“Gus,” Kris yelled. “Look at me – talk to me!”
He plodded on toward the lab. It was the same thing again, but this time he brought out two cages filled with shore birds.
Kris sat there in disbelief, recalling something Dawn had told her. Hadn’t she said Gus’s eyes looked empty when the Keeper possessed him? Was that what was happening? Was the alien controlling Gus at this very moment?
Shit, that’s got to be it! She just couldn’t sit and let things go on. Fighting against the dead weight of her lower body, Kris twisted, cursing, pushing, and pulling, inching toward the edge of the mattress. She looked down. From this angle, it seemed like a big drop. She swallowed hard, knowing full well she was going to hurt herself. But she had to stop the Keeper.
“Okay, okay. You can do this.” She gripped the partial railing on the hospital bed. With a grunt, she swung herself around, trying to break her fall as her lifeless legs struck the floor.
Still holding onto the railing, she winced, feeling the renewal of pain; her back was on fire. Had she reinjured her spine?
You can’t think about that now, she told herself. She let go of the railing and her lower body crumbled. As her hands stretched out to break her fall, she slumped to the floor. Her wrists bore the brunt of the impact, and, to her relief, her upper body felt all right. Now, if she could just drag herself to the doorway, maybe she could somehow get Gus’s attention.
Hand over hand, Kris pulled herself across the floor. Her lower body was dead weight, utterly useless. Oh, Lord, Kristina Jefferson, move your sorry ass!
Straining, struggling, she crawled on. Her progress seemed agonizingly slow. By the time she reached the door, she was covered with sweat.
Gus walked out of the lab again. Now he had a cage full of turtles.
“Gus, please,” she cried out. “Try to hear me. You must!”
But there was no reply. Just the same dull expression and empty stare.
“Where is the Keeper?” Kris shouted in the most authoritative tone she could muster. “I need to speak to him.”
Gus kept walking toward her. As he stepped over her prostrate body, she reached out and grabbed his leg. Then she got an inspiration.
“Stop!” Kris insisted. “Eric Gustav Granberg! Listen to me! Eric Gustav!”
He halted and looked down at her.
Kris summoned up all of her courage. “Gus, if the Keeper won’t speak to me, then you must listen. Stop what you’re doing and listen to me.”
But he merely smiled, then shook her off and walked on, toward the hatch.
Damn it! Kris rolled onto her back. Her brow streamed with perspiration. Why is the Keeper releasing the specimens? What possible motive could he have? The questions played over and over in her mind as she struggled along the floor.
It hit her a moment later with a heart-stopping jolt and she knew exactly what the Keeper was doing. No! her mind screamed as she visualized the creatures scampering free into the charred brush.
“Dawn, wake up!” With a pull, then a push, she tugged and twisted herself around until her head was oriented toward Dawn’s quarters.
Again, she moved with painstaking effort across the floor. She no longer felt the injury in her back. She was beyond that now. Adrenaline pumping, she could only hope she’d be able to wake Dawn once she made it to her room.
Hurry – stop the Keeper before it’s too late. Panting hard, she reached Dawn’s door after what seemed like eternity. She felt relieved to find it standing slightly ajar, relieved, at least, until she pushed it open and saw the motionless form lying sprawled across the bed. Dawn looked pale and lifeless. What had the Keeper done to her?
“Dawn? Can you hear me?” Kris pulled herself onward, struggling, sweating, shouting at the motionless woman with all her might. “Wake up, Dawn!”
When Dawn stirred and muttered something, Kris felt exultant. Maybe this would work, maybe Dawn would hear what she had to say. “The Keeper has come back!” she yelled.
The effort to speak now superseded all else, and Kris collapsed on the floor. “Dawn, the Keeper’s in Gus’s body now, and he’s releasing the animals. Dawn, please, you’ve got to wake up! Dawn!”
***
Dawn groaned. Her body felt like it weighed a ton. Nauseous, she turned her head to the side and gagged. What’s wrong with me? She retched again, sick with the dry heaves, her head exploding with pain.
“Dawn!”
She suddenly realized Kris was shouting about something. Dawn’s eyes fluttered open. She tried to understand her friend’s pleas, but the words were scrambled.
