PART THREE CHAPTER TWELVE

Karil wriggled to the edge of the hole and reached down to help haul her up, glancing down at the ground as he did so. Far below the girl's kicking legs, a monstrous creature was scratching itself against the trunk. A blizzard of leaves fluttered down onto its mountainous back and cascaded over its flanks to pile up about its massive legs. Young ones--like their mother but merely elephant-sized--scooped up the leaves in their jaws.

As Karil and Loris struggled to haul Slava back into the nest, the parent creature reached down with its serpentine neck, scooped up a carload of leaves, and lifted its head into the treetops. The top of its skull rose like an express elevator and appeared over the edge of the nest. It watched them with dull eyes, jaws working to mash the mouthful of leaves, as they dragged Slava up through the fractured nest and clung to the branches.

"My God," Karil said. "It's a whatchamasaurus--a diplodicus."

"It can't be. They're..."

"I know. Jurassic. What the hell is it then?"

"It must be alamosaurus," Slava told him. "They were one of the few sauropods to survive to the Late Cretaceous."

"Well, it'll do nicely...Hey!" Karil reached out and snatched away his utility belt as the creature's head darted forward and half their carefully constructed bower disappeared into its maw.

"We'd better get below, I think," Loris said.

They rescued their equipment and climbed down, fearful that the great thing would develop another itch. The young were playing at some mating-battle game, striking each other with their long necks like giraffe.

Once on the ground, the trio crept from the tree and stole past the family group, carefully skirting the mother's long tail. Karil was in the rear and Loris in the lead, pushing through the undergrowth with a wary eye and a hand on the hilt of her knife.

Soon they found a fairly sheltered spot--a pond beneath a rocky outcropping where frogs and turtles lived. They made their breakfast there, and other creatures joined them, attracted by the smell. Plovers and terns spiralled in from above. A kind of opossum crept down a tree-trunk to watch them. Laughing, Slava tossed food into the air to see the birds scoop it up on the wing. In a moment she had the possum eating out of her hand.

"You're on watch, Karil," Loris said, and stripped off her clothes to wade into the pond. With a shy glance at Karil, Slava did the same. With the sunlight cascading through the trees about them, the forest had lost much of its sense of menace, and Karil found himself distracted by the sight of Loris and Slava bathing together, laughing and splashing each other. He made his way around the pool so he could sit with his back to the rocks and keep an eye on the forest without losing sight of the women.

"Cretaceous Day! Callooh! Callay!" he chortled in his glee.

"What are you on about now?" Loris asked as she ducked Slava into the water.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"

Loris climbed up onto the mossy bank and threw herself down beside him while Slava flirted with them from the water, washing her body with exaggerated care.

"What have we done to this girl, Karil? We've brought out the Jane in her."

"I know. It's wonderful. I get to play Tarzan with Jane and Sheena at once."

"You were dreaming about Atty, back there, weren't you?"

"Yes," Karil said. "I did most of my mourning in the Hole, but it comes back to me sometimes."

"She was your first ship. Your only ship, actually. I've lost a few, but it doesn't get any easier. They say it's not like losing people, but it is."

Karil looked at her. "I thought I'd lost you too, Lor. I wanted to die. The only thing that kept me alive was the thought of vengeance."

"That's what vengeance is for," Loris said. "Listen to Kali."

Realizing she was as dry as she was likely to get, Loris slipped on her shorts and tied on her top. "You're getting as ragged as I am," she told him.

"He looks beautiful," Slava said. "Like a pirate."

"You keep doing that and I'll start acting like one."

"You mean this?" Slava splashed water over her nipples, stroking them until they were hard. She shrieked as Karil dove in after her and dragged her kicking and screaming onto the bank, then dissolved in peals of laughter as he tickled her into submission.

"Oh Christ," said Loris. She made her way around the pool toward the mossy bank where they had dropped their supplies, and suddenly froze in place.

"Karil," she snapped.

Knowing that tone of voice, he looked up from Slava's bellybutton. "What? Oh my God."

A small dinosaur was standing over their supplies, holding their tool-belts in its remarkably human hands. It blinked at them, looking at Loris, then at Karil, and clicked what appeared to be a greeting.

Loris crept forward. "Nice dinosaur," she said. "Put down the tool-belts." Then she froze as it pulled the lasers from their holsters. "Careful, Little Guy," she said. "Those things can be dangerous."

It dropped the belts on the ground, swivelled on one splay foot, and pounded away into the forest with their lasers in its claws. They looked down at the ground and saw two freshly caught fish lying on the mossy bank.

"Hey, you sonofabitch," Loris shouted. "That was a lousy trade. Karil, get your clothes on. We've got to find that little bastard."

