Dinosaur World Omnibus Read online

  Starting off after her, I cast one final glance at the rise and fall off wings in the grass, knowing full well how close that came to being me out there. There’s a reason this place is out of bounds, and whatever it is I’m fine with it. It’s one time where I think politics actually got something right.

  The sooner I’m off Ceres the better.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Call me cruel but I can’t help feeling Professor Marigold Harper deserves a good slapping. I’d certainly be willing to slap her simply for having a silly name, but then upper class tossers always give their kids stupid names so that’s hardly her own fault. Her running off into the woods would hurt her a lot more than it would me should some stalking carnivore get hold of her, but then it would be my neck in the noose when the lieutenant had to explain to Mummy and Daddy dearest why their delicate, fragrant little one never made it back.

  I meant the fragrant thing as a joke, a play on words of her name, but now that I think about it she does smell quite nice, like apple blossoms in a summer wind. Entirely inappropriate for out here, and utterly destroying my camouflaging smell and even the mud caking my face I haven’t quite managed to wipe entirely off.

  Catching up to her was easy, and thankfully she’s given my no trouble in my steering her in the right direction. She’s still somewhat in a daze, which means her upper-class imperiousness has yet to settle fully into her character, which is of course a good thing. If I can get us even halfway to the ship before her confidence reasserts itself I’m going to be one happy girl.

  Still, for all the trouble the little madam’s already caused me I really, really want to pull down her 100% silk panties and give her a free four-fingered tan.

  I can just imagine what would be said when she got back home. That’d be my career in shreds, but sure it’d be worth it.

  I must have sniggered aloud at the thought because Harper is looking at me curiously, her heart still racing too fast for her to actually put into words whatever question she has. I choose not to elaborate but nor do I lose the smile. It’s best to keep her afraid, or at least wary of me if at all possible.

  “You know I should be collecting samples while we walk,” she says, and I can detect some of her superior character coming out at last. There’s still fear to her voice, but it’s quickly being replaced. I don’t give a whit about her samples, and try my radio again. “That won’t work,” Ms. Supercilious decides haughtily, as though she knows something I don’t. “There aren’t any satellites around Ceres, and the world’s magnetic field’s all screwy with signals anyway.”

  “Nice to see your Daddy’s money hasn’t been completely wasted in your education, Goldie,” I say as sardonically as possible. “The field’s all screwy the best you can come up with?”

  She raises her nose and I desperately want to make it bleed. “Everyone knows it’s almost impossible to get a signal on Ceres.”

  “And since I’m someone I must fit in the definition of everyone. But it doesn’t do any harm to try, does it?”

  She relents this point and continues walking in silence, which is fine by me. And yes, I knew I wouldn’t get a signal through. But there are receivers on my ship and sometimes they’re enough to boost signals, especially if I’m only trying to send a message into low orbit, and especially if my guys are monitoring the radio waves, which I know they are. Once I get back to the shuttle I should be able to get a powerful enough signal through the atmosphere, but until then I’m cut off, with only Harper for company.

  In all honesty I’d prefer the flying lizards.

  “So,” Harper asks as we walk, as though extending an olive branch I’d simply like to set alight, “where’s Autumn come from? You say it’s not your actual name?”

  “No. My name’s not up for discussion. Autumn’s my call-sign. Corporal Autumn.”

  “Early thirties and still only a corporal?” she asks sympathetically.

  I don’t bother answering the obvious jibe. She has no idea how old I am, and there’s no way I look early thirties. Shove her face into some brambles, see how she looks then. “Do you like games, Prof?”

  “No.”

  “Well it’s a good thing this is a real easy one then. Can you guess the call-signs of everyone else in my unit? Here’s a massive clue: there are four of us.”

  She stares at me, half in mute horror, half in silent amusement. I smile, realising she’s got it already. “You have to be kidding me,” she says. “What, really? No, that’s just stupid.”

