Dragonstar Destiny (19 page)

PHINEAS KEMP
raged against the dark.

Somewhere deep in his being, he struggled up and out of the enfolding unconsciousness, as though he were at the bottom of some terribly deep well, with only a glimmer of light above him. It would be so easy to just give up, drift back to the bottom, and lie there in the warm sludge. But something called at him, something terribly urgent, and Kemp swam upward toward the light.

And broke through to the surface, gasping.

The light was blinding.

And he ached all over.

The scene settled in all around him, black and white resolving into harsh color: he lay in the wrecked OTV. He tasted blood in his mouth, felt warm liquid trickling down his face. He craned his neck and saw Becky Thalberg lying behind him in the canted car, unconscious and breathing shallowly.

He looked around and saw that Kate Ennis had either been thrown from the car or had managed to pull herself out of the wreck and was now kneeling in the dirt light meters from the OTV, groaning.

Nearby, three dinosaurs milled.

Triceratopses.

The triceratopses that had wrecked them.

They seemed a bit confused. Two were nibbling at clumps of vegetation growing from between some rocks. The other looked dazed. They were big things, with tough hides and a crown of three horns apiece upon their ugly heads. They were herbivorous, Kemp knew ... but they could be awfully mean if riled ... And with the things that had been happening lately to the dinosaurs, there was no telling how the beasts would react to humans walking among them.

Kemp struggled to a sitting position. The top of the OTV had been smashed like an eggshell, but its ends still served as shelter from a possible attack by the triceratopses. It would be best to stay awhile inside.

“Kate!’ he called. “Kate, are you okay?”

Kate groaned and did not respond. She seemed totally out of it, in some different world. The only thing Kemp’s words seemed to do for her was to make her stand up, wobbly. She turned slightly and Kemp could see two rivulets of blood running down her forehead. She did not seem to see him. She opened her mouth and turned again.

“Rick?” she said. “Rick?”

Who was Rick? Kemp wondered. But then Kate started to walk away from the OTV, toward the triceratopses.

“Kate!” cried Kemp. “No! Don’t! Come back!”

“Rick?” cried Kate, clearly out of her head beneath the hot Illuminator. “Rick!”

She was walking directly toward the dazed triceratops.

And the triceratops grunted, its eyes focusing on the advancing woman.

“Kate!” Kemp cried. “Get away from it! Get away!”

The triceratops snorted. It pawed the ground. The other two looked up from their snacks.

Kemp fumbled for his rifle.

The dazed triceratops started running toward Kate Ennis, who did not seem to notice it at all.

It lowered its horns as it picked up speed.

“Kate!” cried Kemp helplessly. “Run! Get away!”

The pounding of the creature’s feet upon the ground finally caused a little awareness to come into Kate Ennis’s eyes. She looked up and Kemp saw that she could see the triceratops advancing upon her at a rapid clip. She screamed, and she turned to run ...

But she was too late.

The horn of the triceratops caught her squarely in the back, skewering her through, emerging from between her breasts red with her blood. The scream was ripped from her mouth as the triceratops tossed her up five yards in the air.

Her body hit the ground with a sickening
thwap.

The maddened dinosaur commenced to trample her until her body was an unrecognizable splatter of blood and flesh and bone upon the harsh ground.

It sniffed the remains of the woman, then moved off to nibble on something edible. The others, after looking up in dull interest, returned to their own feeding.

Kemp stared on with horror, holding the gun he had not had time to use, not able to believe the awful violence he had just witnessed, not able to accept his loss.

Kate, he thought. Oh God, Kate!

Emotion choked his chest, and he had to turn away to prevent burning tears from coursing down his cheek. He had cared for her, in a curious way, in a manner he had never cared for another woman ... She was so effervescent, so
alive ...
And now she was ... gone.

A groan from Becky Thalberg behind him returned him to the present reality, and his concern for her and his own instinct for survival turned him enough away from his grief that he was able to function.

