Hunter's Moon (Cretaceous Station Book 2)

by Terrence Zavecz

  Fran watched for a few moments then without turning her head she asked, ‘Where did it go?’

  ‘We’re climbing very high into the sky. The plateau’s too small to see now. Look over here, you can begin to see the curvature of the earth. Remember the rain and clouds last night. There, out over the ocean are more clouds.’

  ‘Is it raining there?’

  ‘Maybe and maybe not. You don’t always get rain when you get clouds Fran.’

  ‘I don’t like the rain. Ohhh, stars. How can it be nighttime already?’

  The sky around them was turning a deep velvety blue color that would soon transform to soft coal black. More and more points of light appeared and a full moon slowly rose over the edge of the planet below them.’

  ‘We’re almost there. No, it’s not nighttime, the stars are always there Fran. You don’t see them because of the bright sunlight scattering in the air. There’s very little air up here so you can see the stars in the daytime.’

  Fran seemed to be catching on fast as the Hunter pulled alongside of the Essex. ‘So, Argos is like Essssexx. It can fly too? You come from up here?’

  ‘No Fran. We actually come from down there. This is going to get complicated. Can we take it up later? But yes, the Argos also flies like the Essex. Surely you remember us landing?’

  ‘No, I didn’t see Argos land. We hide in tunnels.’

  The Hunter swung around to an open port just below the Argos. Toshi shut the system down and the small ship grappled and then was pulled up into the hanger.

  They waited a minute while the outer skin of the Hunter stored the accumulated heat and warmed the other side of it’s hull to matched that of the interior of the Essex. Seth opened the door.

  A small delegation that included Captain Maynard Dillard stood outside the portal. Seth stepped out on the ramp and guided Molly and Sara down onto the edge.

  ‘Permission to come aboard.’ Seth saluted informally, greeting the Captain and his men.

  ‘Permission granted, welcome aboard Captain Sassaman.’ Captain Dillard replied. Military protocol was very loosely applied on company ships and Seth was allowed to retain his rank. ‘I’m glad to see you here. Captain Yakamura, how have you been? It’s been a very long time.’

  ‘Good morning Maynard. Yeah it’s been a while but it’s good to see you again. I think you are in for quite a treat while you’re here. Ah, let me introduce the others.’

  Just then Fran stepped out and joined them on the ramp. She was looking all around, bobbing up and down excitedly on her feet. Molly had warned her not to step off the ramp until asked to do so.

  Quiet cries of exclamation rose from the small contingent on the deck. Molly spotted Susan Shieve in the group. She could tell that Susan was on the Hive Net of the ship. They must be on shipboard imaging. It was nice of Captain Dillard to minimize the size of the greeting party.

  ‘Oh, ah. Sorry, I was a bit taken aback and I’m forgetting my manners. Please, please come aboard.’ Maynard mentioned. ‘It’s good to see you again Seth and Toshi and all of you but please, introduce your passengers.’

  ‘Thank you Maynard.’ Seth commented as he directed the others down the slight rise of the ramp. You have already met Molly Pasteur, our communications specialist, I believe. This is Doctor Sara Wenford, our Paleontologist and one of our newest employees.’

  ‘Doctor Wenford, I’ve read and heard so much about you.’

  ‘Please Captain, we are much less formal at Cretaceous Station and I’ve grown used to being addressed as “Sara”. There are too many formal titles around the station if we maintained the custom.’

  ‘And let me introduce our companion and host, Fran.’

  Fran walked over to the Captain and, mimicking a reaction she had learned from her friends, she extended her hand.

  Maynard and the group around him backed up slightly in surprised reaction. ‘Ah, I’m sorry but what is it doing?’

  Fran turned back to Molly. ‘Did I do wrong thing? Should not shake?’

  A big smile rose on Maynard’s face as he recovered his composure. ‘I’m sorry … ah, did you say your name was Fran?’

  ‘Yes, they call to me and me alone as Fran.’

  Sara broke in briefly, ‘They are just getting the concept of individual names. Seems they don’t use them.’

