Dragon Dawn (Dinosaurian Time Travel) (23 page)

Her communicator vibrated against her chest. They were trying to reach her again.

“Leave me alone!” she shrieked to the air.

Then she realized they might be trying to tell her something about Lex.
Holy Mother, what’s happening to my mind?
she thought in horror.
What if they’re trying to save his life at this very moment?

She whipped her communicator from beneath her shirt. “I’m here.” 

“Tasha!” everyone yelled at once. Then Gus’s face winked onto the screen. “Tasha, are you all right?” He didn’t wait for a response. “We’ll be at your position in ten minutes. Stay there. Don’t move a muscle.”

“Gus,” she swallowed, “where is – where is he?”

“Tasha, he’s...” 

She knew from the way Gus couldn’t finish his words that it was over. Her legs gave way, and she fell in a heap on the ground. She gave a hurt cry, a little animal cry, and started to roll around from grief. “Oh, my Sasha, oh, Alexander! Why?”

“Tasha?”

She barely heard Gus’s voice, echoing from her communicator.

“Tasha!”

She went still. “Wh – what happened to him, Gus?”

“It was a dinosaur, a
Triceratops
. I’m sorry. I did everything you asked, but he died.”

“Oh, no, no.” Tasha felt dead herself. 

“Stay there,
ma
chére
,” Jean-Michel said. “I’m watching over you now, like your guardian angel. Remember?”

“What? I, I do not understand.” 

“Natasha Antipova, I am your guardian angel,” Jean-Michel said. “But I will be crossing the terminus soon. While I am orbiting on the night side, you must hold your position. Stay where you are. Your friends will be joining you at any moment.”

“Yes,” Gus chimed in. “We’re coming for you, Tasha.”

She couldn’t listen to any more of this, this pity. Tears filled her eyes, and she struggled to her feet. 

She pulled the chain holding her communicator, up and over her head, then let it drop to the ground. With a ragged cry, she stumbled away.

***

“Damn it all, she should be here!” Gus held Tasha’s muddied communicator. The device’s homing beacon had worked perfectly, but the physician was nowhere in sight. He studied Tasha’s footprints, which trailed off into the muck. “Where the hell
is
she?”

“We’ll find her, Gus,” Dawn said, searching the glade. “She couldn’t have gotten far.”

“Oh, Lord,” Kris cried out, on the verge of hysterics. “I shouldn’t have distracted Lex. He didn’t need to film me!”

Dawn wanted to cover her ears and scream. Everything they had learned about teamwork in astronaut training had broken down. She had to get away from Kris, from all of them, or she’d go crazy. Harry stood by the Rover with Kris, rocking her in his arms, but he was not helping the matter, either. His eyes were wet as she continued to sob.

And Gus looked like he wanted to strangle someone.

Let them sort out this mess
, Dawn told herself.
Go find Tasha
. 

She gave her crewmates a last glance and then set off, tracing Tasha’s tracks over to some sycamores. To her right, a little creek wound through the woods. She studied the damp earth. There were dinosaur footprints everywhere, but she’d suddenly lost signs of a human presence. She looked at the pebbles and rocks of the streambed. Had Tasha begun to walk there on purpose? Was she trying to cover her tracks? 

Dawn moved on, fingering her hunting rifle as she stared at the ground. Some of the dinosaur tracks were small, but most were huge. She placed her own size 7 shoe alongside a particularly mighty imprint and shuddered.

According to the J-Stars data, Tasha had been in the vicinity only ten minutes before. But where had she gone? What could’ve happened to her? 

Dawn moved toward a large tree. She looked up, recalling her encounter with the hadrosaurs. Were they searching in the wrong place? Had Tasha found refuge up there? 

She scanned the empty branches.
Nope. No one.

“Hey, Dawn,” Gus called out, “where are you going? We need to stick together.”

She looked over her shoulder. To her surprise, Gus and the others were pretty far away, maybe thirty meters. Although she was armed, she suddenly felt extremely vulnerable. 

An unnerving chill raced down her spine, and she glanced around, reminded of the feeling she had as a kid, playing a swimming pool game called Shark Attack. You got a big rush when someone tipped your raft and shouted “Shark!” especially when you imagined a monster lurked beneath your legs.

