by Greg Bear
"I'll go, too," Peter said.
"You stay here. Nobody knows how fast that animal can move."
Ray put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "He's right," he said. "If they need help, they'll let us know."
"What can they do?"
"Get that cage off Vince, maybe," Ray said.
OBie found a pry bar left by the workmen. Anthony stepped off the far end of the bridge, surveyed the venator where he lay about fifty yards away, and jogged to help OBie lift the edge of the cage.
"They'll need our help," Peter said, and he started for the bridge.
The venator lifted his head, snorted and growled loudly, and rolled onto his back, stretching his legs and arms slowly into the air as if waking from a long, leisurely nap.
"Hold it!" Ray shouted.
Peter stopped, eyes wide. Anthony and OBie worked even more frantically on the cage and wrenched away one side, leaving Shellabarger still pinned beneath.
The venator turned his head and stared with both eyes directly at them. "Dad!" Peter called.
The animal turned to the sound of Peter's voice and rolled on his side like a playful dog. He rolled back and forth twice, flexed his legs, and with one amazing swing, flung himself over and up onto his feet. He was off balance, however, and teetered, falling again with a slam onto the rocky ground. The venator groaned and blinked, then kicked his legs out and began all over again.
Anthony said something to OBie and they got up from their crouch. Ray joined Peter at the bridge and grabbed his shoulders firmly. Peter tried to jerk loose. "Stay here," Ray said. "He knows what to do."
Dagger swung up again onto his feet, leaning forward on his long, wiry arms. With another jerk of his tail, he regained his upright stance and shook his head vigorously. Then he pivoted, brought his head low and level with his body and extended tail, and stomped toward OBie and Anthony.
The two men broke into a run—taking opposite directions. Dagger made a quick decision and veered toward OBie. Anthony saw this and darted across his path, taking a shortcut toward the bridge. The venator leaned to one side and snapped at Anthony's head, jaws meeting inches from his whipped-back hair. Anthony flung the pry bar with a sidearm swing that struck the venator full in the snout. Dagger drew back and shook his head, blinking in pain, but slowed only for an instant. This gave
OBie time to swerve like a broken-field runner in football. He swung around behind the venator. Dagger's tail lashed out and clipped his arm, nearly knocking him down; he stumbled onto one hand, legs still churning, and knelt briefly before getting to his feet. Scrabbling, the venator dug his claws into the gravel and rock.
It seemed impossible for such a large animal to change course so quickly, but there was no arguing with reality; Dagger was within yards of the bridge before OBie joined Anthony near the broken runway. They pushed through the dismantled cages and started across.
Peter ran out onto the bridge to meet his father before he consciously knew his legs were moving. Ray ran beside him, trying to grab his arm. "Peter! For God's sake!"
OBie and Anthony made it about a third of the way across while Dagger tore apart the runway. Sections of steel bars flew as he lifted one broad foot and clawed and kicked.
Anthony shouted for Peter to go back. Peter stopped and Ray ran into and over him, and both fell onto the deck of the bridge. Through the metal plating, Peter could see the bottom of the chasm between Pico Poco and El Grande, thousands of feet below, and a curious tiny curve of white water like a silver snake. Anthony yanked him up by his left arm; OBie did the same with Ray, whose nose streamed blood.
Peter looked back and suddenly understood the glare of the basilisk, the hypnotic gaze of the cobra before its prey. Dagger stood before the bridge and drew back to leap. Anthony jerked on Peter's arm, nearly unsocketing it. The end of the bridge on El Grande seemed very far away; the distance to Pico Poco seemed little more than a step or two, telescoped, the view closing into a tunnel of shock around the gaping mouth of the venator, still drawing back, back, legs splayed, all his muscles tensing like steel bands beneath his gleaming skin. The sun caught the animal's eyes like twin arcs on a welding torch; he lowered his head and the eyes became pits of night.
Dagger's arms pushed out first, and then the venator sprang forward. His leap took him a good five yards over the bridge. Peter felt the pain in his arm, and another pain as Anthony jerked him forward again. They were less than three running strides from El Grande, but that was little relief; the venator would be on them in seconds.
