A month later (subjectively speaking, of course), we were in Cretaceous Argentina. We brought along four vehicles: two Things, the Ora armored car and, of course, Caproni’s plane. Over the first week, Caproni and I flew five successful missions, documenting the surrounding area. We would feed our footage directly to the people on the ground, who stood ready to drive over and provide close-up documentation of anything important we might see. A technician came along on each flight to maintain the camera equipment and communications gear. Usually, the technician was chosen from among Caproni’s group, but Di came along on one flight. We spent much of the time talking to each other casually, but inside, I felt excited and scared. I pushed the plane to its limits, secretly hoping to impress her.

We concentrated on observing the activities of a herd of argentinosaurs. There were almost a hundred of them, moving in a loose column along a fern prairie of shrubs and small trees. We frequently glimpsed smaller animals moving with the herd. Iguanodons and smaller sauropods stayed close to the argentinosaurs, presumably because the invincible giants afforded a measure of protection against predators. However, carnivores were not entirely deterred. Birds, lizards and small carnosaurs moved about with impunity, snapping up prey that was driven out in the wake of the herd. Occasionally, we caught glimpses of larger carnivores (though none comparable to Giganotosaurus), following at a distance and waiting for an opportunity to take prey. The ground crew found the aftermath of a successful hunt. A young argentinosaur, weighing “only” 15 tons, had been killed by a pack of one-ton predators called Megaraptor. Track ways revealed a grueling struggle, typical of dinosaur predation. The juvenile had been attacked by surprise and wounded. Over an estimated four hours, it had moved in and out of the herd, with the raptors following behind. Its elders protected the juvenile when it was in their midst, but paid no heed when it fell further and further behind. Eventually, the juvenile had been left behind entirely, and five predators had attacked in unison.

The kill provided our first evidence of Giganotosaurus. Among the carnotaur tracks were those of a much larger carnosaur, which had moved in and dispersed the pack. Several shed giganotosaur teeth were found in the carcass, and a front leg was entirely missing. The giganotosaur had apparently eaten its fill from the haunches and then carried away the forelimb, perhaps for later consumption, but more likely for a mate or its young.
Dr. Diego, a paleontologist specializing in taphonomy, estimated that the kill was about a week old.

It was debated whether or not to kill one of the argentinosaurs. Carlos and I opposed it emphatically. “I shot a sauropod once before, on our trip to the Morrison,” I said. “It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. We got swarmed by carnosaurs, used up half our ammunition for the entire trip and finally had to leave most of the carcass behind. And remember, the biggest carnosaurs then only weighed one to two tons. In this time and place, that’s the lower limit for big-game predators!”

“What about Giganotosaurus itself?” said Dr. Indigo, the mammalogist. “Would that be worth shooting?”

I considered, but shook my head. “I don’t think so. We’d have the same problem with attracting other carnosaurs,” I said. “Besides, there’s not much we could learn from a carcass that we don’t already know either from fossils or other specimens collected through time travel. It would be more beneficial to observe the living animal.”

“Yes!” Caproni said. “And that is what we shall do!”

At the end of the first week, scouting ahead of the herd in the plane, I made an exciting discovery that would change the course of the expedition. I excitedly presented our photographs to the rest of the group that night. “The argentinosaur herd appears to be moving toward this thinly vegetated area here,” I said, highlighting an area of a few square kilometers. “About a dozen adult argentinosaurs are already there. If you look closely, you can see small depressions, about a meter wide. By our count, there are no fewer than 52 of them. We believe, and Dr. Jonston concurs, that these are nests!

“Our observations show that younger argentinosaurs are protected from predators by moving in the midst of the adults. Therefore, the arrival of the herd is most likely timed to coincide with the hatching of the first eggs. We estimate that the herd will reach the nesting area in the next two days. We have the unprecedented opportunity to observe a dinosaur hatching.”

We eagerly planned how we would photograph it. There would be daily fly-bys in the Gossamer Starship. As soon as the hatching started, the ground crew would move in to observe.

Carlos offered a voice of caution. “The argentinosaurs are protective of their young, and with hatchlings, they’re going to be especially vigilant. Those adults already at the site have probably been guarding the nests the whole time. They may not be the most attentive parents, but they certainly aren’t going to let us drive right in. Any close-up work will have to be conducted by a small group on foot. I nominate Ms. Gonzalez, Diego and myself. The Ora should be standing by a klick or two away. If things go wrong, the rest of the team will move in, kick ass with the 20 mil, pick us up and get the hell out of there.”

Over the next two days, we set the plan in motion. Three days later, Caproni spotted the first hatchling emerge from the nest. At Caproni’s request, I hovered about 100 meters above the nest. For the first time, nervousness broke through my delight at flying the plane. Hovering was tricky; there was always a risk that a change in the wind or some hiccup in the plane would break the delicate equilibrium and send the craft out of control. When I had hovered before, I had always been high enough that I could regain control if something went wrong. But now, we were so low that a problem could easily cause a crash. I realized that I had allowed Caproni’s infectious enthusiasm cloud my judgment.

