“A chance I have to take Jack…along with the rest. If nothing else maybe I can jot down some more notes, or talk to one of the…” his shoulders slumped “but if we land in Coi’s time, or this pirate you told us about…guess then I made a bad choice.” he smiled warmly “On the other hand Jack, you can stay and be with that lovely lady over there.”
Jack smiled back “And if we do manage to get to our reality, I assume that you’ll be able to climb down the plateau all be yourself?”
Doc frowned “Well so much for me trying to be the nice guy…but maybe one of your men could go?” again Doc sighed “Noooo, that is not the Jack I know.” He nodded toward the platform that stood slightly aside of the portal and the deck that sat high enough above it to allow the DSRV to slide down.
Jack gave a soft chuckle “You know Doc, if I’m wrong and that freakin’ thing tosses us back out…”
Doc chuckled “It will be a rough landing for all of us. On the bright side, the portal never shrunk as we tossed stuff into it from our world and it tossed it back out, so no harm will be done to the portal.”
Jack nodded “Hope we can say the same about us Doc. Remember no matter where we wind up, we could be in for a rough ride.” Jack sighed softly “Unless we go to Paul’s world.”
Doc chuckled and nodded “Then we have to worry about getting ballast pumped out at the proper levels so we don’t implode or explode.”
“Yep! If we wind up in Jan’s world and hit that reef…or Harry’s…”
The sub suddenly clunked loudly as it was locked into place on the sloping ramp that was aimed at the portal. Jack slowly rose and looked at the massive log structure with Paul’s twenty foot long DSRV sitting at one end of the ramp and the portal sitting twenty three feet away from the other end of the ramp.
People from the Mayan’s, Paul’s men, and Jan’s people all worked to grease the ramp with a form of palm oil; others double checked the stops and ropes. Jack stretched out his hand and pulled Doc to his feet. Both men looked at what had been accomplished…and then each other with a sheepish grin as Jack muttered…
“Why do I keep asking myself, what the hell we’ve gotten ourselves into now?”
Chapter 26.
Farewells were said as one by one named Roger, from Paul’s reality climbed in, and was followed by one of Jan’s by the name of Arnold. Each were belted in and Doc slid into the tight hatch with a smile and wave as if he were going on a cruise. Once out of sight from the rest his smile faded as Paul’s man secured him in.
“You come back to me.” Coi pleaded as a tear trickled down her cheek.
Jack knew she had to appear to be strong for her people, after all she was royalty.
“If at all possible I shall return to you…” he smiled and gave her a little wink.
They had been quickly wed before heading to the sub earlier that day and Jack couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be than with his lovely princess, but his loyalty to his men and the others overruled his personal feelings.
He quickly turned and climbed up the ladder so she would never see the worried look, nor the tear that dripped on his arm.
He stood briefly on the sub and then squeezed into the small hatch that quickly clanged shut. With nowhere to be seated Jack tied himself to several internal pipes, pulled his small penlight from his pocket and signaled the ground that they were ready as he softly muttered…
“Jesus, Doc, I didn’t even have a ring to give her.”
There was a strange feeling in the pit of their stomachs when they felt the clunk of the locks being released…”Butterflies!” Doc shouted as the sub began to move. After a few seconds, the slow slide became faster as the sub slid down the short inclined ramp…and then came the momentary feeling of weightlessness…and then that strange feeling they had all felt coming through the portal the first time. There was a sudden feeling like they were being ripped apart from the inside out, and they blacked out as the sub came to a sudden and violent stop. The sub teetered for a few seconds and then rolled to the port as it came to rest at a forty-five degree angle.
One by one the men slowly regained consciousness.
“Everyone ok?” Arnold asked as he carefully unbelted and slid to what was now the floor. He was greeted by a variety of, “yeah, I think so, did anyone get the license of that truck,” and of course Jack’s serious snort about something hitting a brick wall.
He looked at the tiny porthole he had landed on “See grass…lots of grass.”
