DS02 Night of the Dragonstar

by David Bischoff

  Jakes summarized the report as quickly as possible, emphasizing the fears of Thesaurus and the growing suspicions of Mishima Takamura, concluding that he felt the Joint Chiefs should be alerted to the subtle changes being recorded within the Dragonstar’s interior. He also tied in the incident with Lindstrom’s survey team, implying that the film crew might be in danger if there were other mutated species running loose in the preserve.

  “We’ve been down here for three days now and have had no problems whatsoever,” Kemp assured him. “Now, what’s the new data?”

  “There’s been another incident in the Saurian preserve,” Jakes said.

  “What kind of incident?”

  “Some sort of mass hysteria thing. Three warrior-class fellows went berserk and killed ten others. It took some time to subdue them.”

  “Christ! What happened?”

  “The Saurians had them executed, except for one, whom they turned over to us for some tests.” Jakes paused to clear his throat. “We’ve just finished the tests. That’s why I’m calling.”

  “Go on, I’m listening,” Kemp said. He was indeed listening, but he did not want to be. The last thing he needed at this point was more problems. He just wanted to get this documentary finished, and then he could deal with anything else the Fates cared to throw his way.

  “All right,” Jakes said. “Listen to this. We ran a series of neuroscans on our subject and found that his brain is riddled with tumors.”

  “What kind of tumors?”

  “Radiological carcinomas,” Jakes said. “There’s evidence that the subject has been exposed to some heavy radiation dosages. This is the same kind of thing Mikaela Lindstrom found with that accelerated growth mutant she encountered.”

  Kemp harrumphed loudly. “Look, Bob, I’m no scientist. What the hell does this stuff mean?”

  “We’re not sure. We’ve been testing other Saurians, and of course ourselves, and finding no trace of this cell change. Whatever’s going on seems to be a very random kind of activity.”

  “Any ideas on what might be causing it?”

  “Yes, there are quite a few theories, but none of them sound too good. Takamura’s report mentions the ones that have the highest possibility.”

  “Goddamn it, Bob, I didn’t read the frigging report! What do you want me to do, flagellate myself? Now, what the hell do you guys think is going on?”

  Jakes paused for a moment, then continued. “I think we’re in the middle of something that the aliens—the ones who made this ship—built into the works.”

  “What does that mean?” Kemp didn’t like the almost reverential tone in Jakes’s voice.

  “I mean that things seem to be following some sort of pattern, as though a specific procedure were being followed. Nothing major yet, but lots of little things indicate a change in the status of this ship. And of course there’s the energy burst we detected several weeks back which could have been a response to the signal we triggered when we originally entered this ship.”

  Kemp cursed himself for not taking the time to keep up with the day-to-day business aboard the Dragonstar and began to wonder if perhaps he had become a bit too preoccupied with the World Media documentary project.

  “Colonel, are you there?”

  “Yes, Bob. Sorry, I was just giving this whole thing some thought. Do you have any suggestions?”

  “Takamura and I have been talking it over, and we think it might be a good idea to conduct a general evacuation.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “Until we can get to the bottom of some of these new events, we were thinking that it might be a good idea to get most of the staff off-ship. We’ve got more than two hundred people on board, and I don’t have to tell you that we’re responsible for their safety.”

  “You just did,” Kemp said dryly.

  “I’m sorry, Colonel, but this whole thing is very important to me.”

  “I appreciate your getting in touch, Bob. But I’m afraid you don’t understand the position I’m in. Evacuating this ship right now would be impossible. The IASA has a contract with World Media for this project, and they’ve been hyping the shit out of it down on Earth. More than two billion people are expecting to see the whole story of the Dragonstar on their holies right in their own homes. We can’t back out of it now. It’s just impossible.”

  “Well, I’d like to go on record as not agreeing with your decision, Colonel. I’m sorry, but that’s the way I feel.”

  “It’s your prerogative, Bob. I understand, and I want to thank you for your concern. Look, we’re going to have the whole project wrapped up in another day or so, and when the broadcast is over, we can all get together and decide on the best course of action. I’ll notify the Joint Chiefs about what your findings have been, and we’ll take it from there.”

  “You mean you’re not going to inform the Joint Chiefs now?”

  “That’s right,” Kemp said firmly.

  “I think that’s a big mistake, Phineas.”

  “Why don’t you let me worry about that one, Bob.” He paused to clear his throat. “Now look, I’ve got a few more things to take care of here. Good luck with the production crew. I’ll be in touch within twenty-four hours. See you then.”

  Phineas signed off before he heard any reply from Dr. Jakes. There were simply too many things going on at once, and he had to take one step at a time. He did feel bad about not keeping on top of the memos that were piling up in his office, and Jakes did have some valid things to say, but it was all going to have to wait until the documentary was completed.

  Phineas had detected an emotional strain in Jakes’s voice, and he knew that would hamper any real decision-making that might be necessary from the chief science officer. There was no room for emotional response to critical situations. That had always been the problem with Becky and himself—too much damned emotional garbage getting in the way. He grinned easily. Despite what the women were saying about equal this and equal that, they were still the more emotionally dependent members of the species, of that Kemp was certain. And that made them less competent in a crisis—he was equally convinced of that.

