It is in the nature of the secret that after it moves to the next generation, those who held it before only remember that they once were the keepers. And they are happy in the memory and urge the next to use the secret wisely.
And Nyal, Kailen, and Liam have agreed to keep the secret of the Golden Sled and to use it for good.
Nyal is the oldest brother. He is bright and eager and clever and a leader. He possesses, even at his age, a wry sense of humor. He begins to understands that life can be ridiculous. He often responds to a question with the expression "Oh Yeah" and in a tone that belies the obvious meaning.
Kailen is the middle brother. He loves Nyal. He observes what Nyal says and does and often emulates him. In fact, he sometimes tries to do what Nyal has done even better. He is courageous..and mischievous. But Kailen has a mind of his own. Often he does the opposite of what Nyal does just to show his independence. And Kailen is very protective of his little brother Liam.
Liam is the youngest of the three brothers who know the secret of the golden sled. He loves his brothers and he waits to see what they do. But after that, and because he is the youngest, he often does exactly what he wants to do in spite of Nyal and Kailen and even his Mother or Father.
The three brothers live in a wonderful house with lots of rooms and especially a big kitchen.
In the morning, they get up earlier than anyone else in the household and meet in the big kitchen and congregate around the radio.
It may seem strange that they listen to the radio rather than listen to CDs or watch the television. But they have a favorite National Public Radio newsreader who they eagerly look forward to hearing. His name is Carl Kasell.
Carl often reads items that interest the three boys.
It is from these newscasts that they get assignments that require the powers of the golden sled to be used for good.
They must be alert everyday to the possibility that a situation will arise when once again the brothers set fear aside and honor the obligations of the keepers of the secret of the golden sled. This Friday Kailen and Liam turn on the radio and drink their hot chocolate. Nyal is away in Pakistan. The radio crackles: "This is NPR News and I'm Carl Kasell. Fierce fighting continued today in Iraq. The toll in lives remains heavy......."
Kailen's mind drifts. Liam is still hungry.
Carl's voice intrudes on the thoughts of each as he says "... and in local news from Washington, DC, the National Zoo alerted the media today it faces an extraordinary situation. A local golden retriever...named Beau...has inadvertently found his way into the lion's den. Just how adds to the drama. The Director of the National Zoo speculated to our reporter that the following probably happened: Robin Bolton-Smith, a family friend, agreed to look after Beau while his masters were away for the weekend. She took Beau for a walk north along Rock Creek toward Mary Anne Foster's house when the great deluge that recently drenched Washington, DC, flash flooded the creek valley, sweeping Beau away while he was swimming to retrieve a thrown ball.
Beau was able to swim finally to the other side of the creek but by this time he was abreast of the National Zoo. He must have struggled frantically to find solid ground and the highest most solid ground would have been in the lion's den. Not only that but the fence surrounding the den would have been at the moment well below the level of the water and easily gotten over. The water must have receded almost immediately leaving Beau stranded within the compound but separated from the lion's cages by a water filled moat unable now to escape. Beau smell alerted the she-lion who exhibiting a fierce demeanor frightened Beau to seek refuge in a tiny niche in the rocks within the Lion compound. Beau is now howling pitifully from his sanctuary unable to be reached by the zoo keepers because of the high water and the insistent demands of the other animals whose homes have been inundated by the storm. The Zoo director appeals for help from anyone who might be able to approach Beau."
Kailen sits riveted.
He looks toward Liam and says: "Did you hear that? That's Beau-Beau!"
He turns to face Liam: "Liam I think this is your initiation. I think we have an 'assignment.'"
Nyal and Kailen have a routine they follow when an 'assignment' is accepted. They begin the process of preparation quickly and without the need for further discussion. Each knows his job.
With Nyal away, Kailen thinks: "How do I include Liam?"
Kailen decides mentally and says out loud: "Liam, get your jeans and sneakers on and get your bike from the garage." Kailen grabbed a backpack from the hook in the mud hall. He leaves a note under the flower pot on the table. The note says: "Dear Mom and Dad, we are off for a ride down by the creek off the woods road. We'll be back later in the morning. Love, Kailen." (Note: One of the powers of the golden sled is to make time pass very slowly so that no matter how much time an 'assignment' requires it appears to normal people to be only a couple of hours.)
Kailen always rides 'point' when heading out on an 'assignment.' Liam is newly assigned 'rear.' Since Nyal is away Liam must, under the new arrangements to accommodate Liam, now ride 'cover'...Nyal's normal job.
He checks both front and rear to assure himself all is under control. The responsibility of the 'point' is to foresee any things that might delay or expose the two brothers to delay or exposure as keepers of the secret of the Golden Sled.
The responsibility of the 'rear' is to be alert to anyone who might be overly curious or even intentionally following the brothers. No one must be allowed to learn the secret of the Golden Sled except when the brothers pass it on to the next acolytes.
The boys are on the road now. They head out of the driveway out onto Willow Road. They come quickly to the village and turn onto main street.
Kailen slows to allow Liam to close beside him and says: "see anyone?"
Liam shakes his head. "no."
They turn on Oak Road and left again on Raeford Road.
Kailen turns and over his shoulder in a controlled shout says: "Hey Liam..come on up for a second."
Liam stands on the pedals and quickly accelerates up besides Kailen. Keeping his eyes on the next upcoming turn at Elroy Lane Kailen says: "Watch this kid on the Marin mountain bike. I have seen him before when we were heading out."
Without incident they make the Rocky Road near the turn off. At an exact point in the featureless bramble, Kailen pulls off quickly and hops off his bike to usher Liam into the woods. He grabs a fallen branch and brushes away the tire tracks so that no one would be able to detect where the bikes left the road. They reach rapidly the rocky outcropping that hides the entrance to an outer cave. Kailen reaches the leaning rock and easily shoves it aside, knowing exactly where the fulcrum point is. Kailen gestures Liam into the revealed entrance. Then he brushes the ground and rolls back the rock.
The boys are somewhat breathless and suddenly quiet in the semi darkness of a cavern. A thin light slants down from a small slit in the ceiling stripped by the small roots that make the opening above invisible to even the concentrated scrutiny of a determined searcher. Kailen advances, in the dim light, across the cave toward another rock leaning against a cave wall. He touches a certain point; it pivots under the slight force exerted by Kailen to reveal a narrow tunnel at the end of which a light glows brightly.
He signals Liam to enter and cautions him: "Liam keep your eyes on the light or you will get claustrophobia. Don't slow down or stop but move steadily. You'll be alright. I will be directly behind you."
Liam nods his assent and bending down falls to his knees and begins to crawl along the dusty floor. Kailen follows and keeps his focus on the end after he rolled the cover rock carefully back, brushed again the dirt in front, placed the brush inside the tunnel for the next time, and began to crawl resolutely and bravely toward the light at the end of the tunnel.
Liam arrives at the end finally with great relief,looks quickly behind him to check that Kailen is just behind him, and shielding his eyes against the bright light that floods down from the top of the stairs that rise steeply from the rocky floor of the large cave, gasps at the unexpected sight of the golden shoes that lay in splendor on the floor at the bottom of the first step. Kailen stands behind Liam and smiles with the remembrance of the first sight he had of the big cave. Kailen closes quickly the entrance to the tunnel. (Nyal and Kailen had decided, soon after the secret of the Golden Sled was revealed to them, that they should take the precaution of closing the exit from the tunnel in the unlikely event that someone would have breached all the defenses established to prevent discovery of the cave complex.)
The two boys sit and change into their golden shoes. Liam's shoes are there together with Nyal's and Kailen's and fit and he is pleased to be included as a bona fide keeper of the secret of the Golden Sled. Kailen knows that the staircase is endless unless it is climbed wearing golden shoes. Kailen attempted to climb the stairs once on a dare from Nyal but he was never able to progress beyond the eleventh step. He sheepishly had to retreat, exhausted, to pay up.
