Last of all, he composed the abstract:
Field observations reveal that major dinosaur groups in the late Maastrichtian communicated both intra– and interspecifically via infrasound. Communications between species are of particular note since they suggest cybernetic feedback loops operating within and helping to shape the ecosystem. Domestication and “ranching” behavior were observed. The advantages of this cooperative behavior to the predators are self-evident. Benefits to the prey species, though less obvious, are postulated to be equally compelling. It was a complex system working to the maximum benefit of all.
“I’m done,” he said.
Jamal applauded. “Well, let’s hear it!”
“No, I should give the first full reading to everyone. That’s only fair.”
Groans.
“You told us what you had yesterday,” Daljit pointed out.
“Yes, but yesterday we were nowhere near our destination. Today we’re—how far is it we have yet to go?”
The mapping satellite was low in the sky, but they were just able to get a location from it. Daljit and Jamal huddled briefly over the maps, argued, then concluded that they’d reach the confluence of the Eden and Styx rivers sometime in early afternoon.
“Well, that settles it. With any kind of luck, we should be home by nightfall. We can have the inquisition then, with everybody present.” Leyster stood. “My turn at the sweep, I think.
Within the hour, the bioregion along the river was looking familiar. The land opened up. The towering forests retreated to the far distance, and the rich soil was overgrown with shrubs, ferns, and cycads, dotted with the occasional copse of hardwoods.
They were back in the farmlands.
It was this very familiarity, perhaps, which made them overly confident. Leyster was holding the raft steady in the gentle currents of the Eden, staring alertly ahead for shallow water, when Daljit said, “Uh-oh.”
They had seen the triceratopses from a distance, studding the landscape like huge, placid cattle. It was only when they got close that the number of them registered, and they were able to see how restless the creatures were.
They were getting ready to ford the river.
Crossing water was not something that triceratopses did happily or often. They were afraid of the stuff, so they milled about, advancing and veering away, feinting at the river and then retreating from it, until they’d worked themselves up into such a frenzy of hysteria that they plunged into the river in a torrent of flesh, smashing anything unfortunate enough to be in their way.
Such as the raft.
“Maybe we’ll slip past them,” Jamal suggested quietly. Daljit put her hand over his mouth. When the brutes were in this state, they were easy to spook.
Silently the raft floated down past the herds. The river was straight here, and the current steady. It took the lightest of touches on the sweep to keep the raft on course.
It would have been bucolic, if it hadn’t been for the terror they all shared.
Ten minutes passed. Twenty. At last they could see the end of the herds. They were almost out of danger now.
There was a noise behind them.
Daljit sucked in her breath.
Turning, Leyster saw a white spume of water, as the first stream of triceratopses plunged into the river. Galvanized, the body of the herd streamed up the bank to follow. Below them, a second stream of bodies entered the river. A third.
At the very end of the herds, just parallel with the raft, a fourth stream of triceratopses hit the water.
“Oh, fuck,” Tamara said.
Briefly, there were horned dinosaurs all about them. Their massive bodies churned the water, rocking the raft. One of the brutes bumped against one side, making them all stagger. A second barely missed them on the left, brushing gently against the logs as it swam by. Then, because it was just the tag end of the herd and thus the smallest of the streams—two dozen, possibly three, of the beasts—it was over.
Except for one final triceratops.
The very last of the herd was too confused to veer away from them. It plunged straight ahead of itself, smashing into the raft and lifting one side up into the air.
The raft leaned, hesitated, and flipped over.
Everything was in flight. With what seemed to be excruciating slowness, Leyster saw their baskets and knapsacks, axes and smoked meat, tents, blankets, and cooking gear, all raining down into the water. Daljit had scrambled across the moving deck and launched herself into the river with a fast, flat dive. Tamara followed less surely, with her spear in one hand and a backpack in the other. Jamal went over in a tangle of limbs. Leyster saw him look astonished as his head struck the edge of the raft. He disappeared into the water.
“Jamal!” Leyster heard himself scream, and then he was in the water too.
Choking, he fought his way to the surface. There were logs everywhere, moving as if alive. Triceratopses splashed and surged, churning up the mud, and he discovered when his feet touched the bottom that the water was only chest-deep.
Jamal was nowhere to be seen.
He took a deep breath and plunged beneath the water again. He swam with his arms outstretched in the direction he thought he had last seen Jamal.
He kept his eyes open, but he saw nothing.
The water moved by slowly, and more slowly, and stopped. He burst through the surface again, gasping for air. His lungs burned and his chest ached. The river stretched to infinity to either side of him.
It was hopeless. There was not a chance in hell of finding Jamal in all this water.
One more time, he thought bleakly. One more dive, and I’ll know for sure he’s not going to be found.
He dove.
The brown water swam past him, as before. Then, abruptly, there was a darkness at its heart. His arms touched something soft, and at that same instant his face collided with Jamal’s body.
Jamal wasn’t moving.
He put his arms around the man’s chest and strove for the surface. Almost instantly, his feet touched bottom and his head was in the air.
Suddenly, miraculously, the body in his arms shuddered.
Water exploded from Jamal’s mouth, and he gasped for air. He began to struggle. Leyster found himself in danger of being fought down beneath the surface.
“You’re okay!” he shouted. “You’re fine! Just let me walk you to shore!”
Jamal twisted in his arms. “I’m what?”
“You’re okay!”
Jamal stopped moving. Then, with enormous effort, he said, “You’ve got one hell of a strange idea of okay.”
Laughing and gasping, they stumbled to the shore. Daljit appeared under Jamal’s other arm, and together they carried him in.
“I’m fine!” Jamal protested weakly. “I’m fine, really.”
Tamara appeared, carrying a wet pack. “I managed to save one.” She held up the pack, looking embarrassed and wild. “But the others are lost. I’m sorry.”
Leyster thought of all that had gone down to the bottom of the river: the two cell phones, both axes, all their shoes. So much of it was irreplaceable. But he couldn’t manage to feel the loss.
He still had one arm around Jamal’s shoulders. Now he lifted the other and Tamara, dropping the pack, slipped under it. They all four of them gathered together in one hug, then, teary and unashamedly sentimental. “We got off easy,” Leyster said. “We got off easy.”
So they had. He knew in that instant that he would have given every axe they had to keep Jamal alive.
And in that same instant, he mentally added to the abstract:
It is possible that by its very success, this cooperative behavior contributed to the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs at the K-T boundary.
19. Lazarus Taxon
Carnival Station: Mesozoic era. Jurassic period. Dogger epoch. Aalenian age. 177 My B.C.E.