Dragon Dawn (Dinosaurian Time Travel) (21 page)

“Relax, will you?” Harry sounded positively ebullient as he bounded to the vehicle. “They’re in herd formation. It’d be tough for predators to attack them now, so they’re acting mellow.” 

“Yeah?” Gus asked, his gaze trained on a nearby beast.

As Dawn got out of the Rover, she followed Gus’s lead and kept the vehicle between herself and the herd. Harry pointed to the smaller, birdlike dinosaurs, which pecked at the ground, while darting back and forth beneath the huge limbs of the ceratopsians. 

“I’ll have to make a guess on this,” Harry said, “but I think the little guys are called
Saurornitholestes
. I’m not really sure, though. You see, we never found many of their fossil bones, so I don’t actually know what they look like. Whatever they are, I assume they’re hunting for something small, such as insects or mammals.”

“Mammals?” Gus asked.

“Surprised by that, eh?” Harry smiled. “Mammals have been around for about as long as the dinosaurs, with our direct ancestors, the primates, developing all the way back in the Jurassic, perhaps 185 million years before our era. Most mammals found in this neck of the woods are nocturnal and rat-sized, but some probably foraged by day.” 

“They’re our ancestors?” Gus asked.

“The primates are,” Harry explained. “They’ll evolve into monkeys and primitive apes, and they’ll eventually give rise to us and the modern great apes.”

“Whatever you say, only remember that we’d better be real careful,” Gus said, sounding slightly sardonic. “We wouldn’t want to kill off any of our forefathers. Step on one and – poof! – we might disappear.” 

Dawn exchanged a startled look with Kris. Gus was right, of course. If anyone inadvertently killed a mammal, he might alter the gene pool.

But then, she realized there was a flip side to the situation. If someone happened to kill a dinosaur that ate primitive mammals, that would probably change things, too, for the balance of nature would be different. What if some little creature – which was supposed to be killed by the dead predatory dinosaur – reproduced, thereby giving rise to a new line? In that case, evolution might take another course. 

Dawn shook her head, aghast at the possibilities. Would the future be in jeopardy because of their presence here? If somehow the crew did change things, what would they encounter if and when they got back to their own time? 

Then, near a patch of horsetails, a small, furry head popped up and looked around. Dawn used her binoculars to watch it. 

The mammal sniffed the air, then sat back and cleaned its face with its tiny paws. It started to squeak and chatter. Dawn wondered if it could be an ancestor. Actually, it
did
sound something like Harry.

Suddenly, one of the birdlike dinosaurs leapt into the underbrush and grabbed the mammal in its mouth. With a gulp, it was gone, and Dawn felt sick. Had she somehow distracted the little mammal? Was she the cause of its death? What would happen now? Had her actions changed anything? 

“Oh, no,” she whispered to herself. “What have I done?”

***

Later, Gus sat with Dawn in the Rover. Harry and Kris had gone off with the herd.

“Nothing’s changed,” Gus reassured her. “We’re still here. Just because one animal bit the dust, you didn’t throw a crimp in evolution, as least as far as we’re concerned.”

Dawn nodded. “I guess you’re right.”

“Sure I am.” Gus looked in the direction of the lander. “So, what do you suppose they’re doing right now?”

Dawn’s eyes followed the path of his stare. She could barely see the rocky outcropping where the
Valiant
stood. “Tasha and Lex? Probably sterilizing things in the infirmary.”

“I doubt that. It’s the first time the two docs have been completely alone for months.”

Dawn looked at Gus. 

He shook his head. “Yeah, I know. We have much more pressing problems and here I am thinkin’ about...” With a self-deprecatory smile, he leaned back and looked at the sky. “Well, maybe someday, Dawn Stroganoff.” 

His train of thought definitely intrigued her. “Yes, maybe someday.”

“Hey, are you comin’ on to me?”

“Would you like that, fly-boy?”

He laughed heartily. “What do you think? I liked kissing you.”

“I liked you kissing me, too.” With a grin, Dawn looked away and caught sight of Harry and Kris. 

“Guess what?” Harry shouted, waving his binoculars. “We found nests!” With Kris in tow, he ran toward the Rover. “Come on. They’re beginning to lay eggs on the island.”

“Damn it all.” Gus swung his leg out of the vehicle, stood up, and held out his hand to Dawn. “Dinosaur reproduction isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

She greeted his exasperated expression with a laugh, then followed him to the shore.

***

It had been an exhausting, yet rewarding, day. If they ever got back to their own time, they already had enough recorded observations to keep whole legions of scientists busy for decades. 

“Harry, aren’t you going to eat something?” Dawn asked as she placed a steaming bowl of replicated beef stew on the table.

