The War-Torn Hills of Earth / Flashback/The Dinosaur Apocalypse: The Final Trilogy of Stories Bd.3 (ePub)

The gold fog rolled and so did the water, foaming and frothing, revealing first the photonics mast and communications antennas, then The Sarpedon's black, sea-slicked sail and forward fins, then its great, dark, parabolic bow-which breached the surface at an angle, like the plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs swimming alongside-until, still steaming forward, the ship was fully surfaced and its aft fins visible; at which three people-two men and a small woman with a bob haircut-appeared in the sail.



"Jesus," gasped Puckett, the engineering chief, as he looked at the beasts, which filled the water for as far as the eye could see (which nonetheless wasn't very far, due to the fog). "If I hadn't seen it myself, I wouldn't have believed it. The sonar doesn't lie."



Captain O'Neil was more circumspect. "But why, goddammit. That's what I want to know. I've certainly never seen them migrate en masse like this-like Hammerhead sharks. What's the reason?"



Both of them had to shout over the crash and commotion of the waves.



Pang signed excitedly at them as the wind chopped her hair.



"What's she saying?"



Puckett, who'd been working with her, paraphrased: "She's saying, 'What if they were called too-only in a different way?'" He watched as she continued to sign. "'Or-considering the dream used sound and imagery instead of words-the exact same way?'"



O'Neil looked at the marine animals as they lept and dove and swam powerfully alongside. Aye, but for a different reason, he thought.



"Ho!" cried Chief Puckett suddenly. "The Santa Monica Pier!"



O'Neil peered into the fog and saw the tiny silhouette of a Ferris wheel emerging from the gloom, then unhooked his mic. "Half ahead, revolutions 500-and mind the beasties." He looked at Pang. "Yes, I'm going to send a team ashore. And no, you're not-"



And that's when it happened: that's when the pterodactyl flapped down like an oyster-white threshing machine and snatched her up by the shoulders-began rising ...