‘Figuring out how we would be travelling from here at the research station to the resort was a problem. I scrapped the idea of a tunnel from here to the resort, too expensive. We won’t have a lot of traffic along the roadway since most of the visitors will stay in the resort. To keep costs under control, I’m going to clear a path and simply SilFuse a roadway on top of and fused into the natural sandstone bed. We’ll get a natural, strong road surface by clearing the path and building the top up with sand and crushed sandstone and then fusing it into a matrix with the base stone of the cliff. The surface will be quite hard since the sand will solidify as glass in a limestone matrix with some carbon fiber elements strewn through the mix. We’ll use the same tools that we used for our building construction here on the original peninsula.’
‘Finally, we’ll need a bridge across the river’s mouth. That’s a pretty wide expanse to cross if you have to consider both aesthetics and cost. In fact it’s too wide for a suspension bridge and we don’t want to spoil the view with pillars. That’s where our Gravitonics Drive comes in.’
Dan shifted his stance and looked at Anton. He’d been closely watching Anton’s sketches that overlaid the panorama in front of him and said, ‘Whoa, now you are getting expensive. We can’t afford to float every transport across the chasm.’
A smile formed on Anton’s face, ‘No, that’s not what I was thinking of. We’ll need a weak Gravitonic field on the plateau anyway since everyone will want Hive-Tab resource links. These visitors will all be people who are accustomed to the group communications, instant resource access and visualizations like the one we are using right now. In addition, the spaceport will need the fields for floating load and unload of the ships. We can’t use the antigravity sleds without a field you know. We’ll have to have a drive installed. Oh, I’m not talking about a big ship’s drive but rather a simple one for Hive Field and gravity control. One of the spare Hunter Recon drives should be enough or maybe they can bring something even smaller back from Europa.’
‘We’ll extend the field over the entire area using a gold-wire net that we can embed in the sandy areas of the plateau using the SilFusers. We can make it fine enough that even if some of the wires-paths crack there will be enough redundancy in the net to keep the field strong and uniform. Luckily gold is a very good conductor and we’ve got a lot of it right under the main plateau thanks to Alex and Tom’s discovery.’
‘So, for the river crossing I’m planning a self-supporting structure with three span sections. First we’ll build a fiber and steel reinforced support structure of SilFused sand on each side of the river that will extend from the base of the cliff up to an equal height above the top of the plateau. These will anchor the end spans. From there the bridge will extend out from each side about a third of the way across the river using a cantilever support back to the base. Since the sections of the bridge will be supported only on the cliff-ends, there will be no obstruction of the view. The center span will be supported with interlocking, single crystal quartz, carbon fiber reinforced bundles that we can grow from the raw sand. Since they will be under tensile compression they will be very rigid and more than strong enough for the short length required.’
‘The ends of the bridge extending down the cliff-face will do double duty by housing elevators to viewing platforms and, down at the river level, a moving underwater walkway across the mouth of the river. The walkway will be housed in a clear quartz tube, again in compression for strength. We’ll of course refine and grow the quartz from our abundant supply of beach sand. Over here on the north side of the river mouth, the tube will bend to extend out into the shallow ocean along the edge of the coral shoulder. That’s where the undersea hotel and restaurant will be built. I imagine the views of the ammonites, long necked plesiosaurus and other sea creatures along the coral will be spectacular. David Pope tells me the coral and sea-life mixture goes way beyond anything we’ve ever thought was here. I guess we’ll lose a lot of diversity and beauty when that meteor hits in about a thousand years.’
‘We’ll have restricted access from there to the research station above for supply and service through simple tunnels up through the cliffs and into the Hype tunnels. Might even open some of them up for tours if I can talk Sara into it.’
‘So, what do you think? Any other ideas?’
Dan sat down for a few seconds then turned to Anton, ‘Wow, you don’t think small Anton. Ok, we can implement the automated outer defense system along these lines using the same principles that we employed in the upstream end of Blackbird valley. It’s a classic defense-in-depth design that increases the violence of its response as the intruder penetrates deeper. We know that works very well up at Blackbird.’