In a few minutes they were dressed and following the creature's trail through the forest--or at least Karil was following the trail, while Loris kept watch. It was not a difficult trail, at least for Karil, as the dinosaur was keeping close to a stream and its splay-footed prints were quite easy to see in the muddy bank.

As they followed the stream to its source, they entered a canyon which soon narrowed to a chasm. Loris was not thrilled with the narrowing of the defile, as it made escape from sudden attack an unlikely process, but at the same time, she doubted if really large dinosaurs would frequent the place, for the same reason. Finally, they appeared to have found the end of the road; the chasm became a wooded box-canyon, the stream flowing from the base of a waterfall that plummeted from the cliff above. The thief was trapped, and it turned to face them beneath a tall tree.

Karil and Loris prepared to fight for their precious lasers, but the creature did not appear to be frightened. It placed the objects on a flat rocky outcrop and backed away. As Karil and Loris moved forward, it worked its way around them and, with a chirp, ran off.

"I wonder what that was all about," Loris said as she handed Karil his laser and slid her own into its holster.

"I think I know," Karil said. He was looking up at the tall tree, the waterfall, and the canyon walls about them. "I get the distinct impression the Keeper sent that creature to lure us here."

"Why?" Loris demanded. Her eyes darted everywhere, looking for signs of attack.

"Because this is the perfect place for a base-camp. Look, Slava." He put his arm around the girl. "We can put a wall of those thorn-trees across the narrows here. Some African tribes build something they call a boma, which keeps lions away from their cattle. They can do it in a matter of hours. Here we have a rocky table where we can build a fire. Up in that tree we can build a shelter--much better than the chimpanzee nest we slept in last night. We can build a roof out of palm-fronds, and a ladder out of vines."

He ran across the clearing and climbed the rocks by the waterfall, as Slava followed, laughing gaily. "Look," he said. "The upper part of the falls is our shower, and here..." The water collected in a shallow pool hollowed out of the mossy rocks; he dabbled his hand in the water. "...the water's warm in the sun. Whatever the hell the sun is made out of. That's our hot tub. Over here, behind these rocks, where the lower part of the falls heads off that way--that's our toilet."

"What?" Loris snorted. "No electricity?"

"Give me some time to rig up a wind-vane," Karil laughed, "and let me take one of those lasers apart, and I'll get it for you."

"You know what this means, don't you?" Loris said. "Assuming you're right about the Keeper luring us to this spot. It means she plans on keeping us here permanently. She could see we were systematically searching the planet and weren't going to give up until we found this place, so she decided to let us in and simply never let us out. She's telling us to build a house and settle down."

"I don't know. Maybe."

"You don't seem terribly upset at the prospect of a life sentence here."

"Hmm. Condemned to spend my life in the most fascinating place in the solar system, living in a treehouse with two beautiful women. A few days ago, I was locked up in a stinking Hell Hole, convinced the people I love most were dead, and the only thing keeping me alive was hate. So, on balance, no, I'm not terribly upset."

"Karil..."

He was not listening. He shaded his eyes and glanced up the nearby tree. "See that fork there, near the very top? If we built ourselves a secondary shelter there, we'd have a crows-nest. I'll bet we could see the whole valley from there. Come on."

Laughing like children, Karil and Slava raced up the tree, and Loris followed grudgingly. From the swaying branches, shaded by foliage, they could see the forest below and the lake beyond. They could watch the creatures grazing along the seashore, some intriguing aquatic monsters in the lake showing only the occasional fluke or humped back, and the pterosaurs wheeling overhead beneath the vault of the sky. Behind them, there was open plain rising to mountains in the distance. Out on the plain, herds of great creatures were moving across the grassland like dark clouds.

As prisons went, Loris had to admit, she had seen a lot worse.

***

They began by cutting thorn-tree branches and weaving them into a wall across the narrow canyon, then moved on to stripping leaves from tree-limbs, weaving palm-fronds into a kind of rattan, cutting bamboo into long strips. The construction work continued for several days under Karil's supervision, but now and then he left and returned with fish, and birds' eggs, and small lizards. Slava was reluctant to eat lizard, but at Karil's insistence that iguana was considered a delicacy on Earth, she tried it and found it delicious--at least, the way Karil cooked it over their open fire.

Over dinner in their bower, Karil talked of planting a little garden in the boma and searching the forest for edible plants--roots and berries, vegetables and herbs. Loris kept her counsel, and when Karil and Slava--exhausted and sated--drifted off to sleep in their cool bedding, she climbed the tree to their newly completed crow’s-nest and peered out over the landscape.

"Where are you, Keeper?" she said. "What kind of creature are you?"

She shaded her eyes and looked up at the sun's image as it crept across the sky. Above the plains, huge pterosaurs flew across the face of the sun--looking for carrion, she guessed. "This is a wonderful zoo you have here, Keeper. And now you've added three humans."

There was a rustling in the tree beside her and her hand flew to her knife. Karil swung up into the crow’s nest beside her.

"I'm surprised you have the strength to climb up here," she said.

"She's insatiable, isn't she? We've created a monster, Lor."

"Not that you're complaining."

"No. Not complaining." He gazed out on the primeval landscape.

"I guess you've got everything you want now," she grumbled.

"It'll do till we finish exploring this place and find the Keeper. Obviously, we needed a base of operations and a safe place to sleep. But I think it's more like everything Slava wants."

"That could be. She seems to have a special relationship with the Keeper. Still, I suspect the best way to keep Slava happy is to keep you happy."

"And what about you, Lor? What do you want?"

"I want Atalanta back again."

***

Madame Feronia and Captain Kesho peered out through their shuttle's viewport at the massive doors set into the cliff-face. They studied their instruments.

"It's in there," Kesho said. "No doubt about it. This is the last position the tracer reported."

"That's no human artefact," Feronia told him.

"From the looks of it, and these readings, which I'm still not ready to believe, it would take months to cut through. Even if we brought down the Poseidon's lasers..."

"I don't care how long it takes. My husband's in there."

"Madame Feronia, your husband is dead. It's time you..."

"Why? Because I saw his ghost? That was a trick. Stilbon saw his women, didn't he? And they weren't dead. I won't accept his death until I see his body. And the High Companies won't honour his will until they do. Until that moment, they have the ability to take away everything I've built.

"Besides, do you realize what power must reside in this place? The power to shape materials like this, to keep an installation like this functioning in these conditions for God knows how long, to read thoughts and influence the mind? Loris and Karil found their way in there somehow, and you can be damn sure they'll bring the secret back to Kelley.

"With power like that, Titan could destroy me. Everything my family has spent generations building will collapse. If I have to, I'll have the Earthshaker moved into position and blow it open."

"If you do that, everything will be destroyed."

"Then everything will be destroyed, but I will not let Kelley and his group get control of such power."

The door in the cliff began to open.

"It's a trap," Kesho said.

"Nonsense. If they're as intelligent as they seem to be, they know the Poseidon can destroy them. They're responding to our threat."

"Do you really think creatures that can build something like this--and then protect it by putting thoughts in the human mind--can be threatened?"

"Everyone can be threatened, as you well know. Besides, if they can really read my thoughts, they know I have no intention of revealing their secret to the whole Solar System, which is the first thing Kelley would do. That's what they want, isn't it--secrecy? And since I'm in control of Venus, I'm the only one who can give it to them. They're inviting us in to make a deal."

"Are you sure? Once we've entered, they'll have captured everyone who knows of their existence. What kind of deal can you make from a position like that?"

"You're right," Madame Feronia said. Her eyes narrowed in thought.

***

Over the course of the next few days, they explored the forest and the lakeshore, not venturing too far at first from the safety of their bower, and a map of the area began to shape in Karil's mind. But they found no sign of ramps or stairways, no doorways or signposts or any other indication of technology.

Stopping to rest by the shore of the lake, Karil hunkered down and scratched a plan in the mud. He was becoming more and more Tarzan-like, Loris thought--more long-haired and muscular than ever, and his clothing had been reduced to little more than a loin-cloth. Slava's hair was longer and blonder than before, her skin had lost the Belter pallor and had darkened to a rich tan that brought out the blue of her eyes; her clothing was nothing more than strategically placed rags, and she was wearing the shell necklace that Karil had made for her. Loris herself was better conditioned, perhaps, than she had ever been; her muscles rippled beneath her brown skin and her black hair tumbled to her waist. Her shorts and halter-top had become something more akin to a bikini. Altogether, she thought, they were turning into rather fine human specimens for the Keeper's zoo.

"This whole place is a giant amphitheatre," Karil said. Here's the lake--crescent-shaped--on the lowest level, with the marshes and meadows along the shore. Then the forest rises to a plateau, and the mountains rise above that to the base of the dome. The lake may have something to do with the refrigeration process. Logically, the coolers and the power generators and the air-purifiers should all be below us somewhere, in a kind of sub-basement. But our idea that there might be some kind of ramp or stairway down to that level--somewhere along the shore--doesn't seem to be panning out.

"So, I think we should be looking to the perimeter. Logically, again, our best bet is somewhere near the place we came in. But so far, we haven't found a way to get back across the waterfall, and even though we've explored this whole side of the river, there's no sign of any other way in."

"Frankly," Loris said, "those corridors seemed pretty much abandoned to me."

"I agree. If we're going to go to the trouble and danger of crossing the falls, there ought to be a better prospect than being crocodile food. So, either we work our way around the shoreline through the jungle, or we build a boat and sail across the lake, or we trek across the plains to the mountains on the other side. All three of these seem pretty daunting without better tools or weapons. If we had a machete, or an axe, or an elephant gun, the choice would a lot simpler."

