ALTHOUGH SHE had probably spent more time in the wilds of the Mesozoic preserve than anyone else on board the Dragonstar, Mikaela now felt oddly out of place there. As she handled the controls of the lead OTV in her small caravan, she realized that the primordial forest was not the place of her dreams—the fantasy land where she could conduct research and prepare monographs for the International Academy of Biological Sciences.
No, she thought as she looked out into the darkness of the forest, illuminated only by the powerful swath of her vehicle’s searchlights. No, this was no fantasy land. It was more like horror land, actually. Especially now that she knew the Dragonstar was pulling up stakes with its human prisoners and was heading for parts unknown.
Her caravan had been traveling down from a high plateau when the ship’s engines had kicked in and it had been a terrible experience. She’d had no idea what could be happening, and she was especially panicked when she couldn’t raise anyone on the radio, no matter what channel she tried. Even Copernicus Base was silent. She had ordered the OTVs stopped on the last rise of the plateau, selecting a vantage point that, when she played the OTV’s powerful searchlights downward, gave her a view of a river valley below. To the east, the river she had named the Bishop emptied into a large lake (christened Lake Kariskrona after her hometown). When the ship accelerated, Kariskrona had overwashed its banks and flooded a great portion of the surrounding scrubland. Mikaela watched the giant tidal wave sweep over the land, flushing out creatures large and small. Many of the smaller beasts were able to scurry up into trees, or were carried along on the surface of the water, but many of the larger dinosaurs had drowned.
She had waited out the initial effects of the acceleration until the engines suddenly cut off, leaving the Mesozoic preserve once again in relative quiet. Again she tried to raise someone on the radio, and this time she received a reply—from Lieutenant Barkham, the ‘thopter pilot stranded at the ruins. He reported that the ancient buildings had survived the quake, and that Zabriskie had just dropped off the first three people from Ian Coopersmith’s group back at the paleo survey camp.
“Oh, that’s good,” Mikaela said. “Were they okay?”
“Affirmative. But Zabriskie was running a little low on fuel so she transferred what was left from the tanks of my ship. She took off about 10 minutes ago.”
“Tell me, have you heard anything from Hakarrh? From Colonel Kemp?”
“Not much, Doctor. Only that the whole bunch of ‘em are leaving the Saurian preserve to come out here. All of a sudden everybody thinks this is the best spot to be on the whole ship, and all I did was crash-land my ship here.” Barkham laughed weakly.
“I tried to reach them by radio, but there was no reply,” Mikaela said.
“Well, I’d imagine they had some problems with the quakes. I expect they’ll be getting in touch as soon as they can.”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Would you like me to give you a call from them?” Barkham asked.
“That would be fine, Lieutenant. As a matter of fact, please tell Colonel Kemp to call me on this frequency. I should be getting to the ruins within two hours.”
Barkham agreed and signed off, leaving Mikaela to her thoughts as she signaled for the caravan to begin moving again. Slowly she led the three OTV s down from the grazing plateau into the flooded scrubland. The waters from Lake Kariskrona had receded, leaving the landscape mushy like a sponge but still solid enough to allow the OTVs to move with good speed.
They passed several drowned carcasses along the way, already attracting a crowd of carrion eaters to the spot. An entire herd of Ceratopsians had been trapped in an arroyo and drowned, and above them a stormcloud of insects was gathering, ready to descend upon the fresh meat. The sky was filling up with Pteranodons and other smaller species of Pterosaurs. These creatures were the vultures of their age, and their keening, scritching cries were like a dinner bell for all the nearby survivors.
Interestingly, Mikaela noted, with the sudden abundance of free meals in the aftermath of the flood, the predatory theropods such as Allosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex, and their smaller cousins seemed to be totally oblivious to the line of strange-smelling OTVs. Many times they passed very close to a bipedal monster, searchlights splashing boldly over its body, reflecting coldly in its great walleyes, only to be ignored—either because it was dipping its bloody snout into the torn body cavity of a flood victim or because its nostrils were burning with the scent of recent death and it was fast on its way to a meal.
That was the most incredible part of observing the life cycles in the Mesozoic preserve: it was a never-ending ritual for the beasts, a ceremony of foraging and eating and sleeping and foraging and eating. The environment responded well to the demands placed upon it. The flora grew at a super-fast rate in the steamy, humid atmosphere. The herbivores consumed many times their weight in vegetation each day, and the carnivores ate the herbivores. It was a great relationship, a perfect understanding, even though there was very little communication, thought Mikaela with a wry smile.
As they moved away from the flood plain, Mikaela knew there would be fewer drowned, free meals lying around and that more caution would be necessary again.
She decided to try to raise the survey camp once again. Hopefully, they had survived.
“PSC,” said a familiar voice. “We copy here. Come in.”
“Hello, this is Dr. Lindstrom. Is everybody okay back there?”
“This is Becky, Mikaela. We had a few problems, but we’re holding on.” Becky briefed her on the attack, the quake, and its aftermath.
“I just spoke to Barkham, and he said that Zabriskie’s on her way back for a second run,” Mikaela said.
“We’ll be watching for her. Thanks, Mikaela.”
