Dragon Dawn (Dinosaurian Time Travel) (24 page)

“Yeah, I recognize ‘em,” Harry said, thinking back to Dawn’s near-fatal encounter with the
Deinonychi
pack. 

Harry shook his head. Everything was falling apart. “So, Commander, you tell me. Just what do you think we should do now?”

Gus looked off in the direction of the retreating track path. “I don’t know,” he said. “But we need to figure out something – and soon.”

***

After spending a sleepless night hunkered down in the
Valiant
, Dawn and her crewmates stood together before sunrise on a hill overlooking the great basin. Despite their collective grief, they were watchful and heavily armed against the possibility of an attack by predators. But the minutes passed calmly. By the standards they were used to, the day had started out more peacefully than they’d ever anticipated.

The air wafted over them, damp and cool. In the distance, rising above the forest, the Rockies were cloaked in a soft ruby mist. Down below, the valley floor slumbered in deep, pre-dawn shadows. For a time, silence reigned, but gradually it got lighter and the air began to stir. From the surrounding hills, the shrieks, rumbles, and trills of ten thousand waking dinosaurs echoed on the breeze.

When the eastern sky flamed, Tasha kissed Lex’s shrouded body on the forehead, then watched as the men lowered him into the ground. Dawn fought back tears, hurting from grief and bodily pain; she was a mass of bruises now, and her arm ached miserably, but she would not allow herself to give in to her own suffering. Tasha needed her, she could see that; she appeared to be so overwhelmed Dawn guessed she might not be able to speak. 

Clutching a few flowers, Tasha choked back a sob. With a pleading look, she turned to Gus. 

Nodding, he seemed to understand her silent request. He slung his gun over his shoulder and consulted his communicator. “Since Lex was not religious, I thought a fitting epitaph would be a quote from the naturalist John Muir.”

Tasha nodded back in thanks, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Clearing his throat, Gus read Muir’s words in a strong, steady voice, “
On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death. Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony
.”

He paused, looking into Tasha’s glistening eyes. “We’ll miss Lex,” he went on, “but remember he hasn’t left us. He will live in our hearts, and he’ll always be a part of this beautiful planet.”

Visibly touched by Gus’s words, Tasha kissed him on the cheek, then turned to Dawn. With trembling fingers, she pressed her communicator into her hands. “Please, read this for me,” she said, her voice fragile. “It was Lex’s favorite.”

Wiping her eyes, Dawn tried to focus on the words. It took a moment before she recognized a stanza from
The
Tempest
, the speech by Shakespeare’s character, Prospero.

Dawn took a breath to steady herself and then began to read:

Our revels now are ended: These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air.

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made of, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

“
Balshoy
spaceeba
,” Tasha thanked Dawn, before her face contorted in grief.

Dawn gave Tasha a hug, holding her tight.

We are such stuff as dreams are made of
... The words repeated in Dawn’s mind as she kissed Tasha on both cheeks, then drew away. 

Kris stepped forward, holding her communicator. “Jean-Michel will read the Trisagion,” she said, “from the Eastern Orthodox Service, for Lex’s absent family, particularly his and Tasha’s son, Michael, who converted to that faith.”

“Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy and Immortal, have mercy on us,” Jean-Michel softly repeated three times.

There was a moment of silence and then Tasha whispered, “Eternal memory, eternal memory... blessed repose and eternal memory.” She tossed the flowers on Lex’s shrouded form. Finally, she took some dirt and swept it through her hair. 

The meaning of the gesture was not lost on Dawn as she recalled
Out of Africa
and the hero Denys’s respect for traditional Maasai customs. Tasha had mirrored the action of Karen Blixen, by placing dirt in her hair and not sprinkling it on Lex’s grave, going against societal norms in recognition of the independent spirits of the men they loved.

“Farewell, my dear Alexander,” Tasha said in a halting voice. “Farewell.”

And Dawn thought she heard her say something more, a plea barely heard: “Come back to me.”

Shoulders drooping, Tasha turned away and started toward the
Valiant
. 

Weeping, Dawn sat on a boulder, watching as Kris followed Tasha inside the lander. Her broken arm had continued to throb, but now it seemed much, much worse. However, she didn’t want anything for the pain. She wanted to hurt, to feel the depth of her misery. 

Dabbing her eyes, she studied Gus and Harry as they took turns filling the burial pit with dirt. One dug, while the other stood guard, gun aimed as his gaze swept over the site. When they’d finished, they covered the grave with fist-sized rocks collected the night before. Soon, the pile reached their ankles, then the level of their knees.

Gus picked up the last stone and set it into place. It was over. Dawn’s eyes filled again. Harry rested his shovel on his shoulder and stared at the burial mound. She could tell he too fought tears. 

