Tyrannosaur Canyon

by Douglas Preston

  The van bounced over a cattle guard. A guard waved it along. They parked in a graveled lot in front of the building, which was already packed with cars, television vans with satellite uplink dishes, humvees, jeeps, and other military vehicles.

  "Looks like quite a party," said Ford.

  "I'm told the unveiling will have almost as large a live audience as the World Cup – a billion people."

  Ford whistled.

  They stepped out of the van into the intense July heat of southern New Mexico. Waves of it were rising off the ground, as if the earth itself were evaporating.

  They walked across the parking lot toward the titanium building. A guard held open the door and they entered a large atrium, awash in air-conditioning. A man in uniform, with two stars on his shoulder, came over with his hand extended. "General Miller," he said, shaking hands all around. "Commander of White Sands Missile Range. Welcome." He nodded at Tom. "We met before, but you were one pretty banged-up fellow."

  "Sorry, can't say I remember you."

  The general grinned. "You look a mite better now."

  A group of reporters, waiting at one side of the atrium, came rushing over, flashes popping, cameras and booms thrust forward. "Dr. Crookshank! Dr. Crookshank! Is it true that...?" Their individual questions were lost in a sea of noise as they crowded forward.

  Crookshank held up her hands. "Ladies and gentlemen, no questions now. There'll be a press conference after the unveiling."

  "A question for Miss Weathers!"

  "Save it for the press conference!" shouted Robbie, as they passed into the laboratory complex itself – a long, white corridor lined with stainless-steel doors. They turned a corner and headed toward a large set of double doors at the far end of the hall. The room beyond was a kind of conference room, with rows of seats facing a long, white curtain draped across one wall. The place was packed with scientists in labcoats, gray-suited government types, curators, and military officers; the media were roped off to one side and clearly unhappy about it.

  "It's behind that?" asked Robbie, nodding to the curtain.

  "That's right. The whole lab was designed so we could work under high security and level four biosafety – but openly, not secretly. That's the key. The results will be posted online for all to see. A discovery like this is... well... momentous, to say the least."

  Melodie greeted various people. More dignitaries arrived and then, in response to an announcement, people took their seats.

  "I'm on," said Melodie.

  A hush fell as she took to the podium and nervously spread out a half-dozen index cards. A bank of TV floods were switched on and she blinked a few times.

  Silence descended.

  "Welcome," she said, "to the Smithsonian's new Desert Paleontology Research Station."

  A burst of applause.

  "I'm Dr. Melodie Crookshank, the assistant director, and I guess you all know why we're here." She shuffled her cards a little nervously. "We're gathered to unveil – and christen – what is, without a doubt, the greatest paleontological discovery ever made. Some would call it the greatest scientific discovery of all time.

  "But before we proceed, I'd like to take a moment to mention the man who found this incredible specimen: the late Marston Weathers. You all know the story of Weathers's discovery of the fossil and his murder. Few know that Weathers was probably the greatest dinosaur hunter since the days of Barnum Brown and Robert Sternberg, even if he was a bit unorthodox in his methodology. He's represented here by his daughter, Roberta. Robbie? Please stand up."

  A thunderous round of applause went up as Robbie stood, blushing and nodding.

  "There are a few other people I want to thank. Tom and Sally Broadbent, first of all, along with Wyman Ford, without whom this dinosaur would not have seen the light of day."

  More thunderous applause. Tom glanced at Ford. The man was no longer dressed in brown monk's robes and sandals. Now he was wearing a sleek suit, his beard clipped short, his unruly hair combed neatly back. His big-boned face was still tan from the desert and it was just as ugly. And yet he looked in his element, sophisticated and at ease.

  Melodie reeled off a list of people to be thanked, and the crowd began to get restless. But then she paused, consulted her cards again, smiled nervously. A hush fell.

  "The MIT physicist Philip Morrison once pointed out that either there is life elsewhere in the universe or there isn't – and that either possibility boggles the mind. Today we stand here knowing the answer to that greatest of scientific questions. There is indeed life elsewhere in the universe.

