He was silent for another moment, considering. “Dawn, there’s something else. Something weird went on back there in the cave. Maybe I was hallucinating, but I could swear I saw one of those creatures Harry talked about – a dinosauroid.”
Gus waited for her reaction, but there was no response. Sheltered by his arms, she had drifted off into a deep slumber.
He studied her exhausted features. With her face in such calm repose, he could almost believe she did have a vague resemblance to the green-skinned creature in the cave. There was a comparable delicacy in their facial features, but what intrigued him more was a memory, a recollection of the look that shone in their eyes; both the woman and dinosauroid had loving spirits, which transcended their disparate physical selves.
But that sounded ridiculous, didn’t it? Gus wanted more than anything to understand what he had seen and experienced. Was the dinosauroid real? Could it have been Dawn? But how? How could her appearance have been so altered?
With a chill, he recalled how in the last few hours he’d had a bizarre thought; in the future the Keeper would somehow radically modify Dawn’s DNA, thereby changing her into a dinosauroid. Gus didn’t know all that much about genetics, but he feared the Keeper had the ability to transform her, body and soul.
He opened his eyes. Suddenly, he remembered Dawn’s tale about her Stroganoff ancestor. What had she told him? That the man’s horrible death had a purpose? That it was meant to steal his soul?
As weird as it sounded, he vowed he would die before he ever let anything like that happen to Dawn.
Gus glanced at his wristwatch. O423. He decided to let Dawn sleep a while longer. In a moment, he planned to get in touch with Harry and ask him to bring the Rover. They’d meet him somewhere along the trail. Even so, he figured it would take at least two hours to get back to the lander.
Dawn had told him about her orders for 0800, and he had to agree with her; it was a good plan, although they would need more time to get the Valiant ready for take-off. Jean-Michel had calculated the comet would hit just before noon. Even if he and Dawn ran like the devil to meet Harry, they’d be cutting it mighty close.
Gus caught sight of the comet rising above the trees. He was amazed by the fact Doomsday was almost here. In seven and a half hours, the K/T Event would occur. What would they see from orbit?
Dawn stirred slightly. Gus looked at her. She was tired and needed sleep. He’d give her a few more minutes. He rolled over a little, so as not to disturb her, then whispered into his communicator, “Destiny... Valiant, this is Granberg. Anyone copy?”
Harry’s face flashed onto the screen. “Gus, you’re alive!”
“Not so loud. Dawn’s asleep.” Gus stared at the monitor, noting Harry’s bandaged forehead and nose, and his black eyes. “Looks like you had one heck of time in that river.”
Harry nodded. “Close call, eh?”
“For all of us. So, how’s Kris?”
Harry’s eyes lit up. “She’s conscious. She was able to take a sip of water a little while ago. Tasha says to expect a slow recovery. Kris will be flat on her back for the next few weeks until her nerves regenerate. After that, she won’t be able to use her legs very well for around two or three months.”
“But she’ll be fine after that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good news.”
“I’m relieved,” Harry said, nodding. “You know, Jean-Michel will be swinging around in about six... seven minutes. He’s going to be thrilled now that you’re out of the cave.”
“From what I heard from Dawn, he’s been keepin’ an eye on us.”
“He has at that. So, why don’t you hold your position? I’ll get the Rover and head out. I figure I can be there in––”
“We’ll meet you on the trail,” Gus said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Harry nodded. “Roger that, Commander.”
“Roger, Valiant. See ya’all soon.”
Gus looked at his watch again. 0444. Time to get moving.
***
Dawn ran as fast as possible in the dark, Gus on her heels. If they could make it to the Rover before sunrise, so much the better. They didn’t stop to worry about the threat of nocturnal dinosaurs, since apparently just a few species were active at night.
Suddenly, Gus went crashing down. He grabbed his leg and rolled on the ground.
Dawn came to an immediate halt and then backtracked to his position. She didn’t feel any panic. He’d survived certain death that day. He couldn’t possibly be hurt again, could he?
