“Deinonychus, a species of raptor, and very common around these parts. Its name means “Terrible Claw”. They like the desert, but unlike the really dangerous raptors that live deeper in the valley region, Deenies hunt alone so you don’t have to worry about one sneaking up on you.” Going smoothly down on knee, John withdrew his bow and eyed the creature carefully. He let a quiver fly.
It struck the Deinonychus right in the chest cavity, and the creature made a terrible, birdlike noise before dropping to the desert floor. It kicked for some time before falling silent, all bled out through its wound.
Quinn arrived moments later to see what the fuss was all about.
John smiled grandly at Sasha. “Deenies are fascinating, but also very delicious.”
CHAPTER 3
While they dressed the Deenie for roasting, Quinn and John engaged in a lively debate on which dinosaur was best for hunting. John liked the Deenies, but Quinn exonerated the merits of hunting hypsilophodonts, small birdlike dinosaur that, though bipedal, were herbivorous and, therefore, much less dangerous to hunt.
“Very true,” John said, rubbing his blond beard ruefully as he watched the broad strips of Deenie cooking over the open fire, their drippings making the fire hiss. “But you have to admit the Deenies are bigger. Thus, they provide more meat.”
“You sound like the Moja and their obsession with hunting and meat,” Sasha joked, trying for levity.
John gestured toward the spit. “Doesn’t it make more sense to hunt a larger animal that will produce larger amounts of meat?”
“Not if the animal is very dangerous,” Quinn stated. In the firelight his face looked carven and somehow older. “A hungry tribesman in Africa hunts a gazelle rather than a bull elephant for a very good reason. The elephant will provide more meat, of course, but if he wounds it and does not kill it, it might follow him in an attempt to extract revenge.”
John lifted his blond eyebrows at that. “You’re joking?”
“Quinn has lived in Africa,” Sasha said. “He knows.”
“Is there any scientific basis for these theories?” John asked.
Quinn smiled humorlessly. “Sir, one does not need science to know when one is being hunted.”
Sasha felt they were descending into dangerous territory. Somehow, she had not expected such hostility from Quinn, especially this soon after encountering another human being. She looked at him, trying to give him a signal to back off, but Quinn’s predatory eyes were set fast on John. Quinn was a hunter; he did not easily give up his quarry. To change the subject she said, “John, how did you find us? I thought you must be weeks ahead of us.”
“I was,” John admitted, gracing her with his smile which was just dazzling in its sincerely and intensity. “But about two weeks ago I heard the Moja drums. They have a very complex system, you see, and can send messages for miles. I knew there were newcomers, though I had no idea who they might be.” He leaned forward and poked the Deenie meat with his survival knife. It was almost done, almost ready to fall off the bone. “I couldn’t resist finding out, so I left my camp at the Valley and traveled back here to see what all the fuss was about.”
“The Valley?” Sasha said, getting excited now. “The Valley of Song?” she asked hopefully.
John smiled devilishly.
“You found it!”
“I’ve been there over a month so far.”
Sasha felt a great wave of relief. She looked briefly to Quinn. “We were afraid that Muk had lied about the Valley.”
“I think he was unsure, to be honest. The Sen territory is relatively small compared to most other creatures like the Moja. I doubt his people have been very far outside of their own boundaries.” He cut off a chunk of the meat and tested it, jerking at how hot it was in his mouth, but Sasha couldn’t blame him. This world made you as ravenous as the animals who stalked it. He started cutting off slices and laying them on flat rocks to be dished around. “And I have a theory about that. Muk’s people are seldom seen during the day, according to the Moja, so I believe they might be oversensitive to light. Thus, they only travel at night or in the early evenings. They’re probably much too afraid of being caught out in the daylight, so they limit their territory to just the land surrounding their mountain. It makes them susceptible to rumors.”
He offered her a plate. Sasha took it and thanked him. She was so very hungry. John smiled. He reached out to her and Sasha saw Quinn stiffen. But John was only interested in the dark, heavy talon she wore around her neck. “Large predator,” he said, fingering it. “Is it the one you killed?”
“Yes,” she answered. “She’s mate. The Ceratosaurus.”
“I recall Muk calling her that.” He looked at her curiously. “Her territory seems awful large.”
“We don’t think she has a definite territory anymore,” Sasha confessed. She glanced aside at Quinn, whose attention was focused on the claw that John was fingering. “We think she’s following us. That she means to kill us.”
“Kill you?” John said. He sounded incredulous. “For killing her mate?”
“That’s correct.”
“She’s just an animal. A large one, but an animal nonetheless.” He let the claw go. “Animals have no sense of vengeance, Sasha.”
“This one does.”
Quinn interrupted them, and just as well, as the conversation was becoming uncomfortable. “You are a medical doctor?” he asked.
