Crucible of a Species (41 page)

“Once she’s over the crest, there’s a break in the wall. She’ll simply scoot out that gap and the troodon will follow the AutoSentinel signal down to the pen. Piece ‘a cake!”

*~~*~~*~~*

Martel clambered up
from the depths of his slumber wakened by the hot walls of the surrounding furnace. Smothering rays of heat reflected from the sun-soaked rocks drawing tears from sleep-filled eyes. He shook his head, somehow remembering just how careful he had to be here on his rocky perch. The marine knew he couldn’t stay; the sun would bake him to a crisp.

Rocks burned his fingers as he climbed to the lip of the crevasse. Raising his head, he scanned the plateau. The carcass was still there although scavengers stripped the skull to a chalky white. His stomach growled in an almost forgotten memory of food as his thoughts directed him towards the most obvious source. Unfortunately, the tyrannosaurs lay side-by-side a few yards from the carcass snoring peacefully in the sun.

I’m not hungry enough to get that close but I can’t wait for them to leave. I should be able to get to the jungle’s edge and it’s in the right direction. I’ll have to chance it.

Martel grabbed his atlatl, wrapping the vine around the spears. Carefully, he pushed them up and over the lip of crevasse onto the plateau before following. He scurried over towards the tall grass in front of the thick brush line marking the jungle’s edge.

Broad-leafed vines draped the trees at the edge of the jungle forming a thickly woven mat with painfully long thorns. Martell pushed aside those he could and ignored the others until he broke into the cool shade of the canopy.

He followed a worn trail through a copse of tall ginkgo trees until he came upon fresh tracks. The tracks were similar to the three-toed print common to meat-eating dinosaurs but these showed only two, widely spaced toes.

Raptors. Only they run with that dagger claw on each foot held up and ready. Martel examined the length of the stride of the beast.

The doc had mentioned that the hip height of the dinosaur would be four times its stride-length. So these raptor’s hips must be about as high as my chest, Martel calculated. Moving along the trail is probably not a good idea but the jungle’s too thick to go off-trail.

A bit further down the path he found a new set of prints, three-toed and much larger. Their deep depressions led into an area where the ground cover of the jungle lay trampled by the passage of many feet. He could hear their heavy tread moving through the distant forest.

The marine remembered the comments of the marines covering the berm, Shit, that’s right. The berm’s packed with predators on this side. I must be near the edge of the camp but there’s no way I can get past them. I’ll have to move inland and see if I find that stream above the waterfall we crossed the other day. Then maybe I can sneak back into camp or at least find what’s left of the camp.

*~~*~~*~~*

The pack was nervous;
there was something wrong in the feel of the plateau surrounding them. It was a feeling the dominant male could not shake off as it took another bite of the lush leaves of a nearby bush.

A small, brightly feathered animal flitted from the bush. The male struck out at the fleeing animal with its forelimb in unthinking reaction, knocking it to the ground. Lightning-fast reflexes drove the predator to stomp the small dinosaur with its hind leg, holding it to the ground as the long, sickle-shaped toe-claw sliced down. It looked down at the tidbit and took a small nip to the neck with serrated, shark-like teeth that were unlike those of any other meat-eating dinosaur. The victim’s struggles ceased.

The claw-footed raptor was a troodon, or “wounding tooth”. Its teeth were unique for they grew sharp serrations like the toothed edge of a saw and their design was perfect for slicing through meat unlike the thick, bone-piercing daggers of the tyrannosaurs. These teeth worked equally well to also support a vegetable diet of usually coarse plants as well as the frequent treat like the one that now lay under its raptor claw.

Quick reflexes were matched by a greater than normal intellect whose experience encouraged it to first search the surrounding plains before gulping down a piece of the recent catch. The pack moved about the clearing, their low calls and pleasant almost birdlike rumblings filling the grassland. These were the sounds of a troodon raptor pack peacefully feeding in the warmth of a midday sun.

