Day of the Predator

CHAPTER 56

65 million years BC, jungle

The wide-open plain was alive with the echoing calls of nocturnal life. Liam had assigned half of them to remain on watch and the other half to try their best to get some sleep, although he doubted anyone was managing that.

A fire was burning in the middle, not for the meagre light it provided, but for the effect it seemed to have on the creatures roaming around out there, keeping them all well away. It was bright enough anyway. The full moon seemed to illuminate the night enough that it felt little darker than an overcast winter’s afternoon in Cork.

‘That moon is actually bigger, right? Or am I going mad?’

Becks looked up at it. ‘Affirmative. It is approximately twenty per cent larger.’

Liam’s eyebrows shot up. ‘A larger moon? So what do you think happened to it? Did it sort of wear down over time or something?’

Whitmore looked at him oddly and tutted. And Becks… he wondered whether she’d just rolled her eyes at him or whether that was just a trick of the light. ‘Negative, Liam. It has not changed size.’

‘It’s just a little closer,’ said Whitmore.

‘Oh.’

Becks resumed her silent vigil, slowly panning her eyes across the plain, watching for the dark furtive shapes of the creatures moving beyond the dancing circle of their firelight.

‘What do you think of those things?’ asked Liam. ‘Are they really a species of super-smart dinosaur? That lad, Franklyn…’ He paused for a moment, realizing the ensuing panic-stricken retreat from the cove, over the jungle peak and down on to the beach hadn’t permitted him a single moment of reflection for the poor boy. He could only imagine what those creatures had done to him, if that carcass from nearly a fortnight ago was anything to go by.

The others were waiting for him to finish what he’d started saying.

‘Franklyn said all dinosaurs, even the smart ones, were pretty stupid.’

Whitmore sucked in a breath of warm night air. ‘Those hominids could well be a dead-end evolution, a branch-off species that maybe shares a common ancestor with troodon.’

‘Troodon?’

He nodded. ‘Palaeontologists commonly agree that the troodon was quite possibly the most intelligent species of dinosaur. Smarter even than their evolutionary cousins, the raptors. Very similar in appearance, both therapods… saurischian dinosaurs.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘Bipedal… they walk on their hind legs. Like the T-rex does.’

Liam shook his head. ‘Those creatures didn’t look anything like any dinosaur I’ve seen, big or small. I mean… their heads?’

Whitmore nodded. ‘Like I say, some dead-end evolution. Perhaps if the K-T event never happened, the asteroid, or volcano or whatever it was, many more sub-species with similar long skulls might have evolved from them. Perhaps that’s why they’re so smart — a greater cranial capacity, a larger brain.’

‘The species exhibits high levels of intelligence,’ said Becks. Her neutral voice seemed to have adopted an ominous tone. ‘They appear capable of tactical planning. They appear to have a language. They do not, however, appear to have developed tool-use.’

‘Why not? If they’re so smart? Why don’t they use spears and bows and arrows?’

Becks had no answer. Whitmore shrugged. ‘Who knows? Perhaps they’ve never needed to use tools? Maybe nature already made them so lethal they’ve never needed tools? Or perhaps, because they only seem to have four digits and no thumbs, tool-using is just something they’re unlikely to ever do?’

‘But they’re smart enough?’ asked Liam. ‘Is that what you’re saying? If they had thumbs an’ all… they’d be smart enough to make a spear or a bow or something?’

Whitmore scratched his beard absently. ‘Who knows?’

On the far side of the campfire, Howard and Edward stood watch. The robo-girl had been standing with them for a while and then gone to rejoin her Irish friend and Whitmore. Howard decided now was quite possibly the best time he was going to have to say what he needed to say.

‘Edward?’

The small boy looked up at him.

‘Thank you, you know… for saving me from that shark thing yesterday.’

Edward shrugged like he’d done nothing more than buy him a Coke. ‘OK, Leonard.’

‘No… seriously, Edward, that was something… what you did. It could just as easily have gotten you. But you… you stayed right by me. You saved my life.’

Edward smiled. ‘Sure, Lenny. You’re my best friend.’ He sighed. ‘Well, my only friend. Like I said, I don’t do so good back home. You know, making friends and stuff.’

