THE ONE WITH THE TRICERATOPS AND THE QUETZALCOATLUS
"Holy space-time alert, Batman," yelped Connor as they crested the hill. "A Triceratops, they said. One Triceratops. Professor..."
"We're gonna need a bigger boat," finished Cutter, eyes nearly as round as those of his young associate. "Yeah. I think we may be looking at all of Lester's worst nightmares. And several of mine."
"And at least one of mine," added Abby, before whistling softly. "Still, you've got to admit..." She gestured vaguely at the scene before her, and Stephen gave a low, answering laugh.
"I think the word you're looking for is 'awesome'," he suggested, and she looked up at him, unable to keep from smiling. He glanced down at her briefly, eyes bright and shining, but he didn't hold the eye contact for long. She didn't blame him. She didn't want to be looking at her colleagues just now either. Not when there was so much to look at elsewhere.
There were probably fifty of them, at least. Quite likely more. An entire herd of Triceratops, practically filling the valley, and cheerfully grazing on the unsuspecting twenty-first century greenery. Everywhere they looked, there were creatures - big ones lumbering, baby ones skittering about, a couple that appeared to be courting. One of them tipped back its head, bellowing out a sound not unlike that of a conversational elephant, and a baby squeaked back in answer. Up above them all, Cutter couldn't stop himself from laughing.
"It's..." He shook his head. "It's a bloody dream, that's what it is."
"I thought it was a nightmare?" teased Stephen. Cutter slapped him on the back.
"An organisational nightmare, maybe. Think what it's going to take to herd that little lot back through the anomaly. But look at them, Stephen. How many years have we spent in that poky little office together back at the university, theorising about creatures like this? And then a whole bloody herd of them stops by for a visit." He frowned. "How much of that whisky did we drink last night?"
"Not enough to make us hallucinate something like this." The two old friends stood together for a moment longer, enjoying the view, before Cutter heaved a sigh.
"Ah well. I suppose we'd better think about getting them shifted back through the anomaly. A whole herd of Triceratops isn't a very safe thing to have wandering about the countryside."
"How'd you get a herd of Triceratops to do something they don't want to do?" asked Connor. Stephen shot him a teasing glance.
"You're the dinosaur expert. That's your department."
"Me?!" The younger man looked aghast. "No, I'm more in the theory department. I think about things. You're the practical one."
"Don't worry, Connor. With the best will in the world, I don't intend to put you in charge of a job like this." Cutter nodded slowly as he thought. "Well, they're large herbivores. Is it fair to try thinking of them as elephants?"
"Hard to theorise on comparative intelligence, but behaviourally... perhaps." Stephen shrugged. "I'm not going to dash down there and fire a gun in the air, though. We might want them to move, but we want them to go in the right direction. What we need is for a few of them to lead the charge, and then hopefully the others will follow suit."
"Can I leave you to figure it out?" asked Cutter. "I'd like to get a closer look at some of them if I can."
"Sure. I'll go speak to the soldiers." Stephen jabbed a pointing finger at Cutter's chest. "You be careful. I don't plan on scraping what's left of you off the bottom of some creature's feet. Goodness knows how I'd explain that to your mother."
"I'll be a good boy. You just go and work out how to keep that lot from colonising half the county." Cutter looked around at the others. "Connor? Abby?"
"Oh, I'm with you." Clearly wildly excited, Connor didn't need any encouragement. He was already setting off down the slope, and Cutter went after him immediately, anxious to try to divert him from trouble. Abby laughed.
"Sorry Stephen. I'm with them too. This is too good an opportunity to miss."
"That's fine. You get on after them. I'd like to think there's somebody down there with a level head." Stephen smiled ruefully. "You have no idea how Cutter can get when he's over-excited about something."
"I've had a few demonstrations just lately." She patted his arm in a friendly fashion. "Don't worry. I'll stop him doing anything too reckless. Do you really have any ideas about how to get the herd moving, though?"
"Possibly. I spent a summer wrangling cattle in South America once." He shrugged. "Can't be that different, right?"
"I'm seeing one or two differences, yes." She laughed. "Good luck."
"Stay in touch." He waggled his walkie-talkie at her, and she nodded.
"Will do." A moment later she had scurried off, catching up with Cutter and Connor as they made their way down the hill. Stephen watched them for a moment, then turned around and went in search of the soldiers. They were not usually very far away, as ever doing their best to cope with a situation so far beyond the scope of their training that even the most experienced of them were at sea. He found a small gathering of them by one of their trucks, eyeing the milling Triceratops with obvious discomfort.
