The Valley of the Ancients

by David Alric

  ‘I’ve just remembered something extraordinary,’ he said, and they all turned to look at him. He pulled the mystery package out of his pocket.

  ‘I found this at the bottom of the ladder but haven’t the faintest idea what it is. Maybe you dropped something to do with the ladder kit, Clive, as you lowered it.’

  Clive looked puzzled and shook his head as Julian tore at the waterproof covering and pulled out a CD. He screwed up his eyes to read the tiny neat handwriting on the label.

  ‘Professor … Luc … ius … Strah … lung,’ he said. ‘I can’t read the next bit; looks like “invisibility data” or something.’

  Helen stepped forward with a frown and snatched the CD from Julian.

  ‘Let’s see that,’ she said urgently. ‘I’ve got a horrible feeling that …’ She peered at the label and Clive looked over her shoulder.

  ‘It says “invisibility data”, Mum – whatever that is. Sounds like something out of Harry Potter but what on earth is it doing here?’

  Helen didn’t answer. She was deep in thought.

  ‘My God …’ she eventually breathed slowly. ‘… my God, so that’s what he’s been up to. And that means …’ She rushed to the northern edge of the ridge and looked down into the dinosaur crater.

  ‘What in heaven’s name are you up to?’ asked Julian, looking completely bewildered.

  Seeing nothing below, Helen turned and spoke in a low voice.

  ‘Listen, all of you. This is going to sound crazy – really crazy, but I think I just might know what’s going on. You know the professor warned me that Chopper and the pilot might try and pinch our plane because theirs is out of action?’ The others nodded. Helen had mentioned this in her note. They all looked perplexed.

  ‘Well, I didn’t have time to tell you in the note but the professor said he has invented something absolutely incredible; something that would change the world. The villains brought him here to force him to complete his invention so they could then steal it. That CD must contain all the data about his invention.’

  ‘But how did it get here?’ asked Clare.

  ‘That’s the incredible bit. I think …’ she spoke very deliberately, looking in turn round the group ‘… I think that what he’s invented is a means of making things invisible –’ she paused, ‘– including people.’

  There was a stunned silence, broken only by the raucous cries and alien calls from the creatures of the Pleistocene wilderness behind them and the Cretaceous wilderness in front of them. Clare eventually spoke.

  ‘That means,’ she said slowly, ‘that Chopper and the pilot …’

  ‘The glinting we saw on the cliff!’ interrupted Richard.

  ‘… and the funny vibrations I felt on the ladder,’ said Helen.

  They all now looked down once again in the crater.

  ‘They’ll be well on their way to the plane by now,’ said Julian. ‘They must have seen it from up here.’ He pointed to the tail fin, just visible to those who knew where it was, among the trees in the distance.

  ‘Lot of bloody good it’ll do them,’ murmured Richard. He couldn’t stop a faint smile crossing his face as he imagined the expressions on the villains’ faces when they finally reached the plane they hoped would be their salvation, wrecked beyond repair and lying in the shadow of Tina guarding her eggs.

  ‘Look,’ said Lucy and pointed to the edge of the glade. The raptors had returned, but not to the ladder. They were sniffing and looking west along the route that Chopper and the pilot must have taken.

  19

  Vanishing Villains

  Chopper and Biggles pushed their way through the ferns and horsetails in the direction of the plane. The pilot was leading the way with a compass.

  ‘Funny vegetation,’ remarked Biggles. ‘Have you noticed there’s no proper grass in this place and hundreds of weird lizards and things?’

  Chopper only grunted in reply. The subtleties of tropical flora and fauna held no interest for him whatsoever. His only concern was to get to civilization and make a fortune.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ said Biggles again. ‘What’s that?’He pointed through a gap in the trees to a giant herbivore wallowing in some marshy ground. The creature was the size of a house. ‘Good grief,’ he continued, unable to believe his own eyes, ‘it’s a dinosaur! We must be in some kind of Jurassic park. That’s what those scientists are doing here. They must’ve created these things from long-lost DNA just like they did in that book.’