“Dawn! The Keeper’s plan. I figured it out. He’s trying to change the evolutionary path the Earth will take after the K/T. He’s taken over Gus’s body again.”
Dawn rubbed her brow, the pain mind-numbing and overwhelming. “Wh – what did you say?”
Kris let out a whoop. “Oh, yes! You can hear me! The Keeper is changing the game plan. If Troodon and the other dinosaurs get out, they’ll survive the K/T. Don’t you see? The dinosaurian descendents will take over the planet. Mammals won’t have a chance. Everything will change.”
Mouth falling open, Dawn sat bolt upright in bed. “You’re saying humans may never exist?”
“Yes, the Keeper wants the dinosauroids to evolve on Earth.”
“What?” Dawn stared. Kris looked like a rag doll, sprawled on the floor, arms and legs akimbo. “What have you done to yourself?” she cried as she scrambled off her bed and raced over to her side. “Oh, Kris, your poor back.”
“Don’t you worry about me. Please, you must stop the Keeper.”
Dawn glanced at the door, knowing she had to go out there. What would she confront once she left the room?
She looked back at Kris. “But––”
“Stop him, Dawn.”
Kris was lying there in a paralyzed heap, adamant, defiant, and so very brave, and Dawn fought the urge to reach out to her friend and cradle her in her arms.
“But Kris, you’re hurt.”
“Forget about me! Go on and stop him. It’s up to you, Dawn. No one else can do it. You must save us!”
***
Three times before Dawn had come into contact with the Keeper. During those times, she had felt strong, yet different, emotional reactions. The first time, she had met the alien with a sense of wonder, while during the second, she’d been filled with confusion. Throughout the third encounter, she’d been possessed by an intense feeling of sexual desire.
But this time, Dawn realized, she felt overwhelming hate. She could even taste it, the bitter tang of revenge. Her heart pumped like thunder. She wanted to stop him, wanted to kill him, knew she had only a few minutes more.
She rushed through the spacecraft toward the rack of weapons and grabbed a shotgun. Then she struck out for the hatch.
When she reached the door, her thoughts catapulted back to some semblance of logic. You idiot! What are you going to do with a gun?
Dawn knew she couldn’t harm the Keeper, because he was in possession of Gus’s body. She had to get hold of herself. There was Gus to consider now.
Gus. So brave and true. She was inexorably linked to him as his friend, lover, and future wife. Oh, Gus!
She dropped the gun, letting it clatter to the floor, and stormed from the Valiant. She desperately scanned the area and then spotted him near the pines. He stood with his back to her, head hanging down and shoulders rounded, his bearing still and silent. There were empty cages scattered about; it was obvious Kris was right about him releasing the lab specimens.
For a moment, Dawn stood and stared at the barren cages, wondering about the various escaped species. Birds? Snakes? Turtles? Everything they’d collected? Weren’t they, along with the ubiquitous mammals, the basic mix of creatures that had survived the K/T? But what did it mean? In the modern world, scientists didn’t have a foolproof explanation as to why some species had become extinct, while others had not. Was this the real reason that, for example, b
irds had come through the K/T, while pterosaurs had not? Had the crew helped them to survive by keeping them safe within their spaceship? But that would mean this particular time-line had happened at least once before, wouldn’t it? Had time looped around on itself? Were they experiencing a repeat of what had gone on earlier?
This time travel mumbo-jumbo was going to make her scream! Then her gaze locked on the contents of the largest specimen cage. The pregnant Troodon waited inside, alert, jumping against the metal sides, her snarls filling the air as if she were anticipating her own release.
Gus moved. Now he was reaching toward the cage. Then he had his hand on the latch!
This was the moment, Dawn realized. Everything depended on it. Even if time had indeed looped, the Troodon hadn’t been released on the last go-around. She saw the dinosauroid in her mind’s eye, now certain it had evolved from the troodontids.
“Gus, no!” Dawn said in desperation. “Don’t you dare! If you open that cage, it will change everything and we won’t be born!”
