This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

The Worlds of Naughtenny Moore

Copyright © 2006 by David Brown

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form.

Edited by Kara Willey

Artwork by Tony Carrillo

An Open Page Publishing Book

Published by Open Page Publishing LLC

6340 S. Rural Rd.
Suite118-118
Tempe, AZ 85283

www.openpagepublishing.com

ISBN 0-9788660-1-0
ISBN-13 978-0-9788660-1-3

First Edition: December 2006

Printed in the United States of America

To Colleen.

To Jeff and Cubby:
Not the inspirations for Carlos Wrzniewski, but good stand-ins when needed.

To my publisher/editor/lifelong friend Brandon, who saw this through all the way.

To Rachel and Renee (and Alex and Josh too):
Keep your sense of wonder and the love of dragons.

My name is Ted Flockman. I’m sure you’ve heard of me. I have set five world records in hunting and fishing. I have been almost eaten, trampled or otherwise dispatched by animals at least 17 times, by my count. I have survived two plane crashes and a shipwreck. Oh, yeah, and I saved the world (possibly the universe) not long ago. But we won’t be getting to that part for a while.

The story that ensues is that of my career as a professional time traveler. So I will start with how I got a job at Naughthenny Moore’s Time Travel Association. My parents were missionaries to the Central American Republic of El Salvador. I grew up there, and I spent half of my adult life there. I avidly followed the development of the time machine (or “Temporal Displacement Device”) since it was announced as a theoretical possibility in 2044. As an imaginative 11-year-old, I dreamed of going back in time and watching the Aztecs build their great temples.

At that time, the government of El Salvador was completing the world’s first anti-matter extractor, the only device that could possibly generate enough power to run a TDD. As of this writing, it is the world’s only anti-matter extractor, thanks to an international ban the UN Council on Science and Technology imposed the next year. I knew that when a TDD was built, it would be in El Salvador, and I spent the next 15 years making sure I had the right resume to ride on it. I decided my best course was to major in anthropology and ecology. To get the best possible credentials, I went to college in the United States, ended up majoring in ecology and minoring in anthropology, and was captain of the rugby team. I should mention that I’m just shy of seven feet tall and weigh 295 pounds. When the U.S. went to war with Indonesia in 2053, I was drafted.

Fortunately, I suffered a “million-dollar-wound” falling out of a sequoia, and by the time I got well, the crisis had blown over. I still had to do military service, but I wasn’t sent outside the U.S. Instead, I spent a couple of years helping the National Guard control forest fires. I then spent five years working as a forester in different parts of South and Central America. One of my jobs was the very hazardous task of spraying cocaine crops with genetically engineered blight in Columbia. In 2061, the news finally came: A working TDD had been built, and a consortium called “Naughtenny Moore” had been established to run it. I sent in a resume before it had even been tested. A month later, I was invited to come to the temporal displacement facility for testing.

I took a cab to the former air base where the time machine was located. The cabbie dropped me off in front of a rickety gate, which apparently hadn’t been painted since the base closed. There was a newly paved road leading to a large airplane hanger. I was walking down it when a Japanese man drove up in a plastic-hulled vehicle called a Thing, after a 20th-century vehicle that it casually resembled. “Hello,” he said. “Are you a job applicant or another journalist? If you are an applicant, you will have to show me the letter inviting you here.”
I gladly pulled out the letter. “Where do I need to go?” I asked.

“Hop in and I’ll take you there,” the Japanese man said. I got in the front passenger seat. A Thing’s steering system is more like an airplane joystick than a steering wheel, and there are two control yokes on the dash. I was already familiar with the system, but it was disorienting to ride without a steering wheel in front of me. As we drove toward the hangar, the driver introduced himself. “I am Louis Tanaka. I’m in charge of security. One part of my job has been screening applicants.” I glanced at him worriedly. “Don’t worry, the police report said you didn’t start that fight.”

At that moment, we reached the hangar I saw that the giant doors had been removed and replaced with a brick wall. The new wall held several normal doors, which we entered through. The vast airplane hangar had been transformed into a museum. The only exhibits so far were a pair of antlers ten feet in span, an animatronic dinosaur, and a pair of dinosaurian arms eight feet long. Lou identified the arms as the only known parts of “Deinocheirus mirificus.” The only other person there at the moment was a black man. “G’day, mate,” the black man said in a jarring Australian accent. “I’m Dr. Carlos Wrzniewski. Who are you?”
“I’m Ted Flockman,” I said. “I take it you’re the competition.”

“Not actually,” Tanaka said. “The Association’s goal is to form a three-person team to manage our expeditions. The team will be composed of a field manager, a field technology specialist and a scientific advisor. The field managers will delegate other jobs to paying members of an expedition. You applied as field manager, while Dr. Wrzniewski is applying to be a scientific advisor. Therefore, you are not in competition with each other. In fact, since the Association wants teams who work well together, you should strive to be polite and helpful to each other.”

“Maybe you can tell me what you have on this guy,” Carlos said jovially.
Lou cheerfully obliged: “Mr. Flockman is a professional forester, with over ten years of experience in his chosen field. He spent a short time in the United States National Guard. He is fluent in 3 languages, and has experience operating planes, bulldozers, heavy trucks and even tanks.” I winced at that last “credential”. Right after I left the National Guard, I had spent a few months with World War 2 Re-enactors’ Society. I quit after a disastrous recreation of the Ardennes Offensive ended in victory for the Nazis.

“What’s your background, Dr. Wrzniewski?” I asked.
“Please, call me Carlos,” Carlos broke in.
“As you may have guessed,” Lou said amiably, “Carlos is from Australia. For the last five years, he has been a Professor of Herpetology at the University of Sydney. He’s renowned for giving his students extensive hands-on training in the Australian outback. Before he received that position, he was a member of Australia’s armed forces.” Carlos grew visibly grim. I could guess why: He had undoubtedly been one of the thousands of Australian troops who fought in the war against Indonesia. Tanaka confirmed that thought: “During the ‘Short War’, Carlos was a corporal in a force sent to flank the defenders of Jakarta. Needless to say, he has a lot of survival skills. He also has several medals.”

“Now that Ted and I know each other’s backgrounds,” Carlos said, “what do we have to do to show that we’re fit for these jobs?”

“There will be a series of four tests,” Tanaka said. “You will take them together. But first, I’ll introduce you to our field technician.” We reached another former hangar, which was clearly being used to store vehicles. Carlos froze when he saw the large vehicle parked beyond the open door. Even I felt a twinge of fear when I realized what it was: an Indonesian Ora 6X6 armored car. The wedge-shaped vehicle resembled nothing so much as an enlarged late 20th-century sports car. This one was almost 15 feet tall, and sported wheels more than 5 feet in diameter. About six feet of its height was a second story added to the standard hull.

“Sweet Mother! It’s a command vehicle!” Carlos exclaimed. “How could they afford this?”

“Actually, it was donated,” someone said in a husky voice. I looked, and saw a red-headed woman descending a retractable staircase at the rear of the vehicle. She was about 5-foot-1 and a little on the stocky side, wearing shorts and a tank top. Suddenly, I felt nervous, and nearly didn’t respond when she held out a hand to shake. “I’m Dr. Dianna Gonzalez. Right now, I’m working on putting a tire on this thing. The big problem is that I have to reset the vehicle’s computerized air-pressure control system. Maybe you two can help.”

“I don’t know much about software,” I said.
Dianna laughed. “I won’t need help with that. I’m a doctor of computer science. I just don’t know much about off-road vehicles, and I certainly can’t install the new wheel all by myself.” She pointed to a giant wheel against the wall. “I’d welcome any feedback on what settings to use. I could also use a little help reading the Javanese instructions.”

The work went very well. Fortunately, we were able to use a forklift to carry the wheel up to the car. Carlos and I still had to manhandle the wheel a little before we could attach it. Once the wheel was in position, we screwed on the massive lug nuts. Then we helped with choosing the pressure settings. At first, I was a little distracted by Dianna, but the attraction quickly gave way to professionalism. Dianna spent most of the time asking Carlos questions about the vehicle. As we were finishing up, she asked him, “What does Ora mean?”

“Ora is another name for the Komodo dragon,” Carlos said. “That was a species of giant lizard that used to live on an island in Indonesia. They were killed off about 20 years ago, by a combination of habitat loss, disease and cannibalism. They were good swimmers and very stealthy hunters, so Indonesia named its line of armored cars after them.”

After the wheel was installed, Dianna gave us a tour of the Ora. The vehicle was 35 feet long. “This version of the armored car was designed as a mobile headquarters for military commanders. It ended up more like a rolling hotel room.” She pointed out different features as we walked through the vehicle. “It has several computers, beds, a shower, a toilet, a refrigerator, a kitchen and a miniature medical lab. It also has a little crane mounted in the rear; that will be handy for bringing big animals aboard. Once we get it running, this will be a perfect mobile base camp. But, we won’t be able to take it on our first expedition.” As I stepped out, I hit my head on the doorframe. It was the third time I had hit my head during the tour.
“It’s a bit cramped for an Anglo,” I complained.

“Well,” Dianna said finally, “you’re the most promising applicants I’ve worked with. Congratulations—you’ve passed the first test! C’mon, don’t look surprised. Did you think the Indonesians would sell us a car without all the wheels on? Or that I wouldn’t know the right settings? We wanted to test your skills with machinery, but we didn’t want you to either stress out over it or to treat it strictly as an abstract exercise. So, we staged it as an impromptu request. If you can do this well on the other tests, I’m sure we’ll be working together on a permanent basis. “You’re entitled to a break before your next test, and I’m overdue for lunch. Would you like to join me on the observation deck?”

I eagerly accepted, and Carlos went along. The observation deck was a kind of porch at the end of the lower balcony. The fridge was stocked with sandwiches. “So, how did you get a job here?” I asked Dianna.

“I got involved in time travel as a graduate student,” she said. “I helped Dr. Julius Werner choose the computer that controls the TDD. On my recommendation, he held up the construction of the TDD for a couple of years until we could get hold of the latest molecular computer. I also helped set up the control room; you’ll see that before the end of the day.” After a pause in conversation she asked Carlos, “Are you a Catholic?”

He seemed surprised by the question. “Ah. No, don’t misunderstand. I say naught against Mary nor Her Son, but the only one I’ll swear by or to is the good Earth Mother. I follow pantheism. Not much of a religion, really, more a set of guidelines for dealing with nature and each other.”

Dianna turned to me. “How about you?” she asked. “You follow any particular faith?”

“I was raised a Protestant,” I said circumspectly. “I haven’t gone to church in a while, though.” Not since my parents died, I added silently.

“Me, I’m a Christian,” Di said. “I grew up in the Catholic church. I don’t really identify myself with any particular denomination. You should go take your other tests. I may drop in to watch.” She walked away, acting nonchalant, but I noticed her glance over her shoulder.

For the second test, Lou took us to a room that simulated a prehistoric forest. “This is a restoration of an Early Permian North American forest,” he said. “Your task is to cross it. The problem is, there are two large predators in the way. If either of you sets foot within two meters of either, you both fail the test.” I inspected the room. “I know we’re before the dinosaurs were around. What was there? Big lizards?”

