DS02 Night of the Dragonstar

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DR. BERNARD
Penovich of the Institute of Biological and Paleontological Research adjusted the long-distance lens of his Leica and snapped off a series of shots of the group of grazing Camptosaurus, then looked up from the viewfinder. “It is a dream, Dr. Lindstrom,” he said, absently wiping perspiration from his forehead with a bandana. “But I’m not sure if it is a pleasant dream or a nightmare.”

Dr. Mikaela Lindstrom looked up from the map screen she was marking with a light pen. The two scientists sat in the back seat of an Omni Terrain Vehicle. The front seat held the driver, Lieutenant Morgan Lorkner, and Lieutenant Brian Hagermann, both of the IASA, both armed to the teeth. Lindstrom and Penovich had been outfitted with highly effective .44 magnums equipped with clips of explosive bullets. A trip out into the Mesozoic Preserve wasn’t exactly a Sunday afternoon picnic in the park, even if it was just a Quick preliminary survey jaunt to acquaint the distinguished guest with the lay of the land.

“What do you mean, Doctor?” Mikaela asked. “I feel like a kid in a candy store.”

“Damned sight more dangerous here than in a candy store, ma’am,” said Hagermann in his soft Southern accent. He adjusted his polarized goggles and shifted the weight of the rifle he kept pointed in the general direction of any fang-bearing reptiles. “The boys say the word is out ’mongst these critters that human flesh is mighty tasty.”

“Goddamned monsters have had their fill,” said Lorkner, a dark, morose, but always alert man in top physical trim. He grinned. “Mostly Moslem meat, praise Allah.”

“Gentlemen,” Penovich said. “This is a scientific expedition
—
my scientific expedition
—
and I’ll have no racial slurs poisoning my research.”

“Well, excuse me,” Lieutenant Lorkner muttered, settling back in the seat of the idling vehicle. Foot poised on the accelerator, he was ready to take off at the first drop of reptilian drool.

”What I meant, Dr. Lindstrom,” Penovich continued, “is that paleontology is a science based upon intense research and speculation. We spend years trying to prove a theory about the development of this or that species of dinosaur, we invest our lives in digging up fossils and arguing among ourselves
—
and then the universe drops this little surprise package on our heads. To learn of our gross errors in the very foundations of our knowledge is bad enough, but to see a life’s work down the drain
—
That is the stuff of nightmare even given the wonder I feel at seeing these incredible creatures in the flesh.”

Mikaela’s gaze wandered over past the field of ginkgoes and protofirs to where the Camptosaurids used their lassolike tongues to trim the vegetation. Their name, she knew, meant “bent lizards,” and they were just that, bulky bodies equipped with large hind legs and short forelimbs. Herbivorous, they had hides colored brown and green for maximum camouflage from the larger predators that prowled this encapsulated cylindrical world
—
and there were plenty of those. As the extant bones from Western Europe and western North America indicated, the faces of the Camptosaurus were beaklike claws
—
but unlike the dug-up skeletons, they had four claws on each forelimb rather than three.

“Mutation ... evolution,” Dr. Penovich had commented earlier in his visit to Artifact One. “It’s surprising there’s not more evidence of changes. Of course, we must take into account the various species living here whose ancestors were not kind enough to leave behind fossilized evidence of their existence.”

“I think I know what you mean,” said Mikaela Lindstrom, moving to a more comfortable position and wiping her short hair back. Once it had been long, but since she had been spending long periods in this hot and muggy atmosphere, she had cut it.

Phineas had complained, since he liked long hair on women; but the IASA colonel was above all a practical man, and the complaint was merely for the record, spoken with a smile. “When you’re studying flesh and blood instead of dust and bones, and you look down the throat of a roaring, carnivorous theory made flesh and teeth, things can get strange.”

