Cretaceous Dawn

by Lisa M. Graziano

  The shadows lengthened. Carl speared a small dinosaur, a bipedal thing only two feet high. They cooked it when they stopped to rest.

  “What, not prying its mouth open to see the teeth?” Dr. Shanker said as they chewed bits of the singed hind legs. “Feeling all right, Whitney?”

  Julian looked down at the head and other less appetizing parts of the dismembered animal. He had never seen a skeleton of this type before; but strangely, the teeth seemed of remote importance. Nevertheless, he poked at the mouth with a stick and glanced at the dentition. “I’m not familiar with this pattern,” he said, and then dropped his stick and stood. “Shouldn’t we get moving again?”

  Carl stamped out the tiny fire. “The land will become rougher as we go,” he said with a glance at Dr. Shanker.

  The information was disheartening. More and more they’d been forced to make detours around sudden canyons or slopes of scree that made dangerous footing. After the smooth journey up the ancient river bed for so many miles, Julian felt as though they were crawling along, barely making progress.

  “How far do you think we have to go still?” Dr. Shanker whispered to Julian as they started out. “A hundred miles?”

  “Seven days’ walk.” Carl spoke from up ahead.

  Shanker stopped, causing Julian to stop behind him. “I was asking you, not him,” he said quietly, indicating Carl with his head. “We should talk more about where he’s taking us; make sure it’s the right direction.”

  “We’re going west, and straight toward an obvious landmark, anyway,” Julian answered, in a normal voice. “It seems the likeliest way to catch up with Yariko. Besides, if there are any signs of her, he’ll find them. We’d probably miss them.”

  “All right, Whitney, if you’re sure. We do seem to be going the logical way—for now.” Shanker hurried after Carl.

  Julian followed thoughtfully, pondering the terrain and what they might encounter. The high ground near the mountains was entirely unknown to modern paleontologists. The soil now under his feet was already eroding, washed away by mountain streams and weathered by the wind that blew down from the west. Fossilization under such conditions was nearly impossible. Sixty-five million years in the future, his colleagues would have little idea what types of plants or animals inhabited such dry, elevated areas. Everything Julian saw, however solid, bright green, or full of life, would disappear within a million years or so and leave no trace of its existence.

  They walked perhaps another six hours, until the night was completely black. The moon was waning, rising later, providing light only in the second half of the night. There was one small alarm: Dr. Shanker was nipped on the toe of his shoe by a tiny creature. “Do I have tasty feet, or something?” he roared in exasperation as he stumbled. “Here, Whitney—I’ve got it on my spear. See what it is.”

  When they stopped once more, Julian was glad of another fresh meal. He called their dinner Impalidus shankerensus. Carl warned that it might be their last fresh meat for some time; Julian grimaced at the thought of the dried, tasteless strips of meat that had been collecting dirt in the bottoms of their sacks.

  They crouched around the fire. It was cooler at night out here than they were used to. Dr. Shanker inspected his ankle in the flickering light. “Excellent,” he said. “Healthy. Not absolutely gangrenous, anyway.” The truth lay somewhere in between; but he’d been walking more easily and the swelling was almost gone. “How much more of this scrambling over the rocks?” he asked.

  Carl squinted into the fire. “The full seven days. The path will be difficult near the mountains.”

  “Charming. How often do you come this way?”

  “When I was younger, every year. But not for many years now.”

  “What about rockslides, volcanoes, earthquakes? How do you know that the path is still there?”

  “I do not.”

  Dr. Shanker nodded. “That’s honest enough. Tell me, where did these people of yours live?”

  Carl pointed a little north of west. “In the caves.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “Those before came from the water in the east, as you did.”

  “I told you all that already,” Julian put in.

  “And what brought them all this way to the mountains?” Dr. Shanker ignored Julian.

  “The same thing that brings you.”

  Julian looked up; he’d never put the question just that way.

  “And what was that?” asked Dr. Shanker, after a moment.

