Nodal Convergence (Cretaceous Station Book 1)

by Terrence Zavecz

  Sara however was all business and waved off Brittany’s enthusiasm. ‘Good, that will help. Tina, we can’t find Gabriel. We lost all track of him. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘I know.’ Molly called in from the other side of the cavern. ‘Gabe with Suzy but Suzy inside. They went out tunnel. I show. Come.’

  ‘Rachel, please come with us.’ Sara asked. They walked out to a cliff side trail and then back into another set of tunnels. Sara noticed they were heading back toward her house. The tunnels twisted and turned through the cliffs and then carried them out into a Cliffside path and then a small sun lit meadow on the mainland.

  ‘Come, they go this way.’ Tina started down the trail when she saw Suzy running up to them from down the trail. Suzy was not a very good communicator. ‘Something wrong.’ Tina said. ‘We follow.’ She started down the trail leading into the bush.

  ‘Wait a second Tina.’ Alex said, ‘We can’t just go off like this. Let me call in.’

  ‘Dan, we have a problem out here. We can’t find Gabriel. He’s most likely lost and the Hypes are leading us down a trail onto the mainland. I’d like permission to accompany Sara and go look for him.’

  Dan linked back immediately. ‘All right Alex. I assume you have your sidearm. Dave Pope is over at the entrance gate right now. Wait a minute and I’ll have him come with you and bring an extra rifle. Keep me updated, I’ll have Seth stand by with a ready Hunter just in case.’

  Alex turned to Rachel, ‘We’re probably going to head inland. Dave is coming here to help. I want you to take Suzy and this other Hype back to the peninsula nest. Look inside the nest tunnels for Gabe in case we have something mixed up here. I’ll keep in touch with you using the Hive-Tab.’

  Rachel was upset and sobbing softly but she turned back down the trail. David arrived soon after and handed a rifle to Alex as well as another for Sara. Sara and Tina followed them along with Buddy. ‘Brittany, you go back with Rachel. Now!’

  ‘No Mom!’ Brittany shouted. ‘You need me with you. You don’t really know how to operate these Hive-Bot collars and you don’t know the Hypes as well as I do.’

  Sara hated when her daughter was right. ‘OK but stay with us. Let’s go.’

  Buddy and Tina took the lead. Sniffing the trail and finding broken twigs along the sides. They passed into an open field that was only about a quarter of a mile from the gate entrance. The Hypes didn’t cross the open area but led the party around the edge, following the scent of the youngsters. Small dinosaurs ran through the brush around them fluttering like birds in an open forest.

  ‘There are so many.’ Sara thought to herself. ‘That’s odd’, Sara thought as she tried to keep up with Tina, She whispered over to Alex, ‘There’s some strange mounds …’

  A densely feathered head with three massive horns formed from behind the mound and lifted above the brush to look their way. ‘The mounds a triceratops!’ Sara shouted and four other heads popped up from the high ferns and horsetails in the open field in front of them. The Hypes looked alarmed and skirted back into the forest. ‘That’s the first I’ve seen. I’ve been watching for them and here they are right outside the Station. That may be the most popular dinosaur ever and look at their dense feathering. Everyone can identify its three horned head with the large frill around it but who expected this coating?’

  ‘Sara quiet!’ Tina called over the Hype Tab. ‘Not safe if they come. Hurry.’

  Alex looked at Sara and smiled as they trotted on. ‘Lost your cool there, huh? Now listen to Tina.’ Sara wanted to stop and watch the Triceratops so badly. Almost as badly as she wanted to hit Alex.

  Tina stopped ahead. Dave came up and looked at the area. ‘Ok, looks like someone was in this bush here. Look at these leaves. Oh, here, there was a scuffle. Looks like it went on for quite a while. No blood or feathers in the area. That’s a good sign. Come on, They took off this way.’

  They ran down the path to a clearing on the cliffs over the ocean. ‘They stopped here for a while. Look, here’s a human footprint. He must be running either with them or after them. No, it’s with them. See here. The small dinosaur footprint is laid over his.’

  Sara couldn’t see a thing on the ground but Tina was running back into the forest. They ran for a while and then Tina slowed and ducked her head down low. Buddy, and Tina seemed nervous. ‘Unsure of themselves.’ Sara whispered through her Hive Tab, ‘Come on Tina. Let’s move!’

