by Adam Carter
After a while her sobs lessen and her body calms, the shivering decreasing the more she’s able to relax. Her heartbeat, shuddering through my own body, gradually slows, and before long it’s as though she’s a babe fallen asleep in my arms. I’m trained for combat situations, for adapting and for dealing with issues as they arise. Harper has none of this: she’s not even a soldier. I can only imagine how bad all of this is for her, and to even attempt to understand what she’s going through is never going to be possible for me any more. Not after everything I’ve been through in my career.
“You all right now?” I ask, raising her face to stare into her red-rimmed eyes.
“No,” she says, wiping her nose and pulling away from me.
“At least you’re honest. Come on, we need to get dressed so we can try to catch up to the others.”
“They’re too far ahead,” Harper says a little too quickly for my liking. “Even if we could get to them they’d have left Ceres by then. We’d be better off finding someplace to hole up for a while, maybe try to get a message out to someone else.”
“There is no one else. The world’s quarantined remember? And the atmosphere messes with any communications.”
“But we’d never reach them.”
“We won’t know if we don’t try. Besides, if I have our position right I think we’re closer to the shuttle than they are. I don’t think that quake last night did quite as much damage as the lieutenant thinks it did. If we head inland through the forest we might be able to find the shuttle before they do.”
She wants to argue, I can see she desperately wants to argue, but she doesn’t. Perhaps she recognises that I’m actually the authority on survival here, but I can’t help feeling that she’s hiding something. I have no idea what it could be, but my mind is drawn back to when I left her alone with the lieutenant earlier. I can’t shake the feeling the two of them were arguing about something. At the time I took it to be the lieutenant giving her a sound telling off, but now I’m suddenly not so sure.
“Professor,” I say carefully then, “about this cure for cancer.”
She sniffs. “Yeah?”
“How much would it be worth?”
She avoids my eyes. “You mean if you were the only person holding the cure?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think?”
It’s enough of an answer but not the one I wanted. I can’t think badly of the lieutenant, can’t think for one moment she would be the type of person to try to make some money out of this venture, but nor does any other possible explanation come to mind. But what would Harper say if I asked her whether the lieutenant was blackmailing her? Would it ease my mind if she said yes or no? Would I believe her?
Something sounds through the trees then and I cast all such thoughts from my mind. I hold up a finger for Harper to be silent, and she obeys, hugging her knees through the sleeping bag and looking like the most terrified caterpillar I’ve ever seen. I rise slowly, drawing my pistol from my holster and wishing I was wearing more than just my underwear and a belt. The only thing worse than wet armour is armour wet with my own blood, and it’s a mistake a survivalist should not have made.
The sound recurs and I judge the direction of the creature, straightening my arm and holding the pistol level. I’m somewhat surprised my arm’s not wavering in the slightest, but that won’t matter much when something leaps from the underbrush to tear through my unprotected stomach.
A shape moves swiftly through the trees and I track it without being able to see very much. From the movement of the trees I would believe the creature to be big, which means it’s not going to be a small theropod like the ones which tore up my shuttle. And if it’s big there’s every chance that daspletosaurus might have found us once more.
A roar fills the trees as something charges through. I spin my pistol to cover it but the thing slams into my arm, sending the gun tumbling. A terrible stench of breath blasts my face as something wet and sticky slaps down upon my breast, slicing straight up my throat, chin and across my face. My heart pounds at the thought of the horrific wound which must have opened up clear across my body, but there is no pain.
Harper laughs, which I find exceptionally cruel. Then I realise what the creature is and my heart almost explodes with relief.
The draconyx bounds joyously before me, its tongue lolling like a lost puppy.
Laughing, clutching my poor heart, I look back to Professor Harper. “Get dressed, Mary. I think we’ve just found our way of definitely getting to that shuttle before the lieutenant.”
Harper looks as disappointed as she is pleased, and I stop trying to work out the mind of that woman. All I know for certain is that here we may have a chance of getting away, and I grin like a schoolgirl in a chocolate factory.
Things, at last, are looking up.
CHAPTER TEN
Riding through the alien forest on the back of Onyx is the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done. Sitting at the front and holding the reins, we’re able to make good speed. Harper sits behind me, clutching tightly about my waist. I won’t say it doesn’t hurt, what with the injuries I took getting her to the shore, although I voice no complaint. We need to get to the shuttle as quickly as possible and I can’t have her holding into the sides of the animal. She’s not an experienced rider and I can’t afford for her to fall off the back.
The professor’s been quiet during our travels, withdrawn would perhaps be a better word to describe her. Again it nags at my suspicions, although what those suspicions are even I can’t say. I’m glad of Onyx’s company, so much so that I’ve decided to name him at last, and can’t believe he came looking for us. Where we came to shore was a fair distance from where we left him, but it seems his sense of smell must be incredible. Either that or he was heading home and just happened to see a couple of women cavorting in their underwear and went for a closer look.
