Her face brightened. “Absolutely! Will Dr. Dixit allow it?”
“If he hasn’t harvested what little he needs for testing by now, he can get back in line behind us.”
Janaina jumped up and followed Grant back to the work area. Dixit was pounding away at keys on his laptop when they arrived. Grant went to the electric cooler where Dixit kept his samples.
“We’re going to do a post-mortem on the pterosaur,” Grant said. “Okay with you?”
Dixit bolted upright. “Certainly not. I may need more samples in the future and your chopping at it would contaminate—”
“Excellent! Thanks!” Grant popped open the cooler and pulled the pterosaur’s sample bag out. He dumped the corpse on the top of the cooler and rubbed his hands across the back. “Oops. Contamination. We’ll take this off your hands.”
Grant scooped up the pterosaur and took it over to the top of a shipping crate. Janaina followed with Grant’s tools. In the jungle heat, the dinosaur rapidly thawed. And just as rapidly began to stink.
“Wow,” Janaina said. “I thought they smelled bad when they were alive.”
“Could you get me a couple of rocks the size of your fist?”
Janaina stepped away and Grant unfolded the wings. They stretched out over a meter. Janaina returned with the rocks and Grant used them like paperweights to pin the wings in place.
“Except for the thicker haunch and leg muscles,” Grant said, “this is very close to what we thought pterosaurs looked like based on the fossil record. And it settles the question of whether they had feathers or not.”
“Unless it is molting season,” Janaina said.
Grant raised an eyebrow as he considered the idea. Janaina broke out laughing and punched him in the shoulder.
“I am, how you say, messing with you,” she said. “That is how you paleontologists work, always creating one nonsense conjecture after another. We biologists prefer observations and common sense. Of course this creature never has feathers.”
“Maybe you should go back to sitting in the shade.”
Janaina took one of the knives and sliced open a leg. “These are running muscles, like a dog, not launching muscles like a hawk. And we certainly saw them run.”
“As soon as I get back, I want to look much more closely at the fossil record, see if that’s evolution at work here or if the fossils have the same attachment pattern for tendons.”
Grant examined the bill. The bottom half had a hole in the center that ran upward into the bill. He pried open the mouth, but it did not appear connected. “That hole is nothing I’ve ever seen in any fossils.”
“It doesn’t appear to help eating or respiration,” Janaina said.
“And there’s another mystery I’d like to solve. This long extension behind the head. It seems to balance the bill, but modern birds like toucans have long bills and need no counterweight.”
Janaina ran the knife along the length of the head crest. She pulled back the leathery skin to expose white bone.
“The two theories are that it either helped stabilize them in flight,” Grant said, “or the hollow space is an extension of the olfactory area, an enormous space to trap scent and locate prey.”
“I need a bone saw.”
“I have a chisel. You might want to step back.”
Grant picked up a small chisel and a hammer. He set the chisel’s tip perpendicular to the base of the head crest and gave it a sharp smack with the hammer. The head crest split all the way to the top. Using the chisel and a pick, Grant pried open the bone.
The space inside the bone was not hollow. A gray mass filled the area. The surface had tiny creases all along it, except at the very tip, where there were well defined folds.
“Damn,” Grant said. “That looks like a brain.”
“But not a bird’s brain,” Janaina said. “A bird’s brain surface is smooth. These creases and folds indicate much higher brain function. This is more like the brain of a mammal.”
“Like a human?”
“No, ours are much more complex.” She pointed the knife at the more creased tip. “Except for that section. That puts our brain to shame.”
“What would that part do?”
“No idea. But whatever it does, a pterosaur does it better than we do it.”
Katsoros approached the shipping container. “What stinks so badly?” She took a look at the partially dissected pterosaur. “Ugh. What are you two doing?”
“We call it science,” Grant said. “It’s what you signed me up to do.”
McCabe marched over before Katsoros could reply. The wretched stink of the pterosaur didn’t seem to faze him.
