‘Where’s the other one?’ Tom’s call echo’s through the darkness. Alex replies over the helmet communicator, ‘He’s gone. I don’t see him anywhere.’
Alex sets off across the ledge and around the rock face in pursuit and suddenly stops. Corey and Tom are right behind him and almost collide into his back. Two massive eyes, large as saucer plates and glowing yellow in the moonlight seem to float before them in the darkened sky. Then the head suddenly takes shape and swings away from the black dinosaur standing silently before it. The small black raptor immediately sprints off and up the cliffside trail.
The massive head snaps forward without warning. Eight-inch long teeth silently flash from an open mouth as the jaws twist awkwardly to grasp an object on the high trail but snap only the empty air. Alex’s trained reflexes instantly reacted and he drops to the ground, rolling inward toward the cliff face. The snap was aimed at Alex giving Tom a chance to use the lighter gravity of this world to sprint up the sloped face of the cliff a few feet. Corey pulled back to the open rock shelf.
Tom sets his footing and the rifle snaps up to his shoulder as he twists back, a sharp edge of the rock digging into his knee. The crack of a hypervelocity slug fills their ears and the massive six-foot long head violently snaps around. Tom fires a second shot as the animal drops below the ledge.
Alex backpedals on all fours a few feet and then runs back to the open rock shelf. He immediately drops, turns and crawls over bringing his rifle up to look back over the rocky edge.
Tom moved his hand over to the slug control on the rifle. It was still set at a small slug level of “three”. A few choice words that would have embarrassed his mother pass through his mind as he dials the control up to a massive “eight” setting. Then he waits.
Corey has been going over the leavings on the narrow rock ledge. ‘These all seem to be dinosaurs and other small animals that I can’t identify in the low light. Thank God I haven’t found anything that might look human.’
Alex stood up by the edge of the shelf, ‘I think we’re ok here. The valley floor comes up a little closer to the trail around the corner where we met those big teeth. ‘There’s no way he could hope to reach us from down there. I don’t see him or any others below us. Tom must have scared him off.’
Tom shuffled down the cliff and dropped to the ground next to Corey. He immediately looked back up the hillside, ‘I don’t know what happened to the second dino, he scooted up the cliff face and disappeared. What, by the way, makes you think I missed him?’
‘Well I don’t see him back there.’ Alex returned.
Tom walked back over to the narrow path, ‘Look at this. Blood. He’s not here but I knew I hit him. I could see the slug impact right in the upper jaw. It swung him back.’
‘Well, where is he?’
‘Aw, I only had the rifle set on a “3”. We weren’t after brontosaurus you know! Those black guys are small like a human.’
‘Great, so now we have a T-Rex or something else running around with a wounded jaw.’
‘Don’t know if that was a T-Rex, Alex.’ Corey returned. ‘Could have been any one of a number of cranky tooth-filled dinos that we’ve seen. So what do we do now? Do we go after that thing you wounded or head back.’
‘Focus guys! We are here to hunt two killer so-called black ghosts. We don’t deviate from this.’ Alex cut in. ‘We stay on their trail until we get them or lose them. Let’s spread out over this cliff face and see if we can find them.’
‘Where the heck are we anyway?’ Corey asked. ‘We were headed south on that stream. You don’t think this is the river valley do you?’
‘Yep. We’re right on the cliff-face overlooking the valley. Here’s the link to our Global Positioning System. At least we can use that again.’ Tom answered.
Alex stood and brushed some of the small pebbles and sand from his blouse and then off of his pants. ‘All right let’s get a move on and pick up their trail again. I hope they decide to head back to the top of the plateau. I’ve been down that river valley on the boat a couple of times now and I don’t look forward to having to cross it on foot. The place is packed with life down there and all of it wants to eat you.’
