Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [72]
Whitmore shrugged and half-nodded. ‘It’s possible.’
Howard laughed. ‘No, it’s not. We’ll eventually die out here.’ He looked around at them. ‘There are six females in the group.’ He looked at Becks. ‘Not counting you. I’m not really sure what you are.’
‘I am incapable of sexual reproduction,’ she replied flatly.
‘Six fertile females,’ continued Howard. ‘We might be able to make a few babies, but there are too few of us to sustain ourselves. If disease doesn’t get us, or some hungry carnivore, then in-breeding would eventually.’ He managed a wistful smile. ‘We’ll die out soon enough … months, years, decades maybe … but it’ll happen and history won’t be changed by us having been here. Maybe we shouldn’t do this. Maybe we should accept we’re stuck here and –’
‘You can forget that!’ said Laura. ‘I want to go home!’
Kelly nodded. ‘I think we all want that, right?’
Heads nodded around the fire.
Liam sat forward, held his hands out towards the fire and rubbed them. ‘We’re doing the message, Leonard. We have to. Now I’ve just got to figure out something that only we … and they know.’
‘How big is your agency?’ asked Laura.
Liam smiled and replied hesitantly. ‘Oh, you know, it’s big. Lots of us, so there are.’
‘You know them well?’
‘Sure, we’re all pretty close.’
‘Friends?’
‘Yes, I’d like to think we’re –’
‘Then maybe there’s something like a song, or a film or something? You know? Something like that you could use as a common reference point for –’
Liam suddenly felt his hand being crushed by a vice-like grip. He looked down and saw Becks was holding it, and squeezing it.
‘Ow! Becks, you’re hurting me,’ he hissed. ‘What’s the matter?’
She let go and looked at him, her eyes widened with a mixture of surprise, and perhaps even elation. ‘I have had an idea, Liam O’Connor.’
CHAPTER 39
65 million years BC, jungle
From the darkness they watched them. Beyond the illumination of the dancing yellow flower in the middle. Broken Claw had seen this fascinating dancing creature only once before, after a storm. When a stab of light from the sky had come down and touched the long dead trunk of a tree. The yellow flower had engulfed it, consumed it, producing such unbearable heat as it did so. He’d been young then. And ever since then the yellow flower had been an occasional monster in his dreams, chasing him, reaching out for him, wanting so much to consume him.
And now here it was, tamed like some sort of a pet by these new creatures. They were gathered around it, unafraid of it, every now and then casually throwing a branch on to it and not even flinching as the creature reared up angrily, sending tendrils of light up into the dark sky.
He looked around at his pack, cowering further back down the slope, clearly unhappy at being out of the jungle and here in the open. This was not their terrain, this was not where they were strong. Open ground made them visible, it made them vulnerable. Larger predators existed in the open; large, lumbering and stupid predators like the tall upright one with tiny front claws, enormous jaws, powerful rear legs and a strong sweeping tail. His pack called it Many-Teeth.
Out in the open Many-Teeth could quite easily kill them all. After all, Broken Claw’s kind were small, fragile things compared to this powerful mountain of muscle and energy. But between them his family pack had killed quite a few in his living memory. And always in the same way: luring them into the jungle with the tempting cry of one of their young. A pitiful cry that perfectly replicated that of a young helpless plant-eater, a cry that signalled fear and proved an irresistible taunt to one of those large stupid beasts. Once among the densely packed trees, unable to sweep its tail easily, unable to turn quickly, the pack was always able to leap upon the various