He turned. The face belonged to him, yet Dawn didn’t recognize it. His skin was burned, purple, his features drawn tightly over bone in some areas, yet swollen from trauma in others. His lower eyelids drooped in a terrible parody of a wide-awake expression. Even his eyes looked hideous; dark and lifeless, the pupils dilated as though he were already dead.
Dawn stared at him in horror. He stared back at her like a zombie.
“Please, wait,” Dawn said, suddenly feeling helpless. “Please, you must wait.”
And then, there was a change in the strange face, and a slow smile crept over the features. “No – you – wait – Dawn,” the Keeper snapped in that distinctively automatic voice. “You – wait... and see.”
His hand tugged at the cage’s latch. The door opened and the pregnant Troodon went loping off into the bush.
Dawn felt herself go weak in the knees. She felt fear mixed with rage, and no hope at all. She had failed!
Suddenly, Gus collapsed, falling heavily to the ground. Dawn took off running. She reached him just as his eyes flickered back to life.
“Dawn,” he whispered. “Oh, Dawn, forgive me.”
“It’s not your fault.” She held his head in her lap, stroking his hair with unsteady hands, making soothing sounds. Rocking him back and forth, she could feel the life force ebbing from his body.
“I love you,” she cried out to him. “I love you, Gus. Don’t leave me––”
“Dawn Ssstroganoff, let me hold him. Pleassse.”
Dawn jumped. The green-skinned dinosauroid stood not an arm’s length from her and Gus. She gaped, unable to believe.
“Dawn, I can heal him. Pleassse, let me hold him.”
Dawn closed her eyes. This can’t be real.
“Dawn Ssstroganoff, you mussst put aside your doubts, for I am as real as you and Gusss. You are not dreaming.”
Dawn’s eyes flew open.
“He is dying. Pleassse, let me help him. I know how to sssave him.”
Dawn looked down at Gus. His breathing was shallow, his skin icy-cold. He is dying, she thought in horror.
“Dawn, trussst me.”
A feeling of hope rose in Dawn as she looked into the dinosauroid’s gentle gaze. She felt an inexplicable bond with the creature. “I do trust you,” she said. “Help him. Gus told me you saved his life in the cave. Do it again.”
“I will try.” The dinosauroid’s inner eyelids flickered as she moved in beside Dawn. “Pleassse, let me hold him.”
Dawn’s fingers tightened on Gus’s arm, before she relinquished her hold on him, before she gave him up to... her.
The dinosauroid placed something in her mouth, chewed, then leaned over and pressed herself to Gus, lips to lips, heart to heart.
Dawn sat there, feeling helpless and desperate. This has got to work.
At that precise moment, she heard Gus cough. The dinosauroid cradled him now, rocking him the same way Dawn had done only moments before.
“Will he make it?” Dawn asked.
“Yesss, put away your fear, for he will live,” the dinosauroid said, “but it is too late really, much too late. I am sssorry, for I could not ssstop the Keeper.”
Dawn reached out, touching the dinosauroid’s smooth, cool skin, stroking her arm. The creature nodded, then relinquished Gus, letting her take him back.
When Dawn saw how the skin on his face had started to heal, she drew in a deep breath and then exhaled in relief. “Oh, thank you,” she said. “I love him so.”
“I love Gusss, too.”
The dinosauroid’s voice was suddenly faint to Dawn’s ears. To her surprise, her vision blurred, as though reality had begun to fade away. “What’s happening?” she asked, looking around in confusion.
“I am not certain, Dawn.”
“I have to know – tell me... who are you?”
“I am you.”
“How is that possible?”
“The Keeper created me. He took the record of your brain waves and implanted it into thisss body. At first, my mind wasss like that of a newborn’s, and it took me a long time to regain my memories, the memories of your life. Like your Ssstroganoff ancessstor, your sssoul wasss ssstolen.” The dinosauroid touched herself on the chest. “I have your mind, your thoughts and memories. I am you. In your language, I would be called Dragon Dawn.”
Dawn felt tears spilling down her cheeks. Gus’s body already felt insubstantial, like he was melting away.
