Nodal Convergence (Cretaceous Station Book 1)

by Terrence Zavecz

  Then as the river deepened and the shores opened up into a fern-filled valley, Alex called out. ‘There, over on the right. There’s a whole herd of the dinosaurs moving toward the river.’

  ‘That’s what we want.’ Dave mentioned. ‘Slow the boat and let’s see if they come to the edge of the river. That will be a sure sign as to whether or not the banks are crocodile-covered.’

  A group of a hundred or more hadrosaurids was on the move like a herd of buffalo. They moved along the higher slopes of the valley and then abruptly swung toward the river picking up speed. The herd was moving with a purpose. They ran together towards down towards the water and the jet boat.

  Sara began to lecture, ‘The hadrosaurids have a duck-billed shaped mouth filled with teeth for grinding a diet of hard-fiber plants. They are found all over the globe and fit into a niche in the ecology as bison do in our world. We should see an almost hoof like hind foot. The colors of these are much brighter than I expected. We anticipated a scaled skin like that of a Gila Monster. What we must have been seeing was something more like a big plucked chicken. They all seem to have cream colored bellys that are lightly proto-feathered. These are all covered with a rough down or some form of proto-feathering. The ones with blue and red colored heads and backs are probably males if they follow the traits of modern animals.’

  ‘Some of the hadrosaurids are running on two legs and others lope along on four. Alex, can we move in a little closer to the shore. I guess …. Oh my! Look off into the high brush to the right, a small theropod.’ Sara called. ‘Yeah, the skull structure. It’s a tyrannosaurus although a small one, only about twenty or so feet long. My God! How fast it’s moving. It’s coming this way.’

  The small T-Rex charged in toward the herd with a bright red ring of neck feathers bristling about his head. His head and back are a soft orange color that morphs into a darker brown feather-down that was almost a deep green toward his belly. His back feathers are distinct while those on his belly are little more than a mottled brown in color. Several red and orange tints run through the brown making him near invisible in the light brush. Its arms and the ends of its legs are nearly featherless.

  ‘No,’ David said ‘it’s driving the herd. Just like a sheep dog. See that, it could have grabbed that one but didn’t. It simply nipped its flank. There, it just clawed that one. Where did he go? I thought these things were slow. No, look over here Sara, it’s over there just off the herd’s edge moving them down toward us and that copse of trees.’

  The herd swung by the trees and then a mountain of fright and fury burst out of the bushes in front of the leaders. The mass of this beast was fantastic, easily twice the size of the T-Rex they had been watching. The heard swung around as the tyrannosaurus emerged from the brush with a screech like a freight train trying to stop on a bed of marbles. The front hadrosaurids turned to run back from the demon in front of them, those nearest to the attacker cut back to avoid the lunge, running into and colliding with the others that had been following them. As the stronger leaders of the Hadrosaurid herd stumbled together, another mountain of brown fury burst from hiding on the far side pushing the panicked animals toward the center. Slashing with their teeth and kicking the T-Rex howled and snapped to wound as many of the fleeing victims as were in his reach.

  Two other T-Rex’s emerged from the brush on the back and near sides of the herd. The largest T-Rex seemingly from thin air along the edge of the river immediately in front of the humans.

  ‘We were going to land there. We never even saw him there!’ Brittany muttered as the predators clawed and nipped at the hadrosaurids trying to escape. Their fury and the sound of their charge was unbelievable, driving the helpless victims back into the center of the mass. They had the herd bracketed between them. Wounded Hadrosaurids screamed and cried as the predators clawed, roared and maimed but didn’t stop to kill.

  The ambush had been amazingly swift and deadly. The front-runners of the herd had turned and ran right into the panicking hadrosaurids behind them. At the same time, the two sizes of the bunched flock of hadrosaurids collapsed into the center causing havoc. Hadrosaurids collided and the panic of their trumpeting hurt the ears of the humans. The human’s heads throbbed with the onslaught of the deep blasts from the panicking Hadrosaurids. Victims who somehow knew the worst was yet to come.

  The humans sat in their slowly drifting boat completely dumfounded. Not more than a few yards away from them the big tyrannosauruses on the sides of the herd screamed a cry like that of a giant eagle dropping onto its dinner. The high-pitched screech countered the low blasts and trumpeting of their prey. A twisting mass of panicked hadrosaurids crowded at their center, the attackers then launched themselves into the air rising above the heads of their victims and, twisting in mid-air, they landed upon the bunched mass of hadrosaurids with feet, teeth, hand-claws and tails thrashing in all directions.

  Dave watched dumbfounded as the smaller Rex, the one they had originally spotted, landed on top of a fallen hadrosaurid. The Rex dug its small hands into its victim and raked the hadrosaurid’s gut using his hind feet. The victim’s intestines spilled out to the ground while at the same time the Rex grabbed another of the prey to lift the fifteen-foot long body with his teeth high into the air with a spine twisting snap that ripped the back open.