“The dominant predator was Dimetrodon,” Carlos said. “You know, big critter with a tall fin. It looks kind of like a lizard, but it’s really a synapsid—one of the ancestors of the mammals—probably the first terrestrial animal to specialize in eating other large vertebrates. The only other large predators would be giant amphibians–picture salamanders with the size, shape and lifestyle of crocodiles.” He pointed to a pool. “We stay clear of that at all costs.” I spotted several lizard-like creatures, none of them large enough to threaten us. Then I spotted the sail. “Look,” I said. “That’s a Dimetrodon, isn’t it?”

Carlos looked at it critically.

“No, it’s not,” he said. “The ribs are the wrong shape. They’re curved, see? A Dimetrodon’s are straight. That would be an Edaphosaurus, an herbivorous synapsid. Perfectly harmless. But you see that thing there? Looks like a really tall fern? That is a Dimetrodon. And that dark shape in the water would be an amphibian. So, we’re good.” We strolled confidently through the artificial forest. Then Carlos froze. “You know that sail that looks like a fern?” he said. “Looking at it from this angle, I think it really is a fern.”

“Let’s stop and think things over,” I said. “Are there any more possible sails?” We looked around. There seemed to be none. “In that case, we should be looking for another amphibian.” We looked carefully. I was the one who finally found it. It was artfully concealed under a log. If we had stayed our course, we would practically have stepped on it. “Well,” Carlos said ruefully, “that shows how much help the experts are.”

For the next test, Lou led us to a firing range. There were a dozen targets shaped like various prehistoric animals. They were already so riddled with bullet holes that I could see foliage behind them. Lou unlocked a large shed. This took some time, since there were six separate locks on the door. The wooden door swung open to reveal a second, metal door with a panel full of buttons beside it. Lou punched eight buttons and inserted a key to open the second door. “This is the Association’s armory,” Lou said with obvious pride. “Take whatever weapons suit your fancy, but remember to give them back after the test. Hold on a moment while I open the safe with the really heavy stuff.”

I could understand why there were so many locks on the shed. The Armory was a true anarchist’s toy shop. The walls were lined with dozens of weapons, mostly rifles and shotguns. I took a look at the boxes of ammunition. Many of them were military armor-piercing rounds. I whistled in amazement, wondering what the “really heavy stuff” was. Carlos was more critical. “These are all 5.6 and 4.7 millimeter weapons. Minimal stopping power; I wouldn’t trust them for protection against anything larger than a dog,” he said. He hefted a semi-automatic .38 rifle. “But these Tactical rifles are very nice.”

Just then, Lou opened the safe. We stared in awe at what was inside. The safe held three identical rifles, each one four-and-a-half feet long. I quickly estimated that they were about .90 caliber. The weapons had a Spartan design, with the long barrel protruding from a boxy plastic frame. The guns had a forward-sweeping grip, which I had previously seen only on a vintage Boys anti-tank rifle. By all appearances, these weapons could have been built with the same purpose in mind. Every possible measure had been taken to reduce recoil. There was a large muzzle brake, numerous tiny holes in the barrel, a padded stock and a folding unipod. On top of these features, the barrel was designed to slide backward in the frame during firing. Two springs hooked the breach to the frame, so that the sliding barrel would stop sooner. I would later learn that there was a third spring inside the stock.

“The test will be in two parts,” Lou said. “First, you will be tested for proficiency with standard firearms, then you will be tested for your ability to handle one of these: the A-Cube Eliminator. It is a bolt-action rifle of 22 mm caliber, with a capacity of five rounds in a magazine in the stock plus one in the chamber. Each bullet weighs 125 grams. The cases are based upon the .50 Browning machine gun round. As you can see, extreme measures have been taken to mitigate recoil; but, it still knocks inexperienced users off their feet. In theory, it can be fired from the shoulder, but I definitely would not recommend it. The last applicant to try it was knocked back over a meter.”

When we came out, Dianna was waiting. “I always enjoy this part,” she said enigmatically. I was a little perturbed to find that Carlos, despite his military background, was not a very good shot. He averaged only one hit for every three-round burst from an assault rifle. This was in spite of an excellent gun sight and a sophisticated stock that kept the user from feeling any recoil until the end of a burst. He faired much better with a shotgun. In contrast, I was on the top of my form. I put shot after shot into the flat wooden targets, but in the end, I didn’t score many more hits than Carlos. On consideration, I decided that Carlos might be even more effective than me in dealing with emergencies. Where I would take time to aim at the most sensitive parts of an animal, Carlos would immediately fire an instinctive burst. In a crisis, he could be expected to shoot before I did.

“Excellent, both of you,” Lou said. “Now for the Eliminator.” Carlos went first. He handled the weapon as if it were a baby or a live bomb. He crouched, and set the unipod on a bench rest that had been provided for us. At his first shot, he hit a target painted to look like a mammoth in the ear. He cursed in pain at the recoil. He handled the second shot better, hitting the mammoth in the forehead. The third shot missed. Carlos handed the gun to me, shaking his head. “This gun ought to have wheels on it,” he said. “I think you can handle it, but don’t try anything fancy.”

I hefted the gun, examining it carefully. It was very light for its size at less then ten kilos. On impulse, I folded up the unipod. I glanced at Di through the corner of my eye. She was covering her mouth, as if expecting something horrible to happen. I felt like Arthur, gripping the hilt of Excalibur. Finally, I braced myself and pulled the trigger.

I don’t think words can describe what it feels like to fire an Eliminator. My first shot left me short of breath and a little dizzy. Spots flashed before my eyes. But I was still standing, right where I had been before, and when my vision cleared, I could see daylight between the mammoth’s eyes. Dianna whooped, then giggled self-consciously. I massaged my shoulder, and then fired again. The second shot seemed easier. Feeling new assurance, I aimed my last shot at the mammoth’s chest. The sheet metal target began to creak. Then, with an incredible crash, it fell to the ground. Now everyone cheered. “The final test should be strictly a formality,” Lou said. “Let’s go meet Lacerto Leo and Old Rip.”

“Lacerto Leo” turned out to be a reptile handler named Leonard Simmons. He led us to a large enclosure that held a twenty-one-foot-long crocodile. “Gentlemen, meet Old Rip, the salt water crocodile,” the trainer said enthusiastically. “He’s a professional movie star, and he attacks wildlife-management trainees as a side job. He will administer your test on rescue. You should know that he holds two Guinness World Records: one for being the largest reptile in captivity, and one for wearing the world’s largest set of dentures. He knocked out all his real teeth fighting with other crocodiles, and eventually they stopped growing back. His artificial teeth are made of rubber, so he probably won’t be able to bite any limbs off. However, he can still injure you, and if he manages to get you in his pool, he has a very good chance of drowning you.”

The trainer brought out a life-sized dummy. The dummy was quite crude; its face consisted of two blue eyes and a red “O” for a mouth. Simmons held up the dummy. “This is Mr. Bill,” he said. He opened the gate of the enclosure. The crocodile roused and made a few steps toward the gate. “Wave hello, Mr. Bill. Mr. Bill, I’m afraid I have to throw you to Old Rip, who will attack you savagely. But don’t worry. These men will save you. All they have to do is fight off Rip with their bare hands.” He heaved the dummy into the enclosure. The crocodile attacked as soon as it hit the ground.

“They’ve got to be kidding,” Carlos and I said to each other.
“You’d better get in there,” said the trainer. “Oh, no! Looks like Mr. Bill will never be a father.”

“We’re going to have to get the crocodile to let go of the dummy first,” I said to Carlos. “I have a plan. I’ve seen it work on alligators…” Pinching one nostril shut, I made a moaning sound, “MMMnnn, MMMnnn.” It’s a fair approximation of an alligator’s call. The big croc looked at me inquisitively, but held onto the dummy. I repeated the sound. Rip let go of Mr. Bill and snarled at me. Carlos rushed in and grabbed the dummy. But, as he tried to run back out, Rip caught him with a swing of the tail. Carlos threw the dummy as far as he could. I ran in to grab it, but Rip lunged for the dummy at the same time. Rip caught hold of a foot, while I wrapped my arms around the torso. I kicked Rip in the snout, while Carlos got the croc in a chokehold. “No unnecessary roughness!” Leo scolded.

After a few moments, Rip let go of Mr. Bill. The croc wasn’t done yet, though. Carlos relaxed a little when the dummy came free, and Rip positively erupted from his grasp and cut me off from the gate. I leaped over him, with the dummy over one shoulder. Just as I reached the gate, Rip caught me by the foot. I flung Mr. Bill over the finish line, just before Rip dragged me away. Fortunately, Rip was very gentle when he closed his jaws on my head. Leo tapped his pencil thoughtfully against his clipboard. “Not bad,” he said. “Apart from getting killed, I’ll give you a passing grade for effort.”

As I struggled to my feet, I saw Di outside the fence. I tried to straighten up and look strong and confident. “That was incredible!” she said. “You’re the first set of applicants to get the dummy out. Far as I can see, the jobs are yours for the taking. C’mon! I’ll take you to see Dr. Werner.”

Dianna led us across the hangar/museum to a metal stairway that led upward to a balcony. She opened one door to reveal another flight of stairs that spiraled upwards. “This was originally an air-traffic control tower,” she told me. At the top was a door with an electronic lock. She punched in a code, and the door opened. I hadn’t been sure what to expect in the control room, but the one thing I had taken for granted was that it would be a quiet place, probably manned by a few older men crouched silently over a computer screen. What I found instead was a room filled by 25 people who bustled about, talking loudly and sometimes arguing. With a ceiling fifteen feet high, the room was just big enough for the noise to produce noticeable echoes. Except for one white-haired man, none of the staff looked over 35. Even more surprisingly, most of the staff were from the Orient, predominately Indians and Japanese.

I was simultaneously dazzled and confused by the machinery. The walls were virtually lined with computer screens, which displayed either indecipherable equations and lines of computer code or weird shapes. Several showed false-color images of landscapes viewed from above. The room was dominated by a three-dimensional layered LED display, fourteen feet tall, twenty feet wide and four feet thick, that stood in the center. It had obviously been used originally by air-traffic controllers to plot the positions of planes, but now it was nearly filled by a computer-generated geometric form that looked like macaroni stretched to infinity. “What is that?” I said.

The white-haired man turned around and said: “That is the Earth, represented four-dimensionally.” He held out his hand. “I am Dr. Julius Werner. I designed the Temporal Displacement Device. I also trained this lovely young lady.” Dianna blushed. “And you must be Ted Flockman. Dr. Wrzniewski, I already know. This is only the third time that applicants have come in here, so please excuse our lack of decorum.”

“That’s fine,” I said, smiling at the implied compliment. “So, what’s this about representing the Earth in four dimensions?”

“It is a visual representation of string theory,” Werner said. “The underlying premise is that any object, at a given point in time, is only one part of a four-dimensional string, or, to use a more colorful analogy, one segment of a worm. In this case, the object being modeled is our planet as it moves through space. We call this model the Earth-Worm. What you see is only a small portion. When preparing for a temporal displacement, we plot where, and when, we want to send the expedition on the model.”