The dinosauroid gazed at Dawn. Her eyes too looked dewy and sorrowful. “I am sssorry. I traveled back in time, but I wasss too late to sssave thisss universsse.” She glanced at Gus. “I wished to make things right. You and Gusss were to be the future, not me,” she shook her head, “not me.”
Dawn felt dizzy. A gray curtain, as fine as gauze, rose before her eyes. No! she thought wildly. This can’t be the end.
And then, incongruously, incredibly, she found herself recalling Shakespeare’s poignant words, the ones she’d recited at Lex’s funeral: We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
Of course. She kissed Gus, feeling the sweet warmth of his lips, the tender touch. “Sleep, my love. Sleep – for now.”
Yes, for now.
Dawn held him, guarding the fragile hope of life resurrected, something to cling to, however impossible it seemed. I will find you, Gus, she thought, nurturing the expectation of seeing him once more and loving him again.
We will be together once more. Somehow. Whatever it takes.
“Remember me,” she whispered to him.
Straining to see past the misty air, she took a last look at his cherished face, healed now and, to her mind, even more handsome than before, and then she said, “Dragon Dawn, don’t give up. There is a way to save us.”
“How?” The question was as soft as a whisper, coming from a long way off.
And then, with her last gasp, Dawn drew upon all of her remaining strength and said through the dimming fog, “You must try again.”
Chapter 27
Half to forget the wandering and the pain,
Half to remember days that have gone by,
And dream and dream that I am home again!
~James Elroy Flecker, Brumana
Dawann-dracon closed her eyes and breathed. She was back now, her mind in the present. She looked at the soul-catching monolith, at the tiny, dust-filled room lying far beneath He Who Watches.
And she remembered now, remembered how it started. Her mind drifted back as she closed her eyes. Days ago, it seemed, she had awakened after a long sleep. Everything seemed familiar, and yet...
She let her thoughts return to that moment in her bed-nest chamber. She saw herself glance at her right hand. At the finely shaped claws. At her three long, elegant, green fingers. And then, she was running her hand along the top of her feathered head.
With a vague sense of loss, she recalled wondering what had changed as she rose from her bed-nest, went to the wi
ndow, and gazed upon the landscape of the red planet. Dusk had settled deeply over the land. The great volcano, He Who Watches, stood on the far horizon, so huge and enchanting, so compelling a presence, as to fill the entire vista with a lush blackness.
She watched the ancient summit for a long time. And then she turned and caught a mercurial blue planet, a dot flickering in the night.
Shurrr. For some reason, she wished to go there, to the Whispering World. She felt drawn to it, as if it were in truth her long-lost home.
She leaned forward and pressed her face to the glass. Tugging on the very edge of consciousness, a distant summons filled her heart with mysterious yearnings of another place and time.
But how could that be? She was, after all, Dawann-dracon, chief consort of the Lord Keeper, master of the twin worlds of Moozrab and Shurrr.
She had always lived on Moozrab, hadn’t she? All her life, she had served her lord and master, while dwelling in his grand palace.
She turned, puzzled, and glanced back at her bedchamber. What has happened to me? she asked herself. Why do I feel so different now?
And then, dimly, from faraway, a pair of strange words blazed forth in her mind.
Gus. Lex.
She felt her pulse quicken. Gus? Lex? They were unlike any words she had ever heard before.
Perhaps.
***
“Dawann!” “Your Royal Highness!” “Are you all right, my dear?”
Dawann’s eyes opened wide as a trio of voices called out to her. Eshlish shook her gently, gazing searchingly into her eyes. She looked beyond the old scientist’s face. Fey stood there. And Tima, too.
“Your Highness, are you all right?” Eshlish asked. “We opened the slick-shaft a few moments ago. We came as soon as we could. It took my engineers nearly the entire day to repair the shaft. I am sorry. Please, forgive me. Forgive all of us.”
“Oh, Holy She-Mother! My dearest girl, we were so worried about you,” Tima cried.
Dawann rose from the nano-chair, reached out, and embraced her fellow saurians, human-style. “I’m fine,” she reassured them.
“What happened here?” Fey asked as she touched her claws to the surface of the monolith.
Dragon Dawn (Dinosaurian Time Travel) Page 31