  Tom looked over at Sara. She stood on the boat near speechless and white as a sheet. ‘My God! It’s a cat fight. Those arms we thought so useless are as deadly as the jaws for close-in work.’

  The largest tyrannosaur, easily twice the size of the pitiful Rex they saw moments before, thrashed out as she landed in the bunched center of the victims taking the head off one hadrosaurid and following through in her kick that partially gutting two others struggling underneath her. Red blood and chunks of flesh flew from the attack like a rabbit hit by a lawn mower. As she landed on her side, the Rex picked up another victim and lifted it into the air and shook it with a spine-breaking shake and unbelievable scream.

  The scope of the slaughter was surreal. The ten-foot tall, two-ton hadrosaurids were dwarfed by the size and ferocity of the coordinated and obviously planned attack of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

  The slaughter took less than a minute. The five predators were red with blood from head to foot. Hadrosaurids that survived recovered and ran in all directions from the attack. Some, less lucky, struggled to rise while others limped in dazed circles as they bled from a dozen wounds and whimpered melodiously into the valley. More than a half dozen victims lay dismembered on the ground while three times as many simply stood dazed or tried to crawled away.

  The tyrannosaurs stood full height and raised their heads to the sky. Ecstasy took possession of them as they screeched the joy of their victory to the heavens with a bobbing dance of their heads and legs. Then they turned and began to methodically kill the injured survivors. A quick snap to the throat for some ended their struggles. The big female liked to take the smaller ones by the head and fling the bodies into the air with a twist like a farmer snapping the neck of a chicken. Some bodies simply flew off leaving the head in the mouth of the tyrannosaur. She swallowed these like a luncheon tidbit as she watched the thirty foot, headless carcass run about without its head.

  The Rex then settled down to eat two of the victims. There was no fighting between them but the large female took her fill first. Satiated they rose to move off into the high brush while the human hunters drifted slowly down the river. Suddenly, less than a hundred yards away from the humans, the large female stopped and sniffed the air. Then she looked around and her gaze went straight to the drifting boat. The humans looked into her eyes and they saw intelligence and cunning. They also saw interest and curiosity. She stared at them for a few moments and then turned and resumed her walk into the brush.

  ‘They killed for the joy of the slaughter.’ David finally broke the silence with a loud whisper.

  Their spell broken, the others began to move looking all around them. Now they finally realized the feroc
ity of the world they had entered and fear gripped them all.

  ‘We had no idea.’ Sara spoke to no one in particular. ‘We assumed they would be stiff, lumbering giants with weak useless forearms. They acted as a family group. They planned an ambush and they slaughtered without need. They slaughtered simply for the joy of it. They worked in coordination and have a strong family hierarchy.’

  ‘You mean that was one family?’ David asked her.

  ‘Yeah, I can’t be positive but their behavior suggests it. I shudder to think what they could do if they joined into larger groups.’ She replied. ‘It’s hard to believe but think about their species. Tyrannosaurs have had over a hundred million years as a successful, evolving species. This killing machine that we call Rex first appeared, and has been improving by evolution, for over thirty million years. We were fools to think they would be stiff, slow and dim witted.’

  Always the practical one David turned back to the controls and said, ‘Well, if we want some meat it’s out there for the taking. Tom, help Jon out from under that seat but be easy about it. It looks like he’s going to have a nervous breakdown. I’d watch that he didn’t throw up on me if I were you.’

  ‘You mean we’re going back there?’ Brittany said. ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘No I’m not crazy.’ David replied. ‘Did you see the way the tyrannosaurs left the area? They are full. They’re going over to clean each other up and sleep it off. They won’t stay on the scene now that they’ve had their fill. There will be other scavengers coming in for the clean-up but they’ll take a little while. Best if we go right in right now.’

  They turned the boat and returned to the scene of the slaughter. The waters they passed through now were red with blood. Many of the hadrosaurids were still alive.

  ‘There’s a young one that’s not badly chewed up.’ Dave pointed up to the edge of the group.

  Brittany jumped up, ‘It’s still ok. Why are you going to shoot it while there’s so much other meat to collect?’

  ‘Well for one thing its foot is mangled.’ David replied. ‘The rest of the body is untouched. It’s also young and tender, just the type of game your mother asked for. If we leave it, it’s going to die a slow and painful death. Not only that, the others have bruised meat from the thrashing they took and we’d have to cut around it and throw a lot of it away. No, this guy is the one we want and I don’t think we’ll need more than one.’

  They pulled over to the shoreline and David dispatched the stunned hadrosaurid with a single rifle shot to the head.

