Dinosaur World Omnibus Read online

  But then I guess the dinosaur would have been spooked by the unnatural environment, and the lights and sounds, so maybe that explains it.

  I can see an indentation in the doorframe now I hadn’t noticed on my way in. It looks as though something heavy has indeed slammed against the frame, which would have created a sizable gap in the door. From there it would have been easier for a small theropod to widen it enough to gain entry. I still can’t see a carnivore attacking the shuttle though, but suddenly my thoughts return to that minmi. If an ankylosaur with that great massive clubbed tail had taken this ship for a threat it might well have assaulted the shuttle. After a few whacks it might have determined with its simplistic brain that the shuttle wasn’t a threat after all and gone about its business. The theropods could have moved in afterwards, curious, and gained entry that way.

  Suddenly it makes more sense than it did a moment ago. A team effort of various dinosaurs, all out to make my mission a lot more difficult than it has to be.

  I could blame the dinosaurs, but I blame Professor Harper more. Without her I’d be soaking in a nice lavender bath right about now.

  Harper’s eyebrows are raised by the time I scramble back up to her, which I do slowly since I’m in no hurry any more. “Shuttle’s gone bye bye,” I tell her, removing my pack from my shoulder and shoving it into her chest. “That’s what I could salvage from the radio. I’ll fix it, send a signal and get the lieutenant down here to pick us up.”

  “And why do I have to carry the pack?”

  “Because I have the guns.” Which sounds like I’m threatening to shoot her but really means if anything attacks us I’ll need to have my hands free to shoot it. Does Harper realise that? Do I care?

  I look into the sky, the great omniscient eye of the world king staring down laughing at me. I’m going to be here a while – we’re going to be here a while. And that means I should probably try to get along with Miss Daddy’s Girl. I feel a tightness in my chest at the very thought, but as Jupiter gazes down upon me I realise it’s practically telling me I need to obey.

  “You looking for your ship?” Harper asks.

  Not such a stupid question as it sounds, although in the daylight there’s not much chance of seeing the ship from down here. The lieutenant will still be in orbit, and hopefully should have realised by now my radio’s ceased transmitting. With any luck she’s already on her way down, but so far I can’t see any sign of her.

  “Just thinking we might like to bury the hatchet since we’re going to be stuck together.” I don’t tell her just where I’d like to bury the hatchet, but I guess she still needs her head for something at the moment. I extend my hand and even try to smile. Harper looks warily at the gesture, at both gestures in fact, and I can see by her face she clearly thinks this is some kind of trap. Which is fair enough, since we both know neither of us is ever going to consider the other a friend.

  “All right,” she says slowly, taking the hand rather limply, still frowning. “No more jibes ‘til we’re off-world.”

  I’m sure I’ll try to keep to that. “So,” I say with a sigh, trying not to make it look as though it’s a great effort just to be civil, “what should I call you? Marigold is a bit ... long.” Stupid is what it is, but for the sake of our newfound love I don’t say as much of course.

  “You don’t like my name do you?” she asks.

  I shrug. “What’s in a name? A rose by any ...” I stop myself. “To be fair, I didn’t actually intend that one.”

  She smiles. Genuinely smiles, and it’s actually kinda nice. There’s no upper class imperiousness to the action, there’s no condemnation, there’s not even any sarcasm to it. It’s just a smile, and I figure if this girl can smile at me like that the least I can do is try to stick to my promise and be a little nicer.

  “Mary,” she said. “My friends call me Mary.”

  I nod, knowing if I say anything it’ll only screw with our freshly uncovered girl love. I’m feeling tingly already with what this heart-to-heart might lead to. “We should head for high ground,” I tell her. “It’ll give us cover so I can fix the radio, and it’ll give us a good position to see if the lieutenant lands anywhere nearby.”

  Harper does not argue, which is almost as though she’s agreeing. Perhaps she’s accepting that of the two of us I know more about survival. “While you’re doing that I might collect a few more samples. There are bound to be some in the mountains if that’s where we’re going to camp.”

  I don’t care about her samples, but if it keeps her happy it’ll keep her quiet, so I don’t argue. Which is almost as though I’m agreeing.

  I can tell this relationship is already going places.

  Heading off together, skirting the tall grass entirely, we head for the mountains. From what I’ve read up on the terrains, there are dinosaurs that live there too, but I can’t see any carnivores braving the area. It’ll mean we’ll be relatively safe while I work, which is one less thing to worry about.

  I catch the great eye above me once more and really do believe it just winked at me. I hate it when planet god kings flirt with me. But then if ya got it ya got it.

  I think the heat of this world’s getting to me already.

  CHAPTER THREE

  We’re eating an animal which looked like a rat or a vole or something. I have no idea what it was: there was only so much research I could do prior to coming here. Nor did I intend to be here long enough to need to shoot and cook my dinner. We made good time to the dusty valleys above which the mountains towered and I figured I could ignore my grumbling stomach no longer. Harper, for all her faults, had not complained even once during the trek, and so I figured it was time I at least fed her. So I went out to shoot something and left her to get the fire started. She had a good blaze going by the time I returned, remembering to surround the flames with a circle of stones so the fire can’t spread, even though that’s not very likely in this dry terrain. I also rather suspect Harper didn’t bring this fire into being by rubbing together two pieces of wood, but then it doesn’t really matter how she made it: I’m not a scout leader.

