Cretaceous Dawn

Dinosaurs were not aquatic. However, a large variety of reptiles lived in fresh and salt water during the Cretaceous. These included plesiosaurs , ichthyosaurs, the monstrous mosasaurs, turtles (including one species that was as big as a small car), crocodilians, and champosaurs. In freshwater swamps and rivers, champosaurs in particular seem to have been common. These crocodile-like carnivores grew up to eight feet in length and had long, narrow snouts. The placement of the nostrils at the tip of the snout probably allowed the animal to float just below the surface, almost entirely unseen.

Three people stood in the doorway of the main room at the physics lab. Two, a rumpled-looking man and woman, were hesitant to enter, hanging back; the third, Sharon Earles, impatiently gestured them forward.

Marla Ridzgy had just flown across three states on an hour’s notice, without a second thought. Forty-six, with short graying hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and smart city clothes, she struck Earles as a take-charge person. Claude Bowman was likely to find himself in the position of assistant under Ridzgy. He had a more hesitant manner; he was older, balding, with a pale wide face shaped like a pear, eyes that blinked too much, and a widening middle.

Both scientists worked on the cutting edge of particle physics, and both had setups similar to this lab’s. Earles wanted to know what Shanker and Miyakara had been doing that morning, and what had caused the equipment to explode.

Nothing had been touched, except that the body was replaced by a chalk outline and the blood on the floor was turning black. Earles was annoyed to see the blood; her physicists didn’t need to see it, after all, and it should have been cleaned up by now.

“Please, don’t skip the vault,” she said, as her guests shuffled around wearing the special slippers and gloves she’d provided.

Bowman looked startled and not a little horrified. “Oh well, that’s for the coroners, or forensics, or whoever they are. We’re interested in the equipment.”

“Oh I’ll look, then.” Ridzgy approached the vault, being overly careful not to step on the dried blood. Holding her nose against the by now nonexistent smell, she stooped down and looked into the vault. “There’s less damage than I expected, from what you said,” she commented. “In fact the instruments are mostly intact. Burned circuits and broken dials—more of a wiring issue now than anything.” She stood and stepped back around the blood stain.

“We’ll need to see the notebooks, of course, and everything on the computers,” Bowman told Earles. “Can we pack things up and take them? This may take some days, if not more.”

Earles had no intention of so casually releasing the lab’s secrets, if there were any. “You may work here,” she said. “An officer will be stationed in the hallway, for your convenience. We have rooms arranged for you tonight, when you’re ready; tomorrow, we’ll talk about what you need to do. Please disturb nothing but the notebooks, and of course the computers.”

Ridzgy shrugged. “No telling yet. If the vault wasn’t sealed during an experimental run, there could have been vibrations. But an explosion powerful enough to rip a person in half should have destroyed everything in there; yet it’s nearly intact.”

Bowman stared at the half-person chalk outline. “But he wasn’t in the vault . . . or maybe half of him was thrown out by the force?” He went closer. The small round door was hooked open against the wall; he unhooked it and swung it shut, then open again. “Strange,” he said. “They told us the door was sealed shut and had to be pried open. Was it—”

Bowman sat down and looked at her. “Not an explosion: an implosion, inside the vault. A vacuum. Something set up a vacuum. How do you suck air out of a sealed ten-foot-cubed room and turn it into a vacuum?”

Ridzgy was looking at an open notebook that lay beside the main computer. “There’s something funny about these programming notes,” she said, bending closer.

Julian woke suddenly from a sound sleep. His hip ached from resting on a knobby branch, and he squirmed around trying to ease it while wondering what had woken him. The sun was low in the west, and the air was hot, close, and damp. There were no sounds at all.

Dr. Shanker had started up. “What is it? Who’s that?” He jumped up and grabbed a spear that was leaning against the tree beside him. “Hilda?”

