Xenozoic Tales #5 --
"Excursion" -- Two days after their adventure in the library, Jack awakens
Hannah and accuses her of taking a book out of the library without permission. She denies
it and deflects his accusation by suggesting a fishing trip so that she may show Jack some
of the Wassoons' advanced methods of fishing. Governor
"Dog's Life" -- Txakurra is shepherding dog who feels the call of the wild
upon him. We follow him through his daily routine and into the night, when he most yearns
to be free. His evening reverie is interrupted by a marauding cutter, which he keeps at
bay until his master can come and help him.
Xenozoic Tales #6 --
"Foundling" -- A tired and bedraggled Hannah comes to Jack to tell him the story
of her search for a young boy who wandered from his home a decade in the past. She finds
the boy, who has been brought up by the Grith, and then led away from him by those same
Grith. Hannah demands to know if Jack knew the boy's whereabouts for a decade and why he
had not told the still-grieving mother. Jack responds that he did know, but that the Grith
must keep the boy if they are to keep their presence an overall secret. Hannah is barely
satisfied with the response and laments that she is tired of feeling jerked around by
circumstance.
"Intrusion" -- An otherwise unnamed Terhune brother sneaks into Jack's
garage in order to kill him. Simultaneously, Jack and his assistant, Kirgo, discuss how
nature seems to be attacking Jack's home. The Terhune decides to set a bomb at one of the
geothermal furnaces, but in the midst of his plot (and in the middle of Jack and Kirgo's
conversation) an earthquake hits. The Terhune is thrown over a railing and holds feebly to
a valve, opening it partly, before losing his grip so that he and his equipment fall into
a slag pit, removing any evidence he has been in the garage. Jack and Kirgo do a quick
survey of the garage and find that a critical valve had been opened, which otherwise would
have allowed the slag to be pushed back into the furnace, resulting in terrible pressure
and a destructive explosion. They are at a loss as to how the valve could have been
opened.
"Green Air" -- Jack has finished building a sailplane for Remfro, and he
and Hannah assist Remfro in his first flight. Remfro learns the trick of following the
pteranodons to the thermals for his necessary lift. However, they lead him to the ocean,
where thermals are few and far between. Too late, Remfro realizes his mistake; as he
starts falling into the ocean, he realizes that the pteranodons can fly when they need to,
flapping their wings in a way that the sailplane cannot. Hannah and Jack rescue him from
his ditched sailplane.
Xenozoic Tales #7 --
"The Growing Pool" -- In a flashback we see pre-cataclysmic Japan and the
growing pits filled with something called archeoplasm. Flash to the present, and a
meteorite crashes into a hillside, revealing a cache of archeoplasm. City scientists rush
to the site, as does Jack, warning that the scientists do not know what they are meddling
with. However, the archeoplasm escapes into a nearby lake, setting off major changes in
the water until every evolutionary niche is filled. The scientists are taken aback and let
Jack cordon off the pond, using guards and huge fires to keep all life out of the pond.
However, a stampede of sambuks (brontosauri) causes a dying member of the herd to fall
into the lake, leading to another evolutionary explosion. Fearing that the scientists'
experimentation is going to lead to another cataclysm, Jack decides to take things into
his own hands by burning off all life around the lake. Just as he is about to, however, a
swarm of insects attack him, biting him. As Jack is fighting the strangely sentient
insects off, the lead scientist, Bulgar, strikes him in the back of the head, concussing
him and knocking him out. Jack is heavily restrained and returned to the city under the
watchful eye of the morally confused Hannah, while Bulgar sends samples of the tainted and
living water to various research stations throughout the area, thus keeping Jack from
being able to destroy all the research.
"Crossed Currents" -- In a very strong companion story to "The
Growing Pool", we follow the actions of one Gneiss, a former mole and library
attendant ("History Lesson"), who is
not cut out for the hard work of fishing. Using his superior knowledge and scientific
skills, he works out a way to use electricity to shock fish into submission so that he and
his men have only to pull the nets aboard. However, the current he uses calls forth great
jellyfish who attack his boat, killing his crew and him.
Xenozoic Tales #8 --
"Foul Weather" (does not fit in well with the
chronology of the oveall story, but here is the synopsis anyway) -- Vice Terhune (yet
another of the Terhune brothers) returns to a lighthouse and his love, Mikla van Ermine,
with a strongbox stolen from the catacombs. Outside, a hurricane brews, so Vice is certain
his escape will go unchallenged as he explains to Mikla that he is going to go upcoast and
lay low until Jack forgets about him. Unbeknownst to Mikla and Vice, Jack has followed
them to the lighthouse and, as they talk inside, switched the strongboxes. Vice heads off
into the storm while Mikla catches Jack in his hiding place. She takes him inside, and a
wave breaks through a lower window of the lighthouse, sweeping her into Jack's
arms....just as Vice returns, unable to penetrate very far into the storm. Vice, in a fit
of rage, shoots and injures Mikla before fighting Jack. Another huge wave crashes through
the old lighthouse, washing all three out to sea. The next morning finds Mikla, Jack, and
the now-broken strongbox on a beach and Vice nowhere to be found. Mikla and Jack inspect
the strongbox and find only green paper, and Jack wonders at the sense of humor of the
ancients to have protected something so obviously worthless. Only the reader can know that
it is a strongbox filled with cash.
"In the Dreamtime" -- As Hannah nurses Jack back from his concussion
sustained in "The Growing Pool", Governor Dahlgren comes to Jack to warn him
that the Council has had enough of his interference. There are very strong sparks flying
between Dahlgren and Jack, and Hannah picks up on them quickly. Mustapha arrives and asks
Jack if he could go and look in on a road gang he has had to leave unattended, and Jack,
reading between the lines, agrees. When Hannah and Jack arrive at the lakeside camp, they
find all the work crew and all the local animals dead. Jack sets up camp away from them so
that he may explore some more in the morning, and turns the car so that it faces home in
case there is a need to escape quickly. There is lovely reverie as Jack and Hannah study
the two (!) moons before turning in. As Jack takes his watch, noxious gases rise from the
waters of the volcanic lake and knock him out, sending him and Hannah into a series of
very strange dreams: Hannah dreams that she travels toward the center of the Earth, while
Jack dreams that he is a puppet at the mercy of various earth forces...and Hannah. They
both wake up, barely, and stagger to the car to escape the deadly gases. Again they pass
out, and the car is wrecked, only to be found by Mustapha in the morning as he comes out
to meet his road crew.
