Primeval Origins : Paths of Anguish - Award Winning, New Epic Fantasy / Science Fiction (The Primeval Origins Saga Book 1)

by Brett Vonsik

  “Dr. Ramirez…Hugo,” Nikki spoke carefully, not wanting to offend or upstage Dr. Ramirez. He had over ten years of experience in the fields of South America, from Argentina to Brazil, and now Bolivia. He was every bit the paleontologist, and Nikki was only a post-graduate doctorial want-to-be. She questioned presenting her postulations to him. He might think her ideas dumb, but she considered her logic solid. After a few moments of waffling, she decided to continue. “The dark coloration of the rock surrounding the fossil points to heavy vegetation at the burial site; the iridium-rich clay, shocked quartz, and tektites surrounding the fossils leads me to think this animal died at the very end of the Cretaceous, at the mass extinction event, possibly. If so, objects of all kinds hurdling at high velocities could have struck this animal, making these cuts.”

  Ramirez was silent for a long moment as he appeared to be thinking on Nikki’s words. Wearing a repressed smile, he spoke in a kind tone. “Who’s speculating now? What about investigation and analysis before conclusions?”

  Nikki felt the temperature of her cheeks rise, and suddenly her jacket seemed too warm. Looking around the tent at the mess Ramirez spent half the night making, Nikki made a pout with her face and placed her hands on her hips before sighing at having to redo her work for the past few days. “Well, I think we need to get this tent cleaned up before Dr. Anders discovers this mess. He wanted everything ready for shipment this morning so we can concentrate on preparing the skull tonight.”

  “Forgive me my excitement,” Ramirez apologized after a thoughtful pause, still wearing a smile. “I wish the skeleton was to remain in country for me to study instead of going to the United States.”

  “You’ll be able to study it in Pittsburgh,” Nikki replied.

  “Yes, I assume I will, for the time I will be there.” Ramirez spoke with clear disappointment. “But Bolivia is such a poor country and deserves to have its treasures. I know we will get casts for study and displays as soon as they are made, and that the skeleton will be returned, as all agreed, but I am not pleased with the arrangements now that we know this to be a very significant discovery.”

  “Well...” Nikki wished to avoid this subject. “I understand how you must feel, Dr. Ramirez, about the... ‘arrangements,’ but I can’t do anything about them. Our embassy made them all. And besides, Bolivia is getting paid well for the fossil by the International Paleontological Fund...on behalf of the United States.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Ramirez spat as he waved his hands. “The arrangements are almost as bad as those fossil pirates stealing bones from us to sell to collectors. Mother Earth is not to be sold. Treasures gone and without the opportunity to study them.” Ramirez paused, appearing to mull over thoughts, then spoke in a softer tone. “At least these fossils will be studied properly. But first...we must repack them.”

  Relieved that the discussion was over, Nikki picked up several fossils closest to her and began the labor of making order out of chaos...starting with rewrapping the fossils in tinfoil and plaster.

  Remembering she hadn’t had coffee yet, Nikki looked to the coffee pot. “Damn. Empty.”

  Suddenly, Luis burst through the flaps, out of breath.

  “Señorita Ricks!” Luis gasped with a wheeze. “Señorita Ricks...come quick.” Luis gasped again, then sucked in a breath before wheezing out words Nikki could understand. “Dr. Anders is hurt. He needs help and calls for you to bring the medical kits.”

  “What happened?” Nikki asked as she stared at Luis. “How did he get hurt?”

  “I do not know, señorita,” Luis gasped, his thick accent filled with urgency. “But there is much blood.”

  Alarmed, Nikki looked around the tent for and quickly found the emergency medical kit near the front entrance, grabbed it then dashed out of the tent without saying a word anyone could understand. Cursing and angry that the day was just all wrong, with one surprise after another, and she hadn’t been awake yet an hour, Nikki recklessly ran to the quarry, slipping, sliding, trying to keep her balance as she went. She envisioned Dr. Anders lying in a pool of blood, dying or dead. Fifty yards away and uphill from the tents, Nikki had to slow to a trot from the pain in her chest and side. The air pressure at near 10,000 feet made it hard to breathe, even after weeks in the mountains. Ahead, the morning had not yet burned off the low-hanging mountain clouds, obscuring most things more than ten yards away. Walking into the mist, she heard muffled voices, barely audible over the pounding of blood in her ears. The voices grew louder and clearer as she approached the cloud-obscured quarry. She could see a ghostly outline of her own feet and vague shapes she took for rocks and bushes as she went. The mist was heavy today. She formed a mental image of the quarry as she had last remembered it, hoping to navigate the obstacles and hazards without tripping or hurting herself, but the image of a seriously injured Anders kept popping into her thoughts causing her to lose focus. Voices…yes, voices...ahead. Nikki shifted her focus to them then followed.

