Dinosaurs & A Dirigible (19 page)

Don Washman laughed. “Right, when you hit a client, use your gunstock,” he said and opened another beer.

Technically, Steve Brady had the first watch, even though all four staff members were up. The alarm panel was facing Steve when it beeped, therefore. “Jesus!” the stubby, long-haired pilot blurted when he saw the magnitude of the signal fluorescing on the display. “Down the trail—must be a herd of something!”

Don Washman upset his fresh beer as he ran to the spade grips of the heavy machine gun. It was in the center of the camp, on ground slightly higher than its immediate surroundings but by no means high enough to give the weapon an unbroken field of fire. The staff had sawed clear a campsite along the game trail leading down to the intrusion vehicle two hundred yards away. Assuming that animals were most likely to enter the area by the trail, Dieter had sited the tents on the other side of the gun. The next day they could assemble the six-foot-high tower for the gun, but time had been too short to finish that the first night.

While the other staff members crouched over weapons, Vickers darted to the three occupied tents. The sensor loop that encircled the camp 100 yards out could pick up very delicate impacts and relay them to the display screen. This signal, however, was already shaking the ground. Miss McPherson poked her head out of the tent she shared with her brother. “What—” the dentist began.

The file of huge ceratopsians rumbled into sight on their way to the water to drink. They were torosaurs or a species equally large. In the dim glow of the fire, they looked more like machines than anything alive. Their beaks and the tips of their triple horns had a black glint like raku ware, and they averaged twice the size of elephants.

The tent that Mears and Brewer shared shuddered as both clients tried to force their way through the opening simultaneously. Vickers lifted the muzzles of their rifles skyward as he had been waiting to do. “No shooting now,” he cried over the thunder of the dinosaurs. “In the morning we’ll follow them up.”

Adrienne Salmes slipped out of her tent before Vickers could reach over and take her rifle. It was pointed safely upward anyway. Despite the hour-long argument she had been engaged in, the blonde woman looked calm and alert. She looked breathtakingly beautiful as well—and wore only her rifle. “If you can wait a moment for my firepower,” she said to Vickers without embarrassment, “I’ll throw some clothes on.” The guide nodded.

The bony frills at the back of the ceratopsians’ skulls extended their heads to well over the height of a man. Less for protection than for muscle attachment, the frills locked the beasts’ heads firmly to their shoulders. The bulging jaw muscles that they anchored enabled the ceratopsians to literally shear hardwood the thickness of a man’s thigh. The last thing a safari needed was a herd of such monsters being stampeded through the camp. A beast wounded by a shot ill-aimed in the darkness could lead to just that result.

Mears and Brewer were staring at the rapid procession in wonder. The left eye of each torosaur glinted in the firelight. “Mother o’ God, what a trophy!” Brewer said.

“Best in the world,” Vickers agreed. “You’ll go back with one, never fear.” He looked at the McPhersons to his other side. The dentists were clutching their holo cameras, which were almost useless under the light conditions. “And you’ll get your fill, too,” Vickers said. “The trip isn’t cheap, but I’ve never yet guided a client who didn’t think he’d gotten more than he bargained for.” Though a drunken SOB like Jonathan Salmes might spoil that record, he added silently.

Adrienne Salmes re-emerged from her tent, wearing her coveralls and boots. Mears and Brewer had been so focused on the herd of torosaurs that the guide doubted the men had noticed her previous display. She was carrying a sleeping bag in addition to her rifle. Vickers raised an eyebrow. Adrienne nodded back at the tent. “Screaming beauty seems to have passed out,” she said, “but I’m damned if I’ll stay in the tent with him. Going on about his shoulder, for God’s sake, and expecting sympathy from
me.
Is it all right if I doss down in the open?”

The ceratopsians were sporting in the water, making as much noise as the Waikiki surf. Vickers smiled. “They could eat tree trunks and drink mud,” he said, as if he had not heard the client’s question. “And I still meet people who think mammals are better adapted for survival than dinos were.” He turned to Adrienne Salmes. “It’s all right, so long as you stay out of the gun’s way,” he said, “but you’ll wash away if it rains. And we’re bound to get at least one real gully washer while we’re here.”

