Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (156 page)

From where the transition chamber materializes, the sauropod swamp looks like a couple of hours’ walk, but it’s really an all-day scramble. The first part is easy, as it’s downhill and the brush isn’t heavy. Then, as you get near the swamp, the cycads and willows grow so thickly that you have to worm your way among them.

I led the party to a sandy ridge on the border of the swamp, as it was pretty bare of vegetation and afforded a fine view. When we got to the ridge, the sun was about to go down. A couple of crocs slipped off into the water. The sahibs were so tired that they flopped down in the sand as if dead.

The haze is thick round the swamp, so the sun was deep red and weirdly distorted by the atmospheric layers. There was a high layer of clouds reflecting the red and gold of the sun, too, so altogether it was something for the Raja to write one of his poems about. A few little pterosaur were wheeling overhead like bats.

Beauregard Black got a fire going. We’d started on our steaks, and that pagoda-shaped sun was just slipping below the horizon, and something back in the trees was making a noise like a rusty hinge, when a sauropod breathed out in the water. They’re the really big ones, you know. If Mother Earth were to sigh over the misdeeds of her children, it would sound like that.

The sahibs jumped up, shouting: “Where is he? Where is he?”

I said: “That black spot in the water, just to the left of that point.”

They yammered while the sauropod filled its lungs and disappeared. “Is that all?” said James. “Won’t we see any more of him?”

“No,” I explained. “They can walk perfectly well and often do, for egg-laying and moving from one swamp to another. But most of the time they spend in the water, like hippopotamus. They eat eight hundred pounds of soft swamp plants a day, all through those little heads. So they wander about the bottoms of lakes and swamps, chomping away, and stick their heads up to breathe every quarter-hour or so. It’s getting dark, so this fellow will soon come out and lie down in the shallows to sleep.”

“Can we shoot one?” demanded James.

“I wouldn’t,” said I.

“Why not?”

I said: “There’s no point in it, and it’s not sporting. First, they’re almost invulnerable. They’re even harder to hit in the brain than other dinosaurs because of the way they sway their heads about on those long necks. Their hearts are too deeply buried to reach unless you’re awfully lucky. Then, if you kill one in the water, he sinks and can’t be recovered. If you kill one on land, the only trophy is that little head. You can’t bring the whole beast back because he weighs thirty tons or more, and we’ve got no use for thirty tons of meat.”

Holtzinger said: “That museum in New York got one.”

“Yes,” said I. “The American Museum of Natural History sent a party of forty-eight to the Early Cretaceous with a fifty-caliber machine gun. They killed a sauropod and spent two solid months skinning it and hacking the carcass apart and dragging it to the time machine. I know the chap in charge of that project, and he still has nightmares in which he smells decomposing dinosaur. They had to kill a dozen big theropods attracted by the stench, so they had them lying around and rotting, too. And the theropods ate three men of the party despite the big gun.”

Next morning, we were finishing breakfast when one of the helpers said: “Look, Mr. Rivers, up there!”

He pointed along the shoreline. There were six big crested duckbill, feeding in the shallows. They were the kind called
Parasaurolophus
, with a long spike sticking out the back of their heads and a web of skin connecting this with the back of their necks.

“Keep your voices down!” I said. The duckbill, like the other ornithopods, are wary beasts because they have neither armor nor weapons. They feed on the margins of lakes and swamps, and when a gorgosaur rushes out of the trees they plunge into deep water and swim off. Then when
Phobosuchus
, the supercrocodile, goes for them in the water, they flee to the land. A hectic sort of life, what?

Holtzinger said: “Uh—Reggie! I’ve been thinking over what you said about ceratopsian heads. If I could get one of those yonder, I’d be satisfied. It would look big enough in my house, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m sure of it, old boy,” I said. “Now look here. We could detour to come out on the shore near here, but we should have to plow through half a mile of muck and brush, and they’d hear us coming. Or we can creep up to the north end of this sandspit, from which it’s three or four hundred yards—a long shot but not impossible. Think you could do it?”

“Hm,” said Holtzinger. “With my scope sight and a sitting position—okay, I’ll try it.”

