Crucible of a Species (44 page)

Colonel Drake saw the assembly once again slipping from his grasp, “Listen. We will no longer call them ‘Earth First’ or even ‘Exile’. We can call them … ‘The Colony’ or even better the ‘First Earth Colony’. This will erase any stigma of guilt. I’ll also agree to restart contacts and help them with supplies and materials as much as we are able. However, I cannot agree to let them back aboard the Argos.

“Here the Colony will stay but for those of you who fear their impact in this timeline, let me assure you we will do everything to keep our disturbance in this timeframe at a minimum. This will be no apocalyptic early seeding of the human race. Even though the number of people is too small a group to insure the growth of their colony, all of those sent into it were sterilized prior to their departure. They will be both the first and the last of their colony.”

Agreement came swiftly but grudgingly. Relief swept over Drake as he and Captain Lee watched the crew somberly return to their quarters. The captain took a swig of water and then said softly, “Okay, you did it. Now tell me what’s bothering you and don’t try and deny it, I know you too well.”

“Can’t ever hide anything from you, can I Adrian? Let’s just say that we haven’t solved this yet. Meecham tells me there’s a lot of grumbling in both your swabbies and the marines but they’re keeping it to themselves. Not sure what’s behind it. Most likely it’s just normal grousing but we must keep an eye on it, I don’t want to get blindsided.”

Drake turned to Thrumbold, “Good selection, Alex. The midshipman played her part well. One thing though, having her suggest a full restoration to rank was pushing things a bit far.”

“Thank you, sir. However, she wasn’t the one I selected. Our midshipman stepped up to the plate on her own before Meecham had a chance to speak up.”

A very agitated Dr. Graeme came running up to them and interrupted in a stage whisper, “Colonel, you know as well as I do that I haven’t sterilized anyone.”

“Doctor, you know that and I know that. That is where the knowledge is going to stay and that’s an order.

“This business about our colony inmates influencing the timeline is bull. I needed our people to come together and work for another five months and if a little lie makes them feel better, then so be it.

“It doesn’t really matter. There is little chance for any long-term survival. As you well know, the group is too small. Their gene pool too limited. There won’t be any advanced ancient civilizations rising around here.”

(Four Months Later)

A gentle gust
carried the black and orange butterfly up over a softly swaying savanna of golden grass. One graceful flutter lifted the delicate insect to the bough of a broad-leaf bush where it settled upon a simple pink blossom. It had barely landed when a great curved beak clamped down upon the limb. The hard, leathery rim of the eagle-shaped bill slid down the branch, stripping off bark, smaller branches and tasty green leaves as it went. Ravaged bits of vegetation and bark fell among hundreds of wide, flat teeth in its lower jaw that methodically ground the mash into a fine paste for easy digestion in the long intestinal track that followed.

The elephant sized, bristle-down covered behemoth that had just shredded this limb was a centrosaur, a slightly smaller ancestor of the triceratops. It was part of a herd of nearly a thousand herbivores systematically stripping the succulent branches of trees in this section of the grasslands. Intolerant of any who might intrude upon their feeding ground or even approach their young, these massive animals feared no predators. They were an ill-tempered species, quick to defend themselves and the herd using both their great size and three deadly horns backed by a flaring protective bone-shield that framed the head of each mountain of muscle like a nun’s bonnet. Even the fierce tyrannosaurs avoided direct confrontation with the herd and, apart from the occasional bouts of rivalry between males, life was peaceful for the species.

This young centrosaur neither saw nor heard death approach. Its demise came in the form of a small, dense projectile travelling at almost twice the speed of sound. The heavy shot entered a thin section of the skull just behind the hapless animal’s left eye, all the while deforming and rending its way though soft brain tissue. The hard bone of the animal’s head slowed the slug enough that it did not exit the other side of the skull but ricocheted inside, spreading even greater damage. The massive beast was dead even before its legs collapsed beneath it.

Although the dinosaur’s death was quite out of the ordinary, it went unnoticed by the rest of the herd and they eventually moved on with only two members pausing to briefly nudge the corpse.

When the herd finally moved out of sight a Hunter Recon silently descended onto the field and a single figure stuck his head out of the door. The human looked around before calling back in a half whisper to those
inside, “Are you sure it’s okay to land? We’re upwind of the herd.”

Ensign Paul Petrika pushed out through the port, boldly nudging the journalist out of the way, “They aren’t rhinos, Tom. Rhinos are half-blind and rely on their sense of smell to detect enemies. These are triceratops. They’re more bird than mammal, although if you can imagine anything less birdlike then I’d like to see it. They see and hear exceptionally well but as long as they don’t see the Hunter or any of us approach the herd, they won’t think we’re a threat.”

