Cretaceous Sea

by Will Hubbell

  Rick followed Joe back to the meeting room. Peter Green and James Neville were engaged in a conversation concerning the guests. Joe commenced to pace about in a preoccupied manner. Pandit sat calmly by himself. Rick sat next to him.

  "We're the only two that haven't been downwhen yet," said Rick. "You excited?"

  "I am most pleased to be working with Mr. Neville again," replied Pandit. "Otherwise, for me, it will be like any other safari camp."

  "But it's a whole different world downwhen, so much to discover."

  "You are the guide, so that is true. I am the chef. Cook-ing doesn't change."

  "Isn't there something that stirs your sense of adven-ture?"

  "Did they show you the datavision of the island? The one with the creature that swam? You know, the one with the long neck?"

  "Yes," replied Rick, "that was a plesiosaur."

  "Well, I would like to cook a fish like the one that creature caught. I have never seen such a fish." Rick looked at Pandit in disbelief. "What?"

  "You asked me about my sense of adventure."

  "Maybe I should fetch a dinosaur to roast."

  "Yes," said Pandit, "but a small one."

  Rick laughed. "It'd probably taste like chicken."

  "Perhaps," admitted Pandit. "There is only one way to find out."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Why not? Mr. Neville said, long ago, safari cooks always served game. Back then, catching dinner was part of the guide's job."

  "I guess the robotic animals they have nowadays don't make for much of a stew." Pandit sighed. "In Uganda, we just pretended we were on safari. That's why Mr. Neville quit, you know. He could remember when it was still real. But this will be real," said Pandit with dawning enthusiasm.

  "You know, I never considered the possibilities. There are all sorts of things downwhen people have never tasted."

  "Or tasted people," added Rick.

  "True," said Pandit. "But, as the chef, what people eat is my concern. What eats people is yours."

  "I'll try to remember that," said Rick.

  "I'm sure Mr. Green will be most gratified."

  AS SALVATORE RUSSO parked his car, he was filled with hope that his luck was about to change. So far, his per-sistence had gone unrewarded, for images of Greighton and his fiancee were old news. The other paparazzi had gone off to chase more lucrative celebrities, but Sal had kept up his pursuit. Tonight, it looked like it might pay off.

  What inspired Sal's hope was that Greighton's daugh-ter had joined him and his fiancee in the limo. That alone was something; there were no shots of the fiancee and the kid together. Maybe tonight he could bag that special image that would bring in the big bucks. A full-blown argument would be worth a small fortune, but any con-flict, even hostile looks, would sell. He trailed them hop-ing to catch them at the restaurant or wherever they were going. All he needed was to get in close. Even if nothing was happening, he was confident he could provoke a re-action that any good caption writer could make interest-ing. Surprise was on his side. Best of all, he was alone. With no competition, he needn't be rushed.

  His quarry led him to a strange destination, a building in a run-down industrial part of town. Sal stayed in his car and spied on Greighton and the two women through the telephoto lens of his datacam. He shot a few images, but doubted they'd bring much. He watched the chauffeur unlock a door to the building and escort his passengers inside before returning and removing luggage from the trunk. What's that for?

  wondered Sal. A secret wedding? A honeymoon? He fantasized what images of that would be worth. Sal forced himself to wait a few minutes before he left his car. He had turned off his headlights for the past few miles, but he still wanted to be sure he hadn't been ob-served. Just when he was reasonably sure he was not ex-pected, all the streetlights went out. This is my lucky night, he thought. No one will see me now. He slipped out of his car into the darkness.

  Sal did not even try the door to the building—he had seen the chauffeur lock it. The high fence in the rear looked more promising. He knew most people placed a naive faith in fences, assuming they brought privacy. Yet climbing was an essential skill in Sal's business, and he approached the obstacle as a seasoned professional. A quick walk around the perimeter revealed a spot with promising handholds and footholds. He slung his datacam around his neck and began to climb.

  The sight beyond the top of the fence was totally un-expected. The screened-in area was almost entirely filled by a strange craft. Although Sal had never seen anything like it, the words "flying saucer" immediately came to mind. Using one hand to grip the top of the fence, Sal used the other to aim his datacam. He adjusted the zoom lens to wide-angle and framed an image of the saucer. Now he wished the streetlights were on so he'd have more light for the shot. As he recorded the image, ques-tions popped into his mind. What the hell is this thing? What does it have to do with Greighton? Why did he bring his daughter and his fiancee here? Sal was con-vinced the answers to those questions could only be found on the other side of the fence. He lowered the da-tacam to let it dangle from its neck strap and, grabbing the top of the fence with both hands, prepared to pull himself over. There was a muffled popping sound, instantly followed by an intense burning sensation in his right shoulder. Sal lost his grip and fell backwards off the fence, slamming into the ground. He lay on his back in a haze of pain. Staring at the fence, he dully realized that the dark stain near the top was his own blood. The next thing he saw was a burly man standing over him. He had a dispas-sionate look. Sal thought that he might be the chauffeur, although he wasn't sure. It was dark, and Sal's eyes were having trouble focusing. The man leaned over. There was something in his hand. Sal tried to make out what it was. When it was inches from his head, Sal saw it was a gun. Tonight was not lucky after all. NICK ZHUKOVSKY REENTERED the meeting room and stood out of the way, waiting to catch Peter Green's eye. His boss was talking up the clients. "It'll be a vacation for me, too," Green said. "After years of research, I need a break." He looked over and spotted Nick. Nick glanced around to ensure no one was watching; then he moved his finger across his throat in a slicing motion. Green subtly nodded, acknowledging the message.