I grew doubly nervous when the animals around us began to take notice of the starship. An argentinosaur reared on its hind legs, reaching well over 50 feet into the air, and roared. It undoubtedly mistook us for one of the large pterosaurs that were circling over the nest. Through Dino’s camera feed, I got a disconcertingly good look at it. It bared its teeth, just like the sneering dinosaurs of O’Brien, and two red sacks on its snout inflated. I didn’t worry about that, but I was more than a little perturbed by the pterosaurs. Some of them had wingspans even greater than my plane, and they were beginning to behave aggressively. One, with a wingspan of 40 feet, swooped down on me from above, pulling up just before it smacked into the canopy. I had won that game of chicken, but there was no guarantee that I could win the next. There was no telling what might happen if one collided with the plane. During standard aircraft tests, the plane had stood up to high-speed impacts from ducks and chickens. But a collision with a pterosaur weighing over 100 pounds would be an entirely different matter.

The pterosaur dive-bombed the plane again and again. After the third time, I pulled out of hover. That was a catastrophic mistake. Seeing my plane move away only encouraged the pterosaur to attack again. This time, it struck from behind, hitting my canopy and then getting sucked into the prop. The plane shook; gore spattered on the canopy, and the engine stopped. The Starship began losing altitude rapidly. Any other aircraft would have nosedived straight into the ground then and there. Instead, the Starship made a very steep descent, which grew steeper as we went lower. I managed to pull out of the dive with barely ten meters to spare. Just when it looked like I might get back in the air, a cantankerous argentinosaur stepped into my path. I pulled up steeply, just enough to crash into its neck instead of its descending feet.

*********************

I’m Carlos Wrzniewski. I convinced Ted to let me tell my part of this story, so we’ll take turns telling it for a while. Maybe this way you’ll get a few of the facts straight. When the Gossamer Starship crashed, I was driving a Thing toward the nest site. I wasn’t paying attention to the transmission, and didn’t realize anything was wrong until the transmission ended in static. Dianna screamed “TED!” so loud I almost got distracted from my driving. “What’s wrong?” I say.

“The plane crashed,” Di says. “It crashed into an Argentinosaurus!” Understand, she’s not being hysterical. She’s saying this almost dead pan, like she’s not sure if it’s real or not.
“Well, what do we do about it?” I say. And she’s just looking blank.
“We have to find them,” she says.

“What do you mean ‘we’?” I say. “You have all the gadgets. The plane has an automatic beacon. Take a bearing on his location.” So she does that, and starts plotting a course, but then the beacon goes out. “Well, where is it?” I say.
She says, “It’s gone!” I say, “OK, then where was it?” She gives me directions. And in a few minutes, we find the plane. It was upside down, about two klicks away from the nesting site. The thing was covered in blood. Dianna, she’s shaking, and Diego, he looks like he’s going to be sick.
I stop the Thing and get out. Before I go to check the plane, I get an Eliminator out of the back. Can’t be too careful, that’s what I always say. I touch Dianna on the shoulder and say, “Get the Tactical rifle and the camera.” But she just sits there, starting to cry. She says, “They’re all dead, aren’t they?”

I told her, “We won’t know until we check the plane. Are you gonna come?” She sits there a moment, then gets out and gets a gun. Diego opts to stay behind. I’m already convinced that at least two out of three crew members are dead. I can see that Caproni’s bubble is caved in, smashed against a tree trunk. Not one chance in ten he got out in time. As for Ted, I’m not even thinking about it. I can already see that the plane slid for quite a way upside down, and if the canopy wasn’t caved in, then it probably sheered clean off. I figure, the only person who had a snowball’s chance in Alice, Australia, of getting out alive is the technician. I look back at Di, and I can tell she’s thinking the same thing. I tell her, “Stay here. I’ll go look.” I shoulder the Eliminator, and it feels like it weighs 100 kilos instead of ten. I climb on top of the wreck (or, rather, the bottom) and look. And now I’m the one staring. Finally I say, “The plane’s empty!”

Dianna runs over. “What happened to the transmitter?” she says.
“Most likely, destroyed or disabled in the crash,” I say. Di just shakes her head.
“That beacon wasn’t a delicate piece of equipment. It’s designed to survive crashes a lot worse than this. The only way to disable it would be to bash it with something heavy on purpose.” She thinks a moment, “Oh, s*!”
I think I know what she’s thinking, and I don’t like it one bit. “The beacon was portable, wasn’t it?” I say. “If they had to leave the plane, they could have brought it with them so we could track them easily. But then maybe somebody is carrying it…”
Dianna’s frowning. “I didn’t register any significant movement between when the plane crashed and when the transmitter went out,” she says. “It must be within a few meters of here.” She thinks some more. “Is there a way to look around inside?”
“You mean besides the obvious?” I say. She blushes, and then looks through the transparent belly. “I can see where it should be,” she says. “It’s gone; they must have taken it with them…Oh, no. Oh, my God…” She just stands there, staring.
“What happened?” I say. She points.

