In the Time of Dinosaurs Page 5

  "You could just stay human. Permanently. There are worse things."

  He didn't say anything for a while. When he did speak, it wasn't about morphing. «Can you lift me up for a minute? I think I see something.»

  I raised him up high above my head. "What is it?"

  «Smoke! I see a column of smoke.»

  "Like a forest fire? Or is it that volcano?"

  «No, like a campfire!»

  I lowered him back down. "Maybe it's the others. Maybe they made it to shore and started a fire. I mean, there are no humans here, right?"

  «Not for another sixty or eighty million years,» Tobias said. «Not even monkeys. Not even our most distant relatives. The only mammals around are early versions of rats and shrews.»

  I smiled. "If Marco were here he'd make some snide remark about you having plenty to eat, at least."

  Tobias laughed. «Yeah. And speaking of which . . .»

  "At least we have water as long as we stay by the river. On the other hand, what if that smoke is from Cassie and Jake? We have to go find out. Besides, the sun's going down. We could use a fire."

  «You go,» Tobias said. «It looks like it's about two or three miles away. You could morph to your bald eagle body, fly over, take a look, and come right back for me.»

  "Yeah, right. Like I'm going to leave you here in the middle of nowhere, helpless."

  He argued with me a little. Said he'd be okay and so on. But there was no way. We decided to drink our fill from the river. Then we turned away from it toward the smoke. Already it was harder to see in the fading sunlight.

  The saw grass gradually gave way to shorter grasses. And the forest that had been on our left the whole time

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  K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs receded. We were walking now across a plain that looked like something you'd expect to see lions roaming. But we were tens of millions of years away from lions.

  "Lions I could handle," I muttered.

  «What?»

  "Nothing. Just thinking out loud. Oh, man!"

  «What?»

  "I have to set you down for a second," I said. I laid him back on the golden, foot-high grass. I began to pick the insects off my feet. Several different species of bugs had been attracted to the cuts on my feet.

  «Rachel, why didn't you tell me your feet looked like that?» Tobias cried.

  I shrugged. "Looks worse than it is. Besides, this grass we're in now isn't bad."

  «You have to take it easy for a while, Rachel. You're going to end up as -»

  He fell silent. He cocked his hawk's head left, then right.

  "What is it?"

  «I hear something. Something large.»

  In addition to their amazing sense of sight, birds of prey also hear very, very well. I jumped up, grabbed him, and held him high over my head to give him the best possible view. But the truth is, I could see what there was to see well enough.

  I almost dropped him.

  Four... no five creatures that looked a little like rhinoceroses. Only instead of one horn, they had two hugely long horns protruding from a thick, scalloped shell around their heads.

  "Even I know that dinosaur," I said. "Those are Triceratops. But they're just plant-eaters, right? Not dangerous?"

  «No, they aren't dangerous,» Tobias agreed. «But what you can't see is the pack of Deinonychus moving in to attack them. They're dangerous. But I don't think there are enough of them to go after a Triceratops. The Tri's can make a run for the river, get their backs to it, and the Deinonychus would be out of luck.»

  I didn't ask how Tobias could size up the situation so well. Probably because he is a predator. Actually, two kinds of predator: hawk and human. The combination of hawk instincts and human intelligence gives him a lot of insight into the battle for survival.

  «Strange. Deinonychus was supposed to have been a smart pack-hunter. But these guys have blown it. Unless . . .»

  He turned his head to look behind us and let out a thought-speak moan.

  «Score one for Deinonychus. We've screwed up,» he said. «They're behind us. Coming slowly this way in a pincer action to trap the Tricer-atops.»

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  K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs "How big do you think they are?"

  «Not big. Maybe five feet tall, ten feet long from nose to tail.»

  "Big deal. That's only about the size of a big kid or a small man."

  «Wrong comparison. That's about the size of a wolf. We're talking very fast, very smart wolves.»