“We still have a problem,” he said. “No communication with our pickup plane.”
“Once they see the airstrip…” Katsoros said.
“If they see the airstrip. And I know Kowolski, who owns the air charter. He takes few chances to begin with, and even doing that, he’s down one plane. Without proof of life, he’s going to turn around and head home getting the exact same paycheck.”
“The pterosaurs have the radio,” Grant said. “I’m sure if we ask for it nicely…”
“Are there other radios in the plane?” Katsoros asked.
“None that will use the right frequencies. But Riffaud had an idea. He noticed that the plane had chaff dispensers.”
“What’s chaff?”
“It’s made up of strips like aluminum foil. It gets loaded in tubes along the tail of the plane. When you blast it out of the tube, it makes a cloud that gets picked up by radar. It confuses anti-aircraft systems.”
“Why would that plane have to confuse anti-aircraft systems?” Grant said.
“What Kowalski did on his trips into Columbia was his own business,” McCabe said. “My point is that we can use those tubes to signal the plane. Mount them in the ground, fire them straight up. In this big open sky, an incoming pilot might miss a tiny red flare. There’s no way he’d miss his terrain radar suddenly saying there’s a mountain in front of him.”
“How large might these things be?” Dixit said.
“Small enough, even you can carry one or two,” McCabe said.
“Wow, miniature, huh?” Grant said.
“There’s no way we’ll get back to that plane,” Katsoros said. “Pterosaurs will be all over us.”
“Dino Doc says they are not nocturnal. We go at night.”
“Whoa,” Grant said. “I hypothesized they were diurnal. No guarantee they aren’t active some of the night, like we are.”
“Anyone has a better plan, I’m open to it. But if we don’t have a way to signal that plane, we’re going to have to find a way to live off pterosaur wings and phoberomys stew for the rest of our lives.”
No one said a thing.
With no better options, Grant resigned himself to the plan. “What time do we leave?”
“You aren’t going anywhere. The last thing I need is some scary story writer crashing through the jungle like you did all day yesterday. Riffaud and I have been moving silently in the dark for decades. We’ll leave two hours after sunset. We’ll slip in and out before anything knows we’ve left the compound.”
Grant wanted to raise a protest at this assault on his manly skills in front of Katsoros and Janaina. But on the other hand, a night trip through a dinosaur infested jungle wasn’t that great an idea to start with.
“Whatever you say,” Grant said.
Chapter Sixteen
After an hour of trying that night, Grant gave up on going to sleep. Janaina, Dixit, and Katsoros were able to strap in and drift off, but Grant’s mind was running full speed with concerns about McCabe and Riffaud surviving the jungle, the odds of the group being rescued, Hobart’s death, and the inhumanity of leaving his body as ant food at the river. He raised himself from the seat without a sound and crept out of the container.
The half-moon in the clear sky cast enough light to make out the bigger shapes in the compound. He checked the top of the con
tainer for Griggs, but it was empty. He guessed that Griggs was probably walking the perimeter. He headed out to the berm and climbed to the top.
He peered out between two tree limbs. Across the clearing around the berm, the moonlight did nothing against the impenetrable darkness of the jungle. He had no idea how McCabe and Riffaud would get to the airplane wreck and back. But they treated the mission like just another day, so it must have been one of their military skills he didn’t fathom.
He’d spent plenty of nights outdoors, months at a time at fossil excavations, in places darker than this. But no place had ever felt this unnerving. A combination of the unknown species out there and the complete isolation from the rest of the world gave him a helpless feeling he hadn’t had since the experiences that spawned Cavern of the Damned. Knowing how that worked out didn’t make him feel any better.
“What are you doing out here?”
Griggs’s voice startled him and he slammed his head against a tree limb.
“Ow, damn. I thought you might need company.”
“Uh, no. I’m fine alone.”
“Then I guess I thought I needed company.”
“There’s three other people back in the container.”
“They’re asleep.”
“Follow their lead.”