“It’s my understanding that only a part of the apparatus actually moves through time,” I said. “What does that look like, and how does it move?”

“We call the mobile part of the device the time bell, after a diving bell,” Werner explained. “Like a diving bell, it has no motive power of its own, but must instead be moved by an external agency. The time bell is very simple: a square platform, with a pole on each corner. The poles contain machinery that generates a temporal displacement field. The power, both for going to the past and coming back to the present, is produced by the anti-matter generator. The course, for lack of a better word, is programmed by us. Since there is no contact between the time bell and the rest of the device, all time travelers will have to adhere to a plan more rigid than that of a space flight. You must return to the present after a fixed amount of time. In fact, the machine will do so automatically. You must have a specific amount of mass aboard. If anything goes wrong, we will have no way to help you.”

I felt a little intimidated. “Is it dangerous?”

“Of course,” Werner said. “That is why we need the very best staff for an expedition. But rest assured, we will do everything possible to keep you safe. We will provide you with the best weapons, the best vehicles and the best supplies to accomplish your mission. We will hire paleontological consultants to instruct you on what is known about past environments, and we will use “light probes” to map where you go ahead of time. All in all, you will face less risk working for Naughtenny Moore, Ltd. than you will crossing the street.”

“Not that I’m paranoid. . .but why couldn’t you help us?” I asked. “If nothing else, couldn’t you load a rescue party aboard, and send the time bell back to when it left?”

Werner shook his head. “That’s not an option. At the present time, all displacements have an uncertainty factor of plus or minus 50 years. There’s no way we could send a time bell back to exactly when it left.”

I examined the “Earth-worm” thoughtfully. “You seem to be able to travel in space, as well as time. Could this be used for space travel, as well as time travel?”

Werner laughed. “NASA has been very interested in that possibility,” he said. “Unfortunately, again, the answer is no. We can easily go to different places on the Earth’s surface, but two problems prevent travel to other planets. One is differential velocities. This is a problem even for the Earth. Because the Earth moves in different directions during its orbit, and because its rotation rate has steadily slowed over time, the time bell invariably will undergo an instantaneous change in velocity on arrival in the past. The time bell has massive shock absorbers, but if it landed at the wrong place at the wrong time, it would be smashed like a bug on a windshield. Most of the calculations we have to make are simply to prevent that from happening. If the target were a different planet, even in our own solar system, the difficulties, and the potential for disaster, would be infinitely greater.

“The second, even more fundamental problem rises from the nature of space-time. For generations, it has been recognized that large objects distort not only space, but time. The Earth-worm is not merely a plot of the Earth’s position over time, but a representation of a four-dimensional structure created by the Earth’s passage. All “points” on this structure are interconnected. That is why time travel is possible. As long as we travel to Earth’s past, space-time works in our favor. But if we aim at a point outside the structure, space-time is against us. To reach any such point would require energy expenditures millions of times greater than what is already necessary. The chances of such a point being occupied by a planet would be infinitesimal, even with the most careful calculations. Picture trying to shoot a gnat from a million miles away. That is what it would be like to try to go to another planet in another solar system. And if you do make it, there’s still the velocity problem…”

The whole time, Carlos was gazing thoughtfully at the model. Finally he spoke, with surprising softness, “Perhaps. . .perhaps this is the face of the Earth Mother.”

I finally raised what was perhaps the most vital question. “If we travel back in time, what are the risks of changing the past?” I was grimly recalling my disastrous attempt to replay history.

“One of the two expeditions that have already gone performed an experiment to test that,” Werner said. “Ten people went, on an experimental time bell slightly bigger than a freight elevator. Dr. Gonzalez was one of them, incidentally. They went to a desolate region of Israel, in the second century C.E. Their main objective was to study the Dead Sea scrolls when they were still intact. Nothing was collected. They simply went to the caves where the scrolls had been found, took them out, photographed them and then put them back. Utmost care was taken to make no changes, except one.

“In a carefully chosen spot that had never been surveyed by archeologists, the team bored a hole 20 meters deep and 20 centimeters wide. Into this hole, they dropped an airtight plastic canister, holding a titanium plate inscribed with the names of everyone in the expedition. Then they carefully refilled the hole. While the expedition was in the past, a whole crew of construction workers searched for the canister. They found it. It is now on display in the museum.”

I glanced at Dianna. She had a somber expression. It was Carlos who spoke: “What does that prove, exactly? Since it was planted in a place no one ever looked before, you don’t know whether the past was changed. To make the test conclusive, you should have dug it up before the expedition.”

“We know it is not entirely conclusive,” Werner said. “But we did make progress. We proved that a time traveler can have a tangible effect on the present world. That had been a subject of some debate. One school of thought has held that any trip to the past would create a timeline separate from the one from which the time traveler came. That view is entirely refuted. If it were true, the canister would exist in the new timeline, but not in ours. Another view is that the universe would somehow obliterate any changes, in which case seemingly chance circumstances would have conspired to destroy the canister, or even prevent it from being planted at all. They did not, even with 2000 years to work with. Most scientists have come to the conclusion that no changes occurred. The canister was always there.

“As you say, the conclusive test would have been to dig for it before the expedition left. But that was considered potentially hazardous to make such a direct test. The universe may be flexible in areas of uncertainty, such as ground where no one has dug, but not so where we have prior experience. UNCOST has passed a measure which will prevent any similar experiments. We are now prohibited from sending expeditions to any place and time where humans exist. They also made me install this.” He pointed to a large green button on a large console in front of the 3-D display. “That is a lockout button. If pushed, it will automatically lock down the controls. It was installed against the hypothetical event of an attempted hijacking. Quite nonsensical, since the typical band of terrorists couldn’t operate this machine if we gave them an instruction manual and a tech support hotline. There would be a greater risk of a chimpanzee flying away with a space shuttle!”

Werner folded his hands. “The question I am about to ask, gentlemen, is your final test. For all intents and purposes, you have earned your jobs. The only remaining question is, knowing what you do now, do you still want them? Two men have come this far before, only to say no. How about you?”

“Hell yes!” Carlos said. Werner smiled and looked at me. Intellectually, I could see that this would be a dangerous job, perhaps the most dangerous that has ever existed. Yet, when I thought about all I had gone through, and especially when I glanced at my lovely new co-worker, I didn’t feel like there was any question at all.

I said yes.

After months of preparation, the day had finally come. It was time for me to go on my first official mission for Naughtenny Moore’s Time Travel Association. All of our equipment was loaded in the time machine. In a few minutes, an enormous apparatus would launch the mobile time bell into the past, where we would stay for two weeks. Before we left, I made one last inspection of the team I would lead.

The first in line were Carlos Wrzniewski and Dianna Gonzalez. Then there was our mechanic Fernando, and three other Association employees, including Dr. Ramirez, a field medic. That brought me to our clients. There were Kenneth Robertson, a South African industrialist and sportsman who was funding the expedition, and his cameraman, John Carpenter. Finally, there were the paleontologists: Pablo Zapata, an expert on mammals from Argentina, dinosaurologists Hal Wang, Luis Rivera, Eva Hutchins, and a man I had never seen before in my life. “Who are you?” I demanded irritably. “And where’s Dr. Romenko?”

Carlos gestured urgently for us to talk, privately. “I didn’t know you hadn’t heard. Dr. Romenko was replaced two days ago,” he explained. “Robertson demanded it. The new guy is George Carradine. Robertson had always wanted him to come along, and the association finally agreed this week.”

I was irritated at the last-minute meddling with the makeup of my team, but I wasn’t going to miss Romenko. The man was the world’s leading authority on ornithomimid dinosaurs, but he was opinionated and difficult to work with. Worse, he was 61 years old, and not in the best of health. I was surprised that he had been let go. Our expedition’s most important objective was to collect a specimen of a mysterious dinosaur widely believed to be an ornithomimid. “What does Carradine do?” I asked.

Carlos smirked. “He is the leading authority on dinosaur dung. Seriously, he’s what’s called an ichnologist. He specializes in dinosaur trace fossils, like footprints and droppings.” On consideration, the choice made sense. Someone with his knowledge could help us track dinosaurs.

We marched into the time bell. The time bell was a 50-foot by 50-foot platform with a 25-foot-tall pole at each corner. I took a quick look at our three main vehicles. There were two hydrogen-powered cars which could be converted into light trucks by lowering the back seats and raising a set of side rails. The cars had been dubbed ‘Things,’ after an ancient Volkswagen product that they resembled superficially. Their bodies were made of bulletproof plastic, their chassis of aluminum. Their most unusual feature was the absence of a suspension and a steering column. The designers had left them out to minimize the number of moving parts. The vehicle was steered by making the wheels on one side go faster than the ones on the other. The oversized, bulletproof tires functioned as shock absorbers. The other vehicle was a much larger, amphibious version of the Things. We also had an electric moped and an ultra light airplane packed up in crates.

Our geographic destination was Mongolia. Our temporal destination was the Maastrichtian epoch, or latest late Cretaceous period. The time and place were represented in the fossil record by the Nemegt formation. We would be going to a desert area with regular rainfall and light forest and had two major objectives. Robertson wanted to hunt and kill at least one specimen of Tyrannosaurus Bataar, a slightly smaller relative of the T. rex. Since he was the one paying for the trip, that was one of our official goals. Our other objective was, from a scientific standpoint, far more important. We hoped to collect a complete specimen of a dinosaur called Deinocheirus mirificus, or “Terrible Hand.” Paleontologists had discovered it in the 1960’s, but after almost a century, it was still known only from its arms. No one knew for sure what it looked like or what it ate, though we did know two things about it. First, it was one of the therepod dinosaurs, which almost always ate meat. Second, its arms were up to 10 feet long.

“We leave in five minutes,” I announced. “Because the Earth spun significantly faster in the Cretaceous, there will be a nasty jolt when we arrive. If you all seat yourselves in the vehicles and fasten your safety belts, you should be safe. Also, make sure your special watches are set at 0000 hours of day 1. You must be back on this platform when your watches read 2400 hours of day 14. At that time, the time bell will automatically return to the present, and anyone who is not aboard will be stranded in the past for the rest of his or her life. That’s all for now.” We all got into the vehicles; I strapped into the driver’s seat of the Amphibian.

Even the people who invented the Temporal Displacement Device don’t know for certain what exactly happens when the time bell goes through time. I’ll give a quick rundown of what one sees and hears inside the time bell. First, there is a rumble in the ground, as the anti-matter generator creates an enormous energy surge. That energy goes into some very complex machinery in the poles. Then there are some really impressive fireworks when an energy field forms around the time bell. Something about the field allows the TDD to push the time bell across time and space. The transition from the present to the past is instantaneous. I am always unnerved by the absence of any sensation, or even a perceived passage of time. I suppose what bothers me the most is that if something goes wrong, I might never know it. The time bell might collapse into a hyper dense super-particle, materialize in solid rock, or hang forever in some limbo outside space and time, without my feeling a thing.