The shock of Dagger's landing knocked them off their feet and slammed the bridge on both sides with a hideous groan and a deep ringing bell-tone on the concrete abutments. Peter nearly slipped through the wide-spaced iron bars of the railing. He hung on grimly with both hands and saw once more the cleft's distant bottom. Showers of rust and flakes of corrosion fell like a ghostly russet curtain into the abyss.
He could not help looking back over his shoulder once more, though he was convinced Dagger's jaws would be wrapped around him in an instant; but the dinosaur had hesitated.
The bridge swayed several feet back and forth on its rotating foundation. It swung away from the concrete abutment on the El Grande side, scraping and flinging sparks, and the ramp dropped, slamming hard against dirt and rock.
Anthony fell back on his hands and knees. "Crawl!" he shouted to Peter, but the bridge shuddered violently beneath them and they all fell on their stomachs, fingers clinging to narrow gaps in the deck.
The venator made a querulous grumble, then screeched with alarm as the bridge slid sideways. His head cracked into the support beams and his two-ton weight strained the pivot even more severely. The concrete crumbled and bolts gave way.
Hand over hand, Peter reached the end of the bridge. His fingers touched dirt and sandstone; he felt the rough, painful grit beneath his fingernails and bloodied the tips of his fingers as the bridge swung again. He heard OBie cough behind him, and wondered where his father was, and saw Ray crawling with a determined frown to his right, as if looking for something he had dropped.
Once again, as he kicked forward, Peter looked back. The venator took a step in their direction and the bridge dropped several feet below the swinging foundation. A cloud of rust gathered at that end and rust fell from the girders and support beams all around.
"It's going! Get clear!" That was Anthony shouting hoarsely. Somehow, everyone had gotten around Peter and was now ahead of him.
Dagger hesitated again, nostrils twitching. Fury gave way to instinct. The venator pushed back one step, then two, miraculously staying on his feet as the bridge slipped another few inches and swayed, all its weight now resting on the support girders where they had shoved into the rock. The roadbed girders grated against the cliff's face; the bridge was held by little more than two sticks of iron and its wedged position.
Pebbles flew off into the chasm and the bridge slipped another foot.
The venator turned and kicked. The bridge made a tooth-grinding, tortured-metal roar and fell away beneath the animal. OBie and Ray rolled onto the rock of El Grande and Anthony grabbed Peter's arm once more, his fingers hard as steel. Peter suddenly hung in space and slapped against the cliff face, mashing his side and cheek. He cried out in pain. He was sure he was falling, but Anthony's grip tightened and Ray and OBie held Anthony's waist, and all together, with a pig-grunt heave, they pulled him over the edge.
As it fell, the bridge made a terrible grinding and screeching, the sound echoing and diminishing, until a final distant tinny bang ended it all.
Peter lay on his back, wrapped in pain, and stared up at the sky.
"Mary Mother of God," OBie said reverently.
"Amen," Anthony said.
Ray sat with knees drawn up, rubbing his bloody lip and nose. He drew his hand away, stared at the smear of blood, and then focused his attention across the chasm, to Pico Poco.
"I'll be damned," he said, and shook his head once as if to scare off a mosquito.
<
br /> Peter, still dazed, turned and saw Dagger standing by the shattered foundation of the bridge. The venator's ribs rose and fell rapidly, and his tongue peeked purplish pink between his long narrow teeth like a piece of raw beef. His feet and thighs were bloody from numerous deep gouges, and blood streamed from his nose and the side of his head. One eye was swollen shut. Dagger turned his massive head and surveyed them with the remaining eye like a battered prizefighter.
"He made it," Anthony said in disbelief.
Peter sat up, cradling his wrenched left arm in his right hand.
The bridge was gone.
"We're stuck," he said.
"At least until the crew comes back and shoots that son of a bitch," OBie said passionately. "They can rig a rope bridge and we'll swing across, and then, by God . . ." He stood and brushed off his pants. "By God, I'm going back to Los Angeles and take a long hot shower and never go any goddamned place again in my life."
