Day of the Dragonstar (17 page)

The first group into the lander included Lindstrom and her two assistants, Kemp, and six other astronauts. Everyone wore standard EVA gear and carried with them large survival packs with the gear they would need once inside the
Dragonstar,
Kemp and his men also carried equipment racks and a field generator which would be needed to rig up an electromagnetic “fence” around the perimeter of the base camp. In addition, each man and woman was equipped with a sidearm
razer,
which looked very much like the Bren gun of the previous century, although it fired a concentrated beam of heat energy instead of standard slugs. The paleontologists had objected to carrying the weapons, but that was before Kemp had allowed them to view the recordings of the tragedy of the first expedition.

Standing in the transport bay, Kemp spoke into his helmet radio. “We’re secured down here, Commander. Any time you’re ready . . .”

“Stand by, Colonel. I’ve commenced separation . . . It’s not a very long trip.”

There was a soft metallic thud as the lander broke away from the
Goddard
and began tilting over to the proper touchdown attitude. Kemp studied the faces of his team, looking for traces of fear and uncertainty. There was no place for it now.

“We are descending now, Colonel. One hundred and fifty meters, and closing . . . Standby . . . Seventy-five . . . fifty . . . stand by . . . We have touchdown.”

Just as Fratz spoke there was a clang which traveled through the superstructure of the lander. Kemp was suddenly aware of the pull of his magnetic boots against the bay floor as the centrifugal forces of the rotating alien ship attempted to push him away from the lander’s deck. He decompressed the bay, watched as the door slid open to reveal the large rectangular seams of the entrance hatch. To the right of the hatch, Kemp saw immediately the burned out panel which Coopersmith’s team had cut away with a razer-torch, to reveal a series of manual controls. Phineas eased his way down to the surface of the hull and began motioning for the others to follow, while he walked carefully and slowly up to the manual override controls. Although the levers looked a bit large for easy manipulation by the human hand, he had no trouble activating the airlock system and he breathed a bit easier as the outer panel of the lock slid open soundlessly.

“Okay, everyone. Inside the chamber. Slowly, please. That’s it . . . one at a time.”

The team gathered inside the first chamber of the lock, which was quite large, and could accommodate twice as many in comfort, then watched Colonel Kemp enter. He kicked free of the metallic flooring and floated up to the lock control panel on the inside of the chamber, then slowly reached for the yellow lever.

Just as Coopersmith had reported, the outer hull panel slid shut, sealing the team in total darkness until Kemp turned on his utility lamp. He reached up and touched the green lever, which activated the atmosphere/pressure cycling. The sound of gas entered the chamber and everyone stood silently, listening until an electronic chime sounded. Kemp reached up and pulled the final lever, a dull red in color, and the sound of machinery humming could be heard as the inner door slid open to the left.

“All right,” said Kemp. “Turn on your utility lamps, and follow me. Up ahead here is an access shaft. The rails are handholds with some evenly-spaced struts to use for your footing. I want you to all assemble on the other side of the airlock and discard the EVA gear, then get yourselves outfitted for the trip up this shaft. Be careful on the ascent, and be sure to give the fellow ahead of you enough room. Now, let’s get started.”

The group filed into the shaft and Kemp followed them, closing the airlock and making certain that the air pressure was all right before unlocking his EVA helmet. The others followed his lead, and soon everyone was stripped down to their tight-fitting coveralls and radio helmets. Each member of the team shouldered his or her survival pack and lined up for the long climb, but waiting for Phineas to take the lead. He noticed that no one spoke, although there was more than the usual amount of coughing and throat-clearing.

Phineas climbed the hundred meters up to a square platform, but long before he reached it, he could see the blazing square of light that was the open entry hatch—the place where Alan Huff had been attacked while transmitting, the audiovisual signals back to Copernicus Base.

“All right, attention . . . I’m on the landing platform below the hatch. I want everyone to assemble here before we go up. The hatch is open, and extreme caution is the order of the day. When you get up here, draw your sidearms, but keep them on safety until ordered otherwise.”

Kemp stood off to the side and watched his team slowly join him on the platform. He kept looking up through the hatch where the bright light of the ship’s interior burned whitely. From his angle, it was impossible to discern anything clearly, but his imagination was filling in what the eye could not yet see. His pulse was pounding in his ears, and it seemed so loud that he was certain that his helmet-mike was picking up the sound.

