Extinction Event

by Dan Abnett

  “That?” Cutter said. “Yes.”

  “There had been rumours that things had been happening in England. It turns out that Russia’s foreign intelligence networks are a great deal more effective than I would have believed. We found out about the ARC, and discovered we weren’t the only people in the world experiencing these phenomena. Then I saw your name on the list of key personnel at the British facility, and I suggested that you be invited to join us.”

  She brushed the flies away from her face with her hand. They could hear the rushing of the dark, secret river.

  “Unfortunately, the FSB was not eager to reveal how much sensitive information it had about the British establishment simply by extending such an invitation openly. It was decided — way above my head — that a more direct approach would be made. It was left in Koshkin’s hands. So again, I’m sorry. I imagine the experience was unsubtle.”

  “That’s one word for it,” Cutter said. “We were more or less kidnapped at gunpoint.”

  Suvova gripped his arm.

  “If only it could have been otherwise. I only found out what Koshkin was up to when he was already underway. I have lodged a written complaint through Markov, for all the good that will do.”

  “Professor, you should know that I will not tolerate any harm coming to my companions,” Cutter said firmly as they arrived at the river’s edge. “None at all. But I’m here now, and it’s quite plain that whatever’s happening here is on a scale way beyond our experience in the UK. So I’ll help you in any way I can.”

  “Thank you, Nicky,” she said. She looked out across the river at the forest and hills that lurked in the banks of mist beyond.

  “This is old and remote country,” she said, “and a vast tract of it has become... how can I put it? It has become a part of the Cretaceous. It is a lost world, like the book. Every week that passes, there are more sightings of erratics, more encounters. The erratics are becoming harder to contain. There have been deaths — too many, I think. Sooner or later, some towns and perhaps even cities in this region will be affected. What then?” She shrugged. “Public evacuation? More deaths? We need to understand what is going on. We need to know where these things are coming from.”

  “They’re coming from exactly where you think they’re coming from, Professor Suvova,” Cutter replied. “They’re coming from sixty-five million years ago.”

  FOURTEEN

  It had begun to rain again, harder than before, and a properly nocturnal gloom settled over the advance camp. More lamps were switched on. Soldiers hurried under cover.

  It is hard to believe, Abby thought, that the dank sky above the tree-tops is both summer and midday.

  She waited under the awning of a tent block, standing with Vols. The rain drummed off the fabric overhead, then spattered in loose cascades through the drain slots and onto the earth on either side of them. Thunder rumbled somewhere far away. At least it sounded like thunder, Abby thought. It could quite easily have been the deep, distant booming calls of a duck-bill herd.

  Connor emerged from the medical tent, pulled his ancient greatcoat up over his head, and hobbled through the rain to join them.

  “Why are you walking funny?” Abby asked.

  Connor got in under the awning and shook out his coat.

  “The woman stuck a needle in my bum!” he exclaimed indignantly.

  “You don’t mean Natacha, do you?”

  “Oh, shut up. Didn’t she give you a shot?”

  Abby shook her head.

  “She looked at my tongue, shone a light in my eyes, and told me to take my shirt off.”

  Connor’s eyes lit up.

  “Do go on,” he invited.

  Abby scowled.

  “She checked me for bruises. For signs of abuse. Then she got me to sign something. A waiver, I think.”

  “Me too,” Connor said. “No needle in the posterior, then?”

  “She gave me some tablets,” Abby said, rattling a brown plastic bottle of pills. “Anti-bug stuff. Not convinced I’m going to take them, though.”

  Connor shifted uncomfortably.

  “Well, she stuck a needle right in my backside. No warning. Not so much as a how do you do.”

  “Oh, she must really like you, Connor,” Abby said, grinning.

  “Uh, shut up?”

  “Hey, what’s that?” Before Connor could stop her, she’d fished a leaflet out of the side pocket of his greatcoat.

  “Oi!”

  Connor tried to grab it back, but Abby danced out of his reach and started to read it.