  She walked another thirty yards or more -- she wasn’t sure, with the voices getting louder with each step before seeing moving silhouettes, ghosts that soon took the form of her colleagues and the dig team’s workers. Most hovered and danced around a large rock, while several others were tending to Dr. Anders, sitting not far away on a smaller rock of his own. One of those looking after Anders, Jimmy Zahand, a wiry-built, dark-haired new graduate student, spotted Nikki and ran to her, snatching the medical kit from her hands without the slightest acknowledgment of her before returning to his patient.

  Anders yelped and growled at the peroxide Jimmy poured on his hand. Nikki was curious about his wound, and maneuvered so she could see. The entire front of Anders’ button-down light-blue shirt was soaked in blood from being used as a bandage. A lot of blood loss for a cut, Nikki thought. The front of his pants was soaked in crimson as well. Nikki started to feel guilty for not hurrying more than she had to get the medical kit there. Her stomach felt unsettled at the sight of so much blood, and she turned away, hoping to regain control of herself. She felt warm all over and feared fainting. She tried to focus on other things, anything and everything not red, so she would not topple. The morning mist was thinning rapidly, almost too fast, as it was penetrated by the rays of the morning sun. The mist usually took until mid-morning to burn off at this altitude, and she was surprised at the time when she looked at her watch...before 9:00 a.m. Nikki found herself really wanting her morning coffee.

  The scent of acetone was faint in the air. Nikki disliked the odor; it made her a bit nauseous when she got a good whiff of it, and it was making her condition worse now, but it helped preserve the fossil bones by hardening them before removal from the earth. She sought anything else to get her focus on…something that would make her feel better, instead of sending her to the dirt. She shifted her thoughts to the surrounding area and what it was so long ago.

  In the waning days of the dinosaurs, this area had been part of a vast inland lake system that connected to the sea and was dotted with rising terrain not much taller than several hundred feet, but now the skeleton of their monster of a creature lay on a rising slope tilted from the Andes mountain uplift over the last sixty million years. The rocky slope rose to the west at nearly a thirty-degree incline, extending almost 800 feet high, making the dig team’s work difficult and dangerous, not only from the many opportunities afforded each person to trip and fall, but also from falling rocks above the work area shaken loose by their activities or the occasional earthquake. Most of the team had injuries of some sort from the natural hazards, but they continued, excited about their discovery and the potential of being part of a historic find.

  The massive carnivore was buried facing the northeast. Its tail had been oriented higher on the slope than the skull, though they excavated the tail first...it was the first part of the skeleton found by a local group of workers, from the cement facility not far from here, while they hiked the area. They contacted Dr. Ramirez, one of only a handful of paleontologists working i
n Bolivia at the time. Dr. Anders had been visiting Ramirez also at that time, while on his way to the Valley of the Moon in Argentina. Doctors Ramirez and Anders both examined the find and determined it significant, though at that time they didn’t know just how significant. Dr. Anders convinced Carnegie University to make arrangements with the Bolivian government to be allowed to remove the skeleton and take it back to the United States for preparation, study, and display for a number of years.

  Nikki was uncertain of Dr. Anders’ long friendship with Ramirez, starting back before Anders’ graduate studies at Pitt University. As Nikki understood, it played a significant role in the negotiations, but in the end dollars sealed the deal. Just how many, given the devaluation of the US dollar, she didn’t know. Nikki was uncertain how she felt about paying for fossils. She considered it bad precedent, but this find was significant and the trustees wanted badly to rejuvenate the museum after it had been raided in the riots years earlier. They had, evidently, significant funds available to them -- from where, she didn’t know -- and used those funds to convince those needed to first conduct this dig, and then to bring the fossil finds back to the United States for study and display. The more they dug, the more everyone realized it was a monster find of great significance: the first tyrannosaur or tyrannosaur-hybrid found in South America, estimated some fifty feet long, as best they could tell so far, and the largest land predator to ever terrorize the Americas.