‘No matter which way we go, as soon as we find their trail I’ll call back to the Station and we’ll bring out some blocking squads and drive these guys into an ambush. In the mean time, keep on your toes. These guys are slimy crafty and we don’t know where they’ll try and hit us. They seem to like to use the local threats also, like walking through the middle of the triceratops herd. Who knows what they might lead us into.’
‘I’ll head up the cliff face on that little trail the first ghost took. You and Corey move out on the trail where you shot that big toothy guy. Watch out, he’s bound to be really pissed if you did hit him.’
As Corey stands, he bends down to check his leg fitting and notices a strange glow on the rocks at his feet and looks up. A velvet black sheet fills the sky above, studded and virtually twinkling with multicolored pinpoints of flickering fire. The massive, bright moon is near setting in the west allowing the radiance of the heavens to shine above them with even greater billiance. A path of radiant sparkling fury cuts across the center of the brilliance marking the bright ecliptic of the galaxy and the densely packed Sagittarius arm that the earth is entering.
He turns his head to see the source of the warm glow at his feet. The black brilliance from above fades a bit in the east. Carried across the unusually clear morning air, the first dim warm pastels of a coming new day backlight a thin line on the edge of the dark horizon.
‘Stop daydreaming Corey,’ Tom calls as he starts down the path. ‘You’re wasting time!’
Tom set a brisk pace on the narrow trail with Corey close behind. The trail weaves in and out following the cliff edge. Occasional cuts in the hillside carry small streams of water from springs above them falling down to the valley floor. The footing is hard on the loose stone path making it impossible to pass quietly.
‘Watch it!’ Tom motioned back to Corey. ‘The valley floor is rising again.’
Thoughts of the thirty-foot high raptor that they fired upon went through his mind. Now, as the trail tracks down closer to the raptor-filled floor of the valley, every shadow thrown by the slowly rising sun seems to hold a dark monster ready to reach up for a breakfast snack.
Tom’s arm suddenly goes up into a fist and Corey instinctively crouches down into a firing position. Yes, he can hear it now. Something is on the trail ahead, a trail that bends out of sight and into a darkened slit in the hillside.
Tom rises slowly and motions Corey to follow. Corey’s ears strain ahead but his eyes continue to scan the dark tree-covered valley just at their feet. His thoughts briefly turn back toward the weird snakes they had seen on other expeditions out of the Station. A shiver crawls up his spine as he recalls the snakes with small, almost useless legs that liked to hunt so silently through the dense tree canopy. Some large enough to sun themselves by stretching from tree to tree as they wait for a careless dinosaur to pass by.
His ears perk up again as he hears a sliding sound. Something is coming this way, he can hear it pushing against the sandy walls of the cliff. Tom calls him forward with a small hand signal. Every step on the trail crunching and grinding like a man walking over a path strewn with the white-dry bones of the dead. Tom moves ahead in a crouch and then Corey watches as he stands erect, all tension gone from his body.
The darkness ahead resolves, yielding to a sky-lit visage emerging from the dark crevasse. Corey’s mind suddenly recognizes a smile on a face both familiar and welcome. ‘Fancy meeting you two guys here.’ Alex whispers.
Alex slides down to a crouch and motions them in closer, ‘The dino I was tracking moved up the cliff face and across a trail just a little higher up the side. He then came down this dry cut and, look right over here, he met up with his other black buddy. We’re back on track. I don’t know how much longer they’re going to keep this up though. They must
know we’re still following them. I’m not underestimating them after all this. We need to watch out for a possible ambush so maintain your spacing and keep alert. Tom, you take tail-end-charlie again.’
They follow the trail trying to watch ahead but all the while listening to the dense palm and high fern forest at their feet as it slowly wakens. As it has for a billion years, life awakens with the coming of the new day.
Golden rays of sunlight suddenly sprint across the night-shadowed valley like the sudden thrusts of a thousand tiny searchlights. Shadows, projecting the distorted profile of the tree-covered cliffs far to the east, run across the tops of the palm forest stretching below the hurried movement of the three lone figures. Three humans pushing along a narrow trail across an ancient cliff face. Below them, the jungle wakens with the song of the early morning.