“Don’t mention it. Please be careful.”
Becky chuckled harshly. “I don’t know if it really makes any difference anymore.”
“Please don’t talk like that,” Mikaela said. “We can never give up.”
“Yes, I know. But Ian thinks the Dragonstar is heading for another star system.”
The words stung Mikaela. Up to that point, she had been telling herself that perhaps the IASA had started up the outboard engines, moving the ship to a more stable orbital window. But Becky had confirmed her unspoken, almost unformed fear of the worst. Oh God, if that was true, they would never see the Earth again.
“Oh God, I hope he’s wrong,” said Mikaela in a very soft voice.
“So does Ian, but I don’t know—it’s like I don’t even care anymore,” Becky said.
“You’re just depressed,” Mikaela said. “Hang on a little while longer and things will get better.”
“They can’t get much worse. All right, Mikaela, good luck. Hopefully we’ll be seeing you soon. PSC out.”
She signed off the transmission and again tried to raise the research lab without success. They must be having trouble with their receivers. Mikaela laughed aloud. Hell, they must be having trouble with a lot of things by now.
She had been controlling the lead vehicle absently as she used the radio, and she didn’t immediately react to the thing that had lumbered into the path of her searchlights.
“Hey, Dr. Lindstrom,” said the young voice of her gunner up in the bubble. “Watch out for this guy.”
Suddenly Mikaela was back in real time and looking a Triceratops in the eye. The beast had emerged from the scrubland and rocks to the right, and when it spotted the approaching OTV it stopped, raising its crowned, horned head into the air, trying to get a scent on this strange-looking beast. The Ceratopsians were herbivorous, but since they were so well armored, they were not docile plant eaters like most of their type. If their disposition could be described, it would be called arrogant, as though they were always looking for a reason to get upset.
The Triceratops stood its ground, tilting its head so that o
ne baleful eye might study this odd bubble-backed intruder. Mikaela eased down on the accelerator, stopping less than twenty meters from the creature.
“Shall I take it out?” her gunner asked.
Everyone else in the vehicle tried to squeeze around each other for a look at what was going on.
“No,” Mikaela said. “It might be somebody’s mother ... or father, I can’t tell from here.”
“Well, what are we going to do, Doctor?” The trooper asked nervously.
“I’m going to try to go around it.” She radioed her intentions to the other two vehicles and started moving again.
She steered to the left and cut a wide swath into the underbrush, grinding through the thick tangle of vines and tubers. The Ceratopsian continued to stare at the little beetle-shaped vehicle, waiting until Mikaela had almost totally passed by before making its move.
It advanced quickly on the lead vehicle. Mikaela expected it to lower its head and attack the side armor with its horn, but, surprisingly, the beast had other ideas. It gathered up a running start, then reared up on its hind legs in an attempt to sexually mount the OTV. As soon as the gunner saw what it was trying to do, he burst out laughing.
“Well, I guess it’s somebody’s father for sure,” he said, and that kicked off everybody else in a wave of nervous laughter.
Even Mikaela could not keep from smiling as the Triceratops thrust itself repeatedly at the rear of the OTV. There was no logical reason why the beast would want to copulate with her machine, and no reason why it would normally mistake it for a female—darkness or no darkness.
The only cause she could imagine would be the same radiation that caused physical mutations in the dinosaurs and mental aberration in the Saurians. Perhaps it was the cause of the sexual confusion she now observed. The Triceratops continued to thrust at them with a steady thumping rhythm.
“Hold still, Doctor,” someone cried out from the cabin. “He can’t get a good grip on us.”
More laughter.
“Isn’t anybody going to squeal to make him feel good?” And that took them to the edge of pleasant hysteria.
Mikaela continued to churn through the underbrush at a slow speed, and the beast continued to chase and leap and thrust. He finally got the message that the OTV was not offering what might be called good sex, and at last gave up. This brought a round of applause from the passengers, obviously pleased to have something to break the tension and the monotony of their journey.
Checking the caravan’s position on her monitor, Mikaela exhaled slowly. For some reason, she had not been able to let out all her tension and apprehension during the “sex” scene. And she knew why: just the thought of the entire ship hurtling off into deep space, actually leaving the solar system, made her feel physically ill. If she continued to dwell on it, the abject terror and feeling of desperation were going to drive her mad.
The monitor’s readout informed her that she was less than fifty kilometers from the ruins. The crazy midnight journey was almost at an end. But then what? What would happen to them after that?
She didn’t want to think about it.
* * *
“I don’t believe any of this,” cried Oscar Rheinhardt, security chief for Copernicus Base. He was a thin, ascetic-looking man with a pencil-thin mustache. He chain-smoked his cigarettes and had a cough like a howitzer.
“Well, I’m sure we all wish it were a bad dream, but unfortunately it is not,” said Christopher Alvarez, who chaired the meeting of the Joint Chiefs. “This whole thing has been very bad for our public image.”
Gregor Kolenkhov laughed. “Public image? Come, Chris, why don’t you say it—we look like a bunch of fuck-ups. I’ll bet the Third World Confederation is having a good laugh at this one, oh boy!”