“Wrong,” Lieutenant Braxton called as he exited the back door of the vehicle followed by a squad of marine engineers. “Weren’t you at the lecture, Ensign? They may look a bit like a triceratops but they aren’t as big. You won’t see a triceratops around here for millions of years.

“Come on guys, let’s move it. We’ve got to get this animal butchered before someone comes along looking for a free meal.”

Sgt. Frank Marshall directed his squad to setup a defensive perimeter while Pfc. Don Bush and his team unlatched the external storage compartment and began unloading the roboskid holding a robotic hydraulic jack and tools.

Harvesting and processing sufficient food for a major expedition takes time and the explorers of the Argos had been working at it for the past four months. The first hunting parties of the expedition focused on the duck-billed, three-ton hadrosaurs as their primary source of protein. The big animals were easy to harvest and relatively docile if the whole herd wasn’t threatened but, like dairy cows, they didn’t provide a lot of protein for their size.

It was during those early forays that Sgt. Martell noticed how the tyrannosaur packs would pass up the easily taken hadrosaurs to feast on the much more dangerous and aggressive
centrosaurs every time an opportunity presented itself in the form of a wounded or young animal. The tyrannosaurs apparently were excellent judges of high cuisine for after the humans harvested their first three-horned beast, they discovered the meat was preferable to the hadrosaurs. After that, every animal taken was a clear choice between pot roast or filet mignon.

One problem confronted the humans that the tyrannosaurs did not have. The best steaks were located behind the large boney shield that protected the animal’s neck and shoulders. The armored head and shield weighed more than three-tons and this was a minor problem for an adult tyrannosaur who simply placed one foot on the centrosaur’s shoulder and then yanked the boney shield forward, ripping the head from the body to provide easy access to the shoulder’s prime meat.

The humans recognized a good solution when they saw it and their response was a hydraulic jack in the form of a tripod. Marshall and Bush grunted as they slid the heavy metal jaws of the jack between the shield and the animal’s body and then stepped back. The jack came to life as it contacted the body. It clamped onto the leathery shield and aligned itself to the twist of the animal’s neck and shoulders. The jaws expanded and the jack whined as it strained to lift the heavy end of the animal’s frill upwards and forward, exposing the neck and shoulder muscles. A few quick slices by the operator with a hand laser and they pushed the shield fully forward. The robotics then began butchering the massive beast in earnest, automatically filling the refrigerated transport boxes.

“At this rate, we should have the larder full in plenty of time for liftoff.” Tom Bradley mused as he and Petrika watched the robots finish loading the boxes.”

“You wouldn’t be so optimistic if you’d attended yesterday’s meeting. There’s more to life than meat, you know. I wish we had more time to grow some decent vegetables and other greens. We wasted our first two months here trying to find edible fruits and vegetables when we should have been going through our stores to extract seeds and pits for planting right from our first day in camp.”

“I thought I heard Doc Thompson say that we found plenty of edible tubers.”

“Ah, then you haven’t tasted them have you? They’re okay if you like to eat cardboard but there’s no taste to the things and the orange ones that taste like sweet potatoes are hard to find. Even Cookie decided to put them aside for emergency use only.

“Luckily the first plantings mature quickly in this climate and when we exposed them to the outside air, their growth rate exploded. Guess they like the soil and an atmosphere that has more than twenty percent higher oxygen in it than back home. Still, another half year to plant a second crop to store more seeds would have been nice.”

The journalist shifted to take a close up of the horns on the
centrosaur’s
skull, “I’m not willing to stick around another month much less six. I’m also pushing Drake to let us take some of our seeds to the colony. They shouldn’t have to live entirely on a local diet. Hell, let’s give them a chance to grow some decent vegetables.”

Petrika had heard this argument many times, “You know my position and I haven’t changed my mind. We need these seeds ourselves. We were lucky to be able to save what we did. Hell, they’re not gonna starve here, this is still the Earth after all. We, on the other hand have no idea what it’s going to be like orbiting some distant star. There may …”

“Okay, okay Paul. Enough, I’m not trying to restart the argument,” Bradley grumbled as he climbed the ramp to the Hunter. “I just thought we could spare a few for the colony. They’re gonna have a hard enough time as it is.”

The craft soon lifted into a blue sky studded with low clouds. The trip back to camp would take nearly an hour. The long journey was at the behest of Dr. Nolen who wanted to minimize the expedition’s impact on the local environment and timeframe so Drake issued orders that harvesting of wildlife must not be concentrated in any single area. As a result, their expeditions had moved farther from camp as the months passed.

