The Extinction Trials

by S. M. Wilson

  He kept moving across the cliff face, heading towards the other nest. His rope was starting to strain – it had only been long enough to reach the nest directly above his anchor point. It tugged at his harness as he moved further and further away, eventually impeding his movements.

  He hesitated for a second. The other nest was literally in arm’s reach. He just didn’t have that extra few sectars of rope.

  It was instinct. He unclipped the rope from the harness. He didn’t think about the consequences. He only thought about the prize.

  He crossed the cliff, edging towards the second nest. It didn’t take long. It was on an outcrop of rock – not enough for his whole body, but enough for him to lean his elbows on as he searched among the twigs and leaves. There, hidden from view, deep within the interlocking twigs was one more egg. Who knew how many Galen had already stolen? He’d obviously missed this one in his haste.

  Something tweaked at his conscience. The other nest was full of hatchlings. This pterosaur would come back to an empty nest. He was taking the final egg. He pushed the thought from his mind and wrestled the egg into his backpack.

  It was slower and harder going down. Blood from his head wound dripped past his eye, landing in the sea below. Fear made his stomach clench as he scanned the water. Would blood attract the megalodon – or something even worse?

  Now the fact that he’d dropped his safety anchor started to play on his mind; he gripped every handhold tighter, clung to every toehold with his resin-coated socks. Galen had already finished and reached the shoreline. Lincoln could hear him whooping and laughing with his teammates.

  He paused for a few seconds. Would Galen attack Storm or the others? He twisted to watch the beach. But Galen was too exuberant. He had no idea that they’d already got the raptor egg.

  Lincoln was almost there. He kept moving sideways, away from the rocks directly underneath. But then as he moved down, the stone crumbled beneath his foot. He had no chance to react – his hand had already left the cliff face to find a new hold and his full weight had just transferred to his foot. For a few seconds he was nowhere, hurtling through the air before his impact on the ocean.

  He didn’t care about the water flooding over his face. All he cared about was the sickening crunch from his backpack as he hit the water, then the sting from the salt water on his open wounds.

  He surfaced quickly, swimming in rapid strokes to the shoreline where Kronar, Storm and Leif were waiting for him.

  “Are you okay?” Leif walked quickly round to his shoulder, wincing at the sight. He handed Lincoln a piece of cloth to press to his face.

  Lincoln couldn’t speak. He was tugging the backpack from his shoulder. Kronar took it from his hand and opened it, cringing when he looked inside.

  He shook his head slowly, barely looking Lincoln in the eye. It was almost as if the others could feel his fury. They all averted their eyes, ignoring the celebrations further down the beach from Galen and his friends.

  “Look!” Kronar pointed out towards the ocean. Something was breaking the water. The familiar shape of a monstrous grey megalodon was circling around the base of the cliff.

  Every hair on Lincoln’s body stood on end. His hand tried to reach around to his shoulder. “Do you think it sensed the blood in the water?” He strained to look at his wound. “But there must hardly be any. How could it have done?”

  “Can’t they sense even the tiniest drop of blood?” Leif looked shocked. “I mean, I’d heard that. But I’d never actually believed it. Not until now.”

  They all watched the beast prowling in a circle under the ocean waves. One of the pterosaurs dived down from the cliff face – obviously in search of some fish. As its beak dipped into the ocean’s surface, the megalodon rose up.

  It would have been majestic, artful – if they hadn’t already seen it before. With one snap of its jaws the pterosaur was gone, dragged beneath the waves.

  Silence. No one could speak. Lincoln’s throat was dry. Kronar’s shaking hand passed him a water bottle without a word. Leif was kneeling with his head in his hands. Storm was bent over, facing away as if she was about to be sick.

  Moments earlier Lincoln had been in that ocean, swimming across from the base of the cliff with an open wound – a wound that had attracted the megalodon. That could have been him.

  Leif picked up the backpack, tipping the sorry contents on to the beach, then he took the backpack and dipped it in the shallows to try and rinse it out.

