Chronal Engine

by Greg Leitich Smith

  Paleobiology

  I’ve always liked dinosaurs. One of the first books I remember owning was part of a nonfiction collection on dinosaurs that my parents gave me when I was in the first grade. Back then dinosaurs were regarded as big, dumb, slow-moving reptiles. What was called Brontosaurus was thought to live in swamps because it needed water to support its great bulk.

  In the 1970s and 1980s, though, building on his own work as well as that of a handful of others, paleontologist Robert T. Bakker popularized the idea of warm-blooded, fast-moving dinosaurs. This image has been cemented in the public consciousness with the Jurassic Park books and movies, and the BBC television series Walking with Dinosaurs.

  The science of dinosaur paleontology is changing every day. Almost weekly, new discoveries of dinosaurs and dinosaur behavior make the news.

  This leaves a great deal of room in which a fiction writer can maneuver. At the same time, however, verisimilitude requires the development of a complete ecosystem and that attention be paid to the current scientific understanding of dinosaur behavior and appearance.

  In writing Chronal Engine, I have tried to hew closely to what I could glean of this understanding. Where there is controversy, I have chosen what I hope is a view that is plausible and that also lends itself best to the story.

  Chronal Engine is set in North America during the Late Cretaceous, between about sixty-five and seventy-five million years ago. During that period, dinosaurs were the dominant land animals. The weather was relatively hot and humid, and oxygen levels were slightly lower than today. The seas were higher. Owing to continental drift, South America was separated from North America; and Eurasia and North America were linked by land. The central portion of North America was covered by a shallow inland sea.

  Much of the flora, though, would be recognizable to a modern visitor. The dominant plant forms were conifers—such as sequoias, redwoods, monkey puzzles, yews, and dawn redwoods—as well as ferns, cycads, and ginkgoes. Cypresses and cedars were also present. Flowering plants were developing, and trees such as dogwood, magnolia, birch, poplar, and sycamore were appearing. Rushes, lilies, and cattails had evolved, and ferns occupied many of the niches that would be occupied by grasses today.

  Broadly speaking, the dinosaurs and other creatures specifically named in Chronal Engine reflect genera that were present in western North America in the Late Cretaceous. In particular, much of the fauna is based on the Late Cretaceous Javelina and Aguja Formations of Texas and the Ojo Alamo and Upper Kirtland Formations of New Mexico. Nevertheless, certain geographic and biostratigraphic liberties have been taken.

  Mammals were generally small, rodent-like creatures and are believed, for the most part, to have been nocturnal. Snakes and bees appeared during this era. Centipedes, scorpions, crayfish, turtles, frogs, spiders, and segmented worms were also present.

  Sauropods, which were the dominant herbivores of the Jurassic, were largely extinct in North America by the Late Cretaceous, although they were present elsewhere, and fossils of the Late Cretaceous sauropod Alamosaurus have been found in the American Southwest. Recent finds suggest that Alamosaurus was one of the largest sauropods of all time.

  The highly successful iguanodonts had largely been succeeded by hadrosaurs, such as Lambeosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Corythosaurus, Anatotitan, Edmontosaurus, and Maiasaura. The stegosaurs were extinct.

  Tyrannosaurs—such as Tyrannosaurus rex, Albertosaurus, and Daspletosaurus—were the dominant land predators. As of this writing, there is controversy over whether Nanotyrannus is actually a separate species or simply a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex. However, Nanotyrannus-sized tyrannosaurs (Alioramus and Alectrosaurus) are known from Late Cretaceous Asia, and a similarly small tyrannosaur (Teratophoneus) was recently discovered from Late Cretaceous Utah.

  Smaller “raptors,” or dromaeosaurs (like Aki), such as Dromaeosaurus and Bambiraptor, were also present, although the larger genera, such as Deinonychus and Utahraptor, appear to have been extinct.

  Other dinosaurs mentioned in Chronal Engine or extant in Late Cretaceous North America include Troodon (related to the dromaeosaurs), the armored ankylosaurs, the feathered oviraptorosaurs, the ostrich-like Ornithomimus, and the small alvarezsaur, Albertonykus. Horned dinosaurs like Triceratops, Torosaurus, and the smaller Leptoceratops were abundant.

