“That’s just too creepy,” Jeanette said.
“Let’s climb the big hill and see if we can find any sign of Nick and Carson,” Elizabeth said.
“And Do,” Jeanette added.
The grass varied in height but most stood waist- to chest-high, the green stalks resilient, bending when pushed aside and then springing back. The well-mannered grasses were evenly spaced and easy to walk through. Even stepping on the stalks bent them, but did not break them. The golden tops were cone-shaped clusters of grains covered in yellow down. Fine yellow dust fell from the clusters when the grass was disturbed.
“Do,” Jeanette called as they walked.
Elizabeth did not bother chiding Jeanette. She was genuinely concerned for Do, although Elizabeth noticed Jeanette did not call her boyfriend’s name, just Do’s. At the base of the hill, they paused, catching their breath. Walking was easy, but still Elizabeth was breathing like she had been running. Feeling nauseated, her head aching, Elizabeth bent, putting her hands on her knees. Jeanette leaned back, hands on her hips, eyes closed. Elizabeth had skied Aspen once, getting altitude sickness on the first day. This felt like that day, only it came on more quickly and with less exertion.
“If we make the top of this hill, that’s about as far as I can go,” Elizabeth said.
“Yeah,” Jeanette said. “The boys wouldn’t stay here if there was a way out. Those aliens suckered us into coming here.”
Too nauseated to argue, Elizabeth climbed the hill, one slow step after another. Head pounding, Elizabeth focused on the climb, placing each foot carefully. Jeanette gave up calling for Do, walking with her hands on her hips. Reaching the top they were sweating, breathing hard, and pressing their temples to stop the throbbing.
“I’m going to puke,” Jeanette said, looking for a good spot.
The hilltop was bare, the crown made up of red earth broken by protruding gray rocks. Sitting on a boulder-sized rock, Elizabeth rested, trying to ignore the headache. Sally was just as winded, lying down next to the boulder, panting and drooling. The velociraptors showed the least effect, spreading out across the crown, forming a picket line.
“Did you train them to do that?” Elizabeth asked.
“I trained them to chase a rubber mouse on a string,” Jeanette said. “They started doing this kind of stuff right after they hatched.”
“They think you’re their mother,” Elizabeth said.
“I guess I am,” Jeanette said.
The headache subsiding a bit, Elizabeth stood, scanning the landscape. The giraffe-necked creature had caught one of the trees and had it on the ground, one foot on its trunk, ripping off the yellow fronds making up its puffy-looking top. Both creatures were silent, one eating, the other apparently dying. In the distance, Elizabeth saw clumps of puff trees here and there, and miles of the golden grasses. In the far distance, Elizabeth thought she could see patches of purple shapes resembling bushes or trees, but it would be a long walk to be sure. There were no animal trails in any direction, but the springy grass would hide animal travel.
“There’s nothing here,” Elizabeth said. “I wouldn’t even know which way to walk.”
“That way, maybe,” Jeanette said, coming to stand next to her. “There’s a lake or something.”
Following Jeanette’s point to the north, Elizabeth found the silver smudge, outlined with more of the yellow puff tree creatures.
“I don’t know if I could walk that far,” Elizabeth said, still breathing deeply.
“Do!” Jeanette screeched.
Do came running up the hill, something squirming in his jaws. Jeanette embraced the predator, stroking its head.
“Where have you been?” she said. “I was worried.”
Taut skin and beaks were not made for expression, but Do bounced excitedly, then spit his bundle at Jeanette’s feet. The other velociraptors crowded around, interested in the find. Pushing through the throng, Sally sniffed the bundle. The little brown fur ball bled pinkish blood from lacerations in its side. Slowly, it uncurled, revealing a head and tail. The head was feline, the tail long, whiplike, and ending in a bony knob. Long legs unfolded, with five-toed and -clawed feet. Orange stripes created flamelike shapes running from around the eyes back along its head. Black lips opened to reveal double rows of pointed teeth. The creature whimpered, clearly suffering. Large green eyes open wide, it stared in terror at the creatures surrounding it.
