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.

It was hard being cooped up in our tents for four days, especially when the flood waters rose so high that they lapped at our ankles. We got through it, though, without being tempted to kill each other. The paleontologists spent the time happily studying the specimens we had already collected. Rivera and Wang got into a very heated argument about whether the “Nemegtosaurus” skull found at the kill site was in fact the head of Opisthoelecaudia. Nemegtosaurus had previously been known only from the skull, while Opisthoelecaudia had been known from a headless skeleton. Since the known remains of the two “species” had been classified as two different kinds of sauropods, generations of paleontologists had assumed that they couldn’t be the same animal. Wang insisted that the skull must belong to the dead Opisthoelecaudia, while Rivera insisted that it was an “evolutionary impossibility”.
“So, maybe they didn’t evolve,” Dianna remarked quietly.

I asked Carlos: “What happens if the species do turn out to be the same animal? What will we call it then?”

“That’s happened many times before,” he answered. “The rule is, whichever name was given first is the ‘valid’ one, even if it is obscure, based on poor material, or flat-out inaccurate. That’s why we got stuck with things like Apatosaurus instead of Brontosaurus, or a whale whose official name translates as ‘king lizard’.”

I spent much of the time with Dianna, either talking or helping her check our equipment for water damage. I learned more about her. Unfortunately, Dr. Zapata also talked to her whenever he could. I had never told her about his reputation, but she obviously realized that he was being more than just friendly. She stayed polite, but I could tell that he was getting on her nerves. “He knows I’m engaged,” she finally complained to me on the fourth day of the expedition. “Why doesn’t he give up and go away?”

“Guys can be very persistent,” I answered circumspectly. “If he’s bothering you too much, you can come out with me to check on the vehicles. He probably won’t follow you out in the rain.”
“I think I will.”

By then, the rain was dying down, so we didn’t get too wet. The vehicles were in perfect condition, except for the Amphibian. Water was flowing in freely through the damaged tailgate. We found three fish and an exceptionally strange bird swimming around inside the bed. The bird had teeth, ludicrously small wings, webbed feet and legs that were splayed out at right angles to its pelvis. I netted the bird, and then lowered the tailgate.

We brought the bird straight to the paleontologists, who identified it as a hesperornid. A little later, I decided to ask the gathered paleontologists: “Is it really true that there are no ‘transitional forms’ in the fossil record?”

The paleontologists seemed hesitant to answer. (I think it was because Dianna was around, and they didn’t want her jumping on anything they said.) I was surprised when Carradine spoke first. “It’s true enough,” he said with complete candor. “In the strictest sense, a transitional form would have to be, first, part of a direct chain of ancestry, and second, intermediate in form and lifestyle between its ancestors and its descendants. No such animal has been found, and there is no reason to expect it to be found. The fossil record is much to poor to offer any sequences of direct ancestry. The best we can hope to find are ‘cousins’ removed from each other in varying degrees. Furthermore, it is clear that evolution does not proceed in anything like a linear fashion. The bird you caught is a perfect demonstration. While some birds were evolving more and more sophisticated flight systems, the hesperornids’ ancestors were evolving equally exotic features for an aquatic lifestyle. Evolution did not go in one direction, but several.

“Since the late 1900’s, all technical analyses of evolutionary relationships have been carried out through cladistic analysis. Cladistics is founded on the recognition that every taxon has both uniquely evolved or ‘derived’ features, and ‘primitive’ features which are shared with other taxa through common ancestry. Through primitive and derived characters, we can determine which organisms share a common ancestor, even if the ancestor itself is never found.”

“That sounds like circular reasoning to me,” Dianna said. “You assume that the features are evidence of evolution, and then use a diagram to show what you think happened but can’t prove. If there’s no direct evidence for evolution, why bother with the theory?”

“We do have plenty of evidence for microevolution,” Hutchins said. “With time travel, we can better document how microevolution leads to larger changes.”

“But I thought the fossils already show that species stay the same,” Dianna said calmly. “Time travel will just prove what you already know.”

Things went on like that for quite a while. Finally, Carradine said, “Look, what this comes down to is that scientists have to rely on physical causes. It’s useless to appeal to a metaphysical force that we can never observe.”

“Is that really different from what you already do?” Di said. “You don’t see common ancestors, but you try using cladistics to describe them. You didn’t see the animal that attacked that tyrannosaur, but you recognized the `terrible hand’ from its prints. Why shouldn’t the hand of God leave the same marks on our world?”

