Dragon Dawn (Dinosaurian Time Travel) (19 page)

Chapter 15

Whose game was empires

And whose stakes were thrones,

Whose table earth whose dice were human bones.

~George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron,
The
Age
of
Bronze

Much to Gus’s relief, they never saw the
T.
rex
. They waited for about ten minutes, listening as its thunderous footfalls faded into the distance. 

Now, only flocks of small birds surrounded them, jewel-toned shapes darting through the trees and twittering like canaries. Archaic species, Harry said, explaining he wasn’t exactly sure of their names, since fossilization was extremely rare. Only one bone or leaf in a billion became petrified; the rest decomposed and were lost to history.

“There have to be tens of thousands of new species out there,” Harry said, looking excited. “Things that never fossilized, a whole host of creatures unfamiliar to science, maybe even an unknown raptor. A cousin of
Deinonychus
, eh?”

“Let’s hope we don’t run into anything else that fancies us for supper,” Gus said as he eyed their surroundings. “Come on. I figure we’ve got only a couple more hours of daylight. We’ve got to find a safe place to spend the night, maybe a cave.”

Lex nodded. “You heard Gus. Let’s go.”

Within a few minutes, everyone was on the ground except Dawn. At Tasha’s urging, she took her time on the way down. Gus stood below, spotting her in case of another fall. He couldn’t help watching her shapely behind, wondering if he’d gone too far, if she’d hold the kisses against him. 

Damnit,
he thought,
what was I thinking? I’m her superior officer
.

He forced his gaze down to Dawn’s bare foot and then concentrated on what the others behind him were saying. “We need real weapons,” Lex complained, just as Tasha answered, “Big sticks work. Look for one.” Then Kris asked, “Where’s Dawn’s boot in all this mess?” as Harry replied, “That’s dinoturbation for you. It’s a wonder the forest ever recovers from such devastation.”

Gus glanced back, suddenly feeling someone’s gaze on him. It was Lex Smith. 

“You know, Commander, I think we should try Jean-Michel,” Lex said. “Maybe the Keeper transported him here, too.” He reached into his back pocket and retrieved his communicator. “Jean-Michel, do you copy?”

To Gus’s amazement, the Frenchman’s voice rang out, “
Oui
!
It is good to hear your voice, Dr. Smith. What happened?”

“We’re not exactly sure,” Lex said. 

Gus looked back at the tree and saw that Dawn was almost down. He listened as Jean-Michel went on, “One moment I was orbiting Mars, and then –
voilà!
– I was here. There is such a dreadful silence. No satellites or space stations, not on Earth or in the rest of the Solar System. And the night side of Earth... why, except for occasional lightning strikes, it is black. There are no city lights. No lights from fishing fleets. I am so unfamiliar with this view.”

Kris moved in beside Lex. “Have you run any tests, Jean-Michel? What about the constellations?”

“When I placed the current star map in the computer, I could not believe my eyes. You should see the sky. The positions of the stars match the time around the late Cretaceous.”

Holy crap
, Gus thought.

Jean-Michel continued, “I also ran the continental drift program backward in the computer and matched the positions of the landmasses to the time period.” His voice sounded slightly off-key. “It fits, you know. Give or take one hundred thousand years, it is 66 million B.C.E.”

Gus frowned, feeling skeptical again. Jean-Michel had to be wrong. It was clear; he was also a prisoner of the Keeper’s VR experiment.

Just then, Dawn reached the ground, and Gus turned to Harry. “What’s significant about that date? I’ve heard it before.”

“66 million years ago – the K/T,” Harry explained. “The Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, the most recent large mass extinct. The K stands for kreta, which means chalk––”

“Okay, okay, I get you,” Gus cut in. “Don’t sound so goddamned happy about it, for Christ’s sake! I remember. Giant asteroid hits the Earth. Everyone dies.” 