  Dr. Anders appeared at Nikki’s side with a grimace under his dark goatee. His dark hair was in disarray, with a blood streak where it looked like he had touched his head with his wounded hand. He was in pain, and held his bandaged hand gingerly. Nikki looked at the blood seeping through the bandage and asked, “Are you going to be okay?”

  “I’ll live,” Anders replied with an effort. “Damned thing is as sharp as a razor.”

  “What?” Nikki asked.

  “What I asked you out here to take a look at,” Anders grumbled. He grimaced when he forgot his injury and tried to point at Nikki. “You have the archeology background. Not me. And you took your time getting here. Had to have your crappy coffee?”

  “No!” Nikki was torn between embarrassment and anger being caught taking her time responding to Anders’ call.

  Anders wore a light veil of contempt when his gaze turned to her. “Come see this. I hope you actually studied archeology.”

  Angered at his accusation, Nikki opened her mouth to protest, but Anders had already turned away to climb the rocky slope rising almost ninety feet to where they were digging out the large skull, the last of the beast to be recovered. She started up the steep slope, wondering what she was to see. A new cranial configuration? Enlarged teeth? No, Anders was interested in her knowledge of archeology, not paleontology. What could it be? Nikki quickly felt her heart pounding hard in her ears and a side stitch growing painfully. She disliked this high altitude and longed for denser air. She slowed her ascent; her side stitch, pounding heart, and labored breathing grew worse as she negotiated the thirty-degree slope. Jimmy caught up with her halfway to the skull pit then climbed with her. He appeared to be sucking in air as badly as Nikki.

  With great relief, Nikki made it to the pit: a twenty-foot round oblong donut hole with the rock-encased skull in the middle, sitting on a rock pedestal. Piled up dirt and rock rimmed the pit, highest on the lower side. Several of the local porters working for Luis stood chest deep in the pit with shovel and pick in hand talking to Anders in their broken English. With her ears pounding with pumping blood, Nikki tried to suck air into her burning lungs as if she just ran a long sprint. She stood doubled over with hands on knees fighting off dizziness. She heard voices, but couldn’t make out the individual words or who spoke them for some time until the pounding lessened and her breathing became less labored.

  “Nikki!” Anders yelled. Startled, she jumped and almost slipped off her small perch allowing her feet an almost level place to support herself. “You aren’t going to die on me are you?”

  “I’ll be fine.” Nikki replied wheezing. “What is it...you want me...to see?”

  “Come over here to get a better look.” Anders more directed than asked. Nikki slowly and carefully made her way to where Anders stood in the pit, trying not to lose her footing and go tumbling down the hillside. While working her way across the slope on feet, knees, and hands, she felt a moist spot on the rocks where her left hand pressed. She ignored it until she felt secure in the pit. Her hand slick, she looked at it and found find her hand stained in blood. She gasped, “Yuck!”

  “Sorry about that.” Anders offered an apology. “I forgot to mention that I bled all over the place, so be careful where you step.”

  “Thanks,” Nikki replied sarcastically as she wiped her hand on a barren rock, removing much of the crimson, then her pants to finish up. “Okay. What is it that you want to show me?”

  “Look.” Anders pointed to the lower jaw region of the skull underneath near the rock pedestal the large mass of stone sat on.

  Crimson stains first caught Nikki’s attention. They were everywhere on the fossil and ground. Anders had bled more than she thought. Now, she wondered how he hadn’t passed out from blood loss. The head of the animal was huge. She didn’t understand just how massive it was until she was standing next to it. Somewhere between six and seven feet, as best Nikki could guess, and robust. It was and wasn’t like other tyrannosaur skulls. This head was robust, sturdy, and just massive, but longer and taller than any skull she knew. Thick brow and cranial ridges gave it a sinister look. The teeth looked every bit the size of her forearm, but with pointed…not blunt tips and serrated edges.

