Might be something he could salvage, he thought. Ben strapped his spear to his back, grabbed up his fishing line, and began to scale down. He walked along the sand, feeling a slight chill against his chest from the morning breeze.
“Ralph, you there, old buddy?”
The water of his lagoon was calm, but not pond still. There were swirls and bubbles popping, and some sixth sense kept Ben from going to the water’s edge this morning. He let his eyes run along the entire surface and was confused that the fin of the shark wasn’t there somewhere.
“You went home?” Could Ralph have been washed out in the storm? Ben wondered. “Most likely,” he answered.
Ben leaned against the only rock on the beach, perhaps a massive piece of sandstone that had broken off the cliffs a thousand years before. He laid his line on top of it and turned back to the water. Still no fin, and his friend not being there depressed him.
“Ralph!” Ben yelled, and the name echoed against the cliffs, but it still didn’t bring the shark to the surface. Ben pushed off the rock as the sun began to peek over the top of the breakwater, and he took a few steps toward the lagoon’s edge.
And then froze.
The devil was in there, watching him.
And when he saw it, it knew he saw it.
And it attacked.
The giant sea crocodile exploded from the water, and a mouth larger than Ben was opened wide.
Ben threw his arms up and stumbled back, but only took two steps before falling beside the only rock on the beach.
The massive creature’s jaws struck the rock, and that split second gave Ben the chance to sprint away for his life. Ben didn’t stop until he was up the cliff face and into his cave. Only then did he turn and look back with his heart beating fast and hard in his chest.
“Oh shit.” His spirit sank.
The massive fallen tree he thought he had seen last evening hadn’t been a tree at all. In his lagoon was a crocodile that must have been 40 feet long if it was an inch. It was close to the shore, and just its eyes and snout were at the waterline — it had reset its ambush, perhaps hoping Ben would try for the water again.
“Ah shit, Ralph.” Ben sat back. He knew his friend was gone for good. He also knew he’d never get close to the water again.
Ben sat watching for another few hours as the sun rose higher and higher. The crocodile pulled itself up onto the sand to sun itself. It was a monster.
The crocodile’s jagged skin rose like spikes all along its body and down to a flattened tail-like a paddle. The claws were massive and broad, and the body was wide as a bus. But it was the mouth that was its most fearsome attribute — the jaws gaped open as it rested, and Ben could see shreds of flesh between its tusk-like teeth — he knew it was his friend. Ralph wouldn’t have stood a chance being trapped in the lagoon. His speed was useless when he was within a confined space.
Ben remembered from his time in Florida that modern crocodiles nested at certain times of the year, and also stayed close to their nests if they found a good spot — like this one.
Ben looked up at his cave wall with all the calendar marks. “Well, looks like I’ve been evicted.” He gathered up all his things into his woven mesh bag, strapped his spear to his back, and packed a few pterodon eggs in for his travels.
He turned to the rear of the cave. “Goodbye, kids; it’s been fun.”
The small pterodons just squawked their response. Ben then went to the cave mouth and looked down one last time.
“Hope Ralph gives you indigestion, you big bastard.”
Then he started up along the ledge to the top of the cliff.
PART 2 — THE GODS CAN’T PROTECT EVERYONE
“One must wait till it comes”
CHAPTER 14
“Here we go.” Jim Henson stared into the viewing piece of the 12.5-inch Newtonian reflector. The massive steel tube of highly polished glass lenses and mirrors, plus large view aperture, gave the man crisp images of the solar system.
“Just like clockwork.” He squinted and used one hand to gently turn the imaging dial with the precision of a safe-cracker.
“Huh?” Andy Gallagher leaned away from his computer screen. “P/2014-YG332?”
“No-ooo. Not even close.” Henson pulled back from the telescope. “P/2018-YG874, Primordia—look at the date.”
Gallagher checked his calendar. “Oh right — the magical number 8.” His eyebrows rose. “Hey, did you know that ‘8’ is a lucky number in China? It means—”
“Yeah, yeah, money, luck, good fortune, or something.” Henson waved it away and then squinted back into the eyepiece. “I love this little guy. He isn’t big, and probably originated in the Oort cloud over a hundred million years ago. But he’s perfectly formed — good coma, tail, and nice glow, which undoubtedly means there’s some sort of iron base, rather than just being a lump of super-compressed ice.”
“Venezuela,” Gallagher said. “That’s where it’ll be closest, i-iiin… ” He typed on the screen. “… five days, forty-seven hours, forty minutes, and counting down.”
“Of the nearly 6,000 known comets visiting us in the inner solar system, we only get to see around one per year with the naked eye. But Primordia is a real beauty.” Henson pulled back, snapped his fingers, and pointed to Gallagher’s screen. “Get some pictures, will ya?”
“Right.” Gallagher started typing furiously at his keyboard. Beside them, the enormous computerized 25-inch aperture Truss-Dobsonian reflector came to life. The powerful computerized telescope looked like a barrel on a robotic arm, and it whined as it lifted and swiveled to gaze into space.
The Truss-Dobsonian sent its images directly to Gallagher’s computer. “Here we go.” He focused on the small streak in the sky. “Our baby is just passing by Venus now.”
Gallagher folded his arms as he watched, but from the distance of 162 million miles, it seemed stationary even though it was probably traveling at around 50 miles per second in space.
“I’d love to be there,” he said dreamily. “To the closest planetary point where its apparition becomes observable, I mean.”
“Meh.” Henson wrinkled his nose. “There might be some sort of aurora borealis effect, and you’d see the coma for sure, but would that be worth trekking into the center of the Amazon jungle?”
Henson and Gallagher looked at each for a few seconds.
“Hell yeah!” they both shouted.
They chuckled for a few moments, and then Henson sat back.
“Maybe one day.” He spotted something on the desk beside Gallagher. “Hey, Pete, toss me those Doritos, will ya?”
Gallagher picked up the bag, twisted it shut, and then tossed it into the air. “Look out; it’s Primordia—incomi-iiing!”
CHAPTER 15
Emma shifted in her seat and then reached for a bottle of water. She was parched dry from all the airline travel, and her back hurt; both her legs were going crazy from inactivity, plus her nose, lips, and eyes were so dry she felt like she had just crawled out of Death Valley.
She shifted to try and straighten a kink in her back, but gave up and slumped again. She felt fatigued already… and scared, and resentful, and anxious as all hell.