By now I’m back in my armour, fully dry or not, with all my weapons in place. My rifle’s taken a bit of cleaning to get it back to proper efficiency, but when all else fails I always have my combat knife. Harper’s clothed as well, but still hasn’t thanked me for the rescue.
Sometimes I wonder what her problem is.
An hour into our ride Onyx becomes a tad nervous. I snap the reins to keep him going, yet it’s clear something’s bothering him. At a guess I’d say we’re entering the hunting territory of something he really doesn’t like. A large carnivore perhaps, although I can’t see how a large creature would be able to hunt well amongst all these trees. A smaller predator would not cause a seven metre herbivore such nervousness unless it hunted in packs. That puts a damper on my plans to charge straight through. In my reading of the smaller theropods I’ve found quite a lot I really don’t like. They may not be as powerful as the tyrannosaurids and their ilk, but even a small theropod is likely to be as large as a human being.
I debate upon whether I should mention any of this to my companion, but Harper seems at peace at last, leaning against my back and possibly even asleep. Disturbing her by telling her we might be just about to die hardly seems fair; yet nor does not telling her when death’s approaching.
Onyx slows to a trot and I allow him the change, pulling forth a pistol and spinning it so its butt is facing behind me. “You ever use one of these?” I ask.
I don’t have to see Harper to know she’s not only fully awake now, but looking at the gun with more than a little fear. “No.”
“It’s simple,” I say, pressing the thing into her hand. “Just aim, squeeze. Don’t pull back, don’t raise the gun as you fire, and watch out for the recoil. If you’re shooting at a moving target try to lead it; but then if you’re shooting at a moving target you’re likely not going to hit it anyway.”
She accepts the gun nervously and I realise I’ve just scared her witless.
“It’s just in case,” I assure her. “There are going to be a lot of unsavoury beasts between us and the shuttle, and I wouldn’t like you unprotected
if we get separated.”
“I’ve just ... I’m not a soldier, Autumn.”
“You don’t need to be a soldier to fire a gun. Just try not to use it at all if I’m still with you. I don’t want you hitting me by mistake.”
She nods, looks more worried than I thought she would, and tucks the gun into a belt clearly not designed for such things.
“And remember to remove the safety before you shoot anything,” I say, hoping she will never have to draw the gun at all. But it’s always best to be prepared.
My earlier thoughts about a group of scouts not being able to make it this far come back to haunt me. I’m not that sure we’re even doing all that much better.
Onyx continues to trot, although I can tell he’s wary now, skittish even. He keeps looking from side to side as though expecting attack. My own eyes scour the trees for signs of predators, although my senses aren’t anywhere near as acute as his and I can’t see any ... Movement, possibly a shadow, to my side. An instant later, when I’m staring intently at that area, it’s gone, as swift as a hawk. Behind me Harper’s tensing, realising something’s wrong, but I say nothing. My eyes continue to rove, hoping I’ll be able to find something, hoping I’ll see nothing at all.
And then something emerges from the trees ahead and to the left. It’s small, about the size of an adult woman. Its body is long and thin, with two powerful hind legs for running, and two shorter arms which are longer in comparison to those of the daspletosaurus and therefore deadlier. Its tail is snake-like, thinning towards the end, while its neck is also longer than that of the daspletosaurus before it. The head is almost the shape of a rugby ball, with sharp and horrific teeth. Two yellow eyes stare out at me with menace as the creature tries to work out whether it’s going to be able to take us down.
Another of the creatures emerges from the trees to the right and runs parallel to Onyx, although keeping a careful distance. They’re gauging speed, reach of their prey and reaction. It’s a clever move for them, and what I would expect from pack animals. They’re taking their time in the stalking, knowing that with so many of them against just one of us they have all the time in the world to decide upon their attack.
The thing is, it’s not just one of us. They don’t realise this draconyx has two armed women on its back.
Loosening my rifle I take aim at the creature running parallel to us and crack off a shot. The bullet takes the thing through the eye and it collapses upon itself. The remaining creature barks at us angrily but flees into the trees.
Onyx pounds on, apparently free of pursuit.
“Good shot,” Harper says from behind me, clinging tighter than ever, which thankfully didn’t ruin my shot a moment ago. Somehow.
“Coelophysis,” I tell her. “I was expecting to run into them sooner or later. They’re apparently the most widespread predator of this world and they always hunt in packs. Their territory stretches through the forests, and since there are a lot of forests here I figured they’d be around here somewhere.”
“Still, it was a good shot.”
It was a great shot, but I don’t let it go to my head. It’s possible the brain of one of their fellows suddenly exploding might put them off. But then again it might not. So long as Onyx can put a fair bit of distance between us and them we might get away before they decide on what course of action to take against us.
After a while Onyx slows a bit and I can feel he’s a lot less nervous than he was. It likely means the coelophysis are long behind us, but I’m not going to relax until we’ve reached that shuttle.
“I reckon,” I say over my shoulder, “those must’ve been the things which tore apart my escape craft.”