  Tina turned and looked at them. Brittany moved up. ‘Tina, calm yourself. Think slowly or the link won’t work.’

  ‘Quiet, careful and watch. Dangerous.’ Tina said out loud.

  ‘She’s really upset Mr. Pope.’ Brittany said. David moved out to the front with his rifle at the ready. Alex stayed at the back of the group. They saw nothing as they slowly moved into the clearing.

  ‘Oh man, we’re at a nesting site.’ David whispered. A large oval rim formed around a plate-like depression in the ground before him. It was littered with broken, empty eggs. He crouched and looked at the ground carefully and then moved into the trees. He could see four other nests in the area. No one was in them and the eggs were all broken. ‘Well, the area was recently occupied but it looks like the eggs are all hatched.’

  ‘Well, we’re still in the game. I see some foot prints over here and one set are Gabe’s.’

  Sara was shocked. ‘These are theropod footprints David! Maybe even troondons judging by their shape and the nests here. How could Gabe survive being with them?’

  David turned to Sara. ‘You need to update Rachel and tell her we found some tracks left by Gabe. Don’t tell her about the other tracks yet, we don’t know what is going on. However, based on what I see here Gabriel is not following them, he’s walking with the dinosaurs.’

  * * * * *

  The sea, more than 15,000 feet below them, whisks by exposing the paths of tropical breezes as currents and surface ripples that would not be visible on a lower altitude flight. Only a few clouds sit lazily on the eastern horizon. The high mountains crawl by on their port side. Directly ahead is a haze-filled horizon that drifts toward the mountains. Several large columns of white smoke rise from over the horizon to feed the haze.

  The tops of the mountains are bare, gray stone. They lift peaks that are sharp without the contour smoothing caused by the rain and frost found in future periods. Sparse forests of pine and cycads populate the upper slopes of these pinnacles forming a distinct tree line near the peaks. Redwoods, sequoias and pine dominate the lower sections and eventually give way to flowering trees and coarse brush. Willows, oak, beeches as well as groves of breadfruit and palm pass by below them.

  Adrian Lee normally didn’t get much flight time in the Hunter Recon. Mark did promise him more time now that the Argos is in its bunker at the Station. This is his first flight on this new world and, he had to admit it, he was excited. The others had told him about the sweetness and clarity of the air but this feeling, the invigoration of the warm breezes could not be described. ‘There’s another one, no four. Look at their size.’ He shouted over to Seth.

  For the first time on this project, Seth was the old hand. He’d seen plesiosaurs plenty of times before. ‘That’s the first time I’ve seen a large group travelling together though. They move with dignity, don’t they? Kinda like a whale, you can see them feeding!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Adrian replied. ‘Look at that , their heads can dart down into the ocean while they are moving at full clip. It’s hard to estimate from up here but I’d bet that one has a neck that is a good thirty or forty feet. Look! There, see he caught something big.’

  ‘Over there! The source of the smoke is coming up over the horizon. Hey, it’s rising right out of the ocean. There’s a whole chain of them moving right onto the mainland. I’m going to steer seaward a little more.’

  Seth was reading the running display for the sensors. ‘I don’t see any high density masses in the area. I was hoping we’d find something a little closer to the Station. Our flight plan
is to turn westward soon so don’t go … hey, look at that, two o’clock. Is that an airplane? No, and there’s more than one, I see four now and they are in formation. They are almost level with us and heading inland.’

  ‘Ok, that’s why we didn’t get a collision alarm.’ Adrian replied. ‘Sensors say they are biological.’

  ‘That explains who they are but I didn’t expect them at these altitudes. We had one of these go over the Station the other day remember. They are pterodactyls or something like that. We’re all going to be dinosaur experts by the time we get home.’ Seth quipped. ‘You need to turn inland Adrian. Go over there by that black stream.’