As she looked at the trees, she felt that old, familiar, heart-thumping surge. Only now, she reminded herself, this wasn’t some sort of kid’s game. 

Here the monsters were real.

***

Tasha didn’t know where she was going as she ran along the streambed. All she could think about was the image of the
Triceratops
rushing toward Lex. Had he suffered, dying alone as he had? Her heart ached and her gut felt hollow. If only she could weep; she wanted desperately to weep! 

A deep, wrenching sob erupted from her body. She listened to herself, half-amazed at the intensity of her bitter wails. Her one wish was that she could be with her sons. Tearfully, she reached down, grabbed her locket, and realized the boys were her future now. First and foremost, she had to think about reuniting with Michael and Nicholas.

But how?
She ran on, body shaking, trying to gulp back her sobs. Suddenly, she slipped on the rocks and tumbled facedown into the stream. The cold water stunned her like a slap to the cheek.

Tasha pulled herself to her knees and shook her head, sending a spray of water into the air. She shivered from the cold and also from terrible foreboding. What if she never saw her sons again? Just as she opened her mouth to scream in grief, she heard a distant shout, joined by a voice calling out, the words indistinct, yet frantic. It sounded like Gus.

Tasha felt the weight of medical kit still strapped to her back. Someone needed her.

Rising, she turned toward the distant sound. She started to run, forcing her agony from her mind, concentrating on her fellow astronauts. 

***

“Stay put, Dawn! Don’t move. We’re coming your way.”

Nodding to Gus, she watched her three crewmates climb into the Rover. Despite the distance, she could tell Kris looked shell-shocked, while Gus and Harry studiously avoided each other’s stares. Something had happened between the men while they retrieved Lex’s body. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she was sure they’d had an argument. 

Don’t blame anyone, guys
, she wanted to tell them.
Lex’s death was an accident
.

As fresh tears rolled down her face, Dawn focused on Lex’s motionless form. They had to find Tasha. Lex would want them to protect her.

She turned, regarding the trees again, feeling as if something was staring at the back of her head. Dawn’s muscles tensed and then she jumped when she heard what sounded like the cracking of a bullwhip.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Her curiosity got the best of her, and she moved forward until she parted some bushes and hazarded a look at the clearing beyond. Dozens of the humongous plant eaters called Apatosaurs stood there, whipping their long tails and restlessly eyeing the woods. 

“Hey, Dawn?” Harry’s voice suddenly came over her communicator. “Dawn, where’d you go?”

“Uh, I’m watching the weirdest thing. The Apatosaurs are using their tails like whips––”

“Get out of there!” Harry yelled. “They’re driving off predators!”

Gus and Kris also started shouting. Dawn scanned the nearby forest, but still she saw nothing but trees. Yet a chill pricked the back of her neck. About to beat a path out of the woods, to run as fast as she could go, she froze when she spotted a huge animal lurking behind a large, leafy tree, a beast as tall as a two-story house. 

Tyrannical king of the lizards, a towering
Tyrannosaurus
rex
stood less than ten meters from her position. Dawn didn’t dare move a muscle or even blink. The animal had its back to her, its hide a curious mixture of feathers and scales. The head was covered in golden feathers tapering down the neck until the scales took over in rich, earthy brown, with jade-green zebra stripes running in great slashes along the back of its spine. It was the perfect camouflage, she realized, if you wanted to blend into the forest. 

With a birdlike jerk of its head, the animal looked in her direction, and their gazes locked and held. She sucked in her breath. The features of the
T.
rex
were truly hideous, particularly the great, green, wartlike growths running along the ridge of its snout and over its eyes. To Dawn, it looked like the face of a wicked witch gone wild. Covered by two armored brow horns, its red, hobgoblin eyes were located in the front of its skull. With a start, she realized the huge, ugly beast could see as well as she could. 

Maybe even better.

Her gaze flicked back and forth between the monster and the direction she’d taken. Oblivious to the danger before them, her companions were now making a beeline for her position. In turn, the Tyrannosaur had given up on the whipping plant eaters, concentrating instead on her friends. 

Now the Rover was less than twenty-five meters away. Now only twenty.

In terror, Dawn heard a low snarl as the
T.
rex
opened its mouth wide, flashing row upon row of long, white teeth, some as big as railroad spikes. 