  “Did she give you this?”

  “Give it back! Abby!”

  “Did Natacha give you this?”

  “Ab-by!”

  “Oh my God,” she laughed, fending Connor off with one arm as she studied the leaflet. “It’s a pamphlet. It’s an army pamphlet. All about the benefits of correct diet and healthy exercise! Look at all these photographs of young men in shorts, weight-training and doing star-jumps!”

  “Give it back!”

  Abby pursed her lips and held out the leaflet to Connor.

  “I think Natacha is trying to tell you something,” she said. “I think Natacha likes big, strong men with beefy muscles.”

  Connor snatched the pamphlet out of her hand and stuffed it inside his coat.

  “Yeah, ha ha. Very funny. She just gave it to me, all right? I didn’t ask for it. This must be so hilarious for you.”

  “It’s certainly breaking the tension,” she said.

  Vols hadn’t understood much of what had passed between Abby and Connor, but he was watching the antics with amusement.

  “What are you laughing at, comrade?” Connor asked him.

  Vols shrugged. “Vols laugh not be.”

  “Exactly, it’s not funny, is it, Vols?” Abby said solemnly. “A young man should take his health very seriously.”

  “Da. Especially out here in the forests.”

  Suddenly Vols straightened up smartly. Abby and Connor looked around. Cutter and the older woman who’d called him “Nicky” were standing behind them.

  Cutter shot Abby and Connor a wry smile.

  “You two okay?” he asked.

  They nodded.

  “Please introduce us, Nicky,” Suvova said.

  “Abby Maitland, Connor Temple, this is Professor Rina Suvova,” Cutter said. “She’s in charge here.”

  “Not as much as I’d like to be,” Suvova said, shaking hands with Abby and Connor.

  “When I was a lot younger, a student,” Cutter explained, “I was lucky enough to get some practical field experience on one of the professor’s digs.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid I’m the real reason you’re here,” Suvova admitted.

  “She’s got some stuff to show me,” Cutter said. “I wanted you both to see it, too.”

  Professor Suvova led them to the north end of the advance camp. Vols tagged along at their heels. The tents at the camp’s north end were large prefab shelters.

  As they approached, despite the cold rain, they could smell the musky odours of livestock, and the sharper smells of disinfectant products and dry feed.

  Suvova unlatched the outer door of one of the larger structures, and brought them in out of the rain. The prefab windows were meshed with chicken wire, and roof-lights ran off a portable generator that hummed out back. It smelled like a zoo. The room was lined with shelves stacked with metal cage traps, sacks of feed, and scientific equipment. Doctor Medyevin was there, working alongside two other scientists at a bank of powered microscopes. He’d changed into work overalls, but there was still a strong scent of his favourite cologne.

  He looked up and greeted them as they came in. Cutter was still wary of the young doctor. However unwillingly, Medyevin had participated in Koshkin’s operation to conscript them. He had been used as a lure to blindside Cutter. For all his wide-eyed eagerness, Medyevin had the steely glint of a ruthless careerist about him.

  Suvova introduced Medyevin’s colleag
ues. Yushenko was a tall, swarthy man with bony hands and a big nose. He was unshaven and his manners were intense, as though he was full of nervous energy. Suvova said he was a botanist. Bulov was the group’s conservator. He was a slightly plump, fastidious man who seemed rather aloof.

  Large metal cages stood on the central benches, alongside a row of glass tanks. There were live animals and birds inside them.

  “My God, you’ve collected specimens,” Cutter said.

  “Look at them,” Abby said, practically squealing with delight.

  “Of course,” Suvova replied, “though most of our work is tracking and observation.”

  Following Abby’s lead, Cutter peered into one of the larger cages where a hairy, badger-like creature was crunching on some live locusts.

  “Didelphodon?” he asked.

  “Yes, or a closely related marsupial,” Medyevin replied, stepping up beside him. “We have quite a range of small mammalian and avian erratics. Most are not known from the fossil record.”