  “Tell that to Lieutenant Winter. She made up the call-signs. In fact I dare you to tell that to the lieutenant. She’d break your face, sister.” I broaden my smile at the very possibility and Harper shudders. God, sometimes I’m cruel.

  We walk in silence for a while longer. The trees aren’t very dense where we are, which means I should be able to see any predator activity even if they’re stalking us. Besides, with Harper out in front there’s a fifty/fifty chance they’d go for her first and I could just shoot anything which attacked.

  “What’s it like being a soldier, Fall-girl?”

  Fall-girl? Forget the lizards, I’m more tempted than ever to just put a bullet in the back of her skull and claim the wildlife have developed firearms. “Oh, being a soldier’s dandy,” I tell her simply. “The pay’s always late, they need a certain amount of us to die so the rest of us have enough to eat, we gamble and whore all our money away and we live life as though each day’s the final one. Which means we get into a lot of unnecessary fights and screw anything that moves.”

  She stops walking and glances at me, more than half believing my sarcasm.

  “Why,” I ask, “what’s it like being a rich cow?”

  The back straightens and I know I’ve got to her even as she storms off ahead of me. At last I’m actually beginning to enjoy this little romp.

  Not surprisingly we don’t talk for a while. The trees are really thinning out now, and I cast a glance to the sky but there’s no sign of any more of those flying beasts. There is one thing I can see, and I’m carefully keeping it in view while we walk parallel to it. The creature stands about a metre from the ground, maybe a little more, and is about three in length. Its rear legs are slightly more muscular than the forelegs, although none are long or suitable for long-distance running. The head is a neckless extension of the bulky body, the thick fat tail falling from its back and presently dragging the ground as though it was some form of snake. The body itself is covered with an armour-plated carapace, bearing a scute-like texture. From its plated back there protrude several series of blunt bony spikes whose purpose I have no idea, but it does make the thing look a little weird and at the same time beautiful. That the creature is aware of us is not in question, for it’s stopped several times now to stare at me with its small curious eye.

  “You really don’t know much about Ceres, do you?” Harper laughs like a toff.

  “What are you whining about now?”

  “That’s a minmi. An ankylosaur.”

  “Yeah, I know. What of it?”

  “Well can’t you see it’s eating the grass? It’s not going to attack us, soldier girl.”

  “Like those fish-eating quetzalcoatli didn’t?” That shuts her up, even though we both know the creature must have either been starving or injured to have attacked us at all. Or simply batty, which would be my personal choice. “Anyway,” I continue, “can’t your Oxford education maybe think of a reason I’m keeping so close an eye on the minmi?” I leave her to think through that one, to ponder that maybe I actually know a thing or two about survival.

  After I can all but hear not only the cogs grinding but the cuckoo screeching as well, she just shrugs in that teenage way which means she no longer cares, but which translates to that she doesn’t know the answer. I have to get it out of my head that she’s a teenager. She’s twenty and playing all the right cards to annoy me, that’s all.

  “That dinosaur may weigh a tonne and it may be protected by that hard shell,” I tel
l her, purposefully sounding as much like a teacher as I can, “but its soft underbelly is precisely what a carnivore would go for. And believe me, a carnivore could get to that underbelly if it wanted.”

  “And your point?” she asks petulantly.

  “That if the minmi suddenly spooks it likely means there’s a predator nearby. So long as we keep pace with it and it’s happy, I’m happy.”

  Harper is silent for some moments as she digests this. Unlike a petulant child she’s actually taking into account what I’ve said. I can see she even agrees with it, although I doubt she’d ever say as much aloud. She is a scientist after all.

  “You researched the wildlife before coming here,” Harper says. I’m not sure whether it’s an accusation or praise.

  “I know jack squat about plants,” I admit, “but I’ve never had a plant charge me with its fangs. So yes, I learn what I need to survive.”

  “But surely you’d need to know something about plants if you wanted to survive on Ceres. If only so you know which berries are safe to eat. The wrong kind of berry can kill you just as painfully as an alligator’s jaws.”

  “All right, maybe I do know a little something about plants, Prof.”