He saw Hilda first: she was sitting near a clump of thorny bushes with her ears pricked forward and her tail slapping the ground, exactly as if she were waiting for a treat. He was reassured until he spotted Yariko, partly screened by the bushes.

She had a look of shock on her face that made his heart race. Julian wanted to rush forward and pull her away from the danger, whatever it was; but his legs didn’t want to move. He could only stare back at her.

“Yorko!” Dr. Shanker’s loud, practical voice made them both start. “Whitney! Don’t just stand there in the bushes. If something’s in there, get away from it.”

Yariko shook her head and slowly came around the bush. Something hung from her hand; something smelly, and limp, like a dead animal.

“What are you talking about? You’re dreaming. Drop that thing and get away from there.” Dr. Shanker was clearly annoyed; but his voice was not as steady as usual.

“Yariko. . . .” Julian didn’t want to touch the filthy thing that he now saw must be a piece of animal skin; dinosaur or maybe reptile, he thought, from the absence of fur. Probably weeks old, black with rot. “It’s just a bit of animal skin. Something died and Hilda found it.”

This distraught Yariko imagining things was very disturbing. But Julian could almost understand. There’d been no time, the day before, to take in Frank’s horrible death. It was still hard to believe; he still expected to hear Frank’s voice every moment. Yariko must have climbed down from the loft, half asleep, and coming upon Hilda chewing these ancient remains, immediately imagined something familiar that belonged to Frank. Her face was flushed now, her injured hand swollen; she might be feverish. No wonder she was so upset.

“This is not animal skin,” Yariko said, still with that strained look and tight voice. “It’s part of a plastic holster made to look like leather. It’s Frank’s holster.”

Julian was relieved when Hilda leaped up and snatched the thing out of Yariko’s hand. As the dog ran off joyfully with her prize he took Yariko’s arm and steered her back toward their tree.

Dr. Shanker helped sit her down with her back against the tree, and they made her drink some water. Julian cleaned her injured hand and rebandaged it. It was red and hot, and Julian had a sudden fear that the infection was spreading, making her delirious. But Yariko didn’t seem to notice. After a few minutes she blinked up at him and then looked around her.

Yariko scowled at him. “I’ve been awake for a while,” she said in her usual voice. “But . . . maybe I was seeing things. It couldn’t have been, could it? Of course not. How could Frank have gotten here? For a minute I thought, I imagined that he’d been following us.” She took a deep breath and looked at Julian. “I’m sorry I frightened you. Maybe I wasn’t quite awake. I was dreaming about him trying to follow us, trying to catch up. . . .” She closed her eyes and leaned back again.

Julian shuddered. He’d been having the same dream, not surprisingly. It didn’t bear remembering. “You curl up here and sleep a bit more,” he said. “We’ll keep watch.”

“I want to know what you were doing climbing down by yourself,” Dr. Shanker said. “Wandering off into the trees without telling anyone.”

“I climbed down to get some water,” Yariko said. “I wanted to fill the turtle shell and try to get clean. I meant to be fast but then I saw Hilda with that thing.

Dr. Shanker snorted. “Next time you get it into your head to take a bath, let one of us—preferably Whitney—know about it. None of us should go anywhere alone.”

The afternoon was declining; a drizzle began as the light fell. They lit a fire with some trouble and once again dined on hot river water. Julian closed his eyes and tried to push off the hunger pangs. His stomach felt pinched and caved in. How long had it been, now? A day and a half? They’d munched on some raw roots, stringy and unpleasant, but hadn’t managed to find a solid meal since leaving the island.

“What about fish?” Yariko looked more herself after her nap and a good scrubbing of her face in clean water. To Julian’s relief she seemed to have forgotten her strange imagining. He only hoped Shanker wouldn’t add this to his “rescue party” joke.

“Need bait to catch a fish,” Dr. Shanker said. “Let’s get back in the boat. It’s going to be dark soon anyway.”

