“What the hell?” Sergeant Kwan said, looking around at the strange landscape. “That’s a trip.”
“Check the radios,” Weller said. “Snead, Kelton, look for signs. Let’s make sure we’re in the right place.”
“Right time too,” John said.
Snead and Kelton found tracks immediately.
“This can’t be good,” Kelton said, squatting and pointing.
“Form a perimeter,” Weller ordered when the marines all drifted over to see.
John and Weller went to Kelton and Snead, careful where they stepped.
“These tracks here and here are human,” Kelton said. “There are five or six different people. These here are raptor tracks. A lot of them.”
“Juveniles,” Snead said. “But if the young’uns are here, the mama and papa won’t be far away.”
“You find any full-sized tracks?” John asked.
Both marines scouted around, finding nothing.
“Those raptors may not be hostile,” John said. “The two women who entered last night had velociraptors with them.”
“With them?” Weller asked. “You mean chasing them?”
“No, just with them,” John said. “Like pets.”
“No way,” Snead said.
“Bull,” Kelton said.
“It’s true,” John said. “So don’t assume every velociraptor is hostile.”
“What!” Kelton said. “So if we run into a velociraptor, we’re supposed to check for dog tags?”
“Sir, you can’t be serious,” Snead whined. “Lieutenant, it’s shoot on sight, right?”
“Shoot the big ones,” Weller said.
“And the little ones?” Snead asked.
“Make sure no one’s got the damn thing on a leash and then kill it,” Weller said. “Let’s move.”
The sun was high, the day hot, the marines grateful for the light uniforms. Kelton and Snead were good trackers, but this trail was well trod and John could have followed it. They moved quickly, overconfident in their weapons. Hunting dinosaurs was illegal, so none of the marines in the patrol had experience bringing down one of the monsters. Deer hunting did not prepare one for tons of rampaging predator. John could have chosen Dinosaur Rangers, but they were trained to manage dinosaurs, not kill them. That attitude had cost lives on a previous expedition, so this time John was betting his life on marines.
A mile down the trail, the marines moved faster, the trail clear, any danger seeming less imminent. There was no doubt they were in the right place and time, but nothing made sense to John. Why were there stable holes in time without orgonic pyramids? Why was there a T. rex frozen in time on the moon, and why were velociraptors following Elizabeth Hawthorne around?
“Problem, sir,” Snead said from the lead.
Lieutenant Weller put up a fist and the marines spread out, wary, ready for action. John followed Weller to Snead, who squatted, pointing.
“Predator,” Weller said. “T. rex.”
“Not a T. rex,” John said, “but we don’t want to meet it.”
“They did,” Kelton said, pointing at more tracks. “It came down that slope over there. They took off running that way.”
Bent over, Snead walked the trail, studying it.
“The T. rex, or whatever it is, ripped up the trail, but the women and the velociraptors were walking,” Snead said. Snead walked farther, looking for more signs. “Not a lot of blood,” Snead said.
“Easy to say if it’s not yours,” Kelton said.
“If someone got eaten, there would be a lot more blood,” Snead said.
“Not necessarily,” John said. “They can eat you whole. Two bites max.”
“Nice,” Snead said.
“Follow the trail,” Weller said.
Fear of being eaten slowed the pace, the marines now wary, even edgy. Having seen friends killed and eaten, John was on edge too, his dinosaur rifle ready. Specially designed for twenty-foot predators weighing seven tons, the gun could punch a hole the size of a tin can. Even then, with a diffused nervous system and a tiny brain, a superpredator was virtually impossible to kill quickly.
“This is interesting,” Kelton said, again squatting, then getting up and walking south, and up a slight rise to a clump of trees and then back.
John joined Weller, Kelton, and Snead, studying the trail.
“They got chased to here, but then the rex stopped and then ran up into those trees,” Kelton said. “There’s some blood here and up that way. It’s probably from the rex, since there aren’t any human tracks by the blood over there, just rex tracks.”
