by Chuck Dixon
He waited, eyes locked on the high drift. Shifting left and right over the front sight of the shotgun. He kept his finger resting on the trigger guard. Dwayne was only supposed to discharge the twelve gauge loaded with slugs if the cat made it into the ring of fires. He was bait. The kill shot belonged to the SEAL watching from somewhere in the dark. The wind shifted, and piney smoke found its way up his nose. He shut his eyes and fought down the urge to cough. His throat spasmed. He swallowed hard. One cough would bring an agony that would drop him to his knees, making him helpless. He lowered his head and bit down hard to fight the reflex back. His eyes swam with tears that blurred the image coming through the lenses. He tore the NODs rack from his head.
A rifle shot sounded behind him. Then a second and third.
“Contact left!” Boats’ voice boomed behind him.
Dwayne turned in time to see the tiger loping easy through the wreath of smoke. The cat stopped as though surprised to see him. Its tawny fur was matted with dark blood along one side. It shook its head, causing crimson-flecked foam to fly from its fangs before setting its baleful gaze on Dwayne. The eyes were the size of silver dollars in the flickering light and a hand-length apart. Even though it was smaller than the male he’d faced earlier in the day, Dwayne was taken aback by the size and power of the animal. It seemed impossibly huge.
The muscles quivered along its flanks as it lowered its head.
Dwayne didn’t bother raising the shotgun to his shoulder. He fired and pumped and was about to fire again. Something struck him between the shoulders, and he fell hard to the sand on his right. A fresh spear of pain burned into his side.
He was fighting to remain conscious. Boats stood over him, bellowing to match the roar of the charging cat. The M4 in his fist was stabbing the night with flame. In the quavering light, the eagle tattooed on the SEAL’s arm looked like it was flapping furiously to stay aloft.
Dwayne saw it all strobing in slow motion as he struggled against the night closing in around him. The night won in the end as the dark shut everything out but the staccato explosions and animal shrieks. Even they died away into the silence, leaving him to wonder which predator was making those ungodly noises.
He rose out of the darkness to the sound of lapping water. He lay back on a surface that was gently rising and falling. With an exhausting effort, he raised his head. Boats stood above him, piloting the Titan under a blue sky.
“Your blood,” Dwayne croaked.
“What’s that, brother?” Boats turned from the wheel.
“Thought it was your blood. On the cat.”
“I winged it on the fly. Put one through a lung.”
“Oh,” was all Dwayne could manage.
“Sorry for checking you, bro. You were between me and the target.”
“We’re going back?” Dwayne’s mouth was all cotton.
“Yeah. The Taubers have a little surprise for us.” The SEAL grinned.
Dwayne pursed his lips to speak. His tongue felt like it had an anchor lying on it.
“Hey, I shot you up with painkillers. Why don’t you let me do the driving while you enjoy the ride?”
Dwayne decided to do just that.
15
Hard Cheese
“This is your kind of country, Jimmy,” Chaz said.
Jimbo shook his head. “Naw. No horses.”
“Looks like horse country to me,” Chaz said. “Beautiful horse country. But no horses. Not here. Only horses in the world right now are in Asia. The ones that were here were the size of dogs. They died out millions of years ago. I saw them in the books.
“So we walk.” Chaz shrugged.
“That’s what soldiers do. Hump. Hump. Hump.” Jimbo led the way.
The team reached the open country after two days of picking their way through the San Gabriels. Heavy rain turned their chosen trail into a rushing mountain stream. They climbed above it to follow a goat track through a higher altitude. After two nights of wet camps, they came down the other side in the general area of what would be Victorville someday. Instead of a high desert of rocks and sand, there was a rolling prairie of tall grass that stretched east as far as they could see.
It rained. A lot. The only difference was whether it rained all day or part of the day. Even the days that began dry with clear skies. By afternoon, clouds would form against the distant Pahute Mesa and drop anything from a light drizzle to a steady downpour on them. Water wasn’t going to be a problem for them here. Every depression turned to a waterhole, and every waterhole presented its own dangers. The rich grassland was home to dozens of species of animals. The variety of avian life alone was a distraction. Birds of all sizes and colors moved over the stalks in dizzying patterns, snapping up bugs or feeding on seeds. Wingless species hopped and skittered underfoot.
Of the larger creatures, the mammoths were easiest to avoid since the team could spot them moving slowly, towering above the tops of the grass. Chaz and Jimbo had experience with the huge elephants from their first trip back to The Then. They adjusted their path to give the shaggy monsters a wide berth.
The drone revealed other wildlife hidden by grass or grazing deep in hollows. There were camel-like herbivores and tiny deer. They even saw something that could be best described as a furry rhinoceros. The most problematic was a species of long-horned bison. They looked like a Texas steer crossed with a buffalo. The scale app on the drone put them at ten foot at the shoulder. Monsters.
Jimbo worked the controller to drop the drone for a closer look. A big bull raised his head from grazing to see what was buzzing just above him. The eyes of the animal were rimmed in white and staring right into the drone’s lens. The bull snorted and bucked and turned its head to gouge the air with its six-foot horns. Jimbo pulled the drone up to take in a broader area. The bull bucked and kicked and gored the cow closest to it. The curved horn stabbed deep into the cow’s ribs. Gushing blood, it took off into the heart of the packed herd. That began a general panic that set the herd running.
