Window In Time Read online

  Ron strolled from the boats, a dump bag on each shoulder. His tent was the biggest, and he’d gotten no flak about setting up between the other two. Limbs stretched from the oaks nearby like leafy umbrellas. Vibrant green and fuzzy as a carpet, trimmed ferns lay scattered across the ground, the wood chips near where the trees used to be almost white in comparison. Mark was busy gathering wood for the fire, and at the rate Charlie was going they’d soon have enough of a stockpile to keep it burning for days.

  “Place is turning out even better than I expected,” Ron said. “Reminds me a little of the site we carved out of the woods on the Paint, only not so close to the river.

  “What do you say, Bull? Homey enough for you?”

  The axe hammered down. “It’ll do,” Charlie said, and kept chopping.

  Ron off loaded beside the tent, then reached and swept aside the netting. “Got enough shit in here, Prentler?”

  “You said we could spread out.”

  “I meant outside dickhead. Not in here.” Ron knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. A short trip or a long one, Prentler always managed to over pack. They wouldn’t be tearing down camp in the morning, or who the hell knew how long after that. Still, it was hard enough to keep track of your own stuff without having to deal with someone else’s. “Just do me a favor and slide the hell over?” He waited a second, then tossed his bags in.

  Tony snapped the shutter. “That should be a good one. And you need to get that fire going. Sounds like the snacks we had earlier are wearing a little thin.”

  “I got that impression,” Mark said, sifting through the twigs piled beside him. “A couple more layers and I’ll be good to go.”

  Hayden stepped from the tent, swiping dirt from his knees. “All yours, McClure.”

  “All mine? Take a look in there. I’m lucky I got room for my air mattress.”

  “Hold up, McClure.” Tony framed the shot. “Good. Now look this way guys.” He waved. “You too, Wheajo. Smile or whatever you do.” He shifted to better bracket the shot and clicked the shutter.

  Ron disappeared into his tent.

  Tony advanced the film. “You think about where we are, there’s a good chance I can get these published in National Geographic!” A faint trumpet sounded in the distance.

  “Uh huh,” Charlie said, and swung the axe.

  Mark twisted around, frowning.

  “Forget something?” Hayden asked, buttoning his shirt.

  “Yeah, probably. But that’s not….” Mark stood up, listening. “Charlie, stop with the axe for a second.” A hush fell about the campsite, leaving but the chirps and the hiss of the rapids downstream. Seconds passed.

  “That’s the rapids,” Ron said from inside his tent.

  “I know what they sound like, McClure. Just listen for a bit, would you?”

  Presently, a soft trumpeting sounded in the distance, strangely brassy and most definitely alive.

  Charlie blinked. “What is that?” Ron poked his head out the door.

  “Rapids huh?”

  They stood waiting for a repeat, the distant rumble drifting softly through the trees. “That was interesting,” Hayden said to no one in particular.

  “Beautiful is what it was,” said Tony. “Like a French horn and a trumpet twisted together somehow.”

  “And to carry over the sound of the rapids, really big ones.” Hayden looked to his partner. “Don’t go getting all hyper again, but any guesses about what could have made that?”

  “I can’t…. Well, maybe I can. There’ve been of articles written in the last few years on possible dinosaur vocalizations. Skull structure. Links to functionality. That kind of stuff. Most of it way the fuck over my head. The authors leaning toward the idea that the crests of some—”

  The trumpeting sounded again, louder this time and more distinct. The call quickly joined by two others.

  Ron got a lock on direction, then trotted over and snatched the rifle from its newly whittled hanger. “You up for a hike?”

  “Absolutely,” said Mark. “I’ve dreamt about this all my life.”

  Hayden had a hand up. “You can count me in.”

  “Anybody else?”

  An unknown forest loomed beyond the overturned canoes, the alien staring into the trees, as lost as they were and even more alone. “Maybe next time,” Tony demurred. “It’ll be dark soon, and I’m thinking I should get dinner going.”

  “Don’t look at me. This shit ain’t gonna cut itself.”

