and wonders why they don’t have their own cigarettes.