  Chopper looked. He hadn’t read that book – or any other, come to that – but even he was impressed by the creature. The invisibility robe was cumbersome and he had been about to remove it, but now thought better of it.

  ‘Well, whatever it is, it can’t see us; we’d better keep these suits on in case it’s got any friends ahead.’

  He hitched his rifle strap to sit more comfortably on his shoulder under the robe. As he did so he realized with horror he could no longer feel the professor’s CD in his pocket. He cursed out loud and called to the pilot.

  ‘We’ve got to go back, Biggles. I’ve lost the CD – must’ve dropped it coming down the ladder – I know I had it when we were looking for the plane with the binoculars.’

  ‘Can’t we do without it?’ said Biggles. He was horrified at the thought of encountering the others.

  ‘Of course we can’t!’ Chopper snarled. ‘If anything happens to these robes we’ve got nothing to show for six months’ sweat and graft. Our fortunes could depend on it.’

  ‘But we’re almost bound to meet the others on the way back,’ faltered the pilot.

  ‘I expect we are,’ said Chopper grimly. ‘Looks as if things might get a bit sticky for them after all.’

  The pilot shuddered. He rather liked what he had seen of the two families and the thought of Chopper gunning them down didn’t bear dwelling on. For a wild moment he thought about running away. His invisibility suit would conceal his movements from Chopper and he could then either beat Chopper to the plane and take off, or go back to the others and warn them. He was deeply frightened of Chopper, however, and knew that if anything went wrong Chopper would be merciless. He also couldn’t put out of his mind the certain fortune that awaited him once he got back to civilization and put the invisibility cloak to work. It had, after all, been his discovery in a way. If he hadn’t found the precious ore any notion of an invisibility cloak would have remained strictly in the realm of children’s fiction. Reluctantly, trapped by his fear and greed, he turned and followed Chopper. It would prove to be the worst decision of his life.

  Somewhat to their surprise and to the great relief of Biggles, the pair did not meet the others. At one point on their journey back they saw a truly gargantuan beast approaching them, directly in their path. Biggles felt for Chopper’s arm and pulled him aside to hide in the undergrowth. As the monster went by she paused and sniffed in their direction and Biggles’s heart jumped into his mouth. What he didn’t know was that Tina instantly recognized their alien human scent after her recent experiences, and she assumed that they must be linked to Lucy and moved on steadily back to her nest.

  After the dinosaur had gone the invisible pair emerged from their hiding place and hurried back to the ladder. As they entered the clearing Chopper stopped and swore.

  ‘They’re all up at the top!’ he exclaimed. Biggles gazed up at the ridge and sure enough there were six figures standing there accompanied by three black monkeys. ‘What d’you think’s going on?’ Chopper continued.

  Biggles thought for a moment.

  ‘The three that were down here have gone up,’ he said. ‘We know they’re interested in fossils as well as in living dinosaurs and that must be a rich spot. They’re all collecting as much as they can before returning to the plane.’ His eye fell on the rope ladder. ‘And they’ve lost a few rungs of their ladder so they’ll have to jump the last bit.’Chopper looked at the ladder, then at the figures above and his eyes narrowed inside his helmet.

  He took out
the binoculars.

  ‘I … just … don’t … believe … this,’ said Chopper after focusing the lenses. ‘That bloody girl and her father again. It’s like having a never-ending bad dream.’ The pilot felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. ‘Well they won’t be jumping just the last bit,’ Chopper snarled in fury. ‘If they want to get down I’ll make sure they’ll have to jump the whole damn distance. But first things first. Let’s find the disk.’

  He strode confidently into the glade. It was Biggles who first saw movement in the trees opposite but, before he could warn Chopper, the pack of raptors came out once again from the undergrowth. They couldn’t see the invisible pair but after sniffing the air they bounded straight towards them. Chopper cursed and drew out his rifle from under his robe. He was a crack shot. The leading dinosaur crumpled in a heap, a bullet between the eyes as the crash of the heavy rifle shattered the air; the first time in all history that mankind’s dreadful tool had ever been heard in that Cretaceous world. The remainder of the group fled and Chopper hurried to the base of the cliff. He rested the gun against the rock wall and started to rummage among the toils of the detached section of ladder.