“You stay here, Court,” I said to James. “This is Augie’s head, and I don’t want any argument over your having fired first.”

James grunted while Holtzinger clamped his scope to his rifle. We crouched our way up the spit, keeping the sand ridge between us and the duckbill. When we got to the end where there was no more cover, we crept along on hands and knees, moving slowly. If you move slowly enough, directly toward or away from a dinosaur, it probably won’t notice you.

The duckbill continued to grub about on all fours, every few seconds rising to look round. Holtzinger eased himself into the sitting position, cocked his piece, and aimed through his scope. And then—

Bang! bang!
went a big rifle back at the camp.

Holtzinger jumped. The duckbills jerked their heads up and leaped for the deep water, splashing like mad. Holtzinger fired once and missed. I took one shot at the last duckbill before it vanished too, but missed. The .600 isn’t built for long ranges.

Holtzinger and I started back toward the camp, for it had struck us that our party might be in theropod trouble.

What had happened was that a big sauropod had wandered down past the camp underwater, feeding as it went. Now, the water shoaled about a hundred yards offshore from our spit, halfway over to the swamp on the other side. The sauropod had ambled up the slope until its body was almost all out of water, weaving its head from side to side and looking for anything green to gobble. This is a species of
Alamosaurus
, which looks much like the well-known
Brontosaurus
except that it’s bigger.

When I came in sight of the camp, the sauropod was turning round to go back the way it had come, making horrid groans. By the time we reached the camp, it had disappeared into deep water, all but its head and twenty feet of neck, which wove about for some time before they vanished into the haze.

When we came up to the camp, James was arguing with the Raja. Holtzinger burst out:

“You crummy bastard! That’s the second time you’ve spoiled my shots.”

“Don’t be a fool,” said James. “I couldn’t let him wander into the camp and stamp everything flat.”

“There was no danger of that,” said the Raja. “You can see the water is deep offshore. It’s just that our trigger-happee Mr. James cannot see any animal without shooting.”

I added: “If it did get close, all you needed to do was throw a stick of firewood at it. They’re perfectly harmless.”

This wasn’t strictly true. When the Comte de Lautrec ran after one for a close shot, the sauropod looked back at him, gave a flick of its tail, and took off the Comte’s head as neatly as if he’d been axed in the tower. But, as a rule, they’re inoffensive enough.

“How was I to know?” yelled James, turning purple. “You’re all against me. What the hell are we on this miserable trip for, except to shoot things? Call yourselves hunters, but I’m the only one who hits anything!”

I got pretty wrothy and said he was just an excitable young skite with more money than brains, whom I should never have brought along.

“If that’s how you feel,” he said, “give me a burro and some food, and I’ll go back to the base myself. I won’t pollute your pure air with my presence!”

“Don’t be a bigger ass than you can help,” I said. “What you propose is quite impossible.”

“Then I’ll go alone!” He grabbed his knapsack, thrust a couple of tins of beans and an opener into it, and started off with his rifle.

Beauregard Black spoke up: “Mr. Rivers, we cain’t let him go off like that. He’ll git lost and starve, or be et by a theropod.”

“I’ll fetch him back,” said the Raja, and started after the runaway.

He caught up with James as the latter was disappearing into the cycads. We could see them arguing and waving their hands in the distance. After a while, they started back with arms around each other’s necks like old school pals.

This shows the trouble we get into if we make mistakes in planning such a do. Having once got back in time, we had to make the best of our bargain.

I don’t want to give the impression, however, that Courtney James was nothing but a pain in the rump. He had good points. He got over these rows quickly and next day would be as cheerful as ever. He was helpful with the general work of the camp, at least when he felt like it. He sang well and had an endless fund of dirty stories to keep us amused.

We stayed two more days at that camp. We saw crocodile, the small kind, and plenty of sauropod—as many as five at once—but no more duckbill. Nor any of those fifty-foot supercrocodiles.

So, on the first of May, we broke camp and headed north toward the Janpur Hills. My sahibs were beginning to harden up and were getting impatient. We’d been in the Cretaceous a week, and no trophies.