After the transition, there’s usually a split second of free fall as the time bell falls to the ground. When the time bell actually touches down, it feels like jumping off a train. The impact on my first mission was softer than I had expected. In fact, it was the softest I’ve had in all my missions. We landed in mud, which softened our fall. There was a loud “squelch” as the platform sank into the mud. The front end sank faster than the back, tilting the platform. One of the cars rolled right off the platform at high speed. I couldn’t see more than a few feet because of a thick cloud of mist. At first, I thought we were in a fog. Then I noticed that the mist was warm, almost painfully so, and that there was a loud hissing noise. The mist was not natural fog, but evaporated water. The energy of our impact was making the mud steam. I leapt out of the Amphibian and called out, “Is everyone okay?”

“We’re all right,” Robertson said. He climbed back onto the platform. “No one remembered to turn on the parking brake. When we came down, the car just started moving.” The car also proved to be unharmed. It had not even fallen completely off the platform. The rear wheels had stayed on the platform, while the rest of the car went nose-down into the dirt. We had to haul it back on with the other car’s winch.

The mist was slow to clear. We were at the bottom of a natural depression, which had probably grown deeper after our landing. The plan was for us to set up camp on top of a nearby hill. I decided to lead an armed party out to check for dangerous animals before anyone else came up. I chose Carlos, Wang and Hutchins to accompany me out of the depression and onto the prehistoric plains. Carlos and I hastily unpacked the weapons. Carlos checked a few at random. “Perfectly unsafe,” he said with satisfaction.

Carlos took a combat shotgun, while I used one of our two .80 caliber anti-dinosaur rifles. Wang, a burly Mongol who would have looked at home riding with Genghis Kahn, chose a .38 long-range sniping weapon. Hutchins, an athletic woman in her mid-forties, settled on a combat shotgun. Wang was one of Mongolia’s top paleontologists, while Hutchins was a leading authority on therepods. I hoped that they would be able to tell which animals were dangerous.

At the last moment, Robertson humbly insisted that he accompany us. “I have more experience than any of you in dealing with dangerous game,” he said, in a slightly smug tone that grated at my nerves. “Besides, I need to try this out on some real dinosaurs.” At that, he drew a sleek, torpedo-like weapon which, after careful examination, was recognizable as a pistol.

Robertson saw my interest. “This is the most advanced handgun in the world,” he said. “As you can see, it has two grips and two triggers.” In fact, the grips were joined together, as part of a plastic frame that seemed to ooze over the gun. “The second trigger is there for establishing a targeting lock with this military-grade electronic sight. Once a lock is made, the computer will maintain a digital marker that shows where to shoot.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Carlos said.
I eyed the gun suspiciously. “There doesn’t appear to be a magazine.”

“That is because there is none,” Robertson said with pride. He opened the breech, which was well behind the trigger, and inserted a large bullet and a block of caseless propellant. “It is a single-shot weapon—altogether the ideal mode for caseless ammunition. Of course, I always make sure that I or one of my companions has a rifle as a back-up weapon. I have never failed to make the kill with my first shot.”

I was feeling quite alarmed, but I decided not to discuss his plans until after we had set up camp. When we stepped out of the depression, we found ourselves free of the mist. We were standing on a narrow stretch of flat ground between the depression and a wide, low hill. The earth was a grayish yellow color, like Grey Poupon, with a sparse covering of shrub-like ferns and conifers. I began walking up the hill when I heard a terrifying bellow.

The sound was like an oboe amplified by the world’s largest sound system. I looked up and saw the source: a large, yellow-skinned, purple-striped dinosaur standing halfway up the hill. I immediately recognized it as a hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur. “Saulolophus,” Wang said. The hadrosaur roared again. A pair of sacks running from its nostrils to the tip of its short crest swelled like red balloons. Several more hadrosaurs joined in with their own calls.

I counted a total of nine hadrosaurs on or near the hill. As I watched, four more sidled into view. They all bellowed in unison, and I heard the distinct calls of even more in the distance. I sized up our adversaries. None of them was smaller than a rhinoceros. What worried me the most was that eight of them were uphill from us. “We can’t risk a shoot-out here,” I said. “Any dinosaur that we bring down on the slope will slide the rest of the way down, and the whole hillside could come down after it.. Our best option is to scare them off.”

I fired the Eliminator into the air, hoping the noise would scare them without provoking a charge. The hadrosaurs only roared back in unison. Some began pawing the ground with their forelimbs. I stood my ground, hoping that at least a few of them might back off. I never found out if it would have worked, because a hadrosaur’s head burst open. The others looked to see it fall (there had been no audible shot) and then charged.

I killed two hadrosaurs with my remaining two shots. Both went down immediately and stayed down, though one thrashed and bellowed feebly. Wang emptied his magazine, killing or driving off the three on the left. One of his victims stumbled over the rim of the depression as it died. “Look out below!” I cried as the dead animal tumbled toward the time bell.

Fortunately, Carlos wounded the nearest hadrosaur in the thigh. That slowed the creature down without knocking it off its feet, and the others had to either slow down to avoid running into it or go down the sides of the hill to avoid it. I reloaded the Eliminator and shot another hadrosaur as it ran down the right side. It let out a nasal bleat as it rolled harmlessly down the opposite side of the hill. A dinosaur following the same course turned and fled. Carlos fired bursts one on top of another at the remaining attackers. Hutchins fired a single blast. In a few seconds, it was over. Six hadrosaurs were dead, and the rest were retreating, except for the injured one on the slopes. Its bloodshot eyes radiated malevolence. I took aim at the dinosaur. “Stop,” Robertson said.

I held my fire, but kept the targeting laser squarely on the dino’s abdomen. Robertson moved left, drawing the hadrosaur away from the rest of us. Suddenly, it wheezed out one last bellow and reared up for a final charge. At that moment, Robertson fired a shot into its head, killing it instantly. The dinosaur flopped anticlimactically onto the flat ground at the hill’s base. The gun made no sound, except for an audible click when the breech came open. Clearly, he was the one who had fired that first shot. I glared at him, but
said nothing.

After our skirmish with the hadrosaurs, we had a pleasantly easy time setting up camp. We hauled our equipment out of the depression and set up our circus-sized “headquarters” tent on the hill where the hadrosaurs had made their defiant stand. We pitched our other tents on a taller hill next to it. As soon as we had all the tents set up, we set about the grisly business of disposing of the hadrosaur carcasses. A taxidermist named Mitchell oversaw the grim proceedings, while I did most of the butchering with a chainsaw.

In the process, we were able to conduct impromptu autopsies on the animals. We found that our weapons, though devastating, had done disconcertingly less damage than expected. Of the pair Robertson had shot, one had been killed by a direct hit to the brain, but the other had perished only after shards of shattered nasal bone entered the brain case. Wang had downed his pair with one lucky hit to the brain of the first and six shots to the chest of the other. The latter had suffered only four direct hits to a vital organ, including one to the heart. The most damage had apparently been done by a bullet that shattered a rib, sending splinters of bone into the pulmonary vein. Of the three I had shot, one had been killed instantly by a direct hit to the heart, another had died with a collapsed lung, and the third had been felled by a broken back.

“The problem is the bones,” Carlos said. “They’re like composite armor: hard on the outside, light on the inside, an’ tough and flexible throughout. A bullet can’t keep a straight trajectory. We can’t count on hits to a particular spot for a kill. It’s like I’ve always said: If you have to aim, you need a bigger gun.”

We had brought along a first-rate water purifier and a working showerhead. It took almost two hours to set these up, however. I spent most of that time standing around in my bloody apron. Everyone gave me a wide berth, except for curious carnosaurs. A spiny, toothless, square-headed dinosaur about two feet in height was the first to show up. Carlos killed it with birdshot while it was sniffing at my shoes. “An ovilaptol, possibly of a new genus,” Wang said after looking over the carcass. I shouted in alarm when I saw the next customer: a long-necked, birdlike dinosaur seven feet tall. The graceful but deadly looking creature strode arrogantly out of the grass. It looked me up and down with its big yellow eyes, as if trying to decide if I was a worthy meal. “A Gallimimus!”
Wang said excitedly.

I revved up my chainsaw in an attempt to scare off the dinosaur. It responded with an impressive threat display. It reared up as tall as it could and screamed, showing off a sharp beak. It then spread its arms, showing off equally sharp claws. “Excuse me,” I said, “but if you aren’t too busy debating what this is called, could somebody shoot the damn thing?”

At that moment, Carlos slapped a drum of buckshot into the combat shotgun and opened fire. One blast hit it in the chest, and a second took off the better part of its head. The dinosaur immediately rushed at Carlos, running for fifteen feet and then trying to jump the remaining ten. Carlos fired three more blasts at the charging dinosaur. The third blast hit his attacker in midair, causing its jump to come up short. It landed in a heap at Carlos’ feet. Even then, it still had a little fight left in it. When Carradine bent down to examine its claws, it hissed and slashed at him with its foot, and snapped with what was left of its beak. Even after Carradine shot it in the head with a revolver, it continued to twitch. I looked at its large arms, and shuddered at an alarming thought: somewhere out there, there was another creature whose arms were longer than this ornithomime’s legs.

“I don’t understand what happened,” Hutchins said. “Ornithomimids are proven herbivores. This particular genus has a beak like a goose. Why would it dry to attack another animal?”

Carlos pumped the shotgun. “Because,” he said, “some herbivores are less herbivorous than others.”

I looked Wang and Hutchins over. Both were unarmed, so I could not fault them for not taking out the dinosaur sooner. “All right, it’s time to set up some security procedures,” I said. “We have enough weapons for everyone, so I want everyone to carry a piece for as long as he or she can. While we’re handling a dead animal, everyone needs to be on full alert. Also, I’m going to set up a roster for guard duty. Now, if you all will excuse me, I’m going to take a shower.”

The shower consisted of a hose mounted on a pole, with a rubber mat for a floor and a translucent curtain on three sides. For modesty’s sake, everyone showered in a bathing suit. I was the first to use it and found it quite unpleasant. The showerhead blasted me with a stuttering, high-velocity spray that stung my skin. By the time I was finished, much of my skin had turned a faint pink. Just as I was finishing my shower, someone shouted, “Deinocheirus!”

I raced up the residential hill, still clad only in a bathing suit. Everyone except Fernando and Wang was gathered in a cluster. Dianna turned to me and spoke: “It’s right across the river. It must be twenty feet tall!” Her eyes lingered on me for a moment; she turned away with a blush when she saw that I had noticed.

I followed everyone’s gaze to a stand of trees on the far side of the river. It was my first good look at our surroundings. The river was about a mile away—hundreds of yards wide, with numerous streams intersecting it. Its variable course left large, barren mudflats along its banks. There were many shrubs and small trees in the hills and flatlands around the river. Herds of hadrosaurs grazed on the low-lying shrubs. About ten miles from our camp, the plains and stout hills abruptly gave way to taller hills and plateaus. Near this transition, an enormous two-legged dinosaur browsed on some tall pines.

I ran back to my tent, threw on some clothes, and grabbed my binoculars. Upon returning to the group, I focused my binoculars on the enormous animal. At that distance, it seemed small even through binoculars, but I could make out its features easily enough. It had a long neck and a ludicrously small head. Its jaws were curved and full of teeth. As I watched, it stripped the needles from an entire branch with one stroke of its head. I turned my attention to its huge arms. They were almost ten feet long, and extremely robust. “I’m surprised how thick its arms are,” I commented. “The Deinocheirus fossils looked relatively slender.”