But she understood the reality of the situation when she reached his side. Gus clutched his left ankle and swore low and vicious, just out of Dawn’s hearing range.
“What happened?” she asked, coming down on her haunches.
“I twisted it,” he said through clenched teeth.
Dawn examined Gus’s leg. There was no denying it. The flesh around his ankle already looked swollen.
She reached for her communicator. “Harry, do you copy?”
“I copy.”
“Gus just sprained his ankle. Do you have our position?”
“Roger that. Hang on, guys. I’ll be there soon.”
Disgusted, Gus shook his head. “Of all the things to happen.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah. Sure.” He stretched his leg out. The skin on his ankle was already turning purple. “It’s a real beaut,” he said, whistling. “Worse than the last time. I usually get ‘em playing basketball.”
Dawn was so preoccupied with Gus she didn’t hear the dinosaur until it was almost upon them.
“Toot! Toot!”
Surprised, she jumped. Gun in hand, Gus’s upper body whipped around and aimed in the direction of the sounds.
A Troodon poked its head out of a grove of ferns. Birdlike, the head turned from side to side, big eyes watching them.
And then, it pulled back into the foliage and vanished.
Rising to her feet, Dawn glanced at the sky. It was getting light, nearly sunrise. For some reason, she felt the need to see where the creature had gone. “I’ll be right back,” she told Gus.
“Don’t you dare move!”
“No, it’s okay.” Without looking back, she walked away.
“Dawn!” Gus seethed.
She swung around sharply, staring him down. “Cover me,” she said, indicating his gun. “I told you I’ll be right back.”
With his protests echoing in her ears, she moved forward, creeping ever deeper into the ferns. In less than a minute, she reached the edge of the plants.
She gaped in surprise. Before her stood a huge lake. On the shores were hundreds of large, two-legged dinosaurs sleeping by their nests. The beasts had big, dome-shaped skulls, studded along the sides with a fringe of knobby outgrowths, the smaller juveniles having more pronounced spikes instead of knobs. Harry had told her something about them being herbivores, but she couldn’t recall much more, including the name of the species. She resisted searching for the name on her communicator; she needed to keep her gun at the ready, just in case a predator was nearby. Some of the creatures had begun waking up, their yawns revealing dental batteries made up of hundreds of small teeth shaped something like honeycombs.
Dawn started out of her contemplation when she spotted the Troodon again. The animal slinked between the sleeping dinosaurs, looking to and fro. As Dawn watched, it stopped, sniffed the air, and crouched down by one of the nests. Periodically eyeing the slumbering female nearby, it scraped the ground, carefully clawing its way into the nest.
Dawn remembered how the pack of ostrichlike dinos had stolen eggs from the Triceratops. So, Troodon must use the same tactic for obtaining food.
Then suddenly, to her surprise, the little predator spun around. After a moment, its cloaca opened wide and two oblong eggs with pebbly shells tumbled into the nest. With speedy precision, the female Troodon turned, cached her eggs, and slipped away into the leafy co
ver.
It was an aha! moment for Dawn. Troodon was stealing, all right, but instead of taking food, she had placed her young in the nest of another species. It was a clever strategy; letting another dinosaur mother do all the work. While she was raising your babies, you could merrily go about your own business.
But Dawn’s heart fell when she remembered what was going to happen in the next few hours. Life here was going to change forever. All this would be destroyed by the impact of the comet, the environment devastated by the resultant firestorms, the dinosaurs and their nests burned to a crisp.
She took one last look at the dinosaurian paradise and then stole away, heading for Gus’s position.
Gus had his gun raised. “Don’t ever do that again!” he said as she came into his sights.
She shrugged. “Sorry. But wait ‘til I tell you what I saw just now.”
“I don’t care. You took a big risk.”
Dawn nodded, for she had known this. “Sorry,” she repeated. Her face brightened as she remembered the name of the dome-headed dinos. “Oh, they’re called Pachycephalosaurus,” she exclaimed. “They’re also known as boneheads.”
