Jim Baens Universe-Vol 1 Num 6

by Eric Flint

  By the time Albright had his Mustang in gear and saw an opening through the traffic, a young couple was standing in front of the ancient Indian. Let them buy the chances, he thought, as he accelerated into the northbound lane.

  The drive along 89 went quickly enough. After he switched to 59 to avoid the Zion tunnel, Albright thought about the old Indian and the dinosaur. By St. George, he saw a sign pointing to the Johnson Farm dinosaur site. On an impulse, he followed the signs into the city and found the place, which was a track collection. Between two condos and an industrial park, the track site consisted of a long awning over a hundred large blocks of stone. Each slab had one or more deep and well-defined footprints. Ground nearby was being broken for a permanent museum. A dapper gentleman with white hair and glasses gave a brief lecture to the several people who arrived at the same time as Albright. After looking at the tracks, he asked the dapper man, "Do you have any dinosaur eggs?"

  "No, but our tracks are unique."

  Albright agreed but wanted to see dinosaur eggs.

  The man shrugged. "Try Provo or Salt Lake."

  "Thanks." Albright walked back to his car. Both cities were in the opposite direction.

  It took another hour to reach Mesquite. Albright booked a room at the Oasis, grabbed a fast meal at the hotel café, and then played a slot machine. He promised himself a limit of 500 quarters. By eight o'clock he won over $300. He ate dinner and then continued gambling. He wandered around and tried machines at random. It wasn't sensible. He didn't want to be sensible.

  By midnight he won $1200 and decided to stop testing his luck. He went to his room and dialed his home to retrieve any messages. There were two, both from his girlfriend Lillie. She was at a travel agent seminar in Phoenix. The first was recorded in the morning: "Hi Ted. How ya doing? Not too lonely? The conference should be over tomorrow. Love you!" The second was an hour ago: "Hi Ted. It's me. Listen, you're not doing anything foolish? Tell me that you're not gambling. You promised. Remember? I'll be home tomorrow for dinner."

  Albright took a long, slow shower, settled into bed, and thought about the morning, whether he'd have enough time for a decent session with the slots. It was a six-hour drive back home from Mesquite. Although he could cut an hour off if he drove through Las Vegas, Albright disliked the traffic and the temptation. He was well ahead and reasoned that gambling was okay as long as he won. Even Lillie would have to agree with that! But he knew she wouldn't. He had no choice. He'd leave first thing in the morning to be home before Lillie and hide any traces of his Mesquite adventure.

  Waking up early, he washed, dressed, and went out for breakfast in the hotel. Three cups of coffee, two scrambled eggs, and one steak later found him at the slot machines, where he quickly lost $100 on a three-spider machine. He was about to try a different one but noticed a web portal. The dinosaur egg leaped into his mind, and Albright decided to do a search. The word dinosaur returned over 3 million links. Filtering with the word horned reduced the links to twenty thousand. Triceratops was the most popular entry, and two facts about that dinosaur struck him: They were extinct and adults were 20 feet long. That's way too big, thought Albright. What would I do with it? He checked his wristwatch: 9:30 a.m. He'd be lucky to be on the road before ten and equally lucky to have reached the Indian's tent before two. He thought, I'm too late. The egg would have hatched. Nevertheless, Albright immediately went to his room, gathered his belongings, and checked out. After buying a full tank of gas, he got on the I-15.

  The quirky traffic included road construction and slow campers trying to pass even slower campers. Leaving the interstate, he ran into more construction by Hurricane, but the worst occurred when he reached Route 89. Albright had the frustration of being behind a solid line of thirty vehicles. In front were two SUVs, each hauling a huge powerboat and each traveling well below the speed limit. The car immediately behind them was too nervous to use the oncoming traffic lane for passing. Albright got into the game with the other faster drivers: hopping in front of another car at each opportunity.

  It took a half-hour to get past the boat-trailers, but then he had a clear run. A little after 2:30 he rounded a bend, and the overlook was in sight, along with the tables of wares and the all-important tent. The ancient Indian was sitting outside, as if waiting for him.

  He parked and walked to the Indian. "The egg hasn't hatched?"

  The Indian shook his head.

  "I've a thousand dollars. Give me from three to four."

  The Indian didn't accept the money. "Three thirty is taken. Check the board inside."

  Albright was dumbfounded. "You mean other people are buying chances?"

  Standing up, the Indian walked into the tent, and Albright followed. The top of the tent was open, bathing the egg in sunlight. He saw three men and a woman sitting on the folding chairs in a loose circle around the egg. Then he saw the board. Seventeen chances were taken: all the half-hour and hour marks and a few in between. By the number of names written down, he knew that the people who anticipated an early hatching had already left. Shrugging, Albright quickly filled in his name on the quarter hours, including the five-minute mark before and after. He paid the Indian $900, sat down, and said "Howdy."

  Only the middle-aged woman acknowledged his presence by smiling.

  Albright said, "I'm Ted. Have you been here long?"