  They were close enough now that I could see them, even with my sun-strained human eyes. Man-sized lizards bounding along on powerful legs. Their pebbly skin was the color of asparagus soup and coffee ice cream, swirled together. Not that I was getting really hungry or anything.

  A gust of wind ruffled my hair. The wind blew our scent toward the Deinonychus. I saw one of them stop, raise his head, and turn it toward us.

  I felt the eyes searching for me. And I swear I felt the moment when those cold, yellow eyes locked onto me.

  "Hroooo! Hroooo!" the dinosaur cried.

  They broke into a run.

  "Uh-oh." I grabbed Tobias and started to run, the pain in my bloody feet forgotten. Stupid. I might as well have been trying to outrun a wolf.

  «The other pack is coming after us, too!» Tobias yelled.

  Suddenly it wasn't the big Triceratops caught in the Deinonychus's trap. It was a much, much easier prey.

  Cassie

  "Faster. .. okay, more grass ., . okay, hoooof, hoooof!"

  I blew lightly on the dry grass. Jake moved the tendon bow back and forth as fast as he could. Marco held the top of the stick.

  It had taken a while for us to piece together old bits of forgotten Boy Scout lore and scenes we'd seen on TV or in movies or read about in books.

  But eventually we'd figured it out, starting with a flat piece of wood as a base. Ax cut a small notch in it. We then took a straight stick about a foot long. That we held upright, using pieces of bark to protect the holder's hands from the friction.

  We fashioned a bow by stringing a length of Tyrannosaurus tendon cut from the animal's foot. We put a half loop of the bowstring around the upright stick. Then all we had to do was move the bow quickly back and forth. The vertical stick spun in the groove of the flat base piece. And slowly but surely, the heat of friction began to glow.

  I grabbed a tiny handful of dry grass. I bent over, my face just inches away from the base. I added a bit more grass and blew again, gently, gently.

  A piece of grass crisped and twisted. More air. I blew harder. More browning, twisting grass. I began to despair.

  "Flame!" Marco cried.

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  K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs It was true. A tiny flame. Very tiny. I fed more grass into it. More grass. Now the tiniest twigs. The twig caught fire!

  I looked up at Jake and Marco. Their faces were shining.

  "Wow," I whispered. "This is the first deliberately made fire. Ever. We just invented fire."

  Ax leaned down low to help pile larger sticks on the flame. It was mesmerizing. The flame grew and grew. It ate up the grass and moved up to the sticks.

  I just sat there, feeling weird and significant and yet silly. It was like a holy religious ritual. Man creating fire.

  Or in this case, woman, I thought with a grin. Rachel will appreciate.... But no, Rachel wasn't around anymore.

  Marco stepped away and came back with a long stick. He'd impaled a half dozen shreds of Tyrannosaurus meat on the stick. He held them over the fire.

  They crackled and sizzled and smelled wonderful.

  I folded my legs and my awkward Tyrannosaurus sandals under me. It was starting to get dark under the trees. But we had fire. We alone, on all of planet Earth, had fire.

  We had moved away from the dead dinosaur just as a bunch of very tiny, swift, two-legged dinosaurs showed up looking for a
late lunch. We were now camped at the edge of the plain, with the woods fifty yards away at our backs. We'd chosen the spot because there was a stream running by. And because we just didn't know which was safer: open country or woods.

  "Okay, who's going to be first?" Marco asked, holding out a strip of hot meat. "We have medium rare and well-done."

  Jake reached for the slice. He took a cautious bite.

  "Just don't say it tastes like chicken," Marco said.

  Jake considered. "It tastes like fish, actually. Like a mild fish. Maybe like swordfish. It could use some salt."

  Marco cocked an eyebrow at me. "Now he's a food expert?"

  I laughed softly. I took a piece. It was delicious. But then again, I was starving.

  "The first cooked food in all of history," Marco observed. "Plus the first complaint about food in all of history. Ax-man, you want to grind a hoof into a piece of this? Or maybe you could morph to human and eat it?"

  Andalites eat by absorbing grass through their hooves as they run or walk.

  «No, thanks. I've grazed very well.»