  I cooked the meat thoroughly, not knowing what it was and therefore what diseases it might contain. I have an odd belief that so long as something is cooked well it can’t possibly poison you; or at the very least if you’re going to die you might as well die with a good meal inside you. While we eat I take the time to properly observe our surroundings. The mountains here on Ceres are huge, or at least they are in this part of the world. The valley in which we currently sit stretches on for miles by the looks of things, and while I was hunting small mammals I certainly couldn’t see an end to it. The ground here is dry and sandy, scorched almost as though it gets really hot here during the day. Right now night’s falling in quickly, and I remember reading at how suddenly darkness descends here. Something to do with the artificial sun and our close proximity to Jupiter or something. I don’t need to understand it for it to happen, and being in the open when night falls is not a good idea. From what I read about Ceres there are a lot of these dinosaurs which hunt at night.

  “Things here are a bit weird,” Harper says, looking over some plants she’s managed to gather along the way. “I mean, I’m not sure this is quite what I was after when I came here.”

  “What did you expect then?”

  She shrugs, chewing on her meat. “I won’t bore you with the details, but these are more re-creations than actual prehistory.”

  I consider that in silence a moment while I eat. “So what you’re saying is that the life here isn’t what it was like back on Earth millions of years ago?”

  Harper puts her plants back into her satchel. “I guess whoever put these things here tampered with their DNA or something.”

  “Or maybe the creatures adapted to their surroundings. Remember this isn’t Earth, this is Ceres. We’re farther from the Sun, the world has a smaller surface area and there’s a whacking great planet in the sky. And the world’s cracking apart, from wha
t I can gather.” No one knows who constructed Ceres to begin with, hence the constant argument between the Earth and Jupiter governments, but whoever did it didn’t do it too well. The various asteroids shoved together have been slowly shaking themselves apart for years. Quakes are apparently common on this world, and although we haven’t suffered one as yet I can only assume they’re not far off.

  Harper shrugs again. “Maybe. Just so long as they contain the cure for cancer I guess that’s all that matters.”

  There she goes again with the cancer thing. I’m not going to pretend I know anything about medicines beyond what basic training teaches me. Again, I don’t need to know how something works for it to save my life. I know which plants can do what, but I don’t know why. Harper is one of those people who knows why, and who makes the discoveries to begin with. I should respect her for that at least. After all, if she cures cancer who cares if people a hundred years from now don’t realise what a pain she was?

  “Why do you want to find the cure so much?” I ask.

  “Fame? Money? Isn’t that what you’re expecting?” She answers whimsically, and I can detect almost a trace of raw anger and I wonder who it was she lost.

  “I don’t expect anything,” I tell her. “Whatever I think about you, you’re trying to do some good, and I can’t resent that. How’d you get to Ceres then?” I ask, changing the subject. “We couldn’t detect a ship down here at all.”

  “I was dropped off. You have enough money you can bribe anyone to take you anywhere.”

  “Then how are you getting off?”

  “The government’s getting me off.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “No one approaches Ceres without someone seeing it. I knew the government would send someone to fetch me, assumed it would be the army. I just wanted to get my research done before you got to me, and I didn’t manage to do that.”

  “So you’re using my unit as a shuttle service?”

  “Pretty much.”

  The incredulity of the woman knows no bounds, but I keep my temper somehow. “Has anyone ever told you you have a lot of nerve?”

  “Oh yeah, all the time.”

  Night is really settling now and I rise, tossing aside the bones and gristle of my meal. I kick the fire to death and wish I was stamping instead on someone’s head. Harper rises also, dusting herself down and preparing her bags for departure. I haven’t had a chance to properly look over the radio yet, but I can do that in the morning, when we’ve managed to gain a little height. Right now climbing would of course be ridiculous, so we’ll have to find a place to make camp. There are various caves lining the ground of the valley, although I’m not too happy at the thought of wandering into somewhere any old animal could reach. All dinosaur carnivores were built of the same basic body; powerful rear legs, less powerful forearms, bulky body, neck, big head with wide jaws, counterbalancing tail. This structure does not enable the things to climb, so waiting on the ground for the night would be pretty stupid. Finding a cave someway up the mountain would be better; even if it contained a nesting herbivore, at least the thing wouldn’t eat us if we had to fight it.

  I scan around with my naked eyes and see precisely what I’m after. A small cave entrance a few metres from the ground. Far enough from any predators to keep me asleep all through the night I think.