Night hunters flee the brilliant orb’s arrival to seek repose and the peace of slumber. Day-life wakens to the new challenges of daily survival. Thousands of birds and many more small bird-like dinosaurs flit low across the tree canopy and sing to the first high rays of the morning. They jump from limb to limb, their cries echoing across the valley to bounce off the cliff walls stretching far on either side of the long stream of water at its center. Soon the dawn even reaches those earth bound denizens of the valley floor and they waken with a greeting to the arrival of another day of sweet life.
The chaotic melodies of the morning bird song so familiar to human ears are here. They fill the air with their sweet short melodies and staccato calls. There is another strange element here in the song of the sunrise that is alien to the world of the three humans. It is a strange, choral song shared by thousands of voices. The melody of whistles intermingled with wistful long strains of song rises and falls across the narrow stinted octaves of the human ears to extend to regions felt but unheard by the three hunters. Thousands of unique melodies ascend and combine to emerge in a unified cantata. The flowing complexity and clarity of the strains inundate the hurried travelers from the future, enveloping them in the choral majesty of life from ancient races doomed to extinction.
‘Cheez, how is a guy supposed to listen for threats with that racket going on?’ Corey Zavtek thought to himself as he jogged along the narrow cliff trail. The trail is not much wider than a foot or so. Two people would have a difficult time passing on the thin passage. His boot covered feet push ahead on this soft packed trail of dirt and loose rock that narrows down in many a place to less than a foot wide. One slip on a weakened siding and he would be visiting those deadly singers thirty feet below. The sharp rock face below them gradually transforms into a softer sandstone above the trail with a slope almost low enough for them to climb had they been foolish enough to trust the soft stone face.
Alex, Tom and Corey had been traveling this path for less than half an hour. They found no sign of the dino that Tom wounded earlier. The forest below gradually opens into a low-brush covered swampy field with a shallow open stream running through the center of it. Small four legged sauropods stand in the soft morning light munching on the low shoots of young grass so recently evolved on this young world. Their long necks covered with a soft white down that diffuses up to a black-tufted head than somehow manages to sing a low tune as they chew. Others raise their heads high in the air to stand on their hind legs and reach the tender high branches of some of the new species of deciduous trees growing near the edges of the swamp, preferring the soft green growth to that of the coarse ancient conifers and gingkoes.
Corey’s beginning to breathe a little heavily from the constant jog along a hard path. The treacherous trail has risen and fallen along the way but he notices that they are slowly moving closer and closer to the valley floor. Corey’s thoughts drift to his surroundings as he tries to push the needs of his body to the back of his mind. Old training returns and he moves to refocus on his surroundings to maintain vigilance and a series of observations to keep his mind sharp. A portion of his conscious mind opens the running log in his Hive Tab, now running in local mode, to allow it to record the images and sounds around him. ‘It’s a peaceful, almost idyllic scene. These massive creatures move with a strange but graceful elegance. Ah, look by the far edge where the stream meets the forest. There are other small dinos that look like miniature raptors running among the herd. Are they stealing eggs?’
Three of the small, two legged raptors jump upon the low tail of the massive sauropod and ran up through the thin covering of feathers on its back. Another one even begins climbing up its neck. ‘That big boy didn’t even flinch. Look at that, it actually lowered its head so the little one could run up the long neck. Hell, I’ve seen this before. They’re delousing the thing. Digging down through the feathers to remove ticks, fleas and other vermin that cover its body. Sara, you are going to love these images when I can get back and dump then into the Hive Tab net.’
The trail leaves the face of the cliff near the edge of the open swamp area. Alex motions for them to take a short break. ‘The ground is solid here,’ Alex comments silently across their communicators. ‘… but I can still see we’re on their trail. This is where it’s gonna get really sticky so I want you to be right up on your toes and alert. Remember, you can be standing here with a T-rex, big as a house, right next to you and you won’t see him if you aren’t fully vigilant. You saw the photos, they are ambush hunters.’