Doc nodded as he managed to stand in the tangled mass of people that had been crammed into the mini-sub “Trees out of this one, no water.”
Arnold knew they were not on his world, sighed “Guess I’m as screwed as a chicken being dragged into to an OFC.” Doc and Jack looked strangely at him “Oh, you guys don’t have an Ohio Fried Chicken in your world?”
Jack grinned weakly at the differences between their worlds, then nodded sadly as the grin faded, Arnold was correct “Sorry guys, this means we’re in our reality or Coi’s people’s.” he looked at Doc and sighed “Well Doc that gives us only a 50-50 shot of success.”
Doc reminded Jack of the other possible realities they could be in that were not in the sea, like the cavemen’s. He sighed, looked out the portal, and then at the hatch “Well my friends,” he placed his hands on the hatch lock release “Jack and I go out first and shut the hatch again so…”
Arnold and Roger shot glances at each other as Roger gave an inevitable sigh “Does it really matter? I mean if we are not in our worlds, we’re toast. Hell don’t look so sad, if your theory is correct Jack, we’re dead. We knew what we signed up for. We’re a different frequency, who knows maybe we were changed again coming through this time, maybe not…” he took Doc’s hand from the lever and motioned Doc to stand back.
“When I open this, just inhaling air, pollen, viruses and bacteria…”
Doc nodded sadly “Agreed, but not totally. Gentlemen, our bodies might be able to withstand miniscule amounts of non-frequency material, the real test will be when we come into contact with something solid, remember this solid steel sub never changes at all...so it should be safe.”
Arnold nodded “Well yeah! Or we’d all be dead now.”
Roger frowned “Ok, either some of us die or we all do, if this is your girlfriend’s reality or one of the others.”
“Wife.” Jack reminded him.
“Whatever…” Roger unlocked the hatch “we all go, or some of us do.” he grinned a wide slightly nervous grin “Always did hate suspense.” With that said he threw open the hatch; he was right, there was no sense in wasting time.
Air rushed into the DSRV…nothing happened. Roger stuck his head out the hatch and sniffed the air. “Lungs burn a bit, maybe pollen? Nothing unbearable however, maybe we did change.” With that he clambered out of the hatch and crawled along the mini-sub to the very end as the rest of the men all squeezed onto the smooth arched top of the sub.
“Careful! Don’t slip…” he chuckled as he looked at the others “guess it doesn’t matter does it?”
Arnold sat next to Roger and snorted loudly “Here goes nothing!” and before anyone could say a word he slid off the sub and landed on his feet on the soft jungle vegetation. Instantly his form blurred and turned to a fine dust as what was once a man now drifted off as dust that eventually broke down even more and vanished.
Of course there were worried looks from Doc and Jack, if this was indeed the world that Coi’s people had come from, it ended here.
Roger smiled “Never liked long good-byes.” and slid off the faded yellow mini-sub, and the same fate awaited him.
Jack winked at Doc and with a faint smile, sighed “Well Doc…it’s been a blast.”
Before he could slide off Doc chuckled and he grasped his arm.
“So you vaporize and I’m left here sitting on my sixty year old ass for the rest of my short life? I think not Jack.”
Jack smiled knowingly and nodded “One, two, threee
eee….” The men both slid off and landed on their feet; Doc with a slight hobbling step.
“Hey Doc, you can open your eyes now.” he chuckled.
“We’re alive?” he grinned “WE’RE ALIVE!” he proclaimed to the world as Jack laughed, this was the most emotion Doc had ever shown…and it was acknowledged by a loud and thunderous roar from within the dark green bowels of the jungle.
“Oh my God!” Doc sputtered “I thought the rex went over the cliff?”
“A rex went over the cliff Doc, that doesn’t mean there aren’t more on this plateau. If I remember the old books, it seems like they said they had encountered many dinosaurs.” A loud crashing sent both men flying across the small field the portal was in. A quick glance and Jack could see the portal saw shimmering…and somewhat smaller.