“It’s a kitten,” Jeanette said.
“That’s no cat!” Elizabeth said.
“I mean it’s a baby,” Jeanette said.
“Quick, get rid of it,” Elizabeth said.
“What?” Jeanette said, eyes flashing. “Do hurt it. We can’t just dump it.”
“We’ve got to,” Elizabeth said. “That’s something’s baby.”
Elizabeth stood, looking back where Do had come up the hill. Elizabeth saw nothing but grasses in all directions. A light breeze made gentle ripples. Then Elizabeth froze, seeing a ripple of grass moving against the ripples produced by the breeze. The contrary ripple moved slowly, inexorably toward the hill.
“Get your gun,” Elizabeth said.
Alerted by Elizabeth’s tone, velociraptors trotted to the edge, sensing the danger. Do in the middle, the velociraptors stood frozen, eyes on the waving grasses. Jeanette joined them, the kitten nestled in the crook of her arm.
“Jeanette, you’re getting blood on your clothes,” Elizabeth said.
“It’s hurt,” Jeanette said.
“There,” Elizabeth said, pointing. “See the way that grass moves.”
“That may be nothing,” Jeanette said, but watched the anomalous movement approach the hill.
Near the base of the rise where the grass began to thin, the ripple stopped, the grass resuming normal movement.
“What do you think?” Jeanette asked, eyes on the spot.
Perfectly still, the velociraptors watched expectantly. Sally squeezed between Jeanette and Elizabeth, giving a soft woof.
“I think you should shoot,” Elizabeth said.
“Seriously?” Jeanette asked. “Shoot the grass?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said.
Shrugging, Jeanette gently set the kitten on the ground, then lifted her rifle, aimed, and fired. At the report, dozens of golden shapes erupted from the grasses a mile in all directions, rising into the air. Many trailed long tails, forked at the end, and some were surprisingly large—big enough to lift a golden retriever, or maybe a person. Most rose on batlike wings, but others had small bodies and long bird wings. Shocked, the women watched the creatures climb and circle. They were still looking up when the attack came from below.
36
Unfrozen
I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here.… We have spent millions in that sort of thing in the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped.
—Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institution, 1861
Present Time
Lake County, Florida
Emmett Puglisi sat on the edge of his desk, feet on his desk chair, running his fingers through his thinning hair and listening to his mother-in-law, Grandma Chen, scold him.
“None of her sisters’ husbands run around the world like you do. I thought you quit that dinosaur-hunting job. Why aren’t you here with your wife and children?”
“I told you, Grandma, I’m not looking for dinosaurs,” Emmett explained for the third time. “All I do is mathematical modeling.”
“So they don’t have chalkboards in Hawaii?” Grandma Chen asked.
Emmett could picture his mother-in-law, sitting on the stool in Emmett and Carrollee’s kitchen, wearing a tropical shirt over shorts, her legs a deep Hawaiian tan, her gray hair in a tight bun, her mouth just as tight, her brow knitted, part of a permanent disapproving scowl. Grandma Chen was half Chinese and 100 percent committed to meddling in the lives of her children. All five of the Chen children were successful by any standards—doctors, lawyers, scie
ntists—but that did not stop her from driving them and their spouses even further, and from shaping the futures of her nine grandchildren.
“I don’t use a chalkboard, I use a computer,” Emmett said, regretting it immediately.
“So, they don’t have computers in Hawaii? You got one in your office. I know, I saw it.”
“It takes a special computer,” Emmett explained, wanting to tell her to stay out of his office. “Let me speak to Carrollee,” Emmett said.
“When you coming home?” Grandma Chen demanded.
“Soon,” Emmett said. “Let me talk to Carrollee.”
Grandma Chen started to say something, but Carrollee interrupted, arguing briefly with her mother and then wresting the phone away.
“Grandma sends her best,” Carrollee said.
“Thank God you got the phone,” Emmett said.
