‘Now please be careful Daniel or feel free to exit. You didn’t break anything but if you touch the wrong thing you could be very sore for a long time.’
‘Where was I?’ He commented as he pushed back to the display. ‘An object doesn’t have to be manufactured to generate extremely precise and straight parallel lines. Nature does it quite often resulting in some rather unique cases of wavefront interference. No, the fascinating part of these feathers here lies in what and how they are used.’
‘Here, move away from the microscope image and observe the actual feather. I’m going to add normal illumination across the feather. Watch and observe.’
The feather’s color changed from the dull bronze color and illuminated into tones of a greenish gold.
‘The beautiful color you see here is generated by the interference phased reflection of the white light from this lamp off of the small parallel lines formed by the microscope barbules of the feather. This is a very common effect in physics called a diffraction grating. The principle is a common application used in everything from spectroscopes to bandwidth filtering. Now, watch what happens when I change the stress on the barb structures by adding a field charge to the feather section.’
Dan looked over at Marty, ‘Ok, it changed color. Is that a big deal?’
‘Are you kidding Dan?’ Mark looked at him is disbelief. ‘These guys can flip between color states simply by introducing a stimulus into the nerve centers of the feather?’
‘No, that’s close Mark but not exactly right.’ Marty said and he turned on a second set of knobs on his field driver. The color on the feather changed from one edge to the other. Moving from a light blue to a dark amber in a continuous transition. ‘And if you think that’s great then watch!’
Another adjustment and a series of stripes like those of a miniature zebra formed across the feather. ‘Finally, for the climax of the demonstration, watch this.’ Mark and Dan watched and suddenly the feather vanished. Only the light grey texture of the mounting pedestal with its series of edged vacuum groves remained.
‘Shit, we lost it! Nobody move.’ Dan called out.
Marty chuckled and shut down the field driver. The feather reappeared on the microscope stage. ‘It never moved Dan. I simply tuned it to emulate the background behind it. If you would have looked a little closer while it was in this state you could have still seen the feather. However, for a casual glance it all but disappears.’
Mark stood there with his mouth open and his thoughts obviously travelling very far afield. Marty looked directly at him and a rare smile lit his face. ‘Mark? Oh Mark? I was going to try and write your name across the feather instead but that turned out to be a little complicated and I ran out of time. I think you are beginning to realize the implications of this so I won’t elaborate any further but I think its rather odd. Do you realize that this implies these beasts have no natural color pattern of their own. Every species in nature is defined by its shape and color. This characteristic alone is beyond the natural scope and design of any species we know of.’
Mark turns back to Dan ignoring Marty’s speculation, ‘That’s how they do it! Amazing! Do you realize what this means? This, this is natural camouflage? Recall Anton’s report from over on the starport the evening they were attacked. These two dinosaurs consistently charged and re-entered the area protected by our AutoSentinel security screen. They eventually were able to penetrate it. They were learning and, even more significant, this implies that they can sense the broad spectrum infrared and near ultraviolet radiation used by the sensors. They must have a very broad bandwidth of light perception that they can see or somehow sense. We of course know nothing about their sensors at this point.’
‘Then there’s the data processing that must naturally occur within their brain and neural networks. It can’t be a conscious function so it must be distributed process across the whole organic network of the beast. This is an extremely sophisticated and complex organism. I guess it sort of redefines our thoughts toward evolution when we think of “dinosaurs” as a word once synonymous with archaic or a failed evolutionary line. They are in fact highly developed organisms that a freak cataclysm will remove from the earth’s timeline.’
Marty retuned the microscope to make the feather disappear and turned to Mark and Dan, ‘Well they have had well over a hundred million years to perfect the design. Even longer, if you consider that this species started in the Triassic period. We haven’t been working one tenth that long on our solution to the problem of species survival.’
‘Let’s refocus on what is important here.’ Marty lifted the lighting in the lab. ‘The natural camouflage of these theropods gives them a tremendous advantage. Oddly enough, it extends way beyond our ability to see them with our eyes. This capability means that most of our automated sensors are now ineffective against these attackers. We can’t simply …’
‘Theropods? Has Sara identified the species?’
‘No Sara didn’t identify them. We have no idea, as far as Sara knows, just where they might be in the fossil record. I’m simply going by the characteristics. That isn’t important right now. What is important is we need to break their camouflage. Come over here.’
‘This is a little photon generator that I just modified.’
‘Looks like a flashlight to me.’ Dan mumbled.
‘Yes, it’s a flashlight Dan but it’s also a little more than that because I can tune the individual emission lines of its output spectrum. It’s set for white light now. Look at the feather. Still can’t see it, right?’ Marty reached over to the bench top where a large box with dials sat. He spun a dial.
‘Where the hell did you get that antique?’ Mark stared at the box.
‘I have to generate a series of complex beat frequencies using multiple wavelengths. The modern systems are too restrictive and not tuned as finely as these old units when you want an analog output. Everything nowadays is set for digital applications. Here, I got it. Now watch the feather.’
