by Ron Miller
Without a word passing between us, we began to slowly back up toward the wall. I was sure the same hope was passing through their heads as was passing through my own: that we were too small to be worth the effort of eating. But I was counting too much on a reptile brain. I’d learned that dinosaurs were not known for their intelligence. It’s one of the explanations of why they were so hard to kill: they’re so stupid it takes their walnut-sized brains several minutes to realize they’re dead. And they can do a lot of damage during those few minutes. The tyrannosaurus took another earth-shaking step forward, dispelling all notions I might have been harboring of not being even an hors d’oeuvre. The thing obviously was looking for a mid-morning snack. It leaned forward and locked its snaky red eyes on us. Even at ten yards I could feel the moist heat of its breath.
We’d retreated until we’d backed up against the wall. There was nowhere else we could go. Andrews had gone dead white. At the monster’s next step forward, he passed out cold. Pat, I saw, seemed to be hypnotized. She still had the rifle in her hands yet didn’t seem to realize it was there. I think somewhere in her head she knew the uselessness of shooting the creature. It would have been as futile as throwing snowballs at it. It would have been an act of desperation and she never acted desperately, even with death literally breathing in her face.
The monster swung its massive head from Pat and the prostrate scientist to me. It took another step forward and leaned forward until only a few feet separated it’s face from my own. Its cavernous nostrils sucked in air once, twice. Then it suddenly leaned back and said, “Carl Denham! Whatever in the world are you doing back here?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The dinosaur invited us to its home for dinner that evening. We were introduced to its mate who proudly and blushingly showed us a clutch of ten or twelve eggs, each the size of a cantaloupe. Pat, Andrews and I clucked our tongues and cooed in admiration and the huge lizard (she was larger than the male) practically quivered with pleasure.
Andrews still seemed a little stunned but Pat, after her initial shock, seemed charmed by the hospitality of our unexpected hosts. She had gone around the cave, admiring its various furnishings and making appreciative remarks about details that I suppose only a woman would notice. It pleased the dinosaurs immensely, though they shyly hid their pleasure behind demurring remarks.
“Oh, do you really like that?” said Mrs. Rex. “It’s just a little something I picked up the other day. Do you really think it adds just that little touch of picturesque charm to the room? You are much too kind!”
“Say,” said the male, “would either of you fellows like a little pick-me-up? I know I sure could use one after a day like this has been.”
The thing waddled over to an alcove from where it retrieved an enormous skin. It was probably that of some prehistoric buffalo or giant ground sloth. In any case, it was nearly as large as an automobile. The thing was nearly spherical, filled as it was with whatever a Tyrannosaurus rex drank for fun. The monster didn’t have any human-sized cups, but we were each equipped with a mess kit we’d swiped from the Japs and held out the tin cups to be filled.
It smelled OK and seemed to be made of some sort of fermented berry. I took a tentative sip. I’d had bathtub gin that was one hundred percent raw alcohol . . . and this stuff would have taken the enamel off the bathtub. I finally managed to get my breath through a throat that had been reduced to raw flesh.
“Smooth,” I said carefully, afraid I’d be coughing up blood.
Andrews was still unable to speak. But professors are kind of soft.
“Well,” said the Tyrannosaurus rex as it settled back on its tail, like a kangaroo, “whatever brings you back to these parts?”
Between the three of us, we put together a fairly coherent story.
“This is pretty bad news,” the dinosaur concluded. “Look here. Everyone here really owes you a big favor, Carl. We ought to help you out.”
“What favor? Whatever did I do for you?”
“Good heavens! You got rid of that filthy ape, for one thing! It’d been the bane of our lives for goodness knows how long. On your last visit here, my late brother figured out what you were after and did everything he could to help you out . . .”
“Help?” For the life of me I couldn’t figure out when I’d gotten any help from a Tyrannosaurus rex.
“Sure! You remember! When that big lug of an ape had your girl? My brother tried to rescue her but—” the dinosaur bit back a tear “—he lost his life in the effort.”
“I, ah, I really appreciate what he tried to do,” I said. “I wish I’d had the chance to thank his, ah, family.”
“You got rid of that damned monkey once and for all, so that was thanks enough, I assure you. We’ve all been wishing we could have shown our appreciation, but you were gone before we had a chance. So you can just imagine my delight at seeing you this afternoon!”
“It certainly was a surprise.”
“When you say ‘we’,” asked Pat, “just who are you talking about?”
“The rest of the population of the island. You’ll get to meet some of them soon enough. I daresay they’ll be no less thrilled to meet you than I was.”
“If you’ll pardon me,” she said, “I have no intention of being rude, but how is that you are—well, so civilized? I mean, I had no idea that dinosaurs could speak. Let alone,” she added, “prepare such a delicious beverage.”
“Oh, goodness! No offense taken! I can understand your confusion perfectly! You see, you have no doubt gotten your impression of us from history books. But those are only about the dinosaurs that existed tens of millions of years ago. Why, at that time, your ancestors were little more than tiny rat-sized pests, always getting under foot.”
“Ahem!” admonished Mrs. Rex.
“Oh dear! No offense meant, of course!”
