Target of Opportunity
by Stephen Dedman
Illustration by Alan Giana
The cockroach was slightly smaller than her foot, but it was large enough to make the blonde scream and keep screaming until after the rest of the party had recovered and begun laughing. I could’ve explained that none of the cockroaches here/now carry any diseases that are dangerous to humans, but I knew it wouldn’t make any difference; it never does. Someone would be bound to trot out the theory that it was roaches, migrating across the land bridges, that would wipe out the dinosaurs, and that’s a symbol too powerful for any logic to stand against, even though it’s never been proven.
The blonde was still red-faced when we walked inside, and I half-expected the sight of the borogove to start her screaming again; instead, she dropped her backpack, hunkered down, and began talking to him in a thick but beautiful accent while her husband hung back. “What’s her name?” she asked, the accent gone.
“Bruno,” I replied.
“How big does he grow?” asked her husband, loudly. He was taller than she was and much taller than me, and heavily muscled in a top-heavy way that always reminds me of therizinosaurs and Neandertals and gridiron players. His skin and hair and eyes were a pale brown that seemed to blend into any background like smart camo. I wondered if the screaming had been exaggerated for his benefit. I could be wrong—a lot of intelligent people have a phobia of cockroaches—but it didn’t improve my opinion of him any.
“He’s about full grown, but females are bigger.”
“What does he eat?” asked the blonde.
“Anything smaller than he is,” I said, a little sourly. “If there’s any food in your pack, he’ll find it before you can say Borogovia holtzi.” Bruno looked hurt, but it was true; he’s as inquisitive and unethical and almost as intelligent as a cat. His legs and flanks and face are striped like those of a tabby, he stands about a meter tall, and he’s easily domesticated by dino standards, meaning that he’s friendly as long as he’s well fed. We keep him around to keep the insects down and remind the travelers where and when they are; it wouldn’t be the Cretaceous without dinosaurs. Bruno could kill a human in a fair fight, but when did we ever fight fair?
The husband was admiring Bruno’s claws. “How closely is he related to the troodons?”
“They’re ninety-something percent similar genetically, but Bruno’s not local—he’s from Mongolia. A friend at the hostel there gave him to us; there were one female and two males in the clutch, and the males were always fighting.”
One of the women laughed, and the blonde asked, “Is he as smart as the troodons?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
“You don’t believe these stories about troodons making tools, then?” asked the husband.
“I’ve never seen it,” I evaded. The blonde looked crestfallen. “I’ve seen them hunting in packs, using ambush techniques, and I’ve seen them carrying food—mostly carrion—but that’s all. It’s a long way from tool use, much less tool making. Is that why you’re here?”
“She is,” the husband snorted. “I’m more interested in doing some hunting. When can we go out of the dome?”
“Any time you like,” I replied. I was beginning to dislike this one more and more every time he opened his mouth; why do so many intelligent, beautiful women marry such total dorks? “Closest exit’s down Horner Street, turn left on Sawyer, right on Russell. I recommend you take a respirator mask; oxygen content outside is higher than you’re used to, and it may make you overconfident.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Not really; we only lose two point three people per year, on average. Dinos don’t come too close to the city—most of them have zero curiosity, and I don’t think they like the smell—and the pterors won’t bother you unless they think you’re already dead or dying. None of the snakes are really dangerous, but don’t go swimming in the rivers; some of the crocs grow close to twenty meters long. But the local wildlife’s already learning to fear us; the biggest animals you’re likely to see are the dragonflies and butterflies, though they’re pretty spectacular. If you want to see dinosaurs, you take a flier.”
“These two point three victims,” said the husband. “What sort of dinosaur kills them?”
“Topsies—hornfaces—mostly,” I said. “Some tourists go too near the herds, and spook them. And sometimes it’s difficult to tell how the people died, especially if the scavengers get to them before we do. About one in ten are never found at all. Now, let’s get you all checked in.”
A lot of people come to Maia City for the dinosaurs, of course, but mostly we’re a stop-over, a waystation. It’s not possible to make a leap of less than twelve million years (please don’t ask me why not, I just work here), and more energy-efficient to go back or forward seventy or even two hundred million. It’s something like the slingshot effect they used to use to boost the speed of unmanned spacecraft, but not quite, and something like flying around the world instead of through it… anyway, anyone wanting to see something like the Little Big Horn or the Seven Wonders of the World or the Mediterranean being flooded has to go via a waystation in the past, then back to their intended time. The same for the return trip. And since stations and cities are hideously expensive to build and maintain, and Maia City has more to offer than the others, we get most of the tourist trade. Most of our guests stay for a few days, take a flier out to see the topsy and hadro herds or the pteror nests and maybe get a glimpse of some of the predators from a safe distance. Only students stay for more than a few days, and most of them choose to come here rather than the Hilton.
The blonde’s name was Sondra, her major anthropology (I’d guessed it wasn’t entomology), and she was headed for early Pleistocene Asia to study the technology of Homo ergaster for her master’s thesis. Her muscle-bound husband was Kevin, nominally a business student (his father and grandfather had both been major financial contributors to the college), and he was obviously here mostly to keep an eye on her. Picking her up was apparently the only thing he’d ever done that impressed his father and older brother, and he wasn’t going to risk losing her, which was why they’d married so young. I learned most of this from Amy, who was writing her dissertation on predