Jake shrugged. "Who knows with the Mercora? They're some strange aliens. Maybe it's Mercora music."
Several minutes later, two Mercora came bursting into the room. Their eyes were fluttering open and shut at an alarming rate. Their two weak-looking hands were waving wildly.
«The Nesk! They cannot accept their defeat. They have decided if they cannot have this planet, then neither can we.»
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K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs "What do you mean?" Cassie asked.
«They have diverted the comet. The comet is now on a trajectory for impact on this planet. Here, on this very settlement. In little more than a day, the comet will strike.»
"We can't let that happen!" Cassie said. "You can't just give up. Isn't there some way you can ... I don't know, push it the other way?"
The Mercora responded, «Even our most powerful force field could not move the comet. There is only one chance. The explosive device you took from the Nesk ... We could use our last ship, carry it to the comet and explode the device. It might fragment»the comet's head. However . . .»
"They don't want to ask us for the nuke," Jake said.
"That's carrying politeness a long way," Marco said. "If it was me, I'd be like, 'Hand that over, pal.'"
"If we give up the nuke, we have no way home," Rachel pointed out.
"We have no choice!" Cassie said. "Are the six of us more important than this entire settlement? Are we supposed to condemn them to death just because we want to get home again?"
"Wait a minute, are you serious?" Marco demanded. "We're gonna give up our only ticket out of here? I don't think so."
"Ax, if that comet hits, how much damage will it do?" Jake asked.
But Ax couldn't answer. He was distracted by what I was telling him in private thought-speak. Distracted by what I was asking him to do.
To the Mercora I said, «Please give us a couple of minutes to consider. Come back then.»
They left. I met Ax's gaze. He was looking at me with his two main eyes. His stalk eyes were staring down at the small but devastating weapon he now held in his hands.
Cassie
The Mercora went away. And when they came back, we gave them the nuke.
I was surprised by the final vote. It was four to two, with Rachel and Marco against. I guess Jake felt he owed his life to the Mercora. Same as I felt. But I was surprised by the quiet way that Tobias and Ax went along. Neither of them said anything. Just voted with Jake and me.
The Mercora took the weapon and raced to their remaining saucer. I watched from the window as it began to power up.
«We need to get out of here,» Tobias said, speaking at last.
"Why?"
«We have to be far, far from here when that comet hits.»
"What do you mean, when it hits?" I demanded. "The Mercora think this will work. They think they can break it up into small chunks that will burn up entering the atmosphere."
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Tobias stared at me with his cold hawk eyes. «The nuke won't explode. Ax fixed it so it'll be a dud. And he fixed it so the Mercora won't know till it's too late.»
I just stared. We all did.
"Wait a minute," Marco said. "If we're not using it, we better hope the Mercora can! Hey, genius, we're down here, too! That comet hits and we get pounded five miles down through solid rock. That's gonna hurt."
«No time to explain now,» Tobias said. «Everyone morph to birds. We need to haul out of here in a couple minutes.»
"Tobias, what have you done?" I demanded.
«I did what had to be done, all right?!» Tobias yelled in a blaze of sudden anger. «I did what had to be done. I made the call, so that none of you would have to feel bad about it.»
"You need to explain this right now," Jake said in the low, silky voice he uses when he's really mad.
«Start morphing or I'll explain nothing,» Tobias said. «Just do it!»
Rachel started morphing to her eagle morph. Jake hesitated, but there was a force to Tobias I'd never heard before. Jake began to morph. Then Marco. Ax. What could I do? I had to go along. I had to morph.
«It's the Cretaceous Age,» Tobias explained. «Late Cretaceous, the last age of dinosaurs.»
"So?" I demanded while I still had a human mouth.
«So what do you think happened to them all, Cassie? Dinosaurs ruled the earth for a hundred and forty million years. You've all seen how weak and helpless we are in this age. You've seen how the only mammals are tiny rats, small enough to avoid attracting the attention of the big dinosaurs. So how do you think the dinosaurs fell and the mammals rose?»
«They . . . they evolved,» I said.
«Yeah, they evolved. But evolution got a great big helping hand. See, about sixty-five million years ago . . . around now . . . something - they don't know if it was an asteroid or a comet, but something-hit Earth. Very hard. Hard enough to fill the atmosphere with dust, block the sun, and bring on a colder climate. And that's how the dinosaurs died.»
«You don't know it's this comet!» I cried. «You don't know!»
«Yes, I do,» he said. «No one in our time ever found a Mercora fossil. Which means they never prospered, never populated the planet, never grew beyond this one handful, this one settlement. This is the comet. This is the time. Today is the end of the Mercora. And today . . . today is the end of the dinosaurs.»
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. But I knew he wasn't. I wanted to cry. But I had become an osprey. Birds don't cry. It was monstrous, horrible.
Inevitable.
«We're going to let these people, these Mercora, we're going to let them Page 88
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs die?» I asked.
