Bishop nodded and turned to Knight. “I’m going to head back up and see what our friends are up to. Stay here and keep out of sight, no matter what happens.”
That sounded ominous to Felice. “What are you going to do?”
“We need to make them believe that we’re raptor food. I’m going to make sure that they do.”
43
Bishop climbed down to the ledge and made his way through the narrow passage back to the first cavern. As the glow from the gas fires diminished, he cracked a chemlight and kept going. The phosphorescent tube provided enough illumination to negotiate the winding tunnel, but it wasn’t much use in the open darkness of the cavern. He left the glow stick to mark the mouth of the passage, and continued on without any light at all, feeling his way along the wall.
After a few minutes, he spied an irregular circle of daylight, made small by the distance. The entrance. He paused, listening for signs of men creeping through the darkness or raptors lurking nearby. Unlike the movie monster version, these velociraptors did not seem to be hyper-intelligent pack hunters. Their earlier attack had probably been defensive rather than a predatory action. He didn’t doubt that they were deadly, though. Their long talons and sharp teeth were certainly capable of tearing a man to shreds, but he suspected that they would shy away from anything larger than themselves, unless they felt threatened.
Hearing nothing, he kept moving along the wall, until he could see silhouetted figures. There were four of them, and as he got a little closer, he could see that they were sweeping their rifles back and forth, ready to fire at the slightest sign of activity.
Time to stir things up, he thought. He took aim with his M240.
He let off a three-second long burst that felled one of the rebels and sent the others diving for cover. The survivors quickly returned fire, concentrating their shots on the area where they’d seen the muzzle flash. Bishop was already moving from that spot, but the incoming fusillade forced him to go prone and low crawl away from the wall.
More rebels joined the firing line at the cavern mouth, adding to the storm of lead. Bishop let fly with another volley, then rolled to the side and started squirming back toward the wall. There were at least ten shooters now, firing off sporadic shots and shouting back and forth to each other.
A pall of smoke hung in the air above the entrance. Bishop thought he could hear the hum of agitated raptors, but it was almost completely drowned out by the nearly constant sound of rifle fire echoing through the cavern. Rounds smacked into the nearby wall, spraying chips of stone down on him, but Bishop didn’t think the shooters knew where he was. When he reached the base of the wall, he began crawling back the way he’d come.
After about a minute, the incoming fire slacked off. Bishop looked back to see flashlight beams roaming the darkness. The rebels were coming in after him.
So far, so good.
He got up and skirted along the wall until he spied the chemlight marking the passage. Before going in, he looked back to check on the rebels’ progress. He couldn’t see the cave entrance or any of the men, but shafts of light were crisscrossing the darkness.
There was another burst of rifle fire, which told Bishop that the rebels had encountered the pack of stray velociraptors. The battle unfolded in an eruption of noise and light. Bishop heard shouts and screams over the tumult, then he heard something else. A rustling sound, like something crashing through tall grass.
Bishop felt a chilling premonition as the noise grew louder. His plan to lure the rebels into a battle with the velociraptors worked exactly as he’d planned, but he had made a serious miscalculation. The frightened dinosaurs were intent on escaping the mayhem, but they weren’t fleeing out into the jungle. Instead they were going to a place of familiar safety, what Felice had called their primary habitat. The stampede would take the raptors right through him.
This wasn’t the smartest thing I could’ve done, Felice thought as she stood motionless, just a few steps away from a lone velociraptor. The dinosaur seemed to be shivering, puffing up its plumage, as it vocalized with its weird hum.
In the recess at the top of the rock slide, David urged her to come back up, while Knight drew a bead on the raptor with his big rifle.
Why did I do this again?
As soon as Bishop had left, intent on scouting their route back to the surface, Felice had realized that she might not get another chance to acquire a sample of the soil from the cavern ecosystem. Without a word to the others, who would almost certainly have insisted she stay put, just as Bishop had instructed, she had hefted the pack over one shoulder and started down the natural staircase of fallen rocks. No sooner had she reached the cavern floor when a lone raptor darted over to determine whether she’d make a tasty morsel.
Maybe because they looked so much like birds, or perhaps because they had mostly kept their distance instead of relentlessly hunting them down, like the dinosaurs in movies, Felice had assumed that, as long as she didn’t surprise them, the creatures would leave her alone. She had been mostly right.
The raptor began thrusting its head at her, mouth open, displaying the long, sharp teeth that she’d only ever seen in the mouths of fossilized skeletons and computer-generated movie monsters — Spielberg had gotten that much right. The creature didn’t advance, but kept bobbing its head at her, making a soft hissing sound, as if scolding her.
No, she realized. He’s testing me. Trying to see if I’ll put up a fight, or turn and run. I wonder which one will get me eaten.
Before coming to Africa, Felice had read about how to deal with the local wildlife. Some animals would flee from displays of aggression, while others would attack. “Which kind are you, bird brain?”
Size, she recalled, was often a deciding factor.
Felice raised her hands over her head, trying to look as big and menacing as possible, and took a step forward. “Shoo!”
The raptor ran off squawking.
Felice stood there with her arms raised for a few seconds longer, afraid that if she moved, her bladder might let go. Finally, when her legs felt a little less rubbery, she started moving again.
“Felice,” Knight hissed. “Get back up here!”
She ignored him. The hardest part was already behind her. She wasn’t going to turn back now.
It was uncomfortably hot and humid on the floor of the cavern, and in a matter of just a few seconds, she was drenched in perspiration. Some analytical part of her brain connected the humidity to the ecosystem question. Water was a part of the organic metabolic process. The cave was like a gigantic greenhouse, constantly recycling water, air, nutrients and energy.
She headed for a spot where blue flames rose up from the cavern floor. There was a scorched circle about eight inches wide around the fire, but beyond that the vegetation appeared to be thriving. She pushed into the strange growth, vaguely aware of things slithering and crawling away from her footfalls. The air smelled of ozone, the invisible smoke from the burning alcohol, and it occurred to her that the atmosphere might not be safe to breathe.
Close enough.
Felice unslung the pack and took out a specimen tube. With one foot, she gently pushed away the overgrowth to reveal the soil beneath, loose and loamy, and wriggling with insects and fat worms. She would have liked to take a few live samples — compare the DNA of the creatures that had evolved in this environment with their modern counterparts. But she felt like she had already pushed the envelope a little too far. One test tube full of soil from this place would probably be enough to keep her busy for the rest of her natural life. She stuffed the sample into a Ziploc bag, and the bag into her backpack, then hurried back to the base of the slide. She did a quick check to make sure that there weren’t any raptors sneaking up on her, then scrambled up the slide to rejoin Knight and David.