  “You know; I do not,” Carl said shortly, and lying back on the ground, he closed his eyes. He had had enough of being questioned.

  There was little rest that night. Carl soon rose and led them on, under the crescent moon. The shadows of trees stretched black and crooked across the ground. Every time a branch stirred in the evening breeze its shadow would skitter over the stones like a pack of animals. Julian could hardly see Carl ahead, blending into the patchwork of black and gray, and even Dr. Shanker’s form directly in front took on the appearance of a bear, lumbering awkwardly. The strain of the hike was beginning to tell on Julian. He found himself jumping and starting at every sound and every movement.

  “If we still had the gun. . . ,” Dr. Shanker muttered. His voice seemed to disappear into the blackness. Julian wished he would keep silent; he did not want any predators taking notice. “But I suppose,” Shanker went on, “our little piece would have been a rum weapon, to fight off a T. rex. Ever use a gun, Carl?”

  “What is a gun?” Carl’s voice floated out of the darkness up ahead.

  “It makes a loud noise. It throws a piece of metal fast enough to go through any dinosaur.”

  “Noise we do not need,” Carl said.

  For several days the three scrambled over the rocks, crawled through thickets of bushes, climbed down into gullies and out the other side. Sometimes the gullies were filled with lush vegetation taking root in the accumulated silt and mud. They used their spears to beat a way through these tangles of ferns and leaves. In the darkest part of the night just before dawn, when even Carl could not see enough to continue, they huddled under a thicket of bushes or trees and tried to keep warm.

  In another age the travelers could have bowled over a big shaggy animal and taken its pelt; but they had to make do shivering under the leathery, hairless dinosaur ponchos. Julian knew it was not actually all that cold; but their time spent in the steamy swamp-lands made them sensitive to the dryer, cooler air of the hills. He found himself dreaming wistfully of giant sloths and wooly rhinoceroses.

  Their food supply dwindled. Carl explained that the small prey animals usually stayed hidden in the dense foliage of the gullies, so they spent most of one day following a canyon to the north, far out of their direction, trying unsuccessfully to flush out dinner. In the evening they retraced their steps, but leaving the gully too soon became lost in a field of jumbled rock and thorn bushes. The sun went down; the light was too dim to make out the peak they were steering for. Carl called a halt until daylight.

  It was a cold, shivery night. Julian’s stomach felt pinched; there’d been no food in nearly twenty-four hours. Dr. Shanker, to Julian’s envy, slept perfectly soundly. As usual, Carl disappeared for most of the night; he seemed to survive on almost no sleep. When Julian woke partway through the night, he saw Carl stretched out on the ground beside him, staring peacefully up at the stars.

  When they woke Carl said he’d found a path that was relatively clear. It ran beside a low cliff that swept downward from the hills. Since it maintained a fairly straight westward course, their best option was to follow it. He had also found the tracks of a small herd of animals.

  Dr. Shanker sat nearby, sharpening his spear on a stone. “I intend to kill one of them,” he announced. “Whatever they are. Even Triceratops.” He jabbed the point into the soft ground. “What do you think?”

  “You cannot kill the Horned Ones with a spear,” Carl said.

  They set out, single file as always.

>   “Was it Triceratops prints that you saw?” Dr. Shanker asked.

  “No,” Carl said. “They do not live here.”

  “What was it, then? Big? Small? Do I spear it from behind or in front?”

  “You decide,” Carl said. He pointed up the steep cliff.

  Julian looked up at the gray lumps of rocks and the green of bushes tufting out of cracks here and there. Then something moved, and a few pebbles rattled down the cliff face. The animal was so much the color of soil and bushes that it was superbly camouflaged as long as it remained still.

  “Aha,” Dr. Shanker said, very quietly. He began to creep closer.

  It was a quadrupedal animal in the ceratopsian family, but it was quite small, about the size of a large dog. It watched the humans, cautious but not yet afraid; a few bits of shrub protruded from its beak-like mouth.

