Dinosaur World Omnibus Read online

  DINOSAUR WORLD OMNIBUS

  Adam Carter

  Copyright 2019, © Adam Carter. All rights reserved. No content may be reproduced without permission of the author.

  First published in e-book format as Dinosaur Prison World (2014), The Dinosaur That Wasn’t (2015), Excavating a Dinosaur World (2015) and Dinosaur Fall-Girl (2015).

  Cover by Covermint Design. www.covermint.design

  EXCAVATING

  A

  DINOSAUR WORLD

  CHAPTER ONE

  The great beast roared into the humid evening air, bellowing its rage that a tiny, near weightless creature lay beneath it, poking it with a screwdriver. The stupid thing could complain all it wanted, Garrel thought as she tightened the panel a little more; it was still going to be ready by morning. There were a lot of things Sara Garrel did not like about this place, but the constant dampness to the air had to be the worst. Of course, she had known before taking the assignment what conditions she would be working in, but the pay was too good for her to turn down. She had just come through a messy divorce and desperately needed as much money as she could get. At twenty-seven years old, Garrel was finding she had to pretty much start her life anew and while she felt an exhilarating freedom she was also terrified.

  “You’re doing great there, Sara. Anything I can help you with?”

  Garrel closed her eyes and counted to five. She would have counted to ten but she had been doing that a lot these past couple of weeks and it never seemed to do any good. Lying on her back under the truck, she had completely no conception of what was going on in the outside world, but it seemed Allen had followed her out again just to ogle her. Tom Allen was not a bad person, far from it, but she could not seem to get through to him that she wasn’t interested. And even if she was, she hadn’t gone through a divorce just to involve herself with someone else. She needed to sort out her life before she even considered going down that path again.

  Nor did she really see why he was even that interested. Garrel had never before considered herself anything special. She was of average height, average appearance, wore her long dark hair in a ponytail so it didn’t get in the way of her work. She hadn’t hit the gym in a while and knew she could have done with shedding a few pounds, but her work kept her physically fit. She actually had more impressive muscles in her arm than Allen – she knew because they’d compared them one time in an effort to get rid of him. She could only guess there were two reasons he was so obsessive about her; firstly because the temperature was so uncomfortable that she tended to wear as little as possible, especially when she was working; and secondly because aside from Professor Travers she was the only woman on the whole world.

  “Sara?”

  Knowing she could not put off the confrontation indefinitely, Garrel crawled out from under the buggy. She had stripped down to shorts and a sports bra and, suddenly wishing she hadn’t left her shirt back in her room, grabbed a towel to mop the sweat from her face. Mopping up sweat was a lost cause on this world, and immediately her eyes were stinging again as her pores tried in vain to cool her.

  Tom Allen stood by hopefully, going through her toolkit. He too was wearing shorts, his T-shirt all but plastered to his body, but still nowhere near as soppy as his grin. For no apparent reason he was holding up a hammer.

  “What would I need a hammer for?” Garrel asked, tired in both body and mind.

  “Uh, for bashing things?”

  “That’s an engine down there, Allen, not a coconut.”

  His face fell slightly and she knew she should have felt a little bad but didn’t in the least. Allen was several years her junior, she guessed, but he was far from the love-struck teenager he made himself out to be. Apparently he was a good assistant to Professor Travers, but if that was the case Garrel couldn’t see why he didn’t hang around the Professor more. Garrel had been brought on this expedition as pilot, truck driver, odd-job-woman, engineer, navigator and survivalist. Among other things. She was the only member of the expedition not in the employ of the Jovian History Trust and was technically in charge of the entire thing. In reality of course she wasn’t in charge of anything, but on paper any decision she made regarding the survival of their people was to be obeyed instantly. Such papers would be put to better use folded and thrown through the air as aeroplanes.

  “Well if you need any help with anything else,” Allen said, “I’m your guy. I don’t have a lot to do at the moment, so I’m pretty much free all evening.”

  “If you don’t have much to do,” Garrel said tiredly, “it means you have something to do. So go do it.”

  Allen’s face fell slightly and she could see him fighting for something interesting to tell her. “Professor Travers is having me clean up a portion of diceratops skull. You want to see it?”

  “Why would I possibly want to see a dinosaur skull?”

  Allen blinked, genuinely surprised. “Why wouldn’t you?”

  “I thought they were called triceratops anyway.”

  “Those are the ones with three horns. Diceratops had two. Want to guess what had five?”

  “Could it possibly be pentaceratops?”

  Allen’s face lit up as though she had just set fire to his hair. “You fell for my trick question.”

  “Don’t take that as a sign of affection,” Garrel warned him. “I still don’t care about your dinosaurs.”

  “Well, there’s always time for that. We’re going to be here at least another three months, so there’s always hope.”

  Garrel had told him many times he didn’t have a hope, but he had never got the message so she didn’t bother this time. “Just go clean your skull, Allen, and let me get back to work.”