Hutchins was examining the creature through her own set of binoculars. “That’s not Deinocheirus,” she said with a trace of bitterness. “It’s Therizinosaurus cheloniformis. It’s one of a whole group of herbivorous protobirds. If you look very closely, you can see a crest of feathers on its head. That’s the biggest therizinosaur, and one of the most poorly known.” The therizinosaur dropped to all fours and waddled away, giving us a glimpse of its bushy tail.

I lowered my binoculars with a sigh. “It’s disappointing,” I said, “but remember, this is only the first day. Fernando, is the plane ready?”

“Sí, señor!” Fernando answered enthusiastically. I looked down the hill, and tried to control my own anxiety as I gazed at the plane that I was expected to fly. The bat-winged contraption bore more than a casual resemblance to Da Vinci’s ornithopter. The fuselage—if it can be dignified with the name—was an open framework of aluminum tubes barely seven feet in length. Instead of ordinary landing wheels, it had a set of extremely floppy tank treads. The engine, a ducted propeller and a vertical fin were mounted directly behind the pilot’s seat, while a pair of stubby, wing-like canards was mounted on the front. The oddest feature was the all-fabric wings. Most airplanes have wing flaps for steering, but not this one. Instead, there was a network of cables that twisted the wings into different shapes. Some wag had painted the name MAYFLY on each wing.

Carpenter helped me don a special helmet with a built-in, gyro stabilized camera. While I was in flight, my helmet cam would record what I saw and send an audio-video feed back to base camp. I had to walk around for fifteen minutes so that Carpenter and Dianna could calibrate the camera, its gyros, and the transmitter. “The static just won’t go away, not completely,” Dianna said. “I think there’s some kind of unusual electromagnetic activity going on. Right now, we’re at least getting a pretty clear picture.”

A strip of flat ground had been chosen for us to use as a runway before we even arrived in the present. As soon as the plane was assembled, we loaded the 250-pound aircraft onto the back of a Thing. Carlos, Fernando and I drove to the site. The plan was for me to fly for five hours, photographing the area between the river and the highlands to the east. With any luck, I would be able to photograph at least one of the dinosaurs we were looking for. The runway was muddy, but not extremely so. We did have to shoot a three-foot-long lizard that was sunning itself on the path. We set the plane down in a spot where I would have five hundred feet of clear space to take off and land. There were streams on both sides, so if something went wrong during take-off or landing, the plane would at least come to rest in the water. I climbed into the pilot’s seat and fastened my safety belt. Carlos and Fernando helped start the engine. “Good luck!” said Carlos.

“Vaya con Diós!” said Fernando. I gunned the engine and started rolling. Carlos and Fernando yelped and sputtered when they were hit by a backwash of mud. The take-off was so bumpy that my plane bounced into the air several times before building up enough speed to actually stay airborne. Nevertheless, I made a successful, relatively normal take-off, more than one hundred feet from the end of the runway.

Within minutes, my plane had climbed to five hundred feet, an ideal elevation for my mission. The craft’s top speed was 80 miles per hour, but I held my speed at 65. Dianna’s voice came in through my ear phones: “Turn north, and you can get the wind at your back.”
“Already doing it!” I said enthusiastically.

I followed the river north, watching for evidence of dinosaur activity. I passed over more than twenty hadrosaurs. Some of the cantankerous dinosaurs reared up as high as they could and roared at me as I flew by. Several of the hadrosaurs were youngsters which explained why the adults were so defensive. I could just make out small carnivorous dinosaurs following the hadrosaurs at a safe distance. “They’re probably eating small animals that the hadrosaurs stir up,” Robertson suggested.

“Or they could be eating roots that the hadrosaurs expose,” Hutchins added. “We just finished dissecting the little oviraptor, and we found a lot of vegetable matter in its stomach.”

After ninety minutes, I turned east toward the highlands. “Look at that!” I cried in delight. “Sauropods!” A small herd of long-necked dinosaurs was grazing in the forested hills. Many of them were waddling along on their hind legs, stripping foliage off high branches as they went. Sauropods had always been my favorite dinosaurs. Seeing them alive was a dream come true. The stout-necked dinosaurs were smaller and less graceful than the ones I had seen mounted in museums or reconstructed in movies, but I was too giddy to care. However, I did notice something that I found disquieting.

“Some of the ones that are standing up aren’t eating anything,” I said into the mic. “I think they’re watching for predators.” It was hard to imagine what those forty-foot dinosaurs might fear, but I would have bet dollars to pesos that it had ten-foot-long arms.

I saw another impressive sight to my left: a swarm of pterosaurs flying in a tight circle. I immediately thought of vultures circling a dead animal while larger predators ate their fill. I went in for a closer look. Six of the condor-sized pterosaurs swooped at my plane in unison, thinking that I was another pterosaur trying to steal their carrion. When I showed no signs of backing down, the flying creatures scattered. I descended to 200 feet, hoping to get a good look at a dinosaur kill. I saw something even better. As I closed in, a tyrannosaur stuck its head above the surrounding trees and roared. Or maybe I should say it screamed. The call was rather high-pitched, with a strong vibrato quality. The only time I had heard anything like it before was during my forest service days, when I cornered an exceptionally ill-tempered puma in a tree.

“Looks like we know where to look for T. Bataar!” I said as I pulled back up. “It might be a record-setting specimen. Those trees it reared over look to be more than twenty feet tall!”

“Yeah, but don’t try to measure a specimen before it’s collected,” Carlos said. “By the way, can you adjust the transmitter? We’re getting a weird hum.

I had noticed the noise some time before, but assumed it was a problem with the radio on their end. But if we were both hearing it, it might well be a problem with the plane. At that moment, something else that had been nagging at my subconscious mind finally registered. Throughout the flight, the plane had been sluggish in responding to the controls, a problem I had never had in the present. It was also ascending a little too fast. A knot formed in my stomach as an explanation came to mind. I glanced at the wings, and immediately went stiff with fear. “That hum isn’t from the radio, it’s from the cables,” I said. “They’re vibrating.” A horrific image came unbidden to mind: a suspension bridge shaking itself to pieces when a mild wind hit with just the wrong frequency.

“That shouldn’t be happening,” Dianna said. “The harmonics of the aircraft have been tested extensively. I’m gonna get Fernando.”

Moments later, the stall alarm sounded. The plane had nosed upward of its own accord to within a few degrees of losing lift. I slammed the stick forward as hard as I could, almost sending the plane into a nosedive. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the wings quiver, and I could feel vibrations through the stick. The wind grew stronger, and so did the vibrations and the humming. I struggled like a hooked fish, trying desperately to keep my plane from standing on its tail. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the static got worse.
Fernando came on line. “Sen—–ockman, I b-lieve I know what causes the problem,” he said breathlessly. “I made a –m—l change to the plane before w- left. —origin-l cables w—eplaced with new ones. Th– new cables are —– of lighter mat—rial —— 20 p—shent lighter. – didn’t have time to t—st ha-monic qualities.”
I am on record as saying, “You g—–m— of—–it—!!”

Needless to say, the remainder of the flight was quite harrowing. It was a struggle to keep my plane level, and a grueling battle to decrease my altitude. As I rushed toward the landing area at 30 miles per hour, I knew there was no chance of making a safe, normal landing. My only hope was to touch down in the mud and lose as much speed as I could before ditching in the stream. I’ll probably live, I told myself. With any luck, I’ll avoid serious injury. Heck, if I do a really good job, we might even be able to use this plane again. Eventually.

I didn’t even hit the ground until I was halfway down the muddy runway after which, I promptly bounced back into the air. Once I came back down, I hit the brakes as hard as I could. The landing gear squealed, mud squelched, and the cables hummed a merry requiem for the aircraft. Moments before I reached the stream, a track snapped, and the plane spun 180 degrees. I caught a brief glimpse of a toothed bird taking to the air to escape my runaway plane. The aircraft bounced over a boulder and sailed backwards through the air. Instead of splashing down in the stream, I sailed over it and landed in a small tree. “Fernando,” I groaned, “you’re fired, effective 70 million years from now!”

Within a few minutes, Fernando and the medic came to pick me up. The medic checked me over while we drove back into camp. Miraculously, I had nothing worse than a few bruises. I was surprised that only Carlos and Dianna were waiting for me. Even they seemed a little distracted. “If you’re all right,” Carlos said, “there’s something you should take a look at. If you’ll follow me to the dissection tent…”

I did as he requested. As expected, all the paleontologists were gathered inside. I had expected to find them examining an impressive new specimen. Instead, they were huddled around a small dissection table, examining something I couldn’t see. Mr. Robertson looked over their shoulders, with a deep frown on his face. “Ah—Mr. Flockman,” Carradine said with a nervous cough. “We found this a few hundred yards from camp.” He stepped aside, giving me an all-too-clear view of an egg-shaped object nearly two feet long. “This is the largest dinosaur dropping yet discovered. As you have probably heard, I’m an authority on the subject. The alarming thing is, it was made by a carnosaur.”

Carradine picked up a small, toothy skull fragment from the tray. “We picked this and several other bone fragments out of the dropping. We all agree that these bones are from a pachycephalosaurid, most likely of the genus Homalocephale. This individual was half-grown, probably about the size of a young deer. Judging from the number of bones in the dropping, the pachy was swallowed whole. Judging from the size of the dropping, the creature that swallowed it was substantially larger than a T. rex. We would welcome your input.”

I gazed thoughtfully at the remarkable find. It was green, with a coating of milky white mucous. I hesitantly poked at a spot where the mucous had been removed. It was warm. “I don’t think this is a dropping,” I said after a moment’s thought. “It reminds me of an owl pellet.” Some people nodded, but others looked confused. “That’s a mass of bones and fur that owls spit out after digesting a meal,” I explained.

Carradine smiled in relief. “That means the carnosaur could be relatively small,” he said. “Perhaps no larger than a grizzly bear. A young T. Bataar, or an adult of a smaller species.” It was strange to hear the largest of modern carnivores described as “relatively small.”
“Aliolamus,” Wang said abruptly. Even the other paleontologists looked confused.

Hutchins furrowed her brow and then nodded. “Alioramus remotus,” she said. “It’s a poorly known predator from a slightly older formation, probably about the size of a juvenile T. Bataar. It’s generally thought to be a primitive tyrannosaurid.”

“If it’s primitive,” Di interjected, “then it shouldn’t be living alongside advanced ones.”

Dianna was openly skeptical of evolution, an attitude that grated on the paleontologists. There was a long, awkward silence. I tried to salvage the discussion and get back to the point. “I don’t want any big predators roaming around near our camp,” I said firmly, “and whatever made this pellet was a substantial predator by any standard.” I concluded with a sigh: “It would be in our best interests to hunt down this Aliol—I mean Alioramus as quickly as possible. Carradine, did you look for footprints around the place where you found this pellet?”

