glancing at it. ‘Fifteen minutes to go.’
‘I’m a bit scared,’ whispered Sal.
If Maddy was being honest, she would have admitted she was a little jittery too. Instead she smiled, reached across the table and grasped Sal’s arm. ‘It’s going to be fine, Sal. I promise.’
‘Maybe I should go get Foster’s gun from the back? You know? Just in case somebody unfriendly turns up.’
‘Really?’ Maddy cocked an eyebrow. ‘Do you think that’s going to be sensible? We might be answering the door to a backstreet full of very excitable armed men in suits and dark glasses.’
‘You think it’ll be like that?’
Maddy shrugged. ‘I really don’t know what’s going to happen, Sal
…’
If anything at all…
‘But,’ she continued, ‘if a whole bunch of secret service types turn up, we’re not going to achieve much standing there with one gun between us, are we? I’m sure they’ll come prepared, if you know what I mean?’
‘I guess so,’ muttered Sal, her head drooping down to the table, a fold of her dark hair flopping over darker eyes. ‘How come you’re so calm about this?’
Calm, am I? But then she realized she actually did feel calm… No, not calm… resigned… resigned to whatever history was rolling up through the aeons to meet them in a few minutes when the archway’s bubble reset. She’d figured this out yesterday while she was out there anxiously looking for Foster; there really was nothing much they could do other than wait and react to whatever turned up. Wait. That’s it. Wait until a ripple or a time wave arrived, or, as she hoped, a message. Then, and only then, could they do anything at all useful.
‘I’m calm, Sal… because, I dunno, because it’s not in our hands now. Because we have to just wait and see. No point worrying about what’s out of our hands.’
That sounded lame. But it was all she had right now.
‘But, if it’s bad guys, Maddy… if it’s bad guys who want to get their hands on the time machine, what are we going to do? We can’t just let them.’
‘I’ve got that covered.’
‘How?’
Maddy smiled. There was something she’d managed to get right. ‘I’ve instructed Bob to lock down the computer system if he hears me say a codeword out loud.’
‘Right.’ Sal nodded, silent for a moment. ‘But… but won’t they have computer experts who could hack their way in and, I dunno, deactivate that command or something?’
‘Maybe, eventually. That kind of hacking takes a lot of time. And they won’t have enough time to do that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s under orders to trash absolutely everything if he doesn’t hear from me again.’
‘Huh?’
‘If he doesn’t get a second password from me within six hours, he’s under instructions to go completely mad and wipe the hard drives clean and send a power surge through the displacement machinery’s circuits and fry them. There’ll be nothing left but frazzled silicon and garbage-filled drives if they try anything funny with us, Sal.’
Sal nodded, regarding Maddy with renewed respect. ‘Oh jahulla, that’s clever, Maddy.’
Maddy shrugged. ‘I saw it in a film once. It worked in that — don’t see why it shouldn’t work for us.’
‘You’re a good planner,’ said Sal. ‘I know you think you’re a bit rubbish, and I know you blame yourself for the explosion… but I don’t know anyone else who could have picked up all that you have so quickly.’ She glanced away from Maddy, self-conscious, flicking her fringe behind one ear. ‘I’m just saying, that’s all… you’re pretty good at this.’
‘Thanks, Sal.’
They watched another minute vanish on the clock.
‘We’ll see soon enough. If it’s bad guys out there and they really want to get their grubby paws on our tech, then they’re going to need us, aren’t they?’ Maddy took a deep breath, feeling the tickling sensation of growing anxiety claw its way up her spine as the clock flickered to 11.47 p.m. ‘And they’re freakin’ well going to have to be real nice about it too.’
CHAPTER 47
65 million years BC, jungle
Broken Claw cradled the organ in his hands, still, cold and lifeless now; its colour had drained from a vibrant red to a dull purple as the sun slowly sank in the sky. Now the sky was dark, a half moon bathing the dark jungle with a quicksilver light.
He stood where the new creatures had been just hours ago. Evidence of their presence was everywhere in the form of footprints in the soil, droplets of dried blood on the rocks and boulders and the smell, their unique smell of fear thick on every surface. They had waited here for a while. And they had been so very frightened.
The new creatures fear us.
And yet Broken Claw had been so certain up until now that it was his pack that needed to be afraid of them. The others were looking at him, waiting for him. He looked down at the organ in his hand, all that remained of his pack-mate, the mother of many of the young males before him. She would have led them all if Broken Claw was to die before her. The wisdom of age was more than enough to make up for her smaller frame… and no young buck would have challenged her. Unlike the other simple-minded animals in these lands with their crude pack hierarchies that relied on the brute strength of an alpha male, Broken Claw’s extended family understood the power of wisdom.
But now she was dead. Her slim neck had been almost completely severed and she’d had a wound through the chest cavity that would almost certainly have been fatal anyway.
They had returned to the ledge to find her body still warm, but her life gone. And so they’d consumed her, torn the flesh from her bones in ragged strips — skin, muscle tissue, organs — all of her stripped down to bloodied bones. None of her to be wasted. She was loved too much to leave her flesh for smaller scavengers to gnaw at.
Her heart was his, though, and his alone.
Broken Claw had cradled it now for hours, unwilling to let go of the last thing of her. But now was the time. Now, as he stared down through the dark night to the cove far below and the flickering orange flower on the beach surrounded by those pale creatures.
His serrated teeth tore a chunk from the purple organ and he vowed as he chewed on the fibrous tissue that every last one of those new creatures would die. He would be sure to stare closely into their eyes as his claws dug deep into their chests and pulled the pumping source of their life out.
The others began to wail and mew softly, young males grieving at the loss of their mother, as Broken Claw placed the rest of the organ in his mouth and bade farewell to his lifelong partner. He turned to the others and silenced them with a soft bark.
We do not need to fear new creatures.
The others understood this too.
They are as plant-eaters, harmless without their sticks-that-catch.
And they were careless, foolish creatures that often placed these lethal tools on the ground and walked away from them, unaware that without them their clawless hands and small, even, white teeth made them as vulnerable as freshly born cubs.
Broken Claw watched their distant movements on the beach, illuminated by the yellow flower. Of course they all had to die to avenge her… but also to be sure his kind were the only intelligent pack hunters in these lands. To allow these pale things a chance to breed and increase their number would be foolish.
He opened his mouth and his black tongue curled and twisted as he softly tried to reproduce again the strange sound the short fat creature with ginger hair and those strange eyes had made. Broken Claw’s throat