  He said something else, but Garrel had ceased to listen. Something about seeing her at dinner, which was ludicrous considering Garrel had eaten meals with the others probably three times in the month they had been out here. Except breakfast, of course, which Travers insisted they all share. She must have agreed to something because Allen left her to her buggy, and as she tossed the towel to one side Garrel gazed up into the sky and wondered not for the first time how her finances could ever fail so badly that she had been forced to take this contract.

  As work went, it was far from bad. She got to do a little of everything, which was how she liked things. There was not even a specified end to the contract, nor was it renewed on a monthly basis. She had simply signed to say she would act in various capacities for the research team until they had finished up their work and decided to head home. Another three months, however, was not what she was looking forward to. Yes, it would give her a lot more money than she had believed she would get out of this, but the humidity coupled with daily doses of Tom Allen did not make the stay any more pleasant.

  He could have been worse, she reflected as she worked out a kink in her shoulder. She supposed at least he was harmless, and quite sweet in his own way. Sometimes she would reflect what her reaction would have been to him were she not so annoyed over her divorce, but even then she very much doubted she would have been interested. Garrel was not a woman who ever really went by looks, but by how a man acted around her. It wasn’t even really about their personality: she simply didn’t like men who fawned over women or who pretended to be something they weren’t. In Allen’s defence, however, he most certainly was not trying to be something he wasn’t.

  Grabbing a bottle of water, Garrel sat against the truck, placing her back upon the warm metal and dreaming of an icy shower. As she took a swig of the bottle she cast her eyes about the area and wondered what was out there. They had made their camp in a spacious, rocky area, thankfully finding a flat space to keep their vehicles level. Beyond the rocks Garrel could see a line of trees, but then it
was hard to come to Ceres and not see trees. Every schoolchild knew Ceres was nature’s joke: that there were creatures roaming this world that had had their day and died out. For some reason that had not been sufficient for an unknown government, who had not only created this peculiar world but had populated it with all manner of oddities. Garrel had never really much cared for such things, and would be happy if, during her entire stay, she didn’t see a single beast larger than the things she hunted for their food. She knew Allen was eager to see some of these creatures, but if he wanted to go wandering off into the jungle he was more than welcome.

  Raising her hand to shield her eyes, Garrel could not believe even the evenings here could be so brutally hot. Dark clouds were moving in, promising some more bad weather, and Garrel would have welcomed the rain had last week’s downpour not been so severe. The Professor had been unable to work for several days and was only now really getting back on track. If another storm hit them just as they were resuming work Garrel would likely have taken it to be an act of God. Human beings were not supposed to be on this world, and there was a reason it had been declared off-limits by the Jovian government. She felt uncomfortable even being here; their presence may have been legal in the eyes of the government, but there were far greater powers up there whose authority outweighed anything human beings could ever decide.

  Lurking beyond the dark clouds was a colossal mass of churning gas Garrel had been trying to ignore staring down at her with its great red eye of judgement. It was normal for almost every world in the Jupiter system to see the massive gas giant looming in the skies above them at all times of the day, but here on Ceres was the only time Garrel had ever truly felt the great king of the gods was judging her. Born and raised in the French quarter or Io, Sara Garrel had seen this great planet almost every day of her life, and it had never frightened her. Since coming to Ceres she had lowered her eyes several times, feeling a deep sense of unworthiness whenever she met its unblinking gaze.

  She had left the Jovian system only once, taking an assignment to ferry some businessmen to the Earth system. She had only spent a week on Earth, but it had felt strange, alien almost. She had been rather looking forward to spending some time on the world from which all life in the solar system had sprung, but having spent a week there she knew she would never return. She had not been able to get used to turning her eyes skyward and not seeing the face of God staring back at her. All they had on Earth was the smiling face of the Man in the Moon, and that had just been creepy.

  Recapping her water, Garrel decided she would finish working on the buggy in the morning; it was only general maintenance anyway. She no longer felt comfortable under the intense scrutiny from above and wanted to go back to their camp and put a few walls and a ceiling between her and her god.

  The camp was formed of solid walls and had taken a full day for Garrel and Allen to erect. Over the last fifty years or so companies had taken great advantage of the growing trend of exploration – which may well have resulted in the quarantine of Ceres temporarily lifted for Professor Travers and her expedition. Various makeshift camps had gone into production, with each company attempting to find the speediest, easiest methods for their customers to erect the unit once they got it to where they were going. The unit this expedition had brought with them had no flooring, so the rock of Ceres was the floor of their camp, but the walls were strong and durable and even did something to keep out the heat. There were several rooms to the unit they had brought with them, which included sleeping chambers for each of the expedition’s members, storage rooms for food and equipment, and workshops. They had no bathroom and no running water, but there was a stream only ten minutes’ walk from their camp and they had developed a system of going there in pairs. Any bather needed someone watching her back on Ceres. With only four members to the entire expedition – two men and two women – that had been something which had worked out rather well.

  Returning to her chambers, Garrel struggled out of her sweat-laden clothes and hunted around for something clean. She found a loose T-shirt but it was too humid to be wearing trousers in her room. Digging through her private food-stores, she collapsed onto her bed with a book and a tin of cold beans. Her room was only about three by two metres, but she had brought nothing with her to Ceres save a couple of keepsakes she honestly felt she only kept for the sake of them. She had also plastered a film poster on her wall at the foot of her bed. It was advertising a romantic comedy she particularly enjoyed, and it never failed to bring a smile to her lips whenever the nights on this world were getting her down.