«I'm surprised you, of all people, don't understand, Cassie,» Tobias said. «It's about more than these Mercora. The entire planet will be changed today. A million species will begin to die. A few weeks or months or maybe years from now, the last Tyrannosaurus is going to die. And because of that, other creatures will begin to evolve. Including . . .»
«Us,» I said. «Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens, who could never have evolved unless the dinosaurs had died out.»
«So that comet has to hit,» Rachel said.
«Yes. That comet has to hit,» I said. I hated saying it. I hated thinking that the brave little settlement of Mercora was going to be destroyed. But this was destined to be a day of annihilation, and I'd known from the start we couldn't change history. All of this had already happened. Sixty-five million years before I was born.
Ax said, «They will have to drop the force field when their ship takes off. We will need to be in the air, ready to slip out.»
He was right. Tobias was right. I knew it. But it made me sick inside. And I wasn't the only one.
«You know, these guys saved us. Saved me,» Jake said. «I don't like this, running off like this. Maybe we could warn them. Maybe they could get away, get off the planet.»
«They lack the ships,» Ax said. «Their struggle with the Nesk has left them with only that one ship. Besides, what if they found a way to survive? We would have altered history in a very large way.»
«This stinks,» Jake said bitterly. «I don't run out on people who've saved my life.»
«You have no choice, Jake,» Tobias said.
«The ship is almost ready to launch,» Ax said. He'd been keeping watch with his stalk eyes.
«Now or never,» Tobias said.
«Now,» Marco said.
«Yes,» Ax agreed.
«No choice,» Rachel said, sounding more conflicted than I would have expected.
«Yeah,» Jake said. «It's really not up to us to rewrite history.»
I wanted to laugh. We acted like we were making a decision. But Tobias had already made the hard decision. The comet would not be stopped. The only question now was would we run away and try to live? We knew the answer to that.<
br />
«Thanks, Tobias,» I said.
I don't know if he thought I was being sincere or sarcastic. I wasn't sure myself.
I opened my wings and flew. Page 89
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We flew. Up through the force field just as the doomed saucer lifted off.
The Mercora were all out to watch the ship take off. The ship that carried all their hopes with it. They didn't see us in the darkness.
I was mad at Tobias. I was mad at Ax for helping him. But I knew they'd done the right thing. My being angry was the proof of that. See, even though I knew Tobias was right, I could get mad at him. I could try and blame him for the tragedy that was about to occur.
Which meant I didn't have to blame myself.
We flew, up and up. It was dark and we swept past so quickly that the Pteranodons didn't even notice us. They were day hunters. Actually, so
219 were we, in our bird-of-prey morphs. Our eyesight was not much better than human in the darkness.
We flew up and out of that valley where the funny crab creatures grew their broccoli. Up into sky untouched by any artificial light, and toward the ocean.
The comet was amazing, and I guess it would have been beautiful. If we hadn't known what it was. If we hadn't known what it meant.
We flew for close to our two-hour time limit. We demorphed, then remorphed as quickly as we could. This time Cassie and Rachel used their owl morphs, so they could guide us all in the darkness.
«How big a boom will this thing make when it hits?» Rachel asked.
«That depends on the speed of the comet and its size,» Ax said. «The Mercora have observed the comet. They say it is approximately five of your miles across. It is approaching at a speed of fifteen miles per second.»
«Per second?» Marco asked.
«Yes. When it hits it will release as much energy as, say, a million of the nuclear weapons on that submarines
«Excuse me? A million nukes?»
«Well, assuming the "nukes" are reasonably well-made examples of primitive nuclear - technology. I am being very approximate,» Ax said. «There will be shock waves. One shock wave will go forward into and through the earth. It will compress the rock beneath it, which will release all the carbon dioxide trapped there. There will be a huge fireball from the exploding gases and from the vaporized comet itself. Everything within a hundred miles or so, every animal, every plant, everything, will be incinerated. There will be a huge crater, maybe ten, twenty miles deep.
The second shock wave will bounce back from the impact. It will blow massive quantities of burning rock all the way out into space. These burning rocks will fall across a wide area. As they reenter the atmosphere they will probably cause a massive heat wave, so hot that trees and grass will catch fire and burn. Any living thing out in the open will be cooked alive as -»
«Enough!» Cassie cried. Page 90
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«Yeah. That's probably enough information,» I agreed. «The question is, how do we live through this?»
«And are we sure we want to,» Tobias said darkly. «The next few years on planet Earth will not be fun. First fire, then darkness. Darkness and cold and death everywhere.»
«Look, I'm interested in surviving,» Rachel said. «Period.»
«The shock wave is the first threat, then the intense heat,» Ax said. «When the comet strikes, perhaps we should be in the water.»
«We're better off flying till the last minute,» I said. «We'll make more distance. We follow the coast north, then, at the last minute, we head out to sea.»
We flew. All through that night, only stopping to demorph every two hours. The sun rose over a scene of breathtaking beauty. We were over a river delta. A hundred glistening streams all heading for the ocean. And in that lushness, the dinosaurs. Slow Triceratops, and herds of huge Saltasaurus, the long-necked, long-tailed dinosaurs we'd encountered before. There were hadrosaurs and gigantic crocodiles and Pteran-odons diving for fish.