Something crashed in the jungle out in front of them.
Griggs snapped his rifle’s safety off and aimed the barrel over the top tree limb. Grant looked across the clearing and saw nothing but black standing in for the jungle he knew was out there.
More leaves rustled and a branch snapped.
“How big does whatever’s out there sound to you, Doc?”
“Too big.”
Griggs pulled his revolver from its holster and handed it to Grant grip-first. “Take this and stay low.”
Grant hesitated, then took it. It weighed a lot more than he’d expected. “I haven’t shot one of these before.”
“Point and pull the trigger,” Griggs said. “I have a feeling whatever’s coming will be big enough that you won’t miss.”
A tree at the jungle’s edge toppled over and slammed into the ground. From behind it charged a saucer-shaped hulk the size of a car. The shape resembled a turtle, but it didn’t move like one. Stubby legs threw sprays of earth past its sides. It ran straight for the berm.
Griggs snapped on a rifle-mounted flashlight. The beam lit up an ankylosaur. Armored plates covered its broad back and the crest of its head. Defensive spikes jutted from the edges of both. A ball at the end of its long tail bounced off the ground as it charged.
Griggs opened fire. A spray of bullets barked from his rifle. The rounds hit the creature square in the back to no effect. One of the spent shell casings winged Grant in the head.
The hulk beneath them turned sideways and slipped mostly under Grant’s line of sight. Then the creature slammed the club on its tail into the earth. The berm shuddered and Grant grabbed a tree limb to hold his balance. Griggs pointed his rifle straight over the edge and fired without aiming.
The ankylosaur’s head shot up above the berm and into the beam of Griggs’s light. Its huge beak spread wide and revealed a thick, forked tongue. A yellow eye with a snake’s slit iris stared both men down. The creature uttered a guttural roar and its hot breath stank of things long dead. It swung its head and its beak hit Griggs. The rifle flew from the man’s hands. The flashlight’s beam cartwheeled through the air as the weapon tumbled down the berm.
Grant realized he still held the revolver in his sweaty, trembling hand. He raised it and pulled the trigger. Just a meter from the creature he couldn’t miss. The bullet hit the back armor and pinged as it deflected away. The kick from the revolver nearly knocked Grant off the berm.
Griggs whipped a hunting knife from a sheath at his belt. With an overhand sweep, he plunged it into the ankylosaur’s eye.
The creature screeched like shearing metal. It swept its head in Griggs direction, but he ducked just in time. The creature dropped down from the berm. It bellowed in fury and the sound of churning earth rolled up from the darkness as the dinosaur no doubt tried to dislodge the knife in its eye. A crunch of metal sounded to the west and then the ankylosaur barreled off into the jungle.
Grant’s pulse hammed so hard he could feel his body jerk in time with it. The revolver shook in his hand. The silence in the wake of the creature’s departure now seemed unnatural.
“Dammit,” Griggs said. “That was my favorite knife.” He turned to Grant. “You okay?”
“Yeah… yeah. That was close.”
Griggs eased the pistol out of Grant’s hand. “Let me hold this for now.”
Grant wasn’t in the mood to argue. He let the pistol go.
“What happened up there?” Katsoros called from the base on the berm. She scooped up Griggs’ rifle.
“Animal attack.” Griggs called down. “Repelled it.” He looked to Grant. “Good job.”
“I shot it once.”
“But you didn’t run.”
Grant got the feeling this was as close to praise as a civilian was likely to get from Griggs, so he opted to take it without a smart-ass or self-deprecating response.
They slid down the berm. By the time they got there Janaina and Dixit had joined Katsoros.
“What was it?” Katsoros said.
“Ankylosaurus,” Grant said. “Basically an armored car with a dinosaur inside.”
“Did you kill it?” Dixit asked.
“No, but we sure did irritate it.”
“It’s wounded,” Griggs said. “Blind in one eye.”
“You think this was what was hunting the phoberomys the night before last?”