  "The discovery of alien life has been the subject of speculation and science fiction imagination for several centuries, written up in innumerable books and movies. And now it has come to pass. But lo and behold, the discovery happened in a way that was totally unexpected – as an alien microbe entombed in a fossil. Science fiction writers have imagined almost every conceivable scenario for this momentous discovery, except this one. One more proof – as if we needed it – that there are still plenty of surprises in this big, beautiful universe of ours.

  "Here, at the Smithsonian Desert Paleontology Research Station, we'll be able to study this new life-form in safety and security – but openly, sharing our discoveries with the world for the entire benefit of humankind. There will be no secrets kept back, no chance that this discovery could be misused in any way except for the good of humankind. Not only that, but the fossil itself will tell us volumes about theropod dinosaurs, in particular Tyrannosaurus rex – their anatomy, cellular biology, how they lived, what they ate, how they reproduced. And finally, we will learn a great deal more about that momentous event sixty-five million years ago, when the Chicxulub asteroid struck, causing the greatest natural disaster ever to befall our planet. We already know that these mysterious alien microbes, these Venus particles, were carried to Earth on the asteroid and were spread by the impact, because a fragment of that same asteroid was found on the moon by the Apollo 17 mission.

  "These alien microbes were the last nail in the coffin of the dinosaurs. Whatever dinosaurs survived the impact were killed by a deadly pandemic, a plague to end all plagues. Without the complete and total extinction of the dinosaurs, mammals would never have evolved into anything larger than a rat and human beings would never have existed. So you might say that these particles cleared the earth for us. The asteroid and the epidemic started the great chain of evolution that led to the appearance of human beings."

  Crookshank paused, breathed deeply. "Thank you."

  Applause filled the room. The director of the Smithsonian Institution, Howard Murchison, strode to the podium, a bottle of champagne in one hand, and shook Crookshank's hand. He turned to the audience and the cameras, smiling broadly.

  "May I ask Robbie Weathers to come up?"

  Robbie flashed a smile at Tom and Sally and walked to the podium. There the director grasped her hand and placed the bottle of champagne in it.

  "Lights, please."

  A bank of lights snapped on behind him, spotlighting the heavy curtain drawn across the far end of the hall.

  "May I introduce Robbie Weathers, daughter of Marston Weathers, the man who found the dinosaur. We've asked her to officiate at the christening."

  There was a burst of applause.

  "We can't actually break a bottle of champagne over the dinosaur, but we can at least raise our glasses to it. And who better to do the honors?" He turned to Robbie. "Would you like to say a few words?"

  Robbie held up the bottle. "This one's for you, Dad."

  More applause.

  "Drumroll, please," said the director.

  A canned drumroll sounded over the PA system, and at the same time the draperies at the end of the hall drew back, exposing a brightly illuminated laboratory behind a thick sheet of glass. On a set of massive steel tables in the laboratory the astonishing fossil had been laid out in pieces, still partly jacketed in matrix. Preparators had already exposed much of the dinosaur's skull and gapi
ng jaws, twisted neck, clawed hands and feet. More than ever it gave the impression of trying to claw its way out of the rock.

  The director held up his hand and the drumroll stopped. "Time to pop the cork. Robbie."

  Robbie struggled with the cork, twisting it back and forth. With a pop the cork flew over the heads of the crowd, champagne gushing from the mouth of the bottle. There were cheers and clapping. Murchison caught part of the stream with his glass, raised it to the great fossil, and said, "I christen you Robbie, the Tyrannosaurus rex."

  A huge cheer went up. Waiters appeared from the wings and walked through the crowd, bearing silver trays loaded with flutes of champagne.

  "A toast! A toast!"

  The hall filled with the sound of talk, laughter, and tinkling glassware as everyone toasted the great beast. Cries of "To Robbie, the T. Rex!" sounded in the hall, while John Williams's score to Jurassic Park burst over the loudspeakers.

  A few minutes later Melodie rejoined Tom and his group. They clinked glasses all around.

  "It's going to be such a kick unlocking the mysteries of that fossil," said Melodie.

  "It must be the dream of a lifetime," said Ford.

  Crookshank laughed. "I was always a dreamer, but in my wildest dreams I never thought of anything quite like this."

  "Life is full of surprising turns, isn't it?" said Ford, winking. "When I entered the monastery, I never would have guessed it would lead me here."

  "You don't look much like a monk," said Crookshank.

