“Damn,” he said, gazing at the comet’s eerily beautiful tail.
There was nothing more to do or say. The lander was it, their only hope.
Chapter 24
O, it is monstrous, monstrous!
Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it;
The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder...
~William Shakespeare, The Tempest
They could see the Valiant now. Gus had to admit Harry was making good time, but the Rover was still an estimated ten minutes away from the lander, which gave them about a twenty-five minute window until the projected first strike of the K/T Event off India, in the southern hemisphere. He cursed under his breath, They were cutting it too close for comfort, way too close. Despite his nerves, he let his gaze roam. It was a gorgeous day, a final, perfect morning. The sky was the same deep color as a field of Texas bluebonnets.
“You didn’t answer me back there, Gus,” Dawn asked. “What’s the matter? You looked like you saw a ghost when Harry started talking about the dinosaurs feeding their young.”
He stared at Dawn, remembering the dinosauroid.
“Come on, Gus. If something’s wrong, you need to tell me.”
“Later,” he said. “I want to discuss it with everybody.” He decided to pay attention to his surroundings again. The Rover had begun a gradual ascent as it reached the outskirts of the hill country. In the distance, he could just make out the lander, nestled snugly among the bluffs.
Then Gus’s gaze struck the familiar rocks of the cliff-face, and he took a closer look at the Valiant’s position. For the first time, he realized the ship was protected, as if it’d been deliberately placed in such a way it would withstand the impeding devastation of the K/T. With it nestled behind the cliffs, any blast coming from the south would be blocked.
Son of a gun! Had the Keeper always known they would not be leaving the Earth when the impacts occurred? Was this part of his plan?
But why? What was the alien bastard thinking?
***
Dawn, Gus, and Harry had been back at the lander for a little under thirty minutes when Dawn took a seat at the table. Gus already sat there, wearing a clean T-shirt and shorts, with his ankle wrapped, iced, and elevated. He gave her a grim smile and then went back to surveying the com-screen, having watched the Destiny’s orbital transmission of the first impacts. A few minutes before, two cometary fragments, designated Nucleuses A and B, had struck off the coast of India and in the Ukraine, the former setting off a massive tidal wave, the latter a devastating land impact, with both propelling tons of debris into the atmosphere. Interestingly, the Silverpit impact had not occurred, and Harry said that it meant either of two things: the suspected impact site wasn’t a crater after all – perhaps a geological anomaly instead – or that an impact did occur, but sometime after the K/T Event, maybe thousands of years later.
But the two actual impacts, bad as they were to the environments of southern Asia and Europe, did not have the potential for global disaster like the more massive cometary fragment, Nucleus C, now heading straight for the Yucatan. With an estimated diameter of ten kilometers (about the same length and width as San Francisco and standing taller than any mountain on Earth) and weighing in at one trillion metric tons, it would create an explosion of one billion megatons, or ten thousand times the force of the simultaneous detonation of all the nuclear bombs in the U.S. and Soviet Union’s pre-1990s arsenal.
Soon, tons of fiery debris would begin falling back to Earth, preceded by the largest sonic boom in history. Harry and Tasha took seats at the table opposite Dawn and Gus. Despite putting on brave faces, Dawn could sense everyone’s fear.
“If we’re lucky, after the impact the immediate area around the lander might resemble what was observed at Mt. St. Helens in 1980,” Dawn said.
“How so?” Gus asked.
“In spite of the enormous blast that came out of the northern flank of St. Helens, there were places that were quite protected.”
“Right,” Harry agreed. “Some sections of forest in the blast zone were left standing virtually intact after the eruption. There were also patches of plants that escaped the devastation. If vegetation was positioned behind hills, or in protected valleys or even behind boulders, then it had a chance of surviving.” He nodded to Gus. “I think your observation as we approached the lander was right on. The Valiant may survive intact, because the Keeper placed it in this very spot.”
“Yes, but what’s the real reason he put us here?” Dawn asked.
