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Mary A
At the head table, Zack paused in his comments to take a drink. It seemed to brace him. Cadma
"This is our best reconstruction," he concluded, rather apologetically. "Sylvia extrapolated this from the spread and depth of the bite marks. We have an eighteen-centimeter jaw base, and a roughly wedge-shaped head. It looks like something sired upon a rattlesnake by a bear." Nobody laughed. "Um... massively strong jawbones and corresponding muscles.
"We can't be sure how much such an animal would weigh. Certainly enough to destroy any credibility the tracks by the chicken cages might have had." He peered out into the audience. "I'm afraid that that incident was a particularly unfu
Gregory Clifton handed a drowsy April to his wife, Alicia, and stood. "Zack, let's cut the crap. I worked on the computer map. Half the Colony saw the information as it was coming in. There isn't an adult here who can't interpret the technical data for himself. How about opening up the floor?"
The applause shook the room.
Zack shrugged, spreading his hands. "All right, Gregory—what's your idea?"
"We know about the pterodons. None of them get too large. But maybe there's another species of flying carnivore. Something the size of—oh, crap, let's say a California condor..."
There was a quick spate of derisive laughter. Jon Van Don yelled, "What the hell, why not a roc, Greg?"
Barney Carr-brayed with laughter. "Watch out for flying elephants!"
"Wing span-to-weight ratio, Greg," Stu called. "It would have to be huge to lift a calf. Much larger than a ground carnivore capable of bringing down the same size prey. And how would it evade the Skeeters?"
Greg held up his hand. "Hear me out. It wouldn't need to fly away with the calf. It could fly in, and then drag a heavy victim to a safe place.
And maybe it nests up in Mucking Great Mountain—"
There was a shout from the back of the auditorium, and Andy Washington, the big black man from the engineering crew, stood. He was fighting a losing battle with an evil grin. "I say our mistake is thinking it had to be big. Maybe it's not an it. Maybe it's a them, like a herd of Marabunta army mice—"
"Something like a glassfish," Jean Patterson added. "A super-chameleon—"
"It has to be coldblooded, to evade the infrared—"
"The hell it does! There're hot springs everywhere you look!" The opinions were flying too thick to stop now, and Zack sat back, pleased and relieved by the healthly creative energy being released.
La Do
"I think we're listening to one—Ow!" There was the sound of an affectionately brisk slap as she whacked her fiance, Elliot, and the room quieted for a moment.
"I mean like a mole, or like ants or termites. This entire area could be riddled with tu
Andy whipped out a pad of paper and started making notes to himself.
Zack Moscowitz took the opportunity to grasp control again. "A good suggestion. La Do
He touched a switch, and the grotesque skull disappeared from the wall. He chuckled darkly. "I know that some of you don't even believe in this thing. There is... one possibility that Rachel suggested to me. As camp psychologist she felt it was time we discussed it openly."
He took another sip from the thermos, then plunged ahead, dead serious now. "We all know about Hibernation Instability. It's no joke to any of us. Personally, I've noticed that I don't parse as well as I once did. That I need a calculator for operations that I used to do in my head. And I wonder: is that just age? Or could it be those little ice crystals that weren't supposed to form?
"We've had major memory losses, impairment of motor skills, mood swings and clinical personality disorders—all of which we've been able to handle by juggling work duty and schedules. A few cases have required chemical stabilization."
The muttering in the room had quieted. They were ahead of him, and heads nodded in anticipatory agreement.
"Maybe things have been too placid here. The crops are thriving, we've had no deaths—hell, no real injuries—"
Cadma
Ernst walked right of the cliff and broke his ankle his first week down.
"Just maybe there are those among us who feel that it's been too easy, and perhaps for our own good want to—" His fingers fluttered as he fought for the right words—"want to keep our guard up, our spines stiff, by creating a bogeyman. A harmless joke, perhaps, except that the loss of the dog, the chickens and now the calves suggests a rather disturbing trend.
"I won't suggest that this is what has happened. But I would be remiss to exclude the possibility from this discussion. So... if anyone has anything to talk about, please..."
He looked out over the audience, which was dead silent. Zack gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles pale. He moistened his lips nervously. Alicia's baby started to cry, and she blithely offered it a nipple.
Zack cleared his throat uncomfortably. "No one has anything to say? Carlos?"
Their carpenter/historian shook his head. He peered at his fingernails, inspecting them in the dark. "Not me, amigo. I uh... I heard that the tracks by the chicken cage might have been a prank. We all heard Cadma
There was silence for another long moment, then Cadma
There was a murmur of approval, and Cadma
Terry stood up, brows furrowed petulantly. "We're using standard procedures, Weyland. In fact, our patrols are heavier than the situation really warrants. We're taking people away from other projects."
"I agree, Terry. So let's not take them away for an indefinite period. I say an aggressive defense could handle this situation in a week."
"Aggressive defense?" Terry asked, arched eyebrow and tightly pressed lips punctuating the words with sarcasm.
"We don't wait around for this thing to find a hole in our defenses. We set traps. We hunt it down. This is our world. We're masters of this island, damn it, and I for one don't have much stomach for just hiding behind a fence."
"And we can guess who'd like to play Great White Hunter." Terry turned to look at Zack, but he was still talking to Cadma