She lifted her gun – which suddenly seemed woefully inadequate – aimed at the beast’s soft palate, and fired. Instantly, the gun recoiled against her shoulder. She took a step backward, wincing in pain. The animal’s head rebounded, flying upward as it took the bullet in the mouth. A hit! 

As the
T.
rex
roared in fury, Dawn ignored the sharp ache in her shoulder and pumped more rounds into its body. 

Then her gun clicked impotently; she was out of ammo.

The
T.
rex
leapt into space, aiming straight at her. She spun around and broke into a run. 

The animal’s roars echoed in her ears as its thunderous footfalls reverberated on the ground. Only a second more passed when something smashed into her back and she was knocked to the ground. 

I’m
dead
! 

But to her amazement, she felt no pain. She heard the
T.
rex’s
jaws clamp shut as its razor teeth caught on the fabric of her T-shirt. With a powerful jerk, she was hoisted into the air. 

The beast shook her, like a dog does with its prey. Just before she lost consciousness, she heard the shouts of her companions. 

And the short bursts of the E-M cannon.

Chapter 18

Yet leaving here a name, I trust,

That will not perish in the dust.

~Robert Southey,
My
Days
Among
the
Dead
Are
Past

The evening had a nice feel to it, like it was wrapped in the warm glow of a roaring fire. Dawn sat in the kitchen of her house in Oak Creek. Kris had come for a visit. They were sharing a pot of vanilla tea. 

“So, are you gonna take me to Slide Rock tomorrow?” Kris asked her.

Dawn grinned. “Yeah, as soon as I find some old cut-offs for the both of us. You can’t use swimsuits. The bottoms get torn up and ruined.”

The dogs started barking. The melodious voice of the house-com came on, informing her someone stood at the front door.

“Who is it?” Dawn asked the computer.

“Commander Granberg,” came the reply.

Gus?
Dawn thought in surprise. Wasn’t he supposed to be in Florida this week?

She got up, crossed the room, and opened the door. To her horror, a
T.
rex
stood there, waiting. It roared, its fierce bellows filling the air as Dawn flung herself against the front door, attempting to slam it shut. 

But the dinosaur was too strong. As the door crashed open, shattering into pieces, Dawn fell back. The monster’s head poked through the smashed doorway, jaws snapping as it stared at her with big, glowing, red eyes.

Then she heard the dogs. Aghast, she turned. They were charging straight at the monster.

“No! No!” She reached out, attempting to block their way, but the
T.
rex
lunged through the door and grabbed one of Dawn’s outstretched arms. She felt a strange
pop
!
and the limb was gone, severed at the shoulder in a fountain of blood.

Dawn fell to her knees, watching as the great beast gulped down her arm, then turned on the dogs. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. She tried and tried but she was mute, her throat in spasm.

Her eyes flew open, but everything was in a blur. Was she having a nightmare? She shook her head, still not sure she’d actually been dreaming. Thrashing around, she was instantly aware of a deep, throbbing pain in her left arm.

A voice called out, “Don’t move!”

That was Gus, wasn’t it? Dawn tried to focus her eyes, but couldn’t.

And then, another voice. “Lie still,” Tasha ordered. “I must immobilize arm.”

“You broke your arm,” Gus added.

“Wh – how?” Dawn asked, then she heard herself groan.

“It was the freakin’
T. rex
,” Harry cut in. Dawn’s vision cleared just as he thrust his face toward her. In shock, she saw he was covered up to his elbows in gore. She smelled blood and burnt meat. “Did you get hurt, too?” she croaked.

“Nah, I’m okay. The dinosaur got zapped, though. Took the head clean off. Big mess, eh?” Harry turned to Tasha. “How’s she doin’, Doc?”

Tasha managed to give him an icy smile. “Fine. Now let me work.”

Harry turned back to Dawn. With a sheepish grin, he held up his bloody hands. “Sorry ‘bout this,” he said. “Kris and I were just taking a look at its guts. Have to be careful, though. Despite being decapitated, the body’s still moving around. One kick and we’d be in the same fix as you.”

All she could manage was another faint groan. She heard Gus curse, then Tasha shout, “We do not care, Harry – now go!”

