Chapter 6
12:32 pm
The same unknown day and location.

After a light lunch of cheese sandwiches, Jules and Verne managed to keep themselves occupied for a short while. However, Verne soon grew tired of drawing when he could be outside discovering new things to draw. Jules watched his father's repair work with waning interest, as he really wanted to snap some pictures of the unknown wooden object.

"How much longer do you expect the repair will take?" Clara asked her husband, wondering if there was time for another walk.

"I estimate it should take approximately one hour, twenty minutes," Emmett answered after thinking for a second.

"Plus or minus thirty seconds," Jules added under his breath.

"In that case, could the boys and I take another walk?"

"That should be alright. Did you see anything interesting earlier?" Emmett asked, having not had time to talk about it when they returned (particularly because he had to work underneath the train for an hour).

"We saw a large wooden structure up on a hill. We think we saw animals going into it, including some dinosaurs," Clara explained.

"That is unexpected, though not totally surprising. Just because most palaeontologists think that dinosaurs died out millions of years ago doesn't mean that there aren't still some around."

"Paleeo-what?" Verne asked.

"People who study fossilised bones and such. Didn't you read all the books?" Jules replied.

"You read some stuff to me, but I mostly looked at the pictures," Verne answered.

"How close were you?" Emmet asked.

"We needed full zoom on the binoculars to see the animals properly, so not close at all," Clara explained, lessening his fears.

"You can take another look, but don't go any closer, and make sure you take the radios again. I have the time control circuits properly functional, and all the flux dispersal conduits are insulated properly. Now I need to go over the hover systems..."

"The hover systems? But if they weren't working, we would have crashed!" Clara protested, rather worried.

"No, there's a backup system for landing in an emergency. The damage is mostly confined to the control circuits, and practically all the damage occurred in the last few seconds before we landed. I took care to ensure the hover system would stand a lot of beating, but not this much!"

Clara looked around for the boys, and found they were already halfway out the door. She picked up her radio and hurried after them.

"There it is!" exclaimed Jules, spotting the long wooden structure. The explorers had not taken quite the same path, so they ended up in a position to see for of the long side of the object.

His mother gave it a quick sweep with the binoculars. "I can't see any animals this time. I think there's a person outside, but it's hard to see from this distance," she reported.

"Let me look, let me look!" Verne begged.

"Here," said his mother as she passed the binoculars down to him. "Just a quick look, and pass it to Jules."

"I can see someone, they're walking away from us, towards the... doorway thing. From this angle it looks like a ramp that goes up to the middle and..."

"I believe it is my turn to look now," Jules stated firmly, holding out his hand expectantly.

Verne grunted in annoyance and handed his brother the binoculars. "I can still kinda see the ramp without the binoculars, but it's really tiny!" he reported, relieved that he was not totally robbed of vision of the object. Suddenly an idea hit him, and he started searching through his pockets.

"It is like a scaffold or gantry: it isn't attached to the side of the... whatever it is. The person is starting to walk up it. I think it's a man. He's stopping and turning around. Definitely a man. He looks old, but it's hard to tell. Now he's walking in the doorway. It's a big doorway, and it looks like there is a door to ut, but it's opened up so far that it's flat against the wall, so it's not easy to see. The man is inside now."

"May I look again, Jules?" Clara asked.

"Here, Mom." He passed up the binoculars and strained his eyes to continue watching.

"The door, it's moving! It's swinging shut!" Clara exclaimed.

"I see, but what's moving it?" Jules asked.

Clara zoomed in on the door. "Nothing, it's just swinging by itself. It's nearly shut! It's closed!"

Several seconds later, a loud slam assaulted the ears of the three explorers.

"Whoa, that was loud!" Verne exclaimed.

"Did you see it?" Jules asked excitedly.

Verne waved his camera around. "Sure did. Snapped some pictures. With the toleph... tephel... tepophet... that long distance lens."

"Telephoto. Good work Verne," Jules congratulated.

Clara's radio crackled. "What was that sound I heard?" Emmett asked.

"Oh, remember that large wooden structure I mentioned?"

"You said something about animals going into something. I was a little preoccupied when you said that."

"A man just walked up the ramp into it, and the door closed behind him, by itself. It slammed rather hard."

"Interesting. Did you say the door closed by itself?"

"Yes, it has hinges, and swung through a half-circle. There was nothing attached to it, and it looked very heavy too."

"Remarkable. There's something very familiar about all this."

"Yes, there is, but I can't quite put my finger on it."

"Say, it's kinda like Noah's Ark," piped up Verne. "You know, how all the animals went into the Ark, and then God shut the door." Verne seemed to find his suggestion funny, and began laughing to himself.

Jules stared at Verne with wide eyes, then turned and stared at the wooden object with wider eyes, and then turned back to Verne and repeated the process. Clara gasped, paled slightly, and shouted, "Emmett!" into the radio.

"Clara! What's wrong?"

"Verne just helped me realize what's going on. It's Noah's Ark. And after that is…"

"Noah's Flood! We must leave this time period immediately! I still have ten minutes of work before the train will be ready for temporal displacement. You must get back here as quickly as you can."

"We're on our way, Emmett," Clara answered, having already started running back into the trees. The two boys followed close behind her.

"No wonder it has been so quiet here: it is the proverbial 'calm before the storm'," Jules observed as he ran.

"Don't talk, just run!" Verne retorted, now understanding the seriousness of the situation.

"We can't really run in all these trees: there's too many things to trip over or get caught in," Jules argued.

"Quit nagging and look where you're going."

"Boys, please don't bicker. It doesn't do any of us any good."

The boys pushed on in silence, each wondering who would be the first to trip over. Their unspoken question was answered a minute later: the ground gave a sudden lurch, throwing the three fleeing explorers to the ground.

"Emmett!" Clara called into the radio when she had regained her breath. "Are you alright? Is anything damaged?" She held her breath as she waited for a response.

"The battery was knocked out of my radio, and I dropped a box of computer disks on my foot. But nothing's damaged. Are you or the boys hurt?"

Clara turned to see the boys behind her. "Verne scraped his arm on a tree, and Jules is bandaging it with his handkerchief. They'll be fine. But you should move the time machine of the ground if you can, in case there's another shock.

"Good thinking, dear. I'll warm up the hover systems right away."

"Be careful."

"You be careful, Clara: a tree could fall over."

"We'll keep our eyes and ears open." Clara returned the radio to her pocket. "Boys, we need to get moving."

Jules and Verne did not seem to hear her. They were preoccupied with looking up into the sky.

"Jules! Verne! We've rested for long enough."

"Mom! Look!" Verne shouted, pointing up into the sky.