Danger: Dinosaurs!

Chapter 2 Through the Force Field

Chuck thought it was the beating of his own heart at first. All sound seemed to have stopped suddenly, the crickets, the faraway throb of an airplane motor, the shrill wail of a train whistle cutting across the afternoon. And then, quite abruptly, sound filtered back, but it came in waves-short, beating waves that rose and fell. Accompanying the sound was a faint flicker of light, on and off, on and off.

Chuck stood stockstill, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe. The waves of sound assailed his ears in unintelligible succession. The area around the marked square was no longer visible through the flickering light. Chuck knew that each light-flick was actually part of the “bumping” process Owen had told them about earlier. And each “bump” was carrying them back farther into the past. A dancing array of colors greeted the eye, now green, now red, now a deep blue. Once or twice, Chuck thought he could distinguish shifting shapes in the flickering light. The colors swirled and danced, massing into a brilliant white, changing to gray, black, orange, yellow, one color blending with the next as they sped back over the years.

He felt no different than he had ten minutes ago. He was, in a small way, disappointed. He had expected something more glamorous, more dramatic. A giant machine, perhaps, with dials and gadgets and knife switches. A scientist in a white robe with a steaming flask in his fist. And the crackle of lightning from one terminal to another, the blue tingle of electricity. He had visualized an enormous screen upon which the colorful panorama of the past would parade. There he would see the Crusades or Columbus crossing the ocean with his small ships or the War Between the States or any and all of the wonderful things he’d only read about. Then the great dials would stop twirling, and the machine would cease its endless hum. He would open the knife switches, press the button which swung wide the glass doors of the big machine and step out into the past.

Instead, there was only the riot of colors and the confusing jumble of sound that beat against his ears.

Even that ended.

Quite abruptly, the sound vanished, and the colors evaporated. Chuck blinked his eyes and stared around him. The low, well-cropped grass of the Time Slip was gone. The white markers were gone. The four red blocks that had been set in the ground had disappeared. The building housing the intricate mechanism of the control unit wasn’t on the horizon any more.

The land was alien, lushly green, steam rising from the vegetation that covered the earth like a green carpet.

“This is it,” Owen said softly. “We are now in the Jurassic period of the Mesozoic Era, approximately 100 million years back in time.”

The party seemed stunned. They looked around them and said nothing. Gardel was the first to speak.

“What’s that Jurassic and Meso... Meso what?”

“Mesozoic. Both are geologic terms. Mesozoic means ‘intermediate life.’ The geologists called this era that because of the development of so many life forms during this time.”

“And Jurassic?”

Owen smiled. “That’s one of the periods of the Mesozoic Era. It got its name from the Jura Mountains between France and Switzerland, where a great many rocks of this time were well exhibited and widely studied.” Owen snapped his fingers. “We’d better get the force field in operation at once. They don’t call this the Age of Reptiles for nothing.” Quickly Owen swung his pack off his shoulders and dropped it to the ground. He unscrewed two screws at the top of the front panel, then lowered the front to reveal a many-dialed face. Several buttons were set in the face of the instrument, too, and Owen stabbed at two of them and began twisting one of the dials very slowly.

“The energy is now going straight up and around us,” he explained, “like an umbrella. As soon as it clears the party...” He studied a meter that measured feet and then said, “There, that’s it.”

His hand flicked another dial and he began turning that, more rapidly this time. “I’ve dropped the field to the ground now and I’m moving it away from us gradually. It will force back any animal it encounters as it moves along. I’ll keep it going until it stretches around us for a radius of one mile. That’ll give us plenty of room to roam around in.”

“Sort of like an invisible, upside-down fishbowl,” Arthur said.

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” Owen replied, nodding his head and watching the footage meter. “Or a canopy of pure energy-electrically generated, of course.”

“How do you know there’ll be no animals left inside the field?” Masterson asked.