Great, lumbering giants. It was a world where elephants would have seemed only average in size. Hundreds of species of dinosaurs, each a miracle of nature.
And yes, here and there as we flew we saw the tyrannosaurs and the other great predators. For some reason, although Tyrannosaurus had repeatedly tried to kill us, it was the Big Rex I pitied most.
They were so sure of their power. So confident. This was their planet and they were the kings. I wondered if they ever looked up and noticed that something was different in the sky. I wondered if they, too, saw the comet and felt a quiver of fear.
The comet was visible even in the brilliant daylight now. And it was beneath that comet, and above the teeming life of the Cretaceous, that we flew.
We rested at last in the high branches of a tree. All except Ax, who stayed below. Tobias was right at home there in the trees. And we humans could hang on and feel somewhat safe.
Cassie laughed a sad sort of laugh. "Well, here we are, just a few tens of millions of years early. Primates will evolve, and they'll learn to live in the trees, running from the saber-toothed cats and other predators. And here we are now, just a little early."
"By now they know," Rachel said, looking back in the direction we'd come from.
"Who?" Marco asked her.
"The Mercorans. They know the nuke didn't go off. They know it's all over for them."
Marco nodded. "Yeah. I wonder if they know why? I mean, that we did it. I wonder if they've figured out that we didn't come from some far-off place, but from some far-off time on this planet. I wonder if they'll
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K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs figure out why we ... you know, why."
A Saltasaurus came by and stuck his snake head up into the tree, indifferent to us, and munched some leaves.
Night came again, and now we flew on urgently, desperate for every last mile. And finally, Ax said it was time.
We veered out to sea. We landed in the water, hoping that we could avoid being eaten in the few minutes that remained. We morphed to dolphin, and waited for the world to end.
Cassie
I stayed on the surface to watch the end.
The comet was a blazing torch as big as a mountain. It hit, and the entire planet shuddered from the impact. You could almost imagine Mother Earth crying out in pain. But you know, Earth is just a big ball of dirt and water and air and life, spinning through space. It's only important because it's ours. The universe didn't care that the orbit of Earth and the trajectory of a comet would intersect at this time and this place.
And yet in my mind, in my heart, I cried out for Earth.
The explosive power of a million nuclear weapons went off all at once. It was as if a giant had swung a hammer the size of the moon into our planet. I felt the impact in my insides.
The explosion seemed to rip the universe apart.
But I never felt the concussion. Because suddenly, I was no longer in the ocean watching the doom of the dinosaurs.
I was floating above it all. Floating in air, but not really. In space, only I could breathe.
«The Sario Rip!» I heard Ax cry. «The impact of the comet is collapsing it!»
But this time the travel through time was different. We weren't suddenly back where we started. We were hurtling through a void, hurtling past a videotape set on fast forward.
I saw the crater. It was a hole big enough to lose a dozen cities in. Flaming hot debris exploded outward. A red-hot fireball rolled across the landscape, burning everything, a blowtorch on dry grass.
Trees exploded into flame. Dinosaurs crinkled and blackened and fell dead where they stood, no time even to cry out. The burning wind expanded outward. The sky itself seemed to burn! But then the fireball weakened and from the wreckage rose smoke and dust. Earth was hidden by a blanket of smoke and dust. The sun was blotted out.
Earth began to freeze, and still more crea
tures died.
It was all passing before my eyes now, faster and faster. The sky cleared as acid rain fell, disintegrating many plants and starving the remaining dinosaurs. The plant-eaters were too few now. The herds were gone. Only a few pitiful remnants were left, then even they were gone.
I saw, in a flash, the last Tyrannosaurus, wandering hungry, thin, Page 92
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs weakened and alone, across a blasted landscape. It was looking for the prey that was no longer there. And then it fell.
Time sped up, and the continents floated across the surface of the world. I watched Antarctica slide to the bottom of the planet and grow icy. I watched the Atlantic Ocean appear where only an inland sea had been. India broke away and then slammed violently into the bottom of Asia, rippling up the Himalaya Mountains.
Ice sheets advanced and retreated. Forests spread and withdrew and spread again. Mountains rose up sharp and craggy, then crumbled slowly to softer, smoother shapes.
And everywhere, the small, brown, fur-covered creatures increased in number. They filled the land the way the dinosaurs had. They migrated into the seas. They became plant-eaters and meat-eaters. Big and small, cute and deadly, slow and fast. And suddenly, there they were in the trees, swinging from branch to branch. And an instant later, some were banging rocks together and forming tools of bone and wood.
They walked erect, on two legs. They built huts and villages and cities. But all of this passed in a flash. Because in the long, long history of Earth, the entire history of Homo sapiens is not even the blink of an eye.
Applegate, K A - Megamorphs 02 - In The Time Of Dinosaurs Page 13