Right about then, Carlos wandered in. He seemed preoccupied with other things, but stopped to put in a few words. “You can talk all you want about the supernatural intruding into our world,” he said. “But you don’t really know about it. You haven’t experienced it. If you had, I should think you wouldn’t want to know any more.” Then he grabbed a tool and walked out.

I decided to follow him. I found Carlos doing something with one of the shotguns. “Are you trying to re-enable the selective fire function on that gun?” I said accusingly. The combat shotguns were military surplus weapons. They had originally been capable of traditional pump action, semi-automatic fire and fully automatic bursts, but the third option had been disabled before the guns were sold to us.
“No,” Carlos said sheepishly. “I’m just, ah, cleaning it.”

“With a pair of pliers?” I asked rhetorically. “Carlos, you know it’s illegal for a civilian to buy, sell or restore an automatic shotgun. You could get five years in prison for that. I order you to stop.”

“Too late,” Carlos said. With a few deft movements, he reassembled the gun. “I’m finished.”
“If anyone else finds out about this, you’ll go to jail.”

“No, I won’t,” Carlos said. “It’s funny. There’s no law against owning an automatic shotgun, as long as it was purchased legally, and they can’t get me for modifying it here. That would be ex post facto law—70 million years post facto!”
“It’s still wrong,” I said firmly, “not to mention unsporting.”
Carlos laughed. “‘Sporting’ means the target has a chance,” he said with a trace of bitterness. “I wouldn’t dream of using a sporting weapon.”

‘There’re a few things I need to talk to you about,” I said to Carlos. “One of them is Zapata. He’s acting up. Dianna’s getting upset. What do we do about him? Hell—have you ever dealt with anything like this?”

Carlos contemplated the question for a moment. “Well, the first thing I gotta say is that things like this don’t happen that often—not nearly as often as most people would expect. The fact of the matter is, a field expedition is about the least likely place for two people to `hook up’. There’s a lot of structure, not much privacy or free time, an’, of course, completely unchecked BO. Not what most people would consider an environment for sexual escapades. For the most part, anything that goes on in the field is between spouses or otherwise ‘steady’ partners. Often as not, there will be a couple or two in an expedition sharing a tent. What goes on in there is their own business—but the easy money is on ‘not much!’

“A guy like Zapata is a pretty rare breed. One can work in the field for years without running into his like, but, on any given expedition, there’s likely to be at least one person who has. The typical profile is a respected, well-established professor, often married with grown children, who jus’ likes to bag some young meat once a year. The other party always seems to be a student or younger subordinate. I think what the type really gets off on is the feeling of authority, not the sex. They seem to be pretty good at seeing which ones will go for it and which ones won’t, and choosing their battles accordingly. S’long as it proceeds like that, it’s nobody’s business, least till they get home. The one time I’ve seen it get ugly was when there were two of ‘em on the same expedition, an’ they went for the same one…One man went at t’other with a rock hammer, t’other fought back with an axe, an’ I had to sit them down to chat with my 12-gauge. But that pretty colleen, she was brighter than most… She turned ‘em both down! That’s exactly what Dianna is going to do, an’ there’s nothing Zapata can do about it. Don’t worry about it.”

I nodded, feeling a little more at ease. “What did you mean in the tent just now?”
Carlos looked at me quizzically. “The best way I can answer that is with my own question. Will you accept that?” I nodded. “Good. Here goes. Do you really believe in your God?” I looked at him, stunned. “I don’t mean if you believe He exists. I mean, do you trust Him? And would you really want to know Him?”

“Yes,” I said, somewhat hesitantly.
“If you really mean that, you’re a more devout man than I,” Carlos said. “Me, I pray to the Mother. But I don’t treat Her like a best buddy or a bloody Member of Parliament. If I did, I don’t think I should like it if She responded. And why should you? What did the angels in the Bible always say? ‘Fear not!’ or ‘It’s good to see you, too’? Do you think any of the people who talked to them wanted to do it again?

“That’s the problem with modern religion, Christian or pagan. The old fears are gone, and the old respect has died with them. Instead of the Queen of Darkness, one gets Tinkerbelle. Not even that, really; the original Tinkerbelle at least had enough character to let Peter Pan pick up the poison! The ones that try to worship the Goddess in their cozy apartments with cards and Ouija boards and crystals—speaking of, what the f* do they think is in their crystals that couldn’t equally well be in a bag of sand?—they’re trivializing Her. They should be praying that She doesn’t take notice. They’re like the bloody old-fashioned alchemists, messing with things they don’t understand and hoping they don’t blow themselves up.”