"Hi," said Stephen. He received one or two nods in reply. For the most part the soldiers were friendly, but they tended to view the scientists with a fair degree of suspicion. Stephen had won their respect following his single-handed battle against a Gorgonopsid some time earlier, but they still tended to view him as some kind of foreign species; not least because of his association with Nick Cutter, as alien a creature to the average military man as it was possible to be. "You boys don't happen to have any jeeps, do you?"
"Jeeps?" One of the soldiers, a tall and broad-shouldered sergeant, shook his head. Stephen hadn't managed to learn everybody's names yet, but he was fairly sure that the sergeant was called Patrick. Or possibly Peter. "No, just Land Rovers. Is that a problem?"
"No, I don't think so. Actually Land Rovers would probably be just as good." Stephen approached a likely looking vehicle, eyeing it up and down. It was rugged, of course; it could probably go quite fast if it needed to; and the canopy covering the back ought to be removable. He nodded. "Yes, I think this'll do nicely. Any of you boys ever worked on a farm?"
"A farm?" The-sergeant-who-might-be-called-Patrick-or-Peter looked distinctly baffled. "My dad's a farmer, but it's been a while since I helped him out. Why?"
"Arable or livestock?" asked Stephen immediately. Patrick or Peter blinked at him for a moment, then shrugged, clearly deciding that scientists couldn't be expected to make sense.
"Sheep," he said in the end. Stephen's grin grew, which seemed to worry several of the soldiers. They had come to learn that when the project's scientific contingent began smiling, strange things tended to happen, frequently involving gigantic flying creatures, or things with names that they couldn't pronounce; or, on one memorable occasion, a large and bothersome procession of highly excitable Trilobites.
"Excellent." Clapping the hapless sergeant on the shoulder, Stephen turned his attention to his chosen machine. "Give me a hand with this, then. We want the back open. Anything delicate inside? We're going to be shaking it up a fair bit."
"Nothing that can't take it." Patrick or Peter climbed up into the back of the Land Rover alongside him. "Look, I should probably clear this with Captain Ryan. If you'd wait just a moment..."
"Captain Ryan will have his hands full by now," Stephen told him. "It's his job to stay close to Cutter, and right now that means getting as close to a herd of Triceratops as possible. Believe me, the last thing that he wants right now is for his radio to suddenly start barking at him."
"Oh." Patrick or Peter nodded slowly. They had all seen what could happen when the scientists took it upon themselves to get close to the animals that came through the anomalies. No doubt they believed that they were all perfectly safe, but it was doing nothing for Captain Ryan's blood pressure. "Well, I suppose that's fair enough. Do I get to ask what we're doing, though?"
"Of course." Stephen was all smiles. "You and I are going to get those," he pointed at the Triceratops, "back though that," and he pointed at the anomaly. Patrick or Peter frowned, although notably he didn't object.
"Just the two of us?" he asked, somewhat doubtfully. Stephen nodded.
"In a Land Rover?" came the second question. Stephen nodded again. The sergeant also nodded, rather slowly, much as one might when humouring a madman.
"Right. Well." He slapped the cab of the Land Rover, and frowned out across the herd of grazing creatures. "I suppose we'd better get a move on then, hadn't we. You do realise that this probably isn't going to work? I mean, they're a lot bigger than sheep."
"And this is a lot bigger than a sheepdog," pointed out Stephen. His new friend nodded again, unable to argue with this logic.
"Fair enough." He shrugged off the rifle that was slung across his back, and laid it down on the floor. "Tell you what, though. If this thing winds up getting trampled to pieces by a herd of extinct reptiles, you're the one doing the paperwork."
"Sounds fair." Stephen set to work removing the back canopy, one eye on the creatures all the time. "One question."
"Yeah?" Beginning to work on the other side of the canopy, the sergeant glanced over at him. Stephen frowned back, clearly in thought.
"Last time I tried this, it was with cattle. We got the rest of the herd to follow the dominant male." He turned his frown to point instead at the dinosaurs. "How do you suppose you sex a Triceratops?"
"You're the scientist," the sergeant told him, not unreasonably. Stephen nodded ruefully.
"Blind guess?" he asked. Patrick or Peter grinned cheerfully.
"I won't tell anybody if you don't." Stephen grinned back.
"It's a deal," he said, already beginning to enjoy this latest venture. He couldn't help thinking that this was one of the days that was really going to turn out well.
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