  Jon, Alex and Tom took out extra ammunition and formed a perimeter around the work. Smaller scavengers were beginning to arrive on the scene.

  ‘Here, grab a few bags and the stasis chests,’ David shouted to Brittany and Sara ‘We have a lot to do and not much time.’

  He wanted to preserve the hide so he slit down along the back, neck and belly. Considering the main body of the Hadrosaurid was about eleven feet high by nine wide after cutting, the skin and feathers involved a lot of weight.

  ‘It’s like cleaning a big Turkey. Most of the meat is on the legs and breast. The skin has larger down feathers around the head and down the back with almost bare hide below. He’s actually kind of pretty.’ Tom told a queasy looking Brittany. ‘The two of you fold this and put it into a bag. Make sure the bag seals properly. We’ll clean the blood from the outside after we drag it back to the boat.’

  Two shots were fired followed by an ‘All clear.’ The scavengers were arriving.

  Alex and Tom quickly filleted the meat from the breast and legs. They would only be able to access the top half of the carcass, meaning they would only get about a third of the two-ton animal’s weight in meat. Still other losses would come from gristle and non-edible sections. Dave figured he should be able to cut about thousand pounds of “chicken” for the feast from this single animal.

  The tissue was sliced and cut into manageable chunks and placed into separate light and dark meat designated stasis bags for transport. After an hour of hard work they began to hear more catcalls and noises from the surrounding bushes. The shots from Alex and the others were almost continuous now. Sara noticed that some of the crocodiles were coming upriver from the slower moving waters below them.

  ‘I think it’s time to go. It’s going to be very busy around here soon and I don’t want to join in the fun and games.’ She said to David.

  ‘Yeah, that big one we passed on the way here is going to haunt my dreams for a while. Let’s head back. I think we have enough.’

  As they moved back to the river’s edge Jon noticed a mound and looked over the edge. ‘Dave, there’s a bunch of big eggs over here. Beyond the nest that Jon found they pushed aside some branches and walked into a covered open area with egg-filled large walled nests.

  ‘OK, let’s get the meat back to the boat and then we’ll come back for some eggs.’ David said.

  They rolled the chests back and washed them and themselves down at the river’s edge. David brought out a spray can and went over the chests and the others. ‘Neutralizes the blood scent. Around here they have no fear of us at all. We’d be nothing more than a tidbit for even the smaller predators. I don’t want to take any chances. Tom and Alex, stay here while we go back to the nests.’

  They returned with four dozen eggs. Each egg was about four inches in diameter and nicely rounded.

  ‘A good portion of these may be fertilized with chicks inside. We’ll find out when we get them back to camp.’ Sara mentioned.

  The cargo was stowed in the back of the boat then they pushed off the shore. The plain they were on was now filled with smaller predators and scavengers. Sara and Brittany were exhausted and fell asleep as the boat pushed out into the center of the river and down to the ocean.

  The engines stopped, waking the sleeping girls.

  ‘What’s going on? Where are we?’ Sara groaned as Brittany turned over to go back to sleep.

  David called from the bow. ‘You may want to watch this. We brought a net. I’m going to use some of the meat for bait.’

  They were out near the edge of the coral reef in the calm waters of the ocean. They lowered the fifteen-foot net and draped it across the sandy bottom next to the coral. Here the coral was only a few feet below the ocean’s surface but dropped steeply to a sandy bottom about a dozen feet down. They then lowered three large chunks of meat to the bottom.

  ‘I never liked dark meat anyhow.’ Alex commented.

  Crustaceans swarmed from the nearby grass patches and the coral reef to cover the meat in just a few minutes. They then hauled on the net.

  ‘Good thing we didn’t wait longer. This net is really heavy even in this low gravity. Get some of the sealed buckets ready Sara.’

  The net dropped onto the deck and they opened it. It was filled with clawless lobsters and other heavy, well-clawed crabs.

  ‘Careful, grab them with these tongs. We can be choosey so throw anything that doesn’t look good back into the water. Don’t bother with the buckets. We’ll just seal and hang the net from the side for our trip back.’

  The lobsters they selected were all about three or four feet long with tail sections thick as a man’s thigh. Crabs were more formidable and Tom almost lost a thumb to one. They eventually threw out the real troublemakers and lowered the sealed net back over the side. Some of the smaller ones inside would eventually be able to get out through the weave of the netting but that was ok.

  ‘Boy, I used to think a two pound lobster was big.’ Sara mentioned to Brittany.

  Near the edge of the cliff the sand rose into some shallow beds.

  ‘Clams!’ Sara shouted. They jumped into the surf while Tom and Jon kept watch.

  The clams were mostly normal size and Sara felt a touch of homesickness. The thought came to her head, ‘If only we had some corn on the cob. What an old fashioned ‘clam bake” we could have.’

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