Dinosaur Thunder (11 page)

Frustrated with how calm the others were, Carson fell in behind, eyes busy, expecting velociraptors at any second.

“Dr. Paulson?” Carson asked as they pushed through the vegetation. “Are you sure this is the past? That tree looks like an oak tree.”

“Angiosperms developed late in the Cretaceous period. There should be maples, oaks, and even walnut trees in this period,” Paulson said, his voice drifting off, staring at the tree that stood a short distance away.

“And if there are velociraptors, there will be other predators?” Carson asked.

“Yes,” Paulson said. “But you have to remember that like our own ecosystem, predators occupy the top of a food chain that is shaped like a pyramid. Most of Dinosauria are herbivores.”

“Yes, but I believe thirty-five percent of Cretaceous dinosaurs were carnivores,” Gah the gnome added, taking away the small bit of comfort Paulson had created.

“What?” Carson said.

“In this period, the pyramid has a flat top,” Gah said, as if it were an interesting bit of trivia. “That means that the flora and fauna supported a higher percentage of carnivores than is possible in our era. It’s probably because of the high oxygen content.”

Gah inhaled deeply several times.

“Notice how much energy you have,” Gah said. “This atmosphere has fifty percent more oxygen than our own. With that kind of oxygen content, even I could run a marathon. The oxygen is what made the enormous size of Cretaceous dinosaurs possible and bigger prey means more, and bigger, predators.”

“What?” Carson repeated, thinking of the implications.

“Calm down,” Paulson said, breathing a little faster as they began climbing up a gentle slope. “That number includes omnivores that eat everything and scavengers that eat carrion. Most of the rest of that number is made up of small predators like
Troodon
or
Dromiceiominus
.”

“Never heard of them,” Carson said. “How small is small?”

“
Dromiceiominus
was no more than twelve feet long or so,” Paulson said.

“Walk faster,” Carson said.

Wynooski led them through a grove of the ugly palm trees and uphill past more familiar-looking trees—maybe maples. The hill was steep, but here the loose rock was patched together in places where vegetation had taken root. It was steep but climbable. Carson could see the crest of the hill and began looking to his right for a route back to the cave.

“Nick, look at this,” Gah said, squatting on the slope.

Paulson stopped, walking back down to where Gah knelt.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Carson said. “Remember that little talk we just had about killer dinosaurs?”

“Killer dinosaurs,” Wynooski repeated. “I’m not familiar with that classification. Is that a system you professional dinosaur wranglers use?”

“Yeah, killer dinosaurs are in the class ‘run like hell.’”

The gnome and Paulson were still kneeling, looking at something. Carson walked over. They were examining a small patch of grass.

“Let’s keep moving,” Carson said.

“Mr. Wills, this is grass!” Gah said.

“Yeah, I know. I’ve got a yard full of it, and you can have all of it if you get yourself up that slope.”

“You don’t understand,” Gah said. “We believe we are in the Mesozoic era, but grass does not evolve until the Cenozoic era.”

“I thought we were in the Cretaceous era?” Nick said. “Are there
T. rex
es and raptors in the Mesozoic or Cenozoic eras?” Carson asked hopefully.

“The Cretaceous period is part of the Mesozoic era,” Gah said patiently. “Because of your velociraptors, and the cyads, we thought we were in the late epoch of the Cretaceous period in the Mesozoic era. The presence of well-developed grasses suggests at the very least the Paleocene epoch of the Tertiary period of the Cenozoic era. Grass is supposed to have evolved fifty-five million years ago, not earlier.”

“Not necessarily,” Paulson cut in. “There are some discoveries of fossilized grass in coprolites, and that placed grass evolution at sixty-five million years ago.”

“Coprolites?” Carson asked.

“Fossilized dinosaur shit,” Gah said to Carson. Then to Nick he said, “I thought the only nonvascular plants the coprolites contained were rice and bamboo.”

“No, I’m quite sure there was evidence of grass phytoliths.”

“Wow, this is interesting,” Carson said. “Let’s finish this discussion at a Starbucks. I’ll buy the first Vanilla Latte.”

“Well, look at this!” Wynooski said.

Wynooski waved them over to where she stood, leaning toward the hill, her left leg bent, her right extended because of the steep slope.

“What now?” Carson asked.