“I won’t be long,” Harry told Gus as he wiped his face on the back of his sleeve and then walked away. He called over his shoulder, “I must see to the animals. They weren’t fed last night.”

Gus nodded. “Take your time,” he said, a fresh edge to his voice. “I need to talk to Dawn.”

He came alongside the boulder where she sat and stared into her eyes. His expression was inscrutable to Dawn.

“I’ll miss Lex,” she said. “Harry will, too.”

“Yeah. Sure. Especially if he needs something, like a root canal.” 

Dawn felt surprised by Gus’s cynical tone. “I think you’re being way too hard on Harry. It’s not his fault Lex died.”

Gus frowned. “Have you figured out why we’re here? Was there a point to Lex’s death?” 

“I don’t know. The Keeper must want something.”

Gus stared at the sling on her arm. “You could have died. That
T.
rex
was about to
eat
you. If it hadn’t been for the cannon...” Momentarily, he lost his voice. “We got complacent, and with complacency comes accidents.” 

“Gus, no one is to blame.”

“I am.” He shook his head in self-disgust. “I’m a damned poor excuse for an astronaut, and a lousy commander.”  

“Gus, no. You’re the best.”

“No, Lex was the best, the best damned man I ever knew. And now he’s gone. I blame myself for his death.
And
I blame the Keeper. I wonder what that alien bastard thinks now.”

“I doubt he knows what’s happened.”

“Oh, I figure he knows, but he doesn’t care. He’s not human.”

Dawn hesitated. “I think he has feelings.”

“That’s bullshit.”

She ignored his bluntness, deciding to tell him her secret. “Gus, I think you’re wrong. When the Keeper came to me that night, when he entered your body, I could tell he was glad to be alive. He wanted to...” As her voice faded, she felt her cheeks flame.

“What? Finish what you were sayin’, Dawn. He wanted to what?” 

“Touch me.” 

“Touch you?”

“Yes. In a strange way, I think he wanted to be close to me.”

“Are you crazy? That’s pure bullshit!” 

She gaped at him, and he bit his lip. 

“I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. He reached out, wiping a strand of hair from Dawn’s brow, his touch gentle. “I think I’m losing it. Forgive me. It’s not your fault.”

“You sound jealous.”

Frowning, he withdrew his hand. “I am
not
jealous. But I think we’ve got to get out of here. We’re all going crazy.” He got to his feet. “There are two alternatives. We can go north to the Arctic. Harry said something about it the other day, something about that being the safest place for us here on Earth. He doubts many dinosaurs live that far north, except in high summer. He said there’s some evidence hadrosaurs went up there, perhaps looking for pines and firs, but it’s probably too cold and dark for them the rest of the year.”

“And the other alternative?”

“We can go back to Mars. Since there’s radio silence, it’s reasonable to assume no one lives there in this epoch. We can start a colony there. Begin terraforming the planet. Change history.”

“You’re serious?”

“What other choices do we have?” Gus sounded angry again. “What ideas do
you
have?”

Dawn grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Okay. Calm down, will you? We’ll talk it over with the others. You’re right. We can’t wait around here forever. The Keeper may never reappear.”

“I hope he doesn’t.” Gus shivered slightly, eyes searching the distance. “I don’t want him inside me again.”

She let go of his hand. “Neither do I.”

There was no response.

Dawn glanced up and caught Gus’s expression. With an intense look, he probed the sky. 

She followed his stare. In the southeast, a bright star had appeared out of nowhere, about thirty degrees above the horizon. Her first thought was that a supernova caused the light; otherwise, how could they see it in the daytime? 

She took a closer look. Immediately, she understood she was not seeing an exploding star.

A blazing trail of light hung in the heavens – a comet!

After exchanging an amazed look with Gus, her gaze veered back to the sky. 

“Do you remember what the Keeper told me?” Dawn asked. “About how the co-pilot should watch for something?”

“Yes. Now we know what he meant.”

She stared at Gus, saw his darkening expression. “Gus, I think he was warning us, wasn’t he?”

“Or taunting us.”

Dawn’s gaze fell on the cold fire of the comet’s tail. Was it true then? Had the Keeper sent them back to the time of the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary, to the actual K/T Event?

Dawn blinked once, then twice, and turned to Gus. “I can’t believe
this.”

He looked long and hard at her, and then, in a grim voice, said, “Believe it.”

Chapter 19

O, Wonder! How goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world

That hath such people in ‘t!

~William Shakespeare,
The Tempest

Gus squinted at Jean-Michel’s image projected onto the table. “If we’re goin’ back to Mars, we’ll need a few more animals.”

“And DNA, Commander. We’ll need many samples of DNA.”

