Dinosaur World Omnibus Read online

  Aubin raised her eyebrows at Stiggs expectantly and he said with some annoyance, “It’s a record of all the animals around here. It seems Seward set out to make a list of all the edible plants and animals, what herbs he could use for seasoning, that sort of thing. Then he seems to have realised he was being attacked far too often for his liking, so he started making notes on the local predators. Like those crocodiles you knew something about earlier.”

  “What does he have to say about them?”

  “Not much. He names them, puts their measurements if he knows them. Their colours, habits, that sort of thing. Even a bit of scientific knowledge. I reckon he must have noted down whatever he could about them, then looked them up when he got back to the institution.”

  “So he could prepare himself for when next he met them.”

  “So he could avoid them, presumably.”

  “I think I can see why Seward’s stayed alive as long as he has.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Uh, Stiggs?”

  “Mmn?”

  “If you’re the one who memorised the maps, why are we at the back of the group?”

  “Because,” he said without looking up from the book, “Garza and Honeywood don’t trust me. Nor do they like me. They think Dexter Valentine put me here as his eyes and ears.”

  “And why are you here?”

  “Because Dexter Valentine put me here as his eyes and ears.” He cast her a queer expression.

  “Oh.”

  “Stiggs!”

  The shout came from Garza and Stiggs and Aubin hurried to see what he had found. The two scouts had stopped and Aubin slowed even before reaching them. The oppressive heat of the swamp was well-known for allowing meagre circulation of air, and the thick abrasive stench of blood was prevalent about them. She could hear an incessant buzzing of insects and knew Honeywood and Garza had come upon a body. If they had found Seward their trek would be over, as well as being a tad disappointing. As she reached their side however she could see immediately it was not the body of Seward they had found.

  The creature was half in the mire, half on the moist land, as though even in death the carcass had attempted to crawl to safety. It was about a metre in length and had pale green skin, thick and rubbery. The armoured scutes washing across its back had done little to protect it, for there was a great hole torn out of the creature’s side where some big carnivore had been feasting. The four flat limbs, all legs, of the dead animal were all intact, as did seem its tail, although that was lost to the swamp now. There was little neck to speak of, although the head was covered with blood which had poured through a series of uniform holes in its throat and side of the head. Whatever had killed the animal had likely launched itself upon its back and torn out the throat, or else pressed upon the windpipe until the thing had suffocated.

  “Any idea what it was?” Garza asked.

  Aubin shook her head, holding her nose. A wave of flies erupted from the carcass as the group approached, although they knew better than to get too close. “Stiggs is the one with the book.”

  “Nothing in here,” Stiggs reported, not sounding bothered in the slightest. “But then it’s not going to pose a threat to us so who cares?”

  “I don’t much care,” Garza said levelly. “What I do care about though is what this creature’s natural predator might be. A beast this big and heavy must have been taken down by something huge.”

  Aubin realised what he meant and nodded eagerly. “This wasn’t a crocodile attack. Crocodiles seize their prey and twist to snap the neck. And the way this creature’s been devoured isn’t consistent with crocodiles either.”

  She realised Garza was looking at her with a neutral expression. “Think I just indicated that,” he said.

  No he hadn’t, she fumed, although said nothing.

  “If we have a dinosaur in the area,” Garza told Stiggs, “I’d like to know about it. Especially if it’s the dromaeosaurids we think attacked the café.”

  “Uh,” Stiggs said, “I’ve found something which might fit.”

  “Hit me.”

  “Five metre long heavy predator. Marshosaurus.”

  “How appropriate,” Garza grunted. “Is it a pack hunter?”

  Stiggs shrugged his lack of knowledge either way and looked up from the book. “No.”

  Garza frowned. “I thought you just shrugged as though you didn’t know.”

  “Yes,” Stiggs said fearfully. “That was before I looked up.”