“Is there anything else we can do?” asked Marcia Bertholde, a middle-aged woman of sophisticated manner. She had winced at Kolenkhov’s words, but that was nothing unusual. She usually winced at whatever Kolenkhov said.
“I doubt it,” Rheinhardt said, speaking beneath a billowy cloud of blue smoke. “The stasis field kept all ships and equipment at bay, and when its engine fired up, it jumped out of here like a rabbit with its ass on fire.”
“How quaint an expression.” Bertholde did not look amused.
“But very appropriate,” Kolenkhov said. “The Dragonstar is now traveling at a velocity of between sixty and seventy kilometers per second, forty-eight degrees off the ecliptic. We don’t have anything that could catch her, and even if we did, there’s nothing we could do about it.”
“And you think it’s leaving the solar system?” Bertholde’s voice sounded as though it might break.
“No question about it. We have Professor Labate tracking it with all available gear down at the observatory, but wherever it’s going is purely academic now.”
“And it looks as though radio contact will continue to be jammed,” Rheinhardt said. “Christ, we can’t even tell them that we tried everything we could to help.”
“All those people on board,” Bertholde said. “And Colonel Kemp is among them. I wonder if they realize what’s happening to them.”
“I doubt if they could miss it,” Alvarez said. “The gee forces when those engines first kicked in must have been impressive.” The chairman shook his head sadly and cleared his throat. “Well, I know we could sit here and feel sorry for ourselves all day, but let’s remember that the whole world is watching us now, and that we have an obligation to tell them what has happened. We have to prepare a statement for the media, so let’s get going.”
No one spoke for a moment. The people around the table tried not to look into one another’s eyes, not to see the hopelessness there.
“Doesn’t anyone have any suggestions?” Alvarez asked.
“Yes, I have one.” Kolenkhov smiled sadly. “As far as the Dragonstar is concerned, I think we should tell the world to kiss it goodbye.”
* * *
“You’d better tell Colonel Kemp to come here,” Mishima Takamura said to one of his assistants.
He had managed to coax some of his instruments, including the shortwave transponder equipment, back on-line. Somebody had strung some emergency lights around the ruins of the temple, and the scene had more the look of a late-night archeological dig than the refugee camp it was. The array of salvaged laboratory equipment seemed oddly out of place.
Seismic sensors were picking up a new series of vibrations in the hull. In fact, Mishima’s ears were already beginning to detect a low-frequency thrumming. There were several monitors propped up in the debris—two of them giving number-crunching readout displays, the other with a dead-lens camera view of the stars and the distant Earth and Sun beyond the curve of the hull.
“Yes, Doctor?” Kemp’s voice cut into his thoughts, and he turned to see the short, handsome man standing there at the threshold of some cleared rubble as though waiting to enter an office. The colonel’s dress uniform was tattered and covered with dust. He sported an amateurish bandage about his left thigh and looked as though he should be posing for an American Revolutionary War painting.
“Something’s happening again,” Mishima said. “I don’t like this one bit.”
“Could things get any worse?” Kemp asked. “What do you mean?”
Mishima explained to him the resonances he was picking up and pointed to the indications that it was getting stronger.
“Any idea what it means?” Kemp asked.
“Not really.”
Kemp slowly shook his head. “You know, I’ve been thinking—maybe we should try to break back into the crew section. Wouldn’t it be possible to overcome the alien controls? Maybe we could turn this ship around and get ourselves back to Earth.”
Mishima Takamura laughed lightly. “No offense, Colonel, but that doesn’t sound very likely to me.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, I doubt if we could break in there, unless the ship wanted us to, and second, we’re not magicians, we’re scientists.”
Kemp seemed a bit irked by his reply. “Meaning?”
Mishima shrugged. “Simply that none of us could figure out very much of the alien technology before, so what makes you think we could now?”
“I always thought necessity was the mother of invention,” the Colonel said. “I’m sorry, Doctor, I’m just not the type to give up so easily.”
“That’s a very admirable trait,” Mishima said. “But I’m afraid I’m simply fresh out of ideas. Why don’t we—”
Mishima did, not finish the sentence. The low-frequency humming grew unbearably loud in an instant, and there was a monstrous sound that filled the enclosed atmosphere like a thunderclap. It sounded like a gigantic dynamo kicking in. The hull and everything in the interior seemed to convulse very slightly. One quick pulsing sensation, and that was all.
Looking quickly to the video monitor, Mishima saw the Earth, Sun, and stars smear across the screen in long lines of white light, followed by a spectacular redshift—beautiful streamers, like fireworks, that trailed across the screen.
And then everything was gone.
Kemp, Mishima, and a few others stared at the monitor, which now reflected a blackness so deep and complete that its only rival might be the feelings of desperation in all their hearts.
“Oh, no,” Mishima said.
“Was that what I think it was?” Colonel Kemp asked.’
“If you thought it was a redshift, then the answer is yes,” Mishima said.
“Good Christ! You mean we’ve reached the speed of light? So quickly?”
Mishima pointed to the screen and shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t think that’s quite it.”
DS02 Night of the Dragonstar Page 21