The rain finally stopped that night. The next day was uneventful—that is until around sunset. Dianna decided to take a shower. I chivalrously stood guard, armed with an Eliminator. I was more concerned about Zapata playing Peeping Tom than about attacks from the wildlife. I surveyed my surroundings, if only to fight the temptation to take a peek at Di. When she was about halfway done, Carradine ran up. “Mr. Flockman, you must come immediately,” he said. “I’ve found an Alioramus print in the camp.”

I switched on the Eliminator’s night scope. “Dianna,” I called back, “I have to go attend to something.”

Carradine led me to the bottom of the next hill, at the very edge of the waters. Carlos was already there, with the newly modified shotgun in his arms. “The trace is under water,” Carradine said. “It’s just one toe print. I think it was made this morning, when the water was several feet higher.”

I gazed into the murky water. There was something there that looked like a print, on close examination, but it seemed quite unidentifiable. “Could it have been made by an aquatic reptile?” I asked. “Like, say, a turtle or a crocodile?”
“It’s unlikely,” Carradine said. “There’s evidence of a claw mark.”
“Besides,” Carlos said, “a crocodilian is about as dangerous as any dinosaur.”

I gazed through the scope. A somewhat primitive infrared sensor provided me with a black-and-white image of heat sources. All I saw was a faint gray speck, probably a drowned mammal. I double-checked, and found that I was looking at a living mammal that was paddling against the current. “The mud and the water are obscuring heat sources,” I said aloud. “The creature will be tough to find.”
That was when Dianna screamed.

Needless to say, Carlos and I rushed over as fast as we could. Long before we reached the hilltop, I heard a screech, and the sound of heavy feet retreating into the forest. I was relieved to find Dianna safe, crouched behind the shower curtain. Robertson was thirty feet away, with his pistol still in his hands. The only sign of the dinosaur was a streak of blood in the water. “I shot it in the chest. It won’t be back,” he said confidently. At that moment, there was another “chug-a-chug” from beyond the next hill.

“Damn right, it won’t be back!” I shouted as I rushed for the Amphibian. “We’re going to kill it!”

“Yeah!” Carlos said as he ran after me. “I mean, sneaking into camp was bad enough, but threatening a defenseless woman in the shower? That’s f*in’ melodramatic!”

We spent almost an hour driving around in the growing darkness, trying to track the wounded creature down. I drove the Amphibian, while Carlos blasted suspicious-looking objects with automatic bursts. “I got it!” he said after one object exploded in a red burst of gore. He squinted at what was left. “Well, I got something…” From far away, there was a defiant “chug-a-chug”.

“I want two people on watch all night!” I fumed as we got into camp. “If that thing comes within 100 meters of the camp, I want to know about it.” I angrily slammed the door and stalked away. Then I stepped on the tail of a very large lizard…

I was paralyzed but fully conscious as Carlos and Zapata rushed me into the dissection tent. The scent of the peppermint spray seemed more unpleasant than usual. I heard Dianna shout my name. When I didn’t respond, she came over to me and shouted in my ear. I was touched, but the sound was painful. “Don’t shout,” Carlos told her. “Making noise isn’t going to bring him out of this. Anyway, I think he can hear and see just fine. I’ve seen symptoms like this before, when one of the men I was training with got bitten by a blue-ringed octopus.” He sighed. “He didn’t make it, but others have.”

“Will Ted die?” Dianna asked bluntly. Her normally husky voice came out as a hoarse whisper.
The medic answered: “I can’t say without more information. What did this?”

“It was a lizard, probably genus Estesia,” Carlos said. “I had to sever its jaw muscles to make it let go. We can take a sample of the venom…”

“It won’t make much difference,” the medic said. “There’s no way we could create an anti-venom fast enough to do Mr. Flockman any good, even if we had the right equipment.”
Di said, “Level with me doc. Can you even do anything to help him?”

“Probably not,” the doctor said. “We don’t have even the most rudimentary equipment for treating a poisoning. Call it an unfortunate oversight. I suppose all we can really do is wait and pray.”
For a moment, Di leaned over me. “I intend to,” she said.