The pack suddenly sprang to life. Each individual stiffened in response to the shrill call sounding across the valley. It had a nerve rubbing, bee-like buzz that roared up and down the upper reaches of the troodon’s range of hearing sending spikes of pain through tender nerves, carrying both the pain-filled cries of a wounded animal and the vicious warning of a predator in a challenge of territory.

Moving with the unity of a flock of birds turning in the wind, the pack swung towards the challenge, vaulting across the field. The challenge came from nearby, just over the crest of this next rise of ground. They called to each other as they moved, spreading out to meet the threat. Passing over the crest in a long line, the pack stopped in surprise for nothing moved in the open field ahead, yet the cries of the challenge filled the air.

Lights from the valley flashed into their eyes. The lights caused pain and the horrible combination of sound and flickering light all came from a single point in the field. The pack launched itself after only a brief moment of hesitation for they would not allow this abomination to survive.

*~~*~~*~~*

The fields surrounding
the humans suddenly quieted. “Oh my, God. What just happened?” Brittany Thornsen whispered as she looked around.

“Shh, they’re here. Look at the sentinel’s operation light, the tower’s detected something,” Esperanza whispered. “It’s begun. You have to get over to your position, good luck.

“Where are you going, Bradley?”

“I’m going down with Brittany.” The journalist called out in a stage whisper as he set out after the fleet-footed midshipman. They ran to the wide entrance of the last chevron in the valley and squatted behind the barrier. Bradley’s heart pounded as he covertly watched the eager, heavy rise and fall of the slim brunette’s chest as she prepared herself.

The pack appeared over the rise, crossing the crest directly opposite the AutoSentinel. As if they were a single animal, they swung across the field. The predators hesitated at the walls for only a moment before beginning their charge. It was as though a single mind controlled the pack charging down the far slope of the field towards the sentinel at the mouth of the long line of chevron-shaped barriers. They were amazingly fast and sang as they pummeled across the landscape ever towards the hated sentinel.

The pack split into three groups as it approached. Bradley could see them forming a central charge supported by two side attacks that would converge upon their quarry simultaneously. The raptors were almost upon their objective when the sentinel’s operations light dimmed and the second tower, located midway down the drive path, turned on. Once again, the pack hesitated in confusion. The tower was still there before them but the hated signal had moved. They turned a little slower than the last time before resuming their charge through the chevron. Several troodons ran outside of the walls, following the calls of their pack-mates and the lure of the second sentinel. The pack exited the mouth of the first funnel where all but one of the outside raptors rejoined through the narrow break in the wall left open to them at the next segment’s entrance.

The troodon were now approaching the bottom of the valley. This was the point the marines feared they would hesitate in their charge and, as feared, the group faltered. The corner of Bradley’s eye caught a flicker of movement as the midshipman turned on the signal transponder at her waist. He twisted in time to see the slender girl charge out into the center of the chevron and begin waving and screaming before beginning her run up through this next, most critical segment of the trap.

The raptor pack let out a bloodthirsty cry when they saw her fleeing into the chevron and leapt into their charge. Bradley stared frozen in disbelief,
That crazy kid’s not going to make it.

Bradley’s heart thumped in his chest when he heard the startled cry of the midshipman and saw her tumble. Without thinking, he charged out, narrowly avoiding the same burrow that tripped Brittany. He shoved his hands under her shoulders, roughly catapulting her to her feet. She was limping badly and screaming as he half-carried her up the slope. The walls of the chevron trapped both of them, forcing them to follow the fixed trail up the steep grade.

Hair on the back of his neck stood on end as the calls of the raptors behind them grew closer. The journalist knew they were moving too slow. Brittany reached down to catch the bouncing transponder at her waist and shut it off with one hand. Bradley practically carried the slender girl as they approached the narrow top of the funnel where he swung her around the wall shouting, “Hide and freeze!” before turning back into the chevron.

