Hope for the Best

by Jodi Taylor

  For a moment, everything blurred. Which is a pretty dangerous thing to have happen when you’re only a small, pink, not very hairy mammal at the bottom of the Cretaceous food chain. I blinked away days that would never come again and concentrated.

  We’d landed on flattish ground which was good because this teapot, while well-stocked with loud, chest-rumbling music, chocolate and steampunk literature, was fairly deficient in the whole let’s do our best not to tip over on landing hydraulic-leg department.

  There’s a penalty to be paid for flat, however, and the ground beneath us, and all around, appeared to be one massive swamp. The smell – as I’ve already mentioned – was breathtaking and for all the wrong reasons. Rotting foliage, stagnant water, wet earth, the heady tang of dinosaur manure and, over everything, the sulphur of over-active volcanoes. I was certain I would never need my sinuses irrigated again. In fact, I think they’d stopped working forever.

  The other thing I’d forgotten was the heat. Dear God – it was hot. And humid. Every pore began to exude at an industrial rate. Where’s rot-proof clothing when you need it?

  It was never silent here – day or night. Off in the distance something shrieked – but only very briefly. Something else roared and the shriek was cut off in, well, mid-shriek, I suppose. There was a moment’s silence as something started on its lunch and then the roars, grunts, moos, and bellows of everyday life in the Cretaceous started up again.

  I did a very careful three-sixty-degree survey, taking my time about it. Mikey reported the proximity alerts were silent and I couldn’t see any movement. We were safe for the time being.

  The ground was muddy and I could see animal tracks criss-crossing each other as dinosaurs had passed and repassed as they went about their everyday business of eating and being eaten. There were trees growing through the mud, grey and green with moss and hanging lichen. Their aerial roots entwined each other in a chaotic and impassable tangle. I bet a million tiny creatures lived in there.

  Broken or dead trees leaned at crazy angles and rotting logs were slowly returning to the swamp from which they had emerged. Higher and dryer ground lay about a hundred yards to the north, easily accessed by hopping across the humps of wet mud standing a few feet above the brackish black water.

  Have I mentioned the smell?

  Our landing site was both good and bad. Good because anything big scouting around in search of lunch would probably not fare well in all this tangle of undergrowth, roots and low-hanging branches, and bad because even the worst of mothers wasn’t going to build a nest and park her eggs here. We would need to head for the higher ground and scout around a bit.

  I ducked back down into the pod.

  ‘Well,’ I said to our guests. Sorry – employers. ‘We’re here.’

  They made to get up. A small corner of my mind noted they’d recovered from this jump considerably more quickly than the one to Jebel Barkal. I reminded myself yet again – these were intelligent and adaptable men. Oh – and ruthless. Don’t forget ruthless. And brutal. And cold-blooded. I shut myself up before I came to my senses and took us all home.

  ‘Before you go,’ I said, ‘a quick briefing. No – I mean it. I need to prepare you for what you’ll find here and you, Mr Khalife, will need to know the best ways to keep Mr Wolfe from harm.’

  They both subsided.

  ‘Right. First things first. This is a hostile environment. Nothing out there is your friend. This is the Cretaceous period. Top preda­tors are the Tyrannosaurus and various raptors – Troodons, Deinonychus, and so on. They’re fast and intelligent. You’ll never see them coming. If you do see one raptor then you can be sure the other five are hidden nearby and ready to pounce. And most of them will be behind you. And they don’t kill you first. They just eat you. I’ve seen it happen. You can only pray you go quickly. A T-rex, especially the smaller male, can be outrun, but not on the straight so don’t run in a straight line. Zigzag around whatever you can. Their heavy tail slows them down and prevents them cornering too tightly. Get within range of the jaws, however, and you can zigzag until you drop and it won’t do you any good at all.