It was perversely difficult for me to get to sleep. Carlos talked to me for a while, even though I couldn’t respond in any way. “We’ll wait one more day for the water to subside,” he explained to me, “and then we’re moving out for the hunt. We have had sporadic responses from the tracking device, so we know roughly where to go. Dianna, the medic and Zapata will be staying in camp with you. I’m afraid we’ll have to take the heavy weapons with us, but you will have the assault rifle, the ‘modified’ shotgun and a few varmint rifles. Carradine told me to leave this by your bedside, just in case you have any more night visitors.” He showed me Carradine’s revolver, and then left it there. Dianna came in afterward and read from her Bible. Before she was done, I had finally fallen sound asleep.

In the morning, everyone came into the dissection tent and ate breakfast. I couldn’t raise my head to look around, but the sound of activity was soothing. Carlos and Dianna made a point of speaking to me. “You’re lucky,” Carlos said at one point. “You can have breakfast intravenously.”

I spent most of the day unconscious. At one point, I was rudely awakened by electrical shocks as the medic restarted my heart. Some time later, I heard the medic say, “The poison’s effects are strengthening, but they should reach their peak soon. If I can keep him alive through the night, he will probably make a complete recovery.”

The next memory I have is of waking up when someone touched my arm. Dianna was standing over me with a radiant smile on her face. Bright sunlight streamed through her copper-colored hair. “Good morning, Ted,” she said simply.

I don’t have many memories of that day. The medic watched me closely, and Di dropped in frequently. Carlos even talked to me over the radio. “Hang in there, mate!” he said cheerfully. “In another week, we can all go home.”

By late afternoon, I was able to speak again, barely. I told the medic about an unpleasant tingling sensation all over my body. “That’s a good sign,” he told me. “It means the neurotoxin is wearing off.”

Most of the memories I do have of that day are unsettling ones. Several times, I heard assault rifle or shotgun fire from very close by. Once, the sustained gunfire sounded like nothing short of a pitched battle. I later learned that a young ankylosaur had charged the camp, only to be felled by a score of assault rifle bullets and half a dozen shotgun slugs. I was even more disturbed afterward, when I heard Dianna and Zapata arguing at the edge of hearing. I correctly assumed that he was pressuring her to spend the night with him. The ultimate fright, however, came in the middle of the night.

I was awakened by a series of loud, short ripping sounds. I woke up gradually. I didn’t even open my eyes until after the fifth of those sounds. By then, I had no doubt that something was trying to break into the tent. Each rip was the sound of a claw stabbing through the bulletproof fabric of the tent. Any good stabbing weapon could penetrate the fabric; however, it was virtually impossible to tear or cut material lengthwise. The would-be intruder had to stab into the fabric repeatedly, until the holes it made combined to produce an opening big enough to walk through.

With curious detachment, I wondered what animal was trying to break in. The moonlight through the tent showed a silhouette scarcely taller than a chicken. Its claw thrust again, and I saw that it was straight, not curved. It could only be a Borogovia, perhaps one of the same pair that we had encountered at the sauropod kill. As I watched, the borogove pushed the fabric apart like a pair of curtains and entered the tent. Vivid zebra stripes and large, jewel-like eyes seemed to glow in the moonlight. I could see its head pan about, surveying what it had discovered. Suddenly, the whimsical name did not seem nearly as appropriate. It took a long sniff at a carton of PUCs beside it, only to turn away with a contemptuous snort. (As Carlos remarked later, this was surely a sign of its great intelligence.) That was when its luminous eyes fixed on me.

The borogove let out a quiet chirp. Another, larger borogove squirmed in through the hole in the fabric. The pair strode toward me, sniffing loudly. “Help!” I shouted. My voice was too weak for the others to hear, and may have convinced the dinosaurs that I was too feeble to defend myself. The larger borogove walked right up to me and pressed her snout against my belly. She took one last sniff, probably to determine if I was too sick to be edible.

I was already fumbling clumsily for the revolver. I almost knocked it to the floor. Finally, I managed to wrap my numb fingers around the grip and pick up the weapon. I took aim at the smaller borogove and fired. The bullet struck home, knocking the small dinosaur clear across the tent. His mate got nasty powder burns inside her nostrils. She made a hacking sound, like a cat coughing up a hairball, and then threw her head back and shrieked. I fired a second shot, missing her long and slender neck by a fraction of an inch. She had had more than enough. She turned and fled; I shot her as she struggled through the hole in the tent. She still managed to escape, but she didn’t get far. Seconds later, a burst of assault rifle fire rang out. Dianna had collected another, mostly complete troodontid for our team.