Dr. Penovich was a squat, balding, bespectacled man from Eastern Europe, famous for his worldwide expeditions in search of the remnants of dinosaurs. Mikaela Lindstrom had met him on several occasions in the course of her duties, and whenever there had been a question he could help her with, Dr. Penovich had been happy to correspond. When this cache of wonders had come out of nowhere to land in the lap of the IASA, and Penovich got a whiff that there were dinosaurs preserved in their natural Jurassic or Cretaceous environments, he’d pulled all the strings he could and gained a position on the secondary interior survey team. Now that the alien cylinder was in a stable Lagrange Earth-Moon orbit and no longer in danger of terrorist takeover from the TWC, that team could begin its work. Though Mikaela welcomed his wide knowledge, she was finding that she resented his authoritarian wise-old-man presence; after all, she was the first paleontologist on this particular Mesozoic block.

“Enough of this maudlin meandering,” Dr. Penovich said, a smile creasing his face. “We have much territory to cover today, yes? Lieutenant Lorkner, please drive on. Our new reptilian friends eagerly await us.”

“Yeah, with knife and fork, no doubt,” Lorkner muttered. “And I joined the IASA to see Mars!”

As they continued the tour, Mikaela Lindstrom found her mind wandering from dinosaurs to Colonel Phineas Kemp, her very own primeval plaything. She chuckled ruefully at the thought, missing him. They’d been lovers for three months, but they hardly ever saw each other. Right now, Phineas was Earthside, preparing for the introduction of Artifact One, popularly known as ‘the Dragonstar,’ to the general public and overseeing the funding necessary to deal with this mammoth scientific project. While she was sweating in her figurative khakis and pith helmet, he was probably in tux and tails sipping iced martinis at some state dinner, gabbing about potting T. rexes. She chuckled at the image, and the memory of his handsome, sturdy face brought flashbacks of their sturdy, emphatic lovemaking. She thought of his muscular arms around her, his serious mouth nibbling her neck, his firm hands on her hips, holding her down as he guided his
—

What was that?

Mikaela blinked.

There had been a flash of color moving through a thatch of vegetation off to her left. She pulled up her binoculars. Damn! This was no time to be fantasizing about her lover. She was a scientist, and she had to pay attention, especially in this situation, despite the fact that having Phineas Kemp as a boyfriend had awoken new feelings in her.

About fifty meters off in the jungle, treetops and vines shuddered as something large brushed past them. She saw the flashes of color again, crimson and blue and
—

“Stop!” she said above the din of the motors. She leaned over and tapped Lieutenant Lorkner’s shoulder. “Stop, Lieutenant. There’s something over there.”

Lorkner obeyed.

“Can you back up?” Mikaela asked anxiously.

Lorkner shrugged and obeyed. “Say when.”

“What do you see, Dr. Lindstrom?” Dr. Penovich asked, lifting his Leica.

“I’m not sure,” Mikaela said. “But whatever it is, it looks strange.” She adjusted the binoculars, training them onto the spot where she had glimpsed the beast. “Might be worth getting a shot of, Doctor. These beasts have definitely not given up their territorial ways, and the kinds of creatures that inhabit each sector of the interior, when placed in the greater context, might give us a better idea of what we have here.”

“Yes, yes, I am familiar with this idea of yours, and it is a good one,” Penovich said. “But mostly now I am simply happy to see new kinds of dinosaurs.”

With the OTV stopped and idling, Mikaela Lindstrom hoisted her lithe body up into a stand on the seat for a better view. “Damn! I can’t see it.”

She made as if to get out, but Lorkner stopped her. “Can’t allow that, ma’am. This is just a survey, remember? Too dangerous to get out of the car.”

“But this might be important,” Mikaela said. “I want to see this thing. It looked ... peculiar.”

“Well, ma’am,” Lieutenant Hagermann said, “you don’t want to go traipsin’ through all that undergrowth. So maybe we can raise this beastie for you. Leastways get a look at his backside arunnin’. Where’d you say you saw the critter?”

Mikaela pointed. “I’m not so sure that this
—”

“My finger’s crampin’ anyway. Little bit of exercise might help it some.”

Hagermann stood up and squinted into his highly magnified sights. “Holy shit, I do see somethin’. Just spook it out, mebbe.”