  Adrian took the Hunter into a slow, easy turn that allowed them to view as much of the coast as possible. Losing altitude, he brought the craft down to where they could resolve details in the black stream that travelled almost in a straight line down from the highlands. ‘That’s a lava pipe Seth. Ever see one before? No? When a continuous hot lava flow runs down a channel, it forms a black crust on the cooler, upper surface exposed to the air. The crust keeps the interior flow hot by insulating it from the surrounding air. See the small plumes of smoke coming from it? There must be an active stream of lava going down into the ocean under it now. Pretty neat, huh? Let’s follow the pipe and see those mountains close up.’

  ‘The pipe ends there. Just below those cliffs. I thought we’d see a volcano, you know a cone with lava coming from it.’ Seth managed to be excited and disappointed at the same time. ‘Wow, what a neat valley. Look at all the smoke. What’s going on? All the smoke just seems to well up from the ground around here. You’d think from this altitude we could see a volcanic cone.’

  ‘See that wall of rock we just passed and those mountains over there.’ Adrian ran his finger in a circle around the hunter. ‘That’s the rim of the crater.’

  ‘You mean we are in the crater? All of this is crater. This thing is enormous.’ Seth craned his neck, clearly seeing now with new clarity the walls of the crater that hidden from him a moment ago.

  ‘It’s a little hard to be exact but I believe we’re passing over the area that will someday be Yellowstone Park although some of it may be under the seabed we just flew over.’ Adrian took advantage of the moment of awe. ‘I remember coming here with my parents. If I remember the brochures from the trip correctly then this crater is ancient. I don’t remember how old but it’s been around here for millions of years and, if I remember right, I think it will be mostly wiped out by eruptions and magma in another thousand years when the event hits. Now, I can’t wait to see what the Pacific Ocean looks like.’

  * * * * *

  Daniel Drake had just discovered that Seth wasn’t on base at the Station. There was no time for simple conversation as he rushed to organize supplies for the flight. ‘Right Mark, I remember now you wanted them to begin the mass-concentration survey. Look, I’ll have Toshi Yakamura stand by. He’s Hunter Recon qualified. They are following the tracks right now. I don’t know how much longer they’ll be in Hive Tab range and that’s the only communicator they have. We think the boy’s alive so far but we don’t know what is going on.’

  Mark didn’t like just sitting back at times like this. ‘I’d like to go out right away. We could cover a lot more ground with the Hunter.’

  ‘No, David recommends against it. We have no idea who we are looking for or how many. If we find him then we don’t know how the dinosaurs will react. What are you going to do? Drop into the middle of them and command them to halt? Let us take care of it.’

  ‘All right, I’ll get Gabe’s Dad and see if we can get any more information from the Hypes. Good luck and keep me informed.’ Mark closed his channel.

  Toshi was at the base pad with Tom and Molly. They were loading munitions, food and medical supplies onto the Hunter. Dan walked over and looked over the loading. ‘I’ll get this last box. Ok, listen up. I talked it over with Mark. What we do is wait and see if they need us.’

  Toshi ambled over, a half smile on his face. ‘Sir, did he say where we had to wait?’

  ‘No, no he didn’t. What does that have to do with it?’

  ‘I’m concerned about the quickness of our response because of our location. If we moved off-line but closer to them, we could pick a spot that is closer to the action and maintain an overview of the area without disturbing their tracking. Sometimes you can’t beat the standard issue Mark 1 eyeball.’

  ‘Hmmm. Yeah, good idea Toshi. Let’s see if we can get a fix on where they are.’

  They climbed into the cockpit and brought up the aerial maps of the plateau. ‘According to their Hive-Tab positioning they came out here, between the plateau and the mouth of the river valley. They headed through the dry highlands and into this wooded area. Why in the world would a seven year old be travelling so far inland? It looks like they are moving towards the swamps. Is David going to be able to track them in there?’

  ‘Well sir.’ Toshi ran his finger along the route traced by Dan. ‘He did have those two Hypes along. Unfortunately, we’ve never used them like this so who knows? Look, we’re only a few miles away. Why don’t we pick up and move over to this outcrop by the edge of the cliffs over the river? From there we can see over the swamps and still maintain the protected high ground. It’ll keep us in communications range a while longer also.’

  ‘Ok, let’s do it. Start the preflight check. I want to pick up a few extra boxes of ammo.’ Dan ran off into the hanger while Tom and Molly continued loading some extra lights, water and food.

