Read Online End of an Era by Robert J. Sawyer - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert J. Sawyer
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of course. It must have heard me call "Wait up!" to Klicks and simply imitated the sound.
Except.
Except that I hadn’t called "wait up" or anything else to Klicks. And Klicks hadn’t said anything remotely like that to me.
I must have heard wrong. I must have.
"Wait up. Stop. Stop. Wait up."
Oh, shit…
Klicks recovered his wits faster than I did. "Yes?" he said, astonished.
"Yess. Stop. Go not. Wait up. Stop. Yess. Stop."
What do you say to a dinosaur? "Who are you?" asked Klicks.
"Pals. We pals. You pals. Eat an ant and I’ll be your best friend. Pals. Palsy-walsy."
"I don’t fucking believe this," said Klicks.
That did it. The thing launched into George Carlin’s list of the seven words you never used to be able to say on TV. The troodon’s speech was still difficult to understand, though. Indeed, it would have been incomprehensible if it weren’t for the fact that it put a brief pause between each word, the obscenities coming out like the sputters of a dying muffler.
"How can a dinosaur talk?" I said at last, to Klicks really, but the damned reptile answered anyway.
"With great difficulty," the troddon rasped, and then, as if to prove its point, it arched its neck and hawked up a ball of spit. The gob landed on some rocks at the base of a bald cypress trunk. It was shot through with blood. The effort of speaking must be tearing up the creature’s throat.
That the beast could speak made no sense, and yet the words, although not clear, were unmistakable. I shook my head in wonder, then realized what was doubly incredible was not just that the dinosaur was speaking, but that it was speaking English.
Now, in retrospect, it seems obvious that it wasn’t the dinosaur talking. Not really. It was just a marionette for the blue jelly thing inside it. I’d had a hard enough time accepting that some weird slime had crawled into my head. The thought that the stuff had been an
intelligent
creature was something my mind refused to accept, until Klicks said it out loud. "It’s not the troodon, dammit. It’s the slime-thingy inside it."
The talking dinosaur clucked like a chicken, then said, "Yess. Slime-thingy me. Not dinosaur. Dinosaur dumb-dumb. Slime-thingy smarty-pants."
"That one must have learned English from you," said Klicks.
"Huh? Why?"
"Well, for one thing, it sure didn’t get phrases like ‘palsy-walsy’ and ‘smarty-pants’ from me. And for another, it’s got your snooty Upper Canada College accent."
I thought about that. It didn’t sound to me like it had any accent at all, but then again it certainly didn’t have a Jamaican accent, which is what Klicks spoke with.
Before I could reply, the three troodons stepped forward, not menacingly, really, but they did manage in short order to form the vertices of an equilateral triangle, with Klicks and me at the center. Klicks nodded toward the dense undergrowth, a mixture of ferns, red flowers, and cycads. There, sticking up, was the barrel of his elephant gun, quite out of reach. "Enough said by me," rasped the reptile, now standing so close that I could feel its hot, moist breath on my face and smell the stench of its last meal. "You speak now. Who you?"
It was insanity, this being questioned by a baby-talking dinosaur. But I couldn’t think of any reason not to answer its question. I pointed at Klicks, but wondered if the hand gesture would have any meaning to the beast. "This is Professor Miles Jordan," I said, "and my name is Dr. Brandon Thackeray." The troodon tilted its head in a way that looked like human puzzlement. It didn’t say anything, though, so I added, "I’m Curator of Paleobiology at the Royal Ontario Museum. Miles is Curator of Dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, and he also teaches at the University of Alberta."
The reptilian head weaved at the end of that long neck. "Some words link," it said in its harsh voice. "Some not." I could hear an undercurrent of clicking as it spoke, the sound
Except.
Except that I hadn’t called "wait up" or anything else to Klicks. And Klicks hadn’t said anything remotely like that to me.
I must have heard wrong. I must have.
"Wait up. Stop. Stop. Wait up."
Oh, shit…
Klicks recovered his wits faster than I did. "Yes?" he said, astonished.
"Yess. Stop. Go not. Wait up. Stop. Yess. Stop."
What do you say to a dinosaur? "Who are you?" asked Klicks.
"Pals. We pals. You pals. Eat an ant and I’ll be your best friend. Pals. Palsy-walsy."
"I don’t fucking believe this," said Klicks.
That did it. The thing launched into George Carlin’s list of the seven words you never used to be able to say on TV. The troodon’s speech was still difficult to understand, though. Indeed, it would have been incomprehensible if it weren’t for the fact that it put a brief pause between each word, the obscenities coming out like the sputters of a dying muffler.
"How can a dinosaur talk?" I said at last, to Klicks really, but the damned reptile answered anyway.
"With great difficulty," the troddon rasped, and then, as if to prove its point, it arched its neck and hawked up a ball of spit. The gob landed on some rocks at the base of a bald cypress trunk. It was shot through with blood. The effort of speaking must be tearing up the creature’s throat.
That the beast could speak made no sense, and yet the words, although not clear, were unmistakable. I shook my head in wonder, then realized what was doubly incredible was not just that the dinosaur was speaking, but that it was speaking English.
Now, in retrospect, it seems obvious that it wasn’t the dinosaur talking. Not really. It was just a marionette for the blue jelly thing inside it. I’d had a hard enough time accepting that some weird slime had crawled into my head. The thought that the stuff had been an
intelligent
creature was something my mind refused to accept, until Klicks said it out loud. "It’s not the troodon, dammit. It’s the slime-thingy inside it."
The talking dinosaur clucked like a chicken, then said, "Yess. Slime-thingy me. Not dinosaur. Dinosaur dumb-dumb. Slime-thingy smarty-pants."
"That one must have learned English from you," said Klicks.
"Huh? Why?"
"Well, for one thing, it sure didn’t get phrases like ‘palsy-walsy’ and ‘smarty-pants’ from me. And for another, it’s got your snooty Upper Canada College accent."
I thought about that. It didn’t sound to me like it had any accent at all, but then again it certainly didn’t have a Jamaican accent, which is what Klicks spoke with.
Before I could reply, the three troodons stepped forward, not menacingly, really, but they did manage in short order to form the vertices of an equilateral triangle, with Klicks and me at the center. Klicks nodded toward the dense undergrowth, a mixture of ferns, red flowers, and cycads. There, sticking up, was the barrel of his elephant gun, quite out of reach. "Enough said by me," rasped the reptile, now standing so close that I could feel its hot, moist breath on my face and smell the stench of its last meal. "You speak now. Who you?"
It was insanity, this being questioned by a baby-talking dinosaur. But I couldn’t think of any reason not to answer its question. I pointed at Klicks, but wondered if the hand gesture would have any meaning to the beast. "This is Professor Miles Jordan," I said, "and my name is Dr. Brandon Thackeray." The troodon tilted its head in a way that looked like human puzzlement. It didn’t say anything, though, so I added, "I’m Curator of Paleobiology at the Royal Ontario Museum. Miles is Curator of Dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, and he also teaches at the University of Alberta."
The reptilian head weaved at the end of that long neck. "Some words link," it said in its harsh voice. "Some not." I could hear an undercurrent of clicking as it spoke, the sound
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