  Non-dinosaurian reptiles referenced include the crocodilian Deinosuchus and the azhdarchid pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus, both of which have been found in the Big Bend area of Texas.

  Birds, which are believed to have descended from a dinosaur ancestor, were diversifying. Some still had teeth.

  The dinosaur footprints at Max’s grandfather’s ranch are based on the many fossil track ways found throughout Texas and, particularly, on the famous tracks found in the 1930s in Glen Rose, Texas, now a part of Dinosaur Valley State Park. Other sections of these tracks may be seen at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and at the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin.

  I’ve located Max’s grandfather’s ranch in Bastrop County near McKinney Roughs Nature Park, although in reality that area is not known to be a source of Cretaceous dinosaur fossils or tracks. Like the ranch, St. Joseph’s Hospital is fictional.

  Many resources were consulted in the course of writing this novel, including several hundred journal papers reflecting current research (freely available online).

  An excellent, thorough, and accessible reference is Thomas R. Holtz’s Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages (2007). A-to-Z dinosaur encyclopedias are available from Dorling-Kindersley, National Geographic, Lorenz Books, and Firefly Press.

  The Indiana University Press series Ancient Life was also invaluable and includes such titles as Eggs, Nests, and Baby Dinosaurs: A Look at Dinosaur Reproduction (1999); Oceans of Kansas: A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea (2005); The Complete Dinosaur (1997); Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Tyrant King (2008); and King of the Crocodylians: The Paleobiology of Deinosuchus (2002).

  Gregory S. Paul et al.’s The Scientific American Book of Dinosaurs: The Best Minds in Paleontology Create a Portrait of the Prehistoric Era (2000), George Poinar et al.’s What Bugged the Dinosaurs?: Insects, Disease and Death in the Cretaceous (2008), and Louis L. Jacobs’s Lone Star Dinosaurs (1995) also provided valuable insights into paleoecology.

  Philip J. Currie et al.’s Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (1997) and David B. Weishampel et al.’s The Dinosauria, 2nd ed. (2004), are comprehensive but probably of interest only to a professional paleontologist. Anthony J. Martin’s Introduction to the Study of Dinosaurs, 2nd ed. (2006), and Spencer G. Lucas’s Dinosaurs: The Textbook, 5th ed. (2008) are useful introductory college texts.

  Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska et al.’s Mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs: Origins, Evolution, and Structure (2004) and T. S. Kemp’s The Origin and Evolution of Mammals (2005) provide sophisticated and graduate-level treatments of Cretaceous mammals.

  Acknowledgments

  This novel has been a long time in the making.

  First, thanks to all the paleontologists who study and write and blog, and whose work and theories I was able to use to create the world of Chronal Engine. Any errors are, of course, my own.

  I’d like to thank Anne Bustard for her questions on an early draft (“Does the gym teacher really need to be eaten?”).

  I also must thank my wife, Cynthia, for her support and willingness to visit every natural history museum in every city we’ve been to these last few years and her patience in watching paleo-related documentaries and pseudo-documentaries on TV and listening to me rant about them (“That would never happen!”).

  Finally, thanks to my agent, Ginger Knowlton, and my editor, Daniel Nayeri, for coming along on this jungle cruise to the Age of Reptiles.

  Chapter I

  Nate

  LABOR DAY WEEKEND, 1985

  “IT’S A RACE,” NATE TOLD HIS BROTHER. “THE POINT IS TO RACE!”

  The pair had just finished
their heat in double sculls in the Labor Day Regatta on the Colorado River in Bastrop, Texas. Their boat, the Velociraptor, rested upside down on stands in front of the boathouse. The pair was hurriedly wiping it down to clear it out of the way of the high school crews.

  The race itself had gone well, and the brothers had made it through to finals tomorrow. They didn’t make it as the lead boat, though, and as far as Nate was concerned, that was because Brady had slacked off at about the three-quarter mark.

  “The point is to win,” Brady answered, gesturing with his rag. “The heats don’t matter.”

