66 million years ago
*
He had a new assignment, and it was a punishment. Maybe he'd been too indifferent during his last performance review. Or maybe he had made an enemy and not even realized.
The smugness in his supervisor's face soon gave way to annoyance as Christopher failed to show any sign of being bothered by his new assignment.
Inside, though, he didn't like it. Babysitting? It was beneath him.
“Her name is Anne-Sophie Fournier.” He mangled the French name to fit the dull pronunciation of the English language. “She's currently staying in the guest hostel.”
Christopher nodded. “So take her out, show her the sights, then bring her back?”
His Handler leaned forward across the desk, and for the first time Christopher felt an emotion; amusement, at this man's attempt to seem more imposing.
“I want you to keep this scientist out of trouble,” the man hissed at him. “Her organization claims to be after sound clips of lizard squawks or something. I don't believe it.”
The man jabbed a finger at him threateningly; Christopher knew his expression must have darkened, as this Handler looked anxious and then lowered his hand. “We made you her guide because we know you won't fuck up and let her see or record things she shouldn't. For God's sake, don't take her to Sector A.”
Christopher nodded. This was the kind of assignment any hunter would loathe; an indeterminate amount of time babysitting some tree-hugging fool. His superiors had to know that; they were simultaneously punishing him and relying on him. It was the kind of corporate insanity he had come to expect.
No carrot in one hand a crop in the other; they begged for extra work and punished you at the same time. And he would do it.
What the fuck else could he do?
Rising from his chair, he left in a daze, feeling whipped. He should have demanded a bonus, complained, wheedled his way out, like anyone else would have.
He knew why they picked him; he didn't sleep with just any woman who'd have him, he wasn't as boisterous and boastful as the other hunters. In other words, he wouldn't try to sleep with this woman and compromise his feelings in the situation, or let slip something he shouldn't.
Most likely he wouldn't talk much at all.
The woman was making quite the ruckus already in the center of the outpost; there were boxes and crates, and she and her compatriots in brand-new khaki outfits were flitting around like flies around a corpse.
Anne was the only woman; the others were scholarly bookworm types, or at least they seemed that way to him.
God, he wasn't going to have to escort them all, was he?
“I'm your guide,” he told the woman as a greeting. He didn't want to be friendlier than that.
She turned and sized him up immediately, the dislike evident on her face. Was she not even trying to hide it?
“You're a hunter,” she commented with contempt.
Christopher was unashamed. “Yes.” He wondered what gave it away; he wasn't even armed right now.
“I specifically requested a guide who wasn't a hunter.”
He shrugged. “Then you'd have an incompetent guide. The guides who aren't hunters take people out inside armored vehicles. They don't know what it's like on the ground.”
She pursed her lips and glared at him, torn between dislike and necessity. “I'm not pleased with this. I was told a Jacob Baccus would be available as a guide.”
He almost laughed. “Baccus was a drunk and a coward.”
Her eyebrows suggested quite a bit of skepticism. “Is he still available?”
“He's dead.”
Surprise and regret appeared on her face. It made him wonder what it was like to wear your heart on your sleeve like a normal person.
“How did he die?”
“Got drunk and gnawed up by some scavengers - mammals, actually. Died a few days later.” The man had deserved the fate for being so stupid.
Horror crossed her face, and he thought it must be at the way he died. She was simply horrified at his callousness.
“What's your name?” she asked him.
“Christopher Reed.”
Turning away from him, Anne looked back to her gear. “We'll be ready to go tomorrow morning.”
His eyes scanned over all the crates. “I hope to shit you're not planning on taking all that with us.”
“What? No! That's just for analysis when I return, and supplies for our base camp- for the people staying here.”
Christophers eyes went over the group of men with her. None of them looked like they could really take being out there. Neither did she, for that matter, but she still looked like she was tougher than the frail men here.
He grunted. “I'll see you in the morning.”
*
For once he wasn't looking down the site of a scope as he watched his target. It was the lens of a camera that Anne had given him. She wanted copious amounts of pictures, and as it seemed a reasonable request he was willing to oblige.
He wasn't entirely comfortable not having his gun in his hands, even if these were only a Troodon nest they were watching.
Seven feet long, but thin and light. One could easily kill a man, but they tended not to bother people unless they got too close to their nests. Just like he and Anne were.
If anything, they were merely pests; Troodons were often shot on sight for being a nuisance. They loved to get into trash bins, sometimes even into base camps and scavenge for food. Like raccoons, but in groups and much, much deadlier.
They had been stuck in their hide for the last two days. It was sweltering and awkward, with just enough room for one to turn around while the other took care of personal matters.
They were downwind; it was helpful, even being Scent Neutral.
For days they had spoken little, and only on matters on hand. At first, she seemed fine with this, but by the second day he could sense she was agitated about it. Most people didn't stay quiet for days at a time.
“What made you decide to become a hunter?” she asked quietly, feigning a casual air.
“All I know is how to shoot things,” he said. “They tell me I'm good at it.”
Her casual attitude broke down. “So you decided to come rape the past?”
He couldn't help but to chuckle. “Might want to remember who you're relying on here.”
“I'm quite aware,” she replied, barely reigning in her temper.
Christopher wasn't sure why, but he wanted to say something; it wasn't that he just liked killing these giant creatures.