  Well, there would be plenty of time for social philosophizing later. He had a film project to complete. He whipped through the remainder of the schedule on his monitor and checked out the various assignments—making sure that everyone and every contingency had been carefully planned for. Kemp was pleased with the orderly geometry of the schedule. It was one of his usual meticulous creations, and he could always admire a job well done.

  His intercom buzzed again. “Kemp here.”

  “Yes, Colonel, this is Lasky. We’re just about ready here ...”

  It was the director of the second production unit, and Kemp was pleased to hear that the crew was ready to shoot the sequences in the Mesozoic preserve. “All right, Les, I’ll be right out. I’m anxious to get this thing rolling.”

  * * *

  The second unit crew had been packed into a caravan of Omni Terrain Vehicles. It was time to go out into the hostile environment of the preserve and recreate the survival trek of Rebecca Thalberg and Ian Coopersmith. Becky and Ian were riding in the second vehicle, having agreed to be filmed in the preserve during their interviews.

  Mikaela Lindstrom rode in the lead vehicle with Phineas Kemp, a driver, and two armed escorts as they left the base camp and began a short journey through the lush green jungle of the preserve. The OTVs moved well through the thick undergrowth and into a marshy swampland. In the distance, bordering the Jurassic bog, rose a majestic forest of redwoods, shrouded in a steamy mist. To Mikaela it was a magical landscape that never lost its special dreamlike qualities. To others it was the stuff of nightmares, a land of fear and terrible death.

  “How far are we going, Dr. Lindstrom?” the driver called.

  “Out to the Mordor Plateau,” Mikaela said.
“There’s plenty of room for the crew to set up their equipment, and the scenery will give them a good variety of shots.”

  The driver nodded. Mikaela looked over at Phineas, who seemed lost in thought. She smiled and decided to needle him a bit.

  “Such a furrowed brow, my colonel. Do you sense trouble brewing?”

  “What?” Kemp asked absently. “Oh, no, I was just thinking over a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Sorry, Mikaela, but these things are classified for the moment.”

  She feigned insult, then smiled coquettishly at him. “Why, Colonel, does that mean you don’t trust me?”

  “Now look,” he said, missing the humorous jibe. “We’ve been through this sort of thing before. I just can’t go on talking about everything that crosses my desk and my mind. You know it’s the responsibility of the position that—”

  “Phineas, be still, I was only joking, for God’s sake. I swear, sometimes you can be such a stick in the mud.”

  “Sorry, Mikaela, but I have a lot on my mind these days.” He looked into her deep, electric blue eyes, then out through the side viewing port of the primitive scenery.

  “I was wondering, Phineas, have you had any weird feelings about shooting the sequence coming up?”

  He looked at her with an expression of true bewilderment. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “Well, with Becky and Ian riding in the car behind us, getting ready to go out there and recreate their Tarzan and Jane thing, I was wondering if it might be getting to you at all.”

  Phineas smiled. “Mikaela, I can assure you that it’s not getting to me in the least. In fact, I recently had a long talk with Coopersmith back on Earth, when he was arranging to return, and we were able to get everything aired out. Whatever went down is behind us now. We’ve all got a job to do.”

  “That’s so very noble of you, Phineas.” Mikaela chuckled lightly. “What about Becky? Did you have a long talk with her, too?”

  Phineas continued looking out the viewing port, and Mikaela began to wonder if maybe she had inadvertently touched upon a still tender spot. “Well, not really,” Phineas said after an awkward pause. “But I think we understand each other now. “

  “You think you ‘understand’ each other now?” Mikaela laughed again. “Why, Phineas, is that a euphemism for saying that you two had one last fling in the sack?”

  Phineas became visibly rigid in his seat, and he refused to look away from the port. Bad signs, thought Mikaela, as she decided to press her advantage. “Phineas, I’m talking to you. Is there anything wrong?”

  He finally looked up at her, appearing for an instant like a small boy who had been caught doing a terrible thing. “Yes, I heard you. I was just thinking how uncannily perceptive you paleontologists can be with such a paltry amount of physical evidence.”

  Mikaela laughed at his little irony, instantly wondering if he had indeed fallen into Rebecca Thalberg’s bed while they had been on Earth together. It wouldn’t bother her if he had. She was happily above such petty jealousies, feeling secure enough in her own person to know that most people got what they deserved in terms of treatment from others. If Phineas felt the need to check out Becky one last time, then there had to have been a good reason for it. Whatever it was, Mikaela felt she could deal with it.

  She was about to tell him this, in so many words, when the driver interrupted with a message.

  “Colonel, there’s something up ahead.”

  The OTV had just cleared the swampland and was trundling up a long slope peppered with ginkgoes and thick protoferns. Something had emerged from the vegetation and was blocking the path of the lead vehicle. Even from a distance, the creature looked large and imposing.

  “Slow down. Signal the others,” Kemp said. Then, turning to Mikaela: “What is that thing?”

  She climbed into the gunnery bubble and studied the beast through the telescopic sight. It was a theropod, but not one she could readily identify. The carnivore stood on two powerful hind legs, balanced by a thick tail. Its large head with its half-open mouth and sharp teeth signaled the potential danger it represented.

