Cretaceous Dawn

Humans have a tendency to project their own rationalities onto other animals: anthropomorphizing, ascribing motives that do not exist. Thus someone will say, “My cat threw up on the rug because he was mad at me,” when the cat had a very different, and far more sensible motive: to get something dangerous out of his digestive system. So it is with any wild animal. Each has its own particular needs and motives , aimed at personal survival and procreation of the species. So it was with animals now extinct; as paleontological ecologists, we must ascribe Cretaceous motives to Cretaceous animals.

The route from the station in town to the physics building on campus was becoming far too familiar, Earles thought to herself as she accompanied Mark. He had left the beetle picture and book in her office, and agreed to go right back to work on the wiring in the graviton vault. He could also install the platinum bar in the circuit he was rebuilding.

Earles planned in her mind what she would say to those two physicists. Who did they think they were, trying to deceive her and steal valuable scientific information? Wanting to leave other people stranded somewhere unknown (surely Mark was overdoing the guesswork by suggesting they were off in dinosaur times), perhaps in danger, maybe unable to return on their own; the whole thing was crazy.

Of course, they might not have any such intent. Perhaps they simply didn’t know; maybe they believed they were doing the right thing. But the more she thought over the last conversation in the lab, when Ridzgy had cut Bowman off and handed her the measurements—thus effectively sending her away with a project to keep her busy—the more convinced Earles was that something was being kept from her.

It was a delicate situation, and must be handled carefully. No charging in swinging accusations. That would get her nowhere. She knew a better way. She slipped her hand into her pocket and felt for the cold bit of metal.

“You go in first,” she said to Mark when they entered the physics building. “Go back to work and don’t say anything. No need for them to know you’ve spoken to me, even if they are innocent.”

He was already in the vault when she entered the main room; she could just see his feet on the ladder and hear a scraping sound that must be wires pulled through conduits.

The two scientists looked startled to see her, as well they might be. It was one in the morning. Bowman’s pouchy face was gray and stubbly, his eyes baggy; he looked a bit the worse for wear. Ridzgy was clearly tired but also clearly determined.

“I’ve brought the platinum bar,” Earles said, placing the small box carefully on the bench. “Where is the original, by the way?” She looked around the counter and spotted it, sitting on an open notebook like a paperweight. Somehow the casual use of this critical thing annoyed her. She picked it up and studied it. The metal looked identical to the replacement except for one end, which was molded like silly putty into a smooth, drooping mass.

“Well, good thing we were able to replace it,” she said lightly, putting it back on the notebook. “How long until the program is ready to run?”

“Soon,” Ridzgy answered. “There were several versions, so we’d like to dry-run them all, you know, without the actual vault, and see what numbers come up. Then we can be sure of running the correct version when the time comes. Once that kid finishes the wiring we can install this platinum.”

Over Bowman’s shoulder Earles saw Mark peering out of the vault; once again, he looked confused. And no wonder, if he’d overheard the conversation. He climbed out and approached with a determined look on his face.

Earles gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head and he stopped. “What progress?” she asked, and the two scientists turned to look at Mark.

“Um, going well,” he said, still staring at Earles. “There are some things that I need, small things, from the electronics storeroom. I’ll have to track down campus security to get in though.”

“Well, get on it,” Earles snapped. “And you two: go with him. I want campus security to know who you are. Should’ve brought you together hours ago, really. It wouldn’t do for some guard to detain you half the night as trespassers.” When nobody moved she roared, “Well?”

Earles listened for the outer door being closed. Then she went quickly to work. A small recording device, no bigger than a wallet and holding a tiny disc, was easy to conceal; she put it inside one of the filthy coffee cups and covered it with a crumpled paper towel. The cup was in an inconspicuous place and hadn’t moved all evening; it obviously belonged to Shanker or Miyakara. There was no reason for the other two scientists to touch it.

