Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [101]
The three men guarding the entrance nodded.
CHAPTER 56
65 million years BC, jungle
The wide-open plain was alive with the echoing calls of nocturnal life. Liam had assigned half of them to remain on watch and the other half to try their best to get some sleep, although he doubted anyone was managing that.
A fire was burning in the middle, not for the meagre light it provided, but for the effect it seemed to have on the creatures roaming around out there, keeping them all well away. It was bright enough anyway. The full moon seemed to illuminate the night enough that it felt little darker than an overcast winter’s afternoon in Cork.
‘That moon is actually bigger, right? Or am I going mad?’
Becks looked up at it. ‘Affirmative. It is approximately twenty per cent larger.’
Liam’s eyebrows shot up. ‘A larger moon? So what do you think happened to it? Did it sort of wear down over time or something?’
Whitmore looked at him oddly and tutted. And Becks … he wondered whether she’d just rolled her eyes at him or whether that was just a trick of the light. ‘Negative, Liam. It has not changed size.’
‘It’s just a little closer,’ said Whitmore.
‘Oh.’
Becks resumed her silent vigil, slowly panning her eyes across the plain, watching for the dark furtive shapes of the creatures moving beyond the dancing circle of their firelight.
‘What do you think of those things?’ asked Liam. ‘Are they really a species of super-smart dinosaur? That lad, Franklyn …’ He paused for a moment, realizing the ensuing panic-stricken retreat from the cove, over the jungle peak and down on to the beach hadn’t permitted him a single moment of reflection for the poor boy. He could only imagine what those creatures had done to him, if that carcass from nearly a fortnight ago was anything to go by.
The others were waiting for him to finish what he’d started saying.
‘Franklyn said all dinosaurs, even the smart ones, were pretty stupid.’
Whitmore sucked in a breath of warm night air. ‘Those hominids could well be a dead-end evolution, a branch-off species that maybe shares a common ancestor with troodon.’
‘Troodon?’
He nodded. ‘Palaeontologists commonly agree that the troodon was quite possibly the most intelligent species of dinosaur. Smarter even than their evolutionary cousins, the raptors. Very similar in appearance, both therapods … saurischian dinosaurs.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Bipedal … they walk on their hind legs. Like the T-rex does.’
Liam shook his head. ‘Those creatures didn’t look anything like any dinosaur I’ve seen, big or small. I mean … their heads?’
Whitmore nodded. ‘Like I say, some dead-end evolution. Perhaps if the K–T event never happened, the asteroid, or volcano or whatever it was, many more sub-species with similar long skulls might have evolved from them. Perhaps that’s why they’re so smart – a greater cranial capacity, a larger brain.’
‘The species exhibits high levels of intelligence,’ said Becks. Her neutral voice seemed to have adopted an ominous tone. ‘They appear capable of tactical planning. They appear to have a language. They do not, however, appear to have developed tool-use.’
‘Why not? If they’re so smart? Why don’t they use spears and bows and arrows?’
Becks had no answer. Whitmore shrugged. ‘Who knows? Perhaps they’ve never needed to use tools? Maybe nature already made them so lethal they’ve never needed tools? Or perhaps, because they only seem to have four digits and no thumbs, tool-using is just something they’re unlikely to ever do?’
‘But they’re smart enough?’ asked Liam. ‘Is that what you’re saying? If they had thumbs an’ all … they’d be smart enough to make a spear or a bow or something?’
Whitmore scratched his beard absently. ‘Who knows?’
On the far side of the campfire, Howard and Edward stood watch. The robo-girl had been standing with them for a while and then gone to rejoin her Irish friend and Whitmore. Howard decided now was quite possibly the best time he was going to have to say what he needed to say.
‘Edward?