‘I’m a little concerned about the tree huts only because of the potential for people falling and the possible incursion of a few of the four-legged snakes we see on this side of the plateau. Have you seen any of them? Some of those guys are like giant Boas in our time but they still have legs. A few sensors in the surrounding trees around here and across to here might be enough to take care of them. We’ll have to run some tests and keep our eyes open.’
‘The cliff-sides shouldn’t be a problem for security. We’ll implement the same sensor security net we have here. I’ll have to bring a few more personnel over though since I can’t envision all these open areas without regular patrols although we can leave a lot of that to the automated flying drones. There’s still an awful lot about this place that we don’t know so we play it safe.’
‘Have you thought about something to attract the dragonflies in the creek? I saw one last week and it’s wingspan must have been five foot across. Combine their size with the fantastic colors and you’ll have an attraction for sure.’
Anton enthusiastically saved the suggestion, ‘Great idea. Maybe we’ll want to run a small creek between the two lakes with a waterfall to draw them. We can cut a couple of swirl pools in the limestone slope to make a water-park attraction. I was also toying with some boat trips up the river to watch the T-Rex.’
Dan stopped drinking, ‘Oh no. Hold off on that for a while Anton. We’re taking enough risk with this station. I couldn’t guarantee anyone’s safety if they travel in that area. No matter how you look at it, T-Rex still rules the area.’
Anton shut down the display view, ‘We’ll talk about that later. Great and thanks for your help. I’ve already outlined the major parts of this plan in my supplies and personnel request and sent it on in the probe that Seth’s flying out right now. I’d like to use some of your engineers and the dozers to begin work on the roadway and the bridge in three days. We should be able to start on the southern plateau in another week. By that time we will have heard from the board of directors.’
‘Ok Anton. Just how involved do you think the Hypes will be in this resort?’
‘Well, Sara and Brittany are pushing their involvement all the way. They want to see them in everything from breakfast shows to using the more articulate ones as guides.’
Dan looked a little concerned, ‘I guess I’d like to hold off on that for a while. Even after seven months we don’t really know them. Some of the things they do make them seem so human-like. Other times, well I just don’t know.’
‘Yep, I’m glad you agree with me. We’ll have to talk to Sara and ask her to take it easy at the start. Thanks for the suggestions.’
* * * * *
Fifteen-year-old Brittany Wenford walked along the darkened pathway that followed the eastern ocean’s cliff edge. Her eyes were accustomed to the low evening light and cool air that arrived just before the first brightening of the false dawn. Far below her path, the ocean softly crested and glowed as it broke against the rocks. Bioluminescent auras of pastel colors still rose from the dense sea plankton to glow along each wave’s crest in soft rainbows of blue and yellow.
Further out toward the horizon, the dark sea slowly rose and fell in long waves that extended to the mist-filled horizon. Rising and slowly falling in a hypn
otic rhythm like the slumber breathing of some huge creature. Her thoughts wandered as she walked the familiar trail, ‘The stars, oh will I ever grow tired of their display? Doctor Zoeller says they really are brighter and there are more of them visible than in our own time. Hummph! You don’t need his measurements to tell you there are so many more stars. The pinpoints of fire that define our Milky Way are magnificent. The air is so clear you can see the reflection of the Milky Way on the ocean surface extending out toward the point where the sun will rise.’
Sara Wenford, Brittany’s mother, walked softly next to her. ‘There’s the spot we want to be. Hush now. They’ll be coming out soon.’