John smiled at him, but it was less enthusiastic than it had been for Sasha. “No, I’m a mechanical engineer at the University in Cornell, in New York. I specialized in electricity, actually. But I’ve learned quite a bit from the Moja.”
“You have a medical pack.”
John’s smile was more guarded now, as if he sensed a challenge. “Well, I came here”—he indicated the desert—“much more prepared than you folks, it seems. After the Tuning Machine opened the gate, I worked at stabilizing it. I practiced by tossing some office items through it first. Then I decided I needed to explore this amazing world myself. But first, I took some camping supplies with me, which was a wise move on my part, it seems. I didn’t expect to not be able to return to New York.”
“I see,” said Quinn.
“Tell us about the Valley,” Sasha insisted. “Is it very far?”
John looked away from Quinn and centered his attention on her once more. His smile seemed to grow back. “Not very. About fifteen miles as the crow flies. We should be able to reach it in two days, if we don’t dawdle. Although I must warn you, it’s isn’t quite as promising as Muk made it out to be.”
Sasha felt her heart sink back down inside of her. “You haven’t been able to make anything of it?”
“The valley is a natural amplifier, and prone to windstorms, but no rock formation I’ve found or have been able to construct vibrates the same way the Tuning Machine can. I’m still working on that little detail.”
“I should be able to help,” she said.
John nodded. “I’m sure you’ll be of great assistance to me, Sasha. It won’t be an easy task, though. There are…challenges.”
“Such as?”
John looked recalcitrant. “Birds.”
She raised her eyebrows at that. “Birds?”
“Very bothersome birds. You’ll see when we arrive.”
They did an excellent job on the Deenie. Afterward, they retreated to one of the caverns that dotted the rock wall of the butte. Even though it was much cooler inside the caverns, it was also much safer, especially with She on the prowl.
Sasha went about the ritual of preparing for the night, rolling out their bedroll and unfastening the extra blankets in their packs. John watched for several moments before unrolling his own spare blanket. She and Quinn had only one bedroll between them, and the implications made her blush so furiously that she made a point to keep her back to John as she prepared their bed. To spare her honor, Quinn announced he would take first watch and that John could relieve him in a couple of hours, although that was usually Sas
ha’s task. That sounded reasonable, she thought. Of course, they would be taking turns on the watch and would only need to carry one bedroll with them.
Sasha fell dead asleep, as she often did after a long walk, but a few hours later she was aware of the changing of the guard and Quinn’s familiar presence as he knelt down to extract a blanket for himself. Sasha sat up and held her warm blanket open to him. It had become a kind of ritual between them. The one coming off guard duty would often crawl under the blankets and snuggle against the other until the night chill was gone. After that, whoever was on relief duty would take up the post. It was the absolute worst part of the whole ritual, and Sasha often wondered what it would feel like to hold Quinn all through the night, to lay pressed against him till morning, and if they would ever find a place where they would be safe together, where she would know such a luxury.
“Quinn,” she said softly, when John had taken up his post outside the cave and was beyond earshot.
He leaned over her and kissed her forehead, pushing aside her long braided hair to do so. His hands, roughened by the labor of pure survival, brushed her cheeks, then moved to pull her blanket more securely about her shoulders. He was good with the javelin, good at killing dinosaurs. Yet he always managed to amaze her with his tenderness.
“Quinn,” she said and tried to hold him, but he pulled back.
“We should not act inappropriately,” he whispered in her ear. “We have company.” His voice was sad, and she had a moment to wonder if he’d have preferred not meeting John at all. He clambered over her and sank down in a far corner.
Sasha lay awake under the blankets of the bedroll for some time, wondering about the Valley, wondering how Toby was getting along, if he was happy. She closed her eyes but couldn’t sleep; she missed Quinn’s touch too much.
CHAPTER 4
“Sasha, come see this.”
She immediately sat up and grabbed at her javelin, lying beside her bedroll. Even though her body was still sluggish from sleep, her mind was whirling and she was already thinking in terms of fight or flight. Then she heard John’s voice again, calling her softly at the mouth of the cave, where nearly colorless morning light was filtering in and making shadows of the rocks all about her.
She climbed to her feet and moved silently to his side.
“Look,” he said.
In the wash of new light, she could see the desert floor was pocked with small holes and creatures the size of rats were darting in and out of them. There was something very familiar about them. On her shoulder, Newton chirped with interest. Then she realized why the little beasts looked so familiar to her.
They were mammals. Not mammals she recognized, but Mammalian all the same. They looked rather like desert rats with elongated snouts and bushy tails. She had seen very few mammals in this strange new world, and she said as much to John now.
“I know exactly what you mean. Would you please bring me my rucksack?”
Sasha did so, and John reached in, his eye set unwaveringly on the mammals playing in and out of their holes, and withdrew a sketchpad.
“You have paper!” she said in wonder. She flipped through the pad, finding all manner of prehistoric beasts sketched in various poses. John was not without talent.
