"You look unchewed," said Rick.
"Unchewed, but unnerved. I'm a broken man!" wailed Joe in mock anguish. "A broken man!"
"So that's Green's plan," said Con, still laughing. "To have Rick feed me to the dinosaurs."
"Mr. Green doesn't have a plan," said Joe abruptly. Then he cracked a smile, and said breezily, "Except for you to have a good time."
Soon they were flying above the cypress swamps of the low-lying coasts, and Con and Rick were intently peering at the scenery. Once they spotted a fifty-foot crocodile, a Deinosuchus, walking along the riverbank. They circled back around four times to view it before it disappeared into the river. As they headed upland, and the land became firmer, they saw their first dinosaurs of the day. A small group of hypsilophodontids were graz-ing on water plants in a shallow pond. The bipeds were shorter than a man, since a third of their nine-foot length was tail. Con said their short snouts made them look "cute." As they crossed over the uplands, they encountered a herd of two dozen sauropod dinosaurs grazing the tree tops. They were heavily built animals, thirty-five feet in length, with shoulders higher than their hips. Their necks were relatively short and thick for sauropods, making their heads look ridiculously small.
"Somehow," said Con, "I expected them to be bigger."
"These are Alamosaurs" said Rick. "The real giants, like the Ultrasaurus and the Diplodocus, went extinct tens of millions of years ago."
"They don't look too shabby to me," said Joe. "One of those babies would make quite a barbecue."
"For God's sake, don't tell that to Pandit!" said Rick.
"Speaking of food," said Con, "where are we going to picnic?"
"I thought the mountains might be nice," said Rick.
"Sounds great to me," said Joe. "I don't like unex-pected guests." They flew to the watering hole and the nesting site before Joe headed for the mountains to search for a land-ing site. He found a bare mountain peak not more than thirty feet wide, then impressed Rick and Con by neatly parking on it. On all sides, cliffs dropped precipitously, affording breathtaking views. On one side, a mountain range towered into the sky, while on the other, the land spread out to the gleaming sea. Below them, but still high above the foothills, huge pterosaurs wheeled gracefully on the updrafts. As far as the eye could see, the world stretched out like a green-and-blue tapestry, unmarred by the hand of man.
They lingered on the mountaintop long after they had finished eating and left it reluctantly. Joe guided their aircraft between the foothills and the coastal plain until they encountered the huge ceratopsid herd. Con let out a squeal of excitement as the plane slowly glided only yards above the animals' backs.
"We've got to land!" she said.
"No way!" said Joe firmly.
"You two did it. Like Rick said, we'll be invisible."
"Look, if I came back short a guide, that would be one thing. You're different. If you get hurt, there'd be hell to pay."
"If you two treat me like a baby, I'll just stay on the island. What will your Mr. Green say about that!"
"Joe ..." said Rick with quiet urgency.
"Has everyone forgotten her first morning here?"
"That was different," said Rick.
"How was it different?" retorted Joe. "A meat eater's a meat eater."
"Mosasaurs probably learned to prey on wading ani-mals."
"So? We'll be wading through the bushes."
"It's different with land predators," said Rick. "Look, do you bite everything you see to find out if it's edible? Hunting takes effort and involves risks. Predators stick to recognized prey."
"You're putting too much faith in a theory," said Joe. "Nothing doing."
"You act as if I have no say in this matter," said Con. "I meant it about staying on the island. I'll sit on the beach with Daddy and Sara and be the perfect wet blan-ket. Imagine dinner after a few days of that!"
"She'll do it, Joe," said Rick.
"Why do you want to risk your life?" asked Joe.
"Did you ever ride a horse?" asked Con.
"Not likely," said Joe.
"Well, if you get thrown, it's important to ride again soon. You've got to conquer your fear."
"That's what this is about? Proving something?"
"No ... No. This place is really special. I don't want to miss out because I'm afraid." Joe turned to Rick. "Have you been coaching her?"
"Hardly."
"Well," said Joe resignedly, "I guess we're setting down. Rick, no looking at the scenery. We've got to keep her covered at all times."
Without further discussion, Joe guided the plane to a landing spot about a quarter of a mile from the head of the herd. The gently rolling ground was covered with a low growth of plants interspersed with occasional clumps of bushes or solitary, broad-crowned trees. The herd was clearly visible. Once they exited the plane, Con headed toward the dinosaurs.
"Isn't this close enough?" said Joe, hastening to catch up.
"You got a lot closer," replied Con as she continued to walk.
"I wish I'd never told you that story," said Joe.
Rick followed to the rear, anxiously scanning the land-scape with his gun. Previously, when only Joe and he had landed, he had not been nearly so nervous. Then, Rick had felt he was risking only his life. Being responsible for Con's safety made this experience very different. Con's exuberance did not make matters easier. She walked rapidly and noisily through the knee-high plants toward the dinosaurs in the near distance. Rick began to repent what he had put Joe through earlier.
As they approached, the tumultuous parade was nearly overwhelming. Noisy, odorous, always changing, the herd was life on a grand, almost exaggerated, scale. The animals numbered in the thousands. They ranged from youngsters the size of large dogs to massive individuals over twice the height of a man. The herd varied in more than size. The grotesque heads displayed different con-figurations of horns and frills. There were several species of the short-frilled Triceratops. These differed in color-ation and the size and angles of their long eye horns. The huge, long-frilled Torosauruses stood out as the largest animals in the herd. The square-frilled Chasmosauruses were smaller, but still several feet taller than humans. Pointed bones, like small horns, lined the outer edges of their frills so they resembled giant saws. The various spe-cies tended to group together, so that the stream of ani-mals seemed to change continually. Rick watched Con as she halted, enthralled, not more than twenty yards from the moving herd. The beasts passed by, paying her no more attention than they would a stump. Rick's chief concern became that some animal might casually trample her on its path to a bit of green-ery. For a moment, his fears seemed about to be realized when a Triceratops separated from the herd and headed in her direction. Con stepped out of its path. Then, as Rick watched in horror, she advanced and touched the creature's tail. She turned her gaze back at Rick with a look of triumph in her eyes.
The herd thinned out, and Rick was beginning to relax a bit when he spotted a pair of Tyrannosaurs in the dis-tance. He pointed his gun in their direction, and called softly to Joe. "You see them?"
"Yeah, I sure do," asked Joe softly. "Right out of some movie."
"You lock on the left one. I'll take the right. Don't shoot unless we have to." Rick aimed his gun and pulled the targeting trigger. The weapon came alive in his hand and tracked the huge carnivore as it advanced. He called to Con, who was still watching the herd. "Con, stay perfectly still."
"Why?" she called back. Then she froze in terror.
Even at a hundred yards away, the Tyrannosaurs seemed nightmarishly large. Rising eighteen feet above the ground, they moved with a powerful grace that seemed impossible for such massive animals. Their heads scanned about in an alert, watchful manner as they walked, keeping pace with the herd. Their path headed directly toward Con.