  Harper nods, her features softening a little. “I think we got off on the wrong foot, Corporal Autumn.”

  “Well we’ll be off Ceres entirely soon enough, so we won’t have to put up with each other much longer.” She may have been trying to make peace, but I’m not really bothered about that. I wouldn’t even be down here on Ceres if it wasn’t for Professor Harper and the last thing I’m going to be doing is to be nice to her.

  We’re only about fifteen minutes from the shuttle now, even from our longwinded trek, and soon enough we start to leave the trees behind us. The woodland doesn’t exactly end, but it does thin out so it’s more like a park back home. I know the terrain of Ceres was supposedly naturally-formed, but I can’t help but feel that some parts of it were put here purposefully. It’s the animals I can’t get. Before I came I delved into research and discovered there were literally hundreds of different large animals here; hundreds more than there seems to be room for. And yet we’re not overrun by monsters so they must all have found somewhere to live. Nature finds a way, I guess, although I had thought I’d be doing a lot more shooting of things.

  “It’s beautiful isn’t it?”

  Harper may have been talking for a while, but I drifted off. She’s staring at the sky, and I instantly tense, fearing there might be more winged beasts circling. But then I realise she’s only looking at old Zeus himself. The sky of Ceres is a deep unnatural blue, the heat and light of an artificial sun pulsing through to blast us with its lovely radiation shower. But there’s something else in the sky aside from clouds, something which I very much doubt you could ever get away from on Ceres.

  The planet Jupiter is fifth out from the Sun and the largest planet in the Solar system. A massive gas giant, Jupiter is a roiling storm of power. The swirling orange, red and white gases churn brilliantly above us, the great red eye – a storm several times the size of Ceres – staring down at us piously. The colossal planet consumes almost half of the sky, lazing around and casually observing yet somehow not casting an immense shadow over half the world. Unlike the rock planets Jupiter is constantly changing and romantics have sat watching the churning gas much as others would lie back and stare at clouds. I have to agree with Harper in that Jupiter is indeed a beautiful sight. It’s hardly something I haven’t seen before though.

  Colonising Jupiter is of course impossible, but the gas is collected through various mining operations, and used to power most of our amenities. Several of Jupiter’s moons were terraformed years back and the Jupiter system was established, just like all the other planets have their own systems. We’re like different countries in the old way of looking at things, when everyone used to live on Earth. (Of course, each world has its own countries, so that makes everyone even more distant.) Nowadays we police ourselves and don’t have much to do with other moons in the Jupiter system, let alone other planets in the solar system.

  Ceres was always an odd one though. It wasn’t ever an actual world, but was drawn together from some of the larger asteroids in the belt between Jupiter and Mars. The rocks were shoved together to form a world Jupiter claimed, but which somehow Earth managed to grab. Just who owns Ceres has been hotly contested for more years than I’ve been alive, and I really couldn’t care that much for the truth. The fact is Ceres is unstable, because whoever put it together did it wrong, and could break apart at any moment. Why anyone would fight over it is beyond me.

  Why anyone would populate their brand new world with dinosaurs is an even more hotly debated question. I don’t much care for the answer to that one either. All I know is that Jupiter and Earth have always agreed that Ceres is off-limits. Over the years there have been people landing here of course; usually criminals on the run, hippies seeking peace and love, or scientists like the plant lady here. Whenever we get such a report, sometimes someone’s sent in to retrieve them. The quarantine of the world is so strong, however, that in most instances by the time all the legal hoops have been jumped through there’s not going to be anything left of the people to save. I read a case once where some hippies tried to make peace and love with a pack of coelophysis and ... well, it didn’t end well for the hippies.

  Harper was lucky I managed to find her before something like that happened to her, but I don’t expect any gratitude, just attitude.

  I’m so funny today I kill myself.

  Rambling on like this, I’d forgotten she’d mentioned Jupiter being beautiful and thinks I’m ignoring her so she’s walked off again in a huff. Oh well, like I give a toss.