“Uh huh. I guess the ship will be something like a regular Noah’s Ark, won’t it?”

“You must take a variety of plant DNA, also. For example, trees for future sources of wood. And lichen and blue-green algae to begin terraforming Mars, and algae for dietary protein production. Also, any type of ancestral vegetation that can be genetically manipulated to produce new flora.”

“I think you’d better tell that to the scientists.”

“No doubt they already know,” Jean-Michel said patiently. “I will discuss it with them today.”

“Good. So, how long do we have before the impact?”

When Jean-Michel did not answer, Gus visualized him doing calculations. A map projection made from an orbital image of Cretaceous Earth suddenly flickered onto the table display. Gus pondered the Earth’s landmasses, which were shaped differently than in modern times, then watched as Jean-Michel superimposed a Cretaceous map projection over the modern map. The most notable difference between them was the wide rift between North and South America; in the Cretaceous, the Isthmus of Panama was still far beneath the ocean waves. 

The projection changed again as it zoomed in on North America.

“Notice how the North Pole is around 2,500 kilometers away from its modern position,” Jean-Michel said. “It is located on the land bridge connecting Alaska with Siberia. Notice too how the western edge of North America is in a more northerly position than in modern times, while the East Coast rests more to the south.”

Gus nodded as he stared at the table. He spotted a few other differences as well: Alaska and the Yukon were located entirely within the polar region; there was a big sea smack-dab in the middle of the North American continent; while the Appalachians bordered the tropics.

Jean-Michel manipulated the map projection again. This time, he zeroed in on the Yucatan. “The comet will strike here,” he said, pointing to a northern coastal region. “The cometary nucleus is now traveling at twenty-five kilometers per second.” 

Gus whistled. That was over one hundred times faster than a jet!

Jean-Michel continued, “As the comet approaches the Earth from the southeast, it will move at an increasingly faster rate because of gravity. Based on its estimated speed and trajectory, the impact will occur in five days. I’ll have the calculations down to the minutes and seconds in an hour or so.”

“When it hits, how will it affect our area?” Gus asked.

“I am...” Jean-Michel’s voice faded momentarily. “Even though your location is thousands of kilometers to the north of the impact site and the curve of the Earth will protect you from the initial shock cloud, the local environment will be devastated by firestorms and later on by acid rain. But since the
Valiant
will be docked with the
Destiny
by then––”

“Yeah, I know. We’ll be safe and sound.” Gus looked at the hatch and then glanced back at the com-screen. “Well, I’ll sign off for now,” he added as he stood up and stretched. 

“Roger, Gus. I will contact Harry at 1000 hours as planned.”

“Roger that. I’ll remind him.” 

Rubbing his eyes, Gus walked across the room, stepped over the threshold of the hatch, and came into the sunlight. He spotted his heavily armed crew near the Rover. Eyes skyward, they were all staring at the heavens. Although the comet couldn’t be seen at this time of day, it didn’t take a genius to know what they’d been discussing. 

The hair pricked on the back of his neck as he watched their expressions. He realized he’d never seen any of them look so rattled. He needed to keep them busy. 

“Hey, we’ve got to get moving,” Gus said. He turned to Kris and Harry. “You got all the gear?” 

“Not quite,” Kris said as she and Harry resumed their work.

Gus’s gaze met Dawn’s and he pointed to the
Valiant
. “Dawn, you’re with me.”

She gave him a quizzical look and then followed him back inside. 

“What is it?” she asked. “You look so serious.”

“I want you to stay here today.” Gus dropped onto a bench and stretched out his legs. He rubbed his eyes again. “Stay here with Tasha.”

“But...?”

“No buts, Dawn. That’s an order. Kris, Harry, and I will be the only
ones going out for more specimens.” 

“I wish I could go with you.”

“Not with a busted arm, you don’t.”

The heartfelt way she stared at him made him want to take her in his arms and hold her close. 

“Gus?”

Her voice brought him back to reality. “What?”

She glanced away. 

He knew exactly what she was thinking, and every instinct told him to walk. He thought of all the endless goddamned politically correct bullshit training sessions about affairs between commanders and crewmembers. He’d always had an exemplary record both at NASA and in the military. Times were changing, though, particularly concerning men and women working in space. It seemed inevitable, especially when you realized how long a mission could be. Realistically, no crew could be made up exclusively of married couples, but NASA was still way behind the times. Despite rampant gossip, agency officials wouldn’t officially admit anyone ever had sex in outer space.

Still torn, Gus studied Dawn, drawn to her face, aching for her body. He realized now he had felt close to her for a long time. After Charlotte, he’d wanted a life again. And now, what was stopping him? Hell, NASA didn’t even exist! It was still millions of years down the road. There were no barriers here, nothing to stop their love.