Immersed in his thoughts, he was at the com, studying some footage of the
Triceratops
herd. Tomorrow, he planned to cross to the island and observe the nesting sites.

Tasha frowned. “Harry, did you hear Dawn?”

With a preoccupied look, he glanced up. 

“Eat, Harry.” Tasha started toward the table. “Lex wishes to speak with you after supper.” She shot a look at her husband as he placed a basket of dinner rolls in the center of the table. “He has ideas about dinosaurs. Good ideas.”

“Ideas?” Harry asked as he made a move to get up, but then his gaze drifted back to the com-screen.

“Samples,” Lex said. “I told Tasha we should take samples. Tissue for genetic studies. Paleo DNA.”

Harry looked back at him alertly. “Then you’ve been reading my mind. I want to take it a step further, though. I’ve been thinking about bringing home a few living animals.”

Uh oh
, Dawn thought as Gus took a seat next to her. Unceremoniously, he dug into the stew, heaping a great pile onto his plate. After grabbing a roll and slapping it with some butter, he took a ferocious bite, then added through a full mouth, “The lander isn’t equipped to be a zoo.”

“But we do have facilities,” Tasha countered. She referred to the various cages and other equipment that had been used for biological experiments in the early part of the Mars mission. “We can keep animals. They must be small, though.”

“Like the mammals?” Dawn asked, thinking of the little creature that had died.

“Yes,” Harry said. “And perhaps some dinosaurs, too.”

“Don’t know about that,” Gus groused.

“Why not?” Harry came over to the table and dropped onto his chair. “Sure, I want archaic mammals, but I also want dinosaurs. The smaller ones should be easy to capture. Think of the consequences if we brought back some living, breathing dinosaurs.”

“DNA’s not enough?” Dawn asked.

“No,” Harry said. “Not for me.”

Gus frowned. “I figure we’ll have major quarantine problems if we bring any animals back. You really want to put up with that? We might have to spend the rest of our lives on the Moon.” 

“I have to agree with Gus,” Dawn said. “Besides, remember my concerns about interfering with the gene pool? What if we upset the balance of nature and change the future?”

“Can’t worry about that now,” Harry replied. “Look, I’ve thought this through, and we’ll just have to take our chances.” He gave Dawn an understanding look. “Everything we do has the potential to change things. Let’s face it, we’d have to stay inside the lander and never leave in order to keep things the same.”

“I’ve been doing some reading on this,” Kris said as she took her place at the table. “With time travel, there will always be paradoxes to contend with, like disturbing the past and creating an alternative future. Think of the Back to the Future series; Marty McFly really screwed things up with that sports almanac. Another theory says if you did change things in the past, then it’s possible you could be instantly knocked into a parallel universe. If that’s what happens, it won't matter what we do here.”

“Enough theorizing,” Lex said. “I think we should take a vote on this.”

“Good idea.” Gus turned to Harry. “You wouldn’t object to that, would you?”

“Nah,” Harry said, smiling as though he already knew the outcome.

“If you recall,” Kris added, “I’ve discussed this before. I told you I believed the message on the monolith was about us. We were always meant to be here.”

“To take specimens?” Dawn asked. “But why?”

“I have no idea, but how can we not take samples?” Kris looked into Dawn’s eyes. “We’re scientists and we seek the truth. It’s what we do.”

Dawn frowned. “It could also be a big mistake. Perhaps, we should try to find out what the Keeper wants first.”

Gus shook his head. “We’ll probably never know what he wants, unless he decides to confide in you.” His voice was soft as he looked into Dawn’s eyes, but there was a change, an undeniable authority in his tone as he added, “Enough discussion. Let’s vote, and put an end to the confusion once and for all.” He looked around. “Raise your hands if you want––”

“What about Jean-Michel?” Dawn glanced at the blank com-screen. Even without consulting the time, she knew the Frenchman would be orbiting on the far side of the planet for at least another ten minutes.

“If need be, Jean-Michel can act as a tiebreaker,” Gus said. “Otherwise, let’s get on with it. How many of you approve of the plan for taking specimens?”

Four hands shot up: Harry, Kris, Tasha, and Lex.

“Ah, that takes care of that,” Kris said.

“Hold on a moment, will you?” Gus looked at Dawn. “And against?”

Taking her cue, she raised her hand in defiance.

“And I’m against it, also,” Gus said flatly. “But it’s four to two, so Kris’s right – that’s that. No more arguing. We’re going to take specimens.”

“Excellent,” Harry said. “If no one has any objections, Lex, Tasha, and I will be in charge of the care of the animals. Only small creatures will be collected,” he added, “along with some insects and plants.”