Through the fog of pain, Dawn watched Harry skulk away. She opened her mouth, wanting to thank him for his concern, but found she was now incapable of speech. 

Dawn felt another deep spasm in her arm and she gasped in agony. Just before she shut her eyes against the terrible pain, she glimpsed Gus’s tormented features. 

“Trust me, Commander,” Tasha said. “She will be fine. After I set arm, I will give her gene therapy injection to speed growth of bone cells. But first, I must give her sedative. She will sleep.” 

Dawn heard the hiss of the hypo. Yet before her body went numb, she felt one more sensation; someone’s fingers were stroking her hair. 

Gus?
she thought.
Gus, is that you?

And then, she was enveloped by a cozy darkness and her pain faded away, the darkness getting deeper, deeper, until... nothing.

***

Tasha had spent the last few hours caring for Dawn, but now that her patient was out of danger, she could do nothing more than wait and let her sleep off the anesthetic. 

She wandered to the
Valiant’s
main room, numb to everyone’s concern, barely aware as Gus made her sit and have some Jack Daniel’s. Mother of God, what she wouldn’t give for some vodka! The liquor burned her throat, but she drank and let herself go, her wretched weeping providing no relief at all. All she cared about now was finding a place to bury Lex. She recalled his favorite film,
Out of Africa
. There was a place near the lander which overlooked the valley, reminding her of the bluff where the character Denys had been buried by his beloved Karen Blixen, a beautiful spot.
Oh, Mother of God!
   

Tasha wiped her eyes and regarded the solemn gazes of her crewmates. Between sobs, she told them something of the funeral scene in the film. “Outside is most glorious view. My Alexander,” she gave a ragged sigh, “he would approve.” She blew her nose and gulped down more of liquor, her throat raw from crying and the booze.

Gus shook his head. “I don’t understand. We can take his body with us. When we get home––”

“We will never get home! I want him buried here, and I shall leave this with him.” Tasha removed the diamond wedding ring from her finger. “These stones are Russian, from Urals. My Alexander bought diamonds for me when he trained at Baikonur.” She swiped at her tears, willing herself back to some modicum of dignity. “If we do not get back to our time, perhaps someone will find Alexander’s bones and diamond ring. It will be like... what do you call it? A time capsule?”

“But Tasha,” Gus said, “the odds against that happening are huge.”

“I am well aware of odds, but I have looked at this site very carefully. There is water percolating out of ground.” Tasha regarded Harry. “Am I correct in assuming fossilization has better chance if water is present?”   

Harry looked around at everyone, then nodded. “Right.”

Tasha tipped back her glass and downed the rest of her drink. Coughing and then wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she carefully chose her next words. “My Alexander was excellent scientist, was he not? He would have wanted to be part of last, grand experiment. We could leave other clues as to his whereabouts – I, er, I don’t know exactly what yet – and our sons may learn what happened.” 

Her gaze drifted to the chair Lex had always used at the table, empty now, like her heart. She looked at the bleak expressions of her comrades. They were feeling it, too, the terrible emptiness, but not like her. Lex had been her life.

“Tasha,” Kris gently whispered.

Tasha got to her feet. Her limbs felt like jelly. She stumbled outside, to look at the burial site, the hill rolling down to the wide valley floor. The Rockies towered in the distance, so beautiful.

She was not aware the others had followed her, until Kris took her by
the hand. 

“Harry and I have got an idea, but it’s for you to decide, Tash. We don’t want to step on any toes.”

Tasha nodded, feeling blessedly drunk, yet knowing she must listen. “Tell me,” she said, hearing the slur in her own words.

Kris squeezed her hand, then let go. “What if we try to create a fossil to preserve Lex’s DNA? If it’s found in your time capsule, it could be compared to his medical records.”

Instantly, Tasha felt more sober; this would provide the answer for her sons. “How would we do this?”

“With tree sap. We can go out and get some resin from a tree – spruce or juniper would be best – and then, if we place a tissue sample inside a sealed vial and surround it with the resin, it might stay viable for a long time.”

Tasha nodded. “I understand. You wish to make amber fossil, don’t you?” When Kris nodded back, she added, “Surely you know it’s highly unlikely Lex’s DNA will be preserved through time.”