As they settled down on the coarse sand soil next to the sea ferns and brush palms, the first distant rays of a younger sun lit the faint mist of the horizon to gently spread red streamers across a gossamer curtain of light. High, thin clouds near the horizon change to a soft pink network of filaments across the sky as the first of the dinosaurs emerge from their tunnels below the humans. The air soon fills with a low murmuring, almost a whistling like some forgotten tune that lays familiar on the memory but cannot be fully remembered. The melody grows in volume as more and more Hypsilophodonts emerge from their evening tunnels or from over the high paths of the plateau to gather and lift their heads to greet the sun of the new day.
The melody rises and changes, complex but still sweetly clear. The Hypes flow along the cliff edge to form into groups. Each group sings a unique melody sounding like a cantata rising softly in some long forgotten tongue. Sara and Brittany listen, recording the morning song on their Hive-Tabs. Sara whispers lightly to Brittany, almost to herself, ‘Their song is so much more complex than the birds in our time. Listen, each group sings independently but their melodies rise and blend into a single concerto. Remember how the songs used to be mostly whistles and chirps. I’m a bit concerned by it. This voice-like tone has entered their singing only since we’ve arrived. They are learning and expanding their culture from our own music.’
The song rises in volume as the hot edge of the star rises above the eastern horizon. The air around them saturates with sweet melody carried by individual refrains to octaves beyond human hearing but strangely still felt by the human audience. Then slowly, the early salutation fades and the Hypes break off, each to his or her own tasks. The twitter and cries of the waking sea birds and their neighbors, the small pterosaurs who nest along the cliffs, slowly rises to displace the morning song’s greeting of the new day.
* * * * *
Sara still thought of herself as a field paleontologist but for the last seven months she is, more precisely, a naturalist. Sand-colored hair frames a darkly tanned face and muscular body. More often described as handsome rather than beautiful, her athletic build enhances her beauty just as her eyes betray an obvious high level of intelligence. She’s still mad at her daughter Brittany.
‘Look Mom, I wasn’t watching Gabriel yesterday and I have no idea how he and Fozzy managed to get outside on the mainland. It’s not my fault.’
‘You were scheduled to guide the students on a cliff tour yesterday. Just where were you then? I should have let you explain to his parents why he and Fozzy were out there on the mainland by themselves.’
‘I traded with Tina. Tina wanted to try to take the class on the field trip. She’s got a really neat perspective on how the birds co-exist with the pterosaurs on the cliff sides. You should talk …’
‘You let Tina there with all those children by herself?’
‘John called and wanted me to see the new Hive-bot cloak improvements …’
‘No, you do not go off at the beck and call of your brother and leave your responsibility.’
‘I’m sorry.’ A melodious voice, the same tone and pitch as Sara’s, pushes into the conversation. ‘I told Gabe stay with us. He run off when I wasn’t watching.’
Sara looked over at Tina as she walked over to them. These Hypes couldn’t conceive of a youngster not following their commands. Tina is one of the most articulate dinosaurs, a model of what her race can achieve if they choose. Tina stands just under five feet tall and has a broad, almost smiling face. Soft, pheasant-like feathers cover her body and lead down to a striped down-covered tail that is as long as her body. Her muzzle is shaped somewhat like a beak but only partially feather covered.
Unlike a beak, her mouth contained rows of teeth. Not the sharp, cutting incisors of a predator but a mix of sharp and flattened teeth, more like those of a human.
The Hypsilophodon aren’t Theropods. Their species, already near eighty million years old, will not survive the coming extinction to evolve into birds. They are quite different in behavior from the theropods and are omnivores. They eat vegetables and occasionally some meat. Besides their vocal ability, they have articulated hands with five fingers with an opposable thumb and occasionally use them to wield simple tools.
‘You are mad at me. Fozzy’s parents mad at me. I’m sorry.’ Tina continued.
Sara didn’t let up, ‘Suppose the Albertosaurs were still out there. They both would be dead now.’
‘But they weren’t out there Mom. Anyway, Gabe recognized her or he would have run back with Fozzy.’