I hope you know what you’re doing
, Dawn thought uneasily. She put her fork to her mouth and tasted the stew for the first time. “No predators,” she said, finding it hard to swallow a piece of the replicated beef. Her gaze fixed on her plate. “Nothing that eats meat.”

“Aw, come on, just small ones,” Harry countered. “They’ll cause no harm. Think of them as flightless birds.” 

With an unsettling feeling, Dawn pushed away from the table and walked to the window. She stared at the teeming plain, the
Triceratops
herd at least one hundred thousand strong.
Why are we here?
she wondered.
What did the Keeper mean when he said the evolution of sentience wasn’t a fluke? Was Kris right? Were we always meant to travel back in time? Does the Keeper want us to take samples of other life-forms, to mess things up – or doesn’t it matter?
 

She shivered, feeling as if someone else was present, watching her, and then glanced back at her crewmates. Everyone ate in silence, quiet now and lost in their thoughts. But she couldn’t shake her paranoia. 

Was the Keeper here somehow, observing her at this very moment? And what about everything else? Dawn gazed at the distant plain. Were the animals out there like a bunch of laboratory rats trapped in cages? How would it affect things now that humans had been thrown into the mix? Perhaps the Earth was the Keeper’s personal zoo. Maybe his dismissal of the Zoo Hypothesis was a bold-faced lie. Was he accustomed to playing with things on a global scale? Was that what was going on here?

Then she recalled how the Keeper had taken pains to sound mysterious and godlike. But was he? Did he really have that kind of power? Despite what he’d already accomplished in getting them back in time, was it merely the result of alien technology, or was it something more? 

In truth, she had to wonder. He promised he would speak to her again and answer all of her questions. How had he put it? “Watch for me,” he’d said. “I will communicate with you from time to time.”

Just what did
that
mean? 

Dawn moved closer to the window and leaned in, letting her forehead touch the glass. There was so much she didn’t understand. Was the Keeper toying with her? Did he find her frustrations amusing? 

He’d revealed his body had died, yet his mind still lived. If that was the case, why did he care what happened in another place and time? What were his plans for the future? 

Dawn glanced back at her comrades.
More importantly
, she wondered,
what are his plans for us?

Chapter 16

Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.

~William Shakespeare,
Twelfth-Night

The next day passed swiftly, much of it spent collecting biological specimens. The crew kept to the hills and valleys around the
Valiant
. Harry’s plans to survey nesting sites on the island would have to wait until tomorrow. 

By late afternoon, the astronauts were on a last round of trapping, going after the increasingly elusive, small, predatory dinosaurs, such as the turkeylike
Saurornitholestes
. Much to their disappointment, so far just one specimen had been caught. Apparently, the little creatures had figured out the purpose of the snares, perhaps by sheer luck, but then again, Harry surmised, maybe because of their keen powers of observation. Smart little buggers, he called them.

Smart, indeed
. Dawn would never again forget the distress cry of the young, female
Saurornitholestes
when they found her in the trap that afternoon. Eerie and bone chilling, it reminded her of the caterwauling of a tomcat. 

Dawn frowned, recalling how she felt when the alien had first called himself the Keeper. And just who were the keepers now? Could they really justify their plans to capture animals and create a mini-zoo?

It was still a source of tension within the crew. As the day wore on, friction between the astronauts had been building. Harry and Gus, in particular, found it difficult to be around one another. 

Dawn decided to put the problems out of her mind. She studied the little bird-sized dinosaur. It had calmed down, staring at the other caged animals, its curiosity seemingly aroused. A few delicately built, Cretaceous birds twittered nearby. They resembled modern birds, yet upon closer inspection, some clear differences stood out; they had short, feathered tails, three hooked claws on their wings, and jaws lined with tiny, spiky teeth. Harry also said he wanted to capture some shore birds, because he believed they may have been the actual ancestors of all modern birds, surviving in the water after the firestorms ravaged much of the planet in the devastating K/T Event.

“
Chirp
,
chirp
,
chirp
.” 

Dawn’s gaze darted to the cage housing two shrewlike mammals. Like
the birds and dinosaurs, they’d been difficult to catch. Gus joked they needed a cat, but Dawn had another idea, telling him how her terriers were natural-born ratters. She envisioned the dogs, poking their heads down any varmint hole they encountered. 

There were a few other animals in the Rover as well. Unlike the birds and mammals, these specimens did not appear much different from their modern-day counterparts. Two opossumlike specimens of the pouched mammal
Alphadon
had been captured. Insects, including dragonflies, ants, beetles, butterflies, bees, and flies, rested in specimen jars. In a few additional cages, some smaller creatures waited quietly: hard-shelled turtles, a constrictor snake, several lizards, and various colorful species of frogs and toads. 