“I dropped the force field to the ground as soon as it cleared the party,” Owen said, still watching the meter. “We’re the only animals standing right here, as you can see.” He grinned. “The electric charge will send anything else it hits running like the devil. You can rest assured the area will be cleared.” He looked at the meter again and pressed another button on the face of the panel. “That does it. We can break ranks now.”

All at once they seemed to realize where they were. They stared around in mute fascination, their eyes hungry for details.

Here was the beginning. Here was the earth in its comparative infancy, a wilderness of strange trees and rocks, a land as alien as the most distant planet.

Chuck swallowed hard, and his eyes roamed the land. Ferns covered the ground everywhere, steamy layers of mist rising from them like trails of smoke. The land was silent, slanted with dark gray slates, high outcroppings of sandstone and limestone, conglomerate, shale. Far in the distance, moving among the high plants like shadowy blurs, Chuck could see the bulky forms of animals roaming the edge of the force field. A shiver of apprehension tickled his spine.

Huge cycads, palmlike in appearance, with short stout trunks and clusters of long fronds, rose from the ground. He was surprised to see pine trees and evergreens jutting out of the rolling countryside. And here and there, like splashes of color on a monotonous green canvas, he saw a few flowering plants. These, he knew, were the great-great-grandfathers of the angiosperms, the seed-bearing, true flowering plants that constituted nine-tenths of the land plants in his own time.

The air was mild and it smelled of growing things, of the fetid odor of primitive growth run amok. The odor assailed the nostrils with almost physical force, crowded the senses, made them shrink back in revulsion. A moisture clung to the air like the heavy, water-filled denseness that precedes a summer storm. The sun was shining, though, bearing down with heavy golden rays that touched the plants and the ground with long fingers.

Spread among the pines and cycads and evergreens, their fan-shaped leaves reaching out to the sun, Chuck recognized the ginkgo or maidenhair trees with their fleshy fruit and edible nuts.

His eyes took all this in, and he was filled with a deep sense of wonder and awe. He knew, though, that this was merely the stage. The actors were still in the wings, waiting to put in an appearance. The blurred shadows he had seen on the edge of the force field, the bulky, ponderous, slow-moving shapes — these were what made Jurassic times. The reptiles.

He looked at the plants again and tried to visualize a stegosaur nibbling on the foliage, or a sauropod trampling over leaves, its long neck bobbing. He did not succeed. To him, the creatures were still something out of the imagination, something the scientists had thrown together from a few theories and a few old bones. He knew all the names, yes, and he had a mental picture of each of the beasts — but that was as far as it went. Unconsciously, his mind drew a line between fancy and reality. The bones, the books, the theories were all part of reality. The restored figures of the giant reptiles were still fancy to Chuck. They would remain fancy until he had seen them.

Somehow, he did not look forward to it. He had cherished the fantasy of the monsters, carried it in a secret pocket of his mind, the way he had carried a toad to school every day when he was twelve years old. He had the uneasy feeling that the theories would all be proved wrong, that the monsters would turn out to be tiny lizards instead of gigantic beasts. He did not want the dream to be shattered and he was not overly eager to put the theories to the test.

“What’s so terribly special about this?” Masterson asked, breaking the silence. “This could be Africa or any other wilderness.”

“It could be,” Owen said softly, “but it isn’t. This is America, Mr. Masterson. America many, many years before the first man put in his appearance.”

“That’s what I’d like to see,” Pete said, his green eyes twinkling. “A real cave man.”

“You’ll find no men in Jurassic times,” Owen said.

“As far as we can tell, the first man appeared in the Cenozoic, about 99 million years from now.”

“Cenozoic? What’s that mean?” Gardel asked.

“It means ‘Recent Life.’ In our own time, Man was only one million years old, you must remember. But we’re not in our own time any more. It’ll be a long, long while before Man shows up.”

“We should have gone to the Cenozoic, then,” Masterson said. “I’d have liked to see a cave man, too.”