Julian looked up. An animal was standing in full view, about thirty feet away, watching them. It was the same kind as the ones that had killed the infant Triceratops. This time he had a much closer view; closer than he wanted, in fact. It was indeed a raptor, apparently the American equivalent of Velociraptor. What else could look so graceful, delicate, and deadly at the same time? It seemed to have no fear of them. Not many things would have posed a serious threat to it, small though it was.

The animal stared at them a moment and then opened its mouth and hissed: a sharp whispery sound like air blowing over an open hole. Carl stood up slowly and motioned Dr. Shanker to do the same. Together they inched away from the carcass until they were standing beside Julian.

They walked slowly but deliberately another twenty feet back, keeping their eyes on the animal. It did not look at the meat, but watched them instead. Then there was another sharp hiss: but the animal hadn’t opened its mouth. Two more raptors were coming into the little clearing, one with its head low, sniffing the ground. All three approached the carcass. Julian wondered how long the animals would tolerate their presence. They may have been puzzled by humans, not knowing where they stood in the strict hierarchy of carnivores around a kill.

The raptors did not stop at the carcass. Instead, they walked around it and kept coming. One stepped directly on the skinned ceratopsian, staining its clawed foot bright red. But they moved slowly and did not seem poised to attack. Julian thought he and his companions were being told to get lost while they had the chance.

But running was out of the question. Instead, they leveled their spears and stepped slowly backward. If it came to fighting, three on three, what would happen? Julian rather thought the raptors would get the upper hand. The animals certainly seemed to understand the difficulties of attacking horned prey; if they could leap onto a Triceratops and bring it down, they could surely handle three flimsy spears.

Julian came up against the trunk of a large conifer; his feet were sinking in the thick brown needles beneath it. He looked up with sudden hope but the lower branches were just above reach.

Julian leaned his spear against the trunk of the tree. “Why am I always first?” he muttered, fearful of turning his back on those eerie animals. With one foot in Dr. Shanker’s cupped palm and his hands against the rough bark, he scrambled up toward the first branch. Still, he could not help glancing over his shoulder.

Two of the raptors were still advancing. The third, hungry or just plain greedy, had turned and gone back to the kill. It was ripping the gut apart with its jaws, one foot placed on the carcass to pin it to the ground. The sight made Julian’s teeth chatter; that carcass could just as well be him.

Stretching up with renewed urgency he got one hand around the lowest branch. He was still pulling himself up when the support of Dr. Shanker’s hands disappeared from under his foot. He swung free, dangling from the branch, craning his head around to see what had happened. One of the creatures had rushed forward. It leaped off the ground and lashed out at Carl with its hind foot, the huge middle claw extended.

Carl did not lunge with his spear; he simply stepped back, and the animal did the same as if it had intentionally missed. The two stood facing each other, both tense, but neither obviously threatening. That was the warning; the next attack would be for real. Dr. Shanker had snatched up his spear and was standing beside Carl, glowering at the two raptors.

In a panic Julian struggled up further to straddle the branch. Then he hissed at the other two to hand up a spear; he could hold one end while they climbed up the shaft. But neither of them wanted to turn their backs to their attackers. They stood still, tense and ready, spears forward. There was not enough time for both of them to get into the tree.

The silence was interrupted by a loud tearing and breaking of branches. The two menacing raptors backed off, hissing, and then turned and vanished among the gray trunks. Julian saw a huge form moving toward them. With his view obscured by branches he could not see the entire animal but only its lower part, the hind legs and clawed feet. It stooped over the carcass and pinned the third raptor to the ground with one monstrous foot.

Julian felt something grab his arm and he yanked it back in a panic, stifling a cry. But it was only Dr. Shanker’s hand. He was standing on Carl’s shoulder while trying to find a good place to grip the branch. When he had hauled his bulk into the tree by main strength, he reached down for his spear and then steadied it while Carl clambered up the shaft.