“
Hiss
.”

Dawn was instantly drawn back to the little dinosaur. Scaly head bobbing to and fro, its piercing, mustard-colored eyes locked onto hers.

The dinosaur gave another long, snakelike
hiss
and Dawn drew back. Just what the devil were they getting themselves into?

Settling into the Rover, she tried to dismiss her fear by whispering, “Hey, you little turkey, don’t you realize we mean you no harm?”

It leaped at her and bit the side of its cage.

“Jeez, you’re vicious, aren’t you?” she said as the animal continued jumping and biting.  By now, its hisses had turned to shrieks and snarls.

A moment later, Harry, Gus, and Kris piled into the Rover. Harry leaned in, watching the dinosaur. “Giving you any trouble?” he asked Dawn.

“She’s a demon. I wouldn’t put my fingers near the cage if I were you.”

Ignoring this, Harry turned to the dinosaur. “You’re just lonely, eh? I think I’ll have to find you a mate.”

The creature threw itself at the cage, spitting, ferociously hissing. 

Harry blinked in shock and then fell back, staring.

***

Hours later, Gus and Dawn stood outside the
Valiant
. The sky held a crescent, a wisp of Moon, the small slice of light rebounding the Sun’s distant glow. 

“Come here,” Gus said as he put down the last cage and reached out, taking Dawn by the hand. In the deepening shadows, they stood together and watched the velvet-blue twilight. 

Dawn leaned back as Gus’s arms enveloped her. She focused on the Moon for a moment longer. With the passage of time, friction from the tides of the world’s oceans would cause it to move slowly away from the Earth. But in this epoch, it was closer to the planet; even the crescent Moon looked a bit larger than the modern-day view.

Yet, the difference wasn’t jarring to Dawn’s senses. Watching the Moon dip beneath the horizon, she said, “I can almost believe I’m home.”

“But this isn’t home,” Gus said sincerely. “It’ll never be. Just listen. You won’t hear dogs barking, or a coyote howl. Only monsters.” As if in response, a series of high-pitched, unearthly hoots floated on the breeze, joined by some fierce snorts.

Gus’s gaze flicked to the sky, then back to Dawn. “Look at the stars. The constellations are all different, a hodgepodge. Even the Moon isn’t the same. No one’s ever been there.” 

Dawn nodded. In this epoch, the Moon was pristine, untouched by astronauts or business consortiums. There weren’t any lunar science stations yet, or helium 3 mines at the South Lunar Pole, or radio telescopes on the far side. And no human footprints had been planted in the lunar dust. As difficult as it was to believe, there wouldn’t be anything artificial on the Moon for another sixty-six million years.

She sighed. “I know, Gus. Nothing’s the same. But I can pretend, can’t I?” 

***

Dawn’s voice sounded sad. Gus looked down at the ground and kicked at the dirt with his boot. Why the hell had he opened his big mouth? 

“Listen... pretend all you want,” he quietly said. “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting what a homebody you are.”

“How would you know about that?”

“I just know. ‘Most everyone feels the same way.”

Dawn nodded. “Tasha and Lex miss their sons so much.”

“Yeah, well, the only one I'm not so sure about is Harry. I think he’s found a new home here. One thing’s for certain, Harry’s idea of a good time is different from mine.”

“And just what is your idea of a good time?”

Now there was a welcome challenge in Dawn’s tone, and Gus smiled at her change of mood. “Darlin’,” he drawled in affectation, “I don’t think ya’all would care to know.”

“And why not, fly-boy?” She turned and embraced him.

His head bent to meet hers for a kiss. Her lips were warm and yielding, and he leaned against her, reveling in the feel of her soft breasts, her thighs. 

He drew back and looked into her eyes. “That should give you some idea.” 

She put her arms around his neck. “Kiss me again,” she whispered.

The door of the hatch suddenly opened and Kris came out, saw them, then hurried back inside.

“Oops, I guess we’ve been found out,” Dawn said, smiling.

“Uh huh.” Gus wrapped his arms around her. “Somehow, everything will work out.”

“I know it will,” Dawn said. “With you here.”

He felt touched by her trusting nature. He wanted to make love to her, but he knew he had to hold back. He did not want to treat her like a conquest. She was different.

Like Char.