They paddled in silence for while. The sun eventually went down although they didn’t see it leave; the world simply became black, and the drizzle became a light rain. Julian didn’t know what to think of the river. It had seemed the perfect means of travel; but they couldn’t catch the nocturnal mammals for food if they were out in the middle of the river every night. Now, if they could catch something larger and somehow preserve the meat. . . .

From behind him Yariko whispered, “I hear something.” The jungle was silent, except for the hushed and vast background sound of a slight wind in the leaves.

Julian put out his hand and rested it on the top of Hilda’s head. “She’s looking to the right,” he said. “Hilda. I think she heard it too.”

Then they all heard the splash, and something wet smacked into Julian’s lap and was gone in an instant. There was a scuffle in the boat, and then Dr. Shanker hissed, “Let it go! Hilda! Let it go!”

Even two days ago Julian would have gagged at the thought of frog; now he reached for it. “Let’s cook it,” he said. “It’ll be better than nothing.”

“Wait—it’s going to escape. . . .” Dr. Shanker seemed to be scrabbling around again. “Let go! Hilda! Too late. She’s got it.”

“At least we can get clean,” Yariko said as the rain became even heavier. “And in the dark, too.” Julian didn’t know what that meant at first; then from behind him he heard the unmistakable sound of a zipper.

“I’m taking a shower—a real one.” Now Yariko was pulling off her jeans. The boat jerked about as she tried to steer while getting undressed. “You should do the same, you know. Spread your clothes out on the raft to get rinsed, and let the rain fall on you.”

Foolishly, Julian felt himself blushing. Yariko was right, and he felt as eager as she to find some semblance of cleanliness. But undressing in the dark when she was right behind him, only three feet away . . . with nothing on . . . he pictured her kneeling by the steering oar and blushed again.

“It’s really lovely,” Yariko said, her voice sounding very close to Julian. “Warm and cool at the same time, and I can feel the mud sliding off.” The boat swerved suddenly. “Sorry—just putting my arms up for a moment. Ah.” Then she laughed. “I don’t hear any rustling of clothes from forward,” she said. “Come on, Jules. Don’t be childish.”

Julian thought his feelings were anything but childish; but he gave in. He couldn’t have her thinking he was that shy. If it had been just him and Dr. Shanker, or any other woman, for that matter, he wouldn’t have hesitated an instant. He tried to make as little noise as possible.

Yariko was right, he decided once his crusty jeans and reeking shirt were off. He heard her laugh again, and the subtle sound of skin rubbing on skin. He cupped his hands for water and then scrubbed at his bristly cheeks, his neck, his shoulders. It did feel glorious. The water trickled around his nose and dripped off his chin; it went under his arms and down his chest and back almost like a caress on his dry skin. He couldn’t believe such a simple thing could feel this good. It was sinfully, almost lustfully sensual.

“OK you two water babies, pool’s closed,” Dr. Shanker broke in. “We’re drifting downstream, losing ground. Time to paddle. In any case, I’m getting a little embarrassed. I can’t see what you’re doing in this pitch blackness.”

Julian felt a shocking surge of desire as images came into his mind. For a moment he couldn’t stop them; he wondered if Yariko was having similar thoughts. Then he came back to reality. If she was picturing anything, it wasn’t his face that was close to hers, or his body. She’d be thinking of that mysterious fiancé, who Julian pictured something like Frank; and at that thought, his desire slipped away.

After some time the rain stopped and the clouds opened up. The moon went down. It rested a moment on the treetops like the huge face of a celestial dinosaur, and then disappeared. The stars that showed as the clouds retreated were more brilliant without any competition from the moon; they were so bright that the outline of the river could be seen again, where the faint speckled reflection of the sky ended and the black mass of the jungle began. The air felt warmer, and less close.

“Do you know,” Yariko said suddenly, “they aren’t the same stars. I wish I had studied my astronomy. The Crab Nebula, for instance; a huge glowing cloud of gas blown off by a supernova. But it hasn’t happened yet. That gets to me, somehow.” After a few moments of silence she added, “But then, is North America even in the same place on the globe? Could that explain why the stars are different, and why it’s so warm?”

