Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 142 of 150

Ben pushed deeper into the trees with both boxes against his chest. The horn was gone, but he knew the hunters would circle. The two boxes were his whole problem now. Kept together, the fox box and the sad-face box hummed loud enough to draw a hunter across a field. Kept apart, one of them leaked sound the moment he set it down. He had no thick walls, no felt, no still place to open them and join the pieces. He needed one, fast. He crouched by a root and thought it through. He had to reunite the sold piece with the fox and seal both quiet in a single container. Do it in the open and the hum would broadcast his spot. He needed a big body of dead sound over the work, and only ten seconds of exposure while he transferred. The grass rustled. A small, spotted creature stepped out, no bigger than his hand, wide-eyed and blinking up at him. Behind it came a calm blue creature with a gentle face, moving slow, in no hurry at all. Ben had traveled with kinds like these. He held still and let them come. The small one climbed onto the sad-face box and pressed flat. The slow creature settled its weight against the fox box. Both hums dropped to nothing. The animals were dampening the sound with their bodies. But Ben could not carry them and the boxes and outrun three men. Then the ground shook. A huge scaled creature came through the brush, broad-shouldered, taller than Ben, its heavy tail dragging leaves. It stopped and lowered its head. Ben's breath caught. A beast that size made its own wall of sound just by breathing and shifting. He understood what to do. Ben backed the big creature against a fallen trunk. He set both boxes in the dirt between its front feet, under the mass of its chest. The small creature and the slow creature climbed close, ready. Ben opened the fox box. The fox stirred, humming. He lifted it out and moved it to the sad-face box in one motion. For ten seconds the hum poured into the air—but the great body over him swallowed it, and the little creatures pressed the sound flat. Ben shut the lid. The fox and the sold piece were together at last. The box went silent. A winged creature dropped from the branches, pale and swift, wings folding as it landed. It ducked its head toward him. Ben knew the offer. He lashed the single sealed box to its back with waxed cord. One box now, not two. One quiet piece, ready to move by air, above every road the hunters watched. The winged creature rose through the gap in the leaves. Ben ran beneath it into the trees. He had the fox and the sold piece joined and silent in one container. The two-box trap was broken. Now he only had to keep the last piece from ever leaving his hands again.