  Nate made a choking sound and resisted the urge to strangle his brother. Not for the first time. The two were fraternal twins, and people said they saw the family resemblance only after they were told this. In contrast to everyone else in the family except their mother, Brady was blond and gray eyed. He was also the only one of the family who didn’t need corrective eyewear. And he was good at almost everything, which only sometimes bothered Nate. Strangely enough, most people who met Brady liked him.

  But to Nate, the bigger issue was that this was going to be their last regatta together. Brady had announced last night that he was giving up rowing to join the football team. “The hours are better,” he’d said. “And so are the girls.”

  Nate tossed his rag into its bucket. “And what’s wrong with winning the heats?”

  “Nate,” his brother said, with not quite a sigh, “I knew we were going to make it, so why burn ourselves out ahead of finals tomorrow, when it actually matters?”

  Nate didn’t answer as they loaded Velociraptor onto its rack and looked out at the frenzy on the docks, where teams were lining up to put their boats in the water.

  Just to the north of the boathouse, along the river, a temporary grandstand had been erected in City Park for the event. It was filled to capacity with fans and spectators. More well-wishers were pressing at the barricades to yell congratulations and watch the crews come off the water.

  “I didn’t see him—did you?” Nate finally asked, scanning the mass of people. Their father had said he was going to come to the regatta, then celebrate with them afterward. They were supposed to be going into Austin for dinner at Threadgill’s and to hear the Lofty Pigs play live. “Was he in the stands?”

  “I was concentrating on rowing,” Brady replied. “You know, because it was a race.”

  Nate didn’t reply. Neither of them said a word as they headed into the locker room to shower and clean up.

  It was supposed to have been only the second time in about seven years that their father emerged from the family ranch. The first time was two months ago, just after the Fourth of July. He’d taken Brady, Nate, and their sister, Ernie, into downtown Bastrop to see Back to the Future. To Nate’s embarrassment, halfway through, he got them kicked out of the Pegasus Theatre when he started talking loudly and at length about how Dr. Emmett Brown had gotten it all wrong and was a menace. He’d even recited differential equations.

  Nate figured he would still be hearing about this from everyone in town five years from now, when he graduated from Bastrop High West and left the state of Texas entirely, for anyplace that hadn’t heard of the Chronal Engine, the family time machine.

  Their father spent most of his days and nights working on it and obsessing over it.

  According to family lore, Nate’s Great-Grandpa Pierson, nicknamed “Mad Jack,” had invented the Chronal Engine and had used it to defeat the Nazis. Nate wasn’t clear on the details of exactly how the time machine had won the war, since history books tell the story differently, but the Chronal Engine itself was about the size of a minivan, took up much of the basement, and had lights and dials that sometimes lit up randomly for no reason he could see.

  Despite himself, Nate was a little surprised his father wasn’t at the regatta. He’d gone out of his way to say he’d come, even though he thought sports were for fools and the people who watched them were ninnies. So on top of being angry at Brady for his performance, Nate was mad at their dad. He was also kind of mad at himself for hoping his father might be starting to let go of the craziness.

  Their sister, Ernie, also wasn’t there, though, and that was unusual. The three had established a kind of solidarity, supporting one another even if their father didn’t, especially since losing their mom in a car accident three years ago. She went to the boys’ regattas and recitals and Brady’s science fairs, and the twins went to her academic decathlons and track meets. It worked out, mostly, although slightly less regularly now that she’d started dating that idiot Jacob Takahashi. He was on the football team, and Nate really wanted to bludgeon him with an oar.

  But apart from the fact that their father had promised he’d be here and wasn’t, the boys didn’t have a way home.

  Nate tried calling their dad using the pay phone in the boathouse, but all he got was the answering machine.

  “He’s probably on his way,” Brady said.

  “Right,” Nate answered, slamming the receiver down. It was possible. In the same way it was possible he could win the lottery while getting struck by lightning. Twice.

  “He’s working,” Brady said, as if working on a time machine was perfectly normal.

  The pair spent the next couple of hours helping the organizers clean up the boathouse and grounds and prepare for tomorrow. As always, Brady stayed calm while Nate stewed. By sunset, their father still wasn’t there and there still wasn’t an answer on the home phone.