“I think it has to do with you,” Gus said.
Dawn felt a surge of icy dread. “Me? What do you mean?”
“I saw the dinosauroid back in the cave,” he said in a disarmingly ordinary tone.
“You what?” At that moment, Dawn realized things were getting totally weird. “Is that what you meant when you said you had seen her?”
Gus nodded. It took him a few minutes more to relate the events of the previous twenty-four hours.
Dawn and the others sat in dazed silence. Tasha came over to Gus’s side. “Let me look at your leg. Where was compound fracture?”
Gus went to show her, then shrugged. “I don’t exactly recall where it was. There isn’t even a scar left.”
“Amazing!” Tasha said after she examined his leg. “I cannot find anything to indicate wound. I wonder what dinosauroid gave you?”
“Yeah, I do, too.” Gus gazed ruefully at his ankle. “Wish I had some of it now.”
Dawn studied Gus’s expression. She could tell he was as worried as everyone else, just trying not to let it show.
“If what I think is true,” Gus went on, “if the Keeper wants to change Dawn’s DNA, then how can I stop him?”
Tasha stared at the weapon case. “This is not something you will have to do alone, Commander. We will help, won’t we?”
Dawn watched as one by one the other astronauts nodded.
“I know I can count on you,” Gus said quietly.
She noticed the faint trembling in his hands and fought back tears. I love you! she thought as she reached out and took his hand.
He smiled and nodded to her, whispering, “It’s okay. We’re gonna make it.”
Harry glanced at his watch. “It’s almost time. We need to get in our flight chairs.”
“Right,” Gus said as he gave Dawn’s hand a little squeeze, then let go. He rose from the table and hobbled over to his chair.
Dawn strapped herself in and looked at Gus. His gaze had grown steady, his demeanor rock-solid, exuding calm. She closed her eyes, waiting. We’ll be safe, she told herself. We’ll be all right. Remember what Gus said? We’re going to make it.
She was suddenly aware of a low, thunderous rumble, like the roar of a lion. The air itself seemed to vibrate, to shudder in fear.
Holding her breath, Dawn gripped the arms of her chair. The K/T Event had begun!
Time passed so slowly. There was nothing Dawn hated more than thunder and lightning. The howling gales and resounding booms and crashes outside made her want to hide under her bunk and cover her ears. But she was stuck in her flight chair, strapped in and feeling utterly helpless as the K/T seemed to go on and on.
She looked at her crewmates. Everyone sat there – with the exception of Kris, who was strapped into an infirmary bed – all looking cool and calm, handling the situation with professionalism, using their headsets or communicators to monitor the static-laden broadcasts being relayed from the Destiny.
Dawn attempted to breathe deeply. She’d been trying to fight her panic, to no avail. As the land outside was rocked by chaos, an inner turmoil just as fierce raged in her heart. Her knees trembled and her mouth was dry. She felt as though she stood on a precipice. One wrong move and she would fall into the abyss. It was now or never. Her life was at a turning point.
Suddenly, Gus said, “I think we can move around now.”
Dawn looked over at him.
“It’s been an hour since the sonic boom,
” he told her. “You should see what’s outside. Down in the valley, it’s rainin’ fire.”
“Are you sure it’s okay to get up?”
When he nodded, she unbuckled herself, then walked over to his side. “Gus, we need to talk.”
“Sure.”
“Alone,” she said.
Gus cast his glance beyond her, focusing on the window. Dawn turned. Harry and Tasha stood there looking out, momentarily oblivious to everyone else in the room.
“No one will hear us, Dawn.” He indicated the chair next to him.
She sat and looked into his eyes, sensing his strength, needing reassurance. “I’m so afraid.”
Gus took her hand. “It’d be strange if you weren’t. A huge tsunami just hit the regions surrounding the Gulf of Mexico. Harry said it probably stood over one kilometer high. It slammed into the southern coast of Texas. It killed everything there.”