“Yes, I took one with me, but, sadly, just the one. I’ve been trying to keep a record of the most interesting creatures I’ve encountered.”
“This is amazing, John.”
John finally looked away from the mammals to glance at her. She thought he might be blushing under his sunburn. He took the pad from her and a rough piece of kohl from his pocket and began work on a new sketch. While he worked, Sasha glanced behind her and saw Quinn joining them.
“Well, that lot looks like dinner,” Quinn said in appreciation. “And we might get some nice catgut from them as well.”
John frowned. “We can’t eat the mammals here.”
“Why not?” Quinn sounded annoyed.
He indicated the creatures with his piece of kohl. “These small creatures might just represent the future dominant species on this planet. We could be altering the history of this world by killing them.”
“The Moja kill them,” Quinn pointed out. “I know because they gave us catgut, and it bloody well didn’t come from one of the big reptiles.”
Sasha mused that over. “Quinn’s right about that. Any altering has already been done by the Moja tribe.”
“Well, let’s try not to alter it any further. The Moja likely don’t belong on this planet anymore than we do.”
“You’ve noticed that, have you?” she said, getting excited now.
“That the Moja likely come from our world? Yes. They have a kind of Asian look about them, don’t they? Maybe Polynesian. Yet some have red hair and blue eyes, suggesting European ancestry. I’m willing to bet their ancestors stumbled into this world not unlike how we did, through some aperture or gate. The rest is, as they say, history.”
Sasha thought about that and nodded. “I thought the same thing when I saw that the Moja had managed to forge primitive chains to keep their sacrifices fixed to the rocks. There is simply no way a people who cannot even construct a permanent shelter would be able to do that.”
John smiled and sketched. “You are observant, Sasha. I’ll give you that. Come make some notes about the mammals. I think they may be Eomaia of some sort.”
Quinn drifted away. Sasha turned to find him putting together his own rucksack for the trek ahead. He did not grace them with a single look the rest of the morning. And even after they set off toward the west, toward the Valley of Song, he stayed to himself, ambling along in his lank, graceful height, carrying his sack over one shoulder, his javelin in the other. John talked incessantly and excitedly, pointing out the creatures he’d been observing, challenging her to name them (she knew most but not all of them) and asking her to take notes.
The sun beat down on them relentlessly. They saw more parrot-faced Hypsies flitting about the desert, scratching for food or water, but nothing larger than that. The Deenies who fed on the Hypsies had vanished from this part of the desert. Even the small mammals were gone. The sand became deeper in places, the scrub scarcer, the land treacherous. Quinn asked about watering holes. John knew a few, but not enough to satisfy Quinn, who wanted more specific coordinates. He insisted they not travel more than three or four miles a day and conserve their strength and their water supplies. The farther they traveled, the more dehydrated they would become. And if they didn’t find good water soon, they were going to find themselves in trouble.
“There is a watering hole another four miles due west,” John said, pointing off toward the endless horizon. “I passed it on my way here. I know what I saw.”
“I’d rather not travel another four miles. Our supply is low enough. And Sasha looks tired,” he argued.
“I’m all right,” she told them, even though she’d found herself becoming progressively dizzier as they went along. The dizziness was most likely due to the altitude of the land, or a slight drop in blood pressure. The bad signs of dehydration were nausea and muscle cramps. That was something Quinn had taught her. Right now, she knew she was all right, though she envied John his hat and promised herself she would construct something for herself and Quinn the moment they found some reeds or long grasses.
They camped at the foot of some hilly mesas. They were much too tired to hunt and decided to rely on their store of dried and salted meat instead. Quinn worked on building the fire while John sat at the base of the mountain and sketched some scrubby little desert conifers. Sasha helped Quinn gather the wood for the fire while keeping an eye out for predators. She’d expected some acknowledgement from Quinn, a smile at least, but Quinn remained aloof even when they were alone. His silence wore her down worst than the desert. “Are you angry with me?” she asked as she followed Quinn, picking up the smaller kindling he missed as he gathered wood.
“No, of course not,” he said neutrally. He had quite a stack of wood, more than
they needed, really, but he seemed reluctant to return to camp. He glanced at her. “Shouldn’t you be taking notes for John or some such?”
She stopped and stared at him. “This is much more important.”
“Is it?”
“You know it is.”
Quinn stopped, held the bundle of wood in his arms, and looked very lost. The expression on his face, so very young, broke her heart.
“What is wrong, Quinn?” she asked at last.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand any of the things you and John discuss,” he complained bitterly. “Do you know how bloody infuriating that is?”
“I’m sorry.”
He looked away. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”
“I’m still sorry.”
Planet of Dinosaurs, The Complete Collection (Includes Planet of Dinosaurs, Sea of Serpents, & Valley of Dragons) Page 20