Marty spun the dial and as they watched, the portion of the feather lit by the flashlight in his hand reappeared. ‘There! That’s what we needed. The beam looks like a normal mix of white-light to our eyeballs but within the spectrum of the light there is a scanner that’s cycling at a high rate. I had to play around with it for a while until I found the right window but there it is. We can now see right through their camouflage.’
‘Whoa! Marty slow down a little. You mean you found a portion of the spectrum that they can’t emulate?’
‘No, nothing like that at all. Their camouflage adapts to the ambient illumination around them. They disappear because they have a biologic computer that is aware of the background colors around their body. Remember their eye placement. They have binocular vision and quite uniquely also have a full one hundred twenty degree vision for each eyeball. This optical layout means they can almost see behind them while still viewing objects in front of them. It must really be one hell of a biologic computer to constantly calculate the signals needed to camouflage themselves while they are running or even simply moving. This means they have to constantly be highly aware of all of their surrounding down to details of shading. They do a much better job when moving slow or sitting still of course since there’s less data to process.’
Marty scanned the beam over a portion of the feather hidden beneath the natural active camouflage of it’s patterning. Suddenly the portion of the feather under the illumination was fully visible. As soon as the beam of light left the area, the feather once again became invisible.
‘The light from this flashlight has a component that scans up and down the visible spectrum. The scans are very rapid and their path across the wavelength spectrum changes in a random fashion. Actually it’s not truly random since that would complicate the scan algorithm and add unnecessary computation time. I was able to add a sufficiently long random sequence that they’ll never detect the repetition cycle. Saves a lot of time.’
‘There, you can see the
portion under our flashlight. As far as I’ve been able to analyze the response so far, the structure simply can’t react quickly enough to the changing frequency. So the trick is to essentially overload the emulation and our dino is suddenly visible.’
‘Great, we have a solution that we can apply now to the AutoSentinels but how about for our security personnel.’
‘I’ll be able to set up some handheld torches and a unit that we can clip on the rifles or simply carry in your pocket. I just need a day or two to grow the control circuits. Our solution is simple and those are the best solutions. We don’t have to gather and analyze patterns, we only need to confuse their analysis.’
‘Good work Marty, get right on it. We have to do this immediately even if they manage to hunt down the two Black Ghosts. If these two have this natural ability then there’s always the chance that others of their kind might be in the area or might pay us a future visit. We need to upgrade our defenses.’ Mark turned and carefully began walking across the small laboratory to the door.
‘It may be more than that Mark. Consider how unexpected their characteristics have been. Hell, even if you look at the Hypsilophodont that we work with every day you can see the trend. Our research has underestimated the capabilities of almost every species we’ve encountered. Consider also that with the broad diversity of life around here, there are obviously a lot more species around than we know of from our records. I’m rather looking forward to the next set of surprises.’
‘Can you assign a few people to begin assembling these units after I complete the design. I’d like to have Brian Folsom come back if he feels up to it.’
‘I’ll ask him Marty. I’m sure he’ll be more than glad to work with you again. I think he believed you wouldn’t want to work with him after he lost your last designs.’
‘What? Don’t be ridiculous. It wasn’t his fault that those two guys jumped him. Also, does he think I’d give him the only copy of a design? No, anyway I don’t believe that would have been as good a solution and certainly not a simple as this one so please ask him back.’
‘Dan, would you like some help getting over to the door? I suggest you don’t go over that way.’
* * * * *
A bright glint of sunlight reflects from the flowing waters to rip through a group of trees far across the glade before them. A dozen bright green bodies gracefully fan out across the clearing calling to one another in their strange warble-like tones. They push through the open grassland, their frenzied passage flinging large palm branches across the brush as they rip through the low foliage. Massive bodies crash into high trees, knocking them aside with disdain in the violence of the swift passage of their final thrust. The high-pitched cries and screams of a few minutes ago are gone as the pack of dinosaurs cross the valley, finally closing in on their quarry. The pack spreads out into a semicircle, pushing their prey ahead of them toward the barrier formed by the edge of the distant river.
Tom Bracken crawls up behind Alex who is watching their progress from on top of a large outcrop of pure white quartz, ‘Still no contact with Dotschkal. So we have no idea where they are down there.’
‘Well I hope they aren’t at the focus of that drive. If they are then they are going to get hit first by a couple of very frantic smaller dinosaurs and then all of those big guys are gonna come crashing down on their heads.’
‘Signal over to Corey. I want to follow up right behind them. Quickly!’
Tom slid back down the slope of the outcrop while Alex lowered himself down across the sharp vertical surface of its face. Two or three handholds down, Alex turned and began jogging off into the thick ground cover of fern, coarse grass and scrub palm.
The ground beneath his feet is soft and a fragrant odor fills the air. Insects, small four legged lizards and tiny two legged dinosaurs stir from their cover before him. His helmet signals the approach of Tom and Corey from his right side, they are slightly behind him but something seems wrong. His helmet surveillance shows no clear indication of their location and their indicators keep fading away and blinking in and out.
Alex stopped for a second to set down on one knee and take off his helmet.
‘What’s the matter, you having problems too?’ Corey asked as he approached. Then Corey’s eyes went wide as Alex pulled the ka-bar from his leg sheath and pried open an access panel.