"If we had a way to recharge the lasers," Loris said, "We wouldn’t need any of those things, but since they're pretty much the only tools or weapons we've got, we're using them up fast."

***

Loris was in the crows-nest again, studying the terrain. The jungle that surrounded the lake seemed impenetrable and climbed the escarpment above it like a green wave. The lake appeared hardly more inviting--sun glinted off the backs of huge sea-creatures as she watched, and even the fish-eating pterosaurs looked threatening as they stooped and soared above the waters. Karil's idea of a sailing-raft seemed suicidal. And behind them, the plains stretched for kilometres with no cover to speak of--no protection from the sun, nowhere to hide from predators.

And there were definitely predators. She could see the bones of some hapless sauropod being picked clean by--what did Slava call them? Quetzals. They were rising on their huge wings and returning to their nesting caves, high in the mountains, as the setting sun bathed the forbidding cliffs in a red glow.

"Holy Shit!" Loris said. She shaded her eyes and looked again. There it was--sunlight reflected off the cliff-face.

She raced down the tree, sliding the last few meters down a flowering vine in a cascade of blossoms, and burst into the bower.

Karil looked up from his work. "How do you like it, Lor?" He stood and pulled back on his newly fashioned longbow, the sinews on his arms standing out like steel cords.

Slava showed her the arrow she was working on. "See? Crow feathers. And the raptor teeth we found make wonderful arrowheads."

"Never mind about that now," Loris said. "Come with me."

She darted up the tree and the others followed, a little too slowly for her taste.

"Hurry up, Girl," Loris laughed. She flung Slava over her shoulder and the young one squealed, holding on tight as Loris climbed, agile as the long-limbed creature for whom she was named. Karil hurried after them, chuckling to himself.

Loris set Slava on her feet in the crows-nest, put her arm about the girl's shoulders, and pointed to the sky.

"What do you see, Slava?"

"The pteranodons returning to their nests." The great creatures were winging home and settling on the ledges of several caves carved into the cliff-face far above the lake.

"And over here?"

"The Quetzalcoatlus doing the same. They're scavengers, not fish-eaters, so they nest over the plains."

"In caves prepared for them by the Keeper."

"I guess so. The whole valley's ringed with them, just below the roof."

"And do you see anything returning to those caves, up there?"

"No, I don't."

"Okay. Wait for it. Should be happening again just about now, as the sun moves on. There!"

A flash of light appeared from the dark centre of one of the cave-openings. "That, my horny little monkeys, is the reflection off a window. That whole row of caves is an observation gallery."

"Of course!" Karil said. "From there, the Keeper can see everything. If we want to find her, we have to cross the plains and climb those hills."

***

"That's our destination," Loris said.

They stood beneath the trees at the edge of the plains, looking out across the sea of grass to the mountains rising in eroded terraces beyond. Halfway up the mountain sat a simple domed structure, not unlike those that dotted the surface of Mars.

"What is it?" Slava asked.

"It's a projector," Karil told her. "That's how they project the stars onto the dome. And the sun, like a huge searchlight."

"And somewhere up there," Loris added, "is where we'll find the Keeper."

The sun had vanished, and the stars appeared, moving slowly across what was supposed to be the southern sky. The temperature was already beginning to drop.

"Let's go," said Loris. "There's no cover out there and I don't want to be out in the open when whatever lives out there starts warming up in the morning."

"Is that why we're travelling at night?" Slava asked.

"That, and the daytime heat. Why?"

"Because dinosaurs weren't--aren't--torpid at night."

"What do you mean?"

"They're not reptiles. They're warm-blooded. A body that size wouldn't cool down or warm up in a few hours."

"Thanks a lot," Karil muttered. "That's very encouraging."

"Sorry," Slava said. "I thought you knew."

"For a guy who grew up wandering around lion country..." Loris began.

"Those were lions, not bloody dinosaurs. Besides, I had a horse and a gun, and I would camp at night and build a fire. Never mind. If I went back to the Professor and told him I gave up a chance to meet an alien species just because I was afraid of being eaten alive... Well, I'd rather face the dinosaurs. Let's go."

They set out into the open, Karil in the lead with his bow in his hand and his quiver over his shoulder, and his knife on his belt; Slava in the middle with several gourds of water hanging from her belt, and some dried meat in her somewhat tattered backpack; and Loris bringing up the rear, with both lasers in holsters on her hip, and her knife in its scabbard at the small of her back.

The going was rough. The plains were crisscrossed by sauropod trails, not unlike the wildebeest trails familiar to Karil, but of monstrous size. Each time they crossed one, they would have to slide down an embankment, negotiate a quagmire of trampled grass and churned mud, and climb out again.