Now Emmett pictured his pretty wife sitting on the same stool. Carrollee Puglisi was a short, pretty woman with a peculiar sense of style. Carrollee always coordinated what she wore, from shoes to clothes to hair bows and sunglasses. If she wore white, everything she wore was white. If she decided to wear tropical print clothes, her shirt and pants would have flowers, her shoes would complement, as would her hat, and there would be a fresh flower in her hair. Carrollee had a collection of watches in various colors and styles, so that even her watch would match. While she had a lot of clothes—two closets full—her taste was stylish, not expensive, and Emmett loved her for it, not in spite of it. Carrollee’s tastes also dictated what she purchased for their children, and they wore the outfits enthusiastically when younger, then stoically as they grew. Now in middle school, Emma was developing a style of her own, often clashing with Carrollee. Lee resisted the color coordination by mixing and not matching the clothes his mother purchased for him.
“Grandma loves you,” Carrollee said.
“Yeah, she loves the hell out of me,” Emmett said.
Carrollee laughed. Grandma Chen was well meaning but relentless. “How are things going?” Carrollee asked.
Carrollee knew Emmett was working for the Office of Security Science again. Both of them had worked for Nick Paulson in the past, and both had gone into the field, traveling to the past, and to the moon on one mission. Carrollee had a scar on her chest, where a Mayan priest had started to cut out her living heart, stopped by Emmett’s and John Roberts’s timely arrival. Because of that shared history, Carrollee also knew that Emmett had to be careful about what he shared on a public phone.
“Things are complicated,” Emmett said. “It would be easier if Nick were around to help.”
“Nick’s gone?” Carrollee asked, puzzled. Carrollee knew Nick had personally asked Emmett to come back and help with whatever problem he was having.
“Yeah, disappeared on me,” Emmett said.
Carrollee paused, frustrated with Emmett’s roundabout talk. “Like we did before?” Carrollee asked.
“Exactly.”
“I see,” Carrollee said. “You’re not going after him, are you? You promised.”
“John’s gone to get him, but I haven’t heard from him since,” Emmett said. “Elizabeth went too.”
“Elizabeth Hawthorne?” Carrollee asked. “How did she get mixed up in this?”
“Can’t say,” Emmett said. “You know how she is. Just like before, she kind of took things into her own hands.”
Carrollee was silent, and Emmett knew she was worrying through the implications of what he had told her. The planet had been devastated once by time disruption, and she and Emmett had helped avert an even bigger catastrophe.
“I have a model that may explain it,” Emmett said. “I think I found the anchor for the event. It’s sixty-five million years in the making.”
It took Carrollee a few seconds to grasp what Emmett was saying. “That strikes me as odd,” Carrollee said.
“Exactly,” Emmett said.
“Come home,” Carrollee said.
“Can’t. I’m working on something that might help.”
“I’ll come to you,” Carrollee said.
“Make it a family reunion on the mainland,” Emmett said.
“That bad?” Carrollee asked.
“Potentially,” Emmett said. “Better safe than sorry.” A buzzer went off behind Emmett. “Just a minute,” Emmett said to Carrollee, and put the receiver down.
Emmett called the video feed from the moon and fed it to the big monitor. Shocked, he ran the recording back and then watched it happen from the beginning. The recording began with the writhing juvenile tyrannosaur, in its endless struggle. After a few seconds, the tyrannosaur began moving faster and faster, jerking violently from side to side, and then suddenly it stumbled across the moon’s surface. Now free from the quasi-time that trapped it, it felt the effects of vacuum. While the dinosaur was staggering a few steps toward the camera, its eyes bulged and its chest heaved, swelling, but without air pressure to fill the lungs, the chest eventually collapsed, a spray of blood erupting from the open jaws, droplets spattering the camera. Next, one eye exploded, then the other, then the dinosaur collapsed, twitching, kicking up moon dust. Then it died. Emmett hurried back to his desk and the phone.
“Changed my mind,” Emmett said. “Don’t fly.”
There was a long silence.
“Is it too late?” Carrollee asked finally.