As soon as they were all three on the lowest branch Carl said, “Higher.” Julian didn’t wait to be told twice: he scrambled up until he was about thirty feet above the ground. Soon they were all perched up there, looking down on the scene below. Even viewed from its own height the size of the creature, so close to their tree, was unbelievable.

“Corla,” Julian whispered, hardly daring to breathe. Carl nodded. Dr. Shanker said nothing, but his eyes were wide and staring. He had not been prepared for this close-up encounter.

They watched Corla consume both animals, the live one and the dead one, with all the gore that had been attributed to dinosaurs in popular movies. She tore off huge chunks and swallowed them whole while the animal kicked around, pinned to the ground under her enormous foot. Eventually the raptor stopped quivering and was finally reduced to disconnected parts scattered on the bloody ground. The smell was sickening. Their savior took no notice of them but squatted down to rest after her meal. It looked like they would be in the tree for a while.

“Whitney,” said Dr. Shanker, in a hushed whisper, “what happened to your theory of carnivores being relatively scarce, rarely seen? We just encountered four of them at once.”

“It’s not a theory,” Julian whispered back. “It’s an ecological principle. But it describes a probability only; anything can happen.”

Despite the situation, Julian grinned. Not many people addressed Dr. Shanker so bluntly, and his face showed his surprise. However, he had the sense to obey.

The sun climbed higher. They began to sweat. Irregularities in the branch poked into Julian’s legs and he could not arrange himself comfortably. Every time he so much as twitched, Carl warned him with a glance to be still. Carl might have been a branch himself, for all he moved; but Julian began to feel every tiny insect and bit of bark touching him. He longed to make a noise, a sudden movement, anything but cling motionless in the silence; at the same time, his heart jumped at the least little sound he or his companions made.

Eventually Corla stirred, sniffing around on the ground and scraping at something with a hind foot. Julian held his breath and tried to be invisible; they were not much higher than eye level for her, and he did not want to end up as dessert. She bent her head and picked at her teeth with her good forelimb. The gesture would have been endearing in another animal; in fact it was almost ludicrous in this one, because the limb was so small relative to the head.

When she straightened and swung her head about, taking in the surroundings, they caught a sickening blast of carnivore breath. But she either didn’t see them or didn’t care, and she turned and wandered away. They waited several minutes and then climbed down.

The ground looked like a slaughterhouse. There was nothing left of the meal they’d hoped for. Having no desire to stay in such a dangerous place, they took up their spears and hiked away.

“Yes. You know, that guy up there who looks kind of like me, only his beard is longer. But I think we were taught wrong. I think we just met him, or her, back there.”

Dr. Shanker spoke to Julian across the firelight. The sun was setting. It was three days after the encounter with the raptors and the endless hiking through scrub and rock, gully and hill, had begun to seem like the entirety of life. Carl was away wandering, they did not know where; he had not eaten but had quietly played his strange music and then put the instrument aside and walked off without speaking.

Food had been scarce the last few days but their spirits were revived: in the afternoon they’d found a flat rock on which thick plant stems had obviously been crushed. A small round boulder, the grinding tool, lay beside it. The stringy stems were split and the soft edible insides had been removed. They collected more of the plants from a swampy patch of ground nearby, and made a sparse dinner. Dr. Shanker called them asparagus.

“He could just as well have told us the way,” he continued, licking his fingers after eating the last piece of vegetable. “We would have managed on our own. Not that I’m complaining about his presence,” he added hastily. “Although it would be nicer to have that friend of his off our tail; she’s beginning to give me the creeps, even when there’s no sign of her. But why would he want to come all this way with us?”

Julian shook his head. From the start Carl had accepted their travel urge as perfectly natural. He even seemed to know just where they hoped to go, although the caves he referred to were farther north and not far enough west by Dr. Shanker’s estimate. It was almost as if he had been stationed on his “sentinel mound” to wait for the time travelers and lead them to the right spot. A romantic notion; and falsified by the fact that they’d already traveled most of the way without a guide.