  “It looks to be a more robust form of tyrannosaur, from what I can tell, and it is in absolutely wonderful condition. Except, of course, for the blood stains.”

  “Yes, the skull confirms that we have a monster of a T.Rex-like animal, though ‘wonderful’ was not the word I would use to describe it,” Anders replied wryly. “More like...astonishing! I know we have one for the record books. Preliminary measurements show the skull at just a bit over six and half feet long, and more robust than any carnivore ever to walk the earth. Not even a spinosaur or a gig tops this one. And look at the teeth.” Anders ran the fingers of his uninjured hand over the surrounding rock and the teeth in the upper maxillary, which were proportionally huge. “More than a foot long, root and all, is my estimate. I can’t wait to get this treasure in the lab to examine.”

  Nikki looked at the teeth buried deeply in rock, and became puzzled. Nothing sharp enough to slice Anders’ hand was in sight. “How did you cut your hand? Those teeth aren’t sharp enough to cut you like this.”

  “Aaahhh, Hugo.” Anders greeted Hugo Ramirez with a tone of professional and personal respect. Ramirez had followed Nikki, and just completed his climb to their location. “I see you came for the unveiling of history.”

  “No, Shawn,” Ramirez replied between wheezes. Despite living at these altitudes most of his life, he too was winded by the climb. “I came to check on you, my friend. I see you aren’t injured so badly since you are standing and yapping away, as usual.”

  “Don’t worry about me, old friend,” Anders replied with a wide smile. “I’ll be getting stitches...lots of them, but it was worth it.”

  “Want to explain?” Ramirez replied with raised eyebrows.

  “Jimmy, would you please remove the rock cover?” Anders asked quietly without breaking his eye contact with his friend. Nikki swore Anders’ smile couldn’t get any bigger.

  “Yes, professor.” Jimmy obediently responded as if he had been Dr. Anders’ assistant forever. Jimmy positioned himself above the skull then carefully reached down to remove two rock fragments a little larger than his outstretched hand. When he removed the second piece of rock, a bright bluish reflection from the sun’s peeking rays set on the skull, momentarily blinding Nikki. She shielded her eyes until they adjusted to the glint. She then saw it. Blue metal. In the form of a blade buried at a perpendicula
r angle in the lower maxillary of the skull. The blade ended with a handle, and what looked to be fossilized remains of a grip wrapping. A sword?

  “What the hell is that?” Nikki asked, astonished.

  “That’s what I asked you here to tell me, since you have the archeology background,” Anders replied in a quivering boyish tone. His childlike excitement threatened to overwhelm him. “A new era in history and understanding of our past, I expect? While we were clearing the earth around the skull, this section of rock broke away when Jimmy and I tried to shift the skull. My hand brushed the edge of the blade -- just touched it, really -- and it sliced me open pretty badly. The blade looks of incredible quality, and appears unaffected after sixty-five million years encased in rock.”

  Anders fell silent looking at the skull with the blue metal blade embedded in it. His gaze then shifted from Ramirez to Nikki to Jimmy, as if wanting to hear each of them congratulate him on the find. Nobody spoke, nor even noticed him -- except for Nikki, who opened her mouth several times as if to speak, then closed it without speaking. Anders’ excitement threatened to burst from his usual calm demeanor. “Do you know what this could indicate?” he asked.

  “I don’t understand,” Nikki finally said, confused. Anders looked disappointed at Nikki’s response. “How did that... sword...get there? Humans didn’t live while dinosaurs existed, and dinosaurs didn’t live past the KT boundary.” Nikki looked at Anders, then Jimmy, then Anders again. She then smiled and placed her fists on her hips. “Okay…great practical joke, guys. You almost had me fooled. Almost. But you overdid it with the blood. Really, did you have to kill one of those stinky llamas to get enough blood to spread around just to make it look good? Everyone knows I’m not fond of the stinking animals, but really, how cruel can you be?”

  “Nikki!” Anders was taken aback. His nose scrunched up above tightened lips and his eyes became horizontal slits. Nikki just stared back at him waiting for an answer. “We...did no such thing, and I’m offended you could think me capable of such a thing. This is real...as real as it gets. Come over here and look for yourself.”