  They all slowly turned to see what he was staring at, and Aubin felt her heart freeze. About twenty metres from them through the open swamp there stood a true monster. It was perhaps two, two and a half metres tall, and was unlike any crocodile Aubin had ever seen before. The dinosaur stood upon two powerful hind legs, incredibly well-muscled and rising almost to the top of the beast. Its back was held horizontal so it could maintain its balance, its thick tail held out straight behind it to aid in this purpose. The forearms were small and pathetic, while the head projected forth from an amazingly muscled neck, swaying slowly from side to side as it peered at the group with its tiny beady eyes.

  “Don’t move,” Honeywood whispered urgently. “Back away slowly and don’t run.”

  “Don’t move and back away slowly?” Aubin asked, her terrified mind making her stammer.

  Then the creature, returning to its kill, raised its head to the sky and bellowed a mighty, angry roar; and charged.

  “Run!”

  Aubin did not know who had shouted the command, felt it might well have been herself, and the four of them exploded into action. She did not see where the other three went, did not know whether they had each taken a different path; all she knew was that she was running through the swamp, her feet slamming wetly against the marsh, her heart hammering within her breast, while behind her she could hear the double drumbeat of a stampeding demon.

  She turned her head as she ran, could see the thing bearing down upon her, and her body lost its balance. Aubin fell, her elbow striking the swamp, her arm disappearing. She struggled to rise, felt the swamp fill her mouth once more, and was on her feet and staggering an instant later.

  It was an instant longer than she had.

  The marshosaurus bore down upon her and roared. Aubin could see the physical vibrations in the water caused by the bellow as though the tide was going out, as though even the brackish swamp was afraid of this powerful god of the marshes.

  Her feet slipped out from beneath her and Aubin managed to twist her body as she fell, landing awkwardly on her back. She scrabbled backwards on her elbows, her eyes staring out in sheer panic at the thing closing in upon her. The marshosaurus stood barely five metres from her, but did not approach. It took her several moments to realise it was still standing upon the solid ground, while she was in a marshier area. At any moment she might fall farther into the water, where the crocodiles lurked, but the marshosaurus was too large, too heavy, to risk falling in. Keeping to the dry areas, it hissed at her, moving around to follow her progress without actually approaching her. It tracked her with its reptilian eyes, daring her to come to the shore, and Aubin stopped moving, forcing herself to think straight. Her brain was screaming at her that she was going to die, but she was still alive and she had to think quickly if she was going to stay that way.

  “Help!” she shouted, but no one responded. Perhaps they could see her, perhaps they had all fled. Either way no one was coming back for her, and she didn’t blame them. Of them all it had been Honeywood she thought might have cared something for her, but Aubin knew better than to count on anyone for support.

  The marshosaurus took a tentative step into the swamp, testing the waters with one toe. The entire foot sank soundlessly into the mire, as though the swamp was afraid of making any noise which might upset the beast, and the creature seemed content with the feeling that the swamp would withstand its mass. Aubin watched in mounting horror as the beast raised its other leg, like some thirty stone man stepping gingerly into the bath
, ignoring the fact that she was already in there.

  She looked about herself frantically, but there was nowhere to go. The swamp lurked ominously behind her and she knew she would have to give herself up to it. She would not be able to touch bottom, would have to swim through the thick mire, and knew her muscles would give out within the space of a single minute and she would be sucked down and asphyxiated. Perhaps it was a better death than being torn apart by a dinosaur, but it wasn’t a decision a nineteen year old girl should have been forced to make.

  And then suddenly the marshosaurus shook its head as something struck its snout. It was a bag of some kind, a small brown water flask to be precise. Its strap caught on the snout of the beast and while it shook its head vigorously to dislodge the thing it only succeeded in entwining it further about it. The marshosaurus roared in annoyance, attempted to scratch the bag from it with its small forearm, before leaning back to lower its head so it could use its powerful hind legs for the same effect.