  ‘And don’t make the mistake of discounting the herbivores. A lot of them are plated and a swipe from an Ankylosaur’s tail can kill even a T-rex. We’d never find enough of you to take back home. Be aware that even the more placid dinosaurs can absent-mindedly stand on you. Especially since some of them don’t see very well. So, regard everything as hostile and dangerous. Everything here hunts by sight or smell or both. Well done for wearing camouflage gear but don’t touch anything if you can help it. Don’t drop rubbish. Don’t piss against trees. And don’t make a noise. Bear in mind that they’re all masters of camouflage and that by the time you spot a dinosaur it’s already too late. And don’t drink the water. When we leave the safety of the pod, your first task will be to cover yourselves in mud. And keep replenishing as we go. You need to look and smell less mammally. Any questions?’

  Mr Khalife brandished his weapon so he obviously hadn’t been listening to a word I’d said. Boys and their toys.

  ‘Mr Khalife,’ I said. ‘If you are in a position where you must kill something you’ll probably only get one chance. One shot. Make it count. But be aware that if you do shoot something – even if you only wound it – the smell of blood will bring ten or twenty predators down upon us in minutes. And if that happens, nothing can save us.’

  He held my gaze and rammed home a magazine.

  I should have realised then, but I didn’t. In my own defence, I had a lot on. I thought I’d covered everything, but that I missed.

  They shouldered their way past me without a word and climbed down the ladder. Now that we were officially working for them there was a definite difference in their behaviour towards us. I exchanged glances with Mikey. She nodded.

  Once outside, I handed them each a small pack containing water and some of those ghastly high-calorie biscuits that are supposed to keep you on your feet for hours – and trust me, they do, because you just want to get the assignment over and done with so you won’t have to eat another one. If you want a comparison, try eating a raffia coaster. Very similar in size, shape and taste.

  I left Mikey in the pod. No one was going to do anything to me when Mikey could just close the hatch and jump away, leaving them there forever. And Wolfe and Khalife wouldn’t risk that. Not until they were certain Ronan was here. So, for the moment at least, I was quite safe. Safe being a relative term.

  I made them cover themselves all over in smelly swamp mud. It wouldn’t do us a lot of good against a flock of raptors – and there was always the possibility of every frog within a hundred yards deciding we smelled good enough to be their annual breeding ground and having multiple frog sex all over us – but it was the best I could do.

  I didn’t like having them behind me, but there wasn’t much I could do about that, either. I went first. Mr Wolfe was in the middle, and Mr Khalife brought up the rear with his gun. Well, his three or four guns, probably. With luck, that would not become an issue.

  We splashed gently through the muddy water. Or possibly the watery mud. Things plopped into the water all around us. I could hear water dripping from broad leaf on to broad leaf. There were giant insects everywhere. I could hear the drone of their silver wings. The dragonflies were an iridescent blue and green and purple and, to my eyes, the size of small donkeys. They dive-bombed us unmercifully until we moved away from their territory. Vicious buggers.

  We moved slowly for many reasons. The ground was squidgy and I didn’t want too much splashing. Splashing often indicates an animal in distress and would attract all sorts of attention. I was constantly peering through the trees for signs of movement. Listening for heavy breathing. Watching the skies overhead for Pterosaurs – although they’d nearly all gone by now. And scanning the water for that ominous bow wave heading in our direction. Giant crocodiles, giant lizards, giant
snakes – they’d all be around somewhere. I couldn’t see anything but I was pretty sure a hundred eyes would be watching us.

  I felt happier once we were out of the swamp. We clambered out to firmer ground and I took a quick look around. We were on a broad, flat plain that encompassed the swamp. Flowering plants and their heavy scents attracted even more insects. Either heavy, droning single flies or irritating clouds of midge-like bugs – they all headed straight for us. The trick is not to wave your arms around because this enrages them and they go off and bring back their mates.

  Away to my left, the ground began to rise. Magnolias and other flowering plants grew in riotous clumps everywhere. Palms erupted out of the tangled undergrowth. Further up there were conifers doing well on the higher ground. Above them reared bare mountains and behind them, smudgy on the horizon, the ominous cone-shape of volcanoes, source not only of the nostril-searing sulphur smell, but the acid rain that had dissolved great holes in the broad-leaved plants around us.