Gus made a face. “Say what?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, never mind.” With a half-smile, she realized she wanted to call Gus a bonehead, too, but then she looked at his poor ankle and decided to hold her tongue.
They waited in silence until the sound of the Rover’s engine filled the air.
“Harry’s here,” Dawn said as she reached for Gus’s arm.
With her help, he struggled to his feet. Balancing awkwardly on one foot, he leaned against her right shoulder for support.
Together, they hobbled through the ferns in search of the Rover.
***
After they got Gus settled into the vehicle, Dawn told Harry about the Troodon at the Pachycephalosaurus’ nesting site.
Harry got an excited look in his eyes. “Where are the nests?” he asked Dawn.
“Not too far––”
“Absolutely not!” Gus glared. “Do you realize what time it is?” He looked at his watch. “0641 – about five hours until Doomsday.” He threw Harry a pointed stare. “I order you to take us back to the lander now.”
Harry blinked. “Yes, Commander.”
Before manning the E-M cannon, Dawn took a seat next to Gus and then grabbed his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m acting like an idiot, aren’t I?”
Gus gave her a peck on the cheek. “Yeah, you are,” he said seriously. “Just don’t let it happen again.”
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” She saluted.
He laughed. Smiling, she got out of the seat and took her position behind the cannon.
Harry turned the Rover around and headed for the Valiant. “What a shame,” he said, sounding sorrowful. “All this will be gone in a few hours.”
Dawn looked up. From her vantage point, she could see the comet clearly now, hanging in the sky like an executioner’s blade.
Harry went on, “I would’ve liked to have seen the young dinosaurs after they hatched. Imagine the scene? Hundreds of down-covered babies, their heads raised as they wait for their mothers to come and regurgitate food.”
Gus turned. “What’d you say?”
“About what, Commander?”
“Regurgitating food.”
“Since dinosaurs don’t have mammary glands,” Harry explained, “they can’t breast-feed their young the way mammals do. Just like birds, the dinosaur mothers bring food back to the nests. That’s how they feed their babies. By regurgitation.”
Dawn watched Gus. He had a strange half-smile on his face, yet his eyes held an anxious expression that made her heart skip in fear.
“What is it?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” he said mysteriously. “Absolutely nothing at all.”
***
But it wasn’t nothing. It was the answer!
As goose bumps rippled over Gus’s skin, he visualized himself lying wounded in the cave. The dinosauroid was lowering her face to his. For a brief moment, he swore he could again feel her vomit filling his mouth and sliding down his throat.
It was a taste he would never forget. Vile and bitter, mingled with a sickening sweetness. The most god-awful thing he’d ever swallowed. Worse than the cod liver oil his Swedish great-grandmother had given him as a child.
He turned his face aside, casting his glance away from Dawn. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered to himself. “It really did happen.”
***
Tasha studied the telescopic projection with increasing trepidation, but she did not let on to Jean-Michel.
“I was careless, Dr. Antipova,” he said over the com. “I should have seen them. All of them.”
“Perhaps not. Refer to article I’ve highlighted from New York Times. According to it, as of April of 2025, the Sentinel space telescope asteroid tracker has located an estimated ninety percent of near-Earth and Earth-crossing comets and asteroids. That’s ten percent they believe are yet to be discovered. Ten percent! And it has big advantage – it scans in infrared and is positioned between Earth and Venus orbits. You do not have such advantage, Jean-Michel.”
“But I should have detected the other fragments. They were right under my nose.”
“As my husband used to say – don’t beat yourself up about it,” Tasha grumbled. She knew she was about to lose her temper, so she deliberately changed the subject. “More important question should be what do we do now?”
“But––”
“Enough self-pity, Jean-Michel. Now, think. Think! We must have good plan.”
Without waiting to see his reaction, she turned away from the com-screen and stared at Kris. She was sleeping again. Satisfied her patient was for the moment doing fine, Tasha lowered her voice and asked, “Mars Rover, do you copy? This is Valiant. I need to talk to you.”
