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Authors: David Drake
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I’ll chase the tyrannosaurus in the other one. If it laid up for the night, then it can’t be very far ahead now. We’ll catch it soon.”
He looked at the Punans, Pa Teng and the female survivor. They sat alongside one another on a pole which had been part of a shelter’s floor frame. They were chanting together, their voices low.
“I’ll be able to track the beast,” Vickers said. “I doubt Pa Teng would come along now even if we needed him.”
“Yes,” Louise said crisply. “Yes, all right. Let’s get going.”
She got aboard the floater her subordinate had been piloting. The little craft started to lift as Vickers jumped aboard.
“We have two hours,” Louise said tightly. “After that, we’ll have to recharge for at least another hour before I’ll want to trust the batteries again.”
“Two hours should do it,” Vickers said. He didn’t have any real idea; he was speaking to calm a friend who’d just taken a series of emotional jolts. “If it continues this business of driving a straight line, we can probably shoot a compass course in the canopy if we have to.”
A casing of vines wrapped a tree so thoroughly that no sign of the support structure within was visible. A yellow-striped lizard watched from a gnarled loop. It flicked its forked tongue toward Vickers as the floater passed.
What are you hunting, little fellow? Vickers mused.
The carnage in the Punan camp had unexpectedly relaxed him. They would catch up with the tyrannosaur, and when they did, Henry Vickers would kill the beast. There was no longer a need to wait for the Scheme officials to use their capture guns, to argue, to lapse into despair, and—as the beast started to regain consciousness—for Louise finally to tell Vickers to finish off the logy animal.
Vickers’ position had ceased to be that of friend to Louise Mondadero and employee of the Borneo Scheme. He was a human being, and the tyrannosaur had proved that it was too dangerous to live in a world with humans.
“I heard what you were saying to Tom,” Louise said, her eyes on her flying. “That you think the ghosts come from the past. They couldn’t. They would have left remains, just as the dinosaurs themselves did. Especially if they were . . . intelligent.”
“I don’t know where they came from,” Vickers said. “I don’t even know if they exist.”
A wave of small birds swept up from the rain forest floor, disturbed by the floater’s hissing passage. There were scores, hundreds of individuals, and at least a dozen species. Their calls were cheerful cacophony as they brushed and banked about the mechanical intruder in their domain.
“They could be from the future, though,” Louise said in a cold, harsh tone that Vickers didn’t like to hear from his friend. “From the time after we’ve wiped ourselves and most other life off the planet.”
The tyrannosaur had laid up near its kill during the night, crushing a thirty-foot circle of undergrowth. When the beast got up, its tracks resumed their straight line through the forest.
Vickers checked his compass surreptitiously. He wasn’t sure how Louise would react to what he was doing. Ninety-five degrees was as close as he could make it. There was, he now realized, a Global Positioning Satellite receiver in the link module which could give him a vector accurate to a few centimeters in a kilometer.
Vickers hoped O’Neill wouldn’t get lost, because Louise had disabled the other module completely. Well, she had a lot of things on her mind. Vickers had only one: centering his front blade in the ring of the rear sight, with the beast’s skull a snarling blur in the distance beyond them.
“People have been talking about the end of the world for as long as there’ve been people, Louise,” Vickers said. He was calm because he knew exactly what he was to do. “We’re still here.”
“Sure, Henry,” she said savagely. “Every year the air and water are poisoned a little bit worse, every year
He looked at the Punans, Pa Teng and the female survivor. They sat alongside one another on a pole which had been part of a shelter’s floor frame. They were chanting together, their voices low.
“I’ll be able to track the beast,” Vickers said. “I doubt Pa Teng would come along now even if we needed him.”
“Yes,” Louise said crisply. “Yes, all right. Let’s get going.”
She got aboard the floater her subordinate had been piloting. The little craft started to lift as Vickers jumped aboard.
“We have two hours,” Louise said tightly. “After that, we’ll have to recharge for at least another hour before I’ll want to trust the batteries again.”
“Two hours should do it,” Vickers said. He didn’t have any real idea; he was speaking to calm a friend who’d just taken a series of emotional jolts. “If it continues this business of driving a straight line, we can probably shoot a compass course in the canopy if we have to.”
A casing of vines wrapped a tree so thoroughly that no sign of the support structure within was visible. A yellow-striped lizard watched from a gnarled loop. It flicked its forked tongue toward Vickers as the floater passed.
What are you hunting, little fellow? Vickers mused.
The carnage in the Punan camp had unexpectedly relaxed him. They would catch up with the tyrannosaur, and when they did, Henry Vickers would kill the beast. There was no longer a need to wait for the Scheme officials to use their capture guns, to argue, to lapse into despair, and—as the beast started to regain consciousness—for Louise finally to tell Vickers to finish off the logy animal.
Vickers’ position had ceased to be that of friend to Louise Mondadero and employee of the Borneo Scheme. He was a human being, and the tyrannosaur had proved that it was too dangerous to live in a world with humans.
“I heard what you were saying to Tom,” Louise said, her eyes on her flying. “That you think the ghosts come from the past. They couldn’t. They would have left remains, just as the dinosaurs themselves did. Especially if they were . . . intelligent.”
“I don’t know where they came from,” Vickers said. “I don’t even know if they exist.”
A wave of small birds swept up from the rain forest floor, disturbed by the floater’s hissing passage. There were scores, hundreds of individuals, and at least a dozen species. Their calls were cheerful cacophony as they brushed and banked about the mechanical intruder in their domain.
“They could be from the future, though,” Louise said in a cold, harsh tone that Vickers didn’t like to hear from his friend. “From the time after we’ve wiped ourselves and most other life off the planet.”
The tyrannosaur had laid up near its kill during the night, crushing a thirty-foot circle of undergrowth. When the beast got up, its tracks resumed their straight line through the forest.
Vickers checked his compass surreptitiously. He wasn’t sure how Louise would react to what he was doing. Ninety-five degrees was as close as he could make it. There was, he now realized, a Global Positioning Satellite receiver in the link module which could give him a vector accurate to a few centimeters in a kilometer.
Vickers hoped O’Neill wouldn’t get lost, because Louise had disabled the other module completely. Well, she had a lot of things on her mind. Vickers had only one: centering his front blade in the ring of the rear sight, with the beast’s skull a snarling blur in the distance beyond them.
“People have been talking about the end of the world for as long as there’ve been people, Louise,” Vickers said. He was calm because he knew exactly what he was to do. “We’re still here.”
“Sure, Henry,” she said savagely. “Every year the air and water are poisoned a little bit worse, every year
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