We saw nothing to speak of on the next leg, save a glimpse of a gorgosaur out of range and some tracks indicating a whopping big iguanodont, twenty-five or thirty feet high. We pitched camp at the base of the hills.

We’d finished off the bonehead, so the first thing was to shoot fresh meat. With an eye to trophies, too, of course. We got ready the morning of the third, and I told James:

“See here, old boy, no more of your tricks. The Raja will tell you when to shoot.”

“Uh-huh, I get you,” he said, meek as Moses.

We marched off, the four of us, into the foothills. There was a good chance of getting Holtzinger his ceratopsian. We’d seen a couple on the way up, but mere calves without decent horns.

As it was hot and sticky, we were soon panting and sweating. We’d hiked and scrambled all morning without seeing a thing except lizards, when I picked up the smell of carrion. I stopped the party and sniffed. We were in an open glade cut up by those little dry nullahs. The nullahs ran together into a couple of deeper gorges that cut through a slight depression choked with denser growth, cycad, and screw pine. When I listened, I heard the thrum of carrion flies.

“This way,” I said. “Something ought to be dead—ah, here it is!”

And there it was: the remains of a huge ceratopsian lying in a little hollow on the edge of the copse. Must have weighed six or eight ton alive; a three-horned variety, perhaps the penultimate species of
Triceratops
. It was hard to tell, because most of the hide on the upper surface had been ripped off, and many bones had been pulled loose and lay scattered about.

Holtzinger said: “Oh, shucks! Why couldn’t I have gotten to him before he died? That would have been a darned fine head.”

I said: “On your toes, chaps. A theropod’s been at this carcass and is probably nearby.”

“How d’you know?” said James, with sweat running off his round red face. He spoke in what was for him a low voice, because a nearby theropod is a sobering thought to the flightiest.

I sniffed again and thought I could detect the distinctive rank odor of theropod. I couldn’t be sure, though, because the carcass stank so strongly. My sahibs were turning green at the sight and smell of the cadaver. I told James:

“It’s seldom that even the biggest theropod will attack a full-grown ceratopsian. Those horns are too much for them. But they love a dead or dying one. They’ll hang round a dead ceratopsian for weeks, gorging and then sleeping off their meals for days at a time. They usually take cover in the heat of the day anyhow, because they can’t stand much direct hot sunlight. You’ll find them lying in copses like this or in hollows, wherever there’s shade.”

“What’ll we do?” asked Holtzinger.

“We’ll make our first cast through this copse, in two pairs as usual. Whatever you do, don’t get impulsive or panicky.”

I looked at Courtney James, but he looked right back and merely checked his gun.

“Should I still carry this broken?” he asked.

“No, close it, but keep the safety on till you’re ready to shoot,” I said. “We’ll keep closer than usual, so we shall be in sight of each other. Start off at that angle, Raja; go slowly, and stop to listen between steps.”

We pushed through the edge of the copse, leaving the carcass but not its stench behind us. For a few feet, you couldn’t see a thing.

It opened out as we got in under the trees, which shaded out some of the brush. The sun slanted down through the trees. I could hear nothing but the hum of insects and the scuttle of lizards and the squawks of toothed birds in the treetops. I thought I could be sure of the theropod smell, but told myself that might be imagination. The theropod might be any of several species, large or small, and the beast itself might be anywhere within a half-mile’s radius.

“Go on,” I whispered to Holtzinger. I could hear James and the Raja pushing ahead on my right and see the palm fronds and ferns lashing about as they disturbed them. I suppose they were trying to move quietly, but to me they sounded like an earthquake in a crockery shop.

“A little closer!” I called.

Presently, they appeared slanting in toward me. We dropped into a gully filled with ferns and scrambled up the other side. Then we found our way blocked by a big clump of palmetto.

“You go round that side; we’ll go round this,” I said. We started off, stopping to listen and smell. Our positions were the same as on that first day, when James killed the bonehead.

We’d gone two-thirds of the way round our half of the palmetto when I heard a noise ahead on our left. Holtzinger heard it too, and pushed off his safety. I put my thumb on mine and stepped to one side to have a clear field of fire.