  Reaching the cave is going to be a little problematic since I didn’t bring any rope, although we’re both young and fit and there are more than enough juts of rock to help us reach it. I take the lead, shouldering the pack containing the radio since I’m built stronger than the professor. She does not argue about my preceding her: she knows full well the cave may be occupied and isn’t stupid enough to want to face such creatures first. The foot- and handholds are proving more than adequate and soon enough I’m chucking the pack over the edge and hauling myself up. The ground here is as dusty as the valley floor, and I see no prints in the thin layer. Night is really falling fast now and yet I know this can’t be hastened. I don’t want to get either of us killed, and right now there’s more chance of danger lurking in this cave than stalking the professor down in the valley.

  Instructing Harper to wait a moment I draw a pistol and start into the cave. The darkness is almost absolute in here, but I dare not strike a light. I continue for only a few metres however before I come upon something I had not expected, and reaching out a tentative hand I confirm my suspicions. My hand touches the bare rock and I realise the cave is hardly deep enough to be even considered such. Still, if it’s only a recess in the cliff it means there aren’t going to be any native animals intending to use it as their nocturnal nest.

  I return to the rocky edge and say down to Harper, “Come on up, there’s nothing here.”

  “That wasn’t a very long look, Corporal.”

  “It doesn’t go very far, only a few paces. But there’s a ceiling so it’ll provide some shelter from the wind and cold. And rain if any comes in the night.”

  “Unless the wind blows it in our faces,” Harper says quite correctly as she begins to climb. She makes good progress, not showing any fear at making the ascent, but then it’s only a few metres. I’ve known people to look down and be afraid of falling, not seeming to take into consideration that their feet are over a metre and a half closer to the ground than their eyes so they don’t have quite as far to fall as they believed. Harper would not know, since she doesn’t look down even once. As she reaches the lip I offer my hand and she accepts it, although she doesn’t really need it. I had expected her to rebuff my gesture, although perhaps she wants to carry on this unlikely friendship we appear to have struck up. Or maybe she likes for me to think she’s more helpless than she is.

  A nagging suspicion enters my mind suddenly that she’s going to make a break for it during the night. I certainly don’t want to have to go chasing her through the forest tomorrow.

  We settle in the quasi-cave and don’t talk of much. It’s been a long day but neither of us is really that tired. Adrenalin tends to keep one awake, although I know it will fade soon enough and we’ll both be able to get some decent sleep. I’m in two minds as to what I should do, however. To sleep and lose Harper would be infuriating, but to remain awake’s going to dull my senses tomorrow. And having dulled senses on Ceres is a certain way to get oneself killed by the first roving carnivore one encounters.

  With the fall of night so too does the temperature drop and we start another fire. A small one only, and one properly constructed so as not to spill over onto us when we’re asleep. I watch the professor sit cross-legged before the fire, shivering and rubbing her hands before its warmth. I can see her breathing is laboured through the cold as her heart pumps furiously to keep her warm, but I know the temperature isn’t going to drop low enough to kill us. It’s just lower than we’re used to, that’s all.

  “Where are you from?” I ask.

  “Europa.”

  “That would explain the cold then.”

  Harper shrugs. Europa, or Jupiter II as it was once known, is very different to when Galileo discovered it a millennium ago, and a heck of a lot hotter. For a long time it was speculated Europa might contain extra-terrestrial life, and it was in fact the most likely of all the solar bodies to do so. Its oxygen atmosphere and liquid oceans beneath the incredibly thick crust of ice did not of course reveal anything of the sort, so when the terraformers moved in they got rid of everything that anyone had ever romanticised about the place. There have been attempts in the last fifty years or so to recapture some of that romantic dream, with retro-architects and historians making great effigies to the past. Whole areas of the planet have been quarantined to try to return it to its original landscape and atmosphere, but none of it’s met with much success. It seems a shame really to have messed so much with nature only to now try to turn it back to the way it once was.

  I’m from Ganymede. We don’t have that problem on Ganymede: no one ever liked it in the first place so terraforming it was a godsend. Gany
mede, or Jupiter III as it was once known, is larger than the planet Mercury, which I’ve always found funny. The Jupiter system is the largest, most profitable in the whole Solar system, and I feel sorry for the poor chaps who tried to colonise Mercury. They don’t even have any moons to branch out into, while we have a moon attached to our planet larger than their whole system.

  Laughing at the unfortunate is never a proud moment in anyone’s life, although sometimes you have to remind yourself how well off you really are. And the best way to do that is through laughing at the little guy.

  “I take it you’ve never been to Europa,” Harper says tartly. “Yes, I’ll admit I’m cold because Europa’s a hot place, but it’s meant to be that hot. Why do you think we get all the tourists all year round? Why do you think the ruling class of Jupiter lives on Europa?”

  “Because they’re taking advantage of the failing terraforming which left the place burning in some parts? You do realise it’s illegal to go outside during the daylight if you live within ten miles either side of the equator?”

  “And it’s only not illegal to go to the actual equator because there’s no point because you’d instantly fry.” She rolls her eyes. “Yes, I’ve heard all these things before.”

  “And you do realise they’re true?”

  “They are so not true.”

  “Of course they’re true.”

  “Why? Because everyone says so? Do you believe every factoid you hear, Corporal?”

  I shrug, drawing my knees up to my chest where I’m sitting. “Only the ones I find interesting.”