  Ax was watching the grassy plain. He was using his stalk eyes to swivel carefully in all directions.

  The sky was shading from blue to brilliant red and orange, with sunset coming on quickly. A massive, distorted-looking red sun slipped below a layer of high clouds and dropped behind the volcano.

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  K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs "Beautiful," I said, mostly to myself.

  "The first person in history to appreciate a sunset," Marco said.

  "How much longer do you figure you'll be doing that, Marco?" Jake asked tolerantly.

  Marco grinned. His face was red from the glow of sunset. "The first person to ever complain about someone talking too much."

  "What are we going to do about it getting dark?" I asked.

  Jake looked surprised. "I don't know. You've been so cool about all this back-to-nature stuff, I guess I was waiting for you to tell us."

  Was he resentful that I had been taking a more active role? No. Surely not. "I don't have any brilliant ideas."

  "Doesn't fire keep animals away?" Marco asked.

  "Not always," I said. "Not predators. In Africa, man-eating lions and leopards go right to villages, into huts and drag people away. In grasslands like this, you get lightning fires all the time. Some of the predators may have learned to let the fire drive smaller prey toward them."

  "The first really, really depressing example of way too much information in all of history," Marco said.

  "We have our weapons," I said.

  Jake said, "Yeah. Three sharp sticks. Plus Ax's tail. Throw in some burning torches and we can probably handle some of the smaller predators." I felt a chill and scooted closer to the fire, which now blazed up fairly well. The image of a huge T-rex looming up suddenly, gold and red from the firelight, its vast mouth open, eyes greedy ... I took a couple of deep breaths.

  I'm not Rachel. I can't just turn off the fear. If Rachel were here, she'd say something cocky about kicking Tyrannosaurus butt. We'd all know it was just bold talk, but we'd feel better, anyway.

  "Okay," Jake said. "We sleep in shifts. Ax's time-tracking sense is messed up, but he can approximate two hours and wake us up. Two of us awake at all times. The people who are awake will sit facing out, away from the fire. That way their eyes will be adjusted to seeing in the dark."

  "Good plan," Marco said. "That way there'll be two of us to scream, 'Oh no, we're toast!' when the next Big Rex shows up."

  "If a predator shows up, what do we do?" I asked.

  Jake considered for a moment. "I think the most dangerous morph any of us has is my tiger morph. If we're attacked, I'll morph. Ax will use his tail. Cassie and Marco, you grab your weapons. The three of you try and hold off the ... the whatever shows up ... till I've morphed. An Andalite and a tiger together should be enough. Then Marco and Cassie, you two will morph. But morph something to escape, not fight."

  "Cassie and I, we wave sharp sticks at a Big Rex?" Marco asked skeptically. "Meanwhile, you're helpless in mid-morph."

  "You have a better plan?" Jake asked testily. Page 34

  K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs

  "Sure. If Big Mister T shows up, we scream and cry and blubber like babies till he eats us." Jake grinned. Then he laughed. So did I. It wasn't even slightly funny,

  of course, but sometimes fear and exhaustion can combine to make you giddy.

  "Okay, Cassie and Ax take the first watch. Marco, you and I have to try and sleep." "At least I won't have any bad dreams," Marco said. "I'm already in one." Jake and Marco fell silent. I don't know if they slept at all. I turned

  away from the fire and looked out into darkness that was deepening with shocking speed. Already the night was rushing toward us out of the east, pushing away the last tendrils of red sunlight.

  Then I saw it. Like someone had painted a brush stroke of fairy dust across the sky. "Ax," I whispered. "Is that a comet?" «Yes. It is very beautiful.»

  "Even to you? You must have seen comets up in space." «They are most beautiful when they are closest to a star. The star, the sun, is what causes the tail to extend.»

  "Oh. Looks close." «It may be,» Ax said. «It is either very close or very large. My people -a long time ago, of

  course -used to believe that comets were omens of bad things that would happen.» I was surprised. "Really? Humans thought the same thing." Darkness fell.