Harper says nothing and I wonder whether she’s scared again. Not that she shouldn’t be scared, but it’s not something I expected from her. When we first met she was pretentious, arrogant, far too sure of herself. She was standing in that field taking samples as though entirely unaware that there were these dinosaurs even running around the world. Maybe that was even the case. Maybe she was just too absorbed in her worthy cause that she never even bothered to do any research at all about this place. It would fit with what I’ve always thought about her, so why am I so nervous at her silence?
We come to a break in the trees and dismount. The view is amazing. We’re at the rise of some form of cliff, the forest continuing below us for the most part, although there are patches of plains upon which roam massive sauropods, their long necks raised like giraffes as they plod along in complete safety, even from the greatest predator. Even one sauropod is too large to be anything’s prey, but walking in herds as they are there’s nothing which could even come close to bringing one of those things down.
I scan the area with my binoculars, searching for the shuttle or signs of the lieutenant and the others. They could have returned for me and Harper after the incident at the lake, but I doubt they would have stayed long to search. They would have given us up for dead and continued with the evacuation, knowing that if we had survived we’d be heading for the shuttle as well. I can’t see anything of the group, but there’s something in the middle of one of the plains that quite takes my fancy. Closing upon it I smile to myself at the familiar sight.
“Shuttle’s located,” I say, handing the binoculars to Harper so she can take a look herself. I gaze over the terrain of our route. A lot of it’s open plains, and if we could get amongst that sauropod herd we might even stand a better chance of making it. There’s a little bit of forest left to cover, but not much. With any luck we should be at that shuttle by noon tomorrow, although it does mean spending another night in this place. We could continue moving, but the lieutenant will likely stop, and it seems pointless to risk our lives just to reach safety.
I watch Harper carefully as she concentrates on the shuttle. She isn’t calm, far from it, but she seems to be thinking too much; and I can only wonder at what.
“What do you think about that plane that came down?” I ask, somehow knowing I’m going to regret this.
“Nothing,” she says, handing back the binoculars. “Your lieutenant said it crashed here years ago. Planes go missing all the time. One mystery solved, I guess.”
“Lieutenant lied,” I say simply, my gaze across the forest but my attention focused upon Harper without her knowing it. “Plane only came down a couple years ago at most.”
Harper tenses, but that could just be a natural reaction to being given this news. “How can you know that?”
“Just know.” I’m guessing, yes. But I reckon if a teenager went to inspect that wreck recently she would not have lost her music there. That music device came from a passenger, I’m sure of it. Well, as sure as I can be with a guess.
“I don’t know anything about plane wrecks,” Harper says distantly.
I turn a frown upon her. “That’s an odd way of phrasing things. What do you know about then?”
Her eyes narrow and I realise I’ve handled this wrong. “Nothing. I don’t know anything about anything.”
“Why did the lieutenant lie?”
“How should I know? I don’t know her.”
“You were arguing before.”
“She was shouting at me before.”
“So you’ve never met? Prior to coming to Ceres I mean.”
“No.”
“You sure about that?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“And there was no blackmailing going on? From either side?”
Her confusion is genuine. “What are you going on about?”
I shrug once more. “Maybe nothing. Maybe something important. I just feel there’s more going on here than I’m being led to believe.”
She looks away. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Who wrecked my shuttle?”
“Dinosaurs. You told me that.”
“Dinosaurs that could open the door? Really?”
She says nothing.
I gaze back across to the shuttle, far, far away. “
The lieutenant destroyed my shuttle. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
I look back to her with a raised eyebrow. “So she did destroy it then?”
Harper sighs, and I can see conflicting emotions battling their way across her face. “I don’t know everything, why would I?”
“But the lieutenant destroyed my shuttle?”
“Yes! All right, if that’s what you want me to say, then yes.” She meets my eyes at last and I can see a purity of spirit there I’ve not seen before. She straightens her back and I get the impression she’s decided to do the right thing at last, that she’s been pushed into a corner long enough. “Yes, she did. I don’t know everything, I really don’t.”
“But you know something?”
“I know ... I ... I was sent here.”
I blink, waiting for more. “Sent here by whom?”
“By the government. Our government.”
“To find a cure for cancer?”
“No. No, that’s just me. That’s what I wanted to come here for. I planned to come here, planned to somehow hire someone to drop me off. One day these guys grabbed me off the street, just kidnapped me but did it so sneakily you’d never know they’d done it. Turns out they worked for the government and they’d heard about my secret plans. Not so secret plans as it turned out. I thought I was done for, that I was going to disappear or something. But they told me they thought it was a swell idea to beat cancer and that they’d help me get to Ceres.
“I didn’t believe them of course. I figured they were up to something, that they were setting me up for some big fall. But they kept their word. They got me here. And I had all the equipment I needed to get on with my work. My plan, like I told you, was for the government to realise I was here and wait for an extraction. They had the same idea, and sent in you guys. They said the leader, a Lieutenant Winter, would be the only one of the unit who knew I’d not come of my own accord.