“Time slips to any time inhabited by Man are forbidden by law,” Owen said simply.

“That’s a shame,” Arthur said, shaking his massive head. “Primitive man must have been interesting.”

“Please keep quiet, Arthur,” Masterson said.

The flicker of anger sparked again in Arthur’s eyes. He seemed about to speak, then he turned his head away. But not before Chuck had seen the hurt look settle on his dark features. Chuck turned to Masterson, anxious to learn what had provoked the sudden attack on the Negro. Masterson’s eyes were blank. He had already forgotten what he’d said.

He pointed off to the dim figures in the distance. “Are those our game?” he asked.

“Yes,” Owen said, his voice a little brisk. Chuck knew that his brother had heard Masterson’s slur, too. Owen hadn’t liked it either.

“Well,” Masterson said, “this is supposed to be a hunt, so let’s get started. This time is costing me a pile of money.”

“It’s for a good cause, Mr. Masterson,” Owen said.

“Really? What cause is that?”

“The funds we collect from private hunting expeditions enable us to finance scientific expeditions. We’ve learned an awful lot about the past by...”

“Yeah, well let’s go take a look at those animals,” Masterson interrupted.

He strode over to the jeep and climbed in behind the wheel.

“Before we move from this spot,” Owen said, “we’d better mark it. Did you bring the paint I asked for?”

“Sure,” Masterson said, twisting the ignition key. “It’s in the truck.” Owen walked over to the truck, lifted the flap, and began rummaging around.

“Right near the tailgate,” Masterson said quickly. “Don’t go upsetting everything.”

“I’ve got it,” Owen called. He pulled his head from the canvas covering, emerging with a can of white paint and a brush. He pried the lid off the can, dipped the brush into the paint and began painting a large white square on the ground. “This will mark our spot,” he said. He looked at his watch. “We’ve been here about ten minutes now, which puts our time of arrival at about two p.m. We’ve got to be back in this same spot one week from today at exactly that time. They’ll slip us forward to the present, then.”

“To the present?” Gardel asked.

“Well, to the future, really. I meant, to the present we were accustomed to.”

“Come on,” Masterson said. “Let’s get rolling.” He started the jeep, gunned it forward. “You can follow in the truck. I’m anxious for a look.”

The jeep leaped forward like a runaway stallion, Masterson behind the wheel, his pith helmet pushed back on his head. The jeep bounced over a jutting rock, sprang high into the air and came down on two tires, almost overturning. Masterson grinned, turned the wheel sharply to avoid a low stump, and stepped on the gas again.

Chuck saw Owen’s brows curl onto his forehead, watched a troubled look creep into his brother’s eyes.

“What’s the matter, Owen?” he asked.

“I don’t like the way he’s driving. This is rough country, Chuck. I don’t want any accidents.” He paused, turned and started walking toward the truck. “We’d better go after him.”

He hopped into the cab of the truck, and Chuck climbed in after him.

“We’ll be right back,” Owen called. “Please feel free to wander around at will.”

He turned on the ignition key, started the truck and gnashed the gears into place. He set the big vehicle into motion, watching the small jeep up ahead.

“He’s going like crazy!” Chuck said in surprise.

“I don’t get it,” Owen replied. “Where does he think he’s...”

“The force field!” Chuck shouted. “Suppose he...”

“Great jumping...” Owen never finished what he was saying. His hands tightened on the wheel and he pushed his foot down on the gas pedal. Chuck watched the foliage sweep by in a green blur, large palmlike leaves slapping the windshield as the truck shoved its way over the rough terrain. The truck rocked from side to side as it rolled over rocks and stumps, dropped into deep ruts, its thick tires fighting ground for every inch. Up ahead, the jeep bounced and rolled like a cork in an angry sea. Masterson was clinging to the wheel as if it were a life preserver.

“Yell to him,” Owen said anxiously. “Tell him he’s getting too close to the force field.”