“Okay, we follow the original tracks,” John said.
“Good call, sir,” Snead said. “I wasn’t too keen on tracking a wounded T. rex.”
Fear of the superpredator returning drove the marines, and they picked up their pace, moving faster, covering more ground. John drank regularly, careful to stay hydrated but conserve his water. Watching the sun, John began to worry they would be spending the night. Then Kelton and Snead suddenly split up, the others taking a knee, resting, rifles ready.
“Could a T. rex sneak up on someone?” Sergeant Kwan asked. “I heard those mothers cause an earthquake with each step.”
“If the ground’s soft, they can get pretty close before you know they’re there,” John said. “They’re fast too, at least for a short distance. They can outrun a human.”
“That’s enough, sir,” Sergeant Kwan said. “If we see one, we’re screwed. That’s all you’ve got to say! S-c-r-e-w-e-d.”
“The people we’re following ran into something and they’re still alive,” John said. “That’s why there’s a trail.”
“There’s more tracks here, sir,” Kelton said.
John joined the lieutenant and the trackers.
“Two more people came from that way and then they all headed out this way,” Snead said. “The women and those velociraptors went the same way.”
“If they’re all together, it’ll be a lot easier,” Weller said.
“Let’s find them before it gets dark,” John said.
“Feel that?” Sergeant Kwan asked.
Everyone held still.
“I get nothing,” Washburne said. “What about you, Sam?”
The lanky marine looked about nervously. Privates Washburne and Tafua were buddies, keeping close, protecting each other’s backs. Where Toby Washburne was a lanky-looking cowboy with a slight drawl, Afa Tafua was a big Samoan who smiled a lot but said little. The Samoan shook his head.
“We’re getting nothing, Sarge,” Washburne said.
Everyone held their breaths, reaching out with their senses. John felt nothing.
“Let’s move,” Weller said after a minute.
Now they moved stealthily, alert.
“There it is again,” Kwan said.
All stopped, waiting. They were in a grove of the strange-looking palm trees, and they could not see far in any direction. The rustling of leaves was the only sound. Then John felt a vibration.
“I felt it,” Washburne and Tafua said simultaneously.
“Yeah,” Weller said. “Is this a good defensive position, Mr. Roberts?”
“We don’t know if it’s hunting us,” John said. “It could be passing by. Let’s keep moving. We might lose it.”
“Let’s go,” Weller said.
Like a patrol in a hostile urban area, tense marines moved quickly but carefully, guns covering every angle.
“It’s still coming,” Kwan said.
All the marines agreed. They were right, John knew, based on past experience. He also knew something the others had not picked up on. There was more than one vibration.
“Freeze,” Weller said.
Something big was coming through the trees.
“Take cover.”
Quickly, the marines hid behind trees, a fallen log, a rock pile, and bushes. The large animal coming through the trees was bipedal, with a huge head and tiny arms. Behind the leader, John glimp
sed more of the same predators—tyrannosaurs.
“We’re screwed,” Kelton whispered from behind a tree.
Weller silenced him with a look, the other marines ready to shoot him. Seemingly unaware of the human presence, or uninterested, the leader led the other predators slowly through the trees, the animals moving in two parallel lines. Walking slowly, heads high, tails low, the predators did not seem to be hunting, just walking.
Smaller than most tyrannosaurs John had seen, they might be female, juveniles, or cousins, like Albertosaurus. John estimated the leader weighed three tons. Size mattered in Dinosauria. If you were going to make your living hunting triceratops, you needed to be gigantic yourself. From a human perspective, however, it mattered little if the predator was three tons or six. Then the dinosaurs froze, heads high and tilted—listening. John heard it too. It was a very human sound. The sound of gunfire.
34
Delivery
Don’t even get me started on black bag spending. Our government’s got more secret missions, projects, weapons, aircraft, spaceships, and bases than any of your TV-addled brains can imagine.
—Cat Bellow, host of Radio Rebel
Present Time
Dryden Flight Research Center
Edwards Air Force Base
“Why us?” Mike Watson asked, puzzled by the emergency mission.