Nothing could have pleased Bradley more for every trip out into the jungles of this world brought new surprises. The journalist spent every minute of their return watching the changing scene outside as Braxton flew the Hunter north along the coast. A sparkling clear sea was soon passing below the craft, slowly it deepened and transformed into vast stretches of cobalt-blue coral. Brief avenues of white sand broke the pattern into a patchwork quilt of islands of undersea biodiversity. A myriad of ocean-going species lay beneath their track, each one fascinating the journalist as he attempted to maintain a tally of those he recognized as well as quick recordings of the many unknown species.

Braxton cut inland, passing over the swampy lowlands of the southeast where herds of long-necked sauropods grazed across vast plains covered by thousands of plant eating hadrosaurs, the most populous species of any age. Their pilot called ahead, “Argos Central, this is Hunter One returning on a north-by-northwest vector. Please alert Lieutenant Esperanza and have a team ready to assist in the offload? We got another three-horned one weighing in at one point two tons dressed.”

The face of a young marine smiled as she returned the call, “Roger, Braxton. We’re going to move your cargo right into long-term storage for flash processing. Set her down on pad three.”

The Hunter gracefully floated down without a sound except for the soft hiss of air particles transported out of its path by the drive field. The small craft settled on a newly paved area in the center of the camp. Its doors opened and robotics moved in to begin offloading.

Petrika disembarked through the craft’s side entrance only to stop and gaze across the plateau. He had noticed something. The telltale movement in the surrounding brush on their inward glide. The creatures moved fast but he knew they were out there.

Three raptors stepped onto the fused-silicon landing pad from behind a bush at its far edge. The largest more than eight-feet long, sporting a coat of fine black feathers with a yellow ring around its neck. White, sharp teeth gleamed from its jaws as it called out in an almost bird-like warble upon spotting them. The predator turned directly towards the humans and looked into the ensign’s eyes as it let out a melodious warble marking the start of its charge.

Pretrika and Braxton stood their ground as the predators bounded to a halt just out of their reach. The lead troodon’s head began to bob and weave as it cooed and warbled, bright yellow eyes anxiously moving from the ensign’s face to his knapsack as its two companions nervously strutted back and forth behind it.

Ensign Petrika smiled as he reached in and slowly brought out a packet. The dinosaur’s eyes locked onto the chunk of bloody meat in the ensign’s fingers and then pulled its head back as the human flung the morsel into the air. The tidbit arched outward forcing the troodon upwards in a graceful leap to snatch it leaving an empty spot that the other two immediately occupied.

A second piece flew past Petrika’s shoulder. Both predators dove for it but the larger troodon expertly snatched it from the air. Paul looked back at the lieutenant behind him and smiled. The loser didn’t squabble after its lost treat but approached Petrika. “You’re always the last to get fed, aren’t you girl? Well, I saved you the biggest piece.” He commented as he pulled the last steak from its bag and flung it at the raptor.

“Come on Paul. Fun is fun but Marshall’s giving us the evil eye.”

The two pilots walked back to their quarters with the journalist who was entering a few last notes. “I’m afraid the sergeant’s a little grumpy this morning,” Bradley commented as he watched the troodon move onward towards a distant group of workers. “There was another meeting in the crew’s quarters last night and it didn’t turn out good. The Earth First sympathizers were at it again and some of the marines began knocking heads before security could stop them. They’re still trying to get the colonel to pick up the colonists and take ‘em back to Earth. If you ask me, I think Nolen’s egging them on but I’ve got no proof.”

“Well, bringing them back ain’t gonna happen,” Braxton replied. “The colonel doesn’t intend to leave with a bunch of fifth column radicals on board who want nothing more than to kill us all.”

*~~*~~*~~*

Colonel Daniel Drake
stared at the battleship-gray walls of his office and sighed, sincerely wishing he had activated the walldisplay’s diorama. He could have set it to look out over the river valley below or anything just so he didn’t have to sit while trying to look interested.

“Colonel, you are overreaching,” Dr. Nolen softly intoned as he calmly sat in the hard desk chair while gingerly balancing a cup of hot tea in his hands. “My people have solved the electronics and communications problems posed by the sensitive theropods and there has not been a breach of security in the last month. You no longer have the authority to continue enforced military command over this expedition.”

Nolen knew as soon as the words were out that he had overstepped his bounds. Drake turned towards him with fire in his eyes, “What has changed since we met last week, Doctor? We have deadly monsters at the edges of our camp, held at bay only by the vigilance of our marines. The expedition is nearly half a year behind schedule and we continue to have internal problems. In spite of our agreement, there are still people who continue to push for clemency for the colonists and an immediate vote to return to our own timeframe. This is your fault. You continue to oppose me in public and this internal strife does not help the morale of the crew.