  "Since one o'clock. My name's Willa. I'm a schoolteacher on vacation from Idaho. I was curious about the Grand Canyon. I thought I might buy Indian jewelry for myself but came across this tent. Isn't it silly? Who in their right mind would expect a dinosaur to hatch from an egg? It must be a fake. But if it has any chance of being true, wouldn't it be wonderful to show my class?"

  Regretting that he started the conversation, Albright agreed with her.

  "You've placed many bets," she prattled on, "I could only afford one. At three thirty. Teachers never earn enough, and we have to live with nothing during the summer—unless we take a second job. Not that I mind, no. But—"

  Albright was very happy when 3:30 came and passed without any egg activity. Willa debated staying longer but decided that she had to reach Phoenix before nightfall.

  After she left, one of the men, dressed in a dark-gray business suit, said, "That's a relief. Waiting is hard enough, but her chatter got on my nerves."

  Smiling, Albright nodded but didn't reply. He didn't want to start another conversation.

  The Indian occasionally walked into the tent, looked around, studied the egg, and walked out.

  Shortly before 4 p.m., the egg moved. A burly man jumped up and came within arm's length of the egg. Albright worried that the stranger might shake or push the egg, but the Indian materialized next to the man. The burly man remained standing, but there was no other egg motion.

  Four o'clock passed without further incident. The burly man cursed and left. The man in the suit offered to share his bottle of water with Albright, who was very grateful.

  "You'd think someone would sell drinks."

  At 4:10 p.m. a crack appeared. The next five minutes had Albright silently encouraging the creature, but it was as if the little guy took a nap after each accomplishment. At 4:18, a piece of shell was pushed aside, and they all caught a glimpse of a brown beak.

  The Indian appeared. He said to Albright. "You won. Everyone else leave now."

  The suit quietly left, but the remaining stranger stayed sitting: "I want to see what hatches."

  The Indian walked up to him. "Please leave. His dinosaur must only see him. That is the way." The man stood up, looked around forlornly, and exited. Albright wondered what it was that drove all of them to want the impossible. Even seeing the beak did not convince him of the reality. The Indian gave Albright a lettuce leaf. "When out of shell, eat the leaf. Then give it to your dinosaur. I will come back."

  Albright watched the beak slowly demolish more and more of the shell. At times he caught a glimpse of a bright yellow eye. Then a little creature covered in down tumbled out of the e
gg and onto the straw. Albright's first impression included extreme disappointment: A bird. However, he then saw that the animal had four legs and a tail. His heart racing, Albright kneeled down next to it and murmured, "Why hello."

  All of about a foot long, the little dinosaur piped "Ezakjee" over and over again.

  Albright bit a piece of lettuce and offered the remainder to the animal, who munched away with great appetite.

  The Indian came in carrying a cardboard box that had holes punched through it. "For your dinosaur. Be very careful during the first two months. Feed it lettuce. Then let it graze."

  "It's going to be 20 feet long," Albright said.

  "Zuniceratops is small. Maybe 10 feet," said the Indian.

  The little dinosaur, with its characteristic horns barely visible, did not want to be put into a box. It had already fought to get out of a dark place, but the two men got the Zuniceratops in and taped the top shut.

  "Thanks!" said Albright happily. Outside the tent everyone else had left. Albright got into his Mustang. He considered what to tell Lillie. And he needed a name for his dinosaur.

  * * *

  The Indian took apart and packed the faded-blue tent. He heaved it onto the flatbed of his pickup. From his pocket he took a device which looked like a cell phone. No one else was nearby, and he pressed two buttons.

  "I finished round 15a. Eighteen dinosaurs for the Flagstaff area."

  His language wasn't English. It wasn't Navajo or Hopi, either. For that matter, now that there was no one in the vicinity, his appearance would no longer have been confused with that of a Navajo or Hopi, of either sex. Or any other human.

  The signal took four minutes to reach base camp, and another four minutes for the reply. He didn't mind the wait, for he was patient by nature. The re-seeding would take many years, and there were bound to be setbacks along the way. But the project was developing an irresistible momentum. Soon enough, the evolutionary disaster his people had accidentally caused long ago would be reversed, and the planet's rightful masters would return.

  * * *

  Chet Gottfried is the author of several short stories and a novel, "The Steel Eye."

  The Ten Thousand Things

  Written by Mark L. Van Name

  Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti

  Yukio stared at the image of Matsushima Bay in the window that was one wall of his father's office. Whitecaps freckled the nearer water. Pine-covered islands filled the distance, the trees gray in the dying light. The sounds of whistling wind carried off the occasional beep of the heart monitor as it tracked the death passage of his father.

  His father had always loved the bay, had led the campaign that restored it to its natural beauty. It and the company, the twin passions of his life, had kept him constantly busy, constantly away. Matsushima Bay was the older brother Yukio had never had and could never match. His father would be buried there, beside the family temple on the far side of now-deserted Oshima Island. Yukio hated Matsushima.