Anthony shook his head and gave his son a wide, almost maniacal smile. "You all right?" he asked.
"Yeah," Peter said.
"Let me look at you."
Anthony touched his son's arm solicitously. Peter made a face and said, "It's all right, really," and they all froze. Through the whispering harshness of the wind they listened to something, not the venator; something on their side of the chasm, a sound Peter had never heard before . . .
Like the cry of a huge eagle.
BOOK
TWO
Chapter One
OBie stared north at the wind-sculpted rocks of El Grande's maze. "It's been a long time since I've heard that cry," he said, "and I don't welcome it."
"What is it?" Anthony asked.
"Could be a small avisaur trying to scare us," OBie said. "But I don't think so." He turned in a circle, clearly uneasy, scrutinizing the plateau, the maze, the deeply overgrown road reaching around the eastern side of the maze. "We're out in the open here. All the noise could have attracted something . . . We should wait in the rocks for our people to get back."
"Doesn't look like they're coming back," Anthony said grimly.
"It takes more than a dinosaur to scare off motion picture folks," OBie said. He gave Peter a wink. "I'll be charitable and suppose the circus fellows will come back, too."
The venator paced restlessly on the edge of Pico Poco, grunting and grumbling like an old man fretting over some overdue debt. He had perked up at the eagle shriek, as well, but now seemed unconcerned.
A truck motor rumbled from the south, out of sight below the top of Pico Poco.
"That's probably them now," Anthony said, patting Peter's head. He hadn't done that to his son for at least three years—at Peter's request. Peter did not complain. He was relieved just to hear the truck. The roustabouts might bring more guns. They would have to shoot the venator, unfortunately—he didn't think they'd be able to capture him alive. They probably would not want to, after what had happened to Shellabarger.
"Is Vince dead?" Peter asked.
"He was mighty still," OBie said. "I didn't have time to check his pulse."
Peter thought that when the venator got hungry, it would forget them long enough to lift the bars and pry Shellabarger loose. End of a long story.
Ray pointed. "Look!" Two men were climbing over the rise onto the top of Pico Poco, about two hundred yards south of where they stood. Peter could not see them clearly enough to identify them, but Anthony said, "It's Arnie Kasem and one of the Mendez brothers." A third appeared. "And there's Rob Keller."
"Nobody from our crew?" OBie asked, disappointed. He shielded his eyes and squinted.
"Not yet," Anthony said. Keller waved at them but did nothing to attract the attention of the venator. He slowly and dramatically flapped his hands up and down, as if trying to fly. Then he swooped his arm out.
"What's he trying to say?" Ray asked.
OBie shook his head. "Do they have guns?"
"No," Anthony said.
"There's some of our crew, and some of the Indians, too," Anthony said. Four more men came up over the rise, and again they heard the truck.
The truck ascended the trail slowly, smoke belching from its stacks. Soldiers crowded the truck bed. The venator turned at the diesel noise and faced the truck, long tail switching stiffly back and forth.
With a swing of his head and a backward glance at his intended prey, still inaccessible across the chasm, Dagger took one step away from the edge, then another, and leveled himself head to tail before breaking into a swift trot. He was going to confront this renewed threat immediately and head-on. The thump of his feet on the rocky surface and the sound of his grunting breaths increased as he picked up speed. Peter watched the play of muscles in his thighs and back with a shiver of admiration.
"They'll shoot him now," OBie said. He did not appear particularly convinced or even happy about that. The truck bed became a haze of smoky bursts pierced by brief muzzle flashes. A bullet struck the rock next to Ray, and another whizzed past Peter's head.
They all dropped as more bullets flew by. The venator's speed increased to fifteen, eighteen, twenty miles an hour. The slender muscular legs pounded faster. Peter heard a steady crack-crack-crack of rifles and pistols. Whether any of the bullets hit the animal, he couldn't tell—but none slowed him down.
They heard shouting and then screams as the venator closed on the men. Kasem and Keller ran for the truck and hoisted themselves on, as did Mendez. The other workers retreated and scattered. The truck backed down the grade, and still the venator ran faster and faster.
