Chronal Engine Page 4
“It’s a dromaeosaur, like Velociraptor,” I said, figuring she’d get the Jurassic Park reference. “You can tell from the retractable switchblade claw.”
Among other things. Like the feathers and the teeth.
“So we made it to where we wanted to be?” Kyle asked.
It was a good question. So far as I could tell, from the creature Petra was holding and from the trees and the cycads and the fact that there were little white flowers on the shrubby plant Kyle was trampling, the answer was yes. The problem with that, though, was that the Cretaceous had lasted millions of years, and we were trying to find an exact instant. “Maybe.”
“So . . .” Kyle began.
“We’re going to find her,” I said.
In the meantime, Petra was cooing over the dromaeosaur chick, which, coming from a girl who shot bunnies with pointed sticks, seemed a little weird.
“What do these eat?” she asked, then apparently had a thought. She was crouched again, before I could answer, reaching under the car. “How about this?”
Petra held a cracked egg in her hand.
When I nodded, she set it by the front tire and put the chick down next to it.
The hatchling sniffed at the egg, circled it, gave a contented chirp, and then began eating its dead sibling. Which meant it was able to fend for itself as soon as it hatched. Dromaeosaurs were “precocious”—it was the sort of thing paleontologists would love to know. The sort of thing Mom would love to know.
I tried not to think about how she’d react to our being here.
About Emma being here.
“So what do we do now?” I asked, taking a step that seemed strangely unstable.
“Wait.” Petra peered around. “Is the ground shaking?”
We looked from one to the other, as the next jarring sensation hit.
“Earthquake?” Kyle asked.
“Or volcano.” I stood and walked toward the beach, past a cluster of ferns and a single, foot-high plant with four tiny white flowers.
Away from the canopy of redwoods, the heat felt more intense, like July in Texas, and the nearly cloudless sky was a brilliant shade of blue I’d never seen before.
“Not an earthquake,” I said, pointing, as the others came onto the beach.
Striding toward us was a herd of giant sauropod dinosaurs. Greenish gray, wrinkled, their scaly hides shimmered in the sun. Their long necks were held angled above the ground, more vertical than horizontal, the heads of the largest thirty or so feet up.
Birds flew above them, occasionally alighting on the sauropods’ sides and backs.
The herd strode about three or four across, the smallest ones toward the center of the group, their tails whipping back and forth.
It was amazing, like seeing the beginning of the world. Which, in a way, we were. Plants and animals had just started to take on their modern forms, and the continents were almost in their present locations.
And some of the animals were the size of houses.
With every step, the ground shook.
“Brontosauruses,” Kyle said.
“There’s no such thing as—” I began, then stopped.
The proper name, according to the rules set by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, was Apatosaurus. But I’d always liked the name Brontosaurus. “Thunder lizard” was way cooler than “deceptive lizard.” And, okay, this was the Late Cretaceous, not the Jurassic, so these would be some kind of titanosaur like Alamosaurus and not a diplodocid apatosaur, anyway, but still.
I was here first.
So, thumbing my nose at the ICZN, I said, “Brontosaurus is fine.”
We all went silent, watching the sauropods approach.
Then I gagged at the sudden stench. The wind must have changed. And what the books and fossils didn’t tell you was how much the things smelled. Like every putrid odor at the zoo put together with a feedlot and an overripe cat box.
“Maybe we should get out of their way,” I said.
We moved back under the cover of the redwoods.
When the baby dromaeosaur chick trotted to her, Petra scooped him up and placed him on her shoulder. He gave a contented peep and then nuzzled her hair.
“I think he imprinted,” she said. “Like a baby bird.”
I found the whole thing slightly unnerving.
Kyle asked, “Aren’t you afraid he’ll grow up and eat you?”
“They’re animals, not monsters,” Petra replied.
“And he’ll grow up to be a lot smaller than the movie velociraptors,” I put in, “so a full-grown human wouldn’t have much to worry about, unless they were in a pack. A toddler, though, might—”
“Shut up, Max!” Kyle said.
I did, because by that point even I realized I was babbling.
“I think I’ll call him ‘Aki,’” Petra said.
“What’s ‘Aki’?” I asked.
“The name of my old shooting team coach’s dog,” she replied.
Kyle and I exchanged a look but said nothing.
By now the herd of brontosaurs was getting closer, almost alongside us. I took a step toward them. I could’ve walked underneath the creatures with room to spare. Even the little ones were twice the size of the VW.
Then the stench made me cough again.
I tried to not breathe through my nose, but that just made me think about what I was breathing in through my mouth. You could almost taste the smell, which was never good.
I was about to mention this when Petra’s eyes widened. “Do not make any sudden moves,” she said, “but get in the car now!”
I whirled and froze.
It was a full-grown tyrannosaur. Probably T. rex. The largest carnivore to have ever walked North America. The size of a city bus.
And it was coming toward us.
It hadn’t seen us yet, though. It was stalking the sauropod herd from under the cover of the giant redwoods.
About fifteen or twenty feet tall, its scarred, scaly body was a mottled brown and green with vague tiger stripes.