“I found a few traces,” he said. “I saw some indistinct prints that were unusually long. On consideration, the carnosaur may have been sneaking along in a plantigrade stance.” “Plantigrade” means that a creature walks with its feet fully on the ground. Most dinosaurs normally walked in a “digitrade” fashion, with only their toes touching the earth, like a human on tiptoes.
“Show me the tracks,” I said. “With any luck, we can kill this thing before nightfall.”

“You’re going nowhere,” said the medic. “You obviously sustained some injuries. I must insist on giving you a full examination before I let you go tromping through the wilderness.”

“Take his advice,” Dianna said sweetly. “You did a good job handling the problems with the plane. You deserve to take the afternoon off.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Flockman,” Robertson said. “With Dr. Carradine’s help, I can track the creature. If you will permit it, of course.”

“Give it your best shot,” I said. “Carlos, go with him. Oh, and Mr. Robertson, don’t try to take the carnosaur with your pistol. Take one of the Tacticals, or even an Eliminator.”

Mr. Robertson looked disappointed, but did not argue. “A .38 will be quite sufficient,” he said. He marched out of the tent with annoying solemnity.

“Okay,” I said, “we should set up the scent machine. It won’t do to have the scent of blood advertising this tent to every carnivore in the vicinity.” It only took about ten minutes to unpack the machine. The device was a rectangle, one foot long and six inches wide. A large can of peppermint extract fit into a hole in the top. The peppermint smell was unpleasantly strong, and there was a hint of something like bleach. The spray was known to throw bloodhounds off a scent. “Leave it on for fifteen minutes,” I said with a cough. I fled the tent before the scent could make me sick.

We spent the next couple of hours doing odd jobs. I helped Zapata set up live traps for small mammals. We heard many distant hadrosaur calls. Once, I heard a “chug-a-chug” sound, which I attributed to a large frog. We had a midday meal of Personal Universally Consumable Rations. (Take a guess what their nickname is.) One of these burrito-like abominations meets the daily dietary requirements of a soldier. They had been made in response to UN demands for a compact combat ration that would be “kosher” for people of any belief system. The result was something that no one would want to eat. In fact, several religious leaders had forbidden their followers from consuming them. Their gritty texture and saccharine flavor added a whole new dimension to the horrors of war. “Remind me to fire the commissar,” I said after choking down half of a PUC.

Around dusk, the hunting party came back with nothing but a pachycephalosaur to show for their efforts. “Other dinosaurs disrupted the trail,” Robertson said. “The carnosaur appears to have been stalking one of the hadrosaurs we wounded, until the other hadrosaurs chased it away. The pursuers obliterated its footprints in the process. We picked up the trail again, but by then, we were on rocky ground that is very poor for prints.”
“Did the hadros give you any more trouble?” I asked.

“No direct threats, but a couple of them trailed us for more than an hour,” Robertson said. “They kept exchanging calls with other hadrosaurs. They seemed too fearful to try to chase us away, but not fearful enough to run away themselves. We finally called it quits when we started hearing calls from hills on both sides of us. Carlos was concerned that they might ambush us.” There was a hint of disapproval in the hunter’s voice, as if Carlos had panicked and overreacted. Carlos scowled and pursed his lips. He seemed to be physically holding in an angry response.

“That was a good decision,” I said. Just then, there was a strange, unpleasant noise from the Thing. We all glanced in the direction of the sound, just in time to see the pachycephalosaur’s tail vanish down a carnosaur’s throat. I caught a glimpse of a red crest on its snout, the most distinctive feature of Alioramus. We all grabbed for our weapons, and Carlos got off a couple shots, but the creature had already vanished into the forest.

After dinner, I ordered a camp meeting. The first order of business was our quarry, Deinocheirus. “I want you to tell me everything you can about this animal,” I said. “Don’t be afraid to speculate. First of all, how big is it? The sources I read didn’t even agree on the length of the arms.”

“That’s because there’s disagreement about whether all the Deinocheirus specimens are one species,” Hutchins explained. “The type specimen is a pair of complete arms, which are eight feet in length. Fifteen years ago, a second specimen was found, even less complete than the first. It consisted of a forearm and manus, which were further damaged by incompetent fieldwork. It wouldn’t even have been of interest, except that it was larger than the forearm of the type specimen. Assuming the proportions are the same, the second Deinocheirus would have had arms nearly ten feet long. It’s so much larger that some scientists proposed a new species, D. giganticus.”

I smiled in bemusement. “As if the first wasn’t gigantic. So, if the arms are up to ten feet long, how tall would that make the complete animal?”

“That’s hard to say,” Hutchins said. “It would be very unusual for a dinosaur’s arms to be more than half as long as the legs. Among ornithomimids, it’s typical for the arms to be one-third the length of the leg. Do the math, and you get a hip height of up to thirty feet. I think even twenty feet is unlikely, but any height much less than fifteen feet is also unlikely. That’s taller than a T. rex.”

“Is it really a predator?” I asked.
“Celtainly,” Wang said without hesitation.

Hutchins pondered the question for a moment. “It probably hunted at least some of the time,” she said. “However, its arms were surprisingly weak, and the claws were too blunt for killing. Ornithomimids were usually herbivorous, so Deinocheirus probably fed mainly on plants.” Wang shook his head in silent disapproval. After our encounter with a living ornithomimid, I was equally skeptical.

Carlos spoke up: “The claws are so big that shape isn’t that important. With arms that big, the shock force alone would be enough to knock over a good-sized animal. Relatively blunt claws would simply spread the effect over a wider area. The rounds from the Eliminator are built on the same principle. Take a look: they’re practically cylindrical.”

“Doctah Lizniewski has a point,” Wang said. “However, it is possible that the claws were not used fol killing. Deinocheilus could have immobilized pley with its ahms and then killed it by some othel means.”

“Let’s get back to what kind of animal it is,” I said. “Dr. Hutchins, do you believe that it was an ornithomimid?”

“It certainly looks more like an ornithomimid than anything else,” she said. I was surprised. Her mentor, Dr. Romenko, vigorously opposed the ornithomimid theory. “For the moment, its taxonomic status is irrelevant. We need to find a complete specimen before we can reach any conclusions about how to classify it.”

“I suppose you’re right,” I said. “Assuming that it is a predator, what would be its most likely prey?”

“Saulolophus is the most common lahge helbivole,” Wang said, “and the easiest to kill.”
“If the Saurolophus is alone,” Carlos corrected.

“It didn’t have to limit itself to herbivores,” Rivera said. “I’ve read a twenty-year-old paper that suggested that Deinocheirus preyed primarily on other carnosaurs. T. Bataar is very common in this area. We actually have reason to believe that it nested here. It’s unlikely that any terrestrial predator could survive feeding primarily on other predators, but during the T. Bataar breeding season, a Deinocheirus could have gotten a lot of food simply by killing or scavenging young tyrannosaurs.”

“For the moment, the most important question about Deinocheirus is not what it is or what it ate,” Carradine interjected. “The critical question is, where do we look for it? The area around us has several distinct ecologies, ranging from floodplains to forested highlands. It is vital that we search for the creature in the right one.”
I nodded. “Do you have a theory about where Deinocheirus lived?” I asked.

“I suspect that it lived in the highlands,” Carradine said. “If nothing else, that would explain why it is so uncommon in the fossil record. The Nemegt formation and its fossils formed down here in the flood plain, where very few highland animals would ever reach. Those that did would most likely arrive as floating, disarticulated carcasses.”

“In that case, we should definitely explore the highlands,” I said. “Even if we don’t find Deinocheirus, it would be worth it just to learn about an environment that we can’t study in the fossil record. There are just a few more orders of business I want to discuss. First of all, I’ve decided on a roster for guard duty. I only selected those who can handle an Eliminator, which narrowed it down to Wang, Fernando, Robertson, Carlos and me. We will each work a shift of four or five hours. I will keep the first watch. Finally,” I said, making eye contact with Robertson, “I’d like you to explain why you think you can kill a Tyrannosaurus with a handgun.”

Robertson chuckled. “I don’t think I can,” he said confidently. “I know I can.” He proudly held up his pistol. “This is 14.5 mm. It can fire an 1100 grain projectile for over a mile, with pinpoint accuracy. As you have seen, it is a silenced weapon.” He pushed a button, and part of the frame shot back to become a stock. “It has a retractable stock, which allows for greater accuracy. Hunters have killed elephants with guns smaller than this.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve heard of a man named Schnyder who shot an elephant three times in the head with a .50 Magnum at a range of fifty yards. As I recall, the elephant ran for a hundred yards before it died. Snyder would obviously have been in a lot of trouble if it had run toward him instead of away from him.”

“In theory, your gun might work on T. Bataar, but I doubt if you could get within range, ” Hutchins said. “Tyrannosaurs have the largest nasal cavities among the dinosauria. They could smell you coming from a mile away.”

“You’re assuming that T. Bataar would flee from humans,” Robertson said. “They really have no reason to fear us. A dominant predator isn’t going to flee at the first whiff of an unfamiliar scent. In fact, it would be more likely to come closer to find out what the intruder is.” He had a point. I had heard of big cats in isolated areas walking right up to armed hunters.

“I’ll tell you one thing: There’s no need to worry about it not being powerful enough,” Carlos said. He held up a round for inspection. It was about 2 inches long, and most of its surface was covered by diamond-shaped dimples. “This is a Controlled Deformation projectile, otherwise known as a pineapple round. It was designed as a substitute for hollow-point rounds, to get around the conditions of an arms treaty. It has a light but tough outer layer, but the inside is soft and heavy. When the bullet hits, the interior expands and the jacket shatters. Sweet Mother, what a mess!”
“So, you think it’s adequate for killing a tyrannosaur?” I said.

“Yes—in theory. The problem is that, as the gallimime I shot demonstrated so vividly, there are different degrees of dead,” Carlos said. “If he hits the brain—and I think he can, four times out of five—there isn’t going to be much brain left. But we can’t count on that stopping it. Of course, the real problem is that if the first shot misses, or doesn’t work, or if there’s more than one dinosaur, then there’s not likely to be time for a second shot. It’s going to be vital that he has someone with a sporting rifle backing him up at all times.”

“There is no need to worry about that,” said Robertson. “I will have at least one person backing me up with an Eliminator, or my own 4-gauge. All I ask is to be allowed to take the first shot. Frankly, if you do not allow me to hunt a T. Bataar the way I want, I may have to fault the Association for breach of contract…” He didn’t need to remind us what would happen then; the company would be stuck with $15 million in unpaid bills.

Dianna came out to talk to me during my watch. “Do you feel okay?” she said. “The medic wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt,” she added, as if trying to allay any suspicion that she might be having unprofessional thoughts about me.

“I feel great,” I said. “Incidentally, how are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said. She ran her hands through her hair and sighed. “A little frustrated, but fine.”
I smiled. “Did you have trouble setting up the electronics, or did you get into an argument with the paleontologists?”

“A little of A, and a lot of B,” she said. “Honestly, I don’t understand why any of them believe in evolution. They would be insisting that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming one minute, and in the next, they would be admitting that even their best ‘transitional forms’ aren’t really ancestors of anything. But when I suggested that evolution wasn’t true, they looked at me like I’d suggested the Earth was flat.” She looked at me intently, her eyes shining in the moonlight. “Ted, what do you believe?”