‘You all saw the images of when we hunted out here for food. We only concentrated on the herds of duck-bills and the T-Rex who hunted them during those trips. We didn’t have to worry about all these little ones when we were relatively safe on the river. Keep in mind that most of these predators, even the little ones, hunt in packs and it doesn’t have to be a T-Rex to kill you. Ok, let’s move out.’
Alex takes the lead moving through the rough, low brush and massive ferns. The jungle off either side of the trail is thick. Ahead the trail turns over a low ridge and swings back toward the open swamp. For as thick as the foliage is here in the jungle, the edges of the swamp’s open expanse are even denser with every plant straining to capture the light. The humans can barely see the light from the early morning sun as it struggles to glisten through the dense ferns at the edge of the swamp.
A cry of alarm rings through their skulls! An almost human wail of despair fills the air and then trails off into a series of hard clicks and a low penetrating growl. Alex freezes in reaction, his rifle at the ready. The scream is so loud it seems to come from all around them.
A massive head with a mane of threat-lifted black feathers swoops down through the tops of the trees and halts a mere fifteen feet away to stare at Alex. Two baleful blue eyes as large as his upper body stare directly at the frozen figure of the human. The head moves to the side almost like a snake, swinging through the thin branches above Alex, focusing directly on his frozen figure.
Alex attempts to control his breathing, stay motionless, unsure of his next action, ‘ArmorAll or not, that thing could stomp me and not even feel it. Cheez, so much for David’s “they only see movement …”. That thing knows exactly where I am, he apparently doesn’t know what I am. He just doesn’t know if I’m a threat, lunch or something to ignore. He probably …”
Alex’s helmet suddenly shuts down its auditory sensors to avoid physical damage to his ears. The top of the nose on the massive head just above him is vibrating wildly. A bone shaking growl travels through the frame of his body, ringing like a rust covered chain pulled across the edge of a plate. Then, in spite of his helmets protection, his ears are almost deafened with a sound like massive fingernails scraping across a blackboard.
The quick onslaught of sound is followed a series of short whoops and strong clicks that almost knock him from his feet. Then the head lifts and swings back up into the air. The tiny creature is forgotten as the massive beast opens its mouth to take in a branch of green leaves.
All three humans stand frozen. Time passes, their thoughts stunned in reaction for a few seconds. Then Corey stands and moved forward behind Alex
and places a hand on his shoulder, ‘Guess we passed the test. We aren’t a threat, we aren’t even worthy of his notice anymore. Say, are you ok? That thing blasted out its call right next to your head.’
‘Shit, I don’t know. Even with the helmet dampers, my ears are ringing. Not only that my body feels like I was hit by a prize fighter. You’re right though, let’s pull back, I gotta sit for a spell.’
The humans turn and carefully pull back into the surrounding jungle. They pull off the trail and Alex settles down on an old log while Corey and Tom stand watch.
A few moments and Tom drops back to move over to Alex. ‘You know, we didn’t even see him. Suppose that had been something really bad like a Utahraptor or …’
Alex turned on him, ‘Then we would have been dead. Ok? I know where we are but if those guys can travel through here then we can too. We just have to start moving like they do.’
‘Ok, so you want to start moving in stealth relay. It’s gonna be a lot slower going.’
‘Well, we’re learning from them. What’s that famous quote? “Know your enemy and keep them close.”’
* * * * *
Mark Nolen looked into her eyes and a portion of his mind wondered how a face could be so serious and yet give you the feeling that she was smiling at you. Analytical by its very nature, a portion of his mind assigned the answer to the small movements of her head and the animation of her rendition. An interesting set of observations he would have to revisit in the future. Now, however, they needed to address the worsening situation at hand.
Hunter's Moon (Cretaceous Station Book 2) Page 24