  As he did so he heard a call from above.

  ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’

  The wind rising from the valley floor had dropped in the late afternoon and Julian’s voice was clearly audible. Chopper stepped back and looked up. Julian stood high above him, waving the professor’s CD.

  ‘Come back, Julian,’ said Helen, ‘he might shoot you.’

  ‘It’s OK, I can see his arms and the gun,’ said Julian, ‘and we need to talk to them.’

  ‘Chuck that down,’ shouted Chopper, his disembodied voice echoing eerily against the cliff face. ‘If you don’t you’ll never see your plane again!’

  ‘As it so happens,’ Julian murmured to the others, ‘that doesn’t bother me too much.’ He turned to Helen. ‘Is this disk unique, do you think?’

  ‘I doubt it very much,’ she replied. ‘The professor must still have all his data on the hard drive of his computer.’ She thought for a moment, then continued. ‘You may as well give it to him. He can’t go anywhere with it and agreeing to his conditions may stop him from shooting at us when we walk along the ridge to Clare’s cave. We’re sitting ducks up here at the moment.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ said Julian. He turned back to the crater. The rifle was still safely propped against the cliff wall. He called to Chopper. ‘Here you are,’ he called, and threw the disk down. ‘Not that it’ll do you much good without a plane to get home in.’ The wind had now abated and his words were clearly audible to the pair below.

  ‘Oh, we have a plane all right,’ said Chopper. ‘We’ve decided to borrow yours for a while. For ever in fact. And just in case you get heroic ideas about coming down and arguing about it, I’ve decided to take out a small insurance policy.’

  As he spoke the six on the cliff top saw the rifle rise up as if by magic.

  ‘Down!’ shouted Richard and they all threw themselves flat on the ridge top. Biggles watched aghast as Chopper raised the rifle and took careful aim at one side of the rope ladder just below the top rung. He fired and the ladder sagged to one side. He fired again and the whole ladder fell to the ground. Those hiding up on the ridge saw nothing but heard the whirring ricochet of the bullets off the cliff face.

  ‘But now they’re stranded!’ said the horrified pilot. ‘There’s no food or water up there!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Chopper with a chuckle. ‘A rather neat solution, don’t you think? And if the prof gets lonely over in his camp he can come and wave to them. At least he’ll have a bit of company – for a week or so.’

  ‘It’s all right, children,’ Chopper called up in a mocking voice. ‘You can stop playing hide and seek now. I’m not going to shoot you. Look, I’m putting the gun down.’

  Lucy peeped over the edge and saw that the rifle was indeed lying on the ground. Then she saw the frayed ends of the rope at her feet.

  ‘He’s shot the ladder off!’ she said to the others. They got up cautiously and looked.

  ‘The stupid, stupid idiot!’ exclaimed Richard. ‘They’re stuck down there now.’ Helen pushed forward and looked down. She cupped her hands round her mouth.

  ‘Listen to me,’ she called. ‘You’re now in terrible danger. There are dangerous animals – as you’ve seen. The valley you’re in is different from the valley where your camp is. The animals here are much more dangerous and we can’t … we can’t protect you any longer.’

  ‘Protect us!’ Chopper gave a scornful laugh. ‘What are you talking about, you stupid bitch? We’re invisible, we’ve got a rifle, one of us is a pilot, and now we’re going to fly away in the nice new aeroplane you thoughtfully donated to us. Give our love to the prof if he turns up to say hello before you all peg it.’

  Then Lucy called down.

  ‘You’re not invisible to the animals, you silly man. They can see with their noses. You must hide near the cliff until we can find a way to help you.’ As she spoke Clio appeared by her side, sniffing the air.

  ‘The Implacable One cometh, O Promised One. His scent I learned on our journey to this place. It is fearful as no other.’

  And her words were true. Even as she uttered her warning there was an ear-shattering roar and through the trees the enormous shape of a massive carnivore could be seen.