  Cutter looked through the wire of another cage at a tiny, crested bird.

  “Small, delicate bones rarely survive,” he said. “We tend to find the big, robust stuff.”

  The bird squawked and ruffled its feathers. Cutter moved to another cage and peered at another, slightly larger bird.

  “We have found or observed thirteen new avian species,” Suvova told them, “and twenty-six new small mammals, along with four mammalian types we were previously familiar with. We have marsupials, placentals and one monotreme.”

  “Wow,” Cutter said.

  “We even have an ultra-small pterosaur the size of a sparrow that we were not expecting to find, given that the evolutionary era seems to fit the Late Cretaceous.”

  “You got it alive?” Cutter asked eagerly.

  Suvova shook her head. “No. We found it dead. We have it preserved in the freezer.”

  “Regardless, I’d love to see it.”

  “Of course,” she said, and she nodded. “There will be time for that.”

  “I know there were mammals back then,” Connor said, crouching down to examine the Didelphodon in its cage, “but you just don’t imagine there being so many different types.”

  “The diversity stands to reason,” Cutter said. He was inspecting two small, shrew-like creatures that were darting around in one of the tanks. “Mammals had been around for a while, but the fossil records show them to be essentially niche groups of small animals. Right up to the end of the Cretaceous, they weren’t very common. It was only after the K-T boundary event that things swung their way.”

  “The what?” Abby asked. She was only half listening as she moved between the tanks, examining each creature intently.

  “You know, the event that wiped out the dinosaurs,” Connor told her.

  “An event these creatures were resilient enough to survive,” Cutter said. He looked down at the shrew-things as they raced around. “These little guys were around when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. These were the meek that inherited the Earth.”

  “That presupposes a great deal,” Bulov interjected.

  Cutter looked up at him. “How so?”

  The scientist cleared his throat. His mannerisms were very precise.

  “From day one, the group’s theoretical model for this situation has been a survival.”

  “Theories are there to be tested, Grisha,” Yushenko pointed out. Bulov looked at his colleague disdainfully.

  “I am familiar with scientific methodology, thank you,” he replied curtly, “but the survival concept is the only one that really holds water. Professor Iachmann supported the —”

  “Professor Iachmann isn’t in charge any more!” Yushenko interrupted.

  “Here we go again,” Medyevin groaned.

  “Iachmann was convinced by the notion of a survival,” Bulov went on, talking over Yushenko’s objections.

  “Wait, wait!” Cutter called out. “Iachmann? Jan Iachmann? Are we talking about the same guy who did all the work in Mongolia?”

  “Of course,” Bulov said.

  “You know his work, then?” Yushenko asked.

  “Absolutely,” Cutter said. “He’s a remarkable man.”

  “Professor Iachmann was the original leader of the scientific group,” Suvova explained. “I took over from him.”

  “Then Iachmann thought this situation was the result of a survival?” Cutter asked.

  “It’s the only theoretical model that makes any practical sense,” Bulov insisted. “This geographical region — for reasons we have not yet identified — has allowed certain species to persist and flourish long after the extinction of their kind in other parts of the world. It is the classic ‘lost world’ syndrome. There are numerous examples of such freak survivals in Antarctic ice-pockets, Indian Ocean islands, cave systems, Amazonian plateaus —”

  “Plenty of examples, yes, but nothing on this scale,” Cutter pointed out. “You honestly believe these creatures have been living here for sixty-five million years?”

  “It is the only rational answer,” Bulov maintained. “Also, it would account for the preponderance of mammal specimens that appear not to match the fossil record. This region has nurtured its own unique evolutionary process.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can promise you that it hasn’t,” Cutter said. He gestured at the cages. “These are all Late Cretaceous creatures. They’re coming directly from the Cretaceous Era.”

  “That’s preposterous,” Bulov scoffed.

  “Indeed, it’s even more preposterous than the government’s theory — that they are genetically designed terror weapons, created by NATO to undermine the Russian Federation,” Yushenko put in.