"My God, my God," OBie said, getting to his knees. Anthony lifted himself as if doing a push-up and peered across the chasm and plateau.
All the men and the truck had retreated. The venator stopped at the far side of the rise. Distant pops rang out, more desultory gunfire. Dagger shook his head, as if bothered by flies.
They stood. OBie looked disgusted enough to spit. "We'll have to take care of ourselves. We can cut some strong vines in the jungle beyond these rocks, north of the maze," he said. "Maybe we can hook up with Billie, wherever he's got to. You'd think all this noise would bring that Indian back—unless he kept on running."
The venator swiveled quickly on his big three-toed feet.
"He doesn't look hurt," Ray said.
Dagger returned at a steady gait to the rim to assume his vigil once more. Peter's heart sank. Even across the chasm, the venator's appearance made Peter want to run—or just lie down and wait to die.
Anthony raised his camera and took a picture.
"They must have hit him," Ray said, and took a deep, shuddering breath in frustration.
"I doubt that anybody over there is a crack shot," Anthony said.
"If you'd had a gun—" Peter began.
"Yeah," Anthony said peevishly. "Well, none of us has a gun."
Nostrils twitching, the venator leaned over the chasm. His eyes remained focused on the four of them and the long tail made an audible swoosh with each swing back and forth. Bright bloody spots on his breast and muzzle marked fresh wounds.
"They did get him," Peter said, awed.
"Looks that way," OBie said, "but it hasn't slowed him any."
Clouds of flies buzzed around the animal. Dagger paid them no mind. He squatted on his belly and twisted his head to lick at blood on his flank. He couldn't quite reach the wound. With a patient, resigned look, like a cat about to take a nap, he snapped his jaw shut and blinked slowly.
"We could be here all night before the crews regroup and think of a plan," Ray said.
"I hope they're in radio contact with somebody," Anthony said.
"Peter, you forgot our sleeping bags," OBie said.
"Sorry," Peter said.
"And dinner," Ray said. The cameraman gave Peter a lopsided grin. Everybody was trying to act brave, but their faces were ashen with concern.
"Nobody said they wanted a picnic," Peter said. He thought of Shellabarger. The contrast between their forced banter and the trainer
lying under the collapsed cage made his eyes well up with tears. Peter went to his father and Anthony put his arms around him.
OBie looked at them with a funny expression, as if a knife had just been twisted in him. He said, "It'll be dark shortly. We might get our chance if Dagger there bleeds a little more and gets woozy. Maybe we should scout out some vines in case we can cross in the morning."
"A hundred feet of vines?" Anthony said dubiously. "I don't know if that will work."
"There are vines in the forest three times as long as that, and tough as leather," OBie said. "The Indians call them mamure."
Again came the horrible, high-pitched skreee from farther north in El Grande. It did not seem close, but it was loud.
"That isn't anything small," Ray said. He rubbed his hand back from his high forehead through his hair to his neck.
OBie's eyes were wide with large dark pupils. "Yeah," he agreed, voice shaky.
" Could it be a death eagle?" Peter asked, his mouth suddenly parched. Maybe OBie doesn t want to scare us—but I'd sure rather know.
OBie didn't answer. He picked up a pebble and flung it at the ground. "The hell with waiting here," he said. "That bastard has no intention of dying. Let's go hide in the rocks."
Peter followed Anthony and Ray across the clearing. OBie lingered for a moment, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, shaking his head regretfully. Then he jogged to catch up with them.
The rocks in the tumult of the maze seemed even more gnomish and unnatural as the day ended. Tortured dark clouds hurried above the tepui again, frantic with rain, swooping sunset shadows over the outlines of faces and creatures Peter kept seeing in the rocks. A cool breeze and thick cold drops quickly followed.
"This could have gone a lot better," OBie said, squeezing into a narrow passage.
Anthony tucked the Leica in his jacket. Ray still carried the portable movie camera.
"I've got about two minutes of film left," Ray said to Anthony. "How about you?"
"Ten shots," Anthony said.