by Brian King
I opened my hands and held them in front of me with the palms out, just like I’d do when meeting a new dog. I hoped the action translated to dinos.
“I would never harm you. I’m here to make you an offer to come back to our camp and do a little work for us. There are four in our group. Actually, we have five if you count Jinx. You two would have lots in common.” With many animals, it wasn’t what you said, but how you said it, and with this one, I tried to remain friendly and casual.
The parasaur continued to imitate a cow chewing on grass.
I had no idea of the mechanics of Tame. I looked into the eye facing me and mentally suggested she accept my offer. It seemed ham-handed, but with animals, simple was always better.
“Will you let me put this loop on you?” I asked in a soft voice.
She kept on chewing with the suggestion of a bored look on her face.
I already had the Eye-Q open, so I tried to “use” the Tame ability if that’s how it operated. I didn’t have to do anything to tame Jinx, but he was a hundred times smaller, and maybe he required less of my concentration.
“I want to tame this dinosaur,” I said as if executing a command to the computer.
The parasaur blew a few pleasant notes through its crest.
“Is that a yes?” I said happily.
I tested the connection again by mentally suggesting she should drop her head. For ten seconds she seemed to mock me by continuing to chew, but then she did lower it.
“Holy shit,” I said with barely contained excitement.
“Can you lie down so we can ride on your back?” I asked. I kept my tone friendly like it was the easiest thing in the world.
She knelt down and then sprawled out in the undergrowth of ferns. I marveled at the details of her head and neck and ran my fingers over the bumpy scales on her side. Her skin was mostly gray up top and on the sides, but it became a light brown underneath. Pieces of dried mud were wedged in various crevices under there. She wasn’t the flashiest dino, but at that moment she was the prettiest I’d ever seen.
“It worked,” I said loud enough for Sheela to hear. I also waved her to come closer to me.
“I’m going to toss this over your head, but it isn’t going to hurt. I promise.” I started by looping the rope over the long crest, then I let it fall over her eyes and around her snout. I’d begun to think this was going to work.
The Eye-Q began to flash, and I eagerly read the Parasaurolophus tamed, notice.
“Fucking A!” I said triumphantly. My loud voice made the parasaur flinch, but I held my hand on her neck, and that seemed to steady her.
“She is tamed?” the cat woman asked.
“I don’t know if she’ll do any tricks for me, but my Eye-Q has put her into my tamed inventory,” I said. “It did the same for Jinx. All we do now is see if she’ll let us walk her.”
We brought the rope on the assumption we’d use it to drag the tamed dino back home, but standing there in front of her I knew that was thinking small. If we were ever going to maximize the potential of this parasaur, I had to think big. This dinosaur looked like she was designed to carry people upon her shoulders, and the rope was already up there, so why not give it a try?
“There now,” I said in a nice, even voice. “Good girl. Me and my friend are just going to climb up onto your shoulders. That’s cool, right?”
“Are you sure?” Sheela interjected with a surprising amount of hesitation in her voice.
“I’ve never been surer in my life. This is what we’re doing. Swing for the fences, right?” I really didn’t know if it was going to work, but I was ready to try.
The dinosaur never stopped chewing, even as Sheela and I got up on her shoulders. The feline woman sat down right behind me and wrapped her arms all the way around my midsection. I patted my hat tighter onto my head to keep it from flying off and then took a deep breath to steady my nerves. When I was ready, I tightened my grip on the neck rope while a firehose of adrenaline flooded my body.
I was about to ride a big ass fucking dinosaur.
“Here we go,” I said to Sheela while doing my best to pretend I was totally calm.
Her grip tightened on me, and I got the feeling she had some misgivings about what we were doing. I did too, but years of training animals in my parents’ clinic taught me the secret was to never display that doubt. Animals became confused when the trainer himself was wishy-washy.
“Up!” I commanded both mentally and out loud.
The parasaur slowly lifted Sheela and I. At first, she used all four of her feet, but then she seemed to lean back on her hind legs, a little like a kangaroo. We didn’t fall backward because my legs were draped over her shoulders.
“Whoa!” I blurted as we nearly slid sideways. Sheela hugged my midsection tighter until we steadied ourselves. She also placed her axe and both spears over her lap, so they sort of acted like tightrope walker’s poles.
The parasaur stood a little more erect, turned its head, and seemed to take stock of us on its back. She and I regarded each other, and I wondered if she would roll over on top of us. Instead, she shifted her orientation, so she was looking at a clump of trees in the nearby jungle. It seemed as if she was ready for orders, and she blew a short toot on her crest.
Despite my appearance of control, my insides were in a spin cycle. We balanced on the back of a multi-ton alien dinosaur, and I was using training techniques from when my biggest worry was having a dog piss on my leg. I had confidence in my ability to keep it together for Sheela and the women, but I’d never felt farther from “being in control” than I did at that moment.
“Victor, this is marvelous,” Sheela whispered. “The others will be so proud of you.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I replied. “I’m not even sure I can move this thing.” To test that theory, I yanked on the rope and used my foot to press into her right side. She turned part-way to the left, but not all the way around.