Sometimes, they would come upon skeletons--ribs protruding from the grass like the remains of wrecked sailing ships, vertebrae stretching across the plains like Roman paving stones, skulls peering at them out of hollow eye-sockets like abandoned automobiles on the American deserts.

Occasionally, they would come upon a herd in the darkness. From a great distance they could hear the rumble of breathing, the odd snort and stamp of a colossal foot. And there would be black shapes, humps like rolling hills, sometimes a head rising on a long neck like the prow of a Viking dragon-ship. They carefully skirted each herd, hoping they would not stumble upon watching carnivores.

Karil stopped and put out his arms. Behind him, Slava and Loris froze while he listened.

"We're being trailed," he said.

"How do you...?" Slava began.

"Shh!" Loris closed her eyes and her face visibly relaxed. For a moment, she seemed to slip into deep meditation.

"I hear it too. Behind us, several bodies pushing through the long grass. We have to get higher."

"No trees for miles," Karil said. "We'd hear them rustling. But I think there's a hill this way. Just a little darker than the sky." He turned and pushed off toward the right.

Slava had heard and seen nothing, but she hurried to follow. Her eyes were trained to find dots of moving light among the stars, her ears to detect the subtle change of different materials' resistance to the drill, as the sound was carried to her through the metal of her ship. But Karil and Loris were trained to the sight and sound of enemies approaching in dark places, and she trusted their instincts with her life.

"Uh oh," Karil said, and stopped. In the darkness, they could barely discern the huge head of a sauropod, its eyes open and glazed in death. The creature's long neck rose to its huge body, thrusting above the long grass.

"High ground is good," Loris said, "but maybe we shouldn't be climbing on the buffet table."

"No," Karil said. "They were following us, not approaching the body. When a pack of dogs approaches a lion kill, they come from one side, because they'd rather intimidate the lion with their numbers and let it leave peacefully than surround it and force it to fight. This pack was spreading out around us. Slava, what can they be?"

"In a pack? In the grass?” Slava said. “Dromaeosaurus. Raptors."

"Hunters, in other words. How tall?"

"Two meters long. Shoulder-height."

"Like men," Loris said. "If they fight like men in a gang, we can handle that."

"They're not like men," Karil said. "Predatory men are cowards and will give up once you kill a few of their friends, making them afraid to push their luck. Animal predators are driven by hunger and won't give up until you kill enough of them to threaten the survival of the pack. In any event, we have to get up out of this grass or we're already dead."

They climbed the sauropod's long neck until they stood atop its huge body, high above the waving grass.

"Get down, Slava," Loris said. "Pull in your arms and legs."

Terrified, Slava sat down on the animal's huge haunch and wrapped her arms about her knees. Karil and Loris stood back-to-back over her. Karil pulled an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, and pulled back his bow. Loris drew both lasers and stood, feet wide apart, with a pistol in each hand. Slava could hear the rustling of the long grass; the sound came from all about them.

"If your friend the Keeper is listening to you," Karil said, "now would be a good time to ask for a helping hand. Because we're going to kill a lot of animals before we go down."

"I've been asking for several minutes," Slava said. "Believe me."

The clouds in the projected sky parted suddenly and the huge Cretaceous moon appeared. The darkness about them faded like a mist and the grassland glowed with an almost phosphorescent green.

"Wow," Loris said. "Thanks, Keeper. If you've got something up your sleeve that will drive away dromaeosaurs--that would be good too."

All about them, they could see saurian heads rising from the grass--yellow eyes glowing with intelligence, and jaws filled with razor teeth. Slava had one moment to admire their terrible beauty before the pack was upon them, leaping onto the sauropod's body and rushing them from all sides.

Loris' lasers cut through the night like samurai swords as she picked off the attackers, turning her head only slightly from side to side and firing with both hands. Raptors fell back, neatly cauterized holes in their foreheads, and collided with the others pressing in behind them. Karil moved only somewhat less swiftly, snatching arrows from his quiver so quickly that Slava, looking up, could barely see his arm move, then pulling back the bowstring and letting it go with such relaxed efficiency that he seemed to be aiming almost casually. But one attacker after the other fell with an arrow in its forehead.

The assault fell back in surprise and re-grouped, the creatures nodding among themselves almost as if speaking. For a moment it seemed they might give up and abandon the attack, but they began to move forward again, more cautiously this time.

The charge-lights on Loris' lasers were beginning to dim and Karil had only a few arrows left. He had used the moment's truce to creep down the sauropod's body as far as he dared and snatch a few arrows from nearby raptor bodies, but quickly returned to Loris' back.

The raptors came at them from the sides instead of running up the sauropod's long neck and tail, leaping up the mound of the body and climbing upward with their vicious claws. Loris was obliged to turn her body farther to pick them off, exposing her flank, and Karil was in danger of fouling his bow. It was as if the intelligent creatures had understood and taken advantage of the limitations of their enemies' weapons.

