by Alex Scarrow
‘Or they’ve been and gone,’ added Whitmore. He looked at Liam. ‘We’ve got to go help the poor girl! She could be dying!’
‘… Please…’
Whitmore nodded across the clearing. ‘It came from over there.’ He grabbed a spear and turned to the others. ‘I’ll need help lifting her.’
Edward grabbed a spear and joined him. Howard and Juan did likewise.
‘OK,’ said Liam, ‘go get her.’ He turned to Laura, Akira and Jasmine. ‘We need this fire going again. Can you see to that? Big fire, all right? Big as you can make it.’ They both nodded. ‘And, Becks, we need that windmill contraption running.’
She nodded. ‘Affirmative.’
‘And, all of you,’ he called out, particularly to Whitmore and the others already jogging in the direction they hoped to find Keisha, ‘all of you, stay close together! No one goes on their own!’
He watched them go, four of them all armed with spears. In the jungle on their way back from laying down their clay tablets, they’d been infinitely more vulnerable to ambush, and yet the creatures had warily held back… only jumping Kelly, he presumed, because he’d been entirely on his own.
He looked anxiously around the clearing. The girls were just a dozen yards away working on the fire, and Becks merely thirty yards from him, busy trying to re-jig the windmill. Liam tried to think quickly. He wasn’t exactly alone here in the middle of the clearing, but he’d have felt happier having another one or two people standing right beside him. His eyes darted to the dark entrances of a couple of the nearby lean-tos, the small gateway to their palisade, possible hiding places. Possibly containing one or two of them.
Liam. Stay calm, Liam. Stay calm.
Broken Claw watched the new creatures approach. Four of them armed with their killing sticks.
He turned to the others, crouched nearby, and softly hissed for them to make ready. He turned towards the younger one, crouched next to him. The youngest ones of the pack were best at this particular skill — mimicking the calls of wounded prey — their voice-boxes being smaller, allowing them a much higher pitch, the shrill pitch of fear and desperation.
He clacked his claws gently, instructing the young one to do it once again.
The young female’s jaw opened, and her tongue and voice skilfully reproduced the cries the female new creature had been making earlier today as she lay dying from a fatal stomach wound.
‘… Help me… please…’
They changed direction, veering directly towards Broken Claw and the others, just a few dozen yards away now, stepping out of the clearing and into the darkness of the jungle. The new creatures seemed to have absolutely no sense of how close to danger they were, their small seemingly ineffective noses unable to detect the smells that filled Broken Claw’s nasal cavity: the smell of excitement from his pack, the smell of anticipation of a fine kill, the smell of their dark-skinned female brethren lying dead amid the ferns nearby — bled out hours ago.
How could they not smell any of this?
These creatures were either foolish or incapable of sensing all the warning signals in the air around them, stumbling blindly. Certainly — he understood this now — nothing for his pack to be wary of any more. He’d learned enough about them: that they were as vulnerable as the larger plant-eaters they usually hunted, more vulnerable, in fact, since they had neither their weight or strength to throw around.
And now… Broken Claw and several of the stronger males in his pack now possessed sticks-that-kill.
The four long digits on each of his hands tightened round the thick bamboo shaft. Broken Claw was determined to use his stick-that-kills on one of them as he had that older male earlier this morning up in the hills. A fascinating way of delivering death. An intriguing tool of death.
Juan stopped and pointed at a splotch of drying blood on the back of a broad waxy leaf.
‘Keisha!’ he called out. ‘You here?’
The four of them stood perfectly still, listening to the gentle hiss of shifting leaves above them and the fading echo of Juan’s voice.
‘Keisha!’ he called out again.
Then, very softly, not a crying-out voice trying to be heard across acres of jungle, but a soft whimpering close-by murmur. ‘… Please… help me…’
‘Where are you?’ asked Whitmore. ‘We can’t see you!’
‘… Help me…’
‘Where are you, Keisha? Can you see us?’
‘… Please… please…’
Juan cocked his head. ‘That don’t sound like her, man.’
