No Road Out

by M. J. Konkel

  “Why is it that they disappear for weeks at a time and then suddenly we are seeing them all over the place?” wondered the Professor.

  Joe answered, “Hank Straddler has a theory on that. He has been with a party that has been doing a lot of hunting along the ridges. He has noticed that the brontos and the duckies disappear and reappear for periods too, and that the freddies disappear and reappear with them. He thinks that the brontos and the duckies roam around searching for food to forage. They are so big and eat so much that they can't stay for long in one location. And the freddies and the raptors follow the herds. But now, Hank thinks that they are beginning their migrations to the south.”

  “What about the one that attacked Johnny Faberley? That wasn't a freddie,” Karen pointed out.

  “The spinos are different. They seem to always be around water looking for large fish. But they will attack anything else that looks edible to them. But getting back to the freddies, we should have extra eyes looking out for them and extra guns along for the raptors.”

  “Maybe we can put up that balloon again like when you rescued me,” Karen suggested.

  “I think that is a good idea, but it will be harder to spot them now. The foliage is so much thicker. We get some drones up too.”

  “Can't you somehow automate the device?” Karen asked the Professor.

  “I wish I could. If I had access to the right equipment I could, but not with what is available here. Starting up the SEAD isn't straight-forward. It takes a lot of adjustments each time it is started, and I need to be able to see the monitors to make those adjustments.”

  “You will be sitting in dinosaur-stomping grounds on the highest point around under a giant metal tower during an electrical storm with heavy rain coming down,” summarized Joe.

  “Yes, I think that pretty much sums it up,” agreed the Professor.

  “Good! Just making sure that you understand what you are volunteering yourself for,” concluded Joe.

  Everyone was on the alert as preparations for moving the SEAD up to the radio tower were made over the next several days. The tower stood in an open field at the end of a gravel road on top of the ridge. The road led east to woods, not connected any more to the roads that went down to Ridgeback. Everything had to be carried up the side of the steep ridge by hand. Scouts on the ridge, in the balloon and in boats upriver and downriver from the tower kept watch for freddies. Although several freddies were spotted, none turned out to be a threat to the tower team. Guards accompanied all the workers to protect them against raptors. Raptors were spotted once, and one was shot. The others from that pack ran off after that. Lonnie helped build the shack right against the tower which would conduct the charge from any lightning strike down to the shack and through the space of the uncurling extra spatial dimension. The grounding rods for the tower were severed, and the professor added a thick copper cable from the tower and buried it deep into the ground as a shunt. The positioning was such that the cable went right through the space the uncurling dimension would permeate into. The shack was a tiny one room wood structure with a flat roof and windows just big enough to allow the Professor to spy on the outside. The shack was as much like a kid's club house as anything. A generator, along with fuel, was brought to the shack to power the SEAD. There was debate as to whether it was safer to move the SEAD back and forth or to leave it in the shack next to the tower. In the end, it was decided that the latter was probably safer. A cement vault was built under the shack for safe storage of the SEAD when the Professor was not there.

  *****

  The day came when the SEAD was moved up to the tower. The Professor accompanied it on its journey, and Joe accompanied the Professor. Joe noticed that it was an arduous climb for the Professor. He stopped several times to let the Professor catch his breath and rub his aching calves. Finally, they reached the top.

  The professor sat down on a large rock. “Whew! I am so out of shape. I guess that will change.”

  “Professor, there is something that I must speak to you about.”

  “What's that, Joe?”

  “I know that you feel responsible for us all being here.”

  “I am still not certain why the device was on that night. I know I was a little nervous about my meeting with Gerjonsi and I suspect that I was just giving it a test run that night. Nevertheless, it was my device and my actions that brought us here so, yes, I take responsibility for everyone being here.”

  “Feelings of guilt can cloud a person's judgment, Professor. What I am trying to say is please don't take any unnecessary risks. If this doesn't work, we will need you here.”

  “Thanks, Joe. But I can best serve this community right now by getting everyone back home.”

  “Just be careful okay?”

  “Sure, whatever you say,” replied the Professor. Joe hoped that he meant it.

  Johnny Faberley and Anne Loinka came up the path. Joe noticed that they spent a lot of time together even though Johnny still insisted he was engaged to a young woman named Tiffany. Joe once asked Johnny what he thought of Anne, and Johnny said that she was a nice girl and a very good friend.

  “I am going to climb that tower,” Johnny was saying.

  “You are totally crazy!” Anne exclaimed.

  “But the view from up there has to be fantastic. I brought a camera just for this.”

  “Yep, certified.”

  “Who knows what I might see from up there.”

  “What are you going to see that you can't see from the ridge up here?”

  “I don't know. I won't know until I am up there.”

  “What I will see is you falling off splattering all over the rocks at the bottom.”

  “I will climb on the inside part. That should be pretty safe. I have decided that I am doing it so that is that.”

  “Then I am going too.”

  “Oh no, you're not!”

