by Pam Uphoff
"Or water nymphs? Or are they the same thing?"
"Probably. Pity we don't have any original sources on Greek Mythology."
"Just the books that survived the nuclear war." Ebsa eyed the teamers out of the corner of his eye. Dropped his voice. "They've got their heads together plotting something."
"And . . .pardon my paranoia, but I really don't want them trailing me into a corridor lined with bedrooms. I think they just came in from the field and . . . haven't readjusted to civilization."
Ebsa nodded to the left. "What's that?"
They strolled off down a winding path and once out of sight, trotted ahead and . . . were quickly lost in a maze of hedges and artistically half ruined walls. Fountains. Pagodas. Castle ruins, size small.
Paer stopped in a walled clearing, boasting a four sided mini cathedral, with gargoyles spitting water into a moat from all corners of the ornate roof. "What madman designed this place."
"A very competent one? Competent at insanity, I mean." Ebsa eyed the sun. "That way is west. Shall I boost you onto the roof so you can map our way out of here?"
Paer walked up to the moat. "Those ugly . . . frogs . . . are spaced well enough to be stepping stones." She stepped on the nearest. It sank and sprayed water straight up. "Eeep!" Paer scrambled on wet marble, landed on her butt in a foot of water.
Ebsa choked on laughter, got splashed.
Paer stood up and sloshed across to the building. Pushed aside a hanging to look inside "Whoa, come take a look at this!" She teetered in the doorway to slide off her shoes before she stepped in.
He kicked off his shoes, rolled up his pants and waded to join her.
Ornamented everything, brocade couch, silk rugs in bright colors, tapestries hanging between frescoes.
"This is amazing." Ebsa stepped in and Paer shoved him against the wall.
"This is the perfect place for me to talk to you."
Well. There she was. Inches away. He bent his head down and kissed her. Her hands slid from pinning him against the wall to kneading shoulder muscles and downward. And his arms were around her and heading south . . . "You're all wet."
"Yeah, I better get out of these clothes. And get you out of yours."
Paer are you sure?
"Positive. Finally found the right place to ambush you. I was beginning to think I was going to have to hit you with a club and drag you off to the nearest cave."
***
:: Where are you two? :: Ra'd's crisp clear mental voice.
:: Lost in a maze. Not a clue how to get out. :: Ebsa managed to not add that he didn't actually want to.
:: About time, you idiot. ::
Pause.
:: Ajha says 'what's around you.' ::
:: Miniature cathedral with gargoyles and moat. :: Paer answered that, managing a casual tone.
Pause.
:: Ajha says go south then first right, second left, then second right, first left. ::
:: Got it. ::
:: Oh, and he says, don't go in any of the buildings, they've got all sorts of spells built into them, mostly to remove inhibitions and rev up the libido. ::
:: No kidding? :: Ebsa looked down at Paer, who was suddenly snickering against his bare shoulder.
:: Not that Paer wouldn't have dragged you into one on purpose, if she'd known. ::
Paer grinned and walked fingers down his ribs . . .
Ebsa tried for dignity, wasn't sure if it would work for mental communications. :: See you at dinner. Unless we get lost again. ::
Laughter certainly carried mentally. :: Then I expect I'll see you for breakfast. ::
He closed his mental shields up tight. "There are no spells here. All it took was proximity to you."
"And all I needed was the right place to ambush you."
They were only a little late.
And they managed to behave professionally while cleaning and restocking the crawlers. The maintenance and repair people tsked over the bunkhouse crawler, and said the rail and crow's nest mountings were sprung. "You can leave it with us for a week, or do without until you're done for the summer."
"We'll keep it." Ajha shook his head. "I can't believe I didn't have Dan retract everything before he tackled the slope."
The mechanic sniffed. "Bet your driver never does that again."
"True. Might have just learned something myself."
The mechanic and his assistant loaded the twisted scrap into the truck and departed.
"Oh well." Ajha sighed. "What's one more expense report, right?"
Ebsa looked over. "Keeps the mechanics busy, good for their job security." He ducked back into the bunkhouse crawler and frowned at the fabber. "I really ought to buy some real spices."