Though the stampede was miles away, the team could feel a tremor through their feet.
“Which way are they moving?” Bat asked, glancing east toward a cloud of yellow dust rising in the sky.
“Away from us. We’re okay here,” Jimbo said, eyes on the monitor set on his controller. He pulled the drone up to one thousand feet. The charging bison filled the screen, countless animals on the hoof rushing over the rough ground in an unstoppable panic. The herd numbered in the tens of thousands. The head of the stampede was twenty acres across. Nothing in its way could possibly survive that panicked flight.
Lee said, “We’re going to have to keep an eye on them. Any way to predict their movements?”
“Well, even though most critters here are bigger in size than we’re used to, they have smaller brains than the animals we know. They’re more primitive, more specialized. The simplest way to think about it is to think of the animals we know only back here they’re bigger, dumber, and meaner,” Jimbo said, eyes on the horizon watching the drone grow from a speck against the sky.
“So, best advice?” Lee said.
“We make avoiding the herds of those bastards our first priority. We get in the way of one of their rushes, and there’s nowhere to run and no place to hide.” Jimbo brought the drone in for a landing.
“Anything else we need to look out for?” Chaz said.
A yipping sound came from the other side of a hummock. It was joined by others and grew to an extended howling sound that receded away toward the cloud of dust dropping away to the north.
“Everything.” Jimbo shrugged.
They chose the crest of a hill to make camp. The high ground provided them some protection from whatever prowled outside the feeble light of their campfire. Beyond that, the tundra was a flowing silvery sea under a half-moon hanging above, magnified by the dense atmosphere to appear unnaturally large.
The campfire was a sad thing. Byrus built it for them from greasewood he uprooted from around a muddy
wallow. It provided more smoke than fire. When it burnt down to embers, the heat was just enough to warm the water they needed to rehydrate their meal packs.
Lee stood first watch using NODs lenses.
“What can you see?” Bat asked. She’d come from the fire to hand him a mug of lukewarm coffee.
“Some kind of dogs. They checked us out and went back into the grass,” Lee said.
He didn’t tell her they left two of their number behind. The pack numbered at least the forty-four he could count. Two males sat at the foot of the hill with glowing silver eyes fixed on Lee. They had lean bodies like coyotes but broader heads with short snouts packed with teeth. They sat panting in the heat and sniffing the air as if they were waiting for a treat.
“This is a lonely place,” Bat said, patting down grass with her boots and taking a seat by him.
“You like lonely places. I’ve spent more time camping in Godforsaken places with you than I did in the Army.”
“That’s different. I can be in the mountains or the desert and know there’s still people, cities, malls.”
“Your problem is there’s no shopping here?” Lee said. He turned to look down at her, ghostly in the artificial light coming through his lenses. She punched his knee playfully.
“Don’t be a smartass. You know what I mean. This place. It’s alien. Or we’re alien in it. There’s nothing we know here. In the whole world, there’s no one like us and won’t be for a long time. It’s not like when we went back to Roman Judea. There were people there.”
“They weren’t like us, Bat.”
“Sure they were. They were like us in every way that’s important.” She turned to look up at him, a purple shadow against the black sky.
“I guess that’s why we’re here.” Lee turned, twin lenses flashing.
“Yeah?”
“Imagine how lonely Renzi is,” he said.
“You think we’ll run into more of those big cats?” Chaz said, scraping the last of some rice pilaf with chicken from the pack in his hand.
“I’m sure there’s some out here. Not sure they’ll mess with us,” Jimbo said. The Pima sat sharpening the long blade of his knife on a whetstone. Byrus laid curled up and fast asleep by the fire, his hands wrapped around the haft of the spear.
“Why not?”
“That male tiger Dwayne killed? It had a bad tooth. Remember the broken tusk I pulled? Probably sick with pain. Thing like that slows a predator down. They take to hunting smaller prey or wounded animals.”
“I think I read that somewhere.” Chaz nodded and took the last spoonful in his mouth.
“There’s so much game on the ground here. Like a buffet for an animal that big. They’d rather bring down one of those buffalo or a camel than mess with us.”
“We’re like that last piece of cold pizza in the fridge when your hangover’s so bad you can’t think of leaving the house,” Chaz said, licking the spoon clean.
“Week-old piece of pepperoni with the cheese hard as clay left in the box on the counter.”
“That bad?”
“Man survived because we emit pheromones that smell bad to most animals. Only animal that can really stand to be around us are dogs. Only animal that will eat us is one that’s too old, too sick, or too slow to kill something else.” Jimbo aimed a stream of spit onto the sharpening stone.
A series of yips turned into a mournful keening somewhere out in the dark.
“Like those dogs?” Chaz said, nodding toward the sound as more throats joined the invisible chorus.
“No, brother. Those dogs will try for us as soon as they get their courage up.” Jimbo slid the blade back and forth across the stone in a whispering rhythm.