  “Take it a little closer,” Mikaela said. “Let me get a better look at this guy.”

  The OTV moved on at a cautious pace. The dinosaur in its path showed no signs of bolting, as they often did in the presence of machinery. Mikaela was surprised by the beast’s outlandish coloring—thick bright yellow and orange stripes, accented by black speckling. The beast’s hide seemed out of synch with the rest of the subdued forest colors. As the OTV drew closer, Mikaela could see that the creature was four to five meters in height and appeared to be a cousin of the Allosaurus family. There was a pronounced sagittal crest running from its snout to the back of its head—a skull formation she had not seen previously. There was something about the look of the creature that she didn’t like. She had a feeling of intense déjà vu, and her first impulse was to implore Phineas to turn them around and get them out of there.

  “Well, what is it?” he was asking.

  Mikaela shook her head. “I don’t know. Some kind of predator, but I don’t recognize it. We’re still running across secondary species. This is probably one of them.”

  “He doesn’t seem to want to get out of the way, sir,” the driver said.

  Kemp motioned to one of the armed guards. “Rhoades, get up there in the bubble and be ready to give him a few bursts.”

  Mikaela climbed down from her perch to allow the guard to replace her as Phineas leaned forward into the control cabin and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “All right, let’s just go around him and see what he does. Give him enough room to run if he wants to. If he attacks, we’ll have to cut him down.”

  Mikaela touched his arm. “Phineas, you know I don’t like to do that.”

  “Neither do I,” he said coolly. “But if it comes down to it, I don’t have any choice.”

  The driver accelerated, and they trundled quickly toward the brightly colored carnivore, who stood his ground like a war memorial statue. As the OTV grew closer, Mikaela could see that the speckled markings on the beast’s hide were not natural colorations, as she had assumed from the greater distance, but running sores.

  There was a deadly familiarity to the cancerous wounds that made her heart leap into her breast.

  Maneuvering smartly, the driver whipped the OTV to the left of the creature, who stood watching the beetle-like vehicle lumber past. The beast tilted its great head, staring at them with a large, flat yellow eye. It seemed to be searching the clear blisters for signs of life. As the lead vehicle moved past, it began to advance on the second one in line.

  Before the beast had moved very far, the guard fired off a warning burst of slugs, which ripped up the dark loamy earth at the dinosaur’s hind claws. It reared back, snapped its head in the lead vehicle’s direction, then, apparently thinking the better of it, leaped off into the deep folds of the forest. It disappeared within an eyeblink, and Mikaela marveled at how quickly the large creature had been able to move.

  “Looks like we scared it off, Colonel,” said the guard in the turret.

  “Keep an eye out for it, just the same. I don’t want him coming back in the middle of our party.”

  The guard nodded and smiled as Phineas looked back at Mikaela. “There now, we didn’t hurt the fellow, did we?”

  “Phineas, that was a mutant ... like the one that attacked me and Penovich.”

  “What? How can you be sure?”

  She explained to him the significance of the open cancers on its hide.

  “Then we should be extra watchful once we get out and get set up,” he said flatly.

  Mikaela was a bit stunned by his stony reaction. “You mean you’re still going to let them go through with the shoot?”

  Phineas shrugged. “Why not? This is the last full day of sho
oting. I don’t want to muck up the schedule now. Besides, I’ve got a fully armed platoon out here. Nothing’s going to happen that we can’t deal with. They’re just a bunch of big dumb beasts.”

  “Well, at least let’s put some distance between us and that last one,” Mikaela said. “Tell the driver to take us up to the farthest quadrant on the plateau, all right?”

  “If it will make you feel better, fine.”

  * * *

  Riding in the third OTV, along with an armed guard and several members of the film crew, were Neville and his nurse, Ms. Wilkins. With each lurch of the Omni Terrain Vehicle, Neville’s stomach threatened to let go of its moorings and come heaving up his throat. God, he hated this mess.

  The OTV pitched violently from side to side as it negotiated a ravine, then began climbing forcefully up a long sloping grade that opened onto a great plateau. Where in hell were they going to stop? How much more churning and shaking was necessary for this silly movie? His LM equipment jostled about in the knapsack at his side, and he managed only a weak smile at Ms. Wilkins who (damn her!) seemed to be having the time of her life.

  Neville hated the whole ordeal. He had found spaceflight a physically and mentally straining experience, lacking all of the excitement and flair that he had so often imagined. Riding up to the Moon in one of those claustrophobic ships possessed the thrill of being accidently locked in a steam bath. And if that wasn’t enough, they then packed him off to this terrarium in the sky, which was absolutely teeming with the most vicious, insidiously ugly, disgusting, and vile beasts to ever walk the Earth.

  Watching the holograms had been bad enough, but when that constipated colonel invited him to join the shoot in the Mesozoic preserve, how could he have turned down such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. (How? Very easily—if he’d had any balls at all.) But then he would have had to deal with the image problems of such a stance. How would it look for a writer of his stature to tell everybody how much he loathed all this gosh-gee-wow crap?