The two boys now cinch the laces of their golden shoes and race rapidly up the stairs. Liam is amazed at the lightness of his steps and the endless flow of steps as his speed increases. Before he can catch a breath, the two land softly on snow-covered rocks on the top of a mountain. Liam is dazzled.
Kailen moves smoothly into action. He unzips the tarpaulin that covers the Golden Sled; it slides down and Liam is delighted at the sight of what he had only been told about from his brothers.
The sled sits poised as if about to fly and sparkles with splendor in the sun. Kailen checks a list.
He says: "Liam open the door on the right there and check if the Sky Hook is stowed."
The sky-hook is a clever device that includes a balloon which inflates with compressed carbon dioxide, a sky hook that locates an energy filed and fixes itself solidly into its atomic structure, a stabilizer powered by a hydrogen fuel cell that enables the Golden Sled to hover noiselessly and endlessly over a point on the ground accurate to an inch or less, an unlimited-length Kevlar cable able to lift infinite weight, and an intelligent end tool that configures itself to hundreds of forms depending on the requirement at the moment of use. It might be a emergency medical bed, a power shovel, or an emergency rescue extraction tool. This tool is known as the 'Liberator.'
Liam nods to Kailen that the kit is stowed and Kailen then shouts: "Saddle up, we're off."
Liam straps himself in. He sits the middle seat responsible for operating the stabilizers that control the attitude of the golden sled.. an awesome responsibility for a neophyte golden sledder. Kailen is the navigator, operating the computer installed in a small box near the runners, and normally sits the rear seat. And he is also, in the absence of Nyal, the pilot and he now sits the pilot's seat, steers the sled and operates the visual phone that links the sled to the vast world wide store of information that often assists the brothers perform an 'assignment.'
The sled begins to move. It sits upon a carpet from Afghanistan and appears to float. But it rides upon runners made from steel from Damascus, Syria, folded eleven times upon itself to insure hardness capable of withstanding the most intense pressure. The runners morph into whatever requirements the 'assignment' demands. The steel contains bucky balls... unusual arrangements of carbon atoms that form super strong material. The 'steel' is configurable when magnetic fields are applied to the atomic structure.
The sled increases its speed. Liam is frightened as the trees pass by so rapidly that he becomes dizzy. Kailen increases his hold on the handle as the speed presses him into his seat. He takes a deep breath, tenses his stomach muscles, receives the signal from the sled's computer that elevation speed is achieved and speaks quickly into the sled's intercom: "OK buddy..lift off."
Kailen's first thought after lift off is of Beau-Beau. He knows that he's scared and miserable and that he may attempt to escape and be attacked by the wild animals in the zoo who have been freed from their cages and en-fenced areas. He quickly queries the guidance computer of the golden sled and directs it to locate the National Zoo and to proceed immediately to the location and to hover.
Kailen turns to Liam and he says:' Liam we will need to move very fast when we arrive. Are you ready to help?
Liam replies instantly: "I'm ready."
Kailen thinks: I think that as soon as we arrive and locate the exact place where Beau is hiding that we should use the Sky Hook to hover and the Liberator to retrieve Beau-Beau. If everything goes well, it should be an easy rescue.
The guidance computer beeped that the destination point at been reached. Kailen, Liam and the Golden Sled were over the National Zoo. Kailen looked over the edge of the sled and below was Rock Creek...still at flood crest...its banks overrun by the deluge of water still flowing down the stream caused by the torrential rains from the passage of Hurricane Ricki.
And faintly, then louder, came the wail of Beau..agonizing because that meant he was still frightened...wonderful in another sense because it meant that he was alive and in the place where he could be rescued. "Liam" called Kailen...look carefully... can you locate Beau?