The lights were beginning to blink now on the lasers, and Karil was almost out of arrows. Loris reached back and fingered the hilt of her knife. She glanced down at Slava with a grim expression, and the girl realized with a sinking heart that Loris was estimating how quickly she could slit all their throats. Slava ripped her necklace from her throat and tossed it aside, as the predators gathered to the attack.

There was a sound like distant thunder and the raptors' heads shot upward and turned to face the dark. There was another sound--like a drumbeat--which they could feel through the sauropod's great hollow body even before they could hear it. Lurching from side to side in its great two-legged stride, a tyrannosaur loomed out of the darkness and pounded toward them. The raptors turned and rushed toward it, bobbing and weaving and hissing in protest. The T-Rex all but ignored them, bowling them aside in its career as it rushed upon the great carrion meal laid out before it.

Loris snatched Slava to her feet and slid down the sauropod's side into the grass with the girl in her arms, Karil leaping after them. They faded into the landscape at a run, the hyena-like snapping and squealing of the raptors and the bass rumble of the T-Rex fading into the darkness behind them.

***

Dawn found them still several hours' march from the wooded foothills, with no cover to be had. They watched the skies for circling pterosaurs, searched the plains about them for dust-clouds. At one point, passing through a valley, they spotted a dust-cloud rising ahead and climbed a bluff to watch a herd passing in review below them.

There were fifty sauropods, perhaps, ranging from stumbling infants to twenty-meter-long females. Huge torsos swayed, long necks curved above the dust of their passage, even longer tails undulated like serpents, and small pterosaurs hopped along vertebrae or perched on bobbing heads like sailors on watch in a tall ship's rigging.

"They're magnificent," Karil said and turned to Loris, but she was peering at something over his shoulder. He touched Slava to get her attention and pointed.

From a distance it looked to Karil like a giraffe being pursued by ostriches, but soon it became clear that a young sauropod had strayed from the herd and was being pursued by a pack of carnivores. The young titanosaur was cantering up the hill toward them, rolling and bobbing, eyes wide with terror, tongue hanging out with exhaustion. But it was the creatures in pursuit that made them stare with open-mouthed amazement.

They were bipedal, and half their bodies' length was leg. They ran at incredible speeds, heads forward, tails straight out behind, with great pumping strides, covering eight or ten meters at a bound. They could turn on a dime, and they worked their prey from all sides like jackals. As they approached, Karil could see their tiny forelimbs, great splay feet armed with hawk-like talons, and cavernous jaws lined with dagger-like teeth.

"Albertosaurus," Slava said. "Or maybe daspletosaurus."

"I don't care," Karil said. "Let's stay out of their way."

They worked their way back across the bluff and found themselves at the edge of a precipice.

"Jesus Christ," Loris said. "They're working their prey this way, trying to chase it off the cliff." She grabbed Slava and thrust her down into the long grass. Karil threw himself down beside them.

"How could something that perfectly adapted go extinct?" Karil muttered. "I've never seen a more efficient..."

Suddenly the party was upon them. The baby titanosaur thundered past, shaking the earth. Clods of dirt and grass rained down upon them. No more than a few meters away, it skidded to a halt at the edge of the cliff, bleated piteously, and swerved away. The carnivores flew by in pursuit. Karil looked up to see their saw-toothed jaws, heard them panting like steam locomotives. A splay foot came down before his eyes, its talons ploughing up the earth.

One of the creatures stopped in mid-stride, putting down a single foot and swivelling about it with incredible dexterity. It stood for a moment, hissing and lashing its tail. Another came to a halt beside it. They watched the rest of the rapidly disappearing pack for a moment, bodies steaming with exertion, and then turned directly toward the three figures huddled in the grass, their nostrils dilating as they sniffed out their new prey.

Even if they had not had their backs to the cliff, it would have been absurd to try to outrun these creatures. Loris stood up and faced them, and Karil did the same. Slava started to rise, but Karil pushed her down again. The creatures were hesitating, whipping their tails from side to side, hissing like steam-vents, apparently puzzled that their intended prey did not attempt to escape. But they did not hesitate for long; they separated and closed in from both sides.

"Two of them," Karil said, shrugging off his back-pack, "three of us. Lor, if we draw them away..."

"No," said Slava, and rose to her feet.

Loris shrugged. She and Karil could have given them a merry chase, and Slava, who had already made contact with the Keeper, might have been able to go on. But Loris knew the meaning of Slava's tone of voice, and she was glad. She put her arm about the girl's shoulders, feeling her tremble, and then pushed the girl behind her. She drew both lasers and thumbed them on, then glanced down at the charge indicators.