Its huge mouth, with its battery of dagger-like teeth, was poised terrifyingly open. Its tiny two-clawed forearms looked a lot less goofy in real life.
Petra raised her bow and aimed an arrow, but then abruptly lowered it. “Like using a toothpick against a tiger.”
“Move it!” Kyle said.
Petra scooted to the passenger side of the Bug and climbed in the back.
I scrambled in and slammed the door.
Kyle was in the driver’s seat a moment later, the ignition on. “Where to?”
The car was facing a redwood, and the only way to go was back toward the tyrannosaur.
“Idiot!” Petra said. “Use the Recall Device.”
I didn’t have time to feel sheepish.
I grabbed the Device and pressed the activation button.
And nothing happened.
“Do it!” Kyle yelled.
“I did!” I yelled right back. “It’s not working!”
Kyle reached over and slapped at the button.
Nothing happened.
“Guys,” Petra said, “get us out of here. Now.”
The tyrannosaur had come closer, within maybe two or three body lengths, and the brontosaurs were striding past.
“It’s not working!” Kyle said.
And then the tyrannosaur saw us.
We couldn’t go through it. It probably weighed five tons. Its teeth were the size of bananas, and it could probably swallow any of us whole.
We had to get it out of the way.
I leaned over, grabbed the key chain dangling from the ignition, and pressed the alarm button.
The car’s lights began blinking on and off, and a siren sounded.
Kyle gave me a horrified look. “What did you do?”
I didn’t reply. The tyrannosaur paused at the unfamiliar sound.
Then, with a roar, it thrust its snout forward, prodding the packs on the roof of the car. The entire vehicle shifted, b
ut the ropes held. Score one for modern technology.
A moment later the tyrannosaur raised its head again, snarled, and looked to the side. Toward the sauropods.
To our right, two of the largest stood facing the car and the tyrannosaur. They stamped their legs, shuffling back and forth, snorting and bobbing their heads.
Then the one on the right reared up and stamped its forelegs with a titanic crash that shook the ground.
The tyrannosaur roared once more, then straightened, hissed, and trotted away into the forest.
I leaned back and let out a breath as Kyle turned off the alarm, the adrenaline high draining away with the ringing in my ears.
“What about them?” he asked, pointing out the passenger window at the hostile sauropods.
“Drive!” I yelled.
Kyle slammed the car into reverse, hauled the wheel to the left, and then drove forward. Toward the herd.
“What are you doing?” Petra yelled.
I gripped the dashboard as Kyle maneuvered the car between the tree line and the sauropods. The Beetle fishtailed once on the sand, then got traction, but not before it nearly sideswiped the largest of the brontosaurs.
A moment later the car accelerated safely past the herd, although one whiptail clanged against the side sheet metal.
Chapter VI
On the Move
“WHY DIDN’T THE RECALL DEVICE WORK?” KYLE ASKED.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“How are we going to get back?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said again.
“How are we going to find Emma?” he pressed.
“Shut up and let me think.” I grabbed the Recall Device from out of the cup holder. I checked to make sure it was set to “Return” and tried to activate it again.
Nothing.
Suddenly, I was glad I had brought the lab books.
Replacing the Recall Device, I pulled out the top book, the one in English, and began leafing through it.
At that moment Aki jumped into my lap, crumpling the page, and then sniffed at the lab book. He didn’t seem hostile or afraid, just curious.
“Sorry,” Petra said as I handed him back to her.
“Is that the instruction manual?” Kyle asked. “Because, you know, you’re terrible with—”
“Shut up,” I told him again, and tried to read.
Maybe the Recall Device needed to recharge.
Every now and then, I’d glance out the window. We were driving along a beach. I’d never been a fan of beaches. They were often full of sand, seaweed, and volleyball players.
“Nice beach,” Petra said.
This one was a little different from the beach at Corpus Christi, though, mainly due to the footprints and the nature of the garbage.
Instead of the tracks of spring breakers going off to windsurf or bask in the sun, these were the enormous prints of giant sauropods. Along with gargantuan, fly-covered and beetle-infested steaming piles of dung. “Coprolites” they were called, after seventy million years of fossilization, when they were just like any other sedimentary rock and no longer smelled.
At least we were free of the tyrannosaur and the sauropod herd.
Although I was thinking we had bigger problems.
Aki chirped, and then Petra shifted in her seat behind me. “Do you have any idea how to find your sister and get us home?”
“Yeah,” I said, more confidently than I felt. “Maybe. No.”
“What’s that?” Kyle asked.
“What’s—” I began. I leaned forward, reaching out a hand to steady myself on the dashboard. Then I saw what he was driving toward. “Is that a boat?”
Neither of the others said anything as we approached and the boat came into clearer sight. Once, it had been a trim, white wooden river launch, about thirty feet long, with an exposed boiler and a single smokestack in front and a small cockpit behind it, sort of like the African Queen (from my mother’s favorite movie). Now, half buried in the sand, front end pointing inland, it was resting at an angle, tilted on its right side. Bent and broken supports and tattered pieces of dirty white canvas showed where a canopy behind the cockpit had been. Clumps of dried seaweed lay gathered on the ground against the peeling hull. Much of the back end was missing.