Edward nodded. ‘She sounds kind of funny.’
‘… Sophia… run…’
Whitmore’s eyes narrowed. ‘Keisha?’
‘… They killed Jonah…’
Juan looked silently at the others. His face spoke for him. That really isn’t her.
Whitmore nodded and then slowly placed a finger to his lips. He waved his hands at them to back up the way they’d come. Fifteen… twenty yards of jungle, that’s all, then they’d be out in the clearing again.
They’d just begun to carefully retrace their steps when Juan suddenly convulsed, burping a trickle of blood down the front of his varsity sweatshirt. He looked slowly down at the six inches of sharpened bamboo tip that protruded from his belly.
‘Oh… oh, man…’ was about all he could say before his eyes rolled and his legs buckled beneath him.
Crouching behind Juan’s collapsed form was one of the bipedal creatures, its long head cocked with curiosity and its yellow eyes marvelling at the spear in its hands.
‘RUN!’ screamed Whitmore to the other two. ‘IT’S A TRAP!’
Howard and Edward turned on their heels to head back towards the clearing, only to face another pair of those creatures, springing seemingly out of nowhere. Howard lunged quickly with his spear, catching one of them in the thigh. The creature recoiled with a scream.
‘GO!’ screamed Howard, pushing Edward away from the creatures. Meanwhile, Whitmore found himself trapped by a closing circle of four of them.
‘You r-really… are… c-clever… aren’t you?’ he found himself babbling through trembling lips. A couple of them were holding spears just like he was holding his. ‘My G-God… you’ve learned f-fast… haven’t you?’
The creature that had speared Juan stepped over his body and approached Whitmore with an unsettling raptor-like bobbing movement. The creature barked an order to some more of its kind hiding in the undergrowth and Whitmore heard the thud of feet and the swish of branches flicked aside as several set off in pursuit of the other two boys.
Now it cocked its head, its yellow eyes drinking him in, eyes that burned with intelligence and curiosity and a thousand questions it probably wanted to ask, but hadn’t yet developed a sophisticated enough language to know how to ask.
‘I… I know… you can c-communicate…’ Whitmore babbled, his man’s voice broken and mewling now like a child’s. ‘S-s-so… can w-we. W-we’re the s-same. Y-you,’ he said slowly, pointing a shaking finger towards the creature. ‘M-me… me,’ he said, gesturing to himself. ‘We’re the s-same!’
Its long head protruded forward on the end of a fragile, almost feminine, neck.
‘Th-the same… the same,’ whimpered Whitmore. ‘Intelli-intelligent.’
Whitmore was only vaguely aware of his bladder letting loose, a warm trickle running down his left leg and soaking his sock. A small detail. A faraway detail. Right in front of his own face, only inches away, his world was this bony carapace of another face and yellow piercing reptile eyes that seemed to grow ever larger.
Its jaw snapped open, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth and a twisting, leathery black tongue that furled and unfurled like an angry snake in a cage.
Whitmore let go of his spear and it clattered to the ground between them. ‘Do… d-do you s-see? No n-no harm. I m-mean y-you no h-harm!’
The tongue twisted and coiled and Whitmore heard an odd facsimile of his own voice coming right back a
t him. ‘… No h-harm… the s-same
…’
He nodded. ‘Y-yes! Y-y-es! W-we-we’re intelli-’
Whitmore felt a punch to his chest. It winded him — like a medicine ball launched at his thorax. He gasped, spattering a fine spray of blood on to the creature’s expressionless face. He would have doubled over from the blow, but claws from behind were holding him up on his feet. The yellow eyes inches in front of him looked down at something. All of a sudden, feeling oddly dizzy and lightheaded, he decided the polite thing was to do the same.
And there it was in the palm of the creature’s hand, his own heart still dutifully beating away.
CHAPTER 66
65 million years BC, jungle
Howard and Edward stumbled through the jungle, skirting the clearing but unable to get to it because one of the creatures was deliberately blocking them.
