Footprints of Thunder (44 page)

Dr. Coombs’s limp form was impaled on the upper horns. One of the horns was buried in his thigh and one somewhere in his back, and he was held across the head of the dinosaur. The confused animal shook its head trying to dislodge Dr. Coombs’s limp body. Petra watched helplessly as the dinosaur’s efforts became more violent, but still the body hung on the curved horns. Petra saw no way she could help. She spotted Colter doing something in the grass. Then he stood, holding a long stick in his hand.

The dinosaur was still struggling with Dr. Coombs’s body when Colter approached stealthily, keeping slightly behind the head of the dinosaur. Then, out of the corner of her eye, Petra saw Dr. Coombs move. It was just his arm, but it moved up, and then dropped again. He’s alive, Petra thought. Then she ran forward to draw the dinosaur’s attention away from Colter.

Colter was getting close now, so Petra shouted and waved her arms. This time the dinosaur turned toward her. Its huge eyes flamed with anger, but it only stared at Petra defiantly. As soon as Petra had it distracted Colter broke into a sprint.

Colter ran the last few steps to the dinosaur and plunged the sharpened stick into one of the wounds in its neck. To Petra it looked as if the stick barely penetrated, but the dinosaur screamed in pain. It shook its massive head, forgetting about Dr. Coombs’s still-impaled body. Colter, shaken loose by the dinosaur, grabbed the stick again, then plunged it back into the beast. This time the dinosaur began to run. Colter tried to keep up but soon stumbled and was left behind. Petra followed the retreating dinosaur toward the tall brush. Just as it disappeared, Dr. Coombs raised his head again and opened his eyes. Then the dinosaur crashed through the brush and out of sight. Petra stumbled to a halt at the hedgerow. The grass was sticky with a mixture of human and dinosaur blood. Colter came up next to her, and behind him she could see Dr. Piltcher walking through the grass, his face pale and drawn.

“He’s alive, Dr. Piltcher,” Petra said.

Dr. Piltcher shook his head.

“Petra, I know you want him to be …”

“He is, Dr. Piltcher. I saw him move.”

“Petra …” Dr. Piltcher began, but Colter cut him off.

“I saw him move too.”

Dr. Piltcher’s eyes went wide and some color returned to his cheeks. Then he turned to the forest and shouted.

“George, we’re coming. Don’t you die on me, George!”

Dr. Piltcher turned to follow the blood trail, but Colter’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“Without a weapon?’!

“You can go to town for a gun if you want, Colter. George will be dead by the time you get back. I’m going after him. He’s my friend.”

Colter looked past Dr. Piltcher to Petra for help, but she looked as determined as Dr. Piltcher. Colter dropped his eyes and shook his head.

“All right, all right. Just give me a minute, will ya?”

Colter trotted off toward the mangled RV, pausing long enough to retrieve the stick he used on the dinosaur. Dr. Piltcher watched him briefly and then started to follow the dinosaur’s trail. But Petra stopped him, and the look in her eyes persuaded him to give Colter a few minutes. Dr. Piltcher paced anxiously looking vainly for signs of Dr. Coombs in the brush ahead.

Colter returned with a knife securely wired to the bloody end of his pole. To Petra it seemed a flimsy weapon to use on a dinosaur, but Colter led off confidently.

Crushed grass, broken limbs, and sticky red smears showed them the way. A short distance into the brush, a four-foot bipedal dinosaur turned down the trail ahead of them. Colter signaled a halt, and they watched its mottled green tail disappear down the trail. Colter was about to move off again when a dinosaur, walking on all fours, moved through the grass and down the trail. Colter waited again to give the smaller one some space. They followed the trail only a short distance when once again something moved through the grass toward the trail—a dinosaur similar to the first one, trotting upright down the trail. Colter turned in frustration.

“It’s like rush hour on the freeway. They’re scavengers, you know.”

They were about to strike out again, but something moved through the grass ahead of them. Too small to see, it too was following the scent of the blood.

Petra stood defiantly and walked back the way they had come. When the others caught up, she said simply, “I know where the dinosaur’s going. She’s going home.”

Petra led them back to the clearing and then back into the brush toward the nest of eggs. After a short distance Colter turned and whispered to the others.

“You hear something weird?”

Petra and Dr. Piltcher heard only the wind rustling the leaves. Still Colter hesitated and only led off after Dr. Piltcher threatened to. Colter crept forward, his pace slow and deliberate. He paused often to listen and his eyes moved constantly. Dr. Piltcher became impatient and tried to push past Colter, who pulled him to the ground.

“Listen! Don’t you hear it?”

Dr. Piltcher pushed Colter’s hands away, but looked to see Petra squatting, her head tilted back, listening intently. She turned to Dr. Piltcher, her forehead creased.

“Listen, there is something,” she whispered.

At first Dr. Piltcher could hear only the wind, but slowly his ears filtered it out. New sounds came: a mixture of tearing, slurping, and crunching.

When Dr. Piltcher realized he was listening to tearing flesh and crunching bones, he sagged to his knees and began to sob. “Oh, George, what have I done to you?”

42. The President and Gogh

The rhythm of civilizations is written in the fabric of the universe by the gods. But that rhythm speaks of an age when the fabric will be torn.

—
Zorastrus, Prophet of Babylon

The developed countries, self-absorbed with their own suffering, offered little to the Third World. With only basic transportation and communication networks, Third World countries were thought to have suffered less, but what they had was essential, and the loss of dams, power generators, phones, bridges, and population was devastating. Life on the farms went on virtually, untouched, but the overcrowded and undercivilized cities that suffered from the effect were plunged into darkness and anarchy. Separatists, liberation armies, and the politically disaffected seized the opportunity, and war spread. Ethnic cleansing quickly became a norm, as peace-keeping forces were withdrawn to see to the needs of their home countries.