“From the looks of it, yes. Which means it isn’t the normal, placid, plant-eating version. And the crushed eggs might be ankylosaurs as well. We’ve disturbed its hunting and killed its family. No wonder it has a bad attitude.”
“Can you kill it if it comes back?” Janaina asked Griggs.
“Not by myself,” Griggs said.
Grant bristled at being demoted back to useless.
“It would take all three of us, thick as that armor is. When McCabe and Riffaud return, we’ll have a chance.”
Grant wondered if McCabe and Riffaud would return. Were there other ankylosaurs out there on the rampage tonight?
Chapter Seventeen
Two hours later, Janaina, Katsoros, and Dixit had gone back to sleep. If Grant couldn’t sleep before the dinosaur attack, he sure wasn’t doing it after. He and Griggs sat on top of the container. Griggs had his rifle across his lap, his legs dangled over the side. Grant could barely see anything in the moonlight. He hoped Griggs had some sort of bionic night-vision the military had installed because if it was up to Grant to spot the next attack, it wouldn’t happen until the thing was knocking over the container.
While Grant kept a swiveling scan of the perimeter going, Griggs stayed focused on one location.
“You expecting the dinosaur to hit us from that direction?” Grant asked.
“No, I’m expecting McCabe and Riffaud from that direction. The opening between the tree trunks on top of the berm is the only passage point in and out of camp. Anything that pops up somewhere else on the other side gets shot.”
“Good idea. Hey, why didn’t I know about that?”
“A lot of security measures go on behind the client’s back. It’s better that way. They don’t interfere.”
“Yeah, but what if I was outside and decided to come back in a different way?”
“That’s why you aren’t allowed outside the perimeter without adult supervision.”
McCabe’s voice drifted in from the other side of the berm. “Griggs! Coming in!”
“Clear!” Griggs shouted back.
Seconds later McCabe appeared atop the berm, followed by Riffaud. Each had a metal tube about a meter and a half long strapped across their backs. They skidded down the berm. Griggs hopped off the container to meet them. Grant measured the drop in his head
and took the more judicious route of the makeshift ladder. He caught up as Griggs and McCabe fist bumped.
“Give me a sit rep,” McCabe snapped. “What the hell happened out there? The ground all around the berm looks like a minefield exploded.”
“Dinosaur outside the perimeter,” Griggs said. “Armored up like an APC.”
“Did you light it up?”
“Thirty rounds, center of mass, couldn’t miss the thing. It didn’t flinch.”
“What was it, Dino Doc?”
“An ankylosaur,” Grant said, “or some evolutionary one-off.”
“Wide and low to the ground,” Griggs said. “Gonna be tough to kill.”
“You think it was the thing that slaughtered the guinea pigs?” McCabe said.
Grant cringed at calling the animals guinea pigs, but held back his correction. “That would be a safe bet.”
McCabe checked the glowing face of his watch. “We have dawn in a few hours. Griggs, get some sleep. We need the landing strip done ASAP.” He slung the launcher off his back and handed it to Riffaud. “You drop the launchers by the supply pallet and watch the perimeter. I’ll wire them up in the morning.”
Grant waited for an assignment.
“Okay, move out,” McCabe said. The three men split to complete their tasks and left Grant standing alone.
“I’ll head back in and get a little sleep,” Grant said to no one.
Chapter Eighteen
Dawn brought Grant back around, and earlier than he’d hoped. He unstrapped himself from the sleep chair and went outside. Riffaud stood guard atop the container. Grant gave him a friendly wave. Riffaud gave an exasperated sigh in response.
“Okay, next time you fend off the dinosaur attack,” Grant whispered to himself. He climbed up to the top of the berm to get a better view of last night’s battlefield.
It looked as bad as he’d guessed. Ground all churned up. Trees across the way flattened. He peered down the far side of the berm and couldn’t miss the cavity the clubbed tail of the ankylosaur had crushed into it. They’d need the Bobcat to get it back in shape.
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