  Aubin watched the entire thing with a mute fascination, not understanding anything of what was happening, when hands grabbed under her arms and hauled her to her feet. “Up! Move!”

  And Aubin was running, and did not stop running until she was out of the marsh and standing with twenty metres between herself and the dinosaur; twenty metres of swamp water the dinosaur would have to skirt around.

  She collapsed against a tree, sweat and swamp water pouring off her body, her sodden hair falling over her face. She clasped her shaking knees with her hands and felt bile rise in her throat. Her heart was beating with anxiety and a surge of adrenalin now, for her body and mind had yet to fully realise she was even still alive.

  She looked up into the face of Stiggs, who seemed equally as afraid as she was, if not half as wet.

  She tried to say something, but words would not form and she could only manage a near-incomprehensible, “Wha …?”

  “Seward made some notes,” he explained mechanically, and she could see in that moment just how afraid he actually was. “The marshosaurus is allergic to certain herbs, and I happen to have some of them on me. So I put them in my water flask and tossed it.”

  “That was some toss.”

  Stiggs shrugged. “Never expected the strap to get caught like that, but at least I can prove to Garza and Honeywood I’m not a useless tosser.”

  “You saved my life.” Of all of them, it had been Stiggs who had come back for her.

  “I couldn’t let you die.”

  “You saved my life.”

  “You said that already.”

  Aubin threw herself from the tree, her arms encircling this man whom no one liked. Her weakened, trembling body pressed against him, finding stability in his ability to stand. Her lips pressed to his, and she could taste his own sweat and fear. He was too shocked to push her away, and in a moment of indecision they stumbled, falling to the relatively dry ground. Aubin continued to kiss him, her lips clinging to him like a swamp leech, her mind still not having caught up with her senses. Stiggs attempted to push her away from him, to get his own mind in order, but she did not give him the chance. Her fingers worked at his clothes, tearing his shirt from his body, fumbling with his belt buckle, and finally he surrendered and acquiesced.

  Across the swamp from them the god of the marsh bellowed in rage, but Aubin could no longer hear the creature over the blinding of her own animal yearnings. The roar was merely a backdrop in the confusing miasma of near-death, survival and ecstasy. Aubin cared nothing for this deity; she was alive and she was living. Beyond that she cared nothing for the moment at all. Soon enough she added her own wail of primal lust to the echoing roar of the marsh god.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  She wasn’t Aubin’s mother, but Honeywood felt a strong revulsion forming within the pit of her stomach once she was reunited with the girl. When they had split severally in their flight from the marshosaurus Honeywood had panicked that her entire party was going to be torn apart. She had struggled to make her way back to the others, although the more she moved the more lost she became. It was an incredible stroke of luck that Garza had been purposefully trailing her, and together the two of them attempted to find the others, and to discover what had happened to the dinosaur. Honeywood felt no small degree of apprehension that Aubin might have been ripped to shreds, and while that anxiety had transformed to palpable relief upon seeing Aubin alive and well, it had settled badly within her stomach when she realised there was a change that had come over Aubin. She seemed a lot more at ease around Stiggs than she had been, they were almost friends. Stiggs said something Honeywood didn’t catch and Aubin smiled, even giggled slightly. It was certainly the most disconcerting thing Honeywood had ever seen.

  “Just leave them be,” Garza told her afterwards. They had continued along the trail Stiggs was leading them along, and stopped presently to get their bearings. Stiggs and Aubin had taken the lead so they could determine just where they were, and Honeywood did not like it one bit.

  “Leave them be?” Honeywood asked, not realising she had been so transparent.

  Garza wasn’t paying much attention to her. He had found a rock to sit on and was busy cleaning his gun. Honeywood had never been one for guns, otherwise she would have known she should probably have cleaned hers also. Why they had not used their weapons against the marshosaurus she could not say, but when faced with such an immense predator the natural instinct was always to run as fast as one could.

  “They’re not harming anyone,” Garza said without looking up. “They’re just a couple a scared kids finding comfort where they can get it.”