“I’ve never felt informed enough to make a decision about evolution,” I said, truthfully enough. There was a moment of silence. “Dianna,” I said, a little nervously, “are you… seeing anyone?”

“Yes,” she said. I saw a gleaming of teeth as she grinned. “In fact, my boyfriend proposed two days before we left. I told him to hold onto the engagement ring until I get back.” My heart sank a little. I hadn’t had serious feelings about Dianna, but I had had hopes. I set my disappointment aside, and asked her about her new fiancée. One thing led to another, and we ended up talking for more than two hours.

Early the next morning, Carradine, Hutchins and I went out to look for traces of the Alioramus, while Carlos, Robertson and the other paleontologists went out in search of the tyrannosaurs’ kill. Carlos took the Amphibian, while my little group went out in a jeep. Before we went our separate ways, Robertson told Carradine, “You shouldn’t go out with only your .44 revolver. Do you know how to use a heavier firearm?”
“No, I suppose not,” Carradine said. “I haven’t had much practice with the revolver, either. I only carry it to kill snakes.”

“Well, then, I have the perfect weapon for you.” Robertson opened a carrying case and removed a weapon that looked like the missing link between a shotgun and the bazooka. “This is a 4-gauge recoilless shotgun. We used it for clearing out bunkers during the Five-Way War,” he explained. (In shotgun terminology, smaller gauge numbers denote larger shells. Thus, a 4-gauge is much larger than a 12-gauge.) “When you pull the trigger, blasts come out of both ends. Lethal shot comes out of the front, while relatively harmless plastic birdshot comes out of the back. You can hold it under your armpit or rest it on your shoulder. Make sure no one—especially yourself—is directly behind the back end when you fire. Don’t worry about aiming carefully. Just point it in the general direction of the animal you want to kill, and the scattering shot will do the rest. Pump it to reload. There’re three rounds in the magazine, plus one in the chamber.”

I drove my group out to the spot where the hunting party had given up the day before. This time, there were no signs of hadrosaurs. We got out of the car and started examining the ground. Occasionally, Carradine would scan some indistinct footprint with a Topographical Laser Scanner, a device that looked like an ordinary supermarket bar code reader. It was actually a sophisticated machine that could generate three-dimensional models of footprints. After scanning thirteen tracks, he sat down on a hill and started feeding data into his portable computer. Within ten minutes, he had reconstructed the dinosaur’s activities.

“The therepod came through here twice,” Carradine said. “I only scanned the freshest tracks.” His screen showed map of the hills with the thirteen prints marked in green. It was on a small enough scale that I could make out the dinosaur’s toes. Oddly enough, the number of toes varied from print to print. “Once again, the therepod was maintaining a plantigrade stance.” He pointed to a spot at the end of the hill where the footprints abruptly became further apart. “Here, the therepod ran out of natural cover, so it ran faster to avoid detection. The footprints lead toward that gully over there. If we follow the gully, we should see footprints where it came out.”

The gully in question was up to twenty feet deep and two hundred yards long. There was little vegetation, and evidence of a recent flood. “There’s lots of mud in the bottom,” I said. “We can follow the trail on foot.” I saw no need to mention that the sides of the gully were too steep for the Thing.

“I’ll follow the trail,” Carradine said. “You can pace me in the car.” As he climbed down the gully, I heard a loud “chug-a-chug” from somewhere close by.

We followed the gully for fifty yards before I called for a halt. “No need to follow the footprints any further,” I said. “I can see where the therepod went.” On a shallow hillside about a hundred yards away, a dozen ornithomimes were feasting on something large and dead. I could hear the clacking of their bloodstained beaks, and occasional crow-like calls. For a moment, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Then I realized the truth. “They’re chameleons,” I murmured. As I watched, one of the beasts reared up as high as it could and sent ripples of crimson down its light tan back.

Carradine clambered out of the gully. “That isn’t surprising,” he said. “Several specimens of dinosaur skin have the features of color changers.” He frowned, as if he had just thought of something alarming. “Actually, most of those specimens are from tyrannosaurids.”
I let out a grim, humorless laugh. “So, the animal we’re hunting may be able to change color?”

“Exactly.” Carradine gazed at the kill. “Though it may not be a threat to us for some time. It must have made a kill, eaten its fill and then left. All those gallimimes wouldn’t be eating a carcass if a larger predator were around. As long as the therepod is full, it won’t try hunting us.”

“Actually, the Gallimimuses could have driven it away from the kill, the way hyenas do with lions,” Hutchins said. “If it’s still hungry, it will either wait around here for the Gallimimuses to finish, or go hunting for something else. It might wander toward the camp…”

“I know,” I said. “We aren’t safe as long as the Alioramus is running around. We have to find the trail. Let’s head for the kill site. We may have to fight off the gallimimes, but it’s the only way to pick up the trail.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Carradine said. “There are broken branches on a tree over there.” He pointed to a tree 100 yards away, on the far side of the gully. “I won’t be sure until I check for prints, but it looks like it was caused by a dinosaur going by. Do you want to drive the Thing across, or would you prefer to go on foot?”

“Let’s go on foot,” I said. My companions started on down, but I paused to get out the Eliminator. The gun is ludicrously overpowered for any animal smaller than an elephant (and overkill even for something the size of an elephant), but nothing else would guarantee an instant kill. As I strode toward the gully, I heard another “chug-a-chug”, much louder than before. For the first time, I wondered if it was really a frog. “Stop!” I called. Hutchins looked back at me. “Is something the matter?” she asked.

“Maybe… but stay where you are,” I told her. I raised the Eliminator and scanned the far side of the gully with its sophisticated sight. I covered the nearby stands of trees three times, and was beginning to cover them a fourth time when I spotted something. I had just traversed the rifle past a stand of trees about fifty feet away, and looked at it again on a hunch. I had to zoom in before I was certain. A dinosaur, at least 7 feet tall, was standing among the trees. Its colors matched the surrounding pines perfectly. The trees were swaying in the wind, casting dappled shadows over the dinosaur. Without those shadows, I might not have noticed it. It’s hard for me to remember just what I saw, but my impression at the time was that of an optical illusion: obvious if looked at one way, but obviously something else if looked at in another manner. I still wasn’t sure what it was, until I made out the horned crest. I drew a bead on the creature and fired just as it turned and fled. My first shot missed, and so did my second, and there was no time for a third. I was therefore able to watch it bound into the open, and change its colors to match its new, grayish-yellow surroundings in an instant. Then it vanished around a hill.

We pursued it, of course. We drove after it in the car, stopping whenever Carradine thought he saw a promising trace. The ride was very rough, and I repeatedly cursed the minimalist engineers who had built the car with no suspension. Once, we got close enough for me to take another shot at long range, but I missed again. After that, we never even found a good trail again. It seemed to have learned that we couldn’t track it across rocky ground. After almost three hours of fruitless pursuit, I was relieved when Dianna summoned us back to camp. My relief vanished when she explained the situation. “The other hunting party came back…and they brought a live Tyrannosaurus with them.”

Needless to say, I got back to camp as quickly as possible. “You guys are crazy!” I shouted as I leaped from the car. The tyrannosaur was on the bed of the Amphibian, tied up with high-tension cables. It was a young one, “only” five feet tall and fifteen feet long. Its jaws were tied shut, and cables were stretched from its head to its feet to keep it from swinging its head around. All it could do in its condition was thrash its tail, five feet of which projected beyond the tailgate, and wave its short but stout arms in fury. It made a steady, muffled growling noise. A line of long, sharp-looking scales on its back stood up tall. Overall, it was the perfect image of outraged nature held temporarily in check.

“I must say,” I said, “I’m impressed that you were able to capture this animal alive. I’d be interested in hearing how you did it. More importantly, I very much want to know if any of you gave the slightest thought to whether or not we could keep this animal for almost two weeks!”

“We aren’t planning to keep it for two weeks,” Robertson said nonchalantly. He pointed to a signaling device that they had strapped to the creature’s tail. “We wouldn’t have brought it back to camp at all, if we had thought to bring this tracking device along. Our plan is to release the animal. It should lead us to the rest of the pack, saving us days of searching.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, “but I’m not letting you release it anywhere near here. You have twenty minutes to do any additional research. After that, I’m driving it back to where you found it.” At that moment, the tyrannosaur managed to throw itself against the side of the Amphibian. For a moment, the vehicle tipped dramatically, then slammed back to the ground. “Give that thing more tranquilizers!” I ordered.

“There’s a little problem there,” Carlos said. “We didn’t give it tranquilizers. Robertson knocked it out with a 4-gauge plastic riot slug. It was the only option we had at the time, and Dr. Ramirez is reluctant to test our tranqs on an animal this big. We know absolutely nothing about the finer details of dinosaur physiology, so we can’t predict what affect the drugs we brought will have. Any given drug might be lethal, or useless, or get the dinosaur fighting mad.”

“That’s a problem,” I agreed. “But I’m willing to take the risk.” I listened carefully to the dinosaur. It was growling quietly, and swinging its tail. The dinosaur was obviously suffering from its hard knock. “Get an air gun and whatever tranquilizer you think will work best.”

Ramirez reluctantly filled a large number of darts with every tranquilizer we had. He chose a bird tranquilizer to use for his first shot. “Shoot it once,” I told him. “If it doesn’t go down, but seems to be getting drowsy, shoot it again with the same drug. If there is no effect, or if the animal becomes more violent, try a dart with a different tranq. If things really get out of hand, I’ll shoot it with this.” I hefted the Eliminator. Ramirez nodded reluctantly and fired a dart into the dinosaur’s thigh.

The dinosaur screeched and struggled to lift its head. The impact of the dart had upset it, but it soon began acting sluggishly. Its skin went from a reddish-brown color to a light tan. After five minutes, I decided that the first dose wasn’t enough. “Fire again,” I ordered. The second dart was almost too effective. The young carnivore whimpered, and immediately turned dusty white. In a matter of seconds, it collapsed, slamming its head against the back of the cab. The impact made the Amphibian lurch a few inches forward.

When the dinosaur was clearly unconscious, Carradine climbed into the back to examine its skin. I looked, too. Carradine pointed out large bumps placed at regular intervals on its skin. “These are enlarged scales, similar to those of a South American therepod called Carnotaurus, but even larger.” He prodded one of the bumps. “In fact, there could be actual bony material in here.” As he prodded, the bump and the skin around it turned pink. The tyrannosaur growled quietly, like a lion having a bad dream.

“If you want to see something really interesting,” Carlos called up, “take a look at its right side.” We did. Carradine whistled, and I tried not to be sick. Sometime in the recent past, something very large had tried to kill our captive. Three long scars ran down its ribcage. I gently touched one of the scars and felt a lump beneath the skin where a broken rib had healed imperfectly.

“A few feet further down,” I murmured, “and this guy would have lost his guts. This looks like a Deinocheirus attack.” I examined the scars more carefully. They went diagonally upward for about two feet before ending abruptly. I got the distinct impression that the attacker had had trouble striking low enough to injure the tyrannosaur.