  As Nate hung up, swearing loudly and expressively, Brady reprimanded him for cursing, and the rowing-team coach approached.

  “Next time,” Coach Halverson said, “maybe your dad can use that time machine of his to pick you up on time.” He laughed that hearty and annoying laugh he used to make people think he was joking. “Can I give you kids a lift?”

  Brady shrugged. Nate nodded because they didn’t really have much of a choice.

  The twins were silent most of the way home—Brady didn’t really like the coach, and Coach Halverson jabbered enough for three people, anyway. This time, he talked about how in high school the boys’ dad used to be normal. Back then, it was their dad’s father, Samuel Pierson, who had been the eccentric. Nate grunted in the right places and, every now and then, wiped imaginary dust off his glasses with the end of his T-shirt.

  Finally, they got to the ranch, and Coach Halverson turned down the winding, tree-lined road that led up the hill to their house.

  Almost before the truck had come to a stop adjacent to the stairs leading to the porch, Nate jumped out and said through clenched teeth, “Thanks!”

  Without waiting for Brady, Nate turned and climbed the steps. Coach Halverson waved and spun the wheels and roared off. It actually had been good of the coach to come all the way out here to the ranch, Nate admitted to himself. Of course, that was as much because he wanted the twins (Brady, mostly) on the team next year as anything else. Nate hadn’t really needed or wanted to be reminded, though, that their dad was just the latest member of the family to be widely known as the town freak.

  Still, Nate figured Mad Jack Pierson must’ve had something going for him. He was Nate and Brady’s great-grandfather and the one who’d bought the three-thousand-acre ranch and built the house in the 1890s. It was a twelve-thousand-square-foot Texas Victorian perched on a hill between Austin and Bastrop and in the shadows of the Lost Pines. It had given him space for his time travel experiments without interference from neighbors, and there was enough land for his own power plant to run the Chronal Engine.

  Nate opened the leaded glass door and wiped his feet on the doormat, not bothering to remove his shoes. At that point, he didn’t care that if their housekeeper, Frau Lindenhofer, saw him, she’d give him grief about dirt on the hardwood. Of course, it was late enough that she was probably already upstairs, watching the soap operas she recorded every day on videocassette. The front of the house was dark, with only a small table lamp lit in the parlor.

  Straight down the hall to the back
, behind the closed kitchen door, Nate and Brady heard frantic barking.

  “Thor!” Nate yelled, picking up the pace. When he opened the kitchen door, he was nearly bowled over by eighty pounds of golden retriever.

  The next few minutes were occupied by the vigorous petting and scratching of dog. Then Nate grabbed a much-slobbered-over plush toy stegosaur from the hallway floor and threw it toward the front. Thor bounded after it, claws clicking and skittering on the wood.

  “Dad must be downstairs,” Brady observed as Thor returned with his toy. “He told me yesterday he was near a breakthrough with the Recall Device.”

  Nate rolled his eyes.

  According to their dad, the Chronal Engine itself remained fixed in time and space, while the time traveler could operate the machine remotely using these baseball-size things Mad Jack had unimaginatively called Recall Devices. The problem was, it had been years since anyone had seen a Recall Device in the wild. Their father had convinced himself that he could build one, though, and he was perpetually nearing the necessary breakthrough. But who built any kind of machine that could be operated only from a remote control?

  As Nate opened the door, Brady grabbed his arm. “Don’t.”

  Nate shook free and plunged on, stomping down the stairs. The last time he’d been down there, his dad had complained that he’d startled him, ruining three hours of work. Thor raced ahead. Brady followed.

  They called the basement “the workshop,” but it looked more like a library. The Chronal Engine—lights glowing—occupied one side, and an array of oak bookshelves and file cabinets lined the walls. A burgundy and gold Oriental rug covered the floor. At the far end, French doors opened to the patio, with its barbecue pit and smoker.

  Their father was where he usually was, at the library desk, which was about the size of an aircraft carrier. A pile of tiny parts and a set of watchmaker’s tools were arranged in front of him on the blotter. He wore a jeweler’s loupe over his right eye and held a tiny screwdriver in one hand and, in the other, a small round object made of glass and brass. A fine-tip soldering iron sat next to him on the desktop.