After two days, we were confident that the lizard’s venom wasn’t going to kill me. On the fourth day, I was lucid enough to monitor the hunting party’s progress through the audio-video feed. Their meandering path had taken them 15 miles northeast of base camp.

The day’s broadcast began with a calibration exercise. What I saw on the screen looked like a sparse pine forest in the middle of a snowstorm, viewed from the deck of a boat on rough seas. “Try adjusting the transmitter. There’s a lot of static,” I said. “Also adjust the gyrostabilizers; the camera must be bobbing like crazy.”
“—ell me ab— it!” Carpenter responded.

For several minutes, Carpenter walked around while Fernando fussed with the transmitter. The camera quickly stabilized, though there was still enough wobble to make me just a bit queasy. Getting a good picture was more difficult. “That’s making it worse,” I said. “That’s an improvement… better… getting worse again… okay, I suppose this is as good as it will get.” Most of the snow was gone, but the colors were throbbing like a strobe light. After a few minutes of watching the screen, I had motion sickness and a headache.
“Maybe you should go back to sleep,” Dianna whispered.
“No,” I groaned stubbornly. “I have to stay awake, give what help I can.”

Realistically, I couldn’t expect to tell the hunting party anything that they couldn’t figure out for themselves. However, I wasn’t going to get much sleep, either, as long as my colleagues were in a dangerous situation. I compromised by shutting my eyes while listening to the audio feed. “Carlos,” I asked, “how much ammunition is left?”

“24 rounds. On the next expedition, we’ll have to bring more. Wang and Fernando have the Eliminators; I’m using the Tactical.”
“Is Robertson still using his pistol?”
“Unfortunately, yes. But he has Carradine and Carpenter backing him up. George has a good chance of taking down a dinosaur with that 4-gauge, and Carpenter has a 12-gauge that will at least make a lot of noise. He could certainly make a hostile tyrannosaur think twice.”

“Any signs of the tyrannosaur pack?” I asked.
“We have found dozens of track ways,” Carradine said. “I have confirmed that there are no fewer than six individuals of various ages in the area. Interestingly, the tracks are rarely accompanied by spoor; I suspect that the dinosaurs are relieving themselves at fixed locations near the center of their territory. Unfortunately, neither the track ways nor the movements of the tagged juvenile have led us to a central nesting site. However, I am confident that one does exist somewhere in those hills.” I opened my eyes to see where he was pointing.

The hills in question were a string of five tall, lightly wooded hills about ten miles away from the hunting party’s camp. It was definitely a good place for a carnosaur nest. Several streams ran through the hills. Several game trails lay within a few miles of the nest; I could see a dozen hadrosaurs grazing nearby. There were enough trees to provide camouflage for the enormous predators, but enough open space for them to maneuver. The hills themselves were very steep; any dinosaur that tried to attack the nest would have a hard time reaching it. “Looks hard to climb,” I said. “I’m glad I’m here in bed.” I looked over the hills to the mountains beyond. “You know, Carradine, if your theory is right, you’re in prime Deinocheirus territory.”

I dosed off, and was awakened by Carradine’s excited shout: “We found the midden!” I opened my eyes to see a hummock where two hills joined. At the bottom of the furrow, sure enough, was an enormous mound of dinosaur bones and droppings. Over the audio feed, I could hear a loud buzzing which was not static. I soon saw the cause: a swarm of very large flying insects was hovering over the waste heap. As I watched, a squadron of the wasp-like insects flew toward the camera. Carradine continued: “This is a find that must be studied. Could someone fire a smoke grenade?”

Carlos fired two shotgun grenades. The hostile insects scattered to escape the resulting clouds of smoke. Carradine jumped out of the Amphibian and jogged toward the midden; the others followed cautiously behind. “Note how the midden is placed as far as possible from any water source,” Carradine shouted back. “This shows that the tyrannosaurs are fairly intelligent.”

“If they’re smart enough not to drink out of a toilet,” Carlos mused, “then they must be smarter than dogs!” Dianna and I smiled at the joke, but I could hear the strain in his voice. He was stalking cautiously toward the midden with the Tactical in hand. He might joke around to relieve the tension, but he was prepared for an attack that might come at any moment.

“I don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to, and I definitely want to get away from here before dark,” Carlos said. “If we’re going to study the midden and survey the hill tops, we may need to split up. Wang, Hutchins, Rivera—I want you to stay here. Wang, you will have to keep watch. Shoot any tyrannosaurs on sight. Robertson, Carradine, Fernando and I will go up the hills. Carpenter, I suppose you’ll want to come along too.” The camera wobbled as Carpenter nodded enthusiastically.