Gus’s mind drifted back to the days of his youth. When he was in his early twenties, he’d loved another woman, his first wife, Charlotte Rose Cummings-Granberg. She had insisted on the hyphenated name much to his parents’ chagrin, and he loved her for it – she was no pushover and had a mind of her own. They’d been college sweethearts at the University of Texas. But Char died in an auto accident, killed by a drunk on her way to a night class. They’d been married only a year when it happened. She had been all of twenty-one on the day of her death.

Devastated, Gus had gone on a long bender, but then he woke up one morning, hung over, still sick with grief, yet ready to move on. He’d thrown himself into school, concentrating on his studies to the exclusion of almost everything else. After graduation, he’d gone on to the military as a naval aviator. The astronaut program beckoned after that, and by then he fit into the mold of your typical fighter jock; he loved speed, practical jokes, old brandy, and young, good-looking women. 

And not necessarily in that order.

He hadn’t always been so cocky, though, at least not when he knew Char, but the old cliché held true; time had a way of changing the way you looked at things. The past decade in particular had been filled with a mixture of hard work, thrills, and the vagaries of fame: three extended missions to Earth’s Moon and one to the asteroid Eros, a daring rescue to save the crew of a crippled Earth-Moon transport ship, a hero’s welcome back home, numerous public appearances, and even a well-publicized fling with a Brazilian supermodel.

But now, Gus realized, those days were over.

He held Dawn close, suddenly feeling unsure of himself. How would she react if she learned of his feelings for her? 

But it was time. He wanted to settle down with Dawn. 

Gus took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “Dawn, what would you say if I told you...?” 

Inexplicably, his voice failed, and his vision blurred. His ears filled with an extraneous, high-pitched noise, like the whine of a jet engine. The sound got progressively louder, making him feel dizzy and nauseous.

And then, quite suddenly, the noise and vertigo ceased. A gray, misty curtain rose up before his eyes, then darkness fell, and he drifted off toward a great silence.

***

“What did you want to tell me?” Dawn asked Gus with considerable interest.

His fingers dug into her like steel. “I – must – speak – to – you.”

The voice was cold, forced out in little snaps. It was only a faint, mechanical-sounding shadow of Gus’s usually vibrant baritone. 

Wide-eyed, Dawn looked back at him. 

“It is I. The Keeper.”

She pulled away and backed off several steps. Even in the shadowy light, she could see Gus’s eyes. Only they didn’t belong to him. They stared at her blankly, the pupils huge and black, fully dilated. They were remote eyes, alien eyes, pitch-dark against the night.

“Do not be afraid, Dawn Stroganoff,” the voice grew less mechanical, “for I promised I would communicate with you again. This is difficult for me. I have only a short amount of time. You must tell the pilot...” 

“Wh – what do you want?” Dawn croaked.

He took a deep breath, slowly working his jaw. “It has been so long. To be alive! Ah!” He reached out for her. “Come here,” he said, echoing Gus’s previous words. “Dawn, what would you say if I told you...?”

She stumbled back. Just how much did the Keeper know about her and Gus? “Tell the pilot?” she asked in panic. “What about the pilot? Tell the pilot what?”

“Dawn, tell your pilot to wa – watch––” The strange voice broke off, and he collapsed to the ground.

Gus groaned, holding his head, and rolling around in pain.

“Help! Tasha! Lex, come quick!” Dawn shouted. “Someone help!” She stooped down. “Gus! Gus, are you all right?”

He stopped moving and winced. “What the hell just happened?”

“Oh, Gus, it was the Keeper! He was here. He took over your body.” Dawn looked at the lander again and shouted, “Didn’t anyone hear me? Help!”

The outdoor floodlights flicked on, illuminating the entire area. Finally, someone was coming. Dawn turned back to Gus. “Don’t move,” she told
him.  

“What did you mean... the Keeper was here?” he mumbled.

“I think he was inside your head.”

“I, I don’t understand.” Gus flinched when he looked down at himself. “Shit,” he swore as he attempted to sit up.

Dawn noticed the dampness on the crotch. “Gus, it’s okay.” She glanced back just as Tasha and the others hurried toward them. 

“Did he have seizure?” Tasha asked, seeing the urine stain on Gus’s pants. She looked into his eyes and then pressed her finger to his neck. “Help him up and get him inside,” she ordered Harry and Lex. 

As they slowly walked Gus to the lander, Dawn started to follow, but then she held back, searching for an explanation. “It wasn’t a seizure, Tasha. It was more like Gus was possessed. I know it sounds crazy, but, somehow, I don’t know how, I think the Keeper––”

“What?” Tasha swung around and stared at Dawn. 

“The Keeper talked to me. It wasn’t Gus. I could tell.”

Eyebrows knitted together, Tasha mumbled something in Russian about demons, then hustled off after her patient.