The blast as Lieutenant Hagermann fired was deafening.

A loud screeching erupted from the forest.

Hagermann’s hunter grin flip-flopped. “Holy shit, I musta winged it.”

The tops of the trees began to sway wildly back and forth as the sound of scrabbling blended with a maddened howling.

Perspiration dripped from Mikaela’s brow onto the black casing of the binoculars. “It’s coming this way.”

“Attacking?” Penovich asked, a mixture of excitement and fear on his face.

“No sense in taking any chances,” Mikaela said, unholstering her gun and switching off the safety. She’d had only a quick course in use of the weapon, but she was fairly competent with it. Penovich, in contrast, seemed markedly uncomfortable, holding his gun in his right hand and clutching his camera in his left.

“Maybe we’d better get going,” Lorkner said, a nervous twitch in his dark features.

“No. No, I want to see this thing. I want its picture,” Dr. Penovich said.

“Be ready to move, Lieutenant,” Mikaela said.

“Say no more.” Lorkner’s hands were tense on the controls, his holster unfastened.

The beast emerged from a collection of ferns like a drunk barging through bar doors. It paused for a moment, testing the air with flared nostrils, ugly gnarled head twisting about, tiny red eyes searching for its prey. Saliva misted from its mouth; blood oozed from its wounded shoulder.

Penovich raised his camera and snapped a couple of pictures, then suddenly stopped, too astonished to take any more.

Mikaela knew why.

The thing was perhaps twenty-five feet long. It stood erect at a height of something less than fifteen feet upon powerful hind haunches. The creature was colored blood crimson, with swathes of blue and green on its hide.

It was the ugliest thing that Mikaela Lindstrom had ever seen.

Open running sores abounded all over its upper body, scattered among protuberant cancers. The thing’s face was scarred and marked as though with radiation burns. Its red puffy eyes gleamed with reptilian madness.

At first sight, Mikaela had assumed it was an Allosaurus or something of that ilk, but now she could see by the long snout and the longer forearms that it was not.

“It’s ...” said Dr. Penovich. “It’s an Iguanodon!”

“Hell, mister,” said Hagermann. “I ain’t no paleontologist, but by now I know something about dinosaurs. Iguanodons ain’t supposed to have claws. And Iguanodons ain’t supposed to have big fangs like that.”

Which was exactly the problem, Mikaela thought. And Iguanodons were also not supposed to look like lab animals after a year of cancer tests.

The dinosaur spotted them and with surprising agility leaped forward and began running through the underbrush toward them.

“Jesus!” Hagermann said, leveling his rifle and squeezing off a shot that missed. “Lorkner, get us the hell out of here!”

The command was unnecessary. Lorkner was already moving. Hagermann fired one more shot, which grazed the maddened Iguanodon in the snout, and knelt in his seat. Penovich and Lindstrom followed his lead.

“Some kind of mutant,” Mikaela said. “But how ...”

The Iguanodon made a peculiar bleating sound and fell in on the path behind the OTV, pursuing, fangs bright in the light from the Illuminator above. The monster closed in with astonishing speed, as though nothing mattered but making the survey party his lunch.

Lather and blood sprayed in its wake. Even in the wind of their passage Mikaela could hear the snorts of the creature’s breathing. Hagermann motioned her and Penovich further down so that he could shoot over their heads. The explosions of the blast were incredibly loud but oddly comforting. One of the bullets caught the monster directly in the chest, blowing out a gout of blood and flesh and bone, but the thing kept on.

“My god,” said Penovich, peering over the back of the open car. “That thing is like a machine.”

“Maybe you’d better close the bubble top,” Mikaela shouted to Lorkner.

“Yeah!” he shouted back. “I was
—”

Suddenly, with a bellow that seemed to shake the world, the Iguanodon leapt. For a moment, its body seemed suspended over the OTV, casting the survey team in shadow. Lorkner slammed the accelerator to the floor and the vehicle lurched ahead.