“No . . . we’re in the same latitude now as in our own time,” Julian said. “About forty-five degrees north, though not as far west; the Atlantic Ocean is young yet, and only just beginning to open. As for the climate, it’s significantly warmer now all over the globe. a Atmospheric CO₂ is incredibly high—we’re in a real hothouse, with lmost no polar ice caps. That’s why sea level is so much higher.”

When the sun rose, mist began to curl from the water. A few birds fluttered in the leaves along the river, some of them dropping plummet-like from a branch and disappearing with a splash, after the fashion of a kingfisher. There were no song birds and the silence of the sunrise was uncanny for those used to the morning din of calls and trills.

All around in the quiet water and the slow current, fish began to rise for insects. They’d hear a plop of water and then see the rings spreading out. They tried to shoot toward the center of the rings, taking turns with the best working bow, but they were hardly quick enough. Each time the arrow would plunge in and then bob back up again and float on the surface, clean. They stopped after every few shots and paddled quietly about to collect the arrows. Julian was ready to groan with hunger.

Suddenly there was a disturbance in the river about thirty feet ahead. “Look!” Yariko cried, pointing. “Something’s going after the fish.”

The something was hard to identify, until it finally caught a fish in its jaws. Then Julian saw the narrow snout with protruding nostrils on the very end, and the exceptionally long thin teeth as they impaled the struggling fish. “Champosaur,” he said.

“They’re small,” Julian said. “Four to eight feet at most. I don’t see why it should attack us when there’re so many fish. Look,” he went on. “It’s leaving a trail of pieces. Maybe we can scoop some up as bait.”

The water was now calm; they slowly paddled closer and Yariko reached over with the turtle shell and scooped up the floating debris.

They managed to pick up three shreds of what looked like internal organs. Yariko took apart one of the bows and Dr. Shanker turned it into a very crude fishing pole and line.

The first piece of bait was pulled right out of the loop they’d tied around it, and they never even saw what got it. Then Dr. Shanker took off his watch, tore off the thin metal tongue and clasp, and with some effort bent it into a tiny hook.

Almost instantly something bit. Shanker yanked it in so hard that he went over backward on the boat, and the foot-long fish never had a chance to let go; in fact, it was all they could do to keep Hilda from grabbing it as it flopped around on the raft.

They did. The second one took longer, but it was almost twice as big. It got a bit mangled being dragged onto the raft; Yariko was worried a champosaur would detect the blood and come after them, so they hastily paddled for shore.

In the bright dawn with the mists still dissipating, they cleaned the fish and made a stew that seemed a feast. The last of their shriveled roots rehydrated as the water came out of the fish and a lovely smell went up. Nothing had ever tasted so good. Julian didn’t care that his fingers and face were sticky with fish.

“Good thing we didn’t decide to bathe in the river,” Yariko said thoughtfully, licking her fingers. “That champy-thing had pretty long teeth.” She kept a number of bones for fishhooks. Dr. Shanker saved selected fish parts as bait, carefully wrapped in large leaves and set in the crook of a tree.

They were able to construct a wider and more comfortable platform than last time, and Yariko even pulled some leafy fronds and sent them up, to cover the worst of the bumps. However, Dr. Shanker still insisted on sleeping below with Hilda. They curled up side by side in the boat, which had been dragged almost completely ashore. A hoary, homespun string was tied loosely around Hilda’s neck, and the other end to Dr. Shanker’s wrist, to wake him if she moved.

As the sun climbed up above the trees, the jungle grew lighter, and the loft was flecked with little bits and chinks of light falling through the leaves. The air smelled clean although the morning breeze felt chilly. Julian and Yariko lay side by side, not quite touching. After a while Yariko turned away from him, settling on her side to sleep as she usually did. Her shoulder touched Julian’s and he pressed in closer rather than moving away.

