by Paul Kearney
“What’s it doing here?” Willoby asked. “I mean, they must have built this place around it, to study it, but then it was just abandoned. Why?”
“My guess is the anomaly simply disappeared,” Cutter said. “It’s what they do, Captain. They come and go — we don’t know why or how. When the thing first appeared, they built this place to study it, then it up and left. Well, so did they.”
“And who do you suppose they are?” Jenny asked.
“The same people they always are,” Cutter told her. “The puppet masters — the men who pay Lester’s salary, who fund the construction of facilities like the ARC. Their faces change, over the years, but their agendas do not. National Security, Defence of the Realm — call it what you will. We’re all a part of it, whether we like to believe it or not.”
“The military-industrial complex,” Connor said. “That’s what Eisenhower called it.”
Willoby coughed. They turned to face him.
“That’s all very well Cutter, but the facts on the ground haven’t changed all that much. We’re still trapped in here, without any way to replenish our rations, and predators roaming the corridors. And there’s no telling what might come at us from this angle.”
“But we’re not trapped,” Cutter said. “Not any more.”
“I don’t follow you.”
Cutter pointed at the anomaly. “There’s our way out.”
The others stared at him, astonished.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Jenny said, aghast.
“I’m open to alternative suggestions,” Cutter shrugged. “We’re standing here waiting to die, and if we open the vault door, the Eotyrannus will be in among us. We have wounded men, and we’re low on ammunition. We wouldn’t last thirty seconds. If we go through the anomaly, however, we get another chance.”
“There could be fifty more creatures waiting on the other side,” Connor protested.
“If there were, don’t you think they’d come through? People, I have been through anomalies before — I’ve walked on the far side. Helen has been navigating these things for years. Once there, we need only find a portal that will bring us back, but in another location. It’s dangerous, yes, but it’s not hopeless, and we’re pretty much out of other options.”
They stood staring at the bright, glittering Christmas tree that was the anomaly.
“I’ll go through it first, alone,” Cutter offered. “That way, we’ll know if what is on the far side is survivable.”
“You could land anywhere — even in the sea,” Connor protested.
“That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
Cutter began walking down the sloping catwalk, noting abstractly the design of the place was more than a little reminiscent of the interior of the ARC.
“Don’t do it!” Jenny sprang forward and seized his arm. “We can’t afford to lose you.”
Cutter’s face brightened.
“Glad to hear it.” He glanced around the room again. “But we’re running out of alternatives — especially the wounded. Help simply won’t arrive in time. I have to go —”
“Well, be careful,” Jenny said, with an edge to her voice.
“I’ll be back.” Cutter squeezed her hand. Then he continued down the ramp to the rocky surface of the central well. He stood before the anomaly and let the turning, wheeling shards of brightness wash over his skin. Then he took a deep breath, and stepped into the light.
“I don’t believe it,” Willoby said. “He’s gone, just like that.” The SAS officer leaned on the catwalk railing and hung his head. “This is insane, all of it.”
“It does seem that way, at least at first,” Connor said. “But you get used to it. Beats going to lectures any day.”
Willoby stared at him.
“You people are all one can short of a six-pack.”
The three of them stood and peered into the coruscating heart of the anomaly as it flickered and spun, fragments of light splintering across the chamber like the reflections from a disco ball.
“We may never get out again, if we go in there,” Willoby said.
“If we stay here, we’re likely all dead, anyway,” Jenny told him. “At least this way there’s a chance.”
Connor was looking at his fob watch. “Three-and-a-half minutes. Come on, Professor; how long does it take to have a quick look around?”
Cutter exhaled. His eyes were closed. He took one, two, three steps forward, and all at once the warmth hit him, a solid wave of it, like stepping into a steam bath. It seemed to him as if he had forgotten what true warmth felt like.
He breathed in deeply.
Thick, warm, oxygen-rich air. He drew it into his body in lungful after lungful. It was clean, wholesome, and it smelled of green, growing things, and underneath that a tang of salt, the essence of the sea.
He opened his eyes.
The sunlight was dazzling. He was standing in front of a wide, open expanse of tall ferns which extended off to woodland perhaps a kilometre ahead. There were hills in the distance, all tree-clad, with wide clearings. Further away, between the hills, he could just glimpse the blue glimmer of the sea.
He blinked, trying to identify the plant life he could see all around him, trying to get a handle on the time and place. There weren’t any flowering plants here, but he could see pine trees. It was late then, getting on for Late Jurassic, more probably Early Cretaceous. The Jurassic had been drier, hotter, a time of savannahs and deserts. The scene before him reminded him a little of Montana.
Early Cretaceous, the same era that had produced the Eotyrannus and the Iguanodon. That meant at least one of the anomalies outside was from the same time, so there might be one or more around here that would take them back to the twenty-first century.
He knew he should get back. But he stood a moment more, savouring the warmth, the clean air, the bright sunlight.
A herd of animals moved, off in the distance. He couldn’t quite make them out, Sauropods of some kind, perhaps. He watched, marvelling at the huge creatures as they trundled across the plain.
Time to go back.