  When he realized he had not heard a beep in some time, Yukio released the breath he had been unconsciously holding and turned from the window.

  His father lay curled in a fetal position in an open long metal cylinder the soft black of a switched-off video display. Tubes and wires ran from his body to the capsule's lid, which rested on its hinges beside him. Yukio saw the device as a fusion of his father's passion for ancient religion and modern tech, a burial barrel as re-imagined by a circuit designer. His father hated hospitals and had not wished to die in one. He wanted to die in one of the two centers of his world, his office or Oshima Island. When the stroke hit him, the office was closer.

  Yukio's mother sat beside the cylinder. She was doubled over, her head in her hands. Yukio thought she was crying and looked away in respect. Dr. Jippensha, the family's long-time physician, leaned over his father. Yukio heard the murmurs of Jippensha's mumbling but understood only "Hisato," his father's name.

  Jippensha straightened, turned off the monitor, and bowed deeply. "I am sorry. He is dead."

  Yukio suppressed an irrational urge to run to the cylinder, check the reading himself, and find a setting the doctor had missed. Instead, he bent his head slightly in acknowledgment. "The capsule?"

  "Yes, it's working. His blood still flows; his brain still gets the oxygen it needs." Jippensha paused. "But I think—"

  Yukio was not going to change his mind now. "Thank you, Doctor. I understand and appreciate your feelings. Please close the capsule; then you may go."

  Jippensha started to speak once more but caught Yukio's gaze and remained silent.

  Yukio's mother looked up. "Yukio—"

  Yukio winced at the use of his familiar name in front of Jippensha. "Mother."

  He meant it more as a reprimand than a response, but she ignored his tone. "Doctor Jippensha is right. Let your father be. His memories aren't what you need. You need—"

  "Mother." He stretched out the word, embarrassed even more.

  She walked to him. "Hisato's memories will teach you nothing you cannot learn in other ways." She leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Yukio, you can't bring him back, so let him go. Let his spirit proceed on the forty-day journey. There is no need to desecrate his body—"

  "Akako!"

  She stopped instantly; he had never before used her first name. He had no desire to hurt her, but he was determined to get the knowledge that in life his father had never had time to impart. He stared at his mother, willing her to understand, then noticed the doctor was still there. "Jippensha."

  The doctor bowed once more and left.

  Yukio's mother turned to leave also, but he touched her shoulder and she hesitated.

  "We will finish the first stage of the process in a day, at most two," he said. "When that's done, I will have him cremated, and I'll take his ashes to the temple myself. Will that make you feel better?" It was more than he had wanted to offer; he had no desire to go to Matsushima ever again.

  She stared at him for a moment, nodded, and left.

  When Yukio heard the door shut, he walked to the desk and sat in the chair that was now his. At thirty, he was the youngest chairman ever of Fujiura Corp. But for the circumstances, perhaps, finally, he would have made his father proud. His father. Yukio rubbed his eyes, slid the keyboard and control panel from beneath the desktop, and turned off the projector and sound system.

  Matsushima vanished. The room fell silent. Neon ads and multi-story video displays scorched the walls with the reds, pinks, oranges, and blazing whites of nighttime Tokyo. Yukio piped in the audio feed from outside and held down the volume control. The buzz of street life slammed into the room, bathed him in sounds he understood: cars and people and advertisements surging in a jangled torrent of life that surrounded him, affirmed his living status, and pushed back the death that filled the room. He walked to the window and stretched out his arms, willing the city's life to flow over him, around him, into him. He craved its vitality, wanted that energy to carry him through this next step.

  He wiped away a tear, disgusted at his lack of control, sure that even in death his father would be embarrassed by the display. He returned to the desk, shut off the speakers, and muted the window display. His assistant, Masataro, as calm and alert as always, appeared on the desk's screen the moment he opened the intercom.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Tell the lab team it's time."

  "They are waiting outside your office."

  Yukio was not sure whether he wanted to punish Masataro for his ghoulishness or praise him for his efficiency.

  "Sir, I am sorry. Should I send them in?"

  "Thank you, and yes." Yukio did not know what else to say. The only thing to do was to move forward.

  Four men quietly entered his office and began wheeling out his father's body. The only one he recognized, Doctor Ishiwa, the project's head, paused at the door.

  "Yes," Yukio said.

  "I must tell you again," Ishiwa said, "that we do not know how well this procedure
will work, or even if it will work at all. We've never fully succeeded in any of the simpler tests, and this is an entire . . . memory set."

  Yukio stood for emphasis. "I understand, but we have no other options. You make it work, or we lose my . . . the chairman's memories."

  Ishiwa bowed and left.

  Yukio examined the list of pending items on his desk's display. The moment called for mourning, but business had to continue. His father would have done the same, would have demanded he keep working. Yukio opened the one item that glowed red. "Masataro, get me Kensu."

  "He, too, is waiting," his assistant replied.

  Yukio rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had to hand it to Kensu; after losing the company's top job to Yukio, the man had not slowed at all. "Send him in."