Anne McCaffrey - Dinosaur Planet

“Those creatures are alive on this planet?”

“Very much so. Do you have this Tyrannosaurus rex on your data disc?”

Almost reluctantly, and with a finger that noticeably trembled, Trizein tapped out a sequence for his own disc. 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 colouration.

“The force screen,” said Trizein, “is it strong enough to keep it outside?”

Varian nodded. It should be. Furthermore, there aren't any of this kind within a comfortable ten to fifteen kilometres 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 millenniums 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 alive 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've 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 now. Surely this isn't all you have?”

Grateful for any legitimate excuse to delay the unpleasant, Varian gestured Trizein to be seated on something more comfortable than a bench and tapped out a sequence for her survey tapes, compiled when she and Terilla were doing the charts.

“It is patently obvious,” said the chemist, when he had seen all the species she had so far taped and tagged, “that someone has played a joke. Not necessarily on me, on you, or us,” he added, glancing about from under his heavy brows. “Those animals were planted here.”

Bonnard gargled an exclamation, not as controlled in his reaction to that phrase as Lunzie or Varian.

“Planted?” Varian managed a wealth of amused disbelief in that laughed word.

“Well, certainly they didn't spring up in an independent evolution, my dear Varian. They must have been brought here . . . .”

“Fang-face, and herbivores and the golden fliers? Oh, Trizein, it isn't possible. Besides which the difference in pigmentation indicates that they evolved here . . .”

“Oh yes, but they started on Earth. I don't consider camouflage or pigmentation a real deterrent to my theory. All you'd need is one common ancestor. Climate, food, terrain would all bring about specialization over the millenniums and the variety of types would evolve. (The big herbivores, for instance, undoubtedly developed from Struthiomirnus but so did Tyrannosaurus and, quite possibly, your Pteranodon.) The possibilities are infinite from one mutual ancestor. Look at humans, for instance, in our infinite variations.”

“I'll grant it's possible, Trizein, but why? Who would do such a crazy thing? For what purpose? Why perpetuate such monstrosities as fang-face? I could see the golden fliers . . .”

“My dear, variety is essential in an ecological balance. And the dinosaurs were marvellous creatures. They ruled old Earth for more millenniums than we poor badly engineered homo sapiens have existed as a species. Who knows why they faded? What catastrophe occurred . . . More than likely a radical change in temperature following a magnetic shift – That's my theory at any rate, and I'll support it with the evidence we've found here. Oh, I do think this is a splendid development. A planet that has remained in the Mesozoic condition for untold millions of years, and is likely to remain so for unknown millenniums longer. The thermal core, of course, is the factor that . . .”

“Who, Trizein, rescued the dinosaurs from Earth and put them here to continue in all their savage splendour?” asked Varian.

“The Others?”

Bonnard gasped.

“Trizein, you're teasing. The Others destroy life, not save it.” Varian spoke sternly.

Trizein looked unremorseful. “Everyone is entitled to a bit of a joke. The Theks planted them, of course.”

“Have the Theks planted us, too?” asked Bonnard, scared.

“Good heavens!” Trizein stared at Bonnard, his expression turning from surprise at the idea to delight. “Do you really think we might be, Varian? When I consider all the investigatory work I must do . . .”

Lunzie and Varian exchanged shocked glances. Trizein would welcome such a development.

“To prove my conclusions of warm-bloodedness. I wonder, Varian, you didn't show me any true saurians, that is to say, any cold-blooded species because if they did develop here as well, as a specialization, of course, it would substantially improve my hypothesis. This world appears to remain consistently hotter than old Earth . . . Well, Varian, what's the matter?”

“We're not planted, Trizein.”

Daunted and disappointed, he looked next to Lunzie who also shook her head.

“Oh, what a pity.” He was so dejected that Varian, despite the seriousness of the moment, had difficulty suppressing her amusement. “Well, I serve you all fair warning that I do not intend to keep my nose to the data disc and terminal keyboard any more. I shall take time off to investigate my theory. Why didn't anyone think to show me a frame of the animals whose flesh I've been analyzing so often? The time I've wasted . . .”

“Analyzing animal tissues?” Lunzie spoke first, her eyes catching Varian's in alarm.

“Quite. None of them were toxic, a conclusion now confirmed by our mutual planet of origin. I told Paskutti that so you don't need to be so particular about personal force-screens when in close contact. Where are you keeping the other specimens? Nearby?”