  “There are people who think NATO built these dinosaurs?” Connor said, and he laughed.

  Yushenko nodded.

  “Yes. I’ve been led to understand that the Federal Government believes NATO might have had some assistance from Hollywood.” The look on his face showed that he didn’t give the theory much credence.

  “This part of Siberia is remote,” Cutter persisted, “but it’s not geographically discrete enough to account for a survival. Not on this scale, and not of creatures this big. They haven’t been living here, undisturbed. They’re coming here.”

  Bulov snorted.

  “This is about your holes in time, isn’t it Professor?” Medyevin asked.

  “What?” Yushenko looked dubious.

  “Professor Cutter told me about them on the journey here,” Medyevin continued. “‘Holes in time’, he said. Please tell us what you mean, Professor.”

  The scientists all looked at Cutter so intently that he chuckled.

  “Nicky?” Suvova asked. “Please? We need your help.”

  “We call them anomalies,” Cutter began. “Don’t ask me to explain the physics. I just know them as a fact. They’re what the ARC was created to handle. The ARC. The Anomaly Research Centre.”

  “When we read the intelligence reports, we thought ‘anomaly’ referred to the creatures,” Suvova said. “What we call erratics.”

  “Holes in time is a laughable idea,” Cutter admitted, “but it’s the simplest description. You’ve got an anomaly here. At least one, maybe more. From what you’ve told me, the phenomenon here is operating very differently from the anomalies I’ve studied. It’s quite possibly larger, and it seems to have been open for much longer than usual. Perhaps years. Either that, or you have them opening and closing more frequently.

  “Put in the most basic terms, you’ve got a viable gateway to the Cretaceous period somewhere in these forests.”

  “Time travel?” Bulov murmured. “Time travel?”

  “Uhm, more sort of time transfer,” Connor offered.

  “Time travel?” Bulov repeated. He turned to Suvova, scorn written across his face. “This is what we’ve waited for? This is the fantastic, groundbreaking scientific insight you promised us?”

  “Calm down, Grisha,” Suvova said.

 
“I will not calm down! I will not have my wits insulted! Time travel!” Bulov almost spat each word out. “We need help, you said! We need help from the clever and very well-funded scientists in Great Britain and the United States! They will know what to do! They will know so much more than us!”

  “In your position, I’d be sceptical too,” Cutter said calmly to Bulov. “Give me a chance to find this anomaly for you. See for yourself.”

  “This is a survival!” Bulov growled. “There is no ‘anomaly’.”

  “A little while back, there were Entelodons loose on Oxford Street,” Cutter said. “It got covered up, but it made the news. It’s the main reason we got dragged here against our will. Tell me, Doctor Bulov, in your opinion, were those Entelodons in Central London a survival, too?”

  Bulov looked away.

  “The man makes a decent point,” Yushenko shrugged.

  “How do we find the anomaly?” Medyevin asked.

  “I think this discussion should continue under more appropriate circumstances.” Koshkin’s harsh voice interrupted them as he pushed in through the hut door. He was wearing black BDUs, heavy boots, and a webbing belt with a holstered pistol. He was followed by the older man with the wire-framed glasses. The older man was dressed in the same kit as Koshkin.

  All the scientists straightened up, and Vols snapped to attention.

  “We were bringing Professor Cutter and his colleagues up to speed, Koshkin,” Suvova said firmly, speaking English.

  “You were conducting a classified discussion in front of a grunt with no clearance,” Koshkin replied, following her example and gesturing at Vols, “and a pair of idealogues who like to run off at the mouth when they’ve had a few.” He directed the last remark at Yushenko and Bulov.

  “With respect, Specialist Koshkin,” Bulov began.

  “I have none for you, so shut up,” Koshkin told him. He turned and looked at Suvova and Cutter. “Markov wants to find out how Cutter can assist us. I think we’d all like to hear the professor’s science fiction stories in more detail.”

  “You overheard?” Cutter asked.

  “I heard enough,” Koshkin said.