Seven-year-old Gabriel Zavtek is a bit of a challenge. His mother Rachel liked to refer to him as having a high energy level. In the first few weeks after their arrival at the Station, Gabriel developed a close relation with many of the younger Hypes. Unknown to the elders, they were soon taking him through the tunnels and off the peninsula to play in the fields of the plateau.
One day Gabriel ran across a group of young Troondons playing. Troondons are theropod meat-eaters. Luckily for Gabe, they also have a high level of intelligence and accepted him into their group. As with many children who just meet, Gabe and the youngsters grew tired and went home to meet the parents. It took a three-day expedition to recover him when the Troondons walked off with him on their annual migration. The Troondons had actually saved Gabe’s life since, with their migration, the family’s place in the plateau hunting grounds was replaced by a much less forgiving herd of Albertosaurus.
‘We need to really keep an eye on Gabriel. Don’t let him out of your sight in the future. Tina, I don’t want you handling a group of human children on your own for a while. You apparently have as much to learn about humans as we do about your people.’
‘I was talking with David Pope yesterday. We are going to begin the work on expanding the Station this week and he’s concerned about how the Troondon will react to our digging up their lands.’
‘Well Mom,’ Brittany commented, ‘they let us go when we settled onto the peninsula here.’
‘Yes, they have adapted in more ways than one. Don’t forget that we also cut out a part of their food supply since our presence here protects the Hypes from them. I just don’t know how far they will let us push them.’
‘OK, I’ll let it drop now. Come with me, I want to show you how to run a Fourier Analysis on the song patterns we recorded this morning. We’ll compare them with the recordings after our first arrival. Then we need to plan a trip up to Blackbird Valley and see how the hypes up there sing. I want to see just how strongly our arrival has influenced their development here.’
References
1. Stanley, Steven M. Earth System History. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1999. ISBN 0-7167-2882-6 p. 280
2. Clausen, Jens (2009). "Man, machine and in between". Nature 457: 1080.
3. Xu, Xing; Mark A. Norell, Xuewen Kuang, Xiaolin Wang, Qi Zhao and Chengkai Jia (2004-10-07). "Basal tyrannosauroids from China and evidence for protofeathers in tyrannosauroids". Nature 431 (7009): 680–684.
During the last million years of the Cretaceous Era, the major continents were in the present day shapes but the oceans rose three hundred feet higher than today’s levels. Shallow ocean waters covered most of Europe and the central United States up until the end of the era.
The concept of a SilFuse construction method is plausible but requires
more energy than is available in a modern construction site. This method used here would be to collect sand or limestone and raise it’s temperature to it’s melting point. If the mix goes too far, then common glass will result. However, with the proper mix of carbon and other impurities a silicon matrix under compressive tension could be formed into any shape structure. The resulting materials are very hard and durable as well as highly insulative against both heat and cold. Left alone to the elements, they would return to their natural state after a few hundred years not through reflow but through natural abrasion from the elements.
The Hive-Tab concept links the human mind directly with a network of computers using an interface tab that sits on the mastoid bone behind the ear. It provides communications with others on the network as well as all of the network and communications power of the computers. This is a non-invasive interface currently in its infancy stages for speech and sight improvements. See reference #2.
Throughout this novel I’ve restricted the types of plants, dinosaurs and other animals to those found, or at least their fossil evidence, in and around the West-Texas and New Mexico areas. The environments depicted in the novel are therefore as accurate as can be visualized for the area and the time frame of just before the last great K-T Extinction.
Dinosaur intelligence is a hotly debated item with many researchers now leaning toward recognition that they were highly intelligent. Feathered dinosaurs are a current hot topic with some researchers even attempting to derive color from the feather’s structure. Our reference here discusses recent findings of feathers found on Tyrannosaurus skin samples.
Only one family of dinosaurs survived the extinction. The Theropods, mostly meat eaters such as the Tyrannosaurus, went on to become the birds of today.
Chapter 3 : Development
"And, you know, the thing about a shark… he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be living… until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin"
Hunter's Moon (Cretaceous Station Book 2) Page 5