Chuck climbed out of the cab onto the running board, clinging to the open door. He ducked as they barged through the leaves that hung from a huge tree.

“Mr. Masterson!” he shouted.

His voice lifted over the roar of the truck motor, fled into the foliage and echoed from the rocks.

“Mr. Masterson! The force field! You’re heading right for it!”

Masterson didn’t seem to hear. He kept the jeep going at its frantic pace, hopping over the ground like a huge bullfrog.

“For Pete’s sake,” Owen said, “stop him, Chuck!”

“Mr. Masterson!” Chuck bellowed, holding to the doorframe as the truck sped over the ground. “Stop! The force field!”

Masterson turned his head and seemed to understand, He stood up like a man who’d been stuck with a pin and suddenly leaped out of the jeep, hitting the lush growth underfoot and rolling over into a ball.

The jeep plunged ahead recklessly, bouncing over the ground in wild abandon.

“The jeep,” Owen said. “It’s going to crash the force field, Chuck.”

The jeep hurtled over a high, flat rock that jutted into the air at a sloping angle. It cleared the end of the rock like a diver leaving a diving board, hung on the air for a moment and then fell earthward.

“Chuck!” Owen shouted.

There was a sudden crackling of electricity. The jeep shuddered in a shower of sparks that surrounded it for several moments like a shimmering halo. It plunged ahead for several feet, carried by the force of its momentum, and then it stopped dead in a flat clearing of ferns.

“That does it,” Owen said disgustedly.

“What, Owen?”

“Those sparks, didn’t you see them? The jeep hit our force field, and the metal shorted it. This is great, positively great!”

“Wh-what are we going to do?” Chuck asked.

“I don’t know. Pick up that egg-headed idiot first, I guess. Of all the fool stunts.” Owen’s face was a bright red. He kept his lips pressed tightly together as he steered the truck to where Masterson was sitting on the ground, his elbows resting on his knees.

Owen stopped the truck beside him and leaned out of the cab.

“Remember those orders I gave before we left?” he asked, his voice fighting against the rage inside him,

“I remember,” Masterson said calmly.

“I said no one was allowed within three feet of the force field. Do you remember that?”

“I’m... I’m sorry,” Masterson said, lowering his head. “I wanted to get out of the jeep before we hit. I...”

Owen opened the door and dropped out of the cab.

“Why were you driving like a madman in the first place?” he wanted to know.

“I just... I was just anxious to see the animals up close, that’s all. I just wanted to take a good look at them.”

Owen nodded his head bitterly. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Mr. Masterson.”

Masterson lifted his head hopefully. “What’s that, Owen?”

“You’re really going to get a good look at the animals. You’re going to be able to look down their throats clear into their bellies!”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean you’ve shorted our force field. You’ve effectively knocked down the only protection that stood between us and the beasts out there. Do you understand that, Mr. Masterson? Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

“You mean...”

“I mean there’s nothing between us and the enormous reptiles that roam Jurassic times, that’s what I mean. Nothing, Mr. Masterson.” He turned away in disgust. “Get into the truck,” he said harshly. “We’d better get back to the party while we’re still able to.”

They climbed into the truck, Owen still sullen, Masterson looking quite calm after what he’d done. Owen started the motor without saying another word.

“What about the jeep?” Chuck asked.

Owen signed deeply. “It’s probably still operable, Chuck. You drive it back, will you?”

Chuck nodded and hopped out of the truck, walking quickly to the jeep. He stared around him uneasily, not at all content with their present position now that the force field had been destroyed. He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the small vehicle. “Okay,” he called to Owen.

Owen swung the truck around, backing it over an outcropping of conglomerate. Then, straightening his wheels, he headed for the party in the distance.

Chuck glanced around him nervously as he drove the jeep forward. He thought of the restorations he’d seen of reptiles from this period, and a shudder worked its way up his spine.

Unconsciously, he stepped on the accelerator a little harder.