Studying the com-screen, Dawn’s gaze trained on the dark, swirling clouds of smoke now blanketing parts of the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Just look at that,” Gus said. “It’s like nuclear winter.”
“It’s so sad, isn’t it?”
“Not so sad for us mammals.” He shook his head. “But I sure wouldn’t want to be a dinosaur right now.”
Dawn’s thoughts returned to the Pachycephalosaurus nesting site. Where was that sneaky Troodon now? Was she still alive? And what had happened to the dinosauroid? She glanced at Gus. “You really believe you saw a dinosauroid, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“If the Keeper somehow changes me into that creature, then it’d be like dying. I wouldn’t want to live anymore.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you.” He kissed her hand, his lips soft against her skin. “Trust me, Dawn.”
“I trust you.” She forced herself to smile. “But have you considered what will happen if the Keeper doesn’t have his way?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Whatever his plans are for me, if they don’t happen, then it means I won’t be able to save you in the cave.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you see? If I don’t become Dinosauroid Dawn, then you’ll die from your wounds. I won’t be able to give you the medicine.”
“So be it.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe that won’t happen either.”
“What do you mean?”
“If we prevent the Keeper from carryin’ out his plans, then he won’t be able to transform you. And then, since he won’t be able to get his physical body back, I won’t have to follow him to the cave.” He paused. “You see how it goes, don’t you? ‘Round and ‘round. We don’t know what’s actually coming up, but we’ll throw a wrench in things so that maybe we can change the course of the future.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Dawn sighed.
“I am right,” Gus declared. “You’ll see. Once we’re out of this hellhole, we can forget about the Keeper and get on with our lives.”
“I want to believe you.”
He kissed her hand again, this time with a firm, jaunty smack. “Then do.”
***
By late afternoon, as the crew tended to the specimens in the lab, they tried to ignore the devastation outside. Fortunate creatures, the lab specimens were perhaps all that was left of the aboveground animal population around the Valiant, for almost everything else had been wiped out by the effects of the K/T Event.
But theirs was not the hardest hit area. Far to the south, the devastation approached apocalyptic ruin. Everything within one thousand kilometers of Chicxulub had been destroyed, either crushed by the immense weight of the ejecta hurled out of the crater, smashed by subsequent atmospheric shockwaves and magnitude 10 earthquakes, drowned by tidal waves, or burned by firestorms. In fact, raging conflagrations still blazed over the world’s forests, with sporadic wildfires whipping through even more distant locations, like the northern woods of the Arctic.
Although it was in reality several hours after sunset, outside the sky was still glowing red from the fires. But that would all change. There was so much ejecta in the atmosphere Harry estimated daytime would soon seem as dark as a moonless night, and sunshine wouldn’t reach the Earth’s surface for weeks, maybe months. As soon as the fires burned themselves out, he predicted the outdoor temperatures would drop to below-freezing levels. This, coupled with the continuous darkness, meant certain death for the majority of species on Planet Earth.
And that was not all. Six hours after the K/T Event, horrible, yet extraordinary, things had started to happen on the other side of the world. Jean-Michel had been able to film the Deccan Traps of India and the eastern African coast just before the smoky atmosphere obscured his view. Afterward, he got images of the region in infrared. Despite the atmospheric interference, he managed to patch the films to the Valiant. What they revealed was startling.
In the main room, everyone stared at the com, waiting for someone to comment, yet not wishing to be the first one to break the silence. Kris monitored the transmission from her bed in the infirmary. Even she was made speechless by the images beamed down from Destiny.
“Doomsday,” Gus finally managed as he peered at two major catastrophes: gigantic plumes of muddy sediment now whirled off the Cretaceous equivalents of the Kenyan and Somalian coasts, the result of the collapse of the African continental shelf; and the huge outpourings of lava – what Kris called flood volcanism – in the Deccan Traps of India.