  ‘Then how…? No, please let me start yet again. Fran, I apologize. You did the proper thing. Please let me shake your hand. It is an honor and a privilege to welcome you aboard.’

  ‘Thank you Kaptin. Nice to meet you.’ Then she looked over to Molly, ‘You tell me ‘bout “honor and a prevledge” later?’

  Molly smiled agreement as the Captain stood with his eyes wide in amazement.

  ‘I never dreamed. You told us they stayed with you but …’

  Sara spoke up, saving him embarrassment, ‘Captain, our species is barely a million and a half years old. Fran’s people have been evolving for over a hundred times as long. They are quite intelligent and continue to surprise us every day, as I’m sure we do to them. They are different from us in many of their thought patterns but we still seem to have much in common. You have to remember though, we are the aliens here.’

  ‘I guess it’s not all that strange at all.’ Maynard commented. ‘Consider how many birds can mimic human language and even communicate verbally at home. This is the same family tree after all!’

  ‘Not exactly Captain.’ Sara commented. ‘We have the descendants of the Theropods. These are Ornithopoda and I’d like to stop this trend in the conversation right now since we haven’t had a chance to discuss the implications with our hosts.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, good enough. You have some passengers to transport. Please come in now ladies and gentlemen.’

  Adrian used the distraction and noise of the entry of the group of passengers to whisper over to Molly, ‘What implications?’

  ‘They don’t survive the extinction, dummy! Shhh! She has good ears.’

  ‘I hope all of you enjoyed our trip out here and, if you were able to attend the briefings, you should be well informed on the progress we’ve made here at Cretaceous Station. We’ll be here for twenty days and I’m pleased to tell you that you will not have to go through any customs inquisition.’

  There was a mixed level of nervous laughter in the group. More than a few seemed intrigued by Fran.

  ‘I’d like to introduce the one person that you’ve seen so often in the introductory materials, Doctor Sara Wenford. Sara?’

  ‘Thank you Captain. You’ve seen the introductions but for those of you who don’t know him, our flight Captain will be Seth Sassaman. I believe the Hunter Recon ship has loaded all of your bags.’

  ‘Doctor Wenford!’ A young man in his teens spoke up. ‘Will we be able to meet and talk with Fran on the way down?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. Fran will be staying here on board for a few days to meet some of the crew. There are many others that you can meet down at the Station.’ Sara looked over at Fran and she could see the disappointment in her stance. ‘However, I believe we can take a few minutes for a brief meeting before we leave. I’d like to limit your questions and discussion because we have a rather tight schedule and you don’t want to cut short the grand tour planned for our flight down.’

  ‘You’ve all been briefed on the schedule. Those of you who brought swimsuits, I suggest you leave them on board the Essex. It’s warm on the station but we do not have swimming facilities yet. We’ll have more time for discussion after we board and there will also be some refreshments.’

  * * * * *

  Cindy floated six inches over the granite tabletop. The field around her distorted her image to resemble something rather like a body swallowed by some great jellyfish. Cindy’s hair was gone but she finally looked relaxed. Doctor Ian Grahame sat in the corner of the room and reviewed the Hive-Tab data coming from the thin disk still resident behind the remnants of her lacerated right ear. Ian’s hand touched a set of readings and pulled them f
rom the diagnostics over to the controls on his right. The analgesic dosage increased slightly in the air supply and in the medicinal vapors swirling around Cindy’s body. He then set the monitor to notify him if any of her key indices changed.

  ‘How’s she doing Doctor? I mean, is she gonna make it?’ Tom Bracken asked as he entered. ‘She looks kinda strange, you know blurry. What’s going on?’

  Ian glanced over for just a second, ‘Tom! I was just ready to yell at cha ‘til I saw t’was ye. Alex and Mark ha’ been in here twice already and I thought they were coming in fer another round. I just dinna have time to be playing wee games with their feelings o’guilt.’