“Becky,” he said, turning around and touching her. “Becky, you’re okay.”

He saw her eyes flicker on. “What happened?”

“We had an accident,” he said. “Kate ... Kate Ennis is dead.”

That brought her around. “Dead?”

“Don’t look. It’s not pleasant. The triceratops got her ... the one we swerved to avoid. We have to get out of here, Becky. Grab our supplies and get out. The base can’t be too far away, and we’ve got to reach it.”

Becky didn’t say anything. She seemed too intent on keeping herself conscious. Methodically she extricated herself from the back of the OTV while Kemp gathered their supplies. Carefully they got out of the OTV—wrecked beyond hope of use, Kemp noted—and took refuge from the triceratops behind it.

“Oh God,” Becky said finally, glimpsing the remains of Kate Ennis. “Phineas, this is just too much ... I ... I don’t think I can take it.”

“Shhh,’ whispered Kemp. “Not so loud. We don’t want to attract the same attention from those creatures that they gave to Kate. Now listen—this is what we’ve got to do.”

He pointed to the top of the large boulder, which was attached to a ridge leading around to the other side of an outcropping of rocks. “If we get up there, we’ll be able to sneak off without the big bastards noticing. Feel up to a quick run?”

Becky seemed to be having difficulty breathing. “I don’t know, Phineas. Something’s wrong.”

Kemp could see nothing physically wrong with her, and there seemed no sign of internal bleeding. From the way she was breathing, though, he could tell that her troubles were more psychological than physical. She was having what appeared to be a prime anxiety attack, and Kemp really couldn’t blame her. After all she’d been through before—stuck in the Great Mesozoic Outback again. But they couldn’t afford the time it would take for her to get better. They had to get away from these triceratopses.

“Dammit, Becky,” he said. “You did just fine with Coopersmith. Don’t I inspire you to survive?”

“You asshole,” said Becky, her eyes flashing. “I can do just fine, thank you!”

“There you go! That’s the spirit! Now climb those rocks and I’ll cover you!”

She swallowed hard, still angry. But she glanced up at the boulder, squinting in the light from the sky, and she nodded her head.

Kemp put a gun in her hand. “And when you get up there, you cover me, right?”

“I’ll think about it.”

She ran.

The triceratopses did not seem to notice at first.

But when Becky almost lost her footing, she dislodged a shower of rocks which rolled down, causing noise that seemed to be of avalanche proportion. She kept moving up the edge, and she pulled herself to the top of the boulder.

However, the triceratops that had killed Kate Ennis started with the slide of rocks, twisting its tank-like head around, tiny eyes red and dangerous.

“Oh shit,” said Kemp, raising his rifle.

The triceratops wasted no time as it saw the flash of movement behind the OTV, the splinter of light reflected from the metal of the rifle. It lowered its array of horns, snorted hard, and charged with a roar. Its tiny brain did not seem to be able to detach Kemp from the OTV. It headed for that first.

Kemp fired off a round, succeeding only in gouging off a chip of the creature’s bony crown. The ’tops struck the OTV, its bloody center horn piercing the cracked top bubble. With a shake of its sinewy head, the OTV was steam-shoveled out of the beast’s way.

The path was clear to Kemp.

Kemp aimed more carefully this time, firing directly into the triceratops’s eye. It exploded, and the creature honked and screamed with pain.

But after only a short pause, it kept on coming.

Kemp turned and started to run up the way that Becky had run. Peripherally he noted that she had reached the top of the boulder and was peering down on the drama below.

“Becky!” he screamed. “I said, cover me!”

Becky seemed to be still stunned, but she recovered quickly enough, shooting down at the triceratops.

It roared with pain.

Kemp knew that he’d need both hands to scrabble up the incline and he didn’t have time to sling his rifle around his shoulder. As much as he hated doing it, he had to: he hurled it behind him. The rifle struck the ’tops in its beak-like maw. Instinctively the thing grabbed it and snapped it in half with its mouth. Then it lunged up the slope toward Kemp.