“Not everyone,” Kris countered. “Maybe eighty-five percent went extinct, including all the dinosaurs, with the exception of birds, who shared the same ancestry with the theropod dinosaurs. Of course, some mammals survived as well, including our ancestors.”

While Tasha assisted Dawn in replacing her boot, Gus got his communicator out and said to Jean-Michel, “This is Granberg. Why didn’t you hail us earlier today?”

“Commander, I could not raise you. I surmised that if you were indeed on Earth, then I was on the wrong side of the planet and out of radio contact.”

“Okay,” Gus said. “Where’s our...?”

“Ah, you should see the continents from orbit. They’re very different. There is a large sea cutting through the interior of North America. Here, I will relay a picture.”

“Not now, Jean-Michel. Listen to me. Just tell me... is our lander here?”

Jean-Michel paused for a moment. “You are standing in ancient North America. I have calculated the appropriate latitudes and longitudes for this time period and then placed them on a map projection. The lander is one kilometer west of your position, at the late Cretaceous latitude of sixty-four degrees north, forty-five minutes, six seconds. Longitude is one hundred and...” 

The rest of his answer was drowned out by the jubilant shouts of the crew. In a moment, after they quieted down, the Frenchman asked, “Please, please, are you all right? Why are you screaming?”

“We’re relieved, that’s all,” Gus said, allowing himself a smile. He picked up a big stick. “With the lander here, we’ll be able to defend ourselves against the dinosaurs.”

“Did you say
dinosaurs
?” Jean-Michel asked. “I know about the time period, but, but I cannot truly believe it.”

“Uh huh.” Gus exchanged a look with Dawn. “And some of them are real nasty. Use the J-Stars to watch for anything approachin’ us.” 

“Roger that,” Jean-Michel said. “I see a large herd moving northeast of your position.”

“We know about them,” Gus said.

“And there is something large – actually three very large creatures about a half kilometer to the east. They are not moving, however.”

“That must be
T.
rex
,” Harry said. “Probably feeding on a carcass by now. I’m not surprised there are three of them. They roamed in packs.”

“Packs of
T. rex?
” Gus asked in alarm as he glanced at the surrounding forest. “Then we’d better get a move on and get the hell out of here.” He looked back at his crew and noted with satisfaction that Lex already held a club. His gaze swept over the others. “Each of you gather up as big a stick as you can handle and some rocks.” He grabbed a tree limb from the ground and hefted it in his hand, the wood solid and heavy. “Put the rocks in your pockets. If anything attacks us, we can bash their brains in.” He studied the purplish bruises already forming on Dawn’s arms and legs. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” she said. Her voice sounded tense, and she shot him a funny look, the kind he couldn’t easily read. 

He hesitated. Was she scared, or just really pissed off about the kisses? “I only meant if you’re hurting let me know. We can slow up a bit.”

She nodded, then turned away to finish gathering rocks with the others.

Gus gave up trying to figure her out and looked off, gauging the slant of the sun. “Let’s go,” he said as they struck out for the lander.

***

According to Jean-Michel’s coordinates, Gus knew they were nearing the
Valiant
. Reduced to a slow trot because of Dawn’s aching limbs, they moved forward cautiously, sticks in hand, everyone wearing their earpieces and hooked in with each other and Jean-Michel. 

Gus tried to dispel the big knot in the pit of his stomach, but he couldn’t; they were that vulnerable. If Jean-Michel had it wrong and the lander wasn’t there, they’d be in deep shit. Then, to his surprise, he stumbled upon a large tooth, banana-shaped, yet lethally sharp, probably from a
T.
rex
. Harry explained that dinosaurs constantly shed and rejuvenated their teeth, much like sharks did in the ocean.

Gus studied the tooth in his hand. It was wicked-looking, with serrated edges on the fore and aft sides. “If we can’t get to our ship, then these will make good spear points. There’s no telling what’ll attack us next.”

Tasha nervously regarded the deepening woods. “Don’t talk of such things. We need guns.”