So the old hands took him shopping. He talked them into as much real food as possible, then they loaded up and headed out.
Chapter Five
Cretaceous
World EM 0945
"Now this is a proper dinosaur habitat." Ebsa took a deep breath. "Ah, nothing like nice hot humid air."
"Eww." Paer yelled from the other side of the crawler. "It's clear who grew up in a tropical paradise. This air is chewable."
"And it's early in the morning. The shower's going to get a workout this trip."
They walked cautiously around the crawlers. The forest surrounded the arrival point. Not good visibility.
Ebsa eyed the flapping in the trees, couldn't see any details. "So, are you a proponent of birds being descended from the true dinosaurs, or do you prefer the more distant relationship theories?"
Paer grinned. "Did you study up, to impress me?"
"Yep."
Her grin widened. Might have been a bit of a swagger in her stride as she walked out to look up and scan the sky.
Ufly snorted. "Dream on, Closey. She knows you're a loser."
Ebsa paused to stifle a comment about regretting the lack of T-Rexes. . . "No, we both know we'll be going our separate ways when we graduate. Much less painful to just stay friends." Enjoy your glorious summer, Ebsa the Idiot. Because it's really going to hurt when she leaves.
Alamo snorted. "And here I figured you and Ra'd were an item."
"Guys, really? You need to study up on adult insults and, you know, subtlety. It'll take you further, once you're competing in the post-doc academic arena." Ebsa shook his head in mock sadness and walked off. Kept his eyes up and searching as he circled the three crawlers. A dark speck hung in the air far overhead. He slowed behind Paer. "Bird?"
"Pterodactyl of some sort. Size large. He's too high to see clearly." Paer sounded a bit absent minded, and Ebsa drifted on.
Professional. I am just ever so professional.
Ajha emerged from the electronics crawler. "Right. We've got our fix."
"Hope the study site is that direction. The trees are a little smaller and spread out more that way." Ebsa eyed the trees. "Do you suppose the original explorer team cut a road that direction?"
Ajha frowned around at the trees. "The study area is only five kilometers away. Unfortunately, that way." He pointed at the thickest part of the forest.
"From what I can see from up here." Ra'd was standing on the rim of the crow's nest. "I think we'd better go north, and then cut west."
"Right. Weapon up and let's do a bit of scouting."
Paer trotted off, and Ebsa swallowed. Professional. In the field I must be professional, else . . . I'll lose everything. He turned for the crawler.
"Professor, for this first scouting, I'd like you to keep your students at least close to the crawlers, and preferably inside. Hob, Ebsa, you're with the crawlers. Hob, inside listening to us. Ebsa, you trained on a chain saw? Good. See if you can start a path for the crawlers."
Cold terror in the pit of his stomach. "Right." He looked at the forest to the north. Those trees are history. This is going to be the fastest tree clearing in the history of Explorer Teams.
Or maybe not. With Hob on comm duty, Ebsa tackled everything too large to be driven ove
r down a three meter wide swath, following the slice cleared path. But it wasn't fast.
He set his comm to receive only, so he didn't transmit the sound of the saw. Earbuds under mufflers so he could listen to the cheerful explorers.
The students and professor refused to be cooped up in the crawlers. Ebsa suggested they stay close and rotate who was up in the crow's nest of at least one crawler.
Irgo came and briefly helped him clear logs, before he spotted the pterodactyl coasting lower and trotted back to observe from the top of a crawler.
Most of the big trees were ten meters or more apart, and the few the crawlers couldn't get around, he cut a wedge to encourage them to fall back into the forest, so it was mostly the lower branches and the smaller trees that he had to cut and haul out of the way. It didn't have to be pretty, just passable.
He was a half a kilometer into the forest when Whti raised the alarm. "Holy One! It is! A real Tyrannosaursus Rex!"
"Everyone back into the crawlers." Hob said.
"How far away is it, Witty?" Ebsa shut down the saw.
"Umm, not very?"