  The statement threw Honeywood. She was herself in her thirties, as was Garza. Aubin was nineteen, and she would have placed Stiggs at somewhere in his early twenties. She knew she was older than them, but had never thought to call them kids. Honeywood had never been especially vain, yet Garza’s somewhat blasé attitude was forcing home some unseemly truths.

  “I still don’t like it,” she said somewhat petulantly.

  “No one said you had to. But you’re not her mother. Big sister,” he corrected when he could likely sense her glower. Then he smiled. “Grandmother?”

  Honeywood threw a clump of mud at him and wished her hand had managed to find a rock.

  The underbrush parted noisily then and Honeywood drew her knife in instant fear that something was upon them once more. She saw the excitement upon Aubin’s face however and knew whatever had happened it was far from bad.

  “You have to see this,” Aubin said. “Come on!”

  And she was off again.

  Honeywood raised her eyebrows at Garza. “She suddenly seem a lot younger to you, Abe?”

  Garza shrugged, carefully putting his gun away before starting off after the young woman. “Kids are allowed to be young, Ashley.”

  They followed Aubin’s spoor of excitement and after a couple of minutes saw Stiggs waiting for them up ahead. There was no sign of Aubin, although Honeywood did not take this to be necessarily a bad thing. She pointedly ignored the toady and marched straight past him, and stopped in shock as she entered a clearing.

  The area had been cleared of shrubs and brush, anything which might provide cover for a sneaky predator. A small fire had been burning in the centre of the glade, rocks positioned about it as though whoever had set the fire had been afraid of the swamp catching fire. The swamp was not a forest of course, and Honeywood decided whoever had set it had their surroundings confused. There were rocks scattered about for seats and evidence of a half-eaten meal. Aubin crouched in the clearing, studying a plastic plate which had at one time contained some form of stew, although which now housed only a congealed mess.

  “Seward must have stopped here,” Aubin said excitedly.

  Honeywood absently pushed her toe against an abandoned plastic bottle of water. It was half-empty, and Honeywood could think of no good reason for leaving a bottle of water in a place like this.

  “This camp was attacked,” she said. “Whoev
er was here had to leave in a hurry.”

  “The marshosaurus?” Stiggs asked.

  “Possibly.”

  “How far behind do you think we are?”

  Honeywood looked once more at the plate of former food. “No idea, but I’d say a while.” The swamp had a tendency to rot food at a swifter rate than they were used to, but even without taking that into account Honeywood had no idea how quickly food turned to sludge. She had left a bowl of porridge in her bedroom once for an indeterminable amount of time and it had looked something like the plate Aubin was currently holding.

  “Of course,” Stiggs said, “this might not have been Seward at all.”

  “Who else is going to be out this way?” Honeywood asked.

  “The dinosaur-men?”

  She suddenly wished she hadn’t asked, and saw Aubin’s face fall. She wondered whether Stiggs was purposefully trying to scare the girl just to get her to run back into his arms.

  “Sure,” Honeywood said. “And where did they get the plate?”

  Garza joined them then. He had vanished about the edges of the camp in order to perform an examination of the area, and did not appear too happy with things. “This wasn’t Seward.”

  “You’re sure?” Honeywood asked.

  “And it wasn’t no dinosaur-man either,” he snapped at Stiggs before he could say anything. Garza tossed something at Honeywood. “We either have a problem, Ashley, or a solution.”

  Honeywood caught what he had thrown her way and unfolded it. It was a newspaper, a Jupiter newspaper, and it was dated only two months ago. No one lived on Jupiter of course, although each planet and its worlds tended to keep to themselves, had developed their own social systems. The Jupiter system had newspapers which were distributed across their little universe, and if someone had picked up a copy which had been printed so recently, it meant whoever had made this camp had not come from the prison.

  “They may be investigating why they lost contact with the penal colony,” Garza said seriously.