The journalist glanced down the pathway, the troodon were but yards away. Bradley put everything into a sprint over the crest and into the mouth of the last chevron segment of the trap. The hill rose between him and the approaching pack and, for the briefest of moments, they would not be able to see him. Bradley darted to the right and tripped outside the walls of shredded bush. Rolling across the ground, he took a precious moment to crawl into the barrier. Puffing, he desperately tried to control his breath for Bradley knew that if they saw or heard him he was dead.

The pack screamed their rage as they charged by, their footfalls pounding the ground as they passed,
God damn. I did it. It …

Pain shot up his thigh. Only the speed of the human’s unconscious reaction saved his leg from more than a slice as the ripping blade of the dinosaur’s claw pierced into the ground where his calf had been. The raptor screamed as the human struck out, grabbing its leg. Bradley yanked the hollow-boned animal off its feet. Long remembered reactions from years of wrestling rolled the journalist onto the back of the raptor. He swung his arm around its neck, desperately trying to avoid the deadly kicking feet and still stay beyond razor sharp teeth and snapping jaws.

Fire seared down his thigh as he pulled. He locked legs around its torso and, ignoring the pain, pushed down with his feet while pulling up with his arms. The animal squirmed and jolted like a bronco down on its side but it couldn’t shake the larger, heavier human. He felt himself beginning to tire even as something grabbed his arms, pulling him off the animal. The journalist tried twisting to meet this new attacker but couldn’t move so he arched his back in desperation and, as his eyes opened, he looked into the red, straining face of Sergeant Frank Marshall. The marine focused on his captive’s eyes and smiled, “You’re a tough little bastard, Mr. Bradley. I don’t know how much longer I would have been able to hold you like that and there aren’t many people who I’ve said that to. How’re you doing? Are you back with us? I’m not gonna let you go and risk getting slugged again until you answer.”

Tom Bradley went limp. Exhaustion flooded over his body as he smiled at the marine. The only thing he could think of saying was, “I could kiss you Sergeant.”

“Not if you wanna live through this.”

“Brittany?” Bradley gasped as he turned to see four marines securing the small dinosaur with self-stiffening memcords.

“She’s okay, thanks to you. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, it worked. The buggers charged down the hill and right into the pen. Doc’s got his first pack of test subjects and we still have our dear little middy… and you don’t tell her I called her that, got it? We owe you one, I’ll buy you a beer sometime.”

*~~*~~*~~*

A small microraptor
ran across the tree limb, screaming through a mouthful of sharp teeth in an awkward sing-song series of tones at the figure trying to hide below. The tiny dinosaur knew the trespasser should not be there and it was hell-bent on scolding the intruder.

Sergeant Steve Martel shifted his eyes to glare at the brightly feathered dinosaur. Death sat in his heart and if he could, he would have strangled the little ancestor of today’s birds that flitted from limb-to-limb about his head, just out of reach.

Dense jungle ahead opened into a forest of massive sequoias. Large stretches of open ground separated twenty-five foot thick tree trunks blackened at their base by the ground fires that frequently cleared the forest floor of weeds and dead branches. Worn paths crossed the area but he could just as easily walk straight over its vast open stretches. That’s where Martel’s problem resided; beyond the thick jungle that now hid him there was no cover.

He had come to a decision and that damned bird had done much to help him reach it. However, he had to do one thing first. Martel carefully pulled out one of his spears and waited. When the tiny dinosaur jumped to the branch in front of him, he thrust out, fully intending to skewer the little noisemaker. The microraptor let out a screech, hopped back a few feet and wrangled the marine with even greater fervor.

Martel knew when he was beaten. He sighed and moved out into the rolling hills of the cathedral-like forest. Behind him, the raptor continued screaming until it was convinced he was leaving and then permitted a hush to descend over the woodland. The only sounds were the ever-present calls of insects and distant dinosaurs.

Travel was easier than it had been in the jungle but he now had other problems. The narrow confines of the valley no longer dictated his path. He didn’t have a compass. The sun didn’t penetrate the heavy canopy and without some occasional sunlight, moss grew evenly around the base of every tree so there was no way of using that ancient trick to find north.