“Is there a future for us?” Dawn asked.

He stood and looked into her beautiful green eyes. “Yes.” He gently kissed her on the lips and then focused on the bruise ranging from her jawline to her neck. Despite Tasha’s gene therapy, it still looked bad. As for her arm, it would be days before the cast came off.

The hatch door opened and the others started to file into the lander. Tasha looked especially formidable as she strode to the gun rack and replaced her rifle and hunting knife. 

Gus knew Tasha would have his balls if he touched Dawn now.

“Gus,” Dawn whispered. “I’ll come to your bunk as soon as everyone else is asleep.”

Surprised, he looked at Dawn, but then glanced back at Tasha and thought the better of it. 

“No,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “Tasha would kill me.” He grinned. “Once your cast is off... you don’t want it getting in the way, now do you?”

“Okay, but I don’t exactly need my arm, do I? I mean, we could both adapt.”

Gus turned and studied Dawn’s eyes. They were twinkling.

***

The day went slowly for Dawn. Then finally, when evening came and she was sure everyone had fallen asleep, she got out of her bed and headed for Gus’s cubicle. The more she thought about it, the more she refused to believe he’d really meant it when he said they needed to wait for her cast to come off.

She hesitated at the window, looking out at the night sky. The comet’s diaphanous tail filled the heavens. Doomsday. Not much time left.

More than ever, she felt the need to be with Gus.

A sudden movement outside caught her attention. She squinted at something – a figure – standing in the shadows. Her heart pumped faster.
Deinonychus
?
 

No, it looks sort of... human?
She did a double take.
What the heck
is
that?
 

She stumbled to the wall near the hatch, in the process knocking over some equipment, and then hit the switch for the outdoor floodlights. Racing back to the window, she pressed her face to the glass and caught sight of the creature just as it started moving off, heading for the bushes. 

Dawn heard some commotion as her crewmates left their bunks, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the thing outside. A flash of astonishment surged through her mind as she studied its naked body, with its green skin and the crest of multi-colored peacock feathers jutting from its head, like an elaborate, old-style, punk rock hairdo. 

Suddenly, the creature faced her and raised its right hand, as if in fond farewell.
Is it waving at me?
Dawn thought in bewilderment. 

In the next instant, it ran off, disappearing into the brush.

What
was
that?
Dawn felt a cold, immobilizing chill race down her backbone. As her fellow astronauts came alongside, Gus’s voice startled her out of her paralysis. 

“What’s going on?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” Dawn said, trembling. “It was a creature... oh, I don’t know how to describe it.” 

“Try,” Harry urged.

“I saw some kind of weird dinosaur. It had feathers on its head.” 

“A raptor?” Harry asked, exchanging a look with Gus.

Dawn shook her head. “No. I think it was
aware
.
I mean, I could swear it waved goodbye.”

“Huh?” Harry asked, gazing outside.

“I’m not going crazy, guys. I can draw it.” 

“
Nyet
,” Tasha said. “You will not. It is painkillers. They can do things to brain. Forget this nonsense and go back to bed.” 

Kris pointed at the window. “We could go outside and take a look around.”

“No way,” Gus said. “No one is to go out there now.” He frowned at his crew. “Do you understand? Those are my orders. No one goes outside.”

Dawn still felt unnerved. “I wouldn’t go out there if I were you,” she told Kris.

Gus forced a smile. “Come on, Dawn. Do as Tasha says and lie down.” 

His gaze lingered on her face as he put an arm around her shoulders and led her back to her bunk.

***

The moments ticked by and still Tasha stared out the window, recalling the puzzled look on Dawn’s face. What had she seen? Was it a delusion, or had something actually been standing outside the
Valiant
?

Kris and Harry had started talking about their plans for the next few hours, but by this time Tasha only half-listened as she tried to spot tracks near the stairs. 

She could see no footprints there. From this angle, the ground appeared to be undisturbed.

Tasha paused, letting her gaze roam on to the bushes. Then, quite unexpectedly, she realized she was gazing at a face partially hidden by foliage. She blinked with incredulity, for it looked exactly like Lex!

With a chill, she recalled an old Russian belief; after death, the soul did not travel to heaven straight away, instead lingering for a time on the Earth.

The wind came up and the leaves trembled. In the next moment, the face vanished. Tasha stood there, rooted to the spot, heart thumping, considering the possibilities. 

The face had seemed so real. But could it have been Lex? How was that possible?

Immediately, Tasha’s analytical mind dismissed what she had seen. She knew human beings had the propensity to see the images of faces in commonplace things, such as clouds and shadows and in the patterns of leaves. And yet...

It was only after the Sun was high in the sky that Tasha remembered where she was, and wondered if she would ever know what had truly been out there.