End of an Era

A pair of dark hills near the tyrant lizards shook and I realized that these were yet two more tyrannosaurs flopped on their bellies. They pushed with their hind legs, their tiny two-fingered forelimbs digging into the dirt, channeling the force of those mighty thighs into lifting their torsos instead of sliding them across the ground. Slowly the beasts rose to standing postures. One threw its head back and let loose a low roar that I felt even this far away through the metal walls of the Sternberger. Seven mighty carnosaurs banding together? It was inconceivable to me that there was any prey powerful enough to require these great hunters to combine forces into a pack.

By now it was getting darker. There were only a couple of dozen dinosaur genera left at the close of the Cretaceous, so identifying the genus, even in this light, was easy: Tyrannosaurus. Given this was Alberta, the species was probably mighty T. rex itself, but these were too small to be full-grown females; most of them were probably juveniles, the different sizes representing different hatching seasons, although the biggest might be an adult male. Amazing -

And then suddenly they began to move.

Toward us.

With purposeful strides, the largest of the seven headed toward our timeship, followed in single file by the others. They marched in unison, seven massive left legs pounding the ground, seven bodies tilting to the south, then seven right feet swinging forward, seven loaf-shaped heads tipping to the north. Left, right, south, north, like soldiers in rank and file. Cycads and ferns were pulped underfoot. Tiny creatures that had been hiding in the foliage — too dark to see precisely what they were — scampered out of the way.

It made no sense, this orderly procession of dragons. Granted, some fossil evidence suggested that certain dinosaurs had complex social hierarchies, but this goose-stepping was bizarre — a nightmare parade.

I thought briefly about the strength of the Sternberger’s walls. When locked in stasis, the ship was indestructible. But just sitting here, it was little more than a tin can. And tyrannosaur jaws could bite through steel.

As the seven hunters made their way closer to us, I saw through the binoculars that their bloody coloring wasn’t just a trick of the twilight. They really were dark reddish brown, their skin a tightly packed matrix of round beads like Indian corn. Beneath each massive mandible a loose sack of skin, perhaps a dewlap, waggled back and forth. Their tiny double-clawed forearms, looking withered and useless, bounced like drumsticks against their massive guts.

When the reptiles got within thirty meters of us, they broke formation. The lead tyrannosaur headed to our right. The next went to our left, and so on, alternating, except for the last of the procession, who just stopped where it was, the tip of its tail swishing back and forth.

The beasts who had been near the front of the caravan tried to continue around back, but they seemed flummoxed by the crater wall upon which we were perched. One of them attempted scaling the steep sides, but its tiny forearms were useless for gaining purchase. The tyrannosaurs, now simply black shadows moving against the night, regarded us. They were apparently trying to make sense out of the squat metal disk that had invaded their stomping ground.

After a few minutes, the one who had tried to climb the wall backed off about twenty-five meters. It growled, a low, resonant thrumming, then ran forward, its legs pumping up and down like pistons. The creature’s momentum, two tons of angry inertia, carried it up the crater wall toward us. The mass of blood-colored flesh hit hard, right in front of my face, the impact causing the Sternberger to teeter backward. The glassteel of the window deformed where the creature had hit, losing some of its transparency. The massive warty head, jaws snapping like castanets, tried to lock onto our hull. Serrated teeth, many of them fifteen centimeters long, scraped the glassteel with a sound like a dentist’s drill. Several, presumably the ones that had been ready to shed anyway, popped from their sockets and went flying. Finally, unable to find anything to hold onto, the tyrannosaur slipped backward, stumbling down the crumbling crater wall to join its kin.

Then, just as they had come, they left, marching in single file back into the night, the pounding of their footfalls continuing long after they had faded from view. Overhead, in a sky clearer and blacker than any known to Earth after the Industrial Revolution, the Milky Way shone like a river of diamonds.

Countdown: 17

An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him.

—Alexander Pope, English poet (1688–1744)