Byrus, lying near the fire, farted long and loud without waking.
Jimbo winced. “Well, maybe not Bruce.”
16
The Babysitter
The chopper, an Alouette painted in an outrageous scheme of Day-Glo lime green and screaming blue, settled onto the makeshift helo-deck that the Raj’s crew fashioned from plywood and bolted down atop the mountain of Conex boxes stacked on the main deck.
Dwayne fought about getting on the gurney, but Caroline insisted.
“You want me to knock you flat with some more painkillers?” she said.
“All right. I’ll be a good patient,” he said and allowed the paramedics off the chopper to strap him in tight.
A call had been made to a reliable off-the-books clinic in Mexico. They had a team ready to take x-rays and scans and fit Dwayne with a cast if needed or surgery if it came to that. Caroline had a handbag full of cash and was going with him, but first, she had some directions for Boats.
“The line is open now for a constant, direct digital signal through a permanent field opening,” she said hastily.
“You rig that up since we left?” the SEAL said.
“By our reckoning, it’s been two weeks since you manifested. We had downtime to do some tinkering. Morris came up with the idea. The next time the team checks in tell them about it. It allows for voice, text, and data and operates just like any transmitter.”
“Morris can run me through it.”
“Morris is away for a few days. Something came up he has to take care of. Thanks for bringing Dwayne back in one piece.” She rose on tiptoes to kiss his furry cheek before running for the open bay door of the chopper as they finished loading her husband. The EMY+Ts helped her on board and pulled the hatch shut.
Boats backed away from the cyclonic prop wash and watched the chopper go nose down south for the Mexican coast over the horizon.
“Shit. I forgot to ask who’s taking care of the baby,” the SEAL said.
17
Meet Mr. Taan
Morris Tauber found the address on a street shaded with mature junipers and poplars. There were older houses converted into apartments between squat apartment buildings from the 70s.
He chose a route from the airport that would take him through the Ball State campus on his way to Larry Fonseca’s place. Morris had never seen a state college before. His scholarships had taken him to the top schools in the United States and Europe. He drove past the usual neo-classical piles of marble and brick built a century ago.
There were also rec centers and natatoriums and an outdoor rock-climbing center. All was surrounded by acres of parking lots that reminded Morris more of a mall than a center for higher learning. He honestly couldn’t recall if any of the institutes he’d attended had any form of recreation. His grueling lecture and lab schedule had consumed all of his time. Whatever time was left over was spent at the library or on his laptop. Oxford might have had a miniature golf course and a go-cart track, and he’d never have known it.
He pulled the rental car into an empty slot before the two-story duplex. He pressed the button for apartment number three. The slapping of bare feet on stairs and the door was yanked open by the same young man who appeared smiling in pictures in all the stories about his amazing discovery.
“Yeah?” Larry Fonseca said. He wasn’t smiling now. His eyes were sunken and rimmed red. He wore a stretched-out concert t-shirt and sleep pants.
“I called earlier? Kenneth Armbruster,” Morris said.
“I already sold it,” the kid said and started to close the door.
“Already sold it?” Morris almost shouted it.
“Sorry.” The kid shrugged and continued to push the door closed.
Morris put a hand out to press the door open.
“You told me you’d sell it to me. I thought we had an agreement.”
“You got outbid. What can I say? Sorry.” The kid put a shoulder to the door, and it slammed hard enough to make the frame shudder. Footfalls climbed the stairs within.
Morris stood uncertain about what to do. Should he knock and bring Fonseca back to the door? Would the little bastard share with him the identity of the buyer?
He stepped off the front stoop to return to his rental. Maybe if he offered Fonseca some of the cash
from the stash packed in the steel briefcase in the trunk of the rental. Maybe then he’d cooperate. He now regretted not making a cash offer over the phone. The stupid kid probably sold it on eBay for peanuts. Morris was willing and able to go to seven figures.
With a fresh gush of courage, he turned to go back and pound on the door to number three until the kid came back. He wasn’t going back to Caroline empty-handed. Dwayne and the others could brave the horrors of the past and come back victorious. He should be able to fly to Indiana and back to buy a paleontological oddity.
“Dr. Tauber?” a polite voice said behind him.
An Asian man, Chinese or Japanese, in a splendidly tailored dark suit, stood on the walk with hands folded before him. He smiled at Morris from behind tinted glasses.
“You are Dr. Morris Tauber? Am I correct?” The man spoke in perfect English with a disconcerting trace of an Australian accent.
“Um…I am,” Morris answered.
A black SUV with deeply tinted windows sat on the street athwart the parking space where the rental sat. Morris turned from the polite man with the Paul Hogan accent.
A second Asian man, a much larger one in an equally splendid suit, emerged from around the corner of the duplex to block his way. This man was not smiling.
Morris stood between the men as they closed on him. He held up his hands.
“Look, I don’t have it. The kid said he sold it.”
“He did. He sold it to us,” the smiling man said.
“Okay. Then we’re done here, right? I’ll just walk away.”
“We would be pleased to offer you a ride,” the smiling man said. Behind him, a third man in a dark suit opened the rear door of the SUV and stood by with hands at his sides.