“Yeah, Doc, we all realize the odds,” Harry acknowledged. “DNA is fragile, but I think we have something here to consider.” 

“So, you’re saying it’s kind of like
Jurassic Park?
” Gus asked.

“Right,” Harry said. “But
Jurassic
Park
couldn’t have happened, at least not yet. Even though the story was all the rage when we were little kids,
Jurassic Park
was fiction. The scientists of our time cannot recreate the genome of a
T-rex
. Then again, some fossils from sandstone sediments have yielded some surprises: proteins and soft tissue.”

Tasha felt as if she were going insane, listening to this drivel about what? Movies? Stupid fossils? But she found she couldn’t speak up. She simply stood there, dumb, listening, feeling drunk again, tears threatening.

“... er, yes,” Kris was saying, “and we’ve even gotten 350 million year old organic molecules from fossilized crinoids, quite possibly the remains of the pigments that colored them. And dinosaurian pigment-loaded structures called melanosomes have been found, too. Remember, amber is even better at preserving tissue than sandstone, so I think we should take a chance and give it a try.”

“We can seal a vial with Lex’s DNA inside the resin,” Harry said. “Maybe it’ll work. Even if there’s a remote chance, we’ve got to attempt it.” He glanced at Kris, who nodded back.  “We’d be crazy if we didn’t give it a shot.”

“Enough!” Tasha finally managed to say. “I do not care about details. You have convinced me it is possible.” Her eyes filled with tears and she brushed them away. “I, I shall remove sample from Lex’s body.”

“Are you sure you can do this?” Kris asked. “I could, you know, or Harry.”

Am I truly up to this?
Tasha wondered how she could divorce herself from her feelings. But she had to do it. She owed it to her husband and sons.

Harry stood there, watching her, and she saw his grief, too.

“Tasha,” he glanced away and then cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to tell you what to do, but make it something that’ll be more apt to preserve his DNA, something sturdy like a tooth. Maybe one of his back molars.”

“Two molars, Tasha,” Kris added. “The more samples, the better. And some of his hair, because nothing can penetrate intact shafts of hair, not even bacteria. The DNA inside the hair may survive in a better state than that in his molars.” 

Harry turned to Gus. “We didn’t get a chance to leave the commemorative plaque on Mars. I think we should put it in Lex’s grave.”

Gus looked to Tasha for her opinion.

Nodding, she turned toward the lander. “I must check Dawn’s arm, then I shall work on Lex.”

“Tasha,” Gus said in a gentle tone. “Maybe later. You need some rest.”

“
Nyet
, I must keep busy.” 

Fresh tears spilled down Tasha’s cheeks as she walked away.
I must
, she thought,
or I shall not survive.

***

Kris followed Tasha into the lander. Not taking his eyes off them, Harry said, “There go two women of vision. That’s a brilliant idea, eh? About the amber fossil.”

“Forget about that for a moment, will you?” Gus said as he turned toward the lander. “I’ve been worrying about something else, about getting out of here. Personally, I think we’re all going to end up like Lex if we stay here much longer.” His gaze was fixed on the hatch. “I saw tracks over there, not far from the stairs.”

“Tracks?” Harry followed the path of Gus’s stare. “What kind of tracks?”

“If I was a bettin’ man, I’d say they belonged to a pair of raptors.”

“Show me.” Harry tried to collect his thoughts as Gus led him to the tracks. This sure didn’t add up. Predators were usually cautious, wary. To get so close to something as big and strange as the lander showed boldness; the only parallel he could think of was when bears raided a campground.

But there was no smell of food here, no reason why raptors would be interested.

Unless they’re stalking us
.

Gus halted near the stairs. “Here,” he said, pointing.

Harry came down on his haunches and examined the ground. There were two distinct track patterns indicating a pair of creatures. At around thirty centimeters long, they were the right size, too. His gaze focused on the distinctive two-toed arrangement, with the second demonlike claw locked up over the third digit. No doubt about it. A pair of
Deinonychi
. And they had come this close to the lander? 

“Shit,” Harry said as he glanced up at Gus.

“My sentiments exactly.” Gus stooped down and plucked two golden brown feathers from the ground. “These look familiar, don’t they?” he asked, a scornful lift to his brow.