get too close to these things. He ignored her. He needed to listen to the noises these things made. Perhaps their sounds could be learned, even mimicked. Perhaps they could employ the same technique they used on the Many- Teeth, identifying a sound that could be practised and used by their young to lure one of the new creatures away from the others.
If just one of them could be isolated. They could study it, understand how dangerous it could be, understand its weakness. Perhaps in the last moments of its life, even share some of its intelligence. Then he could find out if this creature also had the same fluttering red orb in its ribcage, the organ that provided life.
CHAPTER 40
65 million years BC, jungle
Liam gazed up at the behemoth slowly ambling their way. ‘You’re sure it’s a plant-eater?’
Franklyn laughed. ‘Yes, relax, of course it is. It’s an alamosaurus.’
Liam watched the enormous long-necked creature walk with ponderous deliberation across the open plain towards the patch of jungle behind them. He could feel each heavy step through the trembling ground.
Jay-zus-’n’-Mother-Mary, that thing’s the size of a small ship!
He guessed he could park a double-decker tram in the space between its fore and its hind legs and still have room to stand on top. The creature’s tiny head, little more than a rounded nub on the end of its long muscular neck, swept down close to the ground as it closed the distance between them. Finally coming to a halt to inspect the small bipedal creatures standing in front of it.
‘Are you absolutely certain?’ cried Liam, watching the thing’s head hover at shoulder height just a few yards in front of him.
‘Yes! He’s probably more scared of you than you are of — ’
‘Oh — ’ Liam shook his head vigorously — ‘I, uh… I very much doubt that.’
‘See? He’s just checking you out,’ said Franklyn, slowly stepping forward to join Liam and Becks. ‘Hey there, big man!’ he cooed softly. ‘It’s OK, we’re not carnivores.’
‘Well, actually, I am,’ said Whitmore. ‘A little veal and a nice bottle of Sancerre on a Saturday night.’
Small beady black eyes, in a rounded head not much bigger than a cider keg, studied Liam intently. Its nostrils flared for a moment as it inhaled the curious new smell of humans, then curiosity compelled it to take a solitary step forward. Liam felt the ground beneath his feet shudder.
‘Oh, he likes you, man,’ called out Juan.
Liam felt a fetid blast of warm air across his face and closed his eyes as the dinosaur’s head moved even closer. ‘ Ohh… I’m not happy about this,’ he hissed out of the side of his mouth. Thick leathery lips the size of an automobile tyre probed his face, then moved up to explore the intriguing texture of his dark hair.
‘Oh, he really likes you, man. Want us to leave you two alone?’ chuckled Juan.
‘Hair,’ said Whitmore. ‘That’s an evolutionary step that’s millions of years away for this creature. The texture of it must be fascinating to him.’
Liam felt a sharp tug on his scalp. ‘Ow! Well, he’s bleedin’ well eating it now, so he is!’ He slapped at the creature’s mouth. ‘ Hey! Ouch! Let go! Becks! Help!’
Becks reacted swiftly. She stepped towards him and swung a fist at the alamosaurus’s nose. The blow smacked heavily against the leathery skin and with a roar of pain and horror the giant let go of Liam. Its thick muscular neck reared up suddenly, a tree-felling in reverse, and it let loose a deafening bellow that reminded Liam of the dying groans of the Titanic ’s hull. The air vibrated with its startled roar.
Liam clasped his hands over his ears to protect his rattling eardrums, as the cry spread across the plain from one giant herbivore to the next. The alamosaur stumbled back from them on its tree-trunk legs, turning in a long cumbersome arc, and began to shamble away in a loping slow-motion run that felt through the ground like the early tremors of an earthquake.
‘Oh, great!’ shouted Franklyn. ‘Now you started a stampede!’
The calm scene of moments ago, a vista of leviathans grazing peacefully across the open plain, had been instantly transformed into a deafening display of motion and panic. Liam watched the smaller species of plant- eaters scrambling to avoid being stampeded by the other alamosaurs darting into the islands of trees and ferns for cover.
‘Whoa!’ Juan was doubling up with excited laughter. ‘Those alamo things are real chickens, man! Look at the suckers go!’
Amid the confusion of movement and kicked-up dust Liam caught sight of something else. Dark shapes behind them, half a mile away, smaller than any of the other species out on the plain. Just a glimpse of them, a second, no more. Then they were gone to ground, hidden among the knee-high tufts of olive-coloured grass scattered in threadbare clumps across the open plain.
Liam turned to ask if anyone else had seen them, but the others were still marvelling at the sight of an entire food chain on the move, a thunderous spectacle of swaying folds of leathery skin and sinews taut with panic.
He turned back to look again. Nothing. As if the dark shapes had never ever existed.
What the heck are those?
Vanished like skeins of dark smoke, like that ghostly seeker.
Or am I losing me mind now?
It was fully five minutes before some semblance of calm returned to the area; the various species of herbivores gathered in a worried-looking cluster a mile away. Tall necks protruded from the pack standing fully erect, watching them from afar like impossibly large meerkats.
‘Oh, that was fun,’ said Laura. ‘Can we go do it again?’
Liam looked at Becks. Her face was folded with a confused expression. ‘Becks? What’s the matter?’
She looked down at her fist, still balled up. ‘I did not hit it very hard.’
‘You must have hit a sensitive spot,’ said Whitmore.
They made their way across the plain towards the coastline on the horizon, most of the time with Franklyn complaining about how Becks had ruined his chance to study the creatures up close. By noon they were standing among a scattering of boulders and looking at a broad beach of dark coarse sand and a tranquil tropical ocean sending gently lapping waves of surf up the shingle and back down again with a soothing hiss.
‘So?’ said Liam.
Becks studied the view for a long moment, her eyes narrowed. ‘Twenty-one miles north-east of our current location.’
Liam grimaced. ‘So then it’s underwater, is it?’
‘Negative,’ she replied, pointing at the horizon ahead of them. ‘This is a large bay. Observe the horizon.’
Liam looked again, squinting. Then he saw it: a pale line of low humps on the horizon that he’d earlier assumed were clouds. Following the uneven grey-blue line to the left he could see it becoming more distinct as it drew closer. The broad beach they were looking along seemed to promise that it was angling gradually towards the distant spur of land and, if they were patient enough with it, it would link up with the spur eventually.
‘Recommendation: we follow the beach around to the landmass ahead.’
Liam nodded at the low hump of land. ‘Is that the place we need to be?’
She nodded. ‘Information: the distance of the landmass is nine point seven six miles.’
Whitmore nodded. ‘Then that spur has to be it, right? That’s what will one day be the fossil bed.’
Becks nodded slowly. ‘Information: a ninety-three per cent probability you are correct.’
‘My God,’ he said, scratching his beard. ‘Who knows? Some of the footprints we’ll see along the beach over there might just end up being some of the fossils we’ve seen in museums in our time?’ His eyes widened and he shook his head incredulously. ‘Isn’t that the craziest idea?’ He slapped Liam on the shoulder. ‘Time travel must drive you insane if you think about it too much.’
Liam cocked an eyebrow. ‘Oh, I’ve had my share of headaches thinking on it, so I have.’
They stepped forward, down through the boulders and on to the coarse shingle. ‘This is good,’ said Becks to Liam, pointing at the beach. ‘We are not leaving tracks.’
He looked down. She was right. The beach wasn’t sand, it was a coarse gravel that clacked and shifted wetly