  Then Dr. Shanker rifled his spear. The cast was impressive, but missed anyway. The point bounced off of a stone only a few feet away from the animal. Instantly, the creature scrambled away up the steep incline.

  At the same time the whole cliff came to life. At least ten other animals leaped into motion. They bounded up the cliff and disappeared over the top, grunting and blowing. One of them, however, lost its footing and slid backward several yards. It seemed on the edge of regaining its balance; but then in a cascade of pebbles and dust, it plunged down the cliff, struck hard against several boulders along the way, and landed very nearly at Julian’s feet.

  “I told you I’d get one,” Dr. Shanker said, grinning.

  He dispatched the dying animal and they dragged the carcass into the shade of some nearby trees. It was so badly cut from the stones that it left a wide, bloody trail through the weeds and ferns. The whole place reeked of blood, and Dr. Shanker joked that if Hilda were nearby she would be sure to come running.

  “I hope nothing else comes running,” Julian said.

  Carl said nothing. He had already started to skin the animal with his bone knife. While he and Dr. Shanker dressed the carcass, Julian gathered twigs and sticks for a fire. If they could smoke the meat they’d have enough for many days.

  Just as he finished arranging the kindling into a neat pyramid, Dr. Shanker looked up from his carving and said, “We have a dinner guest.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Humans have a tendency to project their own rationalities onto other animals: anthropomorphizing, ascribing motives that do not exist. Thus someone will say, “My cat threw up on the rug because he was mad at me,” when the cat had a very different, and far more sensible motive: to get something dangerous out of his digestive system. So it is with any wild animal. Each has its own particular needs and motives , aimed at personal survival and procreation of the species. So it was with animals now extinct; as paleontological ecologists, we must ascribe Cretaceous motives to Cretaceous animals.

  —Julian Whitney, Lectures on Cretaceous Ecology

  2 September

  12:52 AM Local Time

  The route from the station in town to the physics building on campus was becoming far too familiar, Earles thought to herself as she accompanied Mark. He had left the beetle picture and book in her office, and agreed to go right back to work on the wiring in the graviton vault. He could also install the platinum bar in the circuit he was rebuilding.

  Earles planned in her mind what she would say to those two physicists. Who did they think they were, trying to deceive her and steal valuable scientific information? Wanting to leave other people stranded somewhere unknown (surely Mark was overdoing the guesswork by suggesting they were off in dinosaur times), perhaps in danger, maybe unable to return on their own; the whole thing was crazy.

  She realized Mark was having to jump every few steps to keep up with her. Slowing her stride, she went back to her thoughts.

  Of course, they might not have any such intent. Perhaps they simply didn’t know; maybe they believed they were doing the right thing. But the more she thought over the last conversation in the lab, when Ridzgy had cut Bowman off and handed her the measurements—thus effectively sending her away with a project to keep her busy—the more convinced Earles was that something was being kept from her.

  It was a delicate situation, and must be handled carefully. No charging in swinging accusations. That would get her nowhere. She knew a better way. She slipped her hand into her pocket and felt for the cold bit of metal.

  “You go in first,” she said to Mark when they entered the physics building. “Go back to work and don’t say anything. No need for them to know you’ve spoken to me, even if they are innocent.”

  “They’re not innocent,” Mark said, but he went on down the grimy stairs to the basement lab.

  Earles paced the empty, silent lobby for five minutes, thinking. Then she followed Mark.

  He was already in the vault when she entered the main room; she could just see his feet on the ladder and hear a scraping sound that must be wires pulled through conduits.

  The two scientists looked startled to see her, as well they might be. It was one in the morning. Bowman’s pouchy face was gray and stubbly, his eyes baggy; he looked a bit the worse for wear. Ridzgy was clearly tired but also clearly determined.

  “Still can’t stay away?” Bowman said with a false cheeriness.

