The Parasaurians by Robert Wells

Author:Robert Wells [Wells, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Sci-Fi
Publisher: Berkley Medallion
Published: 1969-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

They crossed into Eastern Five Reservation that afternoon after a leisurely journey.

Just before a halt was made for the night Fletcher sighted his second parasaurian. Kit was quick to point out a third and fourth, and Sternius indicated another which was a little separated from the main group.

They were all of the same species and were moving very ponderously along the fringe of the jungle about two kilometers distant. To Fletcher, looking at them through field glasses, they resembled giant rhinoceros. They had the same heavy, rounded body, single horn, thick, warty hide and massive legs. The main difference between them and their descendants was a broad, grotesque neck-frill of bone or hide.

Fletcher could not recognize the species, but Sternius stopped the truck, took his glasses and identified it as Monoclonius.

The light had already been, failing when they were sighted. Shortly afterward the brief twilight sank into dark and there was no opportunity to pursue them.

"I think I shall be able to offer you your first serious shots at a target tomorrow," Sternius said over supper. "You know the paras operate on solar batteries so they tend to slow right down and halt at night. The Monoclonii are often about here. We shall probably find tomorrow that they haven't moved very far away."

Fletcher, if no one else, noted with amusement that the hunter seemed much less agitated by the proximity of these paras than he had over the appearance of the Tyrannosaurus yesterday.

Several possible explanations suggested themselves. The 111

discovery of the Tyro off reservation was one; its rather macabre slaughter of the lion another. After so long in contact with these strange creatures a degree of indifference to them seemed the logical reaction—the attitude Sternius now displayed in the presence of Monoclonius.

Yet indifference had certainly been furthest from his reaction to the Tyro. Maybe the startling experience he had had in the past with the one of this genre that had gone wrong was a cause. On the other hand, Sternius might only have been upset by his suspicions over Kit, the temple and the film. And these—if Kit was right—must now be allayed by bis fruitless search of her equipment.

Daybreak brought confirmation of Sternius's prediction. The Monoclonii had moved a little further southeast, but were still clearly within hunting distance.

Fletcher was up just before sunrise to discover his own eagerness paralleled in Kit and the doctor. While Sternius made breakfast they all selected vantage points and tracked the paras through their field glasses, calling out to one another in hushed, excited voices, although the range must have been far too great for the beasts' auditory senses to receive any stimulus.

Fletcher had climbed into the graying skeleton of a tree, long smitten to death by some natural disaster, disease at the root or perhaps a blast of lightning. From it he could see that the reservation consisted of a series of high plateaux separated from each other by broad valleys choked with the lush riot of the jungle. In the

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