  She tended to look at that poster often.

  A knock sounded on her door and an ire rose in her which even at the time she knew was irrational. But on this world there were very few places of solitude and not being disturbed in her own sleeping chambers had to be one of them. She tore open the door with such vehemence that it nearly snapped off its hinges. Tom Allen jumped back a pace, a scream dying in his throat. The sight was so unexpectedly humorous that Garrel felt some of her anger drain from her.

  “What?” she asked, barking a little less than she had intended. “This had best be something important.”

  Allen was staring, wide-eyed.

  The expression on his face may have been comical, but Garrel was not cruel enough to laugh in his face. “Allen?”

  “Uh ...”

  Then she realised he was staring at her legs and she glanced down herself, as though by taking a look with her own eyes it would somehow change the fact she wasn’t wearing any trousers. Her first instinct was to slam the door in his face and find something to cover herself, but she preferred to pretend she knew precisely what she was doing.

  “Out with it,” she snapped. “I’m in the middle of something.”

  Allen shook his head quickly, once, his eyes back to hers. “Professor Travers saw something outside. She wants you to take a look.”

  “Saw what?”

  “I don’t know. Something big though.”

  Garrel did not like being the only person in the entire encampment who ever went out to check on things. She had not been hired by Travers as a bodyguard, but as a workwoman. If she had wanted a job in security she would have become a police officer. However, she could not imagine any of the others being able to deal with whatever was out there.

  “Fine,” she sighed, half in anger, half in resignation. “Grab a pair of binoculars and let’s go see.”

  “Right. Hold on ... me?”

  “Well I’ll need someone to watch my back won’t I? That is, if you can tear your eyes away from my legs.”

  Allen looked away sharply, colour rising to his cheeks. “I’ll go get some stuff together.”

  Garrel closed the door and dug out a pair of trousers Unfortunately she had yet to get around to cleaning most of her clothes and her only pair of clean trousers were a bright yellow which had been the fashion on Io last year. Going on a scouting mission wearing such things was hardly the best of options, but none of her other trousers were in her room and there was no way she was going anywhere with Allen only wearing shorts. She needed his mind as focused on their task as possible. Her T-shirt was already feeling moist, but changing her clothes every two minutes was not an option. Grabbing up a bandolier, Garrel made certain she had all the equipment she might need before heading out after Allen. This included a loaded pistol and several rounds of tranquilisers for her rifle. She wondered whether Allen had thought to bring any firearms, and whether he might have been more of a liability if he had. Allen may have been a bit of an annoyance sometimes, but he didn’t mean any harm, she reflected. Maybe it was about time she started being a little nicer to him.

  Or perhaps she would decide how she was going to treat him once she had seen how he handled this outing with her. Perhaps he would surprise her and actually come in use.

  Moving back outside, Garrel felt instantly drenched, and it was a sensation she was unfortunately getting used to. Allen had indeed gathered together some thing
s and was busily trying to cram them all in the backseat of the open-topped buggy she had been working on earlier.

  “You don’t need all of that,” Garrel said as she passed him.

  “You never know what you’ll need until you need it. Recording equipment, binoculars, flares, hunting knife.”

  “You have a hunting knife?” Garrel asked, trying not to laugh.

  Allen puffed out his chest. “I took a survivalist course in university, you know.”

  Garrel folded her arms. “Really? And did you perhaps learn how to take down a ten metre theropod with a hunting knife?”

  “Uh ... no. But we need to take the rest of this equipment, just to make sure.”

  “If you insist. Just give me the blade before you hurt yourself.” Taking the knife from him, she continued walking. “But we’re leaving the buggy. Whatever Travers saw, we don’t want to spook it by driving right up to it.”

  She could not see Allen behind her but was not surprised that when he caught up he was no longer carrying nearly as much equipment. The only thing she would have been happy for him to have brought along would have been a working radio, but communications equipment didn’t want to work on Ceres. There were no artificial satellites off which to bounce signals, but even hardwearing radios only seemed to work temperamentally. It might have been something to do with magnetism, but Garrel could not say for certain. Since Ceres had been put together wrong it was hardly surprising its magnetic field was nothing to be happy about.

  They moved to the edge of the dry, rocky area upon which they had camped. There was grassland about, and great clumps of trees which seemed to grow anywhere on this world, and it was to the trees that Allen was directing them. They moved without saying a word to each other, for they knew that if there was indeed something out there it could well prove hostile.

  Hunkering down at the edges of the trees, Garrel unslung the rifle from her back. She seldom went anywhere on Ceres unarmed, although the rifle she favoured was generally only used to tranquilise the animals. Blowing holes in creatures seldom killed them, and even if she managed to kill one, the stench of blood would draw scavengers from miles away. Tranquiliser darts may have taken a short while for their effects to bring the animal down, but when the animal woke up again there was a good chance it would not be quite as angry as when she had shot it. At the very least it gave Garrel the opportunity to work out a more long-lasting solution.