“Gets my vote.” Buster’s mouth twisted. “Shit goes down, my money is on him buying it first, rather than one of us.”
Ben went and picked up Nicolás’ pack. It was heavy. He tossed it to him. “How were you going to climb up a cliff face about 1,500 feet with that on your back?”
Nicolás pulled the backpack on. “I’ve got a power winch.”
Drake chuckled. “Of course he has.”
“He’s not coming.” Chess’ eyes were half-lidded as he cradled his gun. “He’ll slow us down, ghost us, and get us all killed.”
Nicolás shrugged. “With or without you.”
Drake exhaled. “He’s more likely to get killed by himself, that’s for sure. At least with us we can keep him under control.”
“No,” Chess said and lifted his chin to Ben. “Unless you throw in another hundred grand… each.”
All eyes swung to Ben. Frankly, Ben couldn’t give a shit whether the kid came with them or not. But now that Chess had made it a chest-bumping issue, he decided to play.
Ben’s gaze was deadpan. “He comes, and if anyone tries to screw the deal we made, you can head home. Now.” He grinned like a death’s head. “And when you get home, you’ll find your sign-on fee has been reversed out of your bank account, for being an asshole.”
The group’s gaze now swung to Chess. The big mercenary’s jaw worked for a moment before he broke into a grin. “Who gives a fuck?”
He turned away, but Ben caught the lethal glare he threw him. He hoped he wasn’t going to be trouble.
“Okay?” Nicolás asked.
“All okay,” Shawna said.
Ben shook his head. “Well, you’ve been warned, but like she said… ” He thumbed over his shoulder at Shawna. “It’s your life.” He turned to the female mercenary. “And you own him seeing as it was your idea.”
Nicolás nodded. “Thank you.”
“Come on.” Ben checked his watch and then looked upward. Huge drops of blood-warm rain began to fall. “We’ve got about eight hours to get to the plateau base and then climb to the top. And our one-night stand is fast approaching.”
CHAPTER 33
Comet P/2018-YG874, designate name Primordia, hurtled through the solar system on its approach toward the Earth. The magnetic bow wave that preceded it caused collisions between electrically charged particles in the planet’s upper atmosphere, creating an aurora borealis effect over the jungles of South America.
In one of the most inaccessible parts of the eastern Venezuelan jungle, clouds began to darken, and in another minute or two, they started to swirl and boil like in a devil’s cauldron, throwing down a torrent of warm rain.
Beneath the clouds, a gigantic tabletop mountain became cloaked in the dense fog, and brutal winds began to smash at its sides and surface. Thunder roared and lightning seemed to come from the sky, air, and even up from the ground itself.
The echoes of roars from throats not heard for many millions of years began to ring out that even drowned out the crash of thunder. Soon, those few roars would become a cacophony of hissing, howls, bellows, and screams, rising to be like those from the dark pits of Hell.
It had been 10 years since the last wettest season and it had arrived again, and with it came the primordial sounds of a world not seen for 100 million years.
CHAPTER 34
Andy rubbed his eyes. He and Gluck had been on the sea for many days now, and he was taking advantage of a breeze at his back and making good time. But a few times, he had ventured so far out that he had begun to lose sight of the land.
His navigation skills were good, and he could get his bearings from the sun, moon, and stars, but if he lost touch with the shoreline and clouds moved in, he could be lost.
His supplies were running low, and he blinked crusty eyes and licked flaking lips. The sea was misty, blurring his vision even more, and only after many minutes did it become clear that it really was an island in the distance.
He had been becalmed for the last few hours and his sail hung limply so he had to rely on the tide and currents to move him along. He guessed he was getting closer to his destination, as the heat was once again tropical. So far, he had been conserving his energy, but now with a goal in sight, he began to gently paddle toward the land.
He knew that the water he passed over here was deep and a bottomless dark blue, so he needed to make as little noise as he could manage. He dipped the makeshift oar in and dragged it all the way back along his boat. Carefully, he lifted it and did the same on the other side.
In another hour, he was closing in on the landmass, and the sea bottom suddenly began to shallow quickly, telling him that the island might have been the tip of an extinct volcano, or even the last in line of a sunken mountain range.
He gently pulled the boat forward and in another hour, he was close enough to see that the island was covered in vegetation, but he hoped small and far enough from the mainland to not support a population of large carnivores. Or better yet, any carnivores at all.
He soon made it to the outer reef, and then waited in his boat and just watched. He could see plenty of small sea pterosaurs just like Gluck, and his small friend seemed to become excited and answered their strange clucking and clicking with his own songs of the sky and sea.
Andy guessed the island was only about a mile around and had breakwaters circling it, creating small pools in close rather than sandy beaches, some small and some larger than swimming pools. The flora to the center of the island were mainly upright trees with few branches on the trunks that had initially looked like palm trees from a distance but were more likely a form of spiky cycad on a large fibrous stem that grew 40 feet in the air. Fast-growing palms and ferns made up the rest of the ground cover.
The more he watched, the more he became convinced there was nothing living on the island but the flying reptiles.
“Just like New Zealand,” he whispered.
Andy had visited the island nation off the east coast of Australia once on holiday, and he found it an amazing Petri dish for scientists due to it being an entire biosphere built around one animal form — birds. When it had broken away from Gondwanaland some 400 million years ago, much of it sank, but then several hundred million years later, it was finally pushed back to the surface. But following the mass extinction that ended the age of the dinosaurs, the new rulers came from the sky.
There were the predators and prey, from the herbivores such as giant Moa that stood 12 feet tall, plus a dozen other species of giant parrot, ground dwellers such as the kiwi with fur-like feathers, long-legged wading birds, and also fearsome raptors, such as the Haast, the largest eagle to have ever existed on the planet and weighed in at well over 500 pounds. They could have easily carried off a full-grown man if they had survived.
But thankfully, the tiny island Andy watched seemed home to little more than nesting pterosaurs no larger than seagulls.
“I think it’s safe,” he whispered and pushed a still-excited Gluck down into the bottom of the boat.
Andy carefully guided his vessel in through rocky corridors of the outer reef, and soon entered calm water that was warm, crystal clear, and only a few feet deep. The first thing he noticed was that the inner pools were teeming with fish, probably trapped by the tides, and he grinned, knowing that food wasn’t going to be the problem here.
He pulled his boat up on the rocks. In one hand, he held his spear, while he pulled out his empty water bottles for refilling with the other. He also drew his bag onto his shoulder to carry Gluck to the shore.