Without the support and resources of their patrons in the developed world, governments fell and civil war spread like wildfire. Soon, even the cities and regions untouched by the effect were infected with the spreading disorder.

War would kill the most for a while, but without facilities for exports, medicines, and imported food, disease and famine would soon displace war. Peoples dependent on U.N. feeding stations would soon find them empty, and regions battling famine would face new horrors. A new order would eventually displace chaos—political maps would be drastically rewritten. But the new order would be different, for it would include the new wildlife.

Washington, D.C.

PostQuilt: Tuesday, 10:35
A.M.
EST

T
he President put down his reading and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. So many bizarre reports had left him numb to new horrors. The report on his lap summarized the situation in South America. Elizabeth kept insisting a worldwide catastrophe opened possibilities a President couldn’t ignore, but his interest was in the domestic situation. Agreeing finally to read the summaries, he read with one part of his mind while the rest worried about Sandy. The Secret Service had lost touch with the first lady’s escorts, and although he knew they were working frantically to reestablish contact, every second without word turned his hope to despair.

The President turned back to the report. It described an incident in Argentina near La Plata where a herd of cattle was attacked by an “unknown carnivore.” A rancher and his son were killed trying to drive off the beast—killed and eaten. The locals fled, and the army was called in to kill the animal, which so far had eluded them.

There were dozens of detailed stories like that one, as well as general descriptions of disappearing dams, avalanches, and missing cities. Power outages were widespread in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, and virtually no news was coming from the rest of the continent. The reports were identical to what had happened in his own country and only reinforced his feelings of helplessness.

Arnie Gogh knocked at the open door.

“Hello, Arnie. Come on in. I need the relief from these reports. It’s as bad everywhere else as it is in our country. None of our allies escaped.”

“I know, Scotty. I’m afraid I didn’t come to make things easier for you.”

“Sit down. Let’s get it over with.”

“First, we have an unusual request. Are you familiar with our antarctic research station? There are about two hundred personnel at the site. When the … it happened, they found their camp sitting next to a tropical jungle. It’s a familiar story, but it had to be particularly stunning in a barren landscape like Antarctica. They went exploring, naturally, and soon ran into something pretty nasty. They lost a couple of personnel. They retreated to camp to prepare themselves better, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The dinosaurs—which we can assume they are—were sluggish and stuporous. They were freezing to death and soon most of them slipped into a state like hibernation. Being enterprising scientists, and not knowing the same thing had happened all over the world, they began capturing the dinosaurs and dragged them to their port. They want to ship them to a warmer climate.”

The President was exhausted from worry over his wife, and the survival of his country, and had little patience for a group of eggheads trying to save dinosaurs.

“Arnie, we don’t need any more dinosaurs. If half of these reports are true …” the President said without finishing.

“I know. I know. But it’s a bit more complicated than it seems. There’s a political side to this. What if things turn out to be better than we thought? What if we can reverse this? Then what will people think if we let these dinosaurs die?”

“Arnie, do we need dinosaurs?”

“No. There’s no niche for them in the ecosystem. I can’t imagine any of the developing countries will want to deal with them, and I have no idea where they could be kept in our country. But that’s not the point. If we let the dinosaurs in Antarctica die, and they could have been mating pairs for dinosaurs elsewhere, then the environmental lobby will blame us. Better to let the antarctic scientists risk their lives trying to save them. We can always shoot them later.”

The President hated politics and political thinking, but Arnie Gogh was good at it, and he always found his judgment reliable.

“What’s the downside of this decision, Arnie?”

“When those dinosaurs warm up on that ship they could be uncontrollable. There could be personnel losses, Scotty. But given the losses nationwide the losses on the ship would be insignificant.”

Amie’s cold analysis was disturbing, but correct. The President had little to lose by letting them try to save the dinosaurs, and there was some potential for political gain. “These dinosaurs could be vegetarians, right?”

“They could be. They didn’t specify. That’s quite useful, now that I think about it. If something does go wrong then we can always claim we didn’t know they were going to move carnivores.”

“All right. Give them permission, but don’t bring them here.”

“I already have a port in Panama picked out. It’s a good climate for dinosaurs.”

The President watched Gogh as he made a notation on the outside of the folder he was carrying. When he was done he sat silently. The President appreciated his old friend’s company. The two of them had been friends since their first university days, and even when Arnie had been forced to resign the President had retained his respect for him. But Arnie wasn’t sitting there for the company; there was something else on his mind.

“What is it, Arnie? News about Sandy.”

Amie averted his eyes when he spoke, “Atlanta is gone, and Sandy with it. We haven’t given up yet, but there’s no place to look for her—the city isn’t there.”

The President turned and looked out the window, and twirled a paper clip crank. After a minute he turned back and said, “What did you think of Dr. Paulson’s theory?”

“Highly improbable—no foundation.”

“What else do we have, Arnie? I want Sandy back—I need Sandy back. Will you look at his idea, for my sake?”

“I’ve looked at it.”

“I mean really look at it.” The President leaned forward and put the paper clip down. “Arnie, I know how badly it hurt to lose your position here. You and I—we worked half our lives to get here. It wasn’t fair to you to lose it all just because of one mistake.” The President paused as Arnie shifted in his chair uncomfortably. “Arnie, look at the theory. See if you can find some way to get Sandy back. If you’ll do this, I’ll name you science advisor again—or any job you want.”