  ‘Let’s mount up.’ Dan said just as Mark came up the trail.

  ‘I thought you were going to wait for word from David. Did you hear something?’ Mark looked a little annoyed.

  ‘No Sir.’ Dan replied. ‘We were concerned about the communications range and thought it might be better to relocate closer to the search team.’

  ‘And just when did you intend to tell me?’ Mark said as he jumped into the doorway. ‘Ok Toshi lift off. Oh, wait a minute. You two guys over there by the door. Come over here, you’re coming with us. Each of you grab two of those water cans on your way over. Doctor Zoeller, please note that I’m going off base. You are now senior. Get Paul Wenford to work with you, he’s probably worried sick by now and he’ll need to be doing something.’

  ‘Tom, grab two more rifles and a pack of AutoSentinels. Might as well be prepared. Ok, now let’s go.’

  Tom handed the rifles to Molly and climbed aboard. ‘Now we gotta watch our backs too.’ He turned and whispered to her, ‘Why did he have to bring Jonas and Todd?’

  * * * * *

  Now, that’s a volcano.’ Seth pointed to the narrow peaks on the horizon. ‘Neat, you can see the ocean behind it on the horizon but there’s a lot of haze around here. It’s not clear skies like back at the Station.’

  Adrian corrected their course to head over toward the active cone shaped peak. A narrow plume of smoke rises above it to spread out and dissipate into the stratosphere. ‘I’ll take us lower so we can see into the crater at the top of the cone. I don’t want to get too close even though it looks pretty quiet now. We’ll take one good fly around and then head south toward the gold country.’

  The crater at the top of the volcano rests at a height of over twelve thousand feet. Inside they can see smooth mounds of rock lifted by the pressure of the rising magma below. Seth points out the window. ‘Look, smoke is rising from vents within the crater and at several fissures in the sides of the volcano but I don’t see any red hot magma.’

  ‘Thank goodness,’ Adrian replies ‘pretty impressive area though.’

  ‘One minute Adrian, don’t go yet. Look at these readings. There’s something massive down there to the southwest. It’s not like the others we plotted. This thing is big.’

  ‘Ok, do a perimeter plot of the mass. I’ll take her down to just under a thousand feet above ground level and circle. See how close it comes to the surface. It won’t do us any good if we have to dig down a mile or more.’
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br />   ‘You’re not going to believe this Adrian. I’ll put it on the heads-up display. Look at that, it’s tilted but you can vaguely see the shape like this. There’s something really dense buried in the ground there and it must be a two hundred feet long on that one side. Look, it weathers up to the surface just over there. Let’s see if we can find a safe place to land and get a sample.’

  Adrian started a sweep that led them to a smooth patch of ground upslope, a short distance from the outcrop. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t waste our time on this Seth. This isn’t a gold deposit. It isn’t dense enough.’

  ‘Look, it’s a real anomaly. There’s nothing else like it in the area. It just should not be there. We need to investigate this. Come on, it’ll only take an hour or so.’

  ‘Ok, I’m going to set her down real slow. Let’s take the metal detector and the two utility shovels. I didn’t see anything when we flew over but who knows what goolies are waiting in the weeds. I don’t think we’ll need the rifles.’ Adrian said as he released his seat restraints.’

  The air outside is hot even though they are high up on the mountain slopes. The faint smell of sulpher rests softly just below a level that would be objectionable. Seth moved back into the cabin, ‘Here, we’d better take these breathers along. I’ve read that there can be all types of nasty gases around a volcano. Ok, let’s head out. Walking shouldn’t be too bad. The scrubs around here are spread out pretty thin, guess they have a hard life in this area.’

  The Hunter’s door slid shut as they walked down slope toward the outcrop. The plants around them look weak and have a thin, white dust coating from the ash of the volcano. The soil beneath their feet is black and rust-orange colored gravel that crunches with each footstep as though they are walking on the dry bones of some ancient battlefield. Their feet slip in the looser sections and the sharp gravel bites into and even scratches the tough plastic of their boots. Going downhill is an effort. Going uphill harder still as the coarse gravel slides around their boots like drifting black snow. Sharp-faced walls of hard black rock soon rise around them.