Liam replied: "Kailen I see him...He's in a crack in the rocks near the Lion's refuge. He's barking. A huge lion is standing over the crack growling fiercely."
Kailen quickly turned to the controls of the Sky Hook and deployed the great apparatus. Up...up it went until a gage indicated that a magnetic field was present. Kailen hit the 'set' button on the control panel and the hook planted itself firmly in the invisible energy field always present in the clear sky unknown to most...but identified readily by the Skyhook's sensors. Then he turned to the Liberator and lowered it carefully to just above the lion crouched over Beau's sanctuary. The lion did not notice the end of the Liberator configuring itself into a giant loud speaker.
Kailen's idea was to send a loud sound through the loudspeaker to frighten the lion into retreating, giving him time to figure out a way to rescue Beau. As the end of the Liberator hovered above the lion, Kailen trasmited the one sound that a lion fears: the bull elephant.
The lion jumped away from his perch looking rapidly around him trying desperately to locate the sound. Kailen used the controls of the liberator to keep the now configured loudspeaker behind the lion so he could not locate it and the sound continued to roll forth the trumpeting roar of the elephant.
The lion quickly turned and ran rapidly away back to the shelter of his den. Kailen's strategy had worked. The lion was now away from Beau and Kailen could set to work to rescue him from the crack in the rocks. Just as Kailen sent the signal to the Liberator end to configure itself into giant claws that would reach through the cracks in the rocks and slowly close around Beau, the Golden Sled lurched and rose and fell rapidly in wildly gyrating motion.
Liam yelled to Kailen: "Grab the controls..this thing is going to crash if this motion continues. I'm frightened. Can we get closer to the ground?
Kailen quickly regained control of the Golden Sled, quieting its motion. Liam was relieved but now Kailen observed that the Liberator arm was not operating properly. Beau started up at the Golden Sled...recognizing both Kailen and Liam...barking loudly and happily... obviously glad to see them.
But no matter what Kailen attempted the Liberator would not respond. Kailen carefully let his eyes travel the length of the Kevlar cable that connected the golden sled and the Liberator end and then he noticed the large piece of wood that somehow had become stuck in the claw that the end has become. He could not shake the piece of wood lose no matter what maneuver he attempted.
He looked at Liam: "Liam, your initiation is going to come sooner than you might want. I need you to pilot the Golden Sled while I descend the cable and free the Liberator claw."
Lian gulped and thinking and said to himself: "I don't have the slightest idea how to do this."
Kailen sensing his concern said: "Liam you can do it. Just read the directions on the control screen. ...the computer will give you options and you choose the one that I call up to you. You yell the choices to me and I will choose one and you click the button. We can do this together."
Liam said to Kailen: "Lets do it. I can fly the sled. I promise."
Kailen decided that Liam could just do it and before either had time to worry more, he went over the side of the golden sled and using rock climber's jumars quickly 'walked' down the Kevlar cable to the end. There he was suspended over the lion's compound, just above Beau barking loudly, when the Sled lurched again. Kailen banged into the rocks almost losing his hand hold on the cable. From the corner of his eye he saw the lion appear at the mouth of his Den. He was attracted by the motion and the color of Kailen's red jacket.
Kailen yelled to Liam. "Liam can you stabilize the Sled?" Liam called" "Yes, the screen is asking me to choose between 'adding uplift or lowering down lift." What should I do?"
Kailen called: "Lower down lift...quickly Liam. I'm in trouble here... the lion is slowly creeping toward me."
Liam selected the correct command and the sled slowly stabilized and lifted slightly and Kailen rose at the end of the cable until he was out of reach of the lion who had now crept stalkingly toward the rocks near Beau. The lion has forgotten the sound of the bull elephant and not seeing one, his fearlessness returned.
Kailen thought rapidly. How can I scare the lion away and get Beau?