“Actually, I was wrong. I can turn her,” I laughed. I tried to push with my left foot, and she spun back to the right.
While we practiced those simple commands, the parasaurs in the main group began to get noisy behind us. Their honks didn’t sound quite so playful, and I turned toward them.
Instead of their usual activities near the shore, the group of elephant-sized dinos were clumping together as if gossiping about what I was doing with one of their own.
A deep carnotaurus howl rumbled far away, but when the parasaurs heard it, the already-agitated group seemed to ripple with fear.
“Is it getting closer?” My muscles tensed as I listened, and I noticed the parasaur underneath me was also very tense.
“I cannot say for certain, but it sounded more distant than before,” she said with a touch of relief in her voice.
We both continued to watch the odd behavior of the dinosaurs behind us.
The main group of parasaurs now stood shoulder to shoulder on the flat ground next to the shore. They weren’t just waiting in their normal standing pose but were down on all fours as if they were about to spring forward at us.
“Maybe they kicked this one out,” Sheela whispered. “Or she is sick in some way. That might explain their behavior.”
I didn’t know what to make of it, either, but our parasaur didn’t seem bothered by its friends behind us or the faraway carno. Our ride kept her eyes on the trees a dozen or so yards in front of us. I tried to hide my sweaty palms and creeping fear, but then the animal started quivering like a massage chair under us.
Something bad was going on.
I put myself in her shoes and tried to see the jungle as she would. All the action was behind us, yet she was looking ahead. Why?
I scanned the leaves and trees of the thick rainforest beyond the edge of the open field. I could see maybe fifty yards into the shroud of undergrowth before it became a solid wall of greenery, but I noticed the flinch of a light-colored animal a shitload closer than fifty yards.
&nbs
p; “She’s not sick,” I added hastily, as I finally guessed what was happening.
I gently kicked my dinosaur’s right side to get her to turn left, but once she started the turn, I kicked her harder.
“Run!” I ordered her.
She complied immediately, and I hung onto the rope with both hands as she exploded from her standing position. At the same time, a rust-red predator with two badass horns sprang from the trees we’d been facing a few seconds before. Despite its massive size, the carno had used the thick tree cover to creep to within a dozen yards of the stray parasaur.
“Fuck!” I shouted. The carnotaurus gave chase, and I had a second to decide if I wanted to turn right to run along the lakeshore, run straight into the lake, or turn left and guide our ride back toward the protective line of its friends.
I waited until the last second and yanked at the rope while jamming my foot into her right side. Her feet slid on the sandy bank, but she stayed out of the muddy water as she made the sharp left turn.
The horned predator followed at a sprint, but he wasn’t able to turn fast enough, so he skidded on the sand and splashed into the water with a loud growl.
For a moment I thought we were in the clear, but I was disappointed when I glanced backward. My bright idea didn’t do much to slow him down, and the carno was already back on his feet. The beast was soaked and growling like a fiend, but he surged out of the shallows a few seconds later.
I looked ahead and aimed my mount toward the pack of parasaurs. I figured they’d be running away in fear, but the mob tightened up as we approached. It was a pretty good defensive measure, but I didn’t think they would let us into their ranks.
I leaned in and guided her, so we ran along the line of other parasaurs. My mount let out some urgent honks and howls which I read as a raw fear and rejection. Her friends had pretty much betrayed her, and the gentle dino I rode was heartbroken.
The herd whistled loudly and stamped their front feet as the predator neared. Though they sounded pretty mean, they just stood there. It surprised me when the carnotaurus turned away from the line of giant herbivores to chase after us, but I guessed that the large predator was more interested in the lone prey.
Sheela squeezed her arms around my waist as our parasaur hit her stride. We leaned from side to side and squeezed our legs around the dino’s neck to keep from falling off. Sheela also adjusted the spears on her lap as a crude counterbalance, but we were still in danger of falling off if we didn’t slow down.
“We must end this, Victor!” Sheela yelled. “The other beast is faster.”
I felt like we were flying while riding on its back, but as I angled my crested dinosaur to one side, I was able to look behind and confirm Sheela’s words. The carno took massive strides with its long legs, and it had closed much of the gap behind us. It wouldn’t take it long to catch up completely.
We couldn’t outrun the killer; our only option was to fight it.
“Can you jab that thing from up here?” I yelled back. We were both out of our element riding on the back of a dinosaur, so I had no idea if she could throw a spear on the move.
“I will try,” she said in my ear.
“I’m going to get us in position. Put it right through that thing’s heart!”
“I will do my best, Victor,” the warrior woman said again while squeezing me tightly.
I ran the parasaur into some of the thicker parts of the jungle and tried to avoid the numerous tangles of vines. It would be a sad end to my glorious first dinosaur ride if I was knocked off by a plant.
The parasaur turned out to be a fast runner, especially on the uneven surface of the jungle and shoreline. The carnotaurus was much larger, and the deeper we got into the jungle, the more certain I was that we would be caught.
We weaved around trees and ducked under low-hanging branches as I tried to come up with a plan. I had no idea what the parasaur would do to defend itself when it was alone, but I didn’t think it was built for combat. Sheela and I certainly wouldn’t survive hand-to-jaw fighting with the fifteen-foot tall meat eater, so our only chance was to use our weapons.