“None taken, I assure you.”
“You are too gracious. Let’s see . . . yes. Just as your species evolved over millions of years from those miniature, ah, creatures, so did we. That is, we continued to evolve from the primitive dinosaurs of that time. Isolated as we were on this island, there was nothing from stopping us from advancing just your species did. And so here we are!”
“I’m amazed.”
“While I’m delighted to see Carl again, and perhaps even more delighted to meet such charming friends of his as you two, I’m also sorry to hear of the circumstances that brought you here.”
“You mean the Japanese?”
“Yes. I’m afraid their schemes seem to bode well for no one, not for you, not for me and not for our plans.”
“Your plans?”
“Oh, yes! I must tell you about those! But perhaps that should wait for the morning, when I can show you. That will make things much clearer.”
“What I don’t get,” said Pat, “is how you speak English.”
“Oddly enough,” the monster replied, “I’ve been wondering how you speak Dinosaur.”
“I have just one question,” asked Andrews. “That wall. Did you build it?”
“Oh, yes, indeed! We felt a need to protect ourselves from the, ah, more primitive specimens of your species. We enjoyed our isolation here. It’s safe and we were happy. We hoped that by constructing the wall, we could discourage an unwanted nuisance. We knew the villagers were terrified of us, and they appreciated the barrier as much as we did. It was not until that horrible ape appeared that everything began to go wrong. For one thing, Kong perverted the natives’ fear of the wall, exploiting it for its own nefarious purposes.”
“So you, I take it, are the ‘Old Ones’ so many legends speak of?”
“I suppose we are.”
“Do you know if there were colonies of your, um, kind elsewhere? As I was telling Carl and Miss Wildman, there are several huge stone ruins scattered around the globe for which there’s been no explanation.”
“Oh, yes, those were ours. Or, perhaps I should say, they were our ancestor’s. You see, we were onc
e much more prolific than we are now. There were colonies of us scattered here and there all over the planet. Alas, we are the last of our kind, here on this tiny island.”
Fearing they were tiring us, our gracious hosts deferred any more questions until the morning. They showed us to some cozy crevices which were just the right scale for humans. We had brought blankets with us, so with a few armloads of dried grass, we were able to make snug beds for ourselves. Wishing us a good night, they extinguished their oil lamps and retired.
I wanted very much to talk to Pat and Andrews, but within minutes I heard snores from their alcoves and before I knew it I was unconscious, too. I had dreams I’d just as soon forget.
The next morning, the Rexes (I had no idea what else to call them since they didn’t seem to go in for given names) had breakfast waiting for us. Knowing the omnivorous habits of humans, they had been thoughtful enough to have gathered some fruit for us in addition to the slabs of meat they’d set out on platters. I was grateful for this. Although the dinosaurs cooked their food, they liked it rare and a couple of pounds of bleeding meat was a bit much to face at dawn.
Conversation quickly turned to the problem presented by the Jap presence on the island. The Rexes were worried about what this meant. I assured them that their concerns were justified.
“You’ve never faced anything like the threat they present,” I said. “They have weapons against which you’d be powerless.”
“What can we do?” asked the dinosaurs as they wrung their tiny hands.
“The first thing,” said Andrews, “is to try to discover exactly what the Japs are doing. There may be some way to sabotage or at least delay their plans.” He then told the Rexes of our hope—however far-fetched it might be—for a friend who might be bringing help.
“But you said that no one but Mr. Denham knows where this island is,” protested Mr. Rex.
“True,” Andrews said, “but the Japanese have powerful radio equipment. It might be possible for one of us to get a message through to either Indonesia, India or Africa. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about this morning, Carl.”
“I know how to operate a radio,” Pat said.
“True enough, but as a woman you’d stand out like a sore thumb. I’ve plenty of experience in radio and I know the Jap lingo, besides—well enough to get by, at least. And I could easily mingle with the Venture’s crew. The boys know me and would give me cover. I suspect we look as much alike to the Japs as they do to us. I could learn a lot that way.”
“But this means sneaking back on board the ship,” I protested. “Getting off was pushing our luck . . .”
“I don’t figure to. I think Ito’s probably going to bring some radio equipment onto the island. That way he won’t have to keep shuttling back and forth every time he wants to send a report to Tokyo. Besides, he can get a transmitter to higher ground ashore, which would give him more range.”
I was in no position to argue with him. I neither knew how to operate a radio nor a word of Japanese. Pat gave a half-hearted argument, but it was just for show. She obviously knew all along he was right, though it probably irked her.
“It’d be better if the two of you stayed here anyway,” Andrews said. “I suspect there’s a lot more to learn about these creatures than we have so far—and perhaps you can figure out some sort of defense in case worse comes to worst. You know this island better than Pat or me.”
The person who really knew the island was Jack Driscoll. He’d made it all the way to the top of Skull Mountain and back where I’d never gotten even halfway there. I’d been stumped when Kong knocked the log bridge into the gorge. But Jack was ten thousand miles away, married to Ann Darrow. But, among us three, I did know the island best. At least well enough be absolutely terrified of it.