When Julian tried to ponder the concepts of time and probability, and the mystery of Carl’s presence, his mind became confused. As a paleontologist he was more of an observer than a theoretician; so he avoided confusion by accepting Carl’s existence at face value, since clearly the man was here and no amount of speculation could argue him away.

Trying to piece together all the clues Carl had dropped about his origin was like fitting together the fragments of bone dug out of a fossil site. It required the same kind of patience.

Dr. Shanker, however, was not so patient. When Carl returned he began renewed questioning in his blunt way, refusing to be put off by the short answers and fragmentary information.

“We’re glad of your company, Carl,” he began. “But what do you get out of this trip back to your caves?” Carl’s response would have come in time, but Dr. Shanker was not one to sit and wait for a slow answer. “Why did you leave your home to show us the way?”

“Yes, I’m sure you’re the only one left. But perhaps we could find our way alone. We have a pretty good idea of where we’re headed.”

Dr. Shanker stared back, the twig he was using for a toothpick jutting out of the corner of his mouth. Then he laughed uncomfortably. “Of all the . . . as if he knows where we’re going!”

“And where exactly,” Dr. Shanker continued, “are you taking us? Is there a particular spot you have in mind? An ‘X’ drawn on the ground?”

Carl pointed to the moon, faint now, giving only a small amount of light for a few hours after sunset. “Keep count of the moons,” he said. “When this one is small, you must be there.”

Carefully, as if lifting a tiny, delicate fossil from the earth, Julian put in a question. “Do you go each year at the same time, on this moon?”

Carl shook his head. “I am old, and alone. I no longer go every year. It is where they are buried, under the stones of the hills.” In a low voice, so that Julian wasn’t quite sure of the words, Carl added, “I would lie under the stones too. But I am the last.”

“But this is crazy,” Dr. Shanker interrupted, obviously not hearing the last words. “It’s just some mumbo-jumbo his grandmother taught him, nothing to do with us. What does he know about temporal reversion? We have only one chance, this year. Forget this every year business.”

Dr. Shanker was right, if not strictly polite. It made sense that Carl’s forebears tried to revert in the same calculated location, but the time window was a one-time deal: it did not open again each year. If they did not reach the correct area soon they would spend their lives in the Cretaceous. And what of Carl? Would he choose to stay, if offered the possibility of being transported to the twentieth century? Would he even understand the offer? “How far are we from the caves?” Julian asked.

The jagged mountain ahead began to dominate the horizon. Its base was several miles wide with a lopsided, green peak jutting up like a narrow chimney. It was not tall compared to the Rockies in Julian’s own time; but against the surrounding low hills it looked impressive and craggy. Carl meant to head for the northern side of its massive base, where his caves were. By Dr. Shanker’s calculations, however, they were tending too far north and should be making for the hills south of the mountain.

Well after sunrise, with the mountain shining unbearably in the reflected light, a steep slope suddenly blocked their path. It was a fault scarp with sharp stones jutting out here and there. Carl studied it, looking for a way up.

“Whitney,” said Dr. Shanker, taking Julian’s arm and pulling him back. “I know you like him—Carl. But it’s time we told him where we really need to go. Our time window is very small; maybe as small as a few hours. And our estimate is only good to about four days. We should get ourselves to the center of our estimated diameter of location, not somewhere on the fringes. These caves of his are too far north. I don’t think they’re in the right place; his ancestors clearly didn’t revert. He wouldn’t be here if they had. And what about Yorko and Hilda? Did they head more north or south? Or somewhere else entirely?”

“I’d hoped to catch up to her by now,” Julian admitted. “But I can’t help feeling that Carl knows what he’s talking about, and that we should follow him. If he finds the easiest path, it’s also the most likely path for Yariko to have followed. Don’t you think?” He was really trying to convince himself. “And as for getting to the right place, I don’t believe we can do it. We could be fifty miles off either way, and not know it. Plus, you say the lab has to be intact and the program actually running for us to revert. A little more north, a little more south, we can’t know which is better, can we? Maybe it won’t make any difference.”