  ‘T’answer your question,’ Ian stood and walked over to Cindy’s bench. ‘Yes, I think the lass t‘will be ok both physically and maybe even mentally. I believe that, other than the effects of a near fatal loss of blood and the lacerations, the gas or whatever agent entered her blood minimized the mental trauma the poor lass was subjected to. Most of it will seem like a bad dream, a wee bit of a nightmare to her.’

  ‘Ye did the right thing, calling it in so soon. They stabilized her and got her here quickly. I was able to remove all the hair and cloth before it dried to the wounds. Thank the rain and the quick thinking of the medics. I haven’t had to use this often but the field capsule around her is medicinal and she’s a-floatin’ to allow all parts of her body to be bathed in the medicinal vapors without pressure and muss on the wounds.’

  ‘See that funnel-shaped wee blurring around her nose and mouth? That’s the air column, otherwise she would suffocate in the medicinal gas around the rest of her. I expect her to heal rather quickly without any significant residual scars. The bonnie field’s even keeping her wounds moist so that scabbing and infection don’t enter the picture. This all uses the same technology as our Gravitonic Engine. Float every molecule of her body so there are no contact points, no pressure and nigh the bedsore. Then set her in a gravity bubble and evacuate everything except the purest oxygen for healing and some other specially selected chemicals to cleanse the wounds.’

  ‘Laddie, ye did a bonnie job and I don’t wanna push you out but you have to leave too. Now Shoo! Thanks for your quick actions. I’m sure Cindy is going to be grateful. Now, I’ve got work to do. Beat it.’

  * * * * *

  Colonel Daniel Drake lowered the small pair of binoculars and set them on the table next to his pistol. A cool glass of water and ice, flavored lightly with a local fruit they discovered on the peninsula, sweated invitingly onto a flat piece of hygroscopic local sandstone under it. The patio’s location near the narrow entrance to Cretaceous Station provided a commanding view of the ocean, mainland and river valley extending from below the mouth of the river, over and above the gated entrance to the north. From this vantage, he could see shoreline, river, forest and some swampy areas to the west. The beauty of the high plateau contrasted with the blue-silver mountains that formed the backdrop of the western horizon.

  ‘You picked a beautiful location for your quarters Paul. I’m tempted to move out of the dorms and set up next to you.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got just the spot for you. We’ll take a walk over to it later if you want.’ Paul replied. ‘Now, you wanted to talk about the attacks yesterday. I’m not a security specialist, why me?’

  ‘You hit the right word.’ Dan replied. ‘Security!’

  ‘We have a problem. A big problem in that those black ghosts are able to evade our automated security systems. I understand their natural camouflage capability for normal eyesight but even our helmet sensors lose track of them or can only see them for brief glimpses.’

  ‘You’ve also had a chance to review the Hive-Tab recordings from Alex’s night attack on the other side of the river as well as those of Sotak and Cindy. What do you think?’

  ‘I think I didn’t enjoy it at all. I wouldn’t have looked at that data at all if you wouldn’t have requested it. You deal with this kind of stuff all the time, don’t you?’

  ‘No, not as often as you apparently think. I’m not a homicide agent. On the other hand, you’re a down to earth guy with a high level of technical knowledge. How is it we don’t see them.’

  ‘Guess that makes sense. Security on the plateau huh? We rely heavily on the detection and programmed reactions of the AutoSentinels for our protection. They are easy to transport and quick to deploy. The more you have mapped into a network, the easier for their AI to control and react properly to any threat.’

  ‘The recordings show some very interesting items. First of all these “black ghosts” as you just called them, naturally prefer to stay in the shadow. You can see how this inclination takes them from shadow to shadow in the images captured by the Hunter.’

  ‘They also move in tandem. One freezes in his new position, watching while the other moves and they are constantly communicating while they do so.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You can see it when they emerged onto the roadway in the failed ambush. Here, look at this sequence.’ Paul linked a playback sequence over to Dan and started it. ‘Watch the back and tail feathers. See that flourish, just a light flutter but the answer sequence on his buddy is …. right there. We can see variations of this same sequence three times on the short segment. It’s like an “Ok, it’s clear. You go.” communication.’

