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.