He wiped the sweat from his face, and then stepped back through the glittering portal of the anomaly.
And into chill, gasping darkness. He actually stumbled, the change was so great. A hand steadied him.
“Cutter!” It was Connor.
“We were starting to wonder if you’d been eaten,” Willoby said with grim humour.
Cutter was gasping for breath, and the sweat which the Cretaceous had raised on his skin began turning icy.
“It’s the Early Cretaceous,” he told his companions. “There’s good air, warmth, and no predators about that I could see. This is where we go, Captain.”
Willoby said nothing for a long moment, only stared at Cutter as though trying to read his mind.
“Very well,” he said at last. “We’ll go through. I’ll go gather up the rest of the team. Connor, come with me; you’ll need to help carry your friend Hart.”
Off they went, the stuttering beams of their head-torches flickering yellow as they climbed the stairs to the rooms beyond. Cutter sat down on the blank rock at the foot of the anomaly.
“Is this really it?” Jenny asked him. “Is this really all we can do?”
“It’s a damn sight nicer on the far side than it is here,” Cutter said.
“Maybe so, but what if we get stuck there? These things open and close all the time — suppose we can’t find our way back?”
“I have a feeling that as long as this storm lasts the anomalies will keep reappearing on the island. I’m almost certain that’s why this place was built — to study them. But whatever brings them here, and keeps them here, has to do with the geology of the place, and the atmospheric con-ditions prevailing at certain periods in the past. The storm and the stone, if you will. The other anomalies that are out on the surface of the island right now must have their counterparts, some of them in the time I just visited. With Connor’s detector, we should be able to find
them, and come back through.”
“Back onto the plateau of Guns Island, with a pack of Eotyrannus running wild upon it. We’ll be back at square one.”
“We won’t be trapped, for one thing, nor starving or bleeding to death,” Cutter said a little sharply. “And if we come back through an anomaly elsewhere on the island, I’ll be able to use the sat-phone to call in help. Too many people have died. We need to be reinforced, or to get off the island altogether.”
“I vote for the second of those,” Jenny said, tapping her foot and folding her arms.
“I might be with you on that one,” Cutter said with a smile.
The surviving members of the team came labouring down the stairs, laden with equipment and weapons. As Connor and McCann half-carried Stephen down to the anomaly, he raised his head and said groggily, “I want to go home.”
“No such luck, mate,” Cutter said. “How do you feel?”
“Like an elephant just used me for toilet paper. Are we really doing this, Nick?”
“We’re doing it,” Cutter said firmly.
“The creatures are still hurling themselves at the doors,” Doody said. “Stubborn bastards, I’ll give them that. And it sounds as if there are more of them than before. It’s only a matter of time before they break through.”
The team stood before the anomaly, waiting for Cutter’s signal.
“Once we go through this,” Cutter said, “we’ll be in a world no human being was ever meant to exist in. So keep your wits about you. Open your eyes, and don’t try to blast everything that moves. We’ll be small mammals in a world of reptilian giants. Try not to get underfoot.” He paused, looking them over. “All right then, let’s go.”
One by one, they walked or hobbled through the shining gate of the anomaly, leaving behind the world they knew, and entering an alien past.
SEVENTEEN
James Lester had studied French at school, and spoke it moderately well. It was an adornment to one’s CV considered advisable in Whitehall, even now. Never rely on an interpreter unless you really have to, that was the mantra.
And never run an operation in tandem with a foreign government; that was the other, Lester thought. The old rivalries which had drenched Europe in blood for centuries had all but abated, but every nation state still had secrets it wanted kept. With the entanglements of this operation, Lester’s department had been caught with its pants down. No wonder the ship’s Captain had seemed so quietly amused as Lester had hurried aboard. Service personnel loved it when their pencil-pushing bosses caught it in the neck.
In a wine-fuelled post-summit haze of bonhomie, his own superiors had decided that James Lester would accompany this ship into the wild blue yonder, “to show solidarity with our Gallic friends.” And, no doubt, to piss off the Irish for making such a fuss over the whole affair in the first place.
So he had been flown out to the La Gloire, and was steaming toward a situation that was already a disaster.
Vive la solidarité!
They were to liaise with the Irish patrol boat Aoife south of the island itself. The Irish had already lost a helicopter to the place, and even though they had been informed that the crew had been located, their concerns were ramped up to a level just south of frantic. They had already tried to mount a rescue by boat, but the high seas had rendered this impossible; it was all they could do to keep on station.
So Guns Island was still inaccessible.
Even satellites could make nothing out, the place being perpetually covered in thick cloud. Whatever was happening there, for the moment there was nothing the outside world could do about it.
The frigate breasted the heavy seas with relative ease, a large modern vessel with a 200-man crew and an excellent selection of wines on board. Lester had already dined in the wardroom and the civilised nature of the meal had assuaged his irritations somewhat. Now, dressed impeccably, as ever he stood on the bridge of La Gloire and contemplated the endless swells of the North Atlantic whilst the business of the ship went on around him.
We should have sent a ship of our own, he thought, though with all these defence cuts we’d be lucky if we could scare up a bloody rowing boat.