For that reason I wasn’t keen on seeing Andrews retrace our path back to the ruined gate. First, because he’d be alone against a jungle full of monsters who might not be as friendly as the Rexes. Although Pat offered him her rifle, I didn’t put much confidence in it. Second, because the village side of the wall was probably swarming with Japs by now.
It was Rex came up with a much better idea.
Why not, he suggested, go along the top of the wall? Andrews would be all but invisible from that height and would have an excellent vantage point from which he could survey the Jap encampment before deciding where and when to descend. While the dinosaurs kept a broad space on their side of the wall clear of jungle growth, the natives had allowed vines, creepers and trees to grow up their side of the barrier. Many of these reached the parapet. Andrews would have no problem finding a way down. And the heavy foliage would easily hide his descent.
“I can see that,” he said, “but how do I get up in the first place? That’s a sheer stone cliff out there.”
The dinosaur told him that he’d already thought of that.
After breakfast, we followed the Rexes back to the wall. Once we got there, Mr. Rex gave a weird sort of piercing hoot. A moment later, a tremendous thumping and crashing was heard in the jungle and a monster that dwarfed even the tyrannosaurs came waddling of the forest. It looked as big as a battleship, with a neck that was a cross between a giraffe’s and a boa constrictor. It stood on four stumpy legs as massive as tree trunks.
“A brontosaurus, by God!” cried Andrews.
“Good morning,” said Mr. Rex.
“Good morning,” said the brontosaurus.
After introductions and an exchange of pleasantries, the brontosaurus agreed to Rex’s idea, which it apparently thought vastly amusing. It lowered its enormous head—as big as Rockefeller’s desk, but with surprisingly gentle, cow-like eyes—until its chin was resting on the ground in front of Andrews. The paleontologist climbed on top of the scaly skull, his legs straddling it like a cowboy on a hippopotamus. Pat and I handed him the rifle and a backpack of supplies.
“Ready now?” the monster asked.
“I am if you are,” Andrews replied.
“Hold on, please.”
The brontosaurus raised its sinuous neck until its nose was even with the top of the wall. Andrews carefully climbed off and waved to us to let us know he was OK. We waved back and he was off.
Pat and I turned to the tyrannosaurus who said, “You might as well come on back with me and get the rest of the story.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“As I mentioned yesterday,” said Rex, “we evolved just as rapidly as you humans. And we’ve had a lot more time to do so. We were the dominant life forms on this planet for tens of millions of years before mammals even existed, and for all the millions of years after that. Your species is really one of the youngest in this planet’s history, you know. The first humans we’re aware of didn’t show up until perhaps a hundred thousand years ago. It was only by accident that we didn’t turn out to be the dominant species. If it hadn’t been for an ill-aimed asteroid hitting the earth sixty-five million years ago, we would be the creatures inhabiting the great cities, sailing the earth’s oceans and flying through its skies. But the impact was devastating. The explosion was bad enough, but the after effects were an absolute nightmare. Forest fires in a world that was covered by forests, an atmosphere filled with dust that took centuries to settle out. An endless winter fell over the planet and when at last spring arrived, there were almost no dinosaurs left. Only pockets of us here and there: a remote plateau high in the Amazon wilderness, a small colony deep within central Africa and on a few isolated islands—though I fear we are probably the last of those.
“We have not been idle, however! Oh, no! For centuries we have been laboring to restore our lost dominion. Our knowledge of science has grown to be both great and subtle. We have been dedicated to using that science to reach a goal we have been dreaming of for sixty-five thousand millennia.”
“What do you have in mind?” I asked, not entirely certain I wanted to know.
“Nothing less than to bring peace and unity to the world. I mean no offense, but your species is
the most competitive, jealous, egocentric and combative animal we have ever experienced.”
“No offense taken.”
“Ever since the first dinosaur slithered out of the primordial seas, there had been peace and accord on the planet. Land stretched in and unbroken expanse for ten thousand miles in every direction. There was space and food aplenty for all.
“Even before the disaster, the great dinosaurs—the meat-eaters represented by the tyrannosaurs, allosaurs, velociraptors, and so on, and the plant-eaters represented by the brontosaurs, triceratopses, duck-bills, et cetera—had evolved a tremendous plan. Uniting our common interests would enable us build a global civilization that would benefit every dinosaur of every species. And we were well on our way to achieving our goal when that damned asteroid ruined everything. Please pardon my language, Miss Wildman!”
“Quite all right.”
“It’s taken millions of years of pain-staking effort and dedication, but we have finally not only reached our former level of achievement but have exceeded it beyond all expectations!”
“What is it, exactly, you intend to do?”
“For starters, we will straighten the earth’s axis. This will mean a perpetual summer between the tropics and a perpetual spring between the tropics and the arctic circles. What could possibly be more idyllic than that? Once that is done, we will reunite Gondwanaland.
“Our race will regain the benign dominance it once held over this world. Rest assured,” he added, seeing the expressions on Pat’s and my face, “we mean your species no harm. None whatsoever. Admittedly, there are those of us who have bitterly resented our rightful place usurped by what they consider to be little more than mutant rats, but neither I nor the missus feel that way. The asteroid certainly wasn’t your fault. Isn’t that true, dear?”