Watson, Sarasa Chandra, and Rick Maven sat at a round table with a coffee-ringed top, in a small briefing room. Called in on short notice by Deputy Flight Director Connie West, they were more than a little curious. West had started at NASA as an aeronautical engineer and repeatedly applied for astronaut training. When her propensity for motion sickness doomed her to dirt-side, she discovered her administrative gifts, quickly rising in the NASA ranks. Sick with envy at every launch, West was nevertheless respected by the flight crews for her attention to detail. While she frustrated crews with zealous caution, no ships or crews had been lost under her watch. Her penchant for safety made it all the more puzzling that Watson’s moon team was now being asked to fly again on unprecedented short notice.
“It’s about the material that you collected on the moon,” West said.
“The crazy it-can-pass-through-solids black crap?” Rick Maven asked. “Yes, I remember it well. It was spread all around a crater right next to a dancing Tyrannosaurus rex.”
West’s patience, even with smart-ass astronauts, was another of her gifts. In her mid-forties, West wore her hair long, like a younger woman. Gray hairs in her red hair were noticeable, but she disdained dye, committed to going natural. Married twenty years to an insurance executive, the last of her three boys was in the Naval Academy, and a PROUD NAVY MOM sticker was plastered to the bumper of her Ford. Fit, petite, and looking like the middle-aged cheerleader that she was, she was all business when on duty, and friendly and even flirtatious when not. She was all business now.
“Yes, the material that you collected,” West said in her usual executive tone. “We have been instructed to get it off the planet.”
“We just brought it to the planet,” Chandra Sarasa said. Chandra’s black eyes were bright with curiosity, not fear. The moon mission was her first, and to get the draw for a second mission so soon was a dream come true.
“The order came from the executive branch,” West said.
“It’s radioactive, isn’t it?” Maven asked. “Or poisonous.”
“You know it’s not radioactive,” West said. “And no one is going to ingest or inhale whatever it is. It is being delivered in sealed containers.”
“So, we’re taking it back to the moon?” Chandra asked.
“It’s going into the sun,” West said.
“It’s radioactive,” Maven repeated.
“It’s not radioactive,” West said, keeping her calm demeanor.
“Why us?” Watson repeated.
“Security,” West said. “You already know about the special properties of the material.”
“But if it’s in sealed containers, what difference does it make?” Watson asked.
“A new team would ask too many questions that could not be answered,” West said. “You, on the other hand, already know too much. It’s either kill you, or use you.”
“Well, then, I’m good to go,” Maven said.
“We launch in three weeks,” West said.
“Three weeks?” Maven said. “That’s impossible.”
“Launch what?” Watson asked. “There’s nothing on a pad.”
“Your ship will be going up out of Area Fifty-one,” West said.
Chandra, Watson, and Maven exchanged looks.
“They have launch facilities?” Maven asked.
“You’ll be going up in an Aurora,” West said.
“What’s an Aurora?” Chandra asked.
“It’s a hypersonic spaceplane that doesn’t exist,” Maven said. “So our government assures us.”
“The program was shut down,” Watson said. “The Aurora was mothballed.”
“It’s being prepped as we speak,” West said. “We’re bringing in a pilot to take you up. Captain Watson will copilot the flight, and Chandra and Maven will babysit the cargo and then attach it to a Payload Assist Module booster we’re sending up out of Vandenberg. Then we send it on its way to the sun, and in three years the problem is solved.
“Chandra and Maven, you will spend most of the next three weeks in EVA training, and learning the mating and diagnostic procedures for the PAM booster. Captain Watson will be in the Aurora simulator, getting a refresher course.”
“Captain, you’ve flown an Aurora?” Maven asked.
“All simulated,” Watson said.
“That’s why we’re bringing in an experienced pilot,” West said. “She’s taken an Aurora to orbit six times.”
“Who is the pilot?” Chandra asked.