"Meat" he said to himself mentally. He quickly inputed a control sequence into the Liberators computer to configure a refrigerator. Before his eyes a sleek stainless steel refrigerator appeared at the end of the cable to replace the claws. Kailen quickly opened the freezer door, spotted a package labeled steak and tore its package open and tossed the meat a considerable distance away from Beau's hiding spot. The lion caught the scent immediately and raced to the meat and began to eat. Kailen watched carefully because in addition to asking the computer to configure a refrigerator with meat, he has asked thatthe meat contain a sleeping drug.
This tactic now appeared to work because the Lion began to waver and it slowly collapsed and fell fast asleep.
"Great" Kailen thought. "It worked."
Liam watched from above glancing at the control screen often checking to see if the computer was presenting to him control options. He felt very much in control. He was confident that he could now participate as a true member of the small group of brothers to whom had been entrusted the secret of the Golden Sled.
But the mission was not complete. Beau had to be retrieved from the crack in the rocks. Kailen manipulated the controls of the Liberator to configure a claw. But the configurator seemed to be malfunctioning. The refrigerator disappeared but nothing took its place. The cable just ended in a blank. There was nothing at the end ...the cable just stopped in mid-air almost as if there were something there but invisible to Kailen and to Liam.
Kailen thought quickly.
He said to himself: "What am I forgetting? Is there something that I am not doing?" and then he remembered. The Liberator was programmed to anticipate. And it had been programmed to make itself invisible when it became a claw so as not to alarm the prey. The sight of a giant claw descending open would frighten even the most tame animal or accustomed human. Cleverly the subject to be rescued would not see anything until the claw was already around them. Then the claw became visible to Kailen. He could see the claw in outline. The complete capacity of the Liberator then jumped back into his mind. Of course the Liberator would make itself visible to me because I need to tell it where to move and when to close. Liam watched from above eager to help Kailen and yet watchful of his own responsibilities to pilot the Golden Sled.
Kailen called to Beau: "Beau Beau you're a good dog...a brave dog...We're coming to get you. Good dog...brave dog. He instructed the Liberator to move the claw so that it wound its way through the narrow passage that had been too small for the Lion to get through...otherwise Beau would have been eaten...and suspend over Beau. Kailen issued the instruction and the claw slowly closed over Beau's body. Then Kailen realized his mistake. How was the claw to bring Beau back through the narrow passage...it and Beau were bigger than the opening?
Instantly acting, Kailen caused the claw to open just before it was to close on Beau. Kailen retracted the claw and re-directed it instead to close on the large boulder forming the narrow entrance. He caused the claw to toss the heavy rock away into the creek. It appeared to be without effort. He then maneuvered the claw back into the opening now wide enough to retract Beau.
He checked quickly that the lion was still asleep.
He gulped to see that the lion was rousing from sleep and turning toward Beau. His eye caught the commotion of the rescue and the lion began to lope slowly back toward Beau and then increase its speed to a run.
Kailen called to Liam: "Liam be ready to lift when I signal."
Liam answered: "Kailen, I'm ready. I've got the command queued."
Kailen closed the claw quickly over Beau and instructed the claw to retract. Beau jumped when the invisible restraint lifted him. He whined. He barked loudly. The lion jumped at Beau... he couldn't see the claw either. Kailen entered the command to cause the claw to quickly brush the lion as it rose in midair to attack Beau. The lion fell into the raging creek. Kailen and Liam watched the lion swimming frantically to get to the other side. He was unhurt but unable to menace Beau any longer.
The cable with the claw in which Beau lay and on which Kailen stood signaling to Liam slowly shorten until Kailen and Beau arrived at the sled...Kailen fell over the side and quickly commanded the claw to open to release Beau. Beau jumped up and down and licked Liam and Kailen. He was so happy to be free and to be back with his friends.
Kailen and Liam looked at each other and smiled. They were happy to have been empowered by the secret of the Golden Sled to made another rescue and especially because the rescued was Beau...their very good and loyal friend.
