Day of the Dragonstar (13 page)

They gathered primitive fruit-blossoms and large seed as they traveled “south” until they chanced upon the lower half of a small bipedal dinosaur’s carcass. It was hanging in the tangled branches of a thicket, and was untouched except for the teeth-marks which had separated it from its head and shoulders. Ian assumed that the little fellow had been bounding along the night before and had unfortunately hopped into the jaws of one of the big boys. Having dined on the upper half the predator must have lost the rest of its meal in the undergrowth, and rather than root it out, had moved on for larger, more satisfying prey.

At any rate, Ian quickly skinned and dressed the muscular thighs of the creature and prepared a fire. They would have to eat quickly since the scent of the cooking meat might attract some meat-eater who had not yet collapsed into the torpid, digestive state of the day-cycle, or perhaps one of the beasts who were getting smart enough to realize that there was ample opportunity to feed well during the times of light.

After finishing their “protein supplement,” as Becky sardonically referred to their carrion meals, they kept moving into the thicker foliage of the downward-sloping terrain, until they reached a rocky outcropping, a ragged ledge which looked down into the river-valley.

Ian suggested that they rest for a moment among the rocks, since it was a fairly secure position. He sat peeling the rough, prickly skin off a gingko blossom, preparing to suck up some of its pulpy juices, when he spotted something down in the carpet greenery below their position.

“Now what in bloody hell is that?” Ian pointed to a spot far below them.

“What is it? Where?” Becky moved down beside him and followed the line of his index finger.

“See those white things? Way down and to the left of those yellowish tree-blossoms, or whatever they are. Those white patches they almost look like they could be geometric shapes . . . like
buildings.”

“Buildings? Are you sure?”

“I don’t know. We’re too far away at this point, but I think we should investigate, don’t you? It’s in the same general direction we’re headed.”

“All right.” Becky drew in her breath slowly. “I guess it doesn’t matter what we do . . . We’re trapped here anyway.”

“Oh, come on now? It’s only temporary, I assure you. They’re probably sending out another ship already. If I know Kemp, he probably has every man in Deep-Space Operations in on this one. We’ll be rescued . . . all we have to do is keep ourselves alive, that’s all.”

* * *

As he dozed in the shade, Rebecca watched Coopersmith.

His well-shaped, muscular chest rose with steady regularity, his finely sculpted nostrils flaring as he exhaled the rich air. Some kind of insect buzzed by. Becky swatted it away. The man deserved a rest. She would see that he had it.

Surprising how much she’d come to like the guy.

Helping to keep her alive in this dreadful place was certainly a factor. But she’d come to admire him for more than his capabilities for survival. Despite the grimness of their situation, -he’d managed to maintain his sense of humor. He could be a charming, engaging conversationalist when he cared to be, and, seeing their ordeal weighing on her mind as well as body, he used that talent often to cheer her up during meals, or when they strapped themselves into high branches and chatted while waiting for the sleep of exhaustion to overtake them. He seemed to brim over with an optimistic view of every situation. Obviously Coopersmith was not a man used to failing. His confidence had helped her no end. She’d come to depend on him emotionally, despite herself.

She used to resent people like Coopersmith—always cheery, always finding silver linings in the darkest of clouds—but when she found that his personality and world-view was infectious, it helped lend her strength and hope.

And he was damned attractive physically, too. Sometimes when she looked at him she felt . . . unusual. It was pleasant but troubling . . . and she tried to concentrate on other things.

In their conversations, she’d learned that Ian’s mother had been a West Indian Black and his father white and British. That explained his rich dark complexion and somewhat angular Caucasian features. He spoke his English with a curious-blend of accents—Island, London, and Houston—which she found increasingly charming. Coopersmith was big, strong, competent. His love for perfectly running machines and weapons systems seemed to be shared with his respect for the human body, which he believed was a perfect biological mechanism. A disciple of stringent diet, he’d told her of his practice of always getting plenty of exercise. He practiced meditation as well, which seemed to instill in him a pleasant, almost Zenlike acceptance of the relationships between man, machine, and nature.

No, she’d never met a man quite like Ian Coopersmith.