“It’s too close to call,” Emmett said. “You’re probably fine. I’m sure you’re fine. Hawaii is a long way from Florida.”
“I see,” Carrollee said.
“I love you,” Emmett said.
“I love you too,” Carrollee said.
“Tell Emma and Lee I love them,” Emmett said.
“I will,” Carrollee said. “What about Grandma Chen?”
“I love you,” Emmett said.
37
Safari
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Western explorers wandered the globe and brought back fantastic tales of people living off the land, like animals.… At first, those people were considered ignorant savages … less than human. But philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, great thinkers who had not actually ever seen one of these “primitive people,” took the opposite view. The “savages,” they contended, were regular humans with souls, but they were more innocent, more natural, more what nature intended than citizens of the modern world.
—Meredith F. Small, Cornell University
Sixty-five Million Years Ago
Unknown Place
Walking through a primeval forest, wearing sunglasses, and dressed all in black, Reverend looked like Johnny Cash on safari. Despite wearing a suit in brutally hot weather, the reverend kept up even at the Inhumans’ brisk pace, and did it without sweating. Moving easily, Reverend walked next to Nick, Carson Wills following, keeping close to Nick and the reverend and as far from the Inhumans as possible.
“I admit you surprised me,” Nick said. “I thought you would put more pressure on people to stay.”
“Conversion by the sword never worked,” Reverend said. “Come freely to God, or do not come at all. Give joyfully, or keep your grudging gifts. Serve with all your heart, or serve yourself alone.”
“That sounds like a sermon,” Nick said.
“I preached it last month,” Reverend said, chuckling.
Nick laughed. Despite their vast differences, Nick liked Reverend. His tunnel vision was going to kill half his congregation, but the man was sincere in believing he was saving the ones he had talked into staying behind, and unlike other messianic leaders, Reverend was ready to make the same bet with his own life.
“Why did you come with me?” Nick asked. “You could have stayed at the church with your wives.”
“Because I am on a mission for God,” Reverend said. “Those Inhumans did not come for you; they came for me. They could not know you were with us, so they must have been coming to find me. I think God has been working on their hearts, opening them to his word. I will preach that word.”
/>
“But you don’t speak their language,” Nick pointed out.
“On the day of Pentecost, the disciples of Christ were given the gift of tongues. God will make it possible for me to preach the good news.”
“If the Inhumans came for you, why did they bring that patch?”
Reverend shrugged. “To entice me? It does not matter. All will be revealed.”
“Anybody notice anything strange?” Carson asked suddenly.
Nick looked back, and then around. Something was different, but he could not put his finger on it.
“There aren’t as many of them as there used to be,” Carson said.
Nick realized Carson was right. At least half their troop was gone. Not knowing their customs, Nick was unsure if the behavior was unusual.
The strange safari kept up its quick pace for over two hours, Nick finding himself on a narrow trail leading through a dense copse. Once through, they came to a large meadow, a village three hundred yards from the tree line, protected by sharpened poles. Older children ran from the village, staring, pointing, following along, their large eyes blinking rapidly as if a sign of excitement. As they passed through the poles, smaller children and women with babies crowded close. The women pointed at Reverend, huddling and whispering sounds like someone playing a child’s xylophone.
Fascinated, Nick studied their clothes—minimal—their construction, the arrangement of the huts, the large structure they were being led to, and their tools and weapons, some of which were made out of the black orgonic-collecting material. Curiosity overcoming him, Nick stopped, Reverend stopping next to him, Carson right behind. The crowd hushed, the xylophone sound fading away. Now Nick stepped toward a woman with an orgonic blade in her hand. Warriors rushed Nick, brandishing spears, one of which had an orgonic spearhead.
Reverend pulled Nick back. “Dr. Paulson, that is not a good idea,” Reverend said.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Carson asked.
“Do you see that black knife she is holding?” Nick said. “That material came from the future.”
“Excuse me, but didn’t we just leave a wreck of a city full of modern crap?” Carson asked.
Dinosaur Thunder Page 24