  Ford laughed. "I'm not, never was – and now never will be. The hunt for this dinosaur made me realize I'm not cut out for a life of contemplation. The monastery was the right thing at the right time, but not for the rest of my life."

  "What're you going to do?" Tom asked. "Rejoin the CIA?"

  He shook his head. "I'm going to hang up my shingle as a private investigator."

  "What? A detective? What would the abbot say?"

  "Brother Henry heartily approves. He says he knew from the beginning I'd never become a monk, but it was something I'd have to discover for myself. And so I did."

  "What kind of detective?" Sally asked. "Chasing cheating husbands with a camera?"

  Ford laughed. "Not at all. Corporate and international espionage, cryptography, cryptanalysis, science and technology. Similar to what I did for the CIA. I'm looking for a partner." He winked at Tom. "How about it?"

  "Who, me? What do I know about espionage?"

  "Nothing. And that's exactly how it should be. I know your character – that's enough."

  "I'll think about it."

  There were some more cheers as the director opened another bottle and began circulating among the press corps, refilling their glasses and listening to their complaints.

  Ford nodded at the dinosaur head with its bared teeth and hollow eyes. "That tyrannosaur did not go gently into that good night."

  "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light," murmured Melodie.

  Ford sipped his champagne. "While you were giving your speech, Melodie, a. rather offbeat idea occurred to me."

  "What's that?"

  Ford glanced at the beast, then back at Melodie. "Let me ask you this: what makes you think the Venus particle is alive?"

  Crookshank smiled, shaking her head. "Well, you're right that technically it doesn't meet our current definition of life, because it isn't DNA-based. But it meets all the other definitions of life in terms of its ability to reproduce, to grow, to adapt, to feed, to process energy, to excrete waste products."

  "There's a possibility you don't seem to have considered."

  "And what's that?"

  "That the Venus particle is a machine."

  "A machine? What, like a nanomachine? Built for what purpose?"

  "To ensure the extinction of the dinosaurs. Perhaps it is a machine built to manipulate or direct evolution, which was seeded on an asteroid headed toward Earth – perhaps even on an asteroid pushed toward Earth."

  "But why?"

  "You said it yourself. To make way for the evolution of human beings."

  There was a brief silence, and then Melodie laughed uncomfortably. "That is an offbeat idea. Only an ex-monk could have dreamed up something as crazy as that."

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am greatly indebted to my editor at Tor/Forge, the inestimable Robert Gleason, for his ideas, brilliance, and excellent editorial guidance. At Tor I'd also like to thank Tom Doherty, Linda Quinton, Elena Stokes, Eric Raab, and Dana Giusio. I would like to thank Lincoln Child, my partner in literary crime, for his many excellent suggestions. I am most grateful to Eric Simonoff, Matthew Snyder, John Javna, Bobby Rotenberg, Niccolb Capponi, Barbara Peters, and Sebastian Pritchard.

  For information on dinosaurs, the Chicxulub strike, the K-T boundary, and the extinction of the dinosaurs, I am indebted to a number of sources, the most important being "The Day the World Burned" by David A. Kring and Daniel D. Durda in the December 2003 issue of Scientific American, The Dinosaur Heresies by Robert T. Bakker, Ph.D., and The Complete T. Rex by John R. Homer and Don Lessem. For anyone wishing further reading in the subject, I recommend these sources, as well as my own nonfiction book, Dinosaurs in the Attic, which tells the stories of some of the early dinosaur hunters and their finds.

  While Abiquiú, the Chama River, Christ in the Desert Monastery, and the Mesa of the Ancients exist, much of the detailed geography in the novel is fictitious or has been shifted to northern New Mexico from other parts of the country. In particular, I have taken the liberty of moving a remote and truly astonishing canyon in the Big Bend of Texas, known as Devil's Graveyard, into the area to serve as the site of the novel's final confrontation. The recently published photography book about the real Devil's Graveyard, entitled Ribbons of Time, contains pictures of the actual terrain described in the novel for those who are interested.

  END OF TYRANNOSAUR CANYON

  * * *

  [1] (*All conversations quoted above are from the original transcripts of the Apollo 17 mission, edited by Apollo Lunar Surface Journal editor Eric M. Jones. Copyright © 1995 by Eric M. Jones.)