“This is Granberg,” Gus said as his face appeared onscreen. “We copy you, Doc. What’s up?”
“First, how is your ankle?”
“Uh, about as good as can be expected.”
“I will work on it as soon as you get back here.” Tasha faltered. “Perhaps Jean-Michel should tell you – we seem to be in big trouble.”
“The comet is not a lone object,” Jean-Michel said. “There are two other large pieces out there, perhaps even more. I suppose the comet we’ve been tracking split apart. I did not see the other bodies until about an hour ago, when they passed the orbit of the Moon.”
“Two more?” Gus asked.
“Oui. They appear to be part of the same cometary shower.”
Harry whistled. “You know, there’s evidence something more hit the Earth during the K/T Event, near India.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t quite understand something,” Gus said. “If there are more comets, how come we haven’t seen their tails?”
“They may not have any ice left,” Jean-Michel explained. “If they did not break from the main comet, and are part of a cometary shower, they could be the rocky cores of spent comets. After millions of years, when the ice is gone, the core is all that remains – they’d look a lot like asteroids.”
“Okay,” Gus said. “When are the pieces going to hit?”
“The two bodies, which I will call Nucleus A and Nucleus B, are traveling at 30 kilometers per second,” Jean-Michel said. “I estimate their impacts will occur in a little over one hour.”
“What?” Gus looked unnerved. “Can’t you be more specific than that?”
Jean-Michel consulted his monitor before saying, “One hour, thirteen minutes and fifty-two seconds for Nucleus A. For Nucleus B, it will be one hour, eighteen minutes, ten seconds. The larger comet, Nucleus C, will hit after that. The designated time of that impact is still 1134. After the last impact, you will have perhaps ten or fifteen minutes until debris jettisoned into the atmosphere ignites and then starts to hit your location. The resultant firestorm will be massive.”
“That means we won’t get back in time to e
xecute lift-off.” Gus was silent for a moment, then Tasha saw him purse his lips in frustration. “Where will the impacts occur, Jean-Michel?”
“One off the coast of India, like Harry said, one in the Ukraine, and the largest in the Yucatan. And I should remind Harry of a suspected impact in the North Sea – although that one, along with the Indian one, was always disputed.”
Harry whistled again. “This blows me away. I always thought the Boltysh and Shiva Impact Craters happened in conjunction with Chicxulub, but the Silverpit in the North Sea would be an awesome discovery. It’ll mean even more fragmentation. You know, a lot of scientists suspected the comet or asteroid broke up.”
“Like Shoemaker-Levy 9 did,” Jean-Michel added, “before its pieces hit Jupiter in 1994.”
Ignoring them, Gus asked, “Jean-Michel, you’re sure we won’t have time to leave?”
“Oui. The first impact alone will set off a disaster. Like I just mentioned, after each subsequent hit there will be transient holes created in the atmosphere. And there will be the inevitable firestorms, traveling from the impact sites from the southeast to the northwest.”
Tasha glanced through the window, imagining the huge fireballs pluming toward the sky after impact, like those of nuclear bombs. Tons of debris would be sent into the air. Some of that rock and dust would be sulphur rich and ignite with temperatures rivaling the surface of the sun.
“Commander,” she said, “we must not attempt lift-off. The risk is too great.”
“Yeah,” Harry concurred. “The shockwaves and hot plasma would destroy us.”
“Damn it all,” Gus said.
“You will reach Valiant in time,” Tasha added. “Then, we must ride out K/T Event here, on the ground.”
***
Ride it out? Gus frowned, hoping that was possible. The lander had been designed to withstand the tremendous forces caused by atmospheric friction during reentry. Maybe that would save them.
Then again, maybe not.
The Rover was racing toward the Valiant, Harry driving like a mad man. Gus looked over at Dawn, caught her expression of alarm, and then peered at the sky.
Dragon Dawn (Dinosaurian Time Travel) Page 28