“Rosa Perez-Roberts,” West said.
35
Stranger and Stranger
SENATOR MALLORY: Are you asking this committee to believe that connections—or tunnels, if you will—allowed you and others to travel to the past and future and even to another celestial body—the moon?
NICK PAULSON: Yes, sir, that is correct.
—Closed-door testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee
Unknown Time
Unknown Place
The exotic perfume of the strange land was Elizabeth’s first sensation.
“It smells wonderful,” Elizabeth said.
“Like a candle store,” Jeanette said.
Velociraptors spread out, disappearing into the tall golden grass. Sally sneezed and then set about sniffing the ground, circling. Elizabeth took another deep lungful, and then wrapped her arms around her chest.
“It’s cool,” Elizabeth said.
“A lot cooler than where we were,” Jeanette agreed. “We’re wet from sweat too.”
Elizabeth found herself breathing deeply, as if she had been running.
“Not a lot of oxygen,” Jeanette said. “I feel kind of light-headed.”
“I feel funny too,” Elizabeth said. She bounced on her toes and then jumped higher and higher. “The gravity’s not right,” Elizabeth said. “I feel like Supergirl.”
“The pack isn’t as heavy either,” Jeanette said.
Jeanette copied the moves, jumping higher than Elizabeth. Watching Jeanette bounce with her blouse tied up under her breasts, Elizabeth was a bit jealous and glad that Nick was not there to watch.
“Where are we?” Jeanette asked, landing on her toes to absorb the shock.
“Maybe we should go back?” Elizabeth suggested.
“We’ll be okay,” Jeanette said, breathing hard. “We’ve got to find Do and the boys.”
Looking up, Elizabeth saw the blue sky had a pinkish tinge. A thin overcast smeared across the sky, filtering the sun. Oddly, the sun looked smaller, like the size of a baseball. Using the sun’s position to orient, Elizabeth could see a mountain range to the east, dominated by one gigantic peak
twice the height of the peaks on either side. Golden-tipped grasses ran north to the horizon, a hill topped with the puffy-headed dandelion trees stood to the west, and a little south of it was a larger hill where the golden-tipped grass was patchy, broken by reddish earth and gray rocks. Behind them was a rocky hill, looking like a pile of rubble. Caves pockmarked the hill, the one they emerged from dark. Looking closely, Elizabeth could see shapes moving on the other side, but the creatures made no move to follow them through.
“Do!” Jeanette called over and over, gasping for breath between calls.
“Jeanette, maybe we should look around before we make a lot of noise,” Elizabeth said.
“There’s nothing here,” Jeanette said. “I can see a mile in all directions, except for that way,” pointing at the nearest hill.
As if on cue, a large animal lumbered over the nearest hill. Bulky like an elephant, with four stumpy legs, the creature had the long neck of a giraffe that ended in a horse-shaped head. Two large eyes on short fat stalks took up the top third of the head, the snout ending in long buckteeth that overlapped fleshy lips. With pinkish skin, the animal looked flushed but stood calmly, looking down at the humans, its eyes moving back and forth on its stalks as if the animal was trying to get an angle on the humans that made optical sense. To her left, Elizabeth saw Jeanette raise her rifle.
“Don’t shoot,” Elizabeth said. “Not yet.”
“Do, Re, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti,” Jeanette sang.
Grasses rustled, velociraptors emerging then spreading out, heads high, looking over the grass at the creature on the hill.
“Where’s Do?” Jeanette wondered out loud.
Its eyestalks finally at rest, the creature continued to study the humans and their animals. After another minute, the eyestalks shifted, then the head turned, the animal looking at the puffy trees.
“Elizabeth,” Jeanette said. “The trees are leaving.”
Jeanette was right. What they had thought were trees were moving slowly over the hill where they had stood, and down the other side. The creature turned, revealing a stumpy pink tail, following the trees in a slow-motion chase. A little while later, the trees and the creature were gone over the hill.
Dinosaur Thunder Page 23