‘Clever,’ wheezed Howard. Keeping them bottled up here amid tree trunks and dangling loops of vine, it prevented them making big sweeping strikes with their spear and hatchet; the blade or shaft was bound to get tangled or caught on something.
One beast was behind them and another to their left, preventing them from making their way to the encircling river… not that they’d be able to go anywhere. The pursuer behind them could easily have caught up, but he remained a steadfast dozen yards behind. He realized then that they were just wearing them out, pursuing the pair of them through the tangled undergrowth until they were certain they were spent and unable to offer much of a fight.
Howard stopped. Edward, who’d been supporting his weight on the right leg, gasped. ‘Uh? We got to run!’
Howard shook his head, finding his breath. ‘No… they’re playing with us. Herding us.’
All three of the hominids pursuing them came to a halt a dozen yards away on each side and waited patiently for their next move, yellow eyes peering at them through thin veils of dangling, looping vines.
Howard nodded to the clearing, the edge of it fifty yards to their right. The creature blocking that way had ducked down out of sight. ‘That’s the way we should be heading.’
Edward swallowed nervously. ‘But… one of th-those — ’
‘I know.’ He sucked in breath again. ‘He’s in there somewhere… but you have to make a break for it, run for the palisade.’
‘What about you?’
He shook his head. ‘I won’t make it… I can’t run… I’ll buy you time.’
‘You… y-you’ll die!’
Howard nodded, smiled even. ‘Sure, I figured that.’
Edward grabbed his arm. ‘We c-can both run!’
‘Don’t argue. There isn’t time for this. Listen.’ He grabbed the boy’s shoulder. ‘Run, save your life. Make it back home. But promise me something.’ He glanced over Edward’s shoulder; one of the creatures was shifting position, impatient for a kill and stepping closer. ‘Promise me to dedicate your talent to something else… not time travel, Edward… anything but time travel!’
Edward’s eyes were on the other two creatures.
‘Promise me!’
He nodded. ‘Yes! Y-yes… OK!’
‘No time travel, Edward. It’ll kill us all; it’ll destroy the world… God help us, perhaps even the universe. Do you understand?’ he said, shaking the boy’s shoulder.
The creatures inched warily closer, long athletic legs gracefully stepping over the uneven jungle floor towards them, their lean bodies bobbing with coiled energy.
‘Please…’ he hissed. ‘Please tell me you understand.’
Edward’s eyes met his. He was crying. ‘Yes… I p-promise. I promise!’
Howard ruffled his hair. ‘Good.’ He took the hatchet in one hand and grasped the spear in the other.
‘Now, when I say,’ he said softly, ‘you run, Ed. You run for all it’s worth. You understand?’
The boy nodded.
Howard could see the creature between them and the clearing now. Its head bobbed up and ducked behind a large fern, no longer trying to hide, but clearly still very wary of them.
Good. Then he’d take advantage of that.
‘Ready?’ he whispered.
Edward nodded silently. His cheeks shone with tears; his lips clamped shut, trembling.
Without any warning Howard roared ‘Waaarrghhhh!’ and charged forward towards the creature cowering behind the fern. The creature leaped back, an almost comical bunny hop of surprise as Howard crashed through the undergrowth towards it. He stumbled through a cluster of ferns, swinging his hatchet at the creature as it recoiled, still off balance. The jagged blade caught something and the creature screamed.
Howard spun round and reached for Edward. ‘GO!’ he shouted, grabbing the scruff of his collar and pulling him forward. ‘GO, GO, GO!’ He pushed the boy forward with a rough punch to the small of his back.
Edward scrambled past the writhing creature, across a dozen yards of stunted plants and thinning saplings, ducking loops of thorny vines that promised to snarl his throat like barbed wire.
The boy was fast and agile and small enough to make a better job of dodging the jungle obstacles. Howard turned his attention to the creature beside him, snapping and clacking teeth as it got to its feet and warily circled him, leaking dark blood from the gash on its leg.