  ‘Too bad we don’t have more observations because this next segment is really interesting. This is from Corey Zavtek and Anton Dotschkal’s record of the ambush. Look at that fade out. Yeah, even Corey commented that the dinosaur seemed to stand there in the middle of the cut area and then fade away. Oh, we can still see him but he’s harder to identify now. That’s natural, active camouflage ranging in the visible wavelengths.’

  ‘I was trying to determine how he could have done this. Apparently, it’s a combination of their skin undergoing pigment changes along with a change in the bias of the polarized light reflected from the feather vanes on their thick down covering. They kind of bend their feathers to change their appearance and blend into the background colors.’

  Dan’s mouth hung open for a second, ‘Rather like a chameleon. How are they doing this? I’ve never heard of such capability before. There’s nothing in existence that can do such a thing.’

  ‘Oh, I suspect that our bird population either lost the ability over time or perhaps those who had it were wiped out in the extinction. Hang on a minute though, it gets better.’

  ‘The AutoSentinels work across the visible spectrum and infrared. They rely heavily on three things; movement detection, sensing in the infrared for body heat signatures and sound. Sara’s been examining many of the predator eye structures since we’ve been here. All of the major predators we’ve examined have quite good eyesight right up into the longer, infrared wavelengths. This is a natural evolution for a predator since they need to track the thermal signatures of their prey in the thick foliage and at night.’

  ‘Do you realize that at one time we thought the dinosaurs were all cold blooded? Well, let’s not get sidetracked.’

  ‘If we look at the record from that night at Dotschkal’s camp, we can see them testing the security perimeter. As this went on, the sensors we traced show weaker and weaker detection signals. This most likely means that they weren’t looking for breaks in the physical placement of the AutoSentinel barrier but rather they were learning how to adapt to the response of the AutoSentinel. That is, they were learning how to camouflage themselves from the sensors.’

  ‘Eventually they simply got to the point that they could go in silently and move about undetected by our AutoSentinels. With this possibility in mind, I went back and looked again at the active matrix data from the whole evening. The conclusion I’ve drawn is that they can tune their reflected image to the point that they actually absorb the infrared strobe signals of the AutoSentinel. This is like the old radar absorbing structures and paints used on military craft of the last century. The strobe sends out a signal and the return pulse is an even weaker signal than the
surrounding background. It’s rather like there was a hole in the field sucking up the strobe signal.’

  ‘Why, that’s amazing!’ Dan responded. ‘I’ve never heard of such evolutionary capability.’

  ‘It’s like my wife Sara always says. Our species has only been around a short time compared to this phylum. They’ve had a hundred times longer than we have for development to a series of relatively stable threats. Remember that our environment has undergone many more drastic changes during our evolution than theirs, for instance the frequent cycle of intense ice ages.’

  ‘They’ve had stable warm weather throughout their history. Clear skies for over a hundred million years. They’ve adapted all right, but only to threats produced by other predators. One major development for them would be to be able to camouflage themselves against an attacker or prey who could see infrared body heat as well as the spectrum of light that our eyes consider to be visible. Once again, evolution at its best.’

  ‘I wrote all of this up and posted it you know. You were on the highlighted distribution.’

  Dan is staring out over the mainland by this time. ‘Are you kidding? No, I didn’t see it. I don’t follow the publications coming out of the research group. Most of them are way beyond anything I even care to understand. You should have directly called me on this.’

  ‘We have a real problem here Paul. This isn’t random chance. These guys have developed a taste for human blood. At this point, they are hunting us. They aren’t going to stop unless we can catch or kill them. I don’t have the resources to guard every inch of the Station. What can you do to improve the AutoSentinel barrier toolset?’

  Paul thought for a while and took a sip of his drink. ‘For the short-term, we can’t do a redesign of the hardware. The ideal, simplest solution of course is a software or setup fix. After all a return signal that is lower than the background is almost as good as a signal spike. The problem is, it’s going to be harder to detect a real threat because you must first determine the true background noise level. False detections are expensive and could render the whole system useless. People simply wouldn’t believe the alarms after a few false ones. I can start algorithm development but I don’t have much data to work with.’