A few minutes later, Carlos shouted, “Halt! There’s a tyrannosaur at the top of that hill!” Carpenter did a pan of the nearest hill, but obviously couldn’t find the dinosaur.

“Shift left,” I said. “I think it’s behind those saplings…Yes, you’re pointing the camera right at it. Zoom in…Yeah, I’m sure.” The tyrannosaur was a young one, no more than six feet tall. It was a light tan color with green spots. I didn’t see any signs of a tag.

“The tagged individual is a kilometer away,” Carlos said. “Let’s take this one, quietly. Robertson, you do the honors.” The silent, deadly shot struck the dinosaur in the head. It fell, but let out a roar before dying. There was another, much louder roar from the next hill, and several answering roars from somewhere in the distance. Carlos swore vehemently.
“There must be an adult at the top of that hill,” Carradine said. “Chances are there’s a nesting site up there as well.”

“There she is!” Carpenter shouted. On the top of the highest hill, an enormous tyrannosaur reared above the treetops and roared. “She must be seven meters tall!”

Carlos fired three shots at it. “She’s mine!” Robertson snarled. He fired his pistol, and the dinosaur retreated with a visible wound on its shoulder. There was another deafening roar. I could make out another sound: shrill squeals that could only be young tyrannosaurs.

“You should send some people up the hill,” I said. “That monster may try to sneak around and attack your flank.” “Robertson, you go. Carradine, go with him,” Carlos said tersely. “The tagged juvenile has closed to 500 meters.” Robertson and Carradine went up the hill. Carlos climbed on top of the Amphibian’s bow. There were four shots from the direction of the midden.
I heard Wang shout, “T. bataal! T. bataal! Heading fo’ youuu…”

Fernando fired two shots into the trees. I got a glimpse of their target, a six-foot-tall juvenile tyrannosaur charging through the woods at more than 30 miles per hour. Fernando missed, and the juvenile ran straight for him. “Don’t piss around with that ammo!” Carlos shouted. He fired a spray of five shots, downing the tyrannosaur, and shot it twice more when it started to get up. “The tagged one is retreating,” he said. From the top of the hill, there was a shotgun blast. Carlos loaded a new clip. “No worries, mates—oh Sweet Mother!”

Without warning, eight adult tyrannosaurs came running out of the forest. Five razor-backed males led the charge, while three of the larger females followed close behind. Fernando killed the nearest male, while Carlos brought down another male and wounded a female. The pack fell into disarray. A male retreated into the forest, while the wounded female turned and ran in the general direction of the midden. However, the uninjured females pressed onward, driving the remaining males before them.

Fernando frantically reloaded the Eliminator with the last two shells in the hollow stock. Carlos also had to pause to reload. Carpenter held the tyrannosaurs off with a volley of poorly aimed shotgun blasts. He then turned and fired at the retreating female. “Don’t waste your ammo on her,” I said. “She’s moving away from the hill, so she shouldn’t be a threat to the rest of the party.” Shots rang out again; two from the Eliminator and five from the Tactical. Carpenter turned his head in time for me to see a female fall dead with an Eliminator bullet in the chest. A badly wounded male staggered into the Amphibian. The back end of the vehicle reared off the ground as the dinosaur collapsed on top of the hood. The damaged tailgate fell open with a loud thud. Carlos tumbled cursing from the roof. The injured male lurched back onto its feet and ducked its head to devour the noisy creature that had hurt it so grievously. Five more shots rang out, and Carlos’s attacker went down for good.

The last two tyrannosaurs had stopped in their tracks, as if trying to make sense of what had happened. They hissed and snapped their jaws in an obvious threat display. Fernando stood completely still, with his empty gun still raised. “Carpenter,” I said, “fire a blast into the air. It may scare them off.” He did as I suggested. The dinosaurs reared back and screamed. Red bulls’ eyes flared up in the centers of their green spots. The male took a step forward. “Now shoot the male—NO, FERNANDO! DON’T RUN!”

Fernando lunged for the Amphibian’s door, hoping to get more ammo from the cab. Though well-intentioned, it was the worst thing he could have done. One show of weakness was enough to convince the predators that humans were potential prey. Miraculously, Fernando reached the cab before the male could rush in and devour him. The charging male slammed into the Amphibian at high speed, nearly overturning the lightly built vehicle. When it slammed back down, a door swung open; the male immediately seized the door in his jaws and ripped it off its hinges. The female stood still for a moment. She swiveled her head back and forth, and finally rested her eyes on Carpenter. For a fraction of a second, she seemed to stare straight into the camera. Then the cameraman dove under the vehicle.