The ground seemed to shake, and Kemp could swear he felt the creature’s breath at the back of his neck.

From somewhere Kemp called on hidden reserves, and somehow his feet kept their purchase as he scrambled up the hill.

Then, with a terrible roar of frustration, the triceratops lost its footing. One limb went out from the other and the thing tumbled down the incline to land in a great heap at the bottom, struggling to right itself.

Breathing harshly from the exertion, Kemp flopped over the edge of the ridge, then crawled up toward where Becky kneeled, just as exhausted as he.

They breathed in silence for a moment, relishing those breaths.

Then Kemp said, “Come on. Time to march. No time to lose, we’ve got to get back to the camp, dinosaurs or no dinosaurs.”

Becky Thalberg nodded grimly, too exhausted emotionally and physically to object.

They struck out for the base.

* * *

They marched for some time in silence.

After a short rest and two pulls from the canteen of water, however, once they were on their way again, they found that they were able to talk.

“I ... I just feel terrible about Kate, Phineas,” said Becky. “I know I was always very sarcastic about her, and on some levels I guess I was sort of jealous of her, But I did like her.” She paused for thought. “Well, I didn’t want her
dead.
I know you were fond of her.”

Kemp marched onward stolidly for a few moments, then answered. “We’ve none of us any kind of guarantee on life in this place, Becky. That could have been you back there, it could have been me. I really don’t think we have the luxury to feel grief ... We’re too close to our own coming to grief for that, I think.”

“Phineas, I’ve never heard you talk like that,” said Becky, wiping away a sheen of sweat from her forehead. “It’s not like you at all.”

“I guess you can take this kind of thing only so long as a Mr. Positive,” Kemp answered.

“You’re not feeling grief, then?”

“I think I’m too numb for that, Becky. Maybe you’d better ask me tomorrow. If there is a tomorrow.”

“You’re still marching hard, Phineas. You haven’t given up,” she said, looking out at the stretch of primeval field ahead of them. “I wouldn’t listen to yourself if I were you. I think you’d better just listen to the old Phineas Kemp. The one that nothing can stop when he gets a goal in mind.”

“Oh. You mean the asshole?” Kemp muttered cynically.

“Phineas, I’d rather have a lovable asshole around than a dead cynic.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you cared so much, Becky.”

“Oh, I do, Phineas. Now I want to thank you for snapping me out of it back there. I suppose it was a low method, but it worked.”

“Something beneath Mr. Coopersmith?”

“No. Ian would have done the same thing if it was necessary for survival. Apologies are much easier than burial prayers.”

“Well, then, I suppose I should apologize, shouldn’t I?” Kemp took a deep breath and looked out at the curving landscape ahead of them. “Ian Coopersmith was quite a man, Becky. Despite my obvious jealousy—which I admit to—I always respected the man. Perhaps even envied him. I’m sorry about all the things I’ve said against him. And I can certainly understand why you loved him—and love him even now, I suppose.”

Becky was taken aback by his words, Kemp could see.

Then her eyes hardened a bit. “Phineas. Is this a ploy?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re just getting into my good graces, aren’t you? This isn’t Colonel Phineas T. Kemp I’m listening to. It’s some other person.”

“You think I’m trying to make time with you? Get on your good side for romantic purposes?” Kemp shook his head with disbelief. “Woman, you’ve got a defense system to rival a battleship! I’m telling you the truth!”

She softened. “I’m sorry, Phineas. I guess ... well, I guess I have gotten defensive. Thanks for those words. I do appreciate them. I suppose I do still love Ian Coopersmith, yes. But Ian would tell me to keep on, to survive ... I can almost hear him now ...” She looked at Kemp in a funny way. “And to think, Phineas, here we are. Isn’t it ironic? Before, Ian and I were stranded out here. Now it’s you and I.”