  They still didn’t speak as the sun started to drop in the sky. There were no other nests on the cliff face. Other teams might reach here and risk their lives climbing up there for nothing. Lincoln was angry. But he was also concerned. “Let’s leave a message for anyone else who gets here. There’s no point in other people risking their lives climbing a cliff that has no eggs.” He gave a visible shudder. “Or swimming in the sea.” No one objected, so he scribbled a note on a tiny piece of paper, leaving it in a circle of rocks on the beach.

  “Where’s the map?”

  Storm pulled it from her tunic pocket, along with her compass. It was crumpled, the markings beginning to fade.

  “It’s time to plot a route to the T-rex nest,” Lincoln said.

  “Already?” It was the first time he’d noticed the exhaustion on Leif’s face. The strain.

  Lincoln pointed to Galen. “Don’t you think they’ll try and beat us to it? Look at the map, it’s going to take another full day to get there, and at least another day to get back to the beach. If we don’t start soon they’ll reach the nest before us. And what if we run into trouble on the way? Does anyone want to be stuck on Piloria for the rest of their life?”

  “Wait. Chances are they’ve still got to go to the raptor nest. We might have more time than we think.” Storm pointed along the shoreline. “Let’s camp here tonight. The megalodon can’t walk on land. We should be far enough from the other predators to be safe. We need to rest. We need to sleep. I’m sure I saw some cornup growing on the plain back there. We can gather some of that.” She pointed to the ocean. “We can refill our bottles and take the few hours to purify the water. We need to replenish our supplies.” She wrinkled her nose. “We need to wash too. If we stay at the very edges, it should be fine.”

  Kronar was nodding and already unrolling his bed mat. Lincoln’s legs gave an uncharacteristic wobble. He understood the sense in her logic. He just didn’t like it. He wanted to move on. He wanted to be the first to reach the T-rex nest. But running on adrenaline for the past few days was taking its toll.

  Galen and his friends were already leaving the beach. They obviously didn’t plan on camping here tonight. Storm touched his arm. “Stop it.” She could clearly read the thoughts whirling around in his mind. “It looks as if we were first to the raptor nest. For all we know, that’s where they’re headed now.” She shook her head slowly. “They won’t be happy when they get there.”

  “No. They won’t.” Lincoln watched as Galen threw back his head and laughed. That wouldn’t last long. Once he came across the angry raptors and the empty nest he would be furious.

  Lincoln tried to do some calculations in his head. It should take Galen’s team at least a day to reach the raptors’ nest. They could still reach the T-rex nest first.

  Storm was gathering sticks for a fire. She kept glancing over towards the nests on the cliff. A pterosaur swooped down and landed in the nest furthest away. The nest without the chicks.

  Storm turned to the others, her tanned skin pale. “The pterosaur – the megalodon ate the mother. What will happen to the chicks?”

  Lincoln put his head down and picked up his discarded items, pushing them into his backpack. Leif started building the fire and striking some matches. “Survival of the fittest here – isn’t it.”

  The irony hung in the air between them all.

  They had four days left on this continent. Four days to stay alive while waiting for the ship back home. But, more importantly, they only had one egg. One egg
between four of them. What would that mean in terms of rewards?

  Kronar looked brighter than he had in days. The lack of a pterosaur egg didn’t seem to bother him. He constructed some kind of net and caught a few fish to have with the cornup they found.

  They settled down for a night under the stars.

  Tomorrow was the hike, and the next day the T-rex.

  Her feet were aching, blistered and bleeding. The boots provided were a disaster. She rinsed out her socks and put them over the straps of her backpack to dry in the sun. Kronar’s mood was still brighter. But Leif looked tired and Lincoln had that driven, focused expression on his face again.

  She’d slept better on the beach – finally trusting her teammates to keep watch on her behalf – but her imagination had played games with her and she’d thought she could hear the baby pterosaurs squawking for their mother.