The video feed went out in a flurry of static as soon as Carpenter got under the vehicle. Dianna and I could still make out sounds, and they were not at all reassuring.
There were two loud thumps as the female climbed onto the bed of the vehicle. The vehicle’s suspension and aluminum chassis groaned in agony under her weight. Plastic scraped as she clawed at the bed. An Eliminator shot rang out. Moments later, there was a barely audible crash, which I suspected to be the sound of the windshield braking. Another shot was fired, but two roars immediately after showed that both tyrannosaurs were still alive and well. Metal screeched as the female clawed through the bed and into the chassis. “If she claws into a hydrogen tank, there could be an explosion,” I murmured.

Just when I thought that the tyrannosaurs had won, I heard the beeping of a horn and a volley of gunfire. The rest of the hunting party had come to the rescue. There was a loud thump as another tyrannosaur fell dead, followed by loud footsteps as the survivor retreated. Moments later, the picture returned. The first thing I saw was the retreating female, pursued by a car. The car turned around and drove up to Carpenter. Wang waved the Eliminator in triumph. Hutchins stuck her head out the driver’s side window. “I’d say this qualifies as a successful hunt,” she said, and then beeped the horn.

“I certainly succeeded,” Robertson shouted from the hilltop. “Look east and you can see something interesting.” Carpenter climbed unsteadily onto the flat bed. From there, he filmed a touching sight. At the other end of the chain of hills, a column of baby tyrannosaurs were retreating into the forest, escorted by an adult male, the injured female and an injured juvenile. As we watched, the fleeing female ran over to join them. Watching the family escape, I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty for what we had done to them.

“Did you get the big sow?” Carlos said. He was crouched next to the second male he had killed.

“Yes,” Robertson said proudly. “Dr. Carradine crippled her, and I finished her off with a bullet to the side of the head. She was quite cunning, and very large. Height is at least three meters at the hip—bigger than any fossil that’s been found.” He casually reloaded his pistol.

“I suppose we can haul her back to camp,” Carlos said wearily. “The Amphibian’s taken a major beating, but it should still run.”

I noticed a barely perceptible movement in the bushes near Robertson. “LOOK OUT!” I screamed. Robertson snapped the pistol shut and twirled around, just as his “slain” quarry erupted from the bush. He fired into the sow’s nose at point blank range, knocking her head to the side. But this time, it wasn’t enough. The carnosaur matriarch knocked him off his feet with a swipe of her injured snout. She then tried to snap up Carradine. The scientist dodged with surprising agility and fired the 4-gauge down her throat. The matriarch promptly collapsed and tumbled down the hill. Robertson rolled out of her way, just in time to avoid being crushed.
There was a long moment of stunned silence. Then Carlos spoke: “T. battle indeed.”
“Carlos,” I groaned, “if you keep making puns like that, I’m going to have to leave you behind.”

When the shooting stopped, I went right back to sleep. The hunting party worked until dusk, preparing dinosaurs for transport, making repairs and collecting as much data as possible. They managed to load the large sow, an adult male and two tyrannosaur heads onto the various vehicles. They also brought back the skeleton of a tyrannosaur hatchling that had been found in the midden. A few insects and insect nests were also collected; they would be a source of great excitement. Paleoentomologists concluded that they were a primitive type of bee that laid their eggs in dinosaur dung. Just as the sun was dropping below the horizon, the heavily laden vehicles began their journey back to camp.

That evening, Dianna had a fight with Zapata. She spent the night in the dissection tent with me. I had woken up by then, so we talked for much of the evening. She kept tight-lipped about her problems with Zapata. We talked about the day’s events, and then about our pasts. The conversation finally turned to the subject of what we would do after we got back. “Do you still want to be a professional time traveler?” Dianna asked.
“I wouldn’t dream of being anything else,” I answered. I silently added that I would have become a garbage man if it meant I could spend time with her.

I went to sleep late, and woke up even later. I would have slept even longer, if Dianna hadn’t shaken me awake. “The hunting party just called,” she said. “They found something you have to see.” I looked at the screen, and almost threw up at the gruesome scene.