Amazed by the sheer magnitude of the devastation, Dawn studied the transmission. India was still an island; it would not join the Asian mainland for another ten million years. Ash clouds from the Deccan volcanoes trailed off to the southwest, obscuring part of the massive Indian isle. Despite the clouds, much was still visible on the ground. Even from such a great height, the Destiny’s infrared transmissions revealed plumes of lava erupting into the sky. The region was, in truth, as fiery as hell.
“How many creatures are dying all over the world right now?” Dawn asked.
“Who knows? Trillions if you consider bigger organisms, octillions if you consider all life, such as marine cyanobacteria like Prochlorococcus,” Harry said. “The extinction event will be particularly bad here in the Northern Hemisphere. With the demise of the marine planktonic organisms will come the collapse of the food chain in the world’s open ocean.”
Kris’s image appeared on the split/screen. “Ever heard of Dr. Strangelove, guys? It was a film made in the 1960s about nuclear war. Afterward, it sparked Carl Sagan to develop the theory of nuclear winter, which is sort of like what’s happening now. Sulfur dioxide and soot and all kinds of other junk are being sent into the atmosphere by the impacts and volcanoes – perhaps a whopping 8000 billion tons of sulphur dioxide alone. This will cause huge amounts of acid rain, along with heavy pollution, which will prevent sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface. And research has shown that toxic levels of metals from the comet, like copper, cadmium, and nickel, poisoned the oceans, perhaps having an even worse effect on the plankton than acid rain.”
“How long before things get back to normal?” Gus asked.
“I’m getting to that,” Kris said. “Because of Dr. Strangelove, the huge reduction in the ocean’s productivity after an extinction event is called a ‘Strangelove Ocean’. Some scientists believe this almost-dead ocean lasted a long time after the K/T, especially in the open ocean, like Harry said. Other scientists believe the near-shore ocean environments were able to recover much faster, say in several hundred years. But it took generations for the descendents of surviving cyanobacteria, diatoms, and other kinds of planktonic algae to produce the same level of food and oxygen in the open ocean as before the cometary impact. That was the watershed event: the production of pre-K/T levels of plankton in the sea. At that point, scientists feel ecological balance was reestablished in the biosphere. The oceans – and the rest of the planet – were considered alive again.”
Gus frowned. “Exactly how long did that take?” he persist
ed.
“The low-ball figure is forty thousand years,” Kris said. “Recovery of the global environment didn’t occur for another half million years after that, although some scientists think it’s more like three million. That’s tens of thousands of human generations. We’d better hope an impact doesn’t happen in the modern world, because that’s a long time to wait for a return to normalcy, isn’t it? A heck of a long time.”
Chapter 25
There is in God, some say,
A deep but dazzling darkness.
~Henry Vaughan, Silex Scintillans
Despite the chaos outside, the astronauts settled into a fairly normal routine. Between Kris’s convalescence and the care of the lab specimens, Tasha had her hands full. And Harry and Dawn, with Jean-Michel’s assistance, found themselves occupied with a whole range of biological, meteorological, and geological observations and experiments.
It was now ten days since the K/T Event had rocked Earth. Although most of the fires had ended, the atmosphere was still choked with smoke and dust. But it had begun to lighten a little, because worldwide precipitation was clearing the air.
The rain, however, had not been a blessing in any real sense, because a noxious combination of nitric and sulfuric acids now fell on the Earth’s surface. It had been drizzling outside the Valiant for two days. Gus was concerned the poisonous precipitation would affect the ship; one more reason he planned to get off the planet soon. Jean-Michel provided the crew with up-to-date weather information gathered from the Destiny’s global surveillance camera, and the data indicated it was raining heavily to the west, especially on the Pacific seacoast and over the open ocean.
It was even beginning to snow in the higher elevations of the continental interior, far from the warming influences of any large bodies of water. Already, sleet splashed against the windows, along with the occasional hailstorm that pummeled the lander.
Dragon Dawn (Dinosaurian Time Travel) Page 29
