End of an Era

Countdown: 12

Given the dense foliage, we had been afraid that we’d be confined to the mud flats around the lake. But about twenty kilometers from the Sternberger we found a broad trail that had been trampled through the forest—by a herd of ceratopsians, judging by the footprints. Klicks turned onto that path, and we made our way into the highlands. We realized that the sound of the Jeep might frighten off some of the wildlife, but, then again, never having heard an internal-combustion engine before, the dinosaurs might also be attracted to the rumbling noise, wondering what strange beast had come into their territory.

We had a tape recorder going and we kept up a running commentary about what we were seeing, describing everything from the texture of the soil (firmly packed, but free of the pebbles so common in post-glacial tills), to the plants (hardwoods, lots of flowers, and a rich ground covering of ferns), to the sky (the clear bowl of earlier had given way to great towering mounds of cumulonimbus, like models of the Grand Canyon done in cotton). A Stedicam on the roof fed images into a VCR installed where the glove compartment would normally be, supplementing the images from our clip-on Micro-Cams. Also on the roof, various instruments recorded atmospheric information and strained the air for pollens that we could bring back to the twenty-first century.

After an hour, we had the most extraordinary bit of luck. There was a bend in the path where the ceratopsian herd had changed the course of its stampede to avoid a dense stand of conifers. We sailed around the curve and almost collided with what could only have been a Tyrannosaurus rex. It was easily double the size of the tyrannosaurs we’d seen the first night; a female of late years, a giant truly worthy of the name king—or queen—of the tyrant lizards.

Klicks hit the brakes. The beast, a dozen meters long, was flopped on its belly, torpid. It was apparently resting after having gorged itself on meat, for its muzzle was caked with drying blood. The giant warty head lifted from the soil and turned to face us. Rex had broad cheeks and fair binocular vision, its eyes gray and wet like pools of mercury. It let out a halfhearted roar, but it didn’t seem to feel any need either to run from us or, thankfully, to attack us. Klicks cut the Jeep’s engine and we sat there, about twenty meters away, drinking in the sight of this, the greatest hunter ever to stalk the Earth.

Some had suggested that tyrannosaurus was a scavenger, but I’d always rejected that idea. There are no purely terrestrial scavengers in the time of humans, since only birds and fish have the ability to search enough real estate to profitably find dead animals. Besides, Rex’s dagger-like teeth and bunching jaw muscles would have been unnecessary just to pick at carrion. Still, there was no carcass anywhere that we could see. I wondered why the beast wouldn’t have just taken a snooze at the site of the kill, but, after watching for a few minutes, the answer became obvious.

First one, then another, then finally a small flock of tiny yellow-and-green winged reptiles descended from the sky. They may well have been there earlier, but had been scared off by the arrival of our Jeep. The tyrannosaur opened its jaw, peeling back its thin scaly lips. Its teeth ranged from about seven centimeters long to maybe sixteen. Gobbets of flesh were crammed around the gums and fibrous pieces of meat were caught between adjacent teeth. Several of the bantam pterosaurs, wings half-folded, waddled into the great mouth and proceeded to peck at the remains of the carnosaur’s meal, cleaning its teeth and gums. One of the yellow-and-green flyers plucked out a particularly large hunk of meat and two of his friends began trying to grab it away from him. Rex snoozed on, indifferent to the squabble going on inside its gaping mouth. Other pterosaurs landed on its short back and thick tail, their beaks nipping in and out of the leathery skin like surgeon’s lances, rooting out worms and beetles that infested the predator’s hide.

This was clearly a familiar symbiosis for the tyrannosaur: we could hear a contented rumbling coming from deep in its chest. Heavy with its latest meal, Rex must have marched quite some distance from where it had killed its prey, since the pterosaurs would have had much richer pickings going over such a carcass.

We watched for over an hour, the heat mounting in the cab. Although the roof camera and our MicroCams were getting it all anyway, Klicks and I each brought still cameras to our faces and snapped off roll after roll of slides.

Suddenly I had an idea. I reached into my pack, on the floor behind my seat, and pulled out the loaf of bread we’d brought along to make sandwiches. Tearing a hunk off the crusty end slice, I rolled down the window and tossed the piece halfway between the Jeep and Rex. A couple of the pterosaurs took to the air, then fluttered back to the ground. One of them waddled over to the hunk of bread and eyed it suspiciously. After a moment, satisfied I guess that the bread wasn’t going to spit at it or something, it gobbled it up in its long beak.

I threw another piece, this one only about half as far away. The pterosaur hopped over to it and pecked it up immediately. Klicks motioned that he wanted to try. He took a slice from the bag and began shredding it. Other pterosaurs came over to see what was happening. Soon we were throwing pieces as fast we could shred them and perhaps a quarter of the flock had decided it preferred Wonder Enriched to maggots off a tyrannosaur’s back. We threw each piece just a little shy of the last, drawing the pigeon-sized reptiles closer. Klicks tossed a few pieces on the Jeep’s hood, but the pterosaurs seemed to find the metal too hot to land on, and those went uneaten. Soon we were down to the last slice. Instead of tossing it, I broke off three choice chunks, placed them in my right palm, and stretched my arm out the window. After several minutes of me sitting motionless, one brave little pterosaur did hop up onto my arm, its talons sharp through the fabric of my sleeve. Its body was covered with down of emerald and gold. The loosely folded bat-like wings, with their tiny claws, fluttered in the breeze. With three quick darts, the toothless beak, like needle-nose pliers, snapped up the bread. A moment later the creature was gone.

We had exhausted the loaf about the same time as Rex’s teeth and back had been picked clean. As one, the pterosaurs rose into the sky, a cloud of shimmering gold and green. Klicks revved the engine and drove slowly past the resting hunter, continuing on our way.