He decided that before starting on the journey back he might as well relieve himself. He had stepped behind a tree before it occurred to him that right now, modesty was beside the point. He went ahead anyway, and was just lacing up his leather shorts when a curious rhythmic slapping began, somewhere beyond the far side of the tree.
About to step out of concealment, Cradle thought better of it and peered cautiously round the trunk instead.
Standing with its back to him, three or four yards away, was a dinosaur. It was bipedal and kept shifting from one hind leg to the other, stamping hard on the rock each time.
A troop of small bipedal dinosaurs roamed the plains around Lake Possible. They were herbivorous, and so timid Craile had never got close enough for a detailed view. This was not of the same species. For one thing they stood four feet high at the utmost stretch; whereas this one was leaning forward and even so its head was at least a foot higher than Craile’s. They were lean and birdlike; this one was stoutly built and looked three or four times as heavy. It had a thick triangular tail that slapped the rock in time with the stamping.
It was an article of faith among the colonists that no carnosaurs lived on Indication One. The island was simply not big enough to support a breeding population. If any had been caught there when the Tironian Sea surged into its present channel, they would have died out.
Ten minutes ago, he would have thought that a convincing argument.
Craile had looked at pictures of dinosaurs when he was seven years old, like most children, but they had mostly been of the large, dramatic kinds; Apatosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops and other giants. Obviously there must have been smaller species, but he had no idea how to tell which kinds were liable to eat you; especially when viewing them from the rear. He shrank back behind the tree and did his best to breathe softly.
The stamping was abruptly supplemented by a kind of hissing scream. Very cautiously Craile edged one eye out from behind the tree trunk and saw that the clearing had been invaded by a second dinosaur.
This one was approaching from the far side, and Craile saw it head-on. It was bending forward from the hips, backbone and tail almost horizontal, the shorter forelimbs dangling not far above the ground.
His first impression was of warts; dozens of huge, pointed ones, all over the snout. Double rows of flatter knobs arched eyebrow-like over each eye, and above them the head sloped upwards to a great bony dome with a fringe of the pointed warts around its base. The small pig-like eyes looked out sideways and gave the impression almost of being shy, among all these excrescences.
The new arrival took perhaps ten slow paces forward into the clearing and came to a halt, turning its head so that one eye was fixed on the first one.
That individual repeated its hissing scream and bent forwards slowly until its trunk also was almost parallel with the ground. It continued to stamp; but now each time it lowered the raised foot it was planted a few inches farther up the slope. Presently it had edged out of Craile’s line of sight. He moved cautiously to the other side of the tree trunk, only to find his view blocked by one of the whippy bushes. Slipping back to his former vantage point he saw that the second creature had straightened up and swiveled round to keep the first in view. A minute later it scuttled up the slope until it was once again on a level with the first; which was once more standing tall.
There followed a kind of slow-motion dance. The object seemed to be to occupy the higher ground, without letting this become obvious. It was also necessary, apparently, to keep a certain distance—the minimum seemed to be thirty yards—between the participants. Maneuvering was complicated by the unevenness of the ground, which near the cliff was split into a jumble of blocks, and by the tendency when in motion to lose sight of the opponent. The latter was thus able to sneak a few steps closer, so that when the other, having arrived at a position higher up the slope, turned, it found itself off-side and had to withdraw.
This, at least, was Craile’s interpretation. It was not until the fascination began to wear off that he noticed the third dinosaur. It was lying quietly on its belly at the lower edge of the clearing and its green and brown mottling blended well with the clump of whiplike bushes immediately behind. The crown of its head was less domed than that of the other two. He concluded that it was probably a female and the peculiar contest in the clearing was designed to win its favor, though he couldn’t see how.
At that point one of the males—they had shuffled positions so often that he was not sure which—uttered a brief but loud croak and once again lowered its trunk until it was almost parallel with the ground; the domed top of its head directed towards its adversary.
Boneheads. The name floated into Craile’s mind, from what source he did not remember. Smallish—for dinosaurs—bipedal herbivores whose skulls were thickened on top by up to ten inches of said bone. The only explanation that paleontologists had come up with—
The second male also screamed and lowered itself into the battering-ram position; and on a count of three, they charged.
The sound as their heads collided was not particularly loud, but remarkably suggestive; a one-note tone poem to the mindless cruelties of the sexual arms race. Craile’s hands moved involuntarily to his temples.
The two boneheads rebounded from one another; then drew back, step by step, until they once again had room to get up speed. After which, without further ceremony, they charged again.
The paleontologists had got it right. The weird battle crisscrossed the clearing. The high ground—and thus the advantage in momentum—was more or less regularly swapped. The female lay still and made no sound, but her head pointed sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another; Craile had the impression that she was keeping a pretty sharp eye on successive impacts.
After a while the combatants seemed to have given up bothering about the slope and were charging one another more or less on the same level. Then in mid-career the one with its back to Craile stamped one foot onto the remains of the fire. Evidently the insulation of ash above and rock below had kept in a good deal of heat. The bonehead gave vent to a screech unlike any sound it had made before, and leaped sideways. The other came on at full speed, evidently unable to pull up, and Craile realized with sudden horror that it was headed straight for his tree.
He backed away at top speed.
Around the fifth or sixth step his foot came down on air instead of rock. After a brief, windmilling imbalance he found himself flat on his back in half an inch of water, over an unknown depth of mud. Before he had really taken this in, there came a thud, followed by creaking; the top of the cy-cad swayed into his line of vision, fronds swishing gently upwards, and came down on top of him.
The trunk fell to one side, but the mass of stiffened fronds pressed him down into the mud and inspired Craile with the urge to get out from under at any cost. He grappled and thrashed his way through them and got his head above the foliage, and a grip on the end of the tree trunk-only to find himself face to face with the dinosaur.
It was lying belly down along the cycad’s trunk. What actually met Craile’s eyes was the snout with its crowd of spiky knobs. Whether the sideways-facing eyes saw him he was not sure. They appeared to be open, but the creature did not react to his popping up in what might, or might not, be its field of view. Perhaps it was stunned. He had no idea whether the brains of reptiles were susceptible to that.