“Can’t you see?” Wynooski said, tapping a big rock. “It’s concrete.”

Gah and Paulson worked across the slope to look at Wynooski’s find.

“Starbucks. I’m buying. What else do you want?” Carson said, trying to entice the eggheads. “I’ll pay for Venti size.”

“She’s right,” Paulson said.

“Okay, okay, it’s concrete,” Carson said. “Let’s talk about what it means when we’re sipping that espresso.”

“It means I was right,” Wynooski declared. “We are still on the Mills Ranch.”

“No, the vegetation confirms the rough time period,” Paulson said. “This just means that we weren’t the first ones to be transported to this time and place. Or at least not the first thing.”

“It would also explain grasses showing up sporadically in the fossil record ten million years before they should have evolved,” Gah said.

“Perhaps Cenozoic grasses evolved from the modern grasses sent back by the Time Quilt?” Paulson said. “But if so, then when did the modern grass evolve? It creates a time paradox.”

Frustrated, Carson sat on the slope, shaking his head, mumbling, “Biscotti? Anyone want some biscotti?”

“If this is from the original Time Quilt, there should be more than this,” Gah said, slapping the concrete. “If there is concrete, there are people—were people. We should try to identify where this came from. Atlanta? New York?”

“We should try to get the hell out of here!” Carson said.

Then the ground shook, pebbles bouncing out of place. Everyone froze, even Wynooski silent. More vibrations and more loose material slid past them. Locating the direction of the vibrations, they all looked uphill. Over the crest of the hill appeared the head of a carnivore, and it was much bigger than twelve feet long.

“Tyrannosaur?” Gah asked, leaning back so that he could see up the hill, but then tilting his head down to look through the distance portion of his bifocals.

“Probably,” Paulson said.

“Run,” Carson said.

“I was just going to say that,” Wynooski said, turning and running downhill faster than a fat woman should be able.

13

Elizabeth

ELIZABETH HAWTHORNE:
I was one of those in the Fox Valley building housing the orgonic pyramid when the three nuclear devices detonated. The black ripples that spread out ahead of the blast wave converged on our building and transported us to the moon and back in time. Later, we escaped from the moon, back to the time before the nuclear bombs went off, and removed one.

SENATOR SCOT WILHITE:
If I understand your testimony, you were able to remove one nuclear device, and take it with you into the orgonic collector—pyramid—so that when the other two devices detonated, you, and the others with you, were killed? At least a version of you was?

—Testimony before the Senate Committee on Security Affairs

Present Time
Office of Grayson, Weinert & Goldfarb
Washington, D.C.

“Kaylee Kemper is on your line,” Elizabeth’s assistant said.

Kaylee was Nick Paulson’s administrative assistant at the Office of Strategic Science. Elizabeth sighed with relief, her concern at not hearing from Nick quickly changing to anger. Frequently, Nick traveled, and would be gone like this for days, or even weeks at a time, but he always called if delayed. This time he had been gone three days, and Elizabeth had not heard from him. Her sixth message to his cell was, “Call me or else.”

“Nick better have a good excuse,” Elizabeth said in greeting.

“Ms. Hawthorne, Dr. Paulson has disappeared,” Kaylee said.

Kaylee had never pulled a prank or told a joke in Elizabeth’s experience, and deference and hierarchy were deeply ingrained in the woman. Nick was always “Dr. Paulson,” and Elizabeth was always “Ms. Hawthorne.” Kaylee was telling the truth, and her tone conveyed concern.

“What’s happened?” Elizabeth asked.

Elizabeth was prepared for any answer, because she had been with Nick Paulson through the unimaginable. Before they were married, Nick and Elizabeth had inadvertently been sent through time and space to the moon, and into the Mayan past. Because of her marriage to the director of the OSS, Elizabeth knew more than the average citizen about the distortions in the time–space continuum that had changed the world. She also knew the real reason behind the nuclear explosions in Alaska and California. The public was told it was terrorism, and it was, but what the public was never told was how close the terrorists had come to destroying the world. The ecoterrorists’ plan had been to shred the space–time continuum, intermixing the past and the modern so completely that civilization would be impossible. Highways, phone systems, Internet, sewage, industry, and government would be gone, pieces distributed through the eons, leaving nothing but a few fragments in the present. Essentially, finishing the job that started with the original Time Quilt. Nick and his teams had stopped the terrorists, but had paid a price in doing it. So when Kaylee said that Nick was gone, Elizabeth was prepared for anything and everything.