Captain Palliere, a dapper, dark, surprisingly young man, stepped over to Lester’s side and offered him the use of a pair of binoculars. Lester demurred politely.
“I don’t think there’s much to see out there at the moment Monsieur le Capitaine.”
“Out at sea, there is always something to look at,” Palliere said in fluent English. “For instance, only an hour ago my lookout insisted he saw something like a massive crocodile breach the surface astern, he said it looked like a sea serpent.”
“Extraordinary,” Lester said. “Perhaps he had had too much wine at lunch.”
Palliere cocked an eyebrow. “This makes me think of what it must have been like in the old days, the Cold War. I have not seen so much mystery aboard ship in a long time. You British, you trust no one, and those you trust you try to manipulate. It has always been so. Myself, I have always preferred Le Carre to Fleming in any case.” He shook his head with a grin. “You have been up to something out here, I think, something you would much rather keep to yourselves.”
“There are matters of some delicacy afoot, it’s true,” Lester said vaguely. He cleared his throat. “But I have already hashed this through with your superiors, Captain. Your course of action has been agreed upon, and your orders have been cleared with both our governments. You are to enforce a maritime exclusion zone of twenty nautical miles around Guns Island, and leave it at that.”
Palliere nodded. Something cold came into his grey eyes.
“I am a creature of the service to which I have devoted my life,” he said. “I will obey orders, of course. But there are other laws and im-peratives when one is out at sea. Be aware, Monsieur Lester, that if I see men in trouble, then it is the age-old tradition of mariners that I should do everything in my power to aid them. That will take precedence over any other orders, in my mind.”
Lester found himself almost liking this neat, determined young man, every centimetre the officer, but with an edge of dark humour about him.
But all he said was, “I see your point.”
“You have been up to something out here,” the Captain repeated, “and now you’ve been — how do the Americans put it? You’ve been caught with your hand in the cookie jar. We are here to help your people, but do not mistake our aid for complicity.”
Lester smiled. “I’ll take that on board, Captain.”
Palliere smiled back. “Excellent. I would be honoured, circumstances permitting, if you would join me for dinner this evening.”
“I should be glad to.” Lester actually bowed a little. For a few moments he had almost imagined himself back in a former age, when France and Britain had been rivals and enemies, whilst maintaining a healthy respect for each other. This shrewd young captain would take some careful handling.
I’m like that little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke, he thought. I can’t keep it plugged for much longer.
They set up camp in a small, isolated copse of oaks and willow amongst massive ferns as tall as their heads, and exclaimed at the huge dragonflies that came and went, shimmering through the trees.
There was a narrow stream coursing through the copse, and the water was as clear and clean as anything on Earth. Cutter tried to insist that it be treated with puri-tabs before anyone drank of it, but by then it was too late. The thirsty soldiers had filled their water bottles and glugged it back as though it were beer, wondering at the fine, hard taste of it.
“Great,” Cutter said, packing a parka around Stephen to make him more comfortable. “Now we’ve got untreated Cretaceous water in our bellies, with God knows what kind of parasites in it.”
“The water’s clean — they gave me some, and it’s the best I’ve ever tasted,” Stephen said, wincing at the pain of his broken ribs. “This is still planet Earth, Cutter. The bacteria aren’t alien, just
a little different perhaps. You’re just being difficult.”
“The less interaction we have with this world, the better,” Cutter insisted. “I don’t have to tell you that, Stephen. Who knows what smallest event here might have ramifications for the rest of history?”
“Relax, Nick. Short of introducing a plague, I doubt if there’s much we could do that would resonate across a hundred million years.”
“I just hope you’re right.” Cutter was looking across the little campsite at Jenny. She had bound her hair back in a bun and her face was free of makeup. She looked much younger. More like the Claudia he had known, a woman he had perhaps been in love with.
McCann and Fox stood guard as the others went through their equipment and tried to find something to eat in the crushed chaos that was the inside of their rucksacks. So much had been left behind in the mad flight from the Eotyrannus. Ration-packs, ammunition, sleeping bags, torches, spare batteries. Connor had his hand-held anomaly detector, which was something, and Abby had had the presence of mind to bring along the sat-phone, so if they did manage to find an anomaly that could lead them back to the island they would be able to call for help, which was something else.
But apart from that, they were as far out on a limb as any human being had ever been, stranded a hundred million years from home with barely any food to keep them going.
“There’s a bloody great herd of something moving across the plain to the north,” Fox said. “Any ideas, Professor?”
Cutter joined him at the edge of the copse and stared through the pocket binoculars that Willoby had loaned him.
“Iguanodons,” he said, “like that poor, injured creature back on the island. Hopefully that means there’s an anomaly back to Guns Island somewhere near by.”
Fox nodded. “What kind of creature are they?”
“Herbivores,” Cutter replied, “moving in a big family group. There must be nearly a hundred of them. They’re keeping the young in the middle, and the adults are on the outside.”
“Like bison,” Stephen said, lifting himself up on one elbow and clutching his ribs. “What do you think, Nick — is there time for a little scientific enquiry? We could settle the whole warm-blooded dinosaurs debate right now; think of that!”