  The ridge comes into sight now, beyond which I’ve parked my shuttle. We’re at the top of the slight decline, but I left my ship down there purely because all the animal activity was centred up here. Peering down to the scrubland below I can see my little shuttle nestled in the vegetation and out of anyone’s way. But there’s something wrong. The door’s open for one thing, and I know I didn’t leave it that way. And there’s no way a dinosaur ever developed the ability to open doors.

  “Stay here,” I tell the professor as I make my way rapidly to the decline. She opens her mouth to protest but I shoot her a stern glower and whatever it is she intended to say never emerges. I don’t mind saving her life, but dragging her down into potential danger just to do that seems a little stupid.

  A faint stream of gravel and dust accompanies me as I half run, half slide myself to the bottom of the incline. The rocky outcropping upon which the professor still stands shelters my shuttle from the elements and from the prying eyes of anything large enough to, even in curiosity, do any damage to my ship. I draw my pistol as I tentatively approach the poor thing, but I can already see it’s in bad shape. The dorsal fin has been torn almost entirely off and the rudder has been damaged beyond repair. The door is half off its hinges, not even swinging mildly in the breeze: even the door doesn’t think this is funny. There doesn’t appear to be too much damage on the outside of the shuttle, and the rudder and dorsal fin I can do without since they’re mainly involved with the steering. I’ll know better once I’ve been able to give the ship a good once over, but right now I’m more concerned with the open door.

  As I approach I wrinkle my nose at the strong stench of animal urine. Whatever’s attacked my ship certainly wanted to leave its scent. Marking its territory perhaps; maybe I stupidly landed slap bang in the middle of something’s hunting grounds.

  There’s little light within the shuttle, but as I reach the door I can see pretty much everything. It’s only a small vehicle, little more than a single large room from which a lone occupant can operate everything. I can certainly see there aren’t any animals inside, which is probably the only good thing about what I’m seeing. I step into the shuttle and lower my pistol with a sigh of frustration I should be beyond in my line of work. The chairs have been shredded by p
owerful claws, the console has been attacked similarly, and pieces of apparatus are scattered, mainly broken, about the floor. Something catches my eye and I retrieve something from the upholstery. Holding it up to the light I can see it’s a claw of some kind, belonging to a small theropod most likely. I know for a fact there are coelophysis packs hunting over pretty much all of Ceres, so it’s likely they forced their way in and just started breaking things. One probably knocked the console with its tail and a light came on or something, or something beeped at it, and the poor console was torn apart in fright.

  There’s also a sickly yellowing stain over pretty much everything and I really don’t want to touch that: the smell is bad enough for me, thanks.

  I try the radio, even though I can see it’s broken, and I’m not surprised when I get no answer. So I detach the entire thing and place it in a durable bag, slinging it over my shoulder. There’s hardly anything else worth taking, especially since I can see the theropods have even go into my food stores and have torn those apart. I spend a few moments trying to sift through some of them, determining whether anything’s still edible, but what they haven’t eaten they’ve urinated over so quite frankly I’d prefer to eat grass.

  Heading back outside, I examine the door more closely. I still can’t figure out how they managed to get inside. This door should be strong enough to repel a grenade: there’s no way a dinosaur would risk injury by throwing itself against it. And no carnivore would ever bite something it didn’t understand: that was a sure way of breaking its teeth and thereby starving itself to death through lack of being able to catch food. Except for sharks of course, which have rotating teeth, but somehow I doubt a shark attacked my shuttle.

  That’s the weird thing about the claw I found inside, the claw I’m still fingering while I think this through. A lot of the dromaeosaurids, such as the velociraptor or the unenlagia, had developed a large and extremely sharp claw. They would always keep this claw above the ground, never allowing it to make even brief contact with anything other than prey. It would have been a menacing sight (and still is actually, considering there are likely some around here), to see that huge claw forked in the air as though it was already involved in an attack upon you. To have an animal take so much care not to blunt their most effective weapon, only to lose it by tearing up my chair ... it’s a bit odd to say the least.