When the last man had clambered up to the platform, Kemp signaled the Command cabin of the
Goddard.
“This is Kemp . . . We’ve reached the entry hatch to the interior and we are preparing to go topside. We will provide visual as soon as some defensive perimeters have been established. Stand by,
Goddard . . .
we’re going up . . .”

Kemp climbed through the hatch and stared about the clearing. A feeling of
déja vu
swept over him as he looked across the clearing, to flanking walls of proto-firs, cycads, and redwoods, to the sloping marshland and mudflat where the first team had recorded the waddling herd of Iguanodons. In the hazy distance, the mottled foliage of the landscape curved upward towards the halo-like glow of the central illuminating rod. No horizon. It was a heart-stopping sight, even though Phineas had been prepared for it, and it made all those “artist’s conceptions” pitiful in comparison.

Slowly, he climbed up to the soft, spongy turf, listening to the chittering, humming sounds of this world. Motioning for the rest of the team to follow quickly, Kemp moved down off the small knoll and found the remains of Huff’s communications gear. Some of the metallic parts were already showing signs of corrosion in the humid atmosphere, and the plastic casings were laced with tiny teeth marks—little predators testing out anything for a possible meal, he assumed.

But that was all. There was absolutely no sign of Huff’s body, nor any of the others. Apparently nothing was wasted in this world of primitive instincts. There was a distant scream in the air. Looking up, Phineas saw a dark shape far away, gliding like a kite in the misty sky. The intruders had been spotted and the signal was going out. He wanted no repeat of the previous team’s experience.

“We’ve got to move quickly,” he said to everyone through the radiophones. “There’ll be plenty of time for oohs and aahs. Let’s get that fence up . . .”

Phineas was pleased with the efficiency with which his team operated. They could have been in Central Park for all the attention they paid to the Jurassic wonders all about them. Within ten minutes they had staked out a large circle in the clearing approximately a hundred meters in diameter. The enclosure was circumscribed by a series of “fence-posts” placed at regular intervals along the eight thousand-meter circumference. Each post was a miniature field-generator controlled by a central transmitter, which operated in synch with the posts on either side of it. Anything that attempted to pass between the posts would do two things: set off an alarm and get itself hit with three hundred thousand volts at stunning amperage. It was a simple “force-field” security barrier, which could easily be foiled by intelligent espionage elements, but would be extremely effective against any predatory dinosaurs.

The power was turned on, the perimeter tested and found to be working perfectly. Phineas felt immediately more at ease once the team was secure, and relayed the information back to the
Goddard.
He ordered Doctor Jakes and his team of engineers and riggers to begin disarming the
Dragonstar’
s defensive
systems, so that installation of the impulse engines could begin
as soon as possible. Using a refined version of Coopersmith’s original methods, Jakes’ team should be able to have the first engines in place within forty-eight hours.

* * *

Two days inside the
Dragonstar
passed quickly. The base camp took shape quickly with inflatable structural domes which served as crew quarters, supply huts, infirmary, communications headquarters, research labs, and power stations. The collection of domes and superstructure seemed wildly incongruous with the lush surroundings of the forest and the marshlands—the ultimate anachronism—but the
Goddard
team soon established a respectful rapport with the environment and the animals which were drawn to the small human incursion upon their world.

For Mikaela Lindstrom, the interior of the
Dragonstar
was the fulfillment of her dreams. An encapsulated world of the past, which would forever put to rest the theories and arguments concerning the early geologic periods of life on the Earth. She was totally grateful to have been included in the mission to the
Dragonstar,
and though she and her two assistants would barely begin to investigate the myriad secrets of the Jurassic wonderland, she would at least have time, during the return voyage, to map out a system of inquiry.

It was not long after the force-field had been erected that the first dinosaurs were seen. Coming up from the misty regions of the swampland which sloped down away from the base, a group of three herbivorous creatures called Camptosaurus, half-walked and half-hopped toward the encampment. Mikaela watched them as they approached cautiously, recording them with a small videocube camera with an adjustable telephoto lens. The dinosaurs were less than two meters tall and resembled kangaroos in general body shape, although their heads were quite birdlike. Their coloring was a mottled green that was almost an exact duplicate of the color of the foliage that grew close to the swamps and lakeshore. The creatures did not come all the way up to the electrified perimeter of the camp, but veered off within a hundred meters of it to pluck juicy blossoms from some of the low-hanging branches of cycads.