“Hell, there’s an easy answer to that,” said Don Washman. He had strolled over to the tents when it became clear no predators had followed the torosaurs. “One of us is on watch all night, right? So there’s always a slot open in the staff tents. Let noble hunter there sleep by himself, Hank. And she shoots well enough to be a pro, so let her stay dry with us too.” He gave his engaging smile.

The other clients were listening with interest. “Maybe if Mr. McPherson wants to trade—” Vickers began in a neutral voice.

Adrienne Salmes hushed him with a grimace. “I’m a big girl now, Mr. Vickers,” she snapped, “and I think I’m paying enough to make my own decisions. Don, if you’ll show me the tent, I’ll resume getting the sleep I’ve been assured I’ll need in the morning.”

Washman beamed. “Let’s see,” he said. “Steve’s got watch at the moment, so I suppose you’re my tentmate till I go on at four in the morning.

They walked toward the tent. Dieter, standing near the fire with his rifle cradled, looked from them to Vickers. Vickers shrugged. He was thinking about Moshe Cohn again.

“Platform to Mobile One,” crackled the speaker of the unit clipped to Vickers’ epaulet. Vickers threw the last of the clamps that locked the two ponies into a single, articulated vehicle. “Go ahead, Dieter,” he said.

“Henry, the torosaurs must have run all night after they left the water,” the other guide announced through the heavy static. “They’re a good fifteen klicks west of camp. But there’s a sauropod burn just three klicks south and close to the river. Do you want me to drop a marker?”

Vickers frowned. “Yeah, go ahead,” he decided. He glanced at but did not really see the four clients, festooned with gear, who awaited his order to board the ponies. “Any sign of carnosaurs?”

“Negative,” Dieter replied, “but we’re still looking. I spotted what looked like a fresh kill when we were tracking the torosaurs. If we don’t get any action here, I’ll carry Miss McPherson back to that and see what we can stir up.”

“Good hunting, Dieter,” Vickers said. “We’ll go take a look at your sauropods. Mobile One out.” Again his eyes touched the clients. He appeared startled to see them intent on him. “All right,” he said, “if you’ll all board the lead pony. The other’s along for trophies—sauropods this time, we’ll get you the ceratopsians another day. Just pull down the jump seats.”

The guide seated himself behind the tiller bar and clipped his rifle into its brackets. His clients stepped over the pony’s low sides. The vehicle was the shape of an aluminum casket, scaled up by a half. A small diesel engine rode over the rear axle. Though the engine was heavily muffled, the valves sang trills which blended with the natural sounds of the landscape. Awnings were pleated into trays at either end of the vehicle, but for today the trees would be sunscreen enough.

Don Washman waved. He had strung a tarp from four trees at the edge of the clearing. In that shade he was pinning together the steel framework of the gun tower. The alarm and his grenade launcher sat beside him.

“Take care,” Vickers called.

“You take care,” the pilot responded with a broad grin. “Maybe I can lose the yo-yo and then we’re all better off.” He jerked his head toward the tent which still held Jonathan Salmes. Dieter had tried to arouse Salmes for breakfast. Because Vickers was sawing at the time, no one but Dieter himself heard what the client shouted. Dieter, who had served in at least three armies and was used to being cursed at, had backed out of the tent with a white face. Vickers had shut down the saw, but the other guide had shaken his head. “Best to let him sleep, I think,” he said.

Remembering the night before, Vickers wished that it was Brady and not Washman who had the guard that day. Oh, well. “Hold on,” he said aloud. He put the pony into gear.

Just west of the crest on which they had set up camp, the height and separation of the trees increased markedly. Small pines and cycads were replaced by conifers that shot over one hundred feet in the air. Everything east of the ridgeline was in the floodplain, where the river drowned tree roots with a regularity that limited survival to the smaller, faster-growing varieties. The thick-barked monsters through which Vickers now guided the ponies were centuries old already. Barring lightning or tornado, they would not change appreciably over further centuries. They were the food of the great sauropods.

The forest was open enough to permit the pony to run at over 15mph, close to its top speed with the load. The saplings and pale, broad-leafed ferns which competed for the dim light were easily brushed aside. Animal life was sparse, but as the pony skirted a fallen log, a turkey-sized coelurosaur sprang up with a large beetle in its jaws. Mears’ .458 boomed. There was an echo-chamber effect from the log which boosted the muzzle blast to a near equal for that of the Salmes’ .500. Everyone on the pony jumped—Vickers more than the rest because he had not seen the client level his rifle. The dinosaur darted away, giving a flick of its gray-feathered tail as it disappeared around a trunk.