  “Someone has to watch out over you. You certainly don't.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  Joe couldn't hear any more as Johnny and Anne went up the trail beyond his hearing range. He couldn’t help but laugh at the two’s conversation. He noticed that Anne seemed to have lost her klutziness. He had known her for four years and noticed she rarely made mistakes when she was on the basketball court. Only when she was in social situations where she was nervous. He thought it might have been a lack of confidence. But since coming to the island, she seems to have found confidence in herself and her abilities.

  “What’s funny?” asked the Professor.

  “Nothing. Private thought. Come Professor. Let me help you up. We've not too much farther to go.”

  Chapter 35

  The professor came up to the tower every time that dark clouds came rolling into sight if it was during daylight hours. Everyone agreed that trekking up the ridge in the dark was too dangerous. The Professor lost weight around his middle and started to feel his leg and buttock muscles firming up for the first time in decades. The firming of those muscles seemed to progress rather slowly though, and he blamed it on him not being as young as he used to be.

  Although they had several drenching rain showers, there were no thunderstorms over the next couple of weeks – at least not during the day. On three different nights, the people of Ridgeback saw awesome displays of lightning. Some people slept through the storms; the Professor did not. Before each storm, he rambled over to the cafeteria area under the roofed section and sat on a wooden chair in the middle of one of the large openings with his feet up on a wooden box. As he watched the storms, he would pull out an old pipe and smoke one small bowl of the precious little tobacco that he had left. There were not many more days he could do that. The rain splattered onto the ground just past his feet as the smoke from his pipe encircled his head. He always faced towards the east, towards the tower. From there he would watch where the lightning struck. It was the third such storm. Some of the closer strikes, though not on Ridgeback Island, lit up everything around so that for a sec
ond the Professor could see the campgrounds as if it were day and then it would go pitch dark until the next flash. The Professor saw what he hoped to see. One of the bolts hit the tower or very close to it. The SEAD was insulated from the storm and was not harmed of course, but the Professor felt the lightning strike there reinforced his decision that the tower was the right place to put the SEAD. Not that he really needed reassurance for the others; it was for himself. Again, Ridgeback Island was not struck. He wondered what he would feel if it did. Would he be angry with his decision to leave the SEAD up on the ridge in the vault for the night instead of bringing it down to Ridgeback Island each night? No, he thought. The decision was the wise one. Too many things could go wrong while transporting it.

  The Professor thought it was a good idea to go up to the SEAD and just make sure that the instrument was working properly, and the batteries were charged since a week had passed since his last visit. Joe was always concerned about the Professor’s safety, so he went along. Johnny also volunteered to go with them as a guard.

  “Where is Anne this morning?”

  “I don’t know where she is. I have not seen her all morning.”

  “I am so used to seeing you two together everywhere.”

  “Yeah, I guess. She is the best friend I have here,” answered Johnny. Joe just looked at him thoughtfully.

  As they crossed the bridge, they passed Span going the other direction onto the island.

  “This morning seems to be a morning when everyone is doing something out of the ordinary.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Johnny.

  “Mr. Span never leaves the island as far I am aware. Yet this morning he has, and he is alone. It is just a bit odd. That’s all.”

  “It is a nice day for a hike. No clouds in sight. I guess that means no lightning strikes today,” Johnny changed the subject.

  “That reminds me of something I have been wanting to ask for some time now,” said Joe. “Professor, the first time the SEAD was activated here, we found you unresponsive. Aren’t you afraid of that happening again?”

  “I thought about that a lot,” answered the Professor. “However, I would gladly have that happen again to me if it means all of us getting back.”

  “If there is a way to prevent it though …”

  “I will gladly take that way if I see it,” finished the Professor.

  The weather was nice and the hike up to the SEAD location was pleasant. Only squirrels and a few deer were spotted – no dinosaurs. However, once they reached the top, they saw something disturbing.

  “Oh, my! The door is open!” exclaimed the Professor. They rushed inside. They looked down at the vault that held the SEAD. It was still locked. The professor put his key that he kept on a chain around his neck and tried to turn it. “It won’t open. It is stuck.”

  “Let me see,” said Joe. “This has been battered – possible with a hammer. It looks like someone was trying to get at the SEAD.”

  “Why would someone want to do that?” asked Johnny.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” said Joe. “Damaging this instrument would make it impossible for all of us to return.”

  “It seems obvious somebody doesn’t want us to return,” said Johnny,

  “What’s not obvious is who,” said Joe.

  “I don’t think that they used a hammer,” said the Professor. “They were using a rock to bang on it. They probably got rid of the big pieces of rock that broke off, but there is still a fine powder left on the floor. Perhaps if they had a harder rock than this sandstone, they might have succeeded.”

  “The culprit might try to return with tools to get at the SEAD,” said Joe. “We need to put a guard on it.”

  “I will stay until you can get somebody else,” volunteered Johnny.

  “Thanks!” said Joe. “We will also have to get a bolt cutter up here and replace the lock with a stronger one. Professor, you should return with me. You can come back with whoever we send up with the bolt cutter.”

  “If you don’t mind, I would prefer to wait here until I can see the SEAD and make sure it is all right.”