The swamp and marshland proved to be a favorite watering hole and feeding ground for a majority of herbivores. Within the first two days Mikaela and her crew had been able to record and observe the habits of a variety of animals—Trachodons, Brachiosaurus, Iguanodons, Ankylosaurus, even several monstrously huge Brontosaurus and impossibly-long Diplodocus. In her earliest notes, Mikaela had observed that there was very little contact between different herbivorous species, and that the plant-eaters generally avoided animals not of their own kind. But this was a gentle aversion, rather than the blind, panicked flight expressed whenever the scent of a predator was in the air.

Since the waters attracted many plant-eating dinosaurs, it was also natural that the carnivorous dinosaurs would enjoy good hunting in the same region. Although Mikaela and her crew soon discovered that most of the feeding took place in the early hours of evening and darkness, there were still many occasions during the day-cycles to observe the meat-eaters at work. She was impressed and terrified at the sight of some of them. Massive, strong, and surprisingly agile, the meat-eaters were nightmares come to life. Many of them, like the Gorgosaurus and the Ceratosaurus, had thick hides of bright colors—oranges, yellows, pale greens—since they had no need for the safety of camouflage. The largest carnivore she had yet seen had been an Allosaurus considerably larger than any ever found in fossilized form. It looked as though it was the same creature that had attacked the first expedition, and Mikaela assumed that the carnivores exhibited some degree of territoriality In their hunting grounds, Among the species of meat-eaters, she observed no direct combat, although there was a definite hierarchy of species, mostly defined by size and ferocity. Most simply, the smaller fellows gave the larger fellows a wide berth and a first chance at any prey that might be felled. She also noted that some of the smaller predators traveled and hunted in packs like wolves. The relatively small, quick species like the Compsognathus, Velociraptor, and Deinodon could be seen in the early evening hours racing about the perimeter of the camp, rushing up to the force-field at full speed, only to be knocked senseless by the energy screens, then stagger to their feet and try
again. Mikaela was amazed at the savage intensity with which even the smallest carnivores hunted and fed. She had witnessed their neighborhood Allosaurus bring down a fat, slow-moving Hadrosaurus with incredible agility, covering several meters with each stride of its massive legs, pouncing upon the victim’s back and crushing it to the ground. Pinned, the Hadrosaurus was helpless as the Allosaurus literally tore its body into bite-sized pieces. The beast fed until its stomach became so distended that it could hardly stand erect, then slowly rose from the carcass and stumbled off into the forest, where it would sleep for a day or two in the depths of a digestive stupor.

But the attacks of the Allosaurus were tame when compared to the horrible tactics of the marauding packs of Compsognathus, and especially the odd little dinosaur called the Deinodon. The latter creature was no more than three meters long, standing just higher than the average man, but was one of the most distinctive-looking bipedal dinosaurs. Its head was similar to the Gorgosaurus or the Allosaurus, and was full of sharp, ripping teeth, but its legs were much leaner, ending in two large toes and a third digit which had evolved into a twelve-centimeter, sickle-shaped claw. Its other remarkable feature was its long tail, which always protruded horizontally to the ground, as though held rigid by thick musculature or fused tail vertebrae. Equipped thusly, the Deinodon was an incredibly agile, terribly lethal creature. Mikaela had watched packs of three and four of the species
running
through the edges of the forest and across the clearing below the base camp at speeds approaching that of a thoroughbred horse. From what she had seen thus far, the Deinodon was the speediest predator of all. lt could run down any prey with impunity, whereupon it would perform its special kind of death-dealing. Once it ran its victim aground, the little dinosaur would hold the body away from it with its longish forelimbs, then balancing one leg and using its rigid tail as a balance-pole, it would employ its scythe-like third claw to slash open the prey’s belly, effectively disemboweling it with several deft strokes. This procedure was done with such swiftness that the eye could barely follow it. The sharp-teethed jaws snapped up gobbets of warm flesh with equal speed and efficiency. To see a small pack of these killers take down a large Trachodon and butcher it within minutes was an experience not soon forgotten.