  Ron turned, “Fine by me,” and headed south. He didn’t know or care how far he’d be going, his primary objective to identify what was making the racket. And shoot whatever it was? Hell, that would almost make the whole fucking day worthwhile.

  He jogged past the alien, searching the thicket ahead.

  “McClure…?”

  He’d hunted virgin forest before, but nothing like this. However old the trees were, they’d been dropping branches forever, some rotted, some solid, damn near every one poking through the ferns and encrusted with what looked like moldy corn flakes. Vines twisting into the trees. A great place for a machete… if they had one.

  The trumpets sounded above the hiss.

  “McClure, would you stop already?”

  “What do you want, Bennett?”

  “I figure I’d better ask if it’s okay if Wheajo comes along.”

  Ron stopped, and behind Hayden spotted Mark standing beside the alien.

  Hayden caught the scowl. “You might try cutting him some slack. We’re in a bad enough situation without you—”

  “A situation, in case you forgot, that that alien motherfucker got us in to.” Ron drew in a breath, staring at Prentler and slowly letting his gaze drift on back to Mark and the little shit in the muddied blue uniform, standing there like a refugee in a war zone and watching the rescuers pick through the rubble when it was him who planted the bomb! It wasn’t like Prentler was defending the prick, but god damn… his timing could be better. Give him some slack. Yeah, right. Then kick the stool away.

  The near-musical trumpeting sounded again.

  “I’ll tell you what. You guys cut him whatever slack you want. I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him. And I can’t see as I ever will. You want him along? Fine. Just keep him the hell away from me.”

  They burrowed ahead on a course roughly paralleling the river, the leafy mulch abruptly turning soggy on the outskirts of a swampy enclave. Scrawny bushes spilled into the water, a slew of queer, almost onion-shaped trees with scaly bark and long fronds for leaves growing farther out. Mark was looking more than watching, and nearly ran his partner over while making a turn. “Would you quit with stopping in the middle of the trail?”

  The pond carried the scent of decay, croaks sounding from its weedy periphery. “Those sound like frogs to you?”

  “I suppose. Just keep moving or we’ll lose track of McClure.” Hayden hurried off, his focus clearly wavering when Wheajo picked his way clear of the bushes.

  “What I said about branches snapping back?”

  “Yes….”

  “My buddy’s in the same category. You have to watch out for him too.”

  Wheajo scanned ahead. “Indeed.”

  The biological diversity was extraordinary. Already he had identified hundreds of distinct life forms, a small fraction of which were recognizable as precursors to those contained in the ship’s database. And with every step there were more. If the local environs were indeed representative, the island alone would require days to fully explore and inventory. And while the encounter with a large carnivore so soon after arrival evidenced heavily in favor of remaining stationary, excursions beyond the island, should they become necessary, would open essentially endless opportunities for study.

  Whatever data was collected would, however, be worthless unless delivered to the ship, and with capabilities nonexistent for recharging the brizva, doing so would only be possible with help.

  Protocol demanded that unauthorized transports be l
ogged and transmitted to Sector Command, where a board of inquiry would determine whether the Iolomho could proceed with recovery operations. The report would state that a member of the science team was missing, reasons unknown, and which the board would in all likelihood consider irrelevant when determining the captain’s command status. The same lack of awareness that had provided the humans an opportunity to capture him had jeopardized the captain and crew, and Wheajo could but hope that technical considerations would weigh in favor of mounting a rescue. If not, the Iolomho could well be recalled and the captain sanctioned, his punishment potentially including court martial.

  The human slowed, “Watch your eyeballs,” and a branch came springing back, the rustle sending a tiny quadruped skittering up a nearby tree.

  The past was unalterable, his duty now to continue on mission. And in that vein, a diversity of life forms awaited investigation, the humans perhaps most intriguing of all. They were leery of his presence, and as was inevitably true of his captain, now subject to ongoing scrutiny. He was the frikee now, and had first to prove his worth before there was any chance of his being accepted as part of their crew. That he would do…

  creatures called above the rumble

  …and do quickly, for the humans were far too bold and undisciplined to be permitted to long remain in control.