Karil glanced at the blinking lights and shook his head as Loris tucked them back into their holsters, then drew her knife. The blade was the size of a T-Rex tooth, but strong as she was Loris did not possess anything like the power of a tyrannosaur's massive jaws. Karil fitted an arrow to his bow. The raptor-tooth arrowhead was razor-sharp, but human muscle probably could not bend a bow capable of sending an arrow through this creature's hide. The best he could hope for would be to blind it, and though Karil was an expert bowman and the albertosaur's eye was a large target, the creatures would be moving swiftly.

As the saurians approached, flanking them in perfect pack-hunter style, Karil and Loris found themselves back-to-back once again, with Slava between them. Karil drew back his bow, glanced back to see Loris in the same position, with her puny knife in her hand. He smiled sadly. He had seen her take on a pack of trained attack-dogs and kill them all, but it looked like she was finally outmatched. These were not enormous creatures, as dinosaurs went--little more than twice Karil's height--but he felt as helpless as a mouse before a cat.

Suddenly, Karil's eyes lit up. Once, as a boy, he had seen one of the palace cats run down a mouse in a large room. Desperate for cover, the mouse had turned and run under the cat! The feline leaped into the air in surprise, and by the time it had gathered its wits, the mouse had vanished.

"Lor," he said. "I'm going to try something." She watched in astonishment as he set down his bow and went into a crouch.

The albertosaur lunged. Karil darted forward, the jaws snapping shut behind him, somersaulted between the saurian's tree-trunk legs, and rolled to his feet behind it. The great head came down, hissing, and peered at him, upside-down, between its legs. The tail lashed wildly above Karil's head as the albertosaur turned to face him, its back to the cliff. If he could somehow make it take one step backward.

Shrieking and waving his arms like a madman, Karil rushed toward it. The creature stepped back in surprise, placing one foot at the very edge of the precipice and--Karil tripped.

The albertosaur stepped forward again, away from the cliff, and its foot came down upon Karil's body.

He was no longer there. He had rolled aside as the huge talons plunged into the turf beside him, snatched up the object that had tripped him, and leaped to his feet again.

It was a bone--a meter-long femur with a heavy knob at one end. He swung with all his might and the bone struck the albertosaur's tender snout with a thud that made Karil's arm sting.

It stumbled back, hissing in pain. Karil dropped his club, snatched his knife from its scabbard, and dove beneath the albertosaurus again, this time slashing a deep gash in its slender ankle. Blood poured out upon the grass and the creature stepped back, roaring in pain. It stepped forward, but its wounded ankle gave way, and it collapsed. Karil rolled out of the way as three tons of flesh toppled toward him. The huge head struck the ground before him, raising clouds of dust. Karil leaped onto the head, lifted his knife and plunged it into the creature's skull with all his strength--directly between the eyes. The blade broke.

But a convulsive shudder ran through the downed creature's body and it lay still. Karil slipped on the saurian's blood-soaked skin and tumbled into the grass. He looked up to see its companion towering over him. Before he had time to struggle to his feet, it took one huge step forward and lunged at him. Desperately, Karil reached out and grabbed his club. He swung with all his might, but there was little force to the blow in his prone position. The jaws closed on the club and snapped it clean in two.

As Karil watched in astonishment, Loris vaulted onto the creature's hindquarters, ran lightly up its back, dropped onto its shoulders, clamping her legs about its neck, and raised her knife.

The creature swivelled its head and peered up at her with one huge eye. Loris plunged the knife-blade into the eye and twisted.

There was a bellow of pain and rage, and the albertosaur swung its heavy head to peer up at her with the other eye. Loris tossed her knife into her other hand, and with a thrust and a twist, ripped the other eye out of its socket.

The creature was supple. With a roar of pain that echoed across the landscape, it twisted its head nearly 180 degrees about on its stringy neck and snapped at the source of its pain. Loris bailed out, loosing her knee-grip and rolling off the great shoulders as the jaws clamped shut centimetres behind her. She hit the ground in a crouch and turned to see the saurian's great foot descending upon her as it whirled and stumbled in its blindness. She hurled herself aside and the foot crashed into the ground behind her.

Karil and Loris scrambled back and gave the monster room as it stumbled in a circle, hissing and lashing its tail. Karil dove for Slava and dragged her out of the way as a huge foot came down behind her. The carnosaur careened toward the cliff, the ledge gave way, and it was gone with a crash and the rumble of avalanche.

"Behind you," Slava shrieked.

They whirled and saw the first albertosaur struggling to its feet again. Karil glanced about, saw his bow in the grass and snatched it up. He fitted an arrow, drew back the bow and let fly. But the albertosaur was tossing its great head as it struggled to rise, and the arrow struck a bony crest over the creature's eye and bounced off harmlessly. Karil quickly snatched another arrow, nocked it, and drew back the bow.