Carpenter mercifully panned away from the carnage to Carradine. Beneath the scientist’s calm and clinical tone, I could hear a note of fear. “We found this Therizinosaurus carcass last night. We must have passed within two hundred meters of it on the way to the tyrannosaur nest,” he said. “It seems to have been dead for only a day or two. Judging from the Tyrannosaurus traces we have observed, we are just beyond the edge of the tyrannosaur pack’s territory. Judging from what was done to this dinosaur, we are currently in Deinocheirus territory.

“As you can see, this adult therizinosaur has been disemboweled, nearly beheaded and partially consumed. There are a number of unmistakable defensive wounds on its arms. Footprints indicate two attackers. As I reconstruct it, one attacker struck from the front, inflicting the wounds on its arms, while a second attacker snuck up and tore its belly open. The tactic of striking from behind to disembowel the victim also appears to have been used unsuccessfully against the juvenile tyrannosaur we captured. Here is the best predator print.”

Carpenter pointed the camera at a footprint more than five feet long. One of the three toes appeared to be nothing but a stump. “There appear to be only two toes,” Carradine said, “though if you look closely, you can see part of the ‘missing’ toe, which was being held off the ground. It presumably ends in a sickle claw, the dimensions of which we can only guess at. Judging from the length of the foot and the space between the prints, the attackers were at least fifteen feet tall. They can only be Deinocheirus.”

“This is great,” I said, “but why did you call me?”
Carradine took a deep breath. “The other paleontologists and I believe that we should pursue the Deinocheirus.”
“You can’t do that while you’re hauling 12 tons of tyrannosaur parts,” I said. “Even if you caught a Deinocheirus, you couldn’t bring it back.”

“We know. That’s why we, my colleagues and I that is, wanted to abandon all the tyrannosaur specimens and go after Deinocheirus. Robertson objects, of course, and so does Dr. Wrzniewski. I hoped that you might have a second opinion.”

“You’re talking about abandoning valuable, hard-won specimens to chase an animal you may not be able to catch,” I said critically. “You’re running low on ammo, anyway. Deinocheirus could turn the tables and kill some of you, especially if there are more than one.”
“We are willing to take our chances,” Carradine said in an ice-cool tone.

Wang spoke up: “You must realize that T. bataal is already known from many good specimens. Theh is nothing mo’ to be learned from our specimens that could not be learned from any otheh dinosaul.”
“Carlos, what’s your opinion?” I asked.

“I don’t think it would be especially dangerous to chase Deinocheirus,” he said, “but I don’t think we have a hope in hell of catching one. We’d have better chances if we waited here. I don’t think even that will work. As far as we can tell, they ran away as soon as we approached, and they aren’t likely to come back until we leave. I thought about taking our specimens back to camp and then coming back, but that would take too long.”

I had to agree. “I’m afraid I have to agree with Carlos on this one,” I said. You can examine the kill site for as long as you want, and collect anything you can carry, but be back here by sundown.” I expected protests, but there were none. However, the look on Carradine’s face was as disapproving as any words he could have said.

The hunting party returned at dusk. We spent the next day packing and preserving specimens. Using two winches, we managed to load the dead ankylosaur onto the time bell. I decided to leave the Amphibian behind to make room for all the dead dinosaurs. We had regular visits from carnosaurs, but none of them were large. The gallimimes had learned to stay away (Dianna and Zapata had killed two more during my convalescence), and we never found another trace of the Alioramus. On the day before we left, a small party went back to the therizinosaur kill site to look for signs of Deinocheirus. All they found were small scavengers. The giant predators had apparently never returned.

We ended up with nothing to do on the last day except wait for the time bell to retract. A few hours before we returned to the present, we had a surprise visit from a Deinocheirus. Hutchins was the first to see it. “It’s right across the river!” she shouted. We all gathered to look. It was standing out in the open, staring directly at us. Its golden, dark-spotted hide showed brilliantly in the setting sun. It had a long neck, though not as long in proportion to its body as a gallimime’s. Its head was about four feet long, and fairly slender. A vivid red crest jutted from its forehead like the horn of a unicorn.

“It looks to be about eighteen feet tall,” I estimated. “Its arms are a little less than half as long as its legs.”
“I wonder if it will come any closer,” Dianna mused.
We nearly jumped out of our skins when the dinosaur let out a piercing howl. It then turned and stalked away.

Everyone else began talking excitedly, but I kept my eye on the departing dinosaur. Soon, it vanished into the forest. I wondered if anyone would ever return to this time and place to try once again to collect that magnificent animal. I also couldn’t help wondering if its descendants would be ready for us.