Becks shook her head earnestly. ‘Liam O’Connor, we do not have any alcoholic beverages in the camp. You will not be able to have a stout.’
‘Oh, doesn’t matter,’ he sighed. ‘I was only trying to be funny. Shall we just get on with this?’
‘Affirmative.’ She looked up. The sun was breaching the tree tops, sending a scattering starburst of rays across the morning sky. ‘I calculate we have nine and a quarter hours of daylight before the sun sets again.’
‘Then let’s get a wriggle on,’ said Liam. ‘We got a lot of miles to cover.’
Broken Claw watched them step off right past him and into the jungle. Right past him. He was amazed at how little the new creatures seemed to see with their small eyes. Broken Claw could quite easily have reached out from the hummock of tall grass he was crouching behind and touched one of them.
The rest of his pack were there with him, dotted around beneath the shelter of ferns, behind the slender trunks of the trees that lined the river, as many hunting males as he had teeth in his mouth. The females and the younger pack members, a little further back in the jungle for safety. So many of them hiding within a few yards of them, and yet none of these curious pale upright creatures seemed to have any idea they were being watched.
Broken Claw struggled to make sense of that. Perhaps these things had spotted them, but for some cunning reason were hiding their reactions? Again, another reason to be wary of them. That and those sticks they carried, those sticks that could easily trap fish from the raging river. And new things. Curved sticks with a taut line of vine stretched from one end to the other. He wondered what these new devices did.
The new creatures stumbled clumsily and noisily past, up the gentle incline of the bank, and disappeared into the dark canopy of the jungle. Broken Claw turned from them to study the others on the far side of the river. They were pulling on another length of vine and he watched in silent awe as the tree trunk across the water slowly jerked and wobbled and raised inches at a time, reminding him of one of the large plain-dwellers, raising its head and long neck after drinking from a pool of water.
He understood this thing now. He understood its purpose.
A way across the dangerous water. A way that could be raised and lowered at will.
He caught sight of yellow eyes dotted here and there, the intent gaze of his extended family pack. They too were watching the tree rise, apparently under its own power. That was good. Good that they were seeing for themselves how wary they must be of these harmless-looking new arrivals.
Broken Claw offered a soft bark and the yellow eyes vanished. And the pack, like a ghostly dawn mist dissipating under the warm light of a rising sun, was suddenly gone, as if they’d evaporated into the jungle.
CHAPTER 36
65 million years BC, jungle
It was gone mid-afternoon as they neared the crest of the steep jungle mountain they’d been struggling up since dawn. Through fleeting gaps in the foliage canopy, Liam had caught glimpses of an ebony ridge of peaks ahead of them, to the left and right, as far as he could see. He’d considered suggesting they turn left or right to try finding a way round, but that might mean a detour of days. Better, he decided, to press on up the sloping jungle hillside and tackle the ridge. At least it would be all downhill on the far side.
Up ahead, now, the jungle was fast thinning, giving way to smaller withered trees trying to find a foothold on a ground of shale and gravel dotted with coarse tufts of grass. Just ahead of him Becks emerged into sunlight.
He noticed that her back, taut with muscle, was bone dry. Don’t these clones ever sweat? Liam was drenched. Every inch of his skin was slick with perspiration, the salt running down from his fringe stinging his eyes.
Behind him he could hear Franklyn and Whitmore talking. They hadn’t stopped since they’d set out from the camp, a relentless jabbering to and fro on all things prehistoric. It was certainly reassuring to know their group had what sounded like a fair bit of expertise on this alien environment, but Liam would happily have paid a ship steward’s monthly wage for them to just shut up for five minutes.
Whitmore dabbed at his damp forehead. ‘But I want to know why we haven’t seen any yet. This Mesozoic era was very favourable to the larger species. I mean — ’
‘No need to patronize me, Mr Whitmore,’ Franklyn cut in. ‘I know all that. I know this was the most densely populated era, that the Cretaceous was really the time of the dinosaurs. Much more so than the Jurassic era.’
Whitmore nodded. ‘Mind you, it wouldn’t have sounded quite so snappy if they’d called that film Cretaceous Park, would it?’
‘At least it would have been more accurate,’ said Franklyn. ‘But it’s so strange, don’t you think? I mean, Dinosaur Valley State Park isn’t so far away… and the Paluxy riverbed there is covered in fossils from all types of species. How come this jungle valley’s, like, deserted?’ Franklyn’s voice was laden with disappointment. ‘I mean, here we are… the perfect time, in fact, to see all the classic species: T-rex, ankylosaurus, stegosaurus, triceratops, and yet we’ve seen nothing.’
‘It could be the jungle itself is unfavourable terrain for the larger animals.’
‘That’s not true,’ replied Franklyn. ‘It’s nutrient heaven for the herbivores. And where there are herbivores you should also find carnivores. This jungle should be full of them.’
‘Well,’ said Whitmore, looking up the slope at the thinning vegetation and craggy peak ahead of them, ‘no more jungle now.’
They and the rest of the party followed Liam and Becks out of the lush green into a mostly grey-brown world of slate and shingle. Up ahead the slope rose to a fractured cliff face of sharp slate angles. He could see that the robo-girl was already climbing up it, making swift progress from one treacherous handhold to the next. He watched her pulling herself up the sheer cliff face without any apparent difficulty.
Robo-girl. Now they all knew she was some kind of a robot, and after seeing her nearly skewer Laura like one of those mudfish — and, Lord knows, if Liam hadn’t intervened, she would have killed them all, one after the other — there was no way anyone was going to entirely trust her.
Whitmore’s feet slid on the shale as he scrambled awkwardly up the last fifty yards to the base of the cliff to join Liam.
‘We… we’re…’ Whitmore gasped like an asthmatic as he wiped the sweat from his brow. He looked up at the sheer rock face. ‘We’re climbing that?’
‘Yup,’ said Liam.
‘I… I’m…’ He was still heaving to catch some air. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to.’
Liam shook his head as he peeled the rucksack off his back. ‘Not a lot of choice, Mr Whitmore. It’s that direction we need to go.’
He swallowed anxiously. ‘Uh… I’m really not so great with heights.’
‘Don’t worry about that, Mr Whitmore. She can pull you up if you’d like.’
Franklyn puffed and wheezed up the last few yards, kicking loose shale beneath his trainers. ‘That goes for me too. I’m exhausted.’
Liam looked up the rock face and saw Becks was already at the top and bracing her legs against an outcrop for balance. She pulled the heavy coils of vine rope off her shoulder, secured one end round her waist and tossed the rest down. It clattered on to the shale with several dozen yards in length to spare.
Liam looked at them both and down at the others making their way up the last few dozen yards of the mountainside. Beyond them he could see the green carpet of the jungle rolling all the way down the steep peak they’d been ascending to the deep valley below. He thought he could just make out the hairline silver glint of the river snaking through the lush emerald carpet, and there it was… a small oval of lighter green no bigger than his fingernail: their clearing.
‘I am ready to proceed,’ Becks called down.
They all studied the cliff face unhappily: sixty-foot high, all razor-sharp edges and craggy outcrops that promised to impale or slice anyone unfortunate enough to take a tumble.
‘Don’t all be chickens,’ said Becks.
Liam glanced up at her and saw she was smiling.
Did she just try to be funny?
‘Cluck, cluck,’ she added in her monotone voice.
