The Mystery of Ireta_ Dinosaur Planet & Dinosaur Planet Survivors - Anne McCaffrey [69]
“That is no joke,” said Lunzie, nodding solemnly.
Trizein stared at her, his eyes protruding from his skull as his jaw dropped. He glanced back at the predatory countenance of the tyrant lizard, a name which Varian thought extremely well suited to its bearer.
“Those creatures are alive on this planet?”
“Very much so. Do you have this Tyrannosaurus rex on your data disk?”
Almost reluctantly, and with a finger that noticeably trembled, Trizein tapped out a sequence for his own disk. The mild features and small body of hyracotherium was replaced by the upright haughty and dangerous form of fang-face’s prototype. Again there was a difference in coloration.
“The force-screen,” said Trizein, “is it strong enough to keep it outside?”
Varian nodded. “It should be. Furthermore, there aren’t any of his kind within a comfortable ten to fifteen kilometers of us. When we moved in, they moved out. They have other, more docile game than us.” The shudder that rippled down her spine was not for fear of Tyrannosaurus rex.
“You’re sure it will keep its distance?” asked Trizein, concerned. “That creature ruled its millennia on old Earth. Why, he was supreme. Nothing could defeat him.”
Varian recalled all too vividly a tree-branch of a spear inextricably lodged in a tyrant lizard’s rib cage.
“He doesn’t like sleds, Trizein,” said Bonnard, not noticing her silence. “He runs from them.”
The chemist regarded the boy with considerable skepticism.
“He does,” Bonnard repeated. “I’ve seen him. Only today . . .” Then he caught Varian’s repressive glance but Trizein hadn’t noticed.
The man sank slowly to the nearest lab bench.
“Varian might tease me, and so might the boy, but Lunzie . . .”
It was as if Trizein, too, wished to hear a negative that would reassure him, restore matters to a previous comfortable balance. Lunzie, shaking her head, confirmed that the creatures did exist, and others of considerable size and variety.
“Stegosaurus, too? And the thunder lizard, the original dinosaur? And . . .” Trizein was torn between perturbation and eager excitement at the thought of seeing live creatures he had long considered extinct. “Why was I never told about them? I should have been told! It’s my specialty, my hobby, prehistorical life forms.” Now Trizein sounded plaintive and accusatory.
“Believe me, my friend, it was not a conscious omission,” said Lunzie, patting his hand.
“I’m the true xenob, Trizein,” said Varian in apology. “It never occurred to me that these weren’t unique specimens. I’d only started considering that an anomaly must exist when you analyzed the fringe types and found them to be on such a different cellular level. That and the grasses!”
“The grasses? The grasses! And tissue slides and blood plates, and all the time,” now outrage stirred Trizein to his feet, “all the time these fantastic creatures are right . . . right outside the force-screen. It’s too much! Too much, and no one would tell me!”
“You were outside the compound, Trizein, oh, you who look and do not see,” said Lunzie.
“If you hadn’t kept me so busy with work, each of you saying it was vital and important, and had top priority. Never have I had to deal so single-handedly with so many top priorities, animal, vegetable and mineral. How I’ve kept going . . .”
“Truly, we’re sorry, Trizein. More than you know. I wish I had pried you out of the lab much earlier,” said Varian so emphatically that Trizein was mollified. “On more counts than identifying the beasts.”
Nevertheless, would that knowledge and identification have kept the heavy-worlders from their bestial game? Would it matter in the final outcome, Varian wondered.
“Well, well, make up for your omissions