"Everyone get your eyes open. If it can see you, do not go dashing out into the open." Ebsa pulled off the mufflers and left them slung around his neck. "If you cannot get to a crawler, if it will see you if you go around to the door, get behind a tree, or roll under the nearest crawler. Whatever is closest."
"They're all close, and not hanging about." Hob said. "And climbing in now. Whti, you ready to duck?"
"I'm ducked." Whti's voice was low.
Probably peeking out.
"Ebsa, what about you?" Irgo sounded worried.
"I'm too far away to head back now. Tell me if it heads this direction." He eyed the forest. Tested the wind. Downwind sounds like a good idea. He eeled between brush and smaller tree trunks, and got behind a really sturdy tree. With long low branches that might cause a large beasty to keep his distance.
At a lower volume he could hear Ajha ordering the team back into the thicker forest.
"Just when we finally found the plains!" Paer sounded worried.
"Damn he's big." Hobs voice was quiet. "He's sort of sniffing and poking the crawlers . . . Whoa! Rocking them! Ebsa, he's heading down your path."
"I'm off it, and well concealed." Ebsa eyed the saw. Why am I out here in dinosaur land with no weapon? What was I thinking? He could hear the crackling of brush beneath a long stride, the deep thumping of very heavy steps. Peering cautiously, not moving, Ebsa could see the top of the beast's head over the lower trees, the hump of the back—longer and flatter than he'd expected. A pause in the steps. Loud wufflings. Then more crackling and stomps, with added snaps of branches and small trees. The back continued straight ahead, unbothered by the end of the cleared road. Ebsa waited until the steps were more distant, and still kept his voice down. "He's past me and still going in a north northwest direction. The understory trees don't seem to impede him."
"Good. We're hunkered down in a grove of big trees." Ajha was equally quiet.
Ebsa picked up the saw . . . waffled, set it down and started climbing. He could see the T-Rex occasionally, looming through the lesser trees. Shaking the limbs of the forest giants as he stalked by them. Ebsa climbed a little higher.
"He's curving west."
"Good we're on the north side of where we emerged . . . Right. I hear him now." Ajha's voice faded.
The T-Rex emerged from the thicker forest, and stopped. Raising up higher and scanning. Westward, toward the open land. Ebsa could see dots out there. Hopefully something the T- Rex would eat. The Tyrannosaur's head dropped and it stalked forward. Ebsa watched for a long moment. Still going westward.
"Right. Well that was one impressive beasty." Ajha still had his voice down. "So, any more in sight?"
"Nothing here." Hob reported.
Ebsa scanned for moving treetops or tall grey-brown backs. "I don't see anything large in the forest."
He started down the tree.
"Right. Well Tyrannosaurus or not, we need to cut through the forest and get out onto the plains. Let's head back, doing some cutting as we go."
Ebsa took the saw to the edge of the path, then ran back to the crawlers. Grabbed the 12mm dacca. "Hob, don't ever tell Ra'd I was out there without a weapon."
Hob was laughing as he trotted off.
Cutting down trees, while remaining a step away from the gun was a pain. But worth it, when he drew a bead on movement in the underbrush . . . and it was Ra'd.
"Sorry." Ebsa lowered the barrel, and set the gun down again. Grabbed the saw and got back to work. It went fast, after that. Ajha and Fean had sliced everything but the largest trees on the hike back. And they spelled each other on the saw and all helped roll sections off the track. The remaining five kilometers went quickly.
They shifted the crawlers out to the plains before sundown.
They camped on a treeless hill with good visibility. Stopping first to pick up some firewood. They had all come to expect—and enjoy—the atavistic pleasures of an open fire, and they'd loaded as much fresh food as possible. Shish kebab, this time. Skewers of meat and veggies. Fresh veg, but vat meat. A few jokes about how they ought to have saved some dinocef.
"Right. It only took us a day to get into position, and with the path cut, we're probably less than an hour from the gate. So we've got plenty of time to gather data. And that includes time to be cautious."
Dan, Hob, and Fean took the night watch. Ebsa took his aching muscles to a hot shower and early bed.