  Ron trotted beside the deadfall, found a break in the bushes, and scrambled under the trunk. He could almost feel the rumble, rapids churning beyond the trees to his left and near what had to be the end of the island. He hadn’t heard any trumpeting for going on minutes, but whether he’d missed his chance seeing the animals or not, he wasn’t turning back. Not with blue sky showing through the trees. After the work it took getting here, the least he would settle for was an up-close view of the rapids.

  But that meant finding an opening, and so far, he’d gotten barely a glimpse of the river. Damn thick is what it was. And impossible to hunt.

  He punched through a thicket and, not far ahead, noticed an outline half-buried in the undergrowth. Another blowdown, this one with its roots ripped clean out of the ground. How far to shore Ron could only guess, but the thing did look to have fallen in the right direction. He pressed on, swiping at the ferns. A slot opened in the leafy green canopy, the rapid’s rumble carrying more and more of a shattered glass edge.

  The deadfall was huge, the fan of upended roots caked with mud and standing opposite the rim of a partially overgrown crater. Ron draped the rifle over his shoulder and stared along the trunk. After all the blowdowns they’d been forced to detour around, it was nice to find one that worked to their advantage. Shattered limbs and pieces of what looked like whole trees lay crushed beneath the trunk, a maze of new shoots curling up alongside.

  “He’s over here,” Hayden shouted, twisting through the foliage.

  Ron tugged on a section of vine. “It’s about time you showed up,” he said, a trumpet blaring when he started climbing. “I’ll be damned, they haven’t left after all.” The vines served well as a ladder, Ron quickly up and on his feet. He trotted along the trunk, staring, and stopped barely half way out. “Get a move on, Prentler. You’re going to love this.”

  A swath of treeless scrub ran from the river’s edge to the top of the far hillside, the open expanse like a scar in the landscape that split the forest opposite the rapids. The dinosaurs were just inside the woods on the left, and depending on which way they were moving….

  “So, where are they?” Hayden asked above the roar, winding through the former upper limbs of the deadfall.

  “They’re coming. Or at least I hope they are. See the movement this side of the rapids?” Treetops were quivering, some more noticeable than others. Hayden nodded. “With how noisy the rapids are, they’ve got to be skittish. That whole area is a great place for an ambush, and you can bet they know it.”

  The air thundered, the overhanging portion of the deadfall seeming to vibrate with the power of the water charging through the massive boulders stacked across the river. Still eroding from the far bank, the rocks there were bigger, sharper, and more spread out than the ones nearer the island, the water flowing beneath their feet soon tumbling through an expansive rock garden that extended past the trees and along the near shore. It wasn’t hard to get caught up in the beauty of the scene: the river streaming past, the mist above the myriad drops, the forest a glorious still-life of deep green arcs and sharp spires against a slowly darkening sky.

  An animal trumpeted.

  “Sure is purty.”

  “Definitely makes my top ten.” Ron studied the river above and below the falls. “I love when the rapid lets you pick your poison.” He looked to the trees. “Looks like they’re moving again.”

  Hayden turned when he felt the footfalls. “Trouble getting up?”

  “Had a frickin root nearly take my left nut off.” Mark patted the sheath on his hip. “So I thought I’d return the favor.” He wedged himself in behind Hayden. “Don’t be shy, Wheajo, there’s room for you too.” Mark craned out and peered through the screen of long weathered branches. “Guess that answers why we can hear it all the way back at camp. That’s a good three-foot drop next to shore there.”

  “Heck yeah. I’m thinking more like four.”

  Mark turned to Wheajo. “The classifications I mentioned? That is a solid Class III.”

  “You want to get technical, it’s a combination,” Hayden offered. “You maybe can’t see it from there, but the rapids along here are closer to Class II.”

  “Really?” Mark leaned forward, straining to see. There was a good bit of unoccupied deadfall poking out over the river. “Come on, McClure. There’s room further out. I can’t see shit from back here.”

