Cretaceous Sea

observatory.'

'I still don't understand,' said Con.

'Time flows in only one direction,' said Joe. 'Any change in the flow of time affects only events upwhen from that change. It's sort of like dumping dye into a river—only the water downstream gets colored. It doesn't matter where you come from, only where you dump the dye. Sam changed history sometime in his past, but our future.'

'You don't know that for a fact,' said Rick. 'There are other possibilities.'

'Returning to the island would waste our time and the plane's power,' said Joe flatly.

'How can you be certain?' asked Con.

'I knew Sam. He wouldn't have left things to chance. He changed history, all right. I'm certain about another thing, too. I don't want to meet any more people from the future. Even if it were possible.'

'Why?' asked Con.

'Judging from Sam, they'd treat us like dirt,' said Joe.

'He was just one person,' said Con. 'Humanity's bound to improve.'

'Is that so?' retorted Joe. 'If you believe that, why don't you visit what's left of the Holy Land?'

'That's ... that's a special case,' said Con.

'Because it proves my point? I could come up with oth-ers,' said Joe. 'Rick said we'd go to someplace that's safe. That island's not on my list.'

Rick silently watched the exchange and wondered why Joe was so against returning to the island. Ultimately, he realized, it doesn't matter why. Joe's opinion carries the most weight. Only he can fly the plane. While Rick was not convinced that history had been altered, he was also disinclined to return to the island. Passively waiting to be rescued ran against his temperament. It also seemed like a foolhardy gamble. Joe might be right, he thought, or time travelers might take weeks or even years to return.

'We're better off relying on ourselves,' said Rick, 'than counting on a miraculous rescue.'

'Yeah,' said Joe.

'Then what chance do we have?' said Con. 'We're only three people, and this meteor just killed all the dinosaurs.'

'It didn't kill them all,' said Rick, 'at least not yet. Some people think the impact and the extinctions were just coin- cidences. That's what everyone's been debating since 1980.'

'Now that you're the foremost authority in the world,' said Joe, 'maybe you'd give us your opinion on the matter.'

'I think the effects of the impact precipitated the mass extinction,' said Rick.

'So we're in for a wild ride,' said Joe.

'I'm afraid so,' replied Rick.

'May I ask how wild?' said Joe.

'First, the debris from the impact and the soot from the fires will blot out the sun. Photosynthesis will stop.'

'For how long?' asked Con.

'Estimates vary,' replied Rick. 'Several months, at least.'

'Several months?' said Con in despair.

'Why do I think that's not all the bad news?' said Joe. 'You said something about cold.'

'Without sunlight, the Earth's surface temperature will slowly drop below freezing.'