He looked over to where the Bobcat always spent the night charging. The little excavator was ten meters further out in the field, on its side. The side facing up had the same size dent in it that the ankylosaur had put in the berm. The ground for a hundred meters around the Bobcat was nothing but clumps of earth and uprooted plants.
Griggs stood up from behind it. He slammed a fist against the cage and then gave the front a kick for good measure. Grant couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he could make an educated guess that it was profane. The Bobcat looked down for the count.
Katsoros was the next one awake. As soon as she was out the door, she pulled her arm from her bandana sling and tried to stretch it. Her face screwed up in pain and she put it back in the sling. Then McCabe joined her from who knew where. Grant seriously considered whether the guy could make himself invisible at will. He climbed down off the berm.
“The Bobcat’s tango uniform,” McCabe said.
“Which means?”
“Dino Doc’s visitor last night destroyed it.”
Dixit and Janaina, rubbing sleep from their eyes, joined the group.
“My visitor?” Grant said. “Griggs was the one who ran over its nest and made us the bad guys.”
“Is the airstrip long enough yet?” Katsoros said.
“Barely. If they have a good pilot. And they get some sort of signal that we’re alive down here to make it worth the risk to try.”
“Then you need to get those chaff tubes ready to fire,” Katsoros said. “And I need to go home mission complete. We need an ankylosaur sample to cross reference with the others.”
“I doubt it will give that up voluntarily,” Grant said.
“There are probably blood and skin samples on the Bobcat.” She looked at Grant.
“No way in hell,” Grant said. “For once Dixit can do his own work. The Bobcat isn’t even a hundred yards away.”
“That will be agreeable,” Dixit said. “I shall gather the samples myself.”
“And I’ll go with you,” Katsoros said.
The two walked away together, and Grant felt like a jerk for refusing to do such a simple task. McCabe climbed up to the top of the berm and shouted for Griggs to come back in.
Janaina stepped up beside Grant. She didn’t say a word, but he could practically smell the disgust and disappointment the boiled inside her about how he’d just treated Dixit.
“I’m sorry about my response there. I was a little rough on Dixit.”
“No, you were childish.”
“I’ll go get the samples.”
“Not now you are not. You forced him into it and he’ll have to do it to prove you wrong.”
“So I have to let him go and still be responsible if he dies.”
“How you say, ‘on the nose’.”
“Now I feel much better about the situation.” Grant shifted the conversation topic. “I’ve been thinking about those totems we found when we first arrived. I wonder if they are an apatosaurus, or the raised tail of an ankylosaurus.”
Janaina thought it over. “Yes, that could be correct.”
“If there were apatosaurs here, we’d have seen signs of them, and this plateau doesn’t have the large, shallow water system a big sauropod would need.”
“It is also more likely that the people would fear the aggressive ankylosaur, and do magic to keep it up here away from them. Perhaps one fell off the cliff somewhere back in time. The people came across this dead monster from the sky, and decided they didn’t want to have any more of that happening.”
“With Dixit out gathering samples, let’s put that workspace to use and do some science.”
“Such as?”
“There’s the ant head we brought back from the bridge incident. My tools are back there. Let’s dissect it.”
Janaina smiled. “Yes. A good use of our time.”
They went to the work area. Grant opened up the storage chest.
The head sat inside, staring up at nothing with its solid black eyes. The glossy exoskeleton looked almost artificial. He unrolled his pack of tools.
Janaina grabbed his arm. “Oh my God. That head just moved.”
“The head can’t move. The thing has been dead for a day.”
Grant picked the head up from the cooler. The exoskeleton felt cold and smooth as fine china. “See, dead is—”
The head shook in his hands.
“Holy hell!”
He threw the head down like it had been electrically charged. It hit the ground with a sharp crack and an inch-wide split opened up that ran right between the ant’s eyes. It didn’t move again.
“I think I killed it,” he said.
“You were just telling me it was already dead.”