“Wow, this is new, never saw the portal shimmer before.” Jack was obviously concerned.
Doc stopped and looked at the portal as close as he dared “Oh dear, just what I feared, the portal did shrink and…”
That worry was interrupted by something much larger, a spinosaurus charging out of the jungle in a flurry of fronds and limbs just as they hit the far side of the clearing.
Jack was nearly pulling the older Doc by his shirtsleeve as they ran through the jungle and along a trail that looked familiar. With one quick motion Jack swung Doc in between a large tangle of massive tree roots and dove in behind him. Both scrambled into the midst of the mass and covered their gasping mouths with both hands hoping to stem some of the heavy panting they were doing. Within seconds the ground trembled as massive feet crushed everything under them as the spinosaurus sped by, much to their relief.
As the sounds of the gigantic beast waned Doc slowly began to breathe easier.
“Good God Jack, with that thing out there…maybe more, how are we to climb down without ropes?”
“We left the other ropes at the old camp, up among the roots there, remember? We’ll give that thing a little more time and then move out. These things rarely retrace their steps, Coi taught me that. It headed out toward the old camp, I’ll go in and you head directly across that other field and to the spot where we came up. If you recall…”
Doc nodded “Yeah, I remember some guy saying we should leave that rope ladder attached to the cliff in case of an emergency.” he smiled at Jack “I am so glad Edward hired you.”
Jack grinned as he pulled Doc from the root system and they headed down the crushed trail the spinosaurus had left. Once they split up, Jack headed to the camp and found the ropes they would need to make the long descent to the jungle floor. He was also glad that the river’s tributary and their canoes were less than a day’s hike away…assuming they got down at all.
Those chances seemed even slimmer as a roar came from the path ahead and the spinosaurus lumbered into view. Both Jack and the giant saw each other at the same time as Jack slung the ropes around his neck and shoulder and made a mad dash for the cliff.
There was a brief hide and seek among the trees as the beast had trouble seeing the tiny human among the dense undergrowth…this changed as Jack was finally forced to run into the open field and toward the rope ladder that led down to the ledge they had spent a night on…and prayed that it was still there. Topping a slight rise, Jack could see no sign of Doc. That would be good if he had made the ledge, bad if he was still out in the jungle.
With the spinosaurus closing rapidly using its huge lumbering strides that closed the gap between them in seconds, Jack knew that if he slowed down, he was dino munchies. Frantically searching, Jack finally spotted the area where the stakes that anchored the ladder was, he took a long head first dive and slid along the tall grasses…and right over the edge of the cliff.
Throwing a hand out he grasped one side of the rope ladder, swung wide and slammed back into the rocky cliff so hard that his hand slipped and he began to fall backward. Just pure instinct kicked in as he clasped his legs together and caught the rungs between them as he fell completely backward to a point where through the broken clouds, he could see the green Amazon jungle below him.
“Christ!” he panted as he fumbled for the ladder with his hands.
Chunks of earth and grass flew by his face as he tightly grasped the ladder, let go with his feet and flipped over backward like a gymnast and hung by both hands to look up to see the face of the beast that was hunting him…it was a good twenty feet above him and looking down with what he imagined as a frustrated look.
Of course Jack was once again wrong as the spinosaurus slid its jaw along the cliff and snagged the ladder in its teeth.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” he shouted as he began to rise, ladder wedged in its mouth.
Jack let go of the ladder and slid another score of feet and with one final grasp, stopped and swung to his left as he let go of the ladder. The spinosaurus flipped his head up and with it the ladder…and roared as the empty ladder swung over its head. That was as much as Jack could notice…other than the fact that he was dropping rather quickly.
Both feet hit the ledge, but at such an angle that he began to fall backward. A quick glance over his shoulder verified that there was nothing below but hundreds of feet of open air to the jungle.