Howard felt a sour twist of guilt churn away in his guts. He’d come to kill Edward — that’s how he’d ended up here — and yet this boy seemed like a ten-years-younger version of himself. He’d had things the same way when he’d been at school: lonely because he dared to be different. It never changed, did it? Not even in his time, the 2050s. Kids always found a way to single somebody out.

‘Edward, I’ve got to tell you something,’ he said before he could stop himself.

‘What?’

‘I’m… I’m not who you think I am.’

Edward frowned and smiled at the same time, bemused. ‘You’re Lenny.’

‘No,’ replied Howard, ‘that’s just it, I’m not. I’m not Leonard Baumgardner. I’m not seventeen.’ He lowered his voice and his eyes flickered across the campfire towards the other three people on guard duty. ‘And I’m not from the year 2015.’

‘What? Serious?’ Edward’s eyes widened. ‘You’re one of them? An agent from the future too?’

Howard shook his head. ‘Not an agent. I don’t work for the same people. I belong to another group, a group trying to stop time travel, but… but in a different way.’

Edward stared at him silently. ‘Not Lenny. So what is your name?’

‘Howard.’

He heard Edward mouth the name quietly.

‘But listen, Edward… I… I managed to go back in time to find you

…’ He hesitated, toying with how best to continue, when Edward spoke the words for him.

‘To get to me. That’s it, isn’t it?’

Howard looked away.

‘To stop me going to university? Stop me doing a degree?’

Howard couldn’t bear to meet his eyes.

‘Not to… oh no…’ Edward’s voice dropped. He’d figured it out. ‘No. Don’t say you came to kill me?’

Howard nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Edward… but yeah. To short-circuit history, to cut out a chunk of the past that should never have happened.’ In the dark he couldn’t see how the boy was taking it, just the outline of his round head and narrow shoulders gazing out at the dark plain.

‘That means you’re not really my friend, then?’

Howard felt that twist of guilt curl and flex like some restless eel making a nest in his belly.

‘That mean you’re still going to kill me?’

Howard shook his head. ‘No, not any more.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t need to. We’re stuck here now.’

Edward turned back towards him. ‘But we’re gonna get rescued. Those messages that we — ’

‘No one’s going to find them,’ he replied, shaking his head.

‘How do you know?’

‘If they’d ever been found — ’ he nodded towards the others — ‘and Liam and robo-girl’s people were able to come and rescue us, then they’d know what happens in 2015, wouldn’t they? They’d know about me. And they’d make sure you were never on that field trip to the TERI labs. They’d make sure you were kept as far away from that assassination attempt as possible.’

Edward’s face clouded with thought for a moment.

Howard offered him a smile that was probably lost in the dark anyway. ‘So, I’ve done what had to be done. I’m truly sorry it’s landed us here. I really am… but the world after 2015 is a much safer place without you. There’s no you, there’s no maths thesis, no Waldstein and no time machines. For good or bad… I know the world’s heading for dark times ahead, certainly it is where — when — I came from: floods, droughts, billions starving, oil running out, wars. But the world will get through that eventually. It can survive that.’

‘But it can’t survive time travel?’

‘No. We’ve been messing around with stuff we can’t understand, can’t control. We’re like children playing catch and toss with a neutron bomb. But that’s finished, Edward… It’s not going to happen. I’m relieved, but I’m also sorry it’s landed you and the others here.’

‘Why be sorry?’ said Edward flatly. ‘Mission successful. You did it.’

‘I’m sorry… because, I think, well, I hope, you and I have become friends. And I’ve put you in this situation.’ Howard could understand if the boy walked away right now and told everything he’d just heard to the others. Then, of course, they’d confront him and perhaps even exact a brutal revenge on him. Howard could understand that and was ready to face the music.

Instead he felt Edward’s small hand on his forearm. ‘It’s OK. I’m not angry with you.’

He laughed. ‘You have every right to be.’

‘No point,’ said Edward. ‘We’re stuck here forever, then. So we’ve got to work together. Right, Leonard?’

Leonard… it sounded like Edward was going to keep this confession to himself.

Howard nodded. ‘So?’

‘So, I’m not telling. You’re Leonard still.’

He smiled. ‘OK… I’m Leonard.’

‘Right.’

‘Right.’