  The whole “survival of the fittest” concept didn’t sit well with her at all. Everything about this place left her torn. Parts of Piloria were beautiful. She’d never seen brightly-coloured flowers like it. She’d never seen trees like it. One tree had almost reptilian foliage – bright green spines that covered the whole branch.

  But she was terrified of the ferocious dinosaurs. She hated not being able to sleep well at night. And yet there were a whole host of other dinosaurs, other creatures that weren’t a threat. Living here could be beautiful.

  As they trudged over the plains they saw herds of duckbills and a few giant apatosauruses. Yes, the apatosaurus could be a threat from its sheer size and weight. But there was no predatory behaviour. No wanting to tear them limb from limb.

  She watched for a few minutes. If she’d been closer she was pretty sure she’d feel the ground shake at their steps. With their long necks and tails, four sturdy short legs and huge bulky bodies they moved in a slow, lumbering manner. What amazed her most was the way they watched their young. Actually watched them constantly. Nudging them to move them along and directing them towards the thicker foliage for food.

  The thought of stealing the eggs was still playing on her mind. She couldn’t possibly feel safe living where there were T-rexes and raptors. But this was their place. Not hers.

  But what about the pterosaurs? She wasn’t sure that they really were predators. Like any creature, they wanted to protect their young. Was that really so different from humans? Why had the Stipulators asked for a pterosaur egg?

  She could understand parliament’s principles. Trying to eliminate the danger of predatory dinosaurs before they started a settlement here. But should they be living here at all? And what happened if the officials decided that the apatosaurus was too cumbersome? One sweep of its tail could easily kill a human. With a few steps it could crumple a living area and all its inhabitants. What if the government decided to look at its DNA too?

  Playing creator or killer didn’t feel right to Storm. The humans had evolved on one continent, the dinosaurs on the other. From the look of this place the dinosaurs still had plenty of space. They didn’t need to move to another continent, so why should the humans?

  “Should we be doing this?” It was out there.

  “This again? You should have asked yourself that question before you got on the ship,” Kronar answered immediately.

  She was taken aback. “Did you?”

  “Of course I did. But I have a responsibility. I need to get back off this continent alive. We need the extra rations.”

  “Who needs them?”

  “My family, and now Rune’s too. I’ve got seven brothers and sisters. We’re starving. We’re freezing. We don’t have enough money to pay for both food and power. Our families are barely surviving right now. I had to do this.”

  “That’s why you came?” She was shocked. Lincoln’s eyes had widened in acknowledgement but he said nothing, just kept tramping forward.

  Leif scowled at her. “Of course that’s why we came. Everyone has a reason for coming. What’s yours?”

  Exactly. What was hers? She still wasn’t entirely sure how she’d got here. Her competitive edge had taken over during the Trials. But that seemed like a meaningless and ridiculous thing to say now.

  “I’m not sure,” she murmured. She kept walking, her head down. Now she felt like an idiot. Lincoln hadn’t chimed in to help. What was his reason for being here anyway? He’d never said a word about it, but from the fleeting, dark look she occasionally saw in his eyes she knew there was something he wasn’t telling her.

  She had to be the only person in the group without a real reason to be here. She was risking her life – and for what?

  She’d wanted to see Piloria. She’d been curious. And now she’d seen the green vastness filled with life – and horror – it was sparking off a whole host of thoughts in her brain. She’d witnessed first-hand the ferocity of some of the dinosaurs. But she’d also witnessed other things. And it confused her even more.

  She felt strangely protective of the gentler dinosaurs. The plesiosaurs like Milo. The apatosauruses. The hadrosaurids. She wanted to protect all of them. But the predatory dinosaurs terrified her. Even the ones she hadn’t met yet. She was torn between the fact that there were some dinosaurs she loved and some she didn’t. But shouldn’t every living creature have the same chance of survival?