  There was no moon in the sky. The starlight never touched the grass sea around us. The firelight was puny. "Are you scared, Ax?" «Yes.»

  "Me, too." I felt the stick in my hand. I felt the fire at my back. Little, weak, defenseless Homo sapiens, I faced a night full of terrors.

  Tobias

  Deinonychus. That's what they were, I was pretty sure. At least, I thought so. I couldn't remember. But learning about dinosaurs in books isn't like seeing them face-to-face.

  They were hunting us. Like a wolf pack. They were taking their time because we were unfamiliar prey. A strange creature that ran on two legs while carrying a big bird.

  Yes, we were something new. New meat.

  Rachel ran toward the spot where the camp-fire had been before the Page 35

  K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs failing light had rendered the smoke invisible. It had seemed to be coming from the edge of the plain that opened before us. As she ran, I watched the Deinonychus pack. I watched them as a professional predator myself.

  Was there communication between them? It sure seemed like the two bands of Deinonychus were moving in concert.

  It was a triangle, basically. One group behind and to the west. The second group level with us but to the east. We were running north. If we veered slightly left, we'd hit the edge of the forest. Was that the right move?

  «Rachel, head for the woods.»

  "Why?" she managed to gasp. Rachel's in shape, but running barefoot while carrying a hawk is not easy.

  «They're pack-hunters. I think the two groups can see each other and adjust to each other. Even in this light. In the trees they'll lose their line of sight.»

  Rachel didn't say anything. But she did veer left a little. Toward the trees.

  I focused my hawk eyes on the westerly group. They were speeding up!

  A quick glance to the east. They were speeding up, too, but only after the first group did.

  «I thought so,» I said. «The leader of the pack is with that western bunch. I think I know which one it is. He's got about a foot of his tail missing.»

  The Deinonychus were running now. They were quite fast. And so close I could see details of the leader: the pebbly lizard skin, the way the tail stuck out stiff as a board for balance, the placid expression on that intelligent face.

  His weapons were formidable. He stood no taller than a short man or a tall boy. But his jaw could close over a human head. His hands were relatively larger and strong
er than a Tyranno-saurus's, with wicked, down-curved claws. But it was the feet that were the main weapon. They were talons, not so very different from my own. But on each foot there was an upraised claw, seven, eight inches long. It reminded me of Ax's tail blade. That claw, kicked by that coiled steel leg, would slice through a car door.

  «We'll reach the woods before them,» I said. «But then we have to act quickly. We have to separate.»

  "No way!"

  She assumed I was being self-sacrificing. «Rachel, look. They're after you, not me. I have a plan.»

  She said nothing. Just gasped and panted. I could hear her heart pounding madly.

  Trees! We hit the tree line and suddenly it occurred to me just how late in the day it was. The sun was setting in a blaze of glory out on the plain, but under the trees it was already night.

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  K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs

  Rachel stopped. She dropped me in the dead leaves. She bent over double, hands on her knees, throwing up from exhaustion. The predator in me was glad. Perfect. The powerful, unfamiliar scent would draw the Deinonychus right to this point.

  «Okay, I can't fly, but I can grip. I want you to throw me. Straight up. Up into this tree. Up to that branch.»

  "Wha . . .wha ..."

  «Rachel, don't argue. Throw me. Then run and do your bear morph. It may buy you time.»

  Besides, I added silently, you don't want to die as helpless prey. As a human, you'll simply be ripped apart. You'll be eaten alive. As a bear, they'll at least have to fight you first.

  Rachel stood up. Then she bent over, cramped in her right side. She winced in pain. I could see her feet were torn. She was exhausted. But not beaten yet. When she met my gaze, I still saw fierce Rachel in her blue eyes.

  «We have to do this now,» I said. «They'll be here in less than a minute.»

  "Okay." She reached down and lifted me up. Like someone heaving a basketball from her chest, she threw me upward. Too low! I missed the branch. I flapped my wings, an instinct. A painful, searingly painful, instinct. I hit the ground.