I’m ready for this, he told himself. I’m ready for this. I’m ready. I’m ready. I’m ready to die.
His mantra back in the lab, back when he was approaching Edward Chan and fingering the gun in his bag. He’d been ready to die then for a cause only a few seemed to truly understand. He was just as ready to die now.
Just as long as the boy keeps his promise.
There was no knowing, but instinct, hope… told Howard that Edward had seen enough of the nightmare of time travel for himself to know that his unique talent could never be allowed to find its voice.
And that’s all that matters. Right?
Howard stared down the creature in front of him. ‘Mission completed,’ he uttered to himself with a growing smile spread across his boyish face.
‘Come on, then, ugly,’ he said, advancing on the thing just as the leaves behind him shuffled and swayed with the arrival of the other two, ready to finish him off.
CHAPTER 67
2001, New York
They returned to the archway and Forby wound the shutter down again.
‘So,’ said the man as he shouldered his assault rifle and cranked the handle. ‘What I don’t get is if this is still a version of the year 2001 how come those dino-humans out there aren’t a lot more advanced?’
Maddy and Sal looked at each other. ‘I dunno,’ said Maddy. ‘I’m no anthropologist.’
‘It’s a good question, Forby,’ said Cartwright. He turned round and crouched to get one last look out at the rainforest version of the Hudson River delta, and the far-off cluster of rounded huts on the muddy banks of Manhattan island. ‘A good question… and I’ll hazard a guess. They’re a dead-end branch of evolution.’
Forby looked at him. ‘Sir?’
‘Those things out there — ’ he flicked a finger out at the narrowing window of alternative world outside — ‘if they really are the direct descendants of some species that survived the end of the Cretaceous era, a species that somehow survived as a result of something that’s been changed — ’ he looked at the girls — ‘by your friend, then they’ve been around for tens of millions of years.’
‘Well, that’s exactly my point, sir. How come they aren’t light-years more advanced than humans? How come there isn’t some gigantic lizard version of Futurama out there?’ Forby finished cranking the shutter down. The archway was dim once more, lit by the sterile fizzing glow of the ceiling tube light.
‘They plateaued,’ said Cartwright. ‘Perhaps their species evolved to the best it could possibly be. And then just stopped.’
Sal made a face. ‘I thought evolution never stopped. I thought it always changed, always, like, adapting.’
‘Oh, but it does and can s
top,’ he replied. ‘There are species alive today that are virtually identical to their distant prehistoric ancestors — sharks, for example. Nature had evolved them to be perfect for their environment, perfect killing machines… why bother adapting any further?’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps in this world, those reptilian hominids out there are the dominant predator, with nothing to compete against… and have been that way for millions of years?
‘Evolution is nature’s way of problem solving. If something changes that challenges a species’ ability to survive, then that stimulates an adaptive response. If there’s nothing to challenge a species’ existence, then why would it ever need to change?’ Cartwright shrugged. ‘A dead-end of evolution.’
‘A dead-end world,’ echoed Forby.
They made their way across the dim archway. ‘On the other hand, maybe there’s some practical limit to how much smarter that species outside can get? Maybe those long heads are already too heavy to develop any greater cranial capacity?’
‘So their brains will never get any bigger?’
‘That’s right. And they’ll never do any better than spears, mud huts and dugout canoes.’
‘Well,’ said Maddy, approaching the desk, ‘whatever. We’ll never know, because those creepy-looking things weren’t meant to happen.’ She sat down at the computer desk. ‘Bob, how’re you doing with those candidate signals?’
› Analysis completed. The last 1,507 density soundings before you ordered me to cease the sweep indicated the immediate location was occupied by a permanent physical obstruction. This could be a natural intrusion, for example a fallen tree or a geological event.
‘So, before that?’ Maddy asked impatiently.
The others joined her at the desk.
› A total of 227 transient density warnings.
Cartwright squatted down beside her and studied the dialogue box. ‘That means what? So now you’re down to two hundred and twenty-seven possible locations for your friend?’