  There was no grass – it hadn’t evolved yet – but stretched in front of us, bordering the swamp, was a vast area of trampled horsetails. Which was good, actually, because nearly everything in the Cretaceous was much bigger than we were and having to fight our way through shoulder-high horsetails would be both tiring and dangerous. You never knew what might be lurking only three feet away.

  I motioned them down and we dropped to a crouch – all of us keeping watch over the others’ shoulders.

  ‘This is good,’ I whispered, gesturing at the trampled vegetation. ‘I think this might be a Hadrosaur feeding ground. They’re like cows. They move slowly, grazing as they go. See the trampled plants? The bad news is that where you get prey you get predators. I propose we move further up – into the treeline up there. It will give us cover and we might be lucky enough to find a nest.’

  ‘And see a dinosaur,’ said Mr Wolfe, firmly. I suspected, as with Jebel Barkal, the Cretaceous might not be living up to his expectations.

  ‘Very probably, yes. Follow me.’

  We zigzagged uphill for a hundred yards or so, easing ourselves past clumps of laurel, ficus and cornus, and into the trees. It was no cooler here. The air was still and close. The sun made dappled patterns on the forest floor. Very pretty but it was going to be a bugger to spot a well-camouflaged predator.

  The forest was very quiet. Very quiet indeed. There were no normal forest noises. The silence had a listening quality to it. I gestured and we all dropped to the ground again.

  I breathed. ‘There’s something here.’

  Once again, we all watched each other’s backs. We knelt for a while, watching and waiting. I could feel my knees sinking into the damp soil. In the distance, I could hear the sound of something trampling the undergrowth and breaking branches. Something big was crashing through the trees and causing a fair amount of noise and damage as it went. Something that didn’t care who knew it was here.

  Wolfe went to stand up and I pulled him back down again which left Mr Khalife in something of a quandary. The disrespect I’d shown by manhandling Mr Wolfe battled against my having prevented him doing something unwise.

  We sat for a while, inhaling forest smells. If I closed my eyes I could almost imagine Davey Sussman standing behind me. So, don’t close your eyes then, Maxwell.

  The noise gradually ceased. Whatever it was had moved away. Gradually, sound and movement came back into the forest and now I had a decision to make. When Sussman and I had done our study here, we’d been stuffed with equipment. I don’t just mean the star-mapping instruments and the geological stuff and all that, but we’d had proximity meters which would tell us if anything was moving close by. We’d had blasters with which to defend ourselves. We’d had Professor Rapson’s spray that was supposed to fool predators into thinking we were just perambulating vegetation. And yet Sussman had still died. His fault – but he’d died, nevertheless. Now I had nothing. I had a short-range stun gun. I had two amateurs who could turn on me at any moment and probably would. And I had a teenager in a teapot.

  Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Maxwell. You have a job to do so get on with it.

  I stood up slowly and looked around. Everything looked normal enough – for a predator-laden environment, that is.

  I whispered, ‘Come on,’ and we set off. The trail was easy to find. There were broken branches and vivid, lighter scars where bark had been torn off tree trunks. The scrapes were about the height of Mr Wolfe. So probably not a T-rex then. Too short. Nor raptors. Too tall. Raptors are always smaller than people think. Except for Deinonychus and I definitely didn’t want to meet any more of those. I wondered if I’d encounter the pack that did for Sussman. It was possible, I suppose. I was in roughly the same area as before, although at the other end of the valley, but these creatures roam. And if I did meet them, would they remember the smell of human? Something else not to think about.

  We walked quietly, in single file. A few leaves fluttered down around me and I cursed myself for not remembering to keep looking up.

  There are other perils here besides being eaten. I had forgotten the weather.

  In the early Cretaceous, the weather was pretty stable. Warm and wet most of the time, even the poles were pleasant places at which to live. However, as time went on, Pangea split into two land masses, Laurasia and Gondwana. These, in turn, were breaking up into the continents we know today. The Tethys Sea was disappearing as these continents began to form. Sea levels were falling, weather patterns began to develop and the endless days of gentle, balmy weather were long gone. Late Cretaceous weather could be very exciting indeed.