  ‘It’s a giganotosaurus!’ said Helen in astonishment.

  ‘Yes,’ said Julian. ‘I’d forgotten we haven’t told you about our adventures yet. This place is teeming with creatures from the middle to early late Cretaceous.’

  He turned to the others. ‘God help them down there. That dinosaur is probably the largest and fiercest predator that ever lived on earth.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we try and tranquillize it?’ Richard asked urgently, looking round for where Julian had put the rifle.

  ‘Or them,’ Clare said grimly, with true medical detachment. ‘If only we could see them it would be quicker and easier to put them out than that thing. They’d never know what happened.’

  But they never had to resolve the philosophical dilemma that they might have faced for, before a tranquillizing dose of any size could have been loaded into the rifle, the colossal creature burst into the clearing. For a creature of its size it moved remarkably quickly and headed straight for the rifle, which was all the horrified onlookers could see of the doomed pair. The gun was now once again in mid-air; it was as steady as a rock Julian noticed, with reluctant respect for Chopper’s courage, and pointing straight towards the oncoming leviathan.

  The massive rifle boomed out once again but if it had any effect whatsoever it wasn’t apparent. The awesome monster made a sudden swinging movement and it was as though a rent had appeared in the very air itself, through which Chopper was partly visible. The half figure turned and ran back towards the cliff base like some bizarre cartoon character with only one arm and one leg. The creature bent down and the speechless onlookers heard a blood-curdling shriek from the object it swept up in its clutches. It then held the figure in its front paws like a squirrel eating a nut and the shrieks died abruptly in a single sickening crunch that those watching would remember for the rest of their days. Chopper was a big man, but that fearful creature ate him in just two mouthfuls. Then the distraught audience saw another surreal sight. Two disembodied feet and lower legs appeared as the pilot pulled up his robe to allow him to run. The screaming legs ran across the clearing looking for all the world like a half-eaten gingerbread man. The giganotosaurus set off after the apparition with a gigantic bound and the final, inevitable act of the drama was hidden from view as victim and pursuer disappeared into the conifers.

  A scream that gradually rose to an appalling crescendo ascended from the woods and then stopped abruptly, as if an electric switch had been thrown.

  The shocked silence on the ridge was eventually broken by Clare.

  ‘That was truly, truly awful,’ she said. ‘How ar
e we ever going to forget what we’ve just seen?’

  ‘We won’t,’ said Richard. ‘All we can do is to remember that they came to this pass because of their own selfishness and greed.’

  ‘And don’t forget,’ added Helen, ‘that as far as they knew they had just left us to die of thirst and starvation.’

  ‘I know you’re right,’ said Clare, ‘– but somehow it doesn’t make it seem any better at the moment.’

  ‘Well,’ said Richard briskly, ‘we should try to get back to camp before nightfall and it’s a long way. Where’s the ladder into the other valley?’

  He turned and looked along the crest of the other side of the ridge.

  ‘It’s not there,’ said Clare, ‘that’s why Chopper and the pilot thought they had marooned us.’

  ‘Well, they were right;we are marooned, aren’t we?’ said Richard, frowning.

  ‘No,’ said Clive. ‘I’ve still got the original rope up here – the one I pulled the rope ladder up with. We could let it down again and you could go down it to get some of the spare ladders. I say you because I can’t do anything with this wrist.’He held up his injured arm. ‘Mind you, I don’t fancy even going down a ladder with it, so it’s just as well I don’t need to.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Richard. He looked puzzled. Clive grinned.

  ‘It’s a long story, but your clever daughter found her way up here through a network of caves inside the cliff. We’re going back the same way.’

  ‘Well,’ said Clare quickly, ‘it wasn’t really me. It was Sophie, but I don’t know how she knew about it.’ Lucy looked interested and sat down with Sophie. After a moment or two she told the others.

  ‘Sophie met a Pleistocene monkey down in the valley who told her about the caves. Apparently there were two routes, one of them very dangerous.’ She paused and smiled at Clare. ‘She didn’t like to slag you off to me, but I got the distinct impression that you didn’t do exactly what she advised you to do.’