“The transmitter is built to run on either internal batteries or on power from the plane. You see those rectangular things on the floor—well, the ceiling? Those are the batteries. The technician must have grabbed the transmitter and forgot the batteries. Unbelievable.”
I shake my head. “Not unbelievable, Di; it’s common. In military circles, this sort of thing is called ‘fog of war’. When people are in dangerous situations, they stop being rational. Instead of planning and thinking through their actions, they fall back on instincts and routines. It can save a man’s life, and his sanity. But sometimes, the process short-circuits. That’s when things like this happen.”
“So, what do we do? We can’t track them, and chances are they don’t know it. It seems…hopeless.”

“You ever study classical mythology?” I say. She shakes her head.
“I picked up bits and pieces in school and from books and movies. But no, I’ve never studied it. Why on Earth do you ask?”
“Well, in the old days, people had gods and goddesses for just about everything. One of the major goddesses was for hunting. The Greeks called her Artemis. The Romans called her…Dianna.” She just looks at me, kind of blank. “Look, I know that won’t mean much to you, but just think it over. The master of the hunt is your namesake. You gotta think like her and be like her. Do that, and nothing is impossible. Now—let’s hunt!”

*********************

While they were looking at the plane, I (Ted), Caproni and the technician (her name was Rosita Perez) were navigating the nest. We had survived the plane crash with nothing worse than bruises. Caproni had tumbled out of his bubble on impact. I had fared the worst. When the plane had hit the ground upside-down, the canopy over my head remained miraculously intact, but I hit my head against it repeatedly. I ended up unconscious, and Caproni and Perez had to drag me out.

I regained consciousness as a group of dinosaurs approached. I heard the telltale shrieks of carnotaurs. “Are you all right?” Caproni said.
“I can walk,” I said. “Do you have the shotgun? The transmitter?” They showed me both. Caproni also had a video camera. I took the shotgun. It was loaded with armor-piercing buckshot; I had three extra drums stored in my vest. “The carnotaurs will be interested in the plane, not us. But it will behoove us to get out of here. Come on!” I led them away, toward the nest.

On reaching the nest, we were greeted with a spectacular sight. The sauropod herd was marching past at a few miles per hour. Meanwhile, dozens of newborns were galloping toward them. The hatchlings were the size of large rabbits, and their gait was like a rabbit hopping. Six adults monitored the trail of the newborns, while another four watched the nest. There was little need for the adults to move about. With necks about 40 feet long, they could nudge a newborn or drive away a predator simply by swinging their necks. Despite the vigilance of the sauropods, predators took a steady toll on nestlings. Pterosaurs swooped down, carrying off baby sauropods the way hawks carry away mice. Crocodiles and large lizards lunged from the underbrush to seize infants. I saw one infant captured and smothered by a big snake. Small carnosaurs, ranging from the size of turkeys to the size of men, ran about snatching infants. The most successful of these were sickle-clawed dinosaurs called noasaurs, resembling but only distantly related to the famous velociraptors. These hunted in groups, with some feinting in and out of the underbrush to distract the adults while others made the kills.

I estimated that the predators were killing about one of every four infants that hatched. However, the predators took their own casualties. The sauropod adults frequently sniffed the bushes, and stomped if they smelled a predator. When in distress, the infants would let out a high-pitched whistle, which would draw one of the adults within seconds. The most successful predators were those that killed the infants before they cried out. If the infant did cry for help, a predator that did not run or hide fast enough would either be creamed with the swinging neck or seized with the teeth. In a spectacular fatality, a pterosaur, about as big as the one that struck the Starship, was hit by an adult’s swinging neck as it carried off a still-screaming infant. It was like a pigeon being hit with a baseball bat. The pterosaur flew for over a hundred yards before landing in a pitiful heap. Two adults sniffed and nudged at the infant, but it was dead. When the pterosaur tried to lift one of it broken wings, a third adult ducked its head, seized the winged creature with its teeth and flung it against a tree. “These guys would do Willis O’Brien proud,” I murmured.

The hatching went on for hours. The eggs at the edges were among the last to hatch, so it was some time before the attention of the adults came our way. We hid behind a heap of manure, hoping that it would mask our smell as well as hide us from sight. In his dedication, Dino crawled on top of the manure pile to continue filming. I switched the ammunition in the shotgun, replacing the buckshot with a drum of tungsten slugs.
Then we heard the shots.