  Ron looked down past his feet. “It’s fifteen feet to the fucking river, Bennett, and if the fall doesn’t kill you, you’ve got like fifty yards to get out before getting the snot beat out of you.”

  Hayden frowned. “What are you saying?”

  “You’re as crazy as he is.” Ron glanced over, the dinosaurs beginning to move. “You want to risk your neck?”—he hooked an elbow around a limb—“Be my guest.” He leaned back to let Hayden squeeze past. “You’re going, now’s the time.” Mark just stood there, his jaw hanging open. A trumpet sounded, and Ron swung back against the limb. Part of a head showed along the tree line, the snout but inches from the ground and either sniffing or nibbling.

  “Come on, you little shit. Get the hell out in the open where I can see….” The dinosaur stepped into the clearing, and quickly two more, the tops of their heads reaching half way up the trees when they stood to survey the meadow. Ron gasped.

  Mark bumped his shoulder. “What was that about little?”

  The first one out tossed its head back, its tail not quite scraping the ground when it trumpeted the all clear, a bevy of calls sounding acknowledgment from the forest. Hayden swiped at his sleeves. “That is like the coolest sound I’ve ever heard. Wild, isn’t it?”

  Strange fern-leaved trees shuddered as other herd members paraded from the forest. The animals were covered in dark brown over green splotches, each with subtly different patterns that blended gradually into a pale, monotone tan that reached from below the arms and across their bellies to the bottoms of their thickly muscled tails. The heads were long and slender; the eyes widely spaced; the mouths flared in duck-like bills fringed in black. Stocky in the body with heavy, cantilevered tails, the animals ranged in length from a low of ten feet to possibly thirty! Yet by far their most extraordinary aspect was the long bony arch extending from the back of their skulls, a flap of skin stretching from the tip to nearly midway along their necks. Brilliantly patterned, the flaps gave the impression of sails.

  “I’ve seen some goofy looking animals. But nothing like these guys.” Ron chuckled. “Not even close.”

  The dinosaurs spread along the tree line, browsing in groups, possibly families, their stances shifting from two legs to four. The forelegs were shorter than the back, the tails r
ising when the heads went down and vice versa. It was impossible to tell what they were eating, though they didn’t appear to be at all particular—as long as it was green, the dinosaurs seemed happy to eat it.

  The smaller animals held to the trees, nibbling the low growth while their elders ripped at the foliage overhead. Arms reached to hold the branches while flattened bills stripped the leaves. The adults seemed sloppy eaters until Mark noticed one tear a branch loose and purposely drop it to an animal below.

  “That I didn’t expect. Mom feeding the kids.”

  “And you know that’s a female how?” Ron asked. “They’re all pretty damn big.”

  “Yep, but only two have a bell.”

  Ron raised an eyebrow. “A bell?”

  “See the one coming? I’ll lay you odds that’s a bull. And the other one, higher up the hill. Both of them have that gloppy thing hanging at their throats.”

  Hayden stared across the river, the rapids forgotten. “That red thing… And yeah, it does look kind of like a bell.”

  “Okay, now I got it. And now that I’m looking, there’s a stripe along the top of that floppy part the other ones don’t have. So what the fuck are they?”

  “They’re hadrosaurs, which we’re probably going to see more of than any other type. These guys are called Parasaurolophus. And no, I don’t remember why.”

  “Want to try that again? Para what?”

  “Para-saur-o-lo-fus,” Mark said, drawing out the syllables. “They’re a type of duckbill. You check out the mouth?”

  “Uh huh…. Fucking weird if you ask me.”

  “Weird maybe, but they’ve got my socks rolling up an’ down,” Hayden said. “Any idea what the flag is for?”

  “As opposed to continually asking questions, I suggest we ascertain its function by observation. It has been my experience—”

  “Put a lid on it, Wojo. You’re here to watch, not comment. We want your opinion… we’ll rattle your fucking cage.”