He opened his eyes suddenly.

“You’re staring at me,” he said.

“Sorry. I like looking at people, and you’re the only other human being around.”

“I suggest that you keep your eyes elsewhere,” he said good-humoredly. “Or some creature might decrease the human population of this place by two.”

“Okay, smarty. But it’s my turn for a little shut-eye.”

“And my turn to watch you.”

“Now, now. Practice what you preach.”

She lay back on the soft ground. The thought of his eyes on her was intriguing.

* * *

When their rest-period was over, they continued on across the highlands and slowly descended toward the river-valley. Ian paused every so often to get his bearings in relation to the illuminator and the relative position of the white objects he had seen from the heights. As they dropped lower into the dense foliage of the forests, the white things that might be buildings were often lost from view and Becky depended totally on Coopersmith’s sense of direction. It was easy to see how they had lost their way in the first place and had been unable to find the entrance hatch. Even after Ian had claimed to have worked out a simple orientation method, and had attempted to explain it to her, Becky continued to feel hopelessly lost.

They continued downward for the better half of the day-cycle without incident until they stepped into a small clearing bisected by a small, shallow brook. There was a wide expanse of mudflat which flowed down to the water, covered with it variety of sizes of saurian footprints. Most of them were no larger than a man’s, although there were several sets of deep, taloned prints, which suggested that predators favored this spot as a good feeding ground.

As Ian and Becky broke through the brush at the edge of the clearing, intending to use the brook as an opportunity to refill their water rations, Coopersmith stopped suddenly, putting his hand to his mouth in a pantomime of silence. “Goddamn!” he whispered. “I didn’t see that bugger until we stepped clear. Be quiet and don’t move!”

“Where?” asked Becky, looking beyond Ian, but seeing nothing.

“There. By those trees. He’s almost the same color as the brush . . .”

Becky saw it now, and her breath caught for a moment in fear.

Concentrating on picking out the beast’s natural camouflage from the flora, she could now see the bipedal dinosaur. It was a theropod of the Gorgosaurus family, although she was not certain of its exact species. From where they stood it appeared to be about twice a man’s height and many times his weight. Sprawled upon its back, it half-reclined against the bole of a large conifer. Its small forelimbs stuck up and away from its grossly distended belly and its head was tilted back at an odd angle, mouth slightly parted while clouds of insects buzzed about its meat-flecked teeth to steal some scraps.

“Is it dead?” whispered Becky.

“No, I don’t think so. Sleeping off a big meal, I’d say. Big torpid bastard . . .” Ian shook his head, and slowly drew his sidearm from his holster. So far, he had been careful not to waste ammunition, and still had more than thirty rounds in his jumpsuit pockets. His Magnum pistol handled .44 calibre exploding slugs, which he assumed would do lots of bone-damage to anything struck at close range. But considering the thickness of the carnivores’ skulls, Ian had figured that the best place to fire at an attacker would be in the vital area just below their small forelimbs but above their bellies.

Holding the Magnum ahead of him, he motioned Becky to follow him slowly and quietly along the edge of the mudflat, and away from the sleeping hunter. Gradually, they added distance between themselves and the beast until they reached the other side of the clearing. Ian paused to check their position against the illuminator and then entered the forest again.

“Just walk slowly and steadily. We’ll be all right if we keep quiet and don’t wake him up.”

Becky nodded and kept moving. They threaded their way through the ranks of proto-firs and giant ferns as the thrumming sounds of the never-silent forest enveloped them. It was difficult to imagine that one could grow accustomed to the steamy, redolent forest and its machine-like buzz of life, but as Becky followed Ian, she realized that she
was
getting used to the thick, damp greenery of the Jurassic world. Even though one could stumble upon a walking nightmare at any time, even though the millions of species of insects, leeches, and slugs were waiting to have a bite of your warm flesh, you learned how to live with it. The old adage about humans being the most adaptable of creatures seemed true.

They walked carefully into the valley for another fifteen minutes without speaking. “Are we safe now?” Becky finally asked.

Coopersmith shrugged. He was still carrying his Magnum in his right hand. “Who knows? The more distance we put between us and him the better, but we might be walking straight toward one of his cousins. You never know in this business. . .”