A white and gray gull-like bird, perched at the bow, gave a cry and flew away at our approach.
I twisted in my seat to look as Kyle drove around the side of the boat. The hull had a four-foot hole at the front and just at the water line.
I tried to see inside, but the angle was bad.
“What do you think?” Kyle asked as we circled. “Does it look like something the kidnapper guy might’ve brought?”
“Maybe,” Petra put in, “but it could also be something Pierson brought.”
“Or sent,” I said. “This could be what happens if you try to send something too big.”
“Now there’s a cheerful thought,” she muttered.
“Stop here,” I said as we drove into the boat’s shadow. I pulled open the glove compartment for a flashlight. It was one of those expensive black aluminum kinds like the police use. Almost before the car had stopped, I jumped out.
Petra was out after me, Aki on her shoulder.
“What are you looking for?” Kyle asked, emerging from the driver’s side.
“Something,” I said. “I don’t know. I just want to take a look. It’s a boat from the twenty-first century. Or maybe the twentieth.”
He banged a hand on the hood of the car. “How does this help us find Emma?”
“It’s a boat in the Cretaceous,” I repeated. “What do you think?”
Obviously, it had something to do with the Chronal Engine.
In the direct sun, the heat shimmered off the sand. I took the flashlight and went around to the other side of the boat.
After a moment Kyle and Petra followed.
I peered closer and saw that what I’d taken for odd wind patterns in the sand were instead hundreds of overlapping three-toed footprints.
The tracks were just a little larger than my hand. They were amazingly real. Not that the ones down at the ranch weren’t cool, too. Those were bigger. But these were fresh, not fossils.
I gave Aki a glance, then became aware that Kyle was staring at him.
“Three-toed biped,” I said, “means a theropod, but not a dromaeosaur. They only leave two toe marks, because they hold the one off the ground.”
The switchblade one. The one that could disembowel you and leave your intestines on the outside so they could eat you at their convenience while you watched.
I didn’t say this aloud, though, because sometimes you don’t have to tell everyone everything.
Kyle came up beside me when I approached the boat, pointing my flashlight at the hole. “Hold the light from underneath,” he said, “with your arm up. That way you can swing it down like a club.” It was his “don’t be a dork” tone.
I was tempted to snap at him that I wasn’t an idiot, but decided not to, partly because what he’d said made a lot of sense. I braced myself, then shined the flashlight, holding it from below, and peered in.
Without warning, a slim, two-legged dinosaur jumped out of the hole.
I jumped back and stumbled into Kyle as the animal made a loud screeching noise, spreading its arms and lowering its head, trying to scare us off.
I kept my eye on it, though, even as I tumbled to the ground on top of Kyle.
The dinosaur was about five feet tall, covered in bright red and green feathers, and had long, feathered arms ending in claws. It also had an odd, chicken-like crested head and a giant, parrot-like beak, which meant it was an oviraptorid of some kind.
“Watch it!” Kyle said, grabbing the flashlight so I wouldn’t jab him again, and scrambled to his feet.
At that, the oviraptorid squawked, turned, and ran off toward the forest.
“What was that?” Kyle reached out a hand. “Some kind of prehistoric parrot?”
Petra chuckled, standing a few steps back with her bow at the ready.
“What?” I asked.
“Let’s just say y’all need to work on your reflexes,” she answered. “And you’d make terrible hunters.”
After a moment Kyle gestured. “Let’s check this thing out.” He shined the flashlight into the hole again.
I couldn’t see anything moving, so I took a step closer, this time sticking my head in and wrinkling my nose against the dead shellfish smell.
It was just a small compartment, for storage, I guessed, with a rotting wooden deck above and broken doors leading to where the steam engine stood.
From the beam of light Kyle was using to scan the floor, I could make out eggshells and broken ammonite shells and the remains of what looked like small turtles.
“Are those from baby oviraptorosaurs or what the oviraptorosaurs ate?” Kyle asked.
“Possibly both,” I replied. “A lot of dinosaurs may have been cannibals.”
Like Aki, but I didn’t say that aloud.
We stood and walked back the length of the hull, to stand next to the cockpit. I looked through the broken glass to see a pair of cracked gauges and a ship’s wheel set into a weathered dashboard.
As I climbed up and made my way around to the stern, Kyle said, “Watch your step.”
“Wait, what’s that?” I asked.
He vaulted over the side to stand next to a corroded metal box, about a foot square, set into the deck just in behind the boiler. Then he crouched. As I made my way over, he pulled open a hatch on the box. Petra stayed behind, with her compound bow, watching from beside the boat.
“What is it?” I asked again.
He shined the flashlight into the compartment. “I don’t know.”
I moved closer. It was a rectangular collection of brass and glass and wiring, all wound together. Something inside was lit with a faint blue glow. Sticking up and off to the side was a series of dials with markings on them. The same markings I had on the Recall Device.
“A prototype, maybe? So Professor Pierson’s original time machine was a boat?” I hadn’t seen anything in the lab books about that. “Why would you build it into a boat?”