  From the start, she hadn’t been sure about the DNA plan. But the more she saw on Piloria, the more it made her question her own set of ethics and morals. What if Kronar was the person to choose which dinosaurs lived or died? He hated all the lake and sea creatures. He would wipe them all out. Even Milo.

  She’d voiced her concern to her teammates and been instantly dismissed. She’d be too afraid to reveal her jumbled thoughts to anyone else – Piloria was dangerous enough already, and with everyone constantly on edge, she couldn’t afford to be seen as a troublemaker. The last thing she needed was to fall out with the members of her team. If she wanted to stay alive, she needed them to be watching her back – just like she was watching theirs. Being left to survive on her own was too big a risk.

  The T-rex was a big enough risk already.

  They tramped on in silence, passing watering holes and signs of other dinosaur nests. Some of the footprints in the mud were enormous – she could have lain inside the print and still had room above her head and underneath her feet.

  Eventually the landscape started to change – the plants were thicker, the surrounding forests denser, the air warmer and more humid.

  A rushing river flowed beside them and in front of them was marshland that they’d need to circumvent. Lincoln checked the map again. “It’s only another few hours, do you want to go ahead or wait until morning?”

  “It depends if they can smell us.”

  Storm turned to Leif. “How do you mean?”

  His eyes fixed on hers. “We thought the raptors couldn’t smell us – but after how quickly they reacted, I think they could. What about the T-rex? If they can’t smell us, we could watch them overnight and make a plan. But if they can smell us, they’ll hunt us down. We could be dead in a matter of minutes.” He ran his fingers through his hair.

  Storm shook her head. “I don’t like the thought of being hunted down in the dark.” She looked at the surrounding area. Her feet were aching and there was a low watering hole nearby where she could soak them. “Let’s spend the night here. Tomorrow is going to be a big day. We can get up early and hike to the nest.”

  Leif gave a brief nod as Lincoln stood with his hands on his hips looking at the horizon. Storm had already pulled off her boots. He pointed at her bleeding feet and his still-bleeding shoulder. “You’re right, we’ll stay here for the night. Before we leave tomorrow we need to make sure we can mask the smell of blood on us. Clean up your feet as best as you can.”

  She nodded in agreement. She could try and make a paste from some of the surrounding plant leaves – anything to stop the smell reaching the T-rex’s nose.

  Tomorrow would be the biggest day yet.

  The T-rex opene
d its mouth and roared.

  The noise was incredible. Lincoln was pretty sure his eardrums just exploded.

  Its jaws plunged down towards the poor triceratops who’d clearly stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Lincoln couldn’t move. He was too terrified in his hiding place behind the trees near the top of the hill. They’d finally reached the T-rex’s nest late that morning and had been watching it ever since – gradually getting closer. The others were hidden a little further down the slope. But any movement now might attract the T-rex’s attention and Lincoln didn’t want to take that chance.

  The giant jaws snapped at the triceratops’ neck; the smaller dinosaur flailed madly. Lincoln winced as he heard the crunch of tooth on bone. But the triceratops wasn’t done. Its sharp horns slashed at the skin under the T-rex’s throat. The primeval instinct to survive obviously surged through dinosaurs as well as humans.

  The T-rex made an angry grunt, but kept its jaws fastened firmly; it reared back, lifting the triceratops’ legs from the ground.

  As the creatures continued to fight, Lincoln decided now was as good a time as any. He took off at full speed to a copse of thick bushes closer to the T-rex’s nest. He dived straight into the foliage, almost landing on top of Storm. “Yeow!” she hissed angrily, shifting over to make room next to her and Kronar.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t have time to stop and think.” He spun around in the bushes, staying hunched down, to keep watching the dinosaurs. The triceratops was feisty. It thrashed its armoured head around and around to cause more damage. This time the T-rex opened its powerful jaws. The triceratops thudded onto the ground. After a few seconds, it seemed to regain its bearings and galloped off into the trees on the other side of the clearing.