The string snapped with a loud crack.

Karil had a spare bowstring, but it would take several seconds to string it, and the albertosaur was almost on its feet. Loris darted forward, knife in hand. Karil saw it slash at her in its struggle to rise, as a downed fighting-cock might slash its opponent. He tackled Loris and brought her to the ground. The vicious talons whistled over their heads.

Just as she was scrambling to her own feet, Loris felt its huge tail slam into her side and stretch her out on the earth. The knife flew from her hand into the grass. She reached out and grabbed for it, then snatched her hand back again as the saurian's foot came down upon it, treading it into the dirt. Incredibly, the monster was on its feet again and towering over them, tail whipping. The saurian peered down at them with its huge eyes and opened its mouth to bellow a challenge. Saliva dripped from jagged teeth and hot, fetid breath blasted them as it lunged to seize them in its jaws.

The creature's head snapped up and swivelled on its supple neck. Blood poured from a great wound in the side of its head. Karil and Loris turned to look in the same direction as the albertosaur and saw two figures standing on the plains below. They were too distant for the faces to be recognizable, but one was a woman with long black hair, and the other was a tall black man. He raised an object to his shoulder. Loris threw herself down in the long grass, dragging Slava and Karil with her.

A laser-beam flashed over them, straight into the heart of the albertosaur. It jerked up straight, stood for a moment, supported on the tripod of its legs and tail, and then collapsed.

Loris stood and bowed to the distant figures, saw Captain Kesho bow in response, and then he and Madame Feronia broke into a trot.

"What do we do now?" Karil asked.

"We run like hell," Loris told him. "The only reason he saved me is so he can kill me himself. And they don't give a damn about either of you."

She spun about and set off across the plains. Karil paused to look for weapons or food, but everything was gone, lost in the grass or swept over the cliff. He shrugged and bounded off after Loris, Slava running beside him.

They ran, pushing through the long grass until they were exhausted, then ran some more.

"How did they get in?" Karil panted.

"Obviously the Keeper let them in," Loris replied between gasps for breath. "Maybe she's taken their side. After all, Madame Feronia's in control of Venus, isn't she?"

"No," Slava gasped. "It can't be."

"They've got a laser-rifle, for Crissake. We thought the Keeper was welcoming us because she likes you, but she hasn't lifted a finger to save us, and she let those bastards in fully armed. So, you figure it out." She turned and saw Kesho gaining on them, eating up the ground with long strides, hardly straining himself. Madame Feronia had been left far behind. She had the rifle now. Loris stopped, bent over to catch her breath. "You two head for the trees, where she can't get a shot at you."

"But..." Karil began.

"Do as I say, dammit! If he wants a fight, he'll get one. It's that crazy bitch I'm worried about. In the woods, the rifle won't be such an advantage. Maybe you can surprise her and get it away from her."

Karil hesitated.

"Get the hell out of here!"

Karil took Slava's hand and ran. Loris straightened up, controlling her breath with an effort of will. She tore off her top and cast it aside, the garment too restricting. Kesho smiled and slowed to a trot. They came face to face.

Behind him, Loris saw Madame Feronia raise the rifle to her shoulder.

"Captain," she said, and pointed.

Kesho stepped into the line of fire. "No," he shouted. "Go after the others if you wish. I have not saved her twice only to have you cheat me of my revenge."

She lowered the rifle. "Damn it, Captain, this woman is dangerous. Let me..."

"No."

Madame Feronia had obviously heard that tone of voice before. She hesitated a moment, perhaps contemplating killing both of them, then broke into a trot toward the woods.

Kesho turned to Loris. She sized him up--not an ounce of fat on his body, powerful muscles rippling beneath his ebony skin, a reach with arms and legs that exceeded hers by many centimetres. This would not be a long battle. Kesho would want to kill Loris as quickly as possible and then rejoin Feronia.

"Look around you, Captain," she said. "Look at this monumental discovery that surrounds us. Why are we fighting?"

"Because you have insulted me."

"Then I apologize."

"And I accept your apology, Loris, with pleasure. But the fact remains that our employers are enemies. Madame Feronia will not rest until your lovers are dead. You would have to kill her to prevent it. I must protect her."

"She's a criminal, Captain. A thief and a murderer. And she's clearly insane. She's a sociopath and the concept of personal honour, which you value so highly, is unknown to her."

"I know. But for decades now, her organization has protected my village--my people, my family--from those who would destroy them to gain control of the district. The story is too long to tell, but while I am in her service they prosper, and if I were to fail to protect her, they would suffer. It is enough."

"I am sorry, then, Captain, for you and your people. Because I intend to do my best to kill you."

"And I you, Loris. It is your loved ones or mine, and I can see no other course of action open to either of us."

They began to circle one another.

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PART THREE CHAPTER TWELVE

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