They started with the usual vegetation maps. Rolling hills, grasses mixed with ferns, scattered trees, small groves. Game trails, one quite wide. Many footprints were recorded. The team and interns helped less than usual, being heavily armed, and frequently moving the crawlers to be near the people on the ground. Much interrupted by stopping to watch pterodactyls of one sort or another. Or the small feathery dinosaurs. Or birds, depending on where one drew the line. From the gigs of vid data being recorded, Ebsa suspected that data for many papers would be generated on this trip.
They parked every night in their triangle. A bit of exercise, usually in the form of fencing, since the Grad students could take part. Ebsa and Hob got lessons, no sparring. Thank the One!
Some of their survey work spilled outside, where there was more room on the folding tables.
Professor Ecco sniffed. "I couldn't actually find a good satellite picture in the catalog for this particular world."
Ajha looked over at his crew. "Hob? See if you can get anything from the satellite."
Ra'd was eyeing the professor. "Catalog? You went shopping for these worlds?"
Ajha chuckled. "It's more like a library catalog, rather than advertising. XD's been exploring for over a century. Just a couple of worlds a year, at first, then they got busy. I think there are over fifteen thousand discovered worlds, now. Better than half of them algae. But a lot of worlds like this one will have less than a month's worth of satellite data in the file back home. Age from the stars. A quick survey of animal species. And not much more. This one is on the list of places to consider colonizing, but it's still twenty worlds down the list. I dare say I'll be required to report extensively on it. So's the last world. Insane. They really do need to take the dinosaur worlds off the colonization list."
Fean chuckled. "You know they want to mine Uranium. Sixty-five million years less fission makes dealing with these sorts of critters worth it."
"Algae Worlds are better." Dan put in.
"If you can find one that's actually younger, rather than just slow to evolve." Fean retorted.
"Children, children . . . " Ajha grinned. "And the half-life of Uranium is so long that sixty-five million years really doesn't make a big enough difference. No matter what the, umm, less reputable newspapers say. Not that I won't have to report on it."
The professor nodded. "If you do write it up, I'd appreciate a copy of the report. Seems a shame to contaminate a whole world museum of prehistory."
He shrugged. "They prefer to not call them targets and give them that number until they start the actual colonization study. For various reasons they may move worlds up or down the list. This way they don't have to keep explaining why Target Sixty got explored before Target Fifty-five, and what about Fifty-six, Fifty-seven, Fifty-eight and Fifty-nine?"
Dan cleared his throat. "Not to mention the number of inhabited worlds we've had to drop from all consideration as takeover targets."
"Yes, it's a bit awkward, that so many of the worlds that are suitable for human habitation so often already have humans there. I suppose that explains why a dinosaur world is still on the potential colony list." Ajha smiled. "Personally I really approve of Disco's no invasion policy."
Ufly and Alamo stiffened.
Irgo shrugged. "However much I dislike being dictated to . . . well, really, I'm a bit ashamed that we needed to be coerced into behaving in a civilized fashion."
"Irgo!" Ufly stiffened in outrage. "We are the One. We are better than any stupid natives. Including Target Forty-two."
Paer glared.
Ebsa put on his best fake whine. "Boss? Are we allowed to leave behind anyone who seems to have previously escaped from the Cretaceous?"
"I'm afraid not." Ajha leaned and poked up the fire. "It'll be a century before the common attitudes settle down to something like a consensus of our place in the Multiverse. And like as not, what it settles down to be won't be what we expect now."
The professor cleared his throat. "I'm sure we will be gradually taking over a lot of Disco functions. Inso's rise to Director came unexpectedly quickly. I understand though that it is mostly administrative, with Xen Wolfson still in charge of most operations."
Ajha nodded. "It's . . . an interesting time to be here. So much potential, and so much danger."
The T-Rex was spotted, well out on the plains. Hunting. That got them up on the roofs with vidcams zoomed in on the action.
"Ceratopsians." Professor Ecco had the binocs glued to his face. "Lots of spikes, I think we're looking at a Styracosaurus herd."