“I . . . just wanted to escape my time,” he said.
“Why? Couldn't find enough to shoot in our time?” she shot back.
His face darkened as anger blossomed on it. He saw fear on her face as she realized she'd gone too far.
And just as fast his face went back to a forced calm.
Her fear turned to horror. “I'm sorry, I just . . . What-”
“Let's get back to business,” he interrupted.
Anne looked away, back to her little computer screen that controlled her myriad assortment of recording devices.
The silence in the hide was oppressive to him suddenly, and he cursed her mentally for breaking his calm.
“What's all this for? Recording noises?” All he could imagine was selling discs of “authentic” dinosaur noises to a future audience.
“Searching for clues,” she said vaguely.
There was another five solid minutes of quiet. “Clues to what?” he asked.
Anne glared at him. “Why do you want to know?”
“Curiosity.”
She scanned him again. “You're one of them. I'm afraid I can't tell you that, only that it is not illegal or against any of the rules or regulations that my organization agreed to before sending me back.”
He laughed, long and heartily, feeling true mirth and the release of the tension that had been filling the little shack for the last hour.
“I'll never be 'one of them,' he told her, wiping tears from his eyes. I don't give a shit what you want to do. Break every rule of theirs under my nose, I won't bat an eye. I'll do what it takes to keep this position, but I'll never - never - go out of my way to help them.”
He glanced at her recorder. “Go ahead and keep taping. I don't care if they hear it. They know I hate them - but they need me. And it doesn't matter what I let you get away with, because when we get back they're going to search every single bit of your stuff, even your clothes, even scanning you, to make sure you're not going to take back the slightest bit of evidence of the crimes they commit daily.”
He had dumbfounded her. For a time she didn't even seem to be able to think straight.
But she seemed to believe him. He could see an internal struggle in her eyes. On the one hand, whatever “secrets” she had could be blown open if he was lying. But on the other hand, she wanted to believe that people were Good, and to recruit another person to her side.
She clicked her recorder off.
“I'm going to be quite disappointed if this gets out,” she told him by way of useless preamble. “I'm not just recording sounds, I might be recording language.”
Anne could tell that what she had said had gone over the hunter's head.
With a sigh, she tried to explain again. “Humans are the only animals who have languages. Other animals have communication systems, but not language.”
“What's the difference?”
“Language is made up of sounds that have no meaning inherently and can be combined into an endless number of words. We can talk about things that happened in the past, haven't happened yet, or cannot even happen.”
She paused for a breath, and he could tell she was talking about something she felt passionate about.
“So language is so great. What's the point of learning if these dinosaurs have it?” He gestured outside. “Seems like trivia to me.”
“It would mean that they're sentient,” she stated. “If we can prove that these dinosaurs are sentient, then . . . Everything could change.”
He stared at her. It was the kind of idea that his superiors would never have thought of. But so what?
“I don't see how anything can change from it,” he said. “So what if they're sentient? We'll be ordered to kill them anyway.”
She shook her head, looking almost gleeful. “If they're sentient then we can raise hell. We can raise the ethical concern of hunting and exploiting another sapient species . . .”
“I agree they're smart, but they're still just animals,” Christopher interrupted.
“We're just animals.”
“And we're exploited as well,” he finished.
He could see the frustration on her face, and he felt it as well. He couldn't properly explain his point, he lacked the words. So what if they were sentient? People were often treated worse than animals. It seemed so insane that she was so concerned for these creatures when her own kind suffered worse horrors in their time. Endless war, insane food prices, poverty, disease . . . Things that people always said would be gone in the future certainly weren't. There were no Rights of Man, there were only Rights of Profit. If it wasn't profitable, then it was ignored.
She restarted her recording.
“I had thought you were a paleontologist,” he commented. It was a matter of public record what she did, so he didn't see any harm in it.
“I'm a linguist,” she said. “I've studied dozens of human languages. I almost became a paleontologist, though. I-”
The wind shifted, and everything changed.
The sounds from the Troodons ended. They were utterly silent and stock-still, except that their heads were pointed to the sky.
Anne looked confused; Christopher felt his hackles rise.
“What's going-” she began.
“Quiet,” he snapped in a fierce whisper. What the hell were they doing? He had only seen this kind of behaviour when-
As one, the Troodons turned to look at their hide. He could see their nostrils flaring.
“Anne. Tell me you're scent neutral,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“Are you scent neutral?!”
“I don't even know what that means!”
There was no way. No one left base camp without being scent neutral. It was against all regulations, and for the good of the whole base camp; it was a bad idea to lead things back there.
Which left him no thought except he was not intended to come back, at least not with his charge.
Putting down the camera, he reached for the shotgun at the same time the Troodons charged at the tree. They were making a new sound now, a horrendous shrieking that signalled an all-out attack.
They really didn't like things near their nests.
“Do you want to record the sounds of them dying?” he asked without bravado; he only meant it as a legitimate question.
“Wh-what?!” She was panicked.
“Turn off the recording he said, cocking the shotgun with a loud click-clack.
The Troodons were climbing the tree lightly and easily. Their large claws sunk into the wood and they hauled themselves up.
He took aim, and fired. A dozen of them were going to die, or he and Anne were going to die. Most likely they would.
Red in tooth and claw.
It was profitable that way.
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