Just then, there came a loud bellowing noise which seemed to split apart the heavy, humid atmosphere of the valley. Tracking the source of the sound, Ian stared through the thicket of trees, watching for some sign of movement, some change in color, or the light.

“What is it?” asked Becky.

“I don’t know . . . as usual, I guess. Doesn’t sound like one of the meat-eaters, though. Too high-pitched, you know?”

“I’ll take your word for it. Hope it doesn’t wake up Sleeping Beauty . . .”

“We’d better keep moving in any case. It sounded like whatever it is is off to the right. Let’s just try and steer clear of it.”

They moved off again, more wary than before. The bellowing sounds increased, and were soon joined by similar sounds farther away. If lan didn’t know that the beasts were so stupid, he would have considered that the creatures were communicating in some fashion of hoarse cries.

He mentioned it to Becky, who smiled but said nothing.

Ten minutes passed and it seemed to Ian that they were drawing closer to one of the bellowing creatures. He stopped and peered off among the trees. Something large was thrashing about among a group of cycads and ferns. “Look! There he is! See him?”

“l remember him,” said Becky. “Stegosaurus, right?”

“That’s the one. What’s the matter with him, do you suppose?”

The dinosaur was running about in a tight circle like a cat chasing its tail. Its large-humped, plated back swayed to and fro as it moved, pausing only to bellow its singular cry. Each time it would be answered by another beast, presumably another Stegosaurus.

“You know, Ian, I think you might have been right. I think they are talking to one another . . .”

“That’s ridiculous! They’re as stupid as turnips!”

Becky smiled. “And I think we’ve been wrong calling this one a
he . . .
”

“You mean it’s a mating call? You know, you might be right, Becky. Maybe we should stay for a moment. This might be interesting.”

“You want to play voyeur to a coupling of lovestruck Stegosaurus?” Becky laughed.

“Now, wait a minute! Don’t you know that one of the burning questions of science has always been, ‘How in bloody hell did the dinosaurs
do
it?’” Coopersmith smiled, his bright teeth in sharp contrast to his dark complexion.

“Hmm, I suppose you’re right. Are we safe here?”

“Safe enough, I’d think. If their cries of passion get too loud, I would suspect that they would attract meat-eaters to themselves before us.”

“Do you
really
want to watch?” asked Becky.

“Why, certainly! This is valuable paleontological research! My God, woman, you’re making me sound like some kind of pervert . . .”

“Oh, Ian, I was just kidding you.
I
want to see this as much as. you do. I wonder what they do with those spikes on their tails?”

“Move them out of the way, I hope. Look, here comes her young prince now . . .”

Beyond the stand of trees, they could see a larger, mottle-skinned Stegosaurus, lumbering towards the female, pausing only to make that odd bellowing sound. When he approached the female, she stopped her frantic chasing of her own tail, and allowed the male to join her in the strange dance of love. They followed each other’s tails for a few moments, their bellows transformed into bleating noises that almost dripped with anticipated passion. Closer and closer they drew to each other, their circling dance slowing until the two awkward beasts had almost stopped. While the female shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, the larger-male changed positions so that, although he was still facing opposite her, his hindlegs were even with hers.

Suddenly, the female dropped over on her side, lifting her spiked tail up and away from her suitor. Seeing his lady in such a submissive and obviously seductive position, the male moved closer to her until he could lift one of his thick hindlegs over hers, half-straddling her. More soft bleating sounds, and the two ugly beasts attempted to copulate. The eventual congress took some doing. Ian could not help but chuckle as he watched the male repeatedly fail in his efforts to complete the job.

“I’m glad it’s become a bit easier for the rest of us,” he said. “Would sort of take all the fun out of it, wouldn’t it?”

Becky smiled. “I daresay, Ian, I think you’re right.”

The Stegosaurian union, once effected, was brief and perfunctory. Apparently neither member of the species took much delight in the performance, and were following some atavistic urge, rather than seeking any relief from tension. In fact, once finished, the male hobbled away from his lover without so much as a backward glance, leaving her to struggle awkwardly to her stubby feet alone.