Grant pulled two picks from his tool kit. He’d done enough touching of this thing already. He wedged the tips into the crack in the head and spread it wide. The head opened with a snap. A rank smell like rotten meat exhaled into Grant’s face.
“Ai, meu Deus.” Janaina turned away and covered her mouth.
Grant held his breath and pulled again. The head split fully open. Whatever had passed for a brain in the creature had decayed to a gray mass of goo. But in the center of that mass wiggled an eight-centimeter long, white larvae. It raised its head and stared at Grant with two unblinking black eye spots.
His first instinct was to crush it. The slimy skin, the faceless head, the fact that it writhed in a puddle of decaying brain matter—all this inspired some primal self-defense mechanism. But as the impulse became overwhelming, the creature’s skin browned. It shuddered, then collapsed into the mess it had been feeding upon. Green fluid seeped out of its mouth, and it lay still.
“Ugh, is that some Amazonian maggot?” Grant asked.
“If it is, it’s not from any species I know of,” Janaina said. “I’d hate to see what it pupates into.”
“Just when I was hoping the saving grace of this place was a low number of insect species. Let’s see what Dixit can make of it.”
Grant took a sample bag from a supply box and opened it. Using the two picks, he pinched the larva in the middle, raised it, and plopped it into the bag. He zipped the bag shut. His first impulse was to drop it on Dixit’s closed laptop. Already feeling guilty about having shamed Dixit into leaving the safety of the compound, he set the larva beside the computer instead.
“That was good of you,” Janaina said.
“What?”
“I have two younger brothers. I know the look of someone thinking of doing something bad and then having their conscience pull them back. You were going to leave that on his laptop.”
“Me? Never.”
She shook her head. “Stick with that story if you wish.”
“Now I’m committed to it.”
Chapter Nineteen
Grant felt worse than ever about Dixit being outside the perimeter now that Janaina had called him on his temptation to do something childish with the larva. He headed over to the berm to see how the poor guy was progressing. McCabe already stood atop the earthen barricade, facing the wrecked Bobcat. Grant climbed up next to him.
“Talk about sitting ducks,” McCabe said. “A woman with her arm in a sling and a guy who can barely walk across that field without tripping over his own feet. They should have asked you to do that sampling. You’d have been done already.”
Grant was afraid to say anything to that. Instead he watched Katsoros pace back and forth by the front of the Bobcat. Dixit swabbed some blood and cells from the frame of the Bobcat and stuck the swab in a plastic bag. He very precisely zipped closed the bag. Then he laid it on the Bobcat, took a sharpie from his pocket and removed the cap. Then he started to label the sample bag.
“For Pete’s sake, man,” Grant whispered. “You know where the damn sample came from. Stop wasting time.”
Katsoros gave Dixit a similar, more fiery reaction, blessedly muffled by the distance from the berm to the Bobcat. Dixit put the sample in his pocket.
The earth around Katsoros shuddered, then the ripple spread out past the Bobcat into the shape of a giant plate.
“Run!” Grant shouted.
The head of the ankylosaurus burst from the ground at Katsoros’s feet and she slammed back into the Bobcat. Griggs’s knife still stuck from the creature’s left eye. Its beak opened and it let loose a furious roar. Dixit broke into a panicked, spastic scramble where much effort seemed to provide little forward motion.
The ankylosaur rose from the beneath the earth, and with a great shake sent dirt and uprooted plants swirling off its armored back. Katsoros ran for the compound. The dinosaur cocked its good eye at the two retreating humans and roared again.
McCabe aimed at the dinosaur’s head. It dipped its beak and the rounds slammed into its armored cover to no effect. The beast charged.
Dixit made it to the berm first. Half way up, the soft earth gave way. Grant reached over a tree trunk and stretched out a hand to him. Dixit grabbed it, and Grant pulled.
Katsoros was halfway to the berm, but the dinosaur was faster. It caught up to her, and with a swipe of its head sent her flying sideways. She spun across the earth, arms and legs out like a human pinwheel, then stopped dead still. The dinosaur twisted its head left to see where its prey had landed.