‘Cheez no Alex! Not out here, that’s a sealed circuit!’ Corey jumped to stop him just a little too late. The panel flipped up and three shiny, brown, hard-shelled insects skirted out from the biocircuitry chamber.
‘There’s our problem. Dino-cockroaches are in the circuits!’ Alex held the mangled circuitry up for Corey’s inspection. ‘Look at this shit! They had a little feast going on in there! They are eating it faster than it can repair itself.’
‘How the hell did they get in there?’ Corey started to set down and inspect the helmet but Alex pushed him off.
‘No time for that now. Come on, we gotta get over to Anton and the others. They are gonna be in a world of trouble in just a few minutes.’ Alex motioned them on as he slipped the cover into a pouch on his harness.
Alex, Corey and Tom spread out into a tight line, spacing themselves less than fifteen feet apart as they run across the field. The scrubland ahead of them slopes down into a shallow valley with one of the many small streams moving through it from the distant cliffs towards the river. They can hear the crashing and called warbles of the pack ahead of them as the songs cascade across the front set up by the hunters.
‘Holy Mackeral!’ Corey calls out, ‘watch where you are running. I almost collided with a pile of brown dung almost as big as me and spread out across the field!’
‘Shhh!’ Alex motioned as they ran.
The constant parade of wildlife that has always been with them is gone. All of the game seems to have been pushed ahead by the advancing towers of muscle hunting their quarry. They are close enough to the front of the chase that the humans can hear the brush crashing, the occasional snap of jaws and frenzied screams as the hunters snap at anything within their path. All around the humans, bodies litter the field, many still convulsing in their death throes.
Alex signals a halt at the shallow stream and runs down along the bank. He quickly returns and signals them onward. ‘Yeah, I’d of guessed they would have followed the stream, would have been wrong.’ Corey thought to himself as he jogged. ‘Looks like they went for the high ground.’
The ground rises ahead of them in a long slope to a rocky ridgeline hiding what has to be the banks of the river on the other side. The jog up the slope provides a clear view of the valley behind them. A clear view of the areas they just crossed now filling with carrion eaters moving in on those recently killed and maimed by the drive. Cries and snarls begin to fill the air behind them while just ahead of them the predators push forward always on the trail of the two Black Ghosts.
Less than four hundred yards ahead, three humans stand behind the bare rocky ridge at the top of the hillside watching a wave of wildlife roll up the shallow slope of the field before them.
‘Shit, there’s things running all over the valley!’ David grumbled as he lifted his rifle. ‘Yell out if you spot our targets.’
‘Will you shut the hell up! You’ll spook them.’ Anton hissed over at him. ‘Cheeze, there’s one at ten o’clock and he just turned this way.’
‘Where’d they go?’ Ed Saren whispered. ‘I don’t see anything …’
A sudden wave of Cretaceous wildlife swept over the humans. Small game, almost all of it less than five feet in height, flowed around the crest of rocks that hide the humans like lemmings pushing into the sea. Anton suddenly shifted his position and fired into the brush.
Ed Saren looked over but couldn’t see anything, then it hit him. The blow came from his left side catching him unaware, driving the rifle from his hands. His head snapped to the side and he could feel a claw dig into his armor. It slid up his chest, skittering across the hardened surface and sunk
into the soft skin at the top of his shoulder. Pain shot up his neck and down into his left arm as the claw dug into the nerve bundles and sinew at the base of his neck just missing his jugular.
Ed swung his arms around in reaction and he could feel and hear a pop in his left shoulder blade. He grabbed the leg of the beast and twisted just as a head full of sharp white teeth closed over his helmet. Ed screamed in pain and anger and a part of his mind could hear shots in the distance and the crunching of teeth as they skitted over the hard surface of his battle helmet. His head is pushed back and twisted by the swift jaws as the claw digs deeper into his shoulder.
A crunch and snap rings through Ed’s skull with a ferocity equaled by the sharp shaft of pain. For a few moments, he can see blue sky and a canopy of green across the valley framed by sharp white teeth set in black jaws. The serenity of the vision conflicts with the panic filling his body. Then the light fades into darkness and an ending of the pain.
‘Anton, watch your side!’ David shouted as he fired two shots at the black figure magically appearing among them. Anton doesn’t even turn. He focuses his entire concentration on the shadow he’s been following down by that red bush. Anton takes in a deep breath of air, releases half of it and slowly squeezes the trigger.
David’s two shots cracked through the air. The wavefront of their hypervelocity passage buffeted the dinosaur on top of Ed but missing their mark. David jumped on the Black Ghost as it sat on top of Ed. He swung his rifle around the broad head, grabbed the barrel and pulled. His body carried him around, twisting the dinosaur off its victim and throwing them down the hill toward the onrushing line of green fury.
David grabbed his rifle and tried to get up. He can see Anton running down across the hillside. The Black Ghost in front of him gets up and turns to run from the melee. David snaps a shot in its direction and then climbs back to check on Ed. Ed Saren is lying still. A pool of blood flowing from his shoulder and the edge of his mouth. His eyes staring at the blue sky above.
Hunter's Moon (Cretaceous Station Book 2) Page 31