“Whitney,” Dr. Shanker said, frowning while his bushy eyebrows moved up and down, “you’re telling me now that you think the journey was useless. We’ve come a thousand miles and you tell me that—”

Julian felt a tremor under his feet and grabbed the nearest tree, a dead spindly trunk rising up beside him. An earthquake or volcano would send the entire cliff face down on them in a slide of boulders and gravel. But the land looked unchanged in the bright morning sun: the intense green of the bushes, the gray and black of stone, the blue of the sky.

Dr. Shanker’s eyes had gone wide. “Damn that thing,” he said. “We don’t have anything to feed it this time. Except ourselves.”

The vibrations were not the rolling, low frequency shock waves caused by an earthquake. Something enormous was walking nearby, maybe just around a bend in the cliff. Julian looked around wildly for shelter, but they’d left the last stand of trees half a mile behind and only the cliff loomed beside them.

“Can we climb it?” Julian said, peering up at the cliff dubiously. It was covered with loose gravel and looked like a dangerous climb.

They began to scramble up the steep incline. The rocks were hot to the touch in the full sun. The dust and gravel shifted under their hands and a few rocks came loose and rolled down behind, kicking up a wake of dust that hung in the calm air. Nothing heavy could follow them up such a slope; it would tumble down in a landslide. A few stunted, dry bushes twisted out of the gravel, supplying handholds, but the climb was not easy. Julian slipped once and skidded backward, clutching at a bush. The roots tore out of the loose, pebbly ground. When he finally stopped against a rock he was bruised and cut, and badly frightened. He clambered back up to the others and continued upward.

Carl paused on a narrow ledge. Above him the scree continued for another twelve feet, and above that the ground leveled out into more solid rock. But those last twelve feet looked impossible. They were entirely free of bushes or large rocks, and the gravel was so fine that it came apart in their hands.

“Stuck in full view,” Julian said, looking around. “We can’t even go back and look for a better place to climb. We’ll never make it back down.” He wondered if Corla’s walking could start a small avalanche. They might be buried alive, and she’d never even know it.

“Nonsense,” Dr. Shanker said, grinning. “You’ve obviously never had wilderness training.” He leaned his spear against the slope, bracing the point against the ledge, but the end of it only reached halfway up. “Do you trust my grip?” he asked. He knelt on the ledge and lifted the spear, holding it firmly in both hands, until it reached to within a few feet of the top. “Climb onto my shoulders and up to the top. Whitney, I know you hate being first, but you’re the lightest.”

Julian imagined Dr. Shanker losing his grip, and himself swinging outward and tumbling uncontrollably down the slope. Glancing back down the way they’d come, he was surprised to see how steep the grade was, and how many points of rock knifed out of the gravel.

After an instant’s hesitation he took a good hold of the shaft and climbed as quickly as possible. Dr. Shanker grunted; the spear swayed sickeningly. But in a few seconds Julian reached the top and clutched solid rock. He pulled himself up and looked down at the other two.

Carl climbed next, while Julian reached down and steadied the top of the shaft. Then Dr. Shanker handed up the other two spears. “Do you think you can hold my weight?” he said to Carl.

Carl only smiled, faintly. He braced his feet against the slight irregularities of the ground and grasped the spear, dangling it over the edge. As Dr. Shanker put his weight on the bottom end of it, Julian could see the wiry muscles bunching and moving on Carl’s back; but he did not lose his footing. Dr. Shanker climbed up the shaft, hand over hand, and was soon standing beside them.

Dr. Shanker scowled. “I’d almost rather she walked up and introduced herself, instead of skulking around. But I suppose she means us no more harm than she did the last time.”