Its stretch exposed a wide swath of unarmored skin along its neck. McCabe aimed fast and sent a blizzard of rounds at this natural weak spot. Bullets peppered the creature’s neck and sent geysers of blood into the air. The dinosaur swung back to face the compound with a furious scream. Cold as ice, McCabe shifted his aim and sent three rounds into its right eye.
The ankylosaur rose up on its hind feet and spun to make a retreat. It sent the club of its tail sailing toward the top of the berm.
Grant pulled a struggling Dixit up and over the log at the berm’s crown. Dixit tumbled down the other side. Grant dropped flat and buried his face in the dirt. McCabe dove forward and tucked into a combat roll down the outside.
The beast’s club tail raked through the obstacles at the top of the berm. Tree trunks snapped like matchsticks. The club passed so close to Grant’s head that the breeze ruffled his hair. In a tornado of shattered branches and limbs, the dinosaur swept clean the section of the berm where the men had been standing.
Grant looked down to see the ankylosaur run for the cover of the jungle, bowling over trees and bushes as it left the clearing. McCabe kept it in his sights until it disappeared. Then he ran for Katsoros. He slung his weapon across his back, scooped her up in a fireman’s carry and charged back up the berm. He didn’t set her down until he was on the other side. Grant skidded down the berm after him.
Rich, red blood coated the left side of Katsoros’ head. Her neck bent at an impossible angle and she didn’t move. McCabe checked her for a pulse but it was obvious that the effort wasn’t necessary.
“Dammit,” McCabe whispered.
Dixit staggered over. Janaina arrived at a run. Griggs displayed the soldier’s reaction and ran straight by them to take a defensive position on the berm.
“What happened?” Janaina said.
“The ankylosaur,” Grant said. “It buried itself in the dirt like a rockfish in sand. It used the bashed Bobcat as bait and ambushed Dixit and Katsoros.”
“Did you kill it?” Janaina asked McCabe.
“No, but I wounded it pretty bad. It knows what’s in store for it if it comes back.”
McCabe said that like the injury would be a deterrent. Grant thought the wounds were just one more reason for it to want revenge.
Something rectangular stuck out of Katsoros’ pocket, attached to her belt loop with a lanyard. Grant pulled it out. It was the same kind of card he’d found in Hobart’s pack. But on this one, both the five and the ten boxes had turned green. He looked up at the still shuddering Dixit.
“What are these things?”
“I’ve seen those,” McCabe answered. “Used them in ops in Iraq. They’re personal dosimeters. Radiation detectors.”
“Radiation?” Janaina said.
Grant cast an accusatory look at Dixit. He noticed a lanyard looped around Dixit’s belt and going into his pocket. Grant yanked on it and a dosimeter popped out of his pocket. McCabe sprang to his feet, unholstered his pistol and pointed it at Dixit.
“What the hell did you get us into here?” McCabe said.
Dixit raised his hands. “Transworld found uranium here. Possibly a lot of it. Enough to make it worth extracting.” He reached down and tapped the dosimeter. “These are just to monitor the ground levels. A precautionary measure. You can see the levels are quite satisfactory.”
“Anything above zero is quite unsatisfactory,” Grant said. He turned to McCabe. “Are you in on this scheme?”
“It’s news to me,” McCabe said with a level of controlled fury that convinced Grant that he was telling the truth.
Grant put it together in his head. “These were in the messenger bag she retrieved from the plane wreck. That was what was so important that she’d risk her life and couldn’t trust one of us to bring it back without opening it.”
Dixit nodded.
“So all this talk about discovering extinct species and using their DNA for the good of mankind is all crap,” Janaina said. “Transworld is here for uranium.” She turned to Dixit. “Then what is it you’re doing?”
Grant stood up so he could look down on the man and add a little intimidation.