“That’s a given, Doc.” Gus moved on in the lead, until he reached the crest of a hill. Before him lay a vast basin cut by a meandering river. Dusk had settled in, and large herds of dinosaurs milled around on the plain, reminding him of the Serengeti.

From this distance, the only thing noticeably different from modern-day Africa was the lack of grass. Harry said grasses had only recently evolved in the Late Cretaceous, and they were apparently still sparse in this region. As a result, fields of ferns, broken by copses of flowering shrubs, stretched to the far horizon.

Gus lifted his gaze from the fern prairie. In the distance stood a craggy, snow-capped mountain range, bluish in the fading light. Kris moved in beside him.

“The Rockies,” she said quietly. “They’re so young! I can’t believe I’m seeing this.”

Gus saw Harry grab Kris’s hand. The two scientists looked ecstatic, getting off on the mountains.
Well, it takes all kinds
, he thought. As for him, he gave the Rockies only a cursory look; there were more important matters to consider now. He strained to see the valley floor, searching for the lander. Then he spotted something. Was it his imagination, or had he caught the barest glint of metal? 

His gaze swept across the shadowy landscape. Sure as hell, there she was! The
Valiant
was nestled amidst some boulders near the bottom of the slope. 

Gus let out a whoop of joy as he started down the hill. Suddenly, he remembered himself and then glanced back at Dawn.

With a smile, she motioned him forward. “Go on. I’ll catch up.”

He smiled back at her and then took off. He was already inside the ship by the time the others reached the hatch. “She’s a sight for sore eyes,” he said as his fellow astronauts crossed the threshold one by one. He spoke into his communicator. “We’re in, Jean-Michel. Do you copy?”

“Yes, Commander, I copy.” His voice starting fading in and out as the spacecraft slipped past the Terminator to the far side of Earth. “I believe... today is your lucky day... talk again soon... resume at acquisition of signal.”

“Roger that.” Gus looked at Dawn. “If you hear from your Keeper friend any time soon,” he said with sarcasm, “give him our thanks.”

He walked to the far wall and unlocked the cabinet housing the weapons. The arsenal, placed on board at the insistence of the astronauts, was intended for use in the event of a crash landing in hostile Earth territory, or if dangerous aliens were discovered on Mars. This was not as bizarre as it sounded. Although few people knew it, the Apollo astronauts had been equipped with weapons, too, in case they’d found something menacing on the Moon.

Realistically, there were areas on Earth where warfare and mayhem could threaten the safety of a stranded crew. The idea of astronauts being captured by terrorists or a renegade government had sobering implications. Along with hunting knives, automatic handguns, rifles, and shotguns (including Winchester Model 70 Series bolt-action hunting rifles, Desert Eagle automatic side arms, and Remington Model 870 shotguns), the ship had been equipped with a laser-sighted electromagnetic cannon, capable of blasting a hole in an elephant, or a
Tyrannosaurus
rex
.

“Thank your Keeper just the same, Dawn,” Gus said as he strapped on a side arm, “because without these, we’d all be dead meat.”

“It might be a good idea to lock the door,” Harry urged. “We wouldn’t want any predators manipulating the locks.”

“Right.” Gus started for the hatch. 

“Are you going outside now?” Tasha asked, her tone shaded with fear. “It is dark.”

“No, Doc,” Gus said. He bolted the hatch from the inside. “And I’m not taking this gun off until we find a way out of here, back to our own time.” 

Almost to himself, he whispered, “
If
we ever get out of here.”  

No, he had to think positively. Glancing at his crew, then concentrating on Dawn, he decided it was up to him now. He’d find a way out of this stinking hellhole. 

He had to.

***

Dawn and her fellow astronauts ate a big supper and then Gus shared with them a surprise: one of two bottles of Jack Daniel’s he’d hidden in his gear. After each raised a glass to the
Valiant
, they went off to their sleeping cubicles, secure in the knowledge that, at least for now, they were safe within their spacecraft.