“Ah, don’t shoot without warning,” the guide said, loudly but without looking around. “It’s too easy to wound something that you should have had backup for. Besides, we should be pretty close to the sauropods—and they make much better targets.”

Even as Vickers spoke, the forest ahead of them brightened. The upper branches still remained, but all the limbs had been stripped below the level of sixty feet. One tree had been pushed over. It had fallen to a 45-degree angle before being caught and supported by the branches of neighboring giants. The matted needles were strewn with fresh blankets of sauropod droppings. They had a green, faintly Christmassy scent. Vickers stopped the vehicle and turned to his clients. “We’re getting very close,” he said, “and there’ll be plenty of shooting for everybody in just a moment. But there’s also a chance of a pack of carnosaurs nearby for the same reason that we are. Keep your eyes open as we approach—and for God’s sake don’t shoot until I’ve said to.” His eyes scanned the forest again and returned to Adrienne Salmes. A momentary remembrance of her the night before, a nude Artemis with rifle instead of bow, made him smile. “Mrs. Salmes,” he said, “would you watch behind us, please? Carnivores are likely to strike up a burn as we did . . . and I can’t watch behind us myself.”

Adrienne grinned. “Why, Mr. Vickers, I think you’ve just apologized for doubting I could shoot,” she said. She turned and faced back over the towed pony, left arm through the sling of her rifle in order to brace the weapon firmly when she shot.

Vickers eased forward the hand throttle. They were past the marker beacon Dieter had dropped from the shooting platform. The responder tab on the guide’s wrist had pulsed from green to red and was now lapsing back into fire-orange; he cut it off absently. The sounds of the dinosaurs were audible to him now: the rumble of their huge intestines; the slow crackle of branches being stripped of their needles, cones, and bark by the sauropods’ teeth; and occasional cooing calls which the clients, if they heard them over the ringing of the diesel, probably mistook for those of unseen forest birds.

The others did not see the sauropods even when Vickers cut the motor off. They were titanosaurs or a similar species, only middling huge for their suborder. Vickers pointed. Mears, Brewer, and McPherson followed the line of the guide’s arm, frowning. “It’s all right now, Mrs. Salmes,” Vickers said softly. “The dinos will warn us if predators get near.” Adrienne Salmes faced around as well.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” someone whispered as he realized what Vickers was pointing out. It was incredible, even to the guide, how completely a score or more of thirty-ton animals could blend into an open forest. In part, it may have been that human minds were not used to interpreting as animals objects which weighed as much as loaded semis. Once recognized, the vast expanses of russet and black hide were as obvious as inkblot pictures which someone else has described.

Silently and without direction, McPherson stepped from the pony and spread the lenses of his camera. Vickers nodded to the others. “They won’t pay attention to a normal voice,” he said—in a quieter than normal voice. “Try to avoid sudden movements, though. They may think it’s a warning signal of some kind.” He cleared his throat. “I want each of you to mark a target—”

“That one!” whispered Mears urgently, a boy in a toy store afraid his aunt will renege on her promise of a gift unless he acts at once. The big contractor was pointing at the nearest of the sauropods, a moderate-sized female only thirty feet away.

“Fine, but wait,” the guide said firmly. “I’ll position each of you. When I call ‘fire,’ go ahead—but only then. They won’t attack anything our size, but they might step on one of us if they were startled at the wrong time. That big, they don’t have to be hostile to be dangerous.”

The nearby female, which had been browsing on limbs twenty feet high, suddenly stepped closer to a tree and reared up on her hind legs. She anchored herself to the trunk with her forefeet, each armed with a single long claw. It shredded bark as it gripped. With the grace and power of a derrick, the titanosaur’s head swung to a high branch, closed, and dragged along it for several yards. It left only bare wood behind.

With his left hand, Vickers aimed a pen-sized laser pointer. A red dot sprang out on the chest of the oblivious titanosaur. “There’s your aiming point,” the guide said. “If she settles back down before I give the signal, just hit her at the top of the shoulder.”

Mears nodded, his eyes intent on the dinosaur.