Teetering on the edge of the ledge, arms flailing in a hopeless attempt of gaining his balance, Jack resigned himself of certain doom. It was about then a gray hairy arm reached out of the shadows and grasped his shirt. Jack looked forward to see Doc with one hand grasping his shirt, the other entangled in a strong vine as he struggled to hold onto both. He grasped Doc’s arm and Doc quickly pulled him in as Jack slid to the floor of the ledge and plopped back against the cliff face, the fear still in his eyes.
“Thanks Doc…glad to see you made it down here ok.” he panted.
“I though you said that those damned things never backtracked.” Doc grinned as he sat next to the still trembling adventurer.
“Yeah, about that…when and if we get back, remind me to talk to Coi on that point.”
Chapter 27.
The journey back to civilization was the easy part, the hard part was convincing anyone that they had been gone into another reality for the past two and a half years. To Jack and Doc, they had been gone less than a year. However the wise and charming Doc knew people that had known him far too long to call him a liar. Money was raised and a trip to return back to the plateau was planned, this time with better weapons, scientists and with cameras to record everything.
Once the short coil rope that Doc had thought to bring back was analyzed, and found to have been made from a long extinct plant, confirmed Doc’s reputation for honesty; that and the few samples he had shoved into his pocket before leaving. Physicists from around the globe found Jack’s layman’s theory of frequencies was correct, the samples did have two intertwined frequencies which up to this point had been thought to be impossible…and also explained why the dinosaurs that came though the portal could not go back through it…and Jack and Doc had nearly been trapped in the other reality.
For once the international community didn’t try to push the founders of a discovery out of the way. Doc, though an amateur, headed the team of physicists to find a way to stabilize the portal.
While they worked on several of the mysteries of the wormhole/ portal, Jack led an international team to secure the plateau, and hopefully the wormhole. The Brazilian military led the way by setting up a forward base less than twenty miles from the plateau at the river’s fork where the tributaries of two rivers came together.
Less than three months from the day Doc and Jack climbed down the cliff, Jack anxiously circled the field that the portal was on. He had warned the chopper pilots to stay well off the plateau for fear that something blown by the rotor wash would blow into the portal and cause it to shrink even further, he led them to the field near the old destroyed camp.
Chopper after chopper swept in, a dozen heavily armed men jumped out and the chopper screamed away as the next slid into the field and unload
ed and sped off. Nearly one hundred men formed four lines and proceeded with Jack in the lead.
Past the old camp and the partial skeletal remains of those in the advance party that had died. Jack and his team followed days later after bringing up the rest of their supplies. He had shown them the tracks and half never believed until the spinosaurus crashed out of the jungle and onto the path they were on…and quickly died with a blast to the throat from a stinger missile.
As the columns passed by the stilled beast, Jack reminded them that other creatures could be a foot and now the battle tested men looked nervous as Jack looked at them before moving on.
“If something that size can live up here as long as I’ve been gone, there is food up here and that food probably has razor sharp teeth.”
As they formed a perimeter around the small field that the portal was in, tents sprung up and areas were cleared…and very large fires were created to keep the raptor sized creatures away. At a smaller clearing a half mile away long steel poles and fencing was lowered and carried over to the portal’s field. Fences were begun to seal off the area from the rest of the plateau and long pre-sharpened poles protruded out of the ground.
The second night sixteen men died as seven raptors attacked one of the perimeter camps and screams on the misty plateau overshadowed the fact that Jack and a small group slid into the small field to keep the deadly intruders out. This worked until three raptors broke through…and died.
“Did any of them get out into the field?” Jack shouted to those he couldn’t see through the heavy mist and fog.
“Don’t think so sir!” came one reply.
“Not by us!” another sounded.
“No senor!” Not past our troops.” And there Jack and the small elite group stood until dawn.
Jack feared the fence might not stop anything larger or at least long enough to prevent it from coming into the field, so in the steaming midday and under a clear blue sky he carefully moved to the old bones and stones of the long gone temple.
Jurassic Portal Page 18
