Day of the Predator

CHAPTER 38

65 million years BC, jungle

Liam looked down at the shale by his feet. He dragged a finger through it. The others watched curiously as his finger inscribed four letters in the gravel. He spelled the word Help. Then with his hand he messed it up. ‘We’ll erase the message we just left,’ he said. ‘And everything that happened as a result of it being discovered, well… it’ll all un-happen. It’ll all be erased too.’

‘If your message includes the location of your base,’ said Kelly, ‘I assure you, it won’t be some curious fossil-hunter that turns up, it’ll be some secret government agency. NSA, CIA, maybe some spooks we don’t even know about… They’ll storm the place. Kick the door in. Delta Force guys with guns. What you’ve got is too valuable.’

‘Oh.’ Liam hadn’t considered that.

‘You could be endangering your colleagues,’ said Laura.

‘They wouldn’t hurt them, would they? They’d just want to be asking questions, would they not?’

Kelly shrugged. ‘With something like time-travel technology at stake? Who knows? Our secret services have a long history of shooting places up first and asking questions later.’

Whitmore cut in. ‘Oh, come on! They’re professionals, the best in the world!’

Several of the others joined in. Some agreeing with that, some of them disagreeing.

Liam looked at Becks. ‘Maybe this is not such a great idea.’

‘You wish me to proceed with the alternate plan?’ she said softly.

Liam looked at her, pleased that she’d had the sense to ask that in little more than a whisper. Not so encouraged, though, seeing one of her hands flinching and reaching for a hatchet.

‘No, not yet,’ he said, reaching out and grasping her hand in his. ‘Not yet, OK?’

She nodded.

‘Unless,’ said Edward quietly, his voice almost lost beneath the to and fro of all the others. ‘Unless, there’s a really important reason not to hurt anyone.’

The others stopped and looked at him. It was the first thing he’d said all evening. All day, in fact.

Edward’s eyes widened as they all stared at him. ‘I… I was just saying…’

‘Go on,’ said Liam.

‘Well… if part of your message was a… was in, like, a code. Then there’s a reason to… you know, not to want to shoot everyone up, because they know they’d need someone to decode it.’

Liam pursed his lips in thought. ‘That’s true.’ A code, a secret, hinting at still further secrets and revelations. What person wouldn’t want to know more?

‘If a message is going to lead some government spooks right up to the front door of your secret organization,’ said Kelly, ‘then you can bet the bit of the message they can’t make sense of will be driving them nuts. Edward’s right. They’ll want your colleagues alive.’

‘All right,’ said Liam. ‘So then the first bit of the message needs to be the time and place of our field office.’ He turned to Becks. ‘That’s how the message will find its way to Maddy and Sal. The rest… the time-stamp they need to aim for, that bit should be the super-secret coded bit. Can you come up with a code, Becks?’

She nodded. ‘I can produce a mathematical algorithm and use that as an alpha-numeric offset code. My duplicate should be able to recognize the pattern of the algorithm and produce a decode key.’

‘No,’ said Edward, shaking his head. ‘It’s too easy to break a math-based code. If they… you know, if they put a big enough computer on it, they could crack it. Simple.’

Kelly nodded. ‘And you can bet the NSA or the CIA or whichever bunch of spooks ends up calling will have no shortage of computing power at their disposal to crunch your code.’

‘There is no other way to generate a code that can be unlocked at the field office,’ said Becks. ‘My duplicate needs to have the same library of algorithms — ’

‘ Every math-based code can be broken,’ said Edward, his quiet voice finding a little more confidence, ‘you know? Eventually. It’s just a case of how much computer power you put on it.’

‘Edward’s right,’ said Howard. ‘Think about it, what if the message is discovered, say…’ He turned to Whitmore and Franklyn. ‘When did they first discover fossils in this place we’re headed to?’

Franklyn shrugged. ‘Early 1900s.’

‘Right. So if the American secret services of that time secured that fossil back then they’ll have had a whole century of time to crack the algorithm and decode it before they come knocking.’

‘But computers powerful enough to work on it were only developed in the ’80s,’ said Juan. ‘Don’ forget that.’

‘That’s more than enough time,’ said Howard. ‘They’ll come knocking knowing the entire contents of the message. Their only concern will be securing your agency’s HQ and confiscating all your technology. Your colleagues will be a secondary consideration.’

‘Your code has to be like a personal thing,’ said Edward. ‘Like a secret. Something only you and they know.’

Howard shook his head. ‘I’m thinking this is a seriously bad idea. We could end up really messing with history. And I thought you guys are meant to stop that kind of thing happening.’

‘And staying here, young man?’ said Whitmore. ‘What do you think that’s going to do to history? Homo-sapiens existing right now? Sixty-five million years before they’re due?’

Howard shrugged. ‘We won’t exist for long, though, will we?’ His words silenced the teacher. ‘You actually think the sixteen of us are going to survive and thrive? You think we’re going to breed and produce lots of offspring and establish a Cretaceous-era human civilization that’s going to change the world?’

Whitmore shrugged and half-nodded. ‘It’s possible.’

Howard laughed. ‘No, it’s not. We’ll eventually die out here.’ He looked around at them. ‘There are six females in the group.’ He looked at Becks. ‘Not counting you. I’m not really sure what you are.’

‘I am incapable of sexual reproduction,’ she replied flatly.

‘Six fertile females,’ continued Howard. ‘We might be able to make a few babies, but there are too few of us to sustain ourselves. If disease doesn’t get us, or some hungry carnivore, then in-breeding would eventually.’ He managed a wistful smile. ‘We’ll die out soon enough… months, years, decades maybe… but it’ll happen and history won’t be changed by us having been here. Maybe we shouldn’t do this. Maybe we should accept we’re stuck here and — ’

‘You can forget that!’ said Laura. ‘I want to go home!’

Kelly nodded. ‘I think we all want that, right?’

Heads nodded around the fire.

Liam sat forward, held his hands out towards the fire and rubbed them. ‘We’re doing the message, Leonard. We have to. Now I’ve just got to figure out something that only we… and they know.’

‘How big is your agency?’ asked Laura.

Liam smiled and replied hesitantly. ‘Oh, you know, it’s big. Lots of us, so there are.’

‘You know them well?’

‘Sure, we’re all pretty close.’

‘Friends?’

‘Yes, I’d like to think we’re — ’

‘Then maybe there’s something like a song, or a film or something? You know? Something like that you could use as a common reference point for — ’

Liam suddenly felt his hand being crushed by a vice-like grip. He looked down and saw Becks was holding it, and squeezing it.

‘Ow! Becks, you’re hurting me,’ he hissed. ‘What’s the matter?’

She let go and looked at him, her eyes widened with a mixture of surprise, and perhaps even elation. ‘I have had an idea, Liam O’Connor.’