“Ms. Hawthorne, I am only an administrative assistant—” Kaylee said.

“What happened?” Elizabeth demanded, cutting her off.

As Nick’s administrative assistant, Kaylee made Nick’s travel arrangements, took minutes in meetings, transcribed notes, and filed sensitive documents. Kaylee was also the biggest gossip in the OSS. If she knew anything, she was dying to tell someone, even someone without security clearance.

“He went to Florida to confirm a claim for two Visitors,” Kaylee said. “That’s all I know, and I shouldn’t have even told you that much.”

Elizabeth knew that “Visitors” were untagged dinosaurs. Nick offered a reward, believing that Visitors might be the leading indicator of new holes in space–time. Nick hoped he would never pay the reward.

“Visitors?” Elizabeth probed.

“The Visitors were two velociraptors,” Kaylee said in a conspiratorial tone.

“No,” Elizabeth said, genuinely surprised.

“They were both dead, but Dr. Paulson went to the site where they were killed. Dr. Paulson took a marine escort just to be safe, but somehow when they got to the site, Dr. Paulson, Dr. Gah, one of the rangers, and the man who found the velociraptors just disappeared.”

Elizabeth got a sick feeling when she heard the words “just disappeared.” In a world where dinosaurs lived side by side with human beings and millions of people had suddenly vanished one night, “disappeared” sounded ominous.

“It’s been three days, Ms. Hawthorne. It’s not like Dr. Paulson to not check in. He always checks his e-mail and calls me. I can’t remember him going a day without contacting me, even when he was on vacation.”

Elizabeth knew that was true. She and Nick had gone to Cancún, and Nick had spent half the time on his phone doing e-mail. If Elizabeth had not been doing the same thing, it would have been a sore point.

“Where’s John?” Elizabeth asked.

John Roberts directed Field Investigations for the Office of Security Science. Once, John led an OSS team into the past and ended up getting pursued by juvenile tyrannosaurs through time and space, clear to the moon.

“Mr. Roberts was in Berlin for the Association of Professional Dinosaur Managers meeting. I spoke with his assistant, and he is on his way back now. He’s flying directly to Florida.”

“I’ll call John,” Elizabeth said.

“Ms. Hawthorne…” Kaylee began.

“And I will let you know anything as soon as I know it,” Elizabeth assured her.

Taking her cell phone, Elizabeth selected the directory and then pushed
R
. Then she scrolled down to
JOHN ROBERTS
. When she selected the name, two phone numbers came up. Elizabeth chose his personal cell number.

“Hello, Elizabeth,” John answered.

“What happened to Nick?” Elizabeth asked.

“I don’t know,” John said. “He was following a lead on a couple of Visitors, and now no one knows where he is.”

“I know that much,” Elizabeth said. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing,” John said. “I’m on my way to the last place he was seen. What I’m hearing makes no sense.”

“Doesn’t it?” Elizabeth said.

“Well, it couldn’t be that,” John said.

“Was he investigating a pyramid?”

“It was on a farm,” John said. “There is nothing in the report about a pyramid or any kind of orgonic energy collector.”

“No one just disappears,” Elizabeth said.

“Funny thing for you to say, after what you went through. Let me investigate before you jump to conclusions.”

“What do you know about the person who turned in the Visitors?” Elizabeth asked.

“He worked for one of those businesses helping citizens handle their pet dinosaurs.”

“Does he have terrorist connections?” Elizabeth asked. “Is he an animal rights activist?”

“Nothing like that,” John said. “As far as we can tell, he’s just what he seems. He’s gone too, you know?”

“Yes, I heard.”

“Elizabeth, I’ll be at the farm where Nick disappeared tomorrow morning. I promise to call you if I find anything.”

“Call me if you don’t find anything.”

“I will,” John promised.

14

Family

I’ve seen ’em. That’s what I’m saying. I’ve seen ’em. Dinosaurs popping up all over the damn place. It’s the government, I’m saying. They’re loosing those dinosaurs to scare people, so we’ll beg them to protect us. And how will they protect us? By taking away more of our rights, that’s how.