“A full-grown Therizinosaurus might have inflicted these injuries in self-defense,” Carradine said. “But no—these scars look equally wide and deep. Therizinosaurs have one claw that is larger than the other. Besides, why would one of them attack from behind? Whatever did this was a predator, and only Deinocheirus answers the description.

“We have here an interesting opportunity to study Tyrannosaurus ontogeny. Its arms are significantly less robust than the largest fossil specimens. It is generally believed that the robust form represents a later stage of development, but it has been proposed that this represents differences between sexes, or even different species… Speaking of sexual differences, this animal has two possible display features which were absent on the one you photographed from the air. There is something like a horn developing over each eye, and then there is the crest along its back. There is no way to be sure without a dissection, but this is probably a male.”

I looked at the arm. It was half as long as mine, but more muscular, and I’m a big guy. Looking at the juvenile’s arm, I found it hard to imagine what an adult’s arm looked like. I had the unnerving realization that the animal could kill me with one swipe from its “puny” arm. “I think I’ll get out now,” I said. After climbing out of the bed, I asked Carlos: “Did you get anything else from the kill site you mentioned?”
“You bet,” Carlos said. “We found the remains of a sub-adult sauropod, like the ones you filmed from the airplane. Rivera said it was the species—What did you say it was, Luis?”
“Opisthoelecaudia,” Rivera said. “We also found a piece of a Nemegtosaurus skull.”

Carlos continued, “There wasn’t much left of the sauropod except bones. We couldn’t even find two of the legs. The tyrannosaurs probably ripped them clean off and carried them away. I’m sure they aren’t coming back, but there were little therepods all over the kill. I shot a couple of the little guys; they’re in the dissection tent right now. There’s a lot of trace data: footprints, shed teeth, teeth marks, everything. Carradine’s gonna love it. We brought back as many sauropod bones as we could. If we go back, we should try to get a few more.”
“Should be enough room. Let’s go,” I said. “By the way, whose idea was it to bring the tyrannosaur back to base camp?”
“It was mine,” Robertson said proudly.
I took the tranquilizer gun away from Ramirez and handed it to the billionaire. “In that case, you can sit in the back with the dinosaur.”

Carradine and Rivera sat with me in the cab of the Amphibian. Carlos, Carpenter and Wang followed in a Thing. They drove to the left of the Amphibian so that Wang could cover us with an Eliminator. Robertson also had one of the enormous rifles; I had ordered him to leave his revolver behind. The trip was uneventful, until we reached the river. At first, I thought the object in our path was a half-submerged boulder. Then it started moving. Muddy water streamed off its spiky, armor-clad body as it strode out of the shallows and onto the shore. I was so alarmed that it took me a moment to recognize the creature before me as an ankylosaur. It was almost seven feet tall and well over twenty feet long. “Rivera,” I said hoarsely, “we brought along a few armor-piercing rounds for the Eliminators. You can recognize them by their green tips. Open the glove compartment and see if we have any.”
“We do,” he said. At that moment, the ankylosaur squawked like a ten-ton parrot and moved toward us.

“If we shoot it, can we go over it?” I said to Carlos
“Sure, we could,” Carlos answered sardonically. “You could drive a Thing over a bed of nails. But those spikes on its side’ll tear up the cleats, and do you want that bumpy a ride with a live carnosaur on board?” The ankylosaur stopped in its tracks and squawked again. I got an all-too-close look at its fantastically bony head. I heard an ominous rumble from the tyrannosaur. “Here’s what we’ll do,” Carlos continued. “Let’s try to intimidate it by honking our horns at it. If that doesn’t work, we’ll shoot it and try to find a way around.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I said. I opened the rear window of the cab and handed Robertson a couple of armor-piercing rounds. Then I started honking. The ankylosaur squawked, louder than before, and started swinging its clubbed tail. “If it even starts to turn around,” I bellowed, “shoot it!”

Carlos drove the Thing forward with the horn blaring one long, continuous note. “Move, ya dumb dinosaur!” he shouted. I winced and covered my eyes, expecting carnage to ensue immediately. But the tactic seemed to work. The ankylosaur backed up a few paces, though it bellowed again to save face. I put the Amphibian into its lowest gear and drove directly at the dinosaur, with the horn still blaring. It backed up even further, into the shallows. Seeing that I could intimidate it, I changed course and began forcing it to the right, away from the ford.

“Go around us!” I shouted to Carlos. “I can hold it back!” Carlos drove the Thing through the shallowest part of the river. He gave one last derisive honk as he reached the far shore. I drove across next. The ankylosaur let out a long bellow. I almost ordered Robertson to shoot, but told myself that it wasn’t making any hostile moves. There must have been something I missed. Just when we had made it past the dinosaur, it charged at us like a living torpedo. Its massive head, backed up by the full force of its enormous body, smashed into our right flank. The Amphibian spun 180 degrees. I heard a splash; that was Robertson falling overboard. I also hear water sloshing in through the damaged tailgate. The Amphibian’s nose rose high out of the water. Nevertheless, I could see the ankylosaur very well as it reared up and crowed in triumph. My heart almost stopped when the tyrannosaur roared back. The cables must have come loose!

I frantically threw the Amphibian into full reverse. The ankylosaur might not attack again if I made such a gesture of submission, and once I got near shore, I could lower the tailgate with a push of a button and release the tyrannosaur. I was alarmed but not surprised when I saw Robertson dogpaddle in front of me. The Eliminator was slung over his shoulder. In an outrageous display of optimism, he gave me an “OK” sign. When the ankylosaur came after us again, he somehow managed to get off a shot. He missed, and the recoil ducked him under the water, but the noise scared the ankylosaur away.

There was a thump as the tyrannosaur kicked the tailgate. I went ahead and pushed the button, hoping to spare the tailgate from further damage. The tyrannosaur climbed out with a splash and immediately waded to shore. It approached the Thing, but thought better of it when Robertson, just then swimming ashore, fired a shot over its head. I saw its hide turn tan with green spots as it fled into the bush. “Let’s go!” Robertson said. “We only have an hour before dark.”

We ventured out to the sauropod kill. There was indeed not much left except bones. When we arrived, we found about a dozen small dinosaurs feeding on the kill. Most were a beaked type with big triangular crests on their forehead, two meters long and 70 centimeters tall at the hip. These mainly chewed on the more fragile bones. “Ovilaptoh mongoliensis,” Wang said. As we watched, one of the small therepods snapped a bone with its powerful beak. It then began sucking out the bone marrow, making disgusting slurping sounds in the process. Another carnosaur shrieked at us. It was of a different, slightly smaller type, with an ordinarily-shaped head and scythe-like claws on its toes. “Bologovia,” Wang said. “They were not here before. They must hunt at dusk.”

Carlos took aim at one of the Borogovia, which ran away before he could shoot. He killed an Oviraptor with his second shot, scaring away the rest of the scavengers.

I stared in awe at the scattered bones of the sauropod. It may not have been an adult, but it was no baby either. In life, it had been no less than 30 feet long. The carnosaurs feeding on it had kicked in its rib cage and consumed the heart and most of the lungs. There was an enormous hole where one of its hind legs had been ripped out of its socket. Rivera casually explained that the species had unusually large hip sockets that allowed it to stand on its hind legs more easily than other sauropods. Carradine photographed the numerous teeth marks in the bones, and pulled out seven shed Tyrannosaurus teeth. One of the teeth was imbedded in the tendons of the neck.

“This appears to be the fatal wound,” Carradine said. “They couldn’t have done it to a healthy sauropod, though. It must have already been wounded and exhausted, with its head held much lower than usual. I wouldn’t be surprised if its belly had been ripped open. The tyrannosaurs probably ambushed it, inflicted a few bites, and then followed it while blood loss wore it down. It could have taken hours, even days, but the outcome was virtually inevitable. Bad way to go.”

He carefully examined the tyrannosaur tracks that were all over the kill site. “There’s so much overlapping of tracks that it’s hard to find identifying characteristics for individual track makers,” he said, “but there were clearly at least six tyrannosaurs at the site, ranging from juvenile to adult size. There are no signs of infant tracks. The missing limbs may have been carried back to a nest.”
“If it exists,” I said thoughtfully, “the nest is bound to be heavily guarded.” I shuddered at the thought of dealing with six of the monsters at once.

Our trip back to camp was uneventful, as was the evening. Zapata spent a large portion of the night showing us the small animals he had collected from his traps. There were strange lizards with just a few teeth, one unlucky toothed bird, and a lot of small mammals. The mammals, for the most part, were mouse- or shrew-like creatures that were hard to distinguish from modern ones.

I listened attentively to Zapata’s descriptions of them. He had divided them into two groups: Metatherians and Eutherians. The Metatherians, he explained, were ancestors of modern marsupials, while the Eutherians were the ancestors of modern placentals. In the Maastrichtian, however, most Eutherians still had a marsupial-type reproductive system. Surprisingly, Dianna listened to all this without arguing. I suspected that it was because Dr. Zapata was threatened by her. Ever since the group started training, he had been singling her out for his attention. So far, his behavior had been subtle and totally platonic, but Dr. Rivera expected his colleague to try to seduce her before the trip was over. “His exploits in the field are legendary,” Rivera had told me. As I watched Zapata answer a few questions from Dianna, I decided that it was about time to tell her about his reputation.

Dr. Zapata was very excited about two specimens that he was keeping alive in plastic cases. One was a squirrel-like animal that he believed to be a primitive primate. “I actually collected two; I have already dissected the other,” he said. He pointed to the other case. “This animal is even more significant. It is a monotreme.”

Dianna looked confused. The name sounded familiar, but it took me a moment to recall what it meant. “You mean an egg-laying mammal, like a platypus?” I asked. The scientist nodded. “I thought they were restricted to Australia, even in prehistoric times.”

“Not true,” Zapata said. “A few monotreme fossils have been found in South America and Antarctica. This is the first evidence that they reached Asia as well.”

I peered closely at the creature. It was certainly a strange creature. It was the size of a cat, which was as big as Cretaceous mammals got, and looked like a cross between a mole and a Tasmanian devil. As I bent down for a closer look, it snarled and took a snap at me. Its broad, hairless snout bumped harmlessly against the transparent lid of the case. The creature began to thrash about, hissing like a snake and scraping the case with its large claws and scimitar-like fangs. I noticed that its legs were splayed to the sides, like a lizard’s. The egg-laying platypus and echidna had a lizard-like posture, I recalled, because they had the same limb structure as reptiles. It was supposed to be because they were very primitive mammals that retained some features of their reptilian ancestors. However, the creature before me looked like an unusually sophisticated killing machine. The tiny primate heard the commotion, and began scrabbling desperately at the sides of its case. It obviously wanted to get as far away from its ferocious neighbor as possible. I pondered the fact that the primate was a possible ancestor of humanity, and wondered how it had survived long enough to leave descendants.

“That thing looks like a furry lizard from hell,” Carlos remarked. “Hey, that would make a good scientific name: Pilosaurus infernali’.” (When Zapata wrote the paper that formally described the species, that’s actually what he called it!)

The next day, it rained so hard that we had to spend the whole day in camp. The day after that, it rained even harder. We spent two more days waiting for the water to recede.