  All this is just a long-winded way of saying that the wind was getting up. I tilted my head back and looked up at the sky. The tops of the trees that I could see were tossing and swaying. As I watched, more leaves floated down. The sun had disappeared. Dark oily clouds scudded across the narrow slice of sky visible between the trees. A storm was coming.

  I’d been caught in a tropical storm once before and although Leon and I had found new and exciting ways to pass the time, that certainly wasn’t an option with these two. The decision I had to make was whether to leave the comparative safety of the forest and try to get back to the pod or hunker down here until it was over with. Which might take some time.

  I remembered I was only an employee and such decisions were now above my pay grade. Turning to my employers, I said, ‘There’s a storm approaching. They can be savage. We’ll probably be quite safe here among the trees or we can make our way back to the pod and wait it out there. In this situation I would appreciate Mr Wolfe’s instructions.’ And waited to see how he would handle the situation.

  Perfectly, as it turned out.

  ‘Your recommendation, Dr Maxwell?’

  More leaves fluttered down. The wind was doing more than sigh in the treetops.

  ‘To stay put. We’re safe enough here. Everything will do as we do and take shelter until it’s over.’ I couldn’t help adding, ‘There will be a great deal of sound and fury but please try not to be too alarmed.’

  They both turned identical stares on me.

  ‘There’s a clearing ahead. We’ll check it out and then find ourselves some shelter. Please be aware that any place that looks desirable is almost certainly already occupied by something that won’t be willing to give it up.’

  The clearing hadn’t been large to begin with, but whatever had been crashing around the landscape had made it bigger. Big enough to accommodate the huge, cone-shaped pile of mosses and lichen pulled down from the trees and piled up in the centre. Small branches formed a solid base at the bottom and the top was covered with broad, bright green, freshly gathered leaves.

  A nest. Just what we’d been searching for and now found by accident. Looking at it, it was very easy to believe that many dinosaurs had evolved into birds. Apart from the fact it was built on the forest floor and about four feet high, it looked ju
st like a bird’s nest. I had no idea what type of dinosaur had built it so we needed to be very careful. A species that believed in hands-off parenting and was already some distance away would be my first choice. Still, time to earn the pay I probably wouldn’t live long enough to collect.

  ‘Ah,’ I said, every inch the obsessed, oblivious historian. ‘We’re in luck. This is just the job.’ Out of sheer bloody-minded recklessness, I added, ‘We could be back home in thirty minutes, Mr Wolfe. You’ll make your meetings after all.’ And pretended not to notice the flicker of consternation in his eyes.

  Inspecting it more closely, I suspected a Sauropod nest. They tend to lay their eggs on the fringes of a forest so the hatchlings can penetrate further in where the trees are too close together for the bigger predators to get at them. By the time the young emerge some years later, they’re almost big enough to fend for themselves.

  I made Wolfe and Khalife wait under the trees while I approached with huge caution. Mother could be anyone and anywhere. I squatted and waited for the longest ten minutes of my life.

  Nothing happened.

  Khalife appeared beside me. ‘Mr Wolfe is wondering at the delay.’

  ‘My compliments to Mr Wolfe. The delay is caused by a cautious historian endeavouring to ascertain whether Mum is still in the vicinity. May I suggest you alleviate Mr Wolfe’s impatience by attempting to remove an egg yourself; then we shall almost certainly find out very quickly.’

  We looked at each other for a moment. I was half braced for another slap and then he surprised me by grinning suddenly. ‘I shall advise Mr Wolfe I am leaving this matter in your capable hands.’

  But he was right. I couldn’t hang around forever. Even if Mum had pushed off, any number of predators could be on their way. Or might even be here already. I was hugely reluctant – not only because of the physical risk, but because it was going against all my principles and training. I tried to tell myself that if I survived the next hour or so I could always put it back.