“Okay, get ready,” I shouted.
I found a set of three trees spaced kind of like a triangle about a hundred feet apart. I guided the parasaur through a hard left around the first tree and prayed she wouldn’t stumble. The devil-dino had gotten close but couldn’t make the turn at the same speed. That gave us a little extra room when we approached the next corner. I waited just long enough to be sure it was going to follow us before making another fast left turn. If he’d been smarter, he may have anticipated the repeat move and cut us off. Instead, he decelerated again to make his turn, which gave us even more of a lead.
At the third tree, I didn’t slow down to ensure he was following. I encouraged the parasaur to sprint through the turn while Sheela and I both leaned way over on our left. Our dinosaur’s toes dug into the soil, and I worried again that we might tip over, but our girl was smart, and she completed the maneuver by leaning herself hard into the turn.
“Here we go!” I yelled.
We soon faced the carnotaurus across the somewhat open clearing between the trees. I felt the parasaurus hesitate for a moment, but I conveyed my confidence at what I was doing. When I prodded her with my feet, she kicked back up to full speed and began chuffing until the wind was strong against my face.
“Kill it, Sheela!”
My feline friend shifted behind me, and I leaned forward to give her a clear view as she prepared to unleash hell on our attacker. Both dinosaurs ran toward each other at high speed, and we were seconds from impact when Sheela let out her trademark grunt.
I nudged the parasaur to the right, so we wouldn’t collide head-on, and Sheela’s spear soared into the path of the carnotaurus.
I had a fraction of a second to watch the spear punch through the carno’s front thigh and come out the back side. I held my breath, lowered my eyes, and prepared to get rammed by the injured predator.
But no impact came.
There was just a howl of anger that caused my ribs to vibrate, and I felt Sheela’s arms wrap around my waist. The carno had stumbled, and we zipped away before it could chomp us.
“Great shot, Sheela. That was amazing, but I don’t think a leg wound will kill it. Should we try it again with my spear?” I ran us toward one of the other turning trees, intending to go back.
“No, Victor. Death is not required in this case. Look back,” she said a bit out of breath.
I turned us, so I could check her work. The carnotaurus was obviously wounded, but it still made an effort to hobble along after us.
“Fuck me. That’s perfect,” I exhaled as the horned dino let out a roar of annoyance.
“I took a calculated risk to disable it with an easy toss into its leg,” she explained in my ear. “A death blow might have been possible, but it drops its front while on the run, and even a severe chest wound might still allow it to chase us. I went for the safer option.”
“You teach me something every day, Sheela. Smart thinking.”
Relief flooded my stomach, and I let the parasaur drop to a trot so she could catch her breath. Her heartbeat thumped madly from somewhere under my legs, but I got the sense she was happy. Then again, that could have been because I was really grateful we were all still alive.
The horned beast howled in pain again as it fell far behind us. Unlike almost every other injured animal I’d ever seen, I had no sympathy for it. We were one parasaur away from being its dinner, and that was closer than I ever wanted to get again.
We rode the heavy-breathing dinosaur along the lake and once again passed the larger group of gossipy parasaurs. The other animals seemed wary because the carno was still howling in the jungle behind us, but our girl seemed to ignore it all.
“You’re with us now, and we’re going to take care of you,” I said softly while stroking the parasaur’s neck. But guilt tugged at my heart for most of the ride back to our cave. If we hadn’
t shown up when we did, our loner dino might have retreated back into the herd with no drama at all. Plucking the young girl from the dino herd probably put her in more danger, not less.
I also recognized my herd was definitely tons stronger with her in it, and that’s what mattered to me. I would do almost anything in my power to protect members on my “team” on this fucked up alien world, so maybe I’d just extended her life.
That perspective made me feel a lot better about the whole affair.
The carnotaurus continued to howl as we left the lake. I got concerned others of its kind would come to its aid, so we kept moving toward home along the stampede swath.
“You are one of us, now. So, what are we gonna call you?” I asked, but of course, the dino didn’t answer, and Sheela just shrugged when I turned my head to look back at her.
For the entire ride back, I couldn’t think of an appropriate name. She didn’t seem like a Speedy or a Turner, and I passed on any musical themes, despite the flute-like notes she blew in her crest.
It was only when I saw the cave and imagined Trel and Galmine waiting inside that I came up with the right name for our new friend.
“Welcome home, Hope,” I called to her.
Chapter 13
When Sheela and I got back to the cave, we tied Hope to a tree near the base of the ramp. I was looking forward to one night of celebration to take the edge off all the disasters of the day. Sure, I was going to sharpen axes, make cord, and worry about tomorrow just like every other night, but this time when Galmine got me for the night shift, I was going to make certain I had a little gas left in the tank to greet her.
“Thanks for coming with us, girl,” I said to the female parasaur. “You saved our asses out there.”
She looked at me briefly but could have also just been looking for something to eat. While I patted her on the neck, I noticed Trel watching from the top of the ramp. I leaned up against Hope’s body and acted like I’d come home with a new car.
