«I see,» said Eckels. «Then it wouldn't pay for us even to touch the grass?»
«Correct. Crushing certain plants could add up infinitesimally. A little error here would multiply in sixty million years, all out of proportion. Of course maybe our theory is wrong. Maybe Time can't be changed by us. Or maybe it can be changed only in little subtle ways. A dead mouse here makes an insect imbalance there, a population disproportion later, a bad harvest further on, a depression, mass starvation, and finally, a change in social temperament in far-flung countries. Something much more subtle, like that. Perhaps only a soft breath, a whisper, a hair, pollen on the air, such a slight, slight change that unless you looked close you wouldn't see it. Who knows? Who really can say he knows? We don't know. We're guessing. But until we do know for certain whether our messing around in Time can make a big roar or a little rustle in history, we're being careful. This Machine, this Path, your clothing and bodies, were sterilized, as you know, before the journey. We wear these oxygen helmets so we can't introduce our bacteria into an ancient atmosphere.»
«How do we know which animals to shoot?»
«They're marked with red paint,» said Travis. «Today, before our journey, we sent Lesperance here back with the Machine. He came to this particular era and followed certain animals.»
«Studying them?»
«Right,» said Lesperance. «I track them through their entire existence, noting which of them lives longest. Very few. How many times they mate. Not often. Life's short, When I find one that's going to die when a tree falls on him, or one that drowns in a tar pit, I note the exact hour, minute, and second. I shoot a paint bomb. It leaves a red patch on his side. We can't miss it. Then I correlate our arrival in the Past so that we meet the Monster not more than two minutes before he would have died anyway. This way, we kill only animals with no future, that are never going to mate again. You see how careful we are?»
«But if you come back this morning in Time,» said Eckels eagerly, «you must've bumped into us, our Safari! How did it turn out? Was it successful? Did all of us get through-alive?»
Travis and Lesperance gave each other a look.
«That'd be a paradox,» said the latter. «Time doesn't permit that sort of mess-a man meeting himself. When such occasions threaten, Time steps aside. Like an airplane hitting an air pocket. You felt the Machine jump just before we stopped? That was us passing ourselves on the way back to the Future. We saw nothing. There's no way of telling if this expedition was a success, if we got our monster, or whether all of us — meaning you, Mr. Eckels — got out alive.»
Eckels smiled palely.
«Cut that,» said Travis sharply. «Everyone on his feet!»
They were ready to leave the Machine.
The jungle was high and the jungle was broad and the jungle was the entire world forever and forever. Sounds like music and sounds like flying tents filled the sky, and those were pterodactyls soaring with cavernous gray wings, gigantic bats of delirium and night fever.
Eckels, balanced on the narrow Path, aimed his rifle playfully.
«Stop that!» said Travis. «Don't even aim for fun, blast you! If your guns should go off ―»
Eckels flushed. «Where's our Tyrannosaurus?»
Lesperance checked his wristwatch. «Up ahead, We'll bisect his trail in sixty seconds. Look for the red paint! Don't shoot till we give the word. Stay on the Path. Stay on the Path!»
They moved forward in the wind of morning.
«Strange,» murmured Eckels. «Up ahead, sixty million years, Election Day over. Keith made President. Everyone celebrating. And here we are, a million years lost, and they don't exist. The things we worried about for months, a lifetime, not even born or thought of yet.»
«Safety catches off, everyone!» ordered Travis. «You, first shot, Eckels. Second, Billings, Third, Kramer.»
«I've hunted tiger, wild boar, buffalo, elephant, but now, this is it,» said Eckels. «I'm shaking like a kid.»
«Ah,» said Travis.
Everyone stopped.
Travis raised his hand. «Ahead,» he whispered. «In the mist. There he is. There's His Royal Majesty now.»
The jungle was wide and full of twitterings, rustlings, murmurs, and sighs.
Suddenly it all ceased, as if someone had shut a door.
Silence.
A sound of thunder.
Out of the mist, one hundred yards away, came Tyrannosaurus Rex.
«It,» whispered Eckels. «It……»
«Sh!»
It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker's claws close to its oily reptilian chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior. Each thigh was a ton of meat, ivory, and steel mesh. And from the great breathing cage of the upper body those two delicate arms dangled out front, arms with hands which might pick up and examine men like toys, while the snake neck coiled. And the head itself, a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon the sky. Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, ostrich eggs, empty of all expression save hunger. It closed its mouth in a death grin. It ran, its pelvic bones crushing aside trees and bushes, its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving prints six inches deep wherever it settled its weight.
It ran with a gliding ballet step, far too poised and balanced for its ten tons. It moved into a sunlit area warily, its beautifully reptilian hands feeling the air.
«Why, why,» Eckels twitched his mouth. «It could reach up and grab the moon.»
«Sh!» Travis jerked angrily. «He hasn't seen us yet.»
«It can't be killed,» Eckels pronounced this verdict quietly, as if there could be no argument. He had weighed the evidence and this was his considered opinion. The rifle in his hands seemed a cap gun. «We were fools to come. This is impossible.»
«Shut up!» hissed Travis.
«Nightmare.»
«Turn around,» commanded Travis. «Walk quietly to the Machine. We'll remit half your fee.»
«I didn't realize it would be this big,» said Eckels. «I miscalculated, that's all. And now I want out.»
«It sees us!»
«There's the red paint on its chest!»
The Tyrant Lizard raised itself. Its armored flesh glittered like a thousand green coins. The coins, crusted with slime, steamed. In the slime, tiny insects wriggled, so that the entire body seemed to twitch and undulate, even while the monster itself did not move. It exhaled. The stink of raw flesh blew down the wilderness.
«Get me out of here,» said Eckels. «It was never like this before. I was always sure I'd come through alive. I had good guides, good safaris, and safety. This time, I figured wrong. I've met my match and admit it. This is too much for me to get hold of.»
«Don't run,» said Lesperance. «Turn around. Hide in the Machine.»