  "I've put together the most experienced staff possible," continued Green, without the slightest hint of what had transpired. "James Neville's family ran safari camps in the Serengeti for three generations. His hospitality and exacting standards are renowned throughout Africa. Now he is bringing his expertise to our new frontier. We couldn't be in better hands."

  James smiled modestly at the compliment. "Mr. Green has kindly provided me with a new challenge. I will do my utmost to meet it.

  "Our chef, Pandit Jahan, was handpicked by James himself," said Green. "He assures me there is none bet-ter." Pandit bowed his head toward the guests. "Joe Burns is our pilot. He'll operate both the time machine and our sight-seeing aircraft."

  "You won't be operating the time machine yourself?" asked John Greighton.

  "As I said, I'm on vacation. I believe in getting the best people available, then giving them responsibility. Joe's already better at it than I."

  Joe grinned. "Thank you, Mr. Green. That's quite a compliment."

  "Last, but not least, is the newest member of our team, Rick Clements, our naturalist and guide. Don't let his youth fool you, he's had ten years' worth of field expe-rience and..."

  "In the Cretaceous?" interrupted Con incredulously.

  "The Cretaceous fossil beds," replied Rick.

  "Have you ever seen these animals alive?" asked Con.

  "Not yet."

  "Rick has studied paleontology at the graduate level," said Green. Con muttered, "Some guide!" just loud enough to be heard.

  Rick flushed at the remark, then noticed Green was glaring at him as if this were his fault. Great, Rick thought, this is the girt Green wants me to baby-sit. Up to then, his first impression of her had been a good one. She did not have that rich person's face like her father and his fianc6e or, for that matter, Peter
Green. Her fea-tures appeared natural, not altered to fit the current fash-ion. Rick took that as a good sign. She had the trim body of an active person, and her hazel eyes had an intelligent look. After her snide comment, he feared all those things were simply superficial, and she was a rich, spoiled brat after all. 6

  CON WAS NOT USED TO CHAMPAGNE AND SHE CLIMBED

  the stairs to the time machine with a little difficulty. She hoped no one noticed. Aware that she was not in full control, she regretted that third glass. She had already insulted the guide. Hopefully, she would not fall on her face also.

  She was led to a high-backed seat that appeared more com-fortable than it really was. It seemed to have been designed for a much larger person. Certainly, its molded contours did not match her body. After she sat for a moment, the seat's sides moved and gripped her waist snugly. Con let out a surprised squeak. Her father grinned. "Didn't you listen to Peter's warning?" She didn't answer. She was fighting to subdue her growing unease. The idea of time travel had sud-denly been transformed from an abstraction to imminent re-ality.

  The stairway silently rose as the opening in the floor closed up. To Con, it seemed that the edges of the opening simply grew together like a rapidly healing wound. Soon there was no evidence that there had ever been an entrance to the cabin. Joe announced they would depart in a few minutes, then disappeared into the control room. Con avoided looking at the column in the center of the cabin. The thing inside it made her dizzy, and she was already feeling dizzy enough. Instead, she stared at the viewscreens on the opposite wall.

  The image on the viewscreens shifted, and instead of dis-playing the fence, they showed the ground of the courtyard. There was a sense of motion, and the viewscreens revealed that the time machine was rising rapidly. The building below was lost in an irregular patch of darkness set in a grid of lighted streets. The machine entered a cloud, and the view momentarily dissolved into dark gray. The image of the city reappeared on the screen, though this time it was delineated by radar or some similar means. The pattern of streets and buildings receded rapidly. The view changed again, and Con gazed at the tops of moonlit clouds.

  "How high up are we going?" asked John.

  "About twelve miles," answered Green. "Then we'll com-mence time travel." A few minutes later, the saucer slowed to a stop. Con nervously waited for something to happen. At first, she no-ticed no change at all. The cabin was eerily silent, and there was no sense of motion. Con was watching a viewscreen when something passed in front of her eyes. She couldn't make out what it was, but it emanated from the strange cyl-inder inside the transparent column. The cylinder was trans-forming, enlarging. Incorporeal tendrils shot out beyond the clear column into the cabin. They seemed to move about as if blown by imperceptible winds. The tendrils thickened into arching branches and became more numerous, yet retained the disturbing quality of seeming simultaneously real and il-lusory. It's as if nothingness has taken on a form, thought Con. What was even more disturbing was that the groping entities altered everything they touched. The column and the floor and ceiling surrounding it no longer existed. They had been transformed into writhing nothingness.