“I am doing just what I have said,” Dixit said. “Cataloging DNA. You have seen me working.”
“Working on what?”
Dixit hesitated. “A poison. One that targets their DNA, and is benign to ours.”
“We discover all these amazing creatures and your plan is to slaughter them?”
“The benefits of this place are under the ground, not above it. Isn’t the proof in that everything here has tried to kill us? Reveal these creatures to the world and Transworld loses everything invested here.”
“Were you going to kill all of us to keep this secret?” Janaina said.
“No one would talk. You signed non-disclosure agreements. Plus Transworld would pay you all to keep the secret. The mercenaries would accept. Janaina, your payment would go to save indigenous tribes, so you’d accept.”
“I wouldn’t,” Grant said.
“You are the writer of monster stories. Who would believe you?”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m letting you finish your research,” Grant said.
“You’d better hope he does,” McCabe said. “Our ammo isn’t unlimited and we’re outnumbered hundreds to one. That guy’s poison might be the only way we survive.”
“If radiation exposure doesn’t kill us,” Grant said.
“The badges say we are quite within prescribed parameters,” Dixit said.
“And I’m not planning on any long-term exposure,” McCabe said.
“I wonder if low level radiation contributed to the kinds of creatures we’ve encountered?” Janaina said.
“It wouldn’t make the ants giants,” Grant said. “It’s not like some 1950s movie. But it would spur mutations that would accelerate evolution, explaining the changes in species here from what we’ve seen in fossil records.”
“Then why are the ants giants?”
“There has to be some evolutionary benefit that enlarged them over millions of years. A lack of predators? A type of food source? Who knows.”
“Can we prioritize staying alive over your egghead research?” McCabe said. “Dixit, have you got what you need to kill these damn things or not?”
“I have a multitude of concentrated compounds in two cases by the sample cooler. The research will yield the proper combination.”
“Well stop wasting time jaw-jacking,” McCabe said. “We’re going to need that poison.”
Chapter Twenty
With the Bobcat trashed and the team down two people, the main mission had been reduced to survival. Grant showed Dixit the larva and explained that he and Janaina had
extracted it from the head of a soldier ant. The soldiers walked the perimeter berm. Janaina gave Dixit what help she could.
Dixit didn’t want Grant near him, and Grant understood completely. He wasn’t thrilled about being near himself right now. He’d done exactly what Janaina had warned him not to do—let his emotional reaction to Dixit get in the way of the job they had to do. He hated himself for it and the results of it. So while the others added value, he sat in the shade of the container and felt useless.
McCabe approached from the berm. Grant figured that the only reason McCabe would be coming over was to give him a healthy ration of crap about something, likely about sending Katsoros out to her death with Dixit. Grant wished for someplace to hide. He stared at the ground. McCabe stopped, towering over Grant.
“This place is more dangerous than you thought, isn’t it,” McCabe said.
“More than any of us thought.”
McCabe drew his pistol from its holster. Grant looked up and waited for the cold barrel to jab him in the forehead.
Instead, McCabe flipped it around and pointed the butt at Grant.
“Understand you acquitted yourself damn well with one of these on the berm,” McCabe said. “We’ll need all hands armed and ready when that thing comes back.”
“Uh, thanks.” Grant took the pistol.
McCabe unclipped the holster from his belt. “And you’d better take this. I expect to get that back in one piece when we get the hell out of here.”
Grant stood and accepted the holster. “Yes, sir.”
“But so help me God, you accidentally shoot me or someone else with this weapon, you’ll be the next one it kills. Are we clear?”
“Clear as a summer day.”
McCabe nodded and returned to the berm. Grant tucked the pistol into the holster and hung it on his belt. The weight made him feel a bit lopsided. He rested a hand on the pistol. The last time he’d had a gun at his side like this, it was hard plastic and he was a seven-year-old in a Halloween cowboy costume.
Grant walked over the berm on the opposite side of the compound from McCabe and began his first watch at the perimeter.
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