  “Fine, but I think it would be safer below for you.” He understood the Professor was probably not in good enough shape to make the hike up twice in the same day, but he worried about him.

  “I will be perfectly fine here in the shack with Johnny.”

  Joe left the shack and started down the trodden path, but he didn’t get far before he ran into Anne. “Hi! What are you doing up here?” He was surprised.

  “What am I doing up here? I was hunting up along this ridge and I heard voices over this way, so I came to check it out.”

  “What happened to your hand?” asked Joe. He noticed blood on the knuckles of her right hand. That was suspicious.

  “I slipped and fell and scraped my hand on a tree trunk back there.” She pointed back along the tree line. Joe looked at her hand as she pointed.

  “Somebody tried to open the vault to the SEAD. You wouldn’t know anything about that?”

  “What? No. You aren’t accusing me, are you? And why would I or anyone want to do that? That's crazy!”

  “I don’t know why. I am not accusing you, but you are in the vicinity and with the scrape on your hand, it looks a bit suspicious.”

  “I told you I slipped and fell. And what does that have to do with the SEAD?”

  “Somebody tried to break into it using a rock.”

  “You don’t think I did it. Do you really?”

  “No. Not really, but you should come back with me anyway and not go hunting alone again. I don’t think the dinosaurs are the only thing to fear anymore.” Joe found it hard to believe that Anne was responsible, but she did have a motive. If they returned, Johnny has made it clear he intended to go through with his marriage to that other woman. As far as he could tell, Anne was in love with Johnny and she would lose him.

  Chapter 36

  Over the next few weeks, fights broke out over insinuations of who was the saboteur. Joe was thinking it was either Anne or Span, but he hadn’t ruled out Lasgaard. After all, he did steal the SEAD once. Joe just didn’t trust the man’s motives for anything. He neither told anyone of his thoughts, nor even that he saw both Anne and Span on the day they discovered the attempted sabotage. Harv Roper said he had passed the shack while heading out on a hunting trip the morning before their discovery. No one else had claimed to be there after that so it could have happened any time in the 24 hours prior to their discovery. Almost anyone could have left the island during that time. In Joe’s mind, it came down to motive.

  A day finally came when a daytime storm system moved up the river valley. By then, it was October, and everyone was worried about whether they would see another electrical storm. October was normally a dry month, at least in the old world, and then winter would come, and they would have to wait until spring to try again. Electrical storms were rare in Minnesota or Wisconsin winters. When dark clouds were seen rolling in from the south about an hour and a half before dusk, the Professor grabbed his duffel bag and headed out to the tower. Joe and Mr. Span joined him, along with a small squad of guards to protect them and lead the way. Joe noted that Johnny was among the guards that had volunteered. It was one of the few times that he saw Johnny without Anne around. Joe thought about another recent time that they were not together. They briefly debated the wisdom of going out so close to dark, but nobody wanted to have to wait until spring to try again. They were on the trail halfway up the ridge when the first drops of cold rain started pattering on the leaves around them. The storm really was coming in on them fast. They all whipped out raincoats or ponchos and put them on, barely breaking stride.

  “There is no time to lose,” the Professor warned. “Lightning flashes are already visible to the south of us. We have no more than twenty minutes before the heaviest part of this storm will be over us. Maybe less. I need to have everything set up before then.”

  Joe came up to Johnny's side as they walked. “I
didn't expect to see you coming with us. Didn't you sprain your ankle in that buckets game yesterday? As I recall you were trailing Anne in the scoring?” he asked.

  “My ankle is a little stiff, but I'm keeping up. Anne is such good shooter. She kept hitting those three pointers,” answered Johnny. “I didn't expect to see you here either. Shouldn't you and Mr. Span stay where it is less dangerous?”

  “I can't ask people to do something that I am not willing to do. Besides, I didn't have anything that is more important than this. How about you? Do your reasons have anything to do with that girl? What's her name?”

  “Tiffany. I came along to make sure that nothing goes wrong with our getting back, if I can help it. As you said, nothing is more important than this, so I am here to protect the Professor.”

  “How is Anne doing? Every time I see you together, you two seem so happy. You seem like such a natural couple.”

  “I like Anne, but she is just so immature sometimes.”

  Joe chuckled. If that wasn't the kettle calling the pan black. “You two have a spat?”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Mm. Karen and I still sometimes get into it. You know Anne reminds me a lot of what Karen was like when she was her age. I first met Karen when we were in college. We were just friends at first. We had both been dating other people for a while, but as our friendship grew, we realized how right we were together.”

  “Anne and I are close friends and I like her a lot. But I am engaged to Tiffany.”

  “Right. Just make sure it is the right decision for you. Not for Tiffany. Or for Anne, for that matter. Ah! We are at the top now and we have a job to do.” Rain was falling and there was a bright flash. Joe started counting until the sharp crack of the thunder was felt about five seconds later. “That was close, about a mile from here. The next one could be here. We need to be ready.”

  Joe asked everyone to form a semi-circle around the shack facing away from the edge of the ridge, but far enough away from the tower that they wouldn't get killed when lightning struck it.