Rivers of Time

"There's our shock wave," said Featherstone.

"Five minutes!" I said. "Into the chamber, all of you! Fast!"

We ran to the chamber, to find Cohen and the Raja on hands and knees in front of the closed doors.

"What in God's name?" I cried.

"Bruce dropped his keys," said the Raja. "Don't anybody disturb the soil!"

They hunted and hunted, sweeping their hands over the ground. The time couldn't have been more than seconds, but to me it seemed hours. I thought the dawnlight was already dimmed by the onrushing cloud of smoke, but that may have been my imagination.

"Let me," said Todd. He produced an electric torch, which he played back and forth over the ground. Just as it looked hopeless, Cohen yelled: "Got 'em!" and pounced.

At any rate, Todd had proved himself something more than a mere pain in the arse. Cohen got the door open the quickest I'd ever seen, and we piled in. I counted noses as they went by and said:

"Where's O'Connor? Oh, Jon! Where the bloody hell are you?"

"Coming," said O'Connor, walking in a leisurely manner from the tents towards the chamber, with a framed square of canvas under his arm. "Forgot this sketch," he explained.

"Run, God damn it!" I yelled.

At last I got him safely inside and then myself. Bruce Cohen, at the controls, had his hand out to the door-closing lever, when another shadow fell across the doorway. I was sure all my sahibs were in. Several set up a yell as the newcomer leaped in with more agility than any mere human being could command.

Cohen hesitated, then frantically pulled the lever. The doors slammed shut. The newcomer uttered a squawk, because the closing doors had snipped off the last centimeter or two of the point of its long tail. It was in fact a steno, like the one that had chased George Romero into the chamber two days before.

"Take her to Present!" I shouted at Cohen, already working his controls.

There was a motion of the chamber that was not just going through time; it was a physical movement in the late Cretaceous.

"Earthquake!" cried Featherstone.

By then Cohen had us well on the time-travel route. The lights dimmed, and everybody felt the horrid vertigo and vibration and nausea. I looked towards our stowaway, huddled in a corner of the chamber near the door. What the hell should we do with it? To fire a shot in those close quarters would be suicide. On the other hand, to leave our people at the mercy of a Mesozoic carnivore....

"He seems unaggressive, Reggie," said the Raja. "Must have remembered the chamber from the day before yesterday and, when he saw his world going up in smoke, figured that this was the safest place for him. They're considered bright as reptiles—oh, oh!"

The nausea affected the Stenonychosaurus so that it puked up its last meal on the floor of the chamber. Bruce Cohen, when he saw, did some of the fanciest swearing I've ever heard. Made the most eloquent bushie seem like a schoolma'am.

The Raja was right about the steno's being smarter than most reptiles. Some museum coves reason that if it hadn't been for Enyo, the dinosaurs might still be going strong and the steno's descendants might have evolved into the reptilian equivalent of mankind.

"If we leave him alone," said the Raja, "he'll probably do likewise to us. He must have been more frightened by the Event than by us. Lots of zoos would love a live dinosaur. The museum that tried to bring back eggs had no luck; they didn't hatch. I'll see if he'll let me bandage his tail; you know me and animals."

"By God!" said Moreno. "I do believe he's my sometime rival for the affections of that female. Has the same scar on his muzzle. The poor girl will have been killed by the shock wave."

"Too bad we couldn't bring the pair back," said Featherstone, "and breed them."

I said: "If you museum blokes will produce the money to fetch a pair, you'll find Rivers and Aiyar ready to talk business."