When she didn’t react, he lifted his head and gazed at her. Her hair, still slightly damp, was in a tight shiny braid. Her T-shirt was cleaner but the jeans were still mud-spattered, torn and already bleaching in the subtropical sun; one hand was bandaged and puffy, and there were several scratches on her arms and face: she looked nothing like the Yariko of the physics lab. Yet, he still saw her the same way: decisive, competent, and calm. Dr. Shanker might see himself as the leader; but Julian felt that if anyone’s characteristics were to bring them to their goal, it would be Yariko’s.

“It’s starting to sink in,” he said, lying back again but still with his shoulder against hers, “that we’re the only people in existence. Us three. That’s the whole of the human population. Before. . . .” He hesitated, worried about upsetting Yariko, but decided to go on. “Before, I was thinking we had to get back home. I mean, I thought of the world as full of humans and our creations and society, and us just temporarily isolated from the world. But now. . . .” He couldn’t tell if she was even listening.

“Well, now I understand that this is the world; that there are no people. They don’t exist. There is no world of humanity to go ‘back’ to. There’s only this world—our world.” Julian stopped. He wasn’t making much sense, but the feeling was strong, and sudden. It was an entire change of outlook, of philosophy even. But it was not a sad feeling. It was just different.

Julian felt himself turning red. “Maybe a little one,” he said. They seemed to be thinking in parallel, but she was ahead of him; too fast for him, even as a joke. “It would be a very inbred village,” he said at last, reverting to science.

“Of course,” Yariko said. “Isn’t that common in small biological systems? You of all people; you shouldn’t be squeamish. All of our children would sleep with each other perfectly wantonly, and produce more children.”

She was thoroughly enjoying his discomfort. “But how can you be shocked? We’re Cretaceous animals now, aren’t we? Part of the wilderness.”

Yariko looked thoughtful. “Maybe we’ll produce a whole race of people. Do you know, I’m not joking. Maybe we’ll spawn an entire civilization.”

Julian thought about it a moment, while brushing away a fly that landed on his arm to drink from the sweat. “No,” he said, “it wouldn’t be possible. There needs to be a critical mass to spawn a population.”

“Well, two men and one woman seem like a critical mass to me.” Abruptly, Yariko’s smile was gone. “Unless two of us get killed, and the other is left all alone. . . . One of us could be the only human in existence. One of us could live a whole lifetime in solitude, if the other two died.” She looked so stricken at the thought that Julian actually reached out an arm and drew her closer.

“We won’t die,” he said, fighting down thoughts of Frank. “We’re all healthy. We’re making good progress. I certainly don’t intend to leave you all alone—or be left without you.” He tried to speak lightly, but his arm tightened around her.

“Besides,” Yariko said, and her voice took on its teasing tone again, “you paleontologists would have found traces of it in the fossil record. Stone buildings, or something.”

Julian shook his head. “Not necessarily. All of our written history, six thousand years, is nothing, a blip, a blink of the eye, geologically speaking. All of those layers of rock could easily have swallowed it up, and we might never have found the slightest hint of it.”

“Then it’s still possible,” Yariko said, with satisfaction, and without pulling away from his encircling arm. “A great civilization: immense dynasties and cataclysmic wars that would put to shame everything we were ever taught in grammar school. Don’t you think?”

He was beginning to catch her enthusiasm. “Yes. And they would live in the higher, stony ground away from the Inland Seaway. They’d build steep hills with hollow insides, stone forts to keep out the carnivores. And they’d round up some of the smaller herbivores for cattle. They would use tyrannosaurids as war steeds. Bring them up from hatchlings, and train them to be loyal. That’s an impressive thought—pounding over the open terrain on a beast like that.”

He tried to invent more, about great seagoing ships, imperial hunting expeditions to bring back prize dinosaurs, slave pits with dromaeosaurs instead of lions; but after a while he realized that she had fallen asleep. Her eyes were closed, and her expression was perfectly contented.