  “I’ve brought the platinum bar,” Earles said, placing the small box carefully on the bench. “Where is the original, by the way?” She looked around the counter and spotted it, sitting on an open notebook like a paperweight. Somehow the casual use of this critical thing annoyed her. She picked it up and studied it. The metal looked identical to the replacement except for one end, which was molded like silly putty into a smooth, drooping mass.

  “Well, good thing we were able to replace it,” she said lightly, putting it back on the notebook. “How long until the program is ready to run?”

  “Soon,” Ridzgy answered. “There were several versions, so we’d like to dry-run them all, you know, without the actual vault, and see what numbers come up. Then we can be sure of running the correct version when the time comes. Once that kid finishes the wiring we can install this platinum.”

  “I think Mark is planning on doing that step, since it involves the electronic circuit. How’s he coming along?”

  Bowman shrugged. “Haven’t checked. Seems to be working hard. Doesn’t say much to us.”

  Over Bowman’s shoulder Earles saw Mark peering out of the vault; once again, he looked confused. And no wonder, if he’d overheard the conversation. He climbed out and approached with a determined look on his face.

  Earles gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head and he stopped. “What progress?” she asked, and the two scientists turned to look at Mark.

  “Um, going well,” he said, still staring at Earles. “There are some things that I need, small things, from the electronics storeroom. I’ll have to track down campus security to get in though.”

  “Well, get on it,” Earles snapped. “And you two: go with him. I want campus security to know who you are. Should’ve brought you together hours ago, really. It wouldn’t do for some guard to detain you half the night as trespassers.” When nobody moved she roared, “Well?”

  Mark scampered out of the lab, and the two physicists followed more slowly.

  Earles listened for the outer door being closed. Then she went quickly to work. A small recording device, no bigger than a wallet and holding a tiny disc, was easy to conceal; she put it inside one of the filthy coffee cups and covered it with a crumpled paper towel. The cup was in an inconspicuous place and hadn’t moved all evening; it obviously belonged to Shanker or Miyakara. There was no reason for the other two scientists to touch it.

  “We have a dinner guest.”

  Julian looked up. An animal was standing in full view, about thirty feet away, watching them. It was the same kind as the ones that had killed the infant Triceratops. This time he had a much closer view; closer than he wanted, in fact. It was indeed a raptor, apparently the American equivale
nt of Velociraptor. What else could look so graceful, delicate, and deadly at the same time? It seemed to have no fear of them. Not many things would have posed a serious threat to it, small though it was.

  The animal stared at them a moment and then opened its mouth and hissed: a sharp whispery sound like air blowing over an open hole. Carl stood up slowly and motioned Dr. Shanker to do the same. Together they inched away from the carcass until they were standing beside Julian.

  “We can’t let it take our kill,” Dr. Shanker whispered, grasping his spear.

  “We may have to,” Julian said. “Especially if it’s part of a pack.”

  “Move away,” said Carl, quietly.

  They walked slowly but deliberately another twenty feet back, keeping their eyes on the animal. It did not look at the meat, but watched them instead. Then there was another sharp hiss: but the animal hadn’t opened its mouth. Two more raptors were coming into the little clearing, one with its head low, sniffing the ground. All three approached the carcass. Julian wondered how long the animals would tolerate their presence. They may have been puzzled by humans, not knowing where they stood in the strict hierarchy of carnivores around a kill.

  The raptors did not stop at the carcass. Instead, they walked around it and kept coming. One stepped directly on the skinned ceratopsian, staining its clawed foot bright red. But they moved slowly and did not seem poised to attack. Julian thought he and his companions were being told to get lost while they had the chance.

  But running was out of the question. Instead, they leveled their spears and stepped slowly backward. If it came to fighting, three on three, what would happen? Julian rather thought the raptors would get the upper hand. The animals certainly seemed to understand the difficulties of attacking horned prey; if they could leap onto a Triceratops and bring it down, they could surely handle three flimsy spears.