  The nothingness grew and, to Con's horror, advanced to-wards her. She shrank back into her seat. If it had not tightly gripped her, she would have fled and cowered against the wall. I'm drunk, she told herself, but she knew that wasn't the cause of the frightening vision before her. An arch of dazzling fog enveloped Con's foot. She felt like it had been painlessly amputated. Another streamer flowed through her thigh, and it, too, was removed from her consciousness. Only when the nothingness washed over her like a wave did she regain a sense of her body. Now she felt like she was falling, that the solidity of everything around her had only been an illusion. There was nothing to hold on to. Nothing had sub-stance, not even herself.

  The sensation lasted for 65 million years or, perhaps, only a nanosecond. Duration was irrelevant. Time, in any mean-ingful sense, did not exist. Then it returned abruptly. Solidity surrounded Con. Her body had reality again. The memory of her surreal journey slipped from her mind almost instantly, as if it were beyond her power to conceive of it. What re-mained was a faded disquiet, the echo of a forgotten night-mare. She wiggled a toe and felt it move. The ordeal had left her unscathed. Then, to her surprise, she realized that it had also left her sober.

  Con gazed about the cabin. The transparent column seemed virtually empty, the cylinder inside reduced to an insubstantial, flickering thread. The viewscreens peered down on cloud-flecked, blue-and-turquoise sea. The clouds glowed gold in the late-afternoon light. Con peered at the faces of her traveling companions. They looked relieved as the terror of the journey faded.

  The saucer began to descend, and Con could make out more details of the sea below them. The water was so clear that the drowned landscape beneath its surface was plainly visible, like a topographic map drawn in shades of green and blue. As they approached, she caught fleeting glimpses of creatures that swam in the sea or flew above it. The images on the viewscreens shifted toward the horizon. The island she had seen in the holovision was visible in the distance, standing out against a backdrop of shadowed mountains.

  "There she is," said Peter Green, "Montana Isle."

  "God, it's beautiful," exclaimed Sara.

  "Sure is," agreed John.

  The flight to the island took only a few minutes, but to Con it seemed longer. She was anxious to leave the time machine and its vague, yet disquieting, associations with fall-ing. Also, their destination looked beautiful and peaceful. She would be glad to feel it solidly beneath her feet and experi-ence it with all her senses. Eventually, the time machine halted a few hundred feet over the island, then gently de-scended. Only the viewscreens indicated that they had ar-rived—the landing was so soft that it had been imperceptible. An opening formed in the cabin floor revealing stairs leading down to sand-strewn rock. Warm, strangely scented air flowed in. Con's chair relaxed its grip. The new world awaited. PETER GREEN HAD slipped from the role of host to that of a guest. It was James Neville who gave the orders now. He rose from his seat and addressed Rick and Pandit. "I'll show our guests to their accommodations. You follow me with their luggage, then get started on dinner." James led the guests down the stairway while Rick and Pandit scurried for their luggage. Pandit was obviously used to the drill, but the delay in seeing the island was torment for Rick. He grabbed a pair of bags and hurried after James.

  The time machine stood in a flat depression among the rocks. It was evident that depression was partly artificial. Tops of some of the boulders had been neatly sheared off to level the landing surface. The path away from the land-ing site was also, in places, carved through rock. Rick was amazed that such effort would be expended on a mere trail. The path led to the interior of the island, dom-inated by a towering upthrust of dark gray rock. Rick surmised that the island was the remnant of the core of an ancient volcano, weathered until it was denuded of its mountain. Now it defiantly jutted out of the sea while wind, rain, and the weight of years slowly subdued it.

  The island was small, not much more than a quarter of a mile at its widest point, and supported only sparse veg-etation. Most was in the interior, where there was a small grove of trees. The path crossed through it into a clearing at the base of the outcropping. In the center of the clear-ing was an open-sided pavilion. It was a simple, rustic structure constructed of small trees and branches with a palm-thatched roof and a flagstone floor. It was furnished with a single large table, dining chairs, and a sideboard. The remaining three structures provided a startling con-trast to the pavilion, for they were carved out of solid rock. Each featured a colonnade, which served as its outer wall.

  "Mr. Green's quarters are on the left," said James. "Mr.

  Greighton and Ms. Boyton will have the central unit, Miss Greighton will be on the right." As Rick carried John's and Sara's luggage to their quarters, he examined the structure more closely. The carving featured no em-bellishment, but was executed with great p
recision. Everything was square or rectangular in form. The planes cut into the stone showed no tool marks and were per-fectly smooth, but unpolished. The colonnade gave the large room behind it an open, airy feel. Farther back into the rock were two additional rooms, a bathroom and a simple storeroom. Rick caught only a glimpse of the bathroom. All its fixtures were carved from rock and ei-ther coated with a sealer or highly polished. He placed the bags in the storeroom. In contrast to the bathroom, it was crudely finished. Its interior wall was covered with plaster, which supported several rows of wooden pegs. There was a simple wooden chest of drawers beneath the pegs.