"Why couldn't crocamanders swim from one to the other, the way the salt-water crocodile does?"
"Because most amphibians can't take salt water, with those soft, moist skins."
The fourth sahib was an American, Desmond Carlyle, who knew the Alvarados. He was a good-sized fellow, well-set-up with sandy hair and a little blond mustache. He had done a bit of mountaineering and had the old idea that it proves one's manhood to hang the stuffed heads of large wild animals on one's wall. I've outgrown that sort of thing myself; but I don't discourage it because it keeps clients coming in to the firm of Rivers and Aiyar, Time Safaris. Carlyle hoped to work up to a Cretaceous safari for a tyrannosaur head but thought a Triassic jaunt would be a good way to get broken in.
Last to join was a young man named Willard Smith. He was from one of those complicated families where both parents had been divorced and remarried ever-so-many times. One of his many stepfathers had given him the time trip as a present on his graduation from college. I've always heard that such extended families are a sure way to produce juvenile delinquents, addicts, and criminals; but young Smith didn't show any such symptoms. He did, however, confide:
"Mr. Rivers, I hope you won't mind that I'm a klutz."
"Eh?" I said. "What's that? Some sort of secret society, demanding compulsory birth control for comedians or something?''
"No, no, nothing like that. It's Pennsylvania Dutch for an awkward, clumsy person."
That gave me pause. I said: "Well, I don't know. If you're that kind of gawk, how do I know you won't trig over a root and blow somebody's head off?"
'Oh, I'm not interested in shooting," said Smith. "I'll be quite happy just tagging along and taking pictures. That's my real enthusiasm."
A little against my better judgement, I let Smith's registration stand. I told myself to keep an extra-close watch on young Willard. In former geological eras, if you gash yourself with a skinning knife, or shoot yourself in the foot, or step in a hole and break your leg, there's no telephoning die ambulance to come fetch you to the hospital. But if Smith didn't carry a gun, at least he couldn't accidentally shoot any of the rest of us.
Hunting dinosaurs isn't especially dangerous if you make all your moves smoothly and correctly, and don't commit foolish mistakes like catching a twig in the mechanism of your gun, or stepping on the tail of a sleeping carnosaur, or then climbing a small tree the dinosaur can pluck you out of. Even clumsiness isn't fatal if you have sound judgment, are in complete control of yourself, and take whatever extra care is needed to make up for your lack of coordination.
So on a fine spring day we gathered with our gear at Professor Prochaska's laboratory here in St. Louis. The service personnel were our longtime herder Beauregard Black, two camp helpers, and a cook. By then the Raja and I were experienced enough so we didn't feel that both had to be along on every safari. One could stay behind to hold down the office; that's why I'm here now, while the Raja takes a group back to the Eocene.
This time, however, we agreed that the Raja should come along, because the period was new and also because it was our first safari mixed as to sex and therefore an experiment. The Raja is better at human relations than I. He can calm down an excited man— excuse me, person—or cheer up a despondent one, or jolly along a bad-tempered one in a way I've always envied.
On other safaris we had taken the parry coasting about the local area, breaking camp and setting it up again half a dozen times. We decided that this time, since we had some decided tenderfeet, one a female, we had better leave the camp where we first pitched it and merely make one-day walkabouts in different directions. So we didn't need a train of packasses to haul our gear round the country.
Eh? Why don't we use off-trail vehicles? We tried it once, and weren't happy. In the first place, we could take only those of the smallest kind—practically toys— because of the size of the transition chamber. In the second, there's no source of petrol in case we run low on fuel. In the third, Mesozoic country is often so overgrown and poorly drained that even the most versatile vehicles have a hard time. And lastly, if your jeep breaks down or skids into the river, it's done for; you can't get it back to the transition chamber. The asses on the other hand can live off the country; and in dire straits you can eat them—if some hungry carnivore doesn't beat you to it. You can't eat a petrol-powered vehicle.
The sahibs, the sahiba, the Raja, and I crowded into the transition chamber with our guns and packs. It was policy for the guns to go first, not knowing what sort of reception committee might be waiting for us. The operator squeezed in after us, closed the door, and worked his buttons and dials.
I had told the laboratory people to set it for May first, 175 million B.C. So die chamber wallah set his dials for that date and pressed the red button. The fights went out, leaving the chamber lit by a little battery-powered lamp. The sahibs gave some grunts and groans at the vertigo and vibration, and that horrid feeling of being in free fall. But the Raja and I had been through all this before.
When the spinning dial hands stopped, the operator checked his gages to make sure he could safely set the chamber down. It wouldn't do to land it in an inland sea or on the side of a cliff. Sometimes he has to move the chamber back and forth in time by half a million years or so to find a soft landing. This time we were lucky to come down on fairly level soil. Another button opened the door.
As usual, I jumped down first, my gun ready. I hadn't been in the Triassic before, but I'd read up on the period. I saw rolling country with water in the distance, and a fairly heavy growth all around of trees and shrubs you find nowadays only in the form of little "living fossils," they call 'em, like horsetails and ferns.
For real trees we had araucarias, trees of the ginkgo type, and cycads looking much like palms. No grass, of course; that didn't evolve for another hundred million or so, and likewise no flowers.
The only sample of the fauna I saw on that first look-around was one little lizardy fellow running away on a pair of long hindlegs. I was watching it disappear into the ferns when Sir Edred Ngata shouldered me aside, whipped up his shotgun, and fired, bang-bang! at the vanishing two-legger. I said:
"Hey, Sir Edred! You agreed to shoot only when I told you to!"
"I say, I'm frightfully sorry!" said Ngata. "But it looked like a thecodont, one of those that evolved into the big dinosaurs. One of my objectives is to get some specimens to mount or dissect. I suppose I missed; but please, let me go look!"
He started off, but I said: "Damn it, Sir Edred, reload your gun first! And keep heavy buckshot in one barrel!"
He turned back with a shamefaced grin. "You're right, of course. And forget the 'Sir.' Just call me 'Edred,' will you, old boy?" Ngata was an amiable sort of bloke whom it was hard to stay angry with for long.
Meanwhile the rest of the party came out of the chamber, which vanished back to Present to pick up Beauregard and his crew and the kit. All this took a bit of time, during which I scouted around to pick a campsite near a stream.
As soon as camp was pitched, our first job was to get fresh meat. Being unfamiliar with the period, I asked Sir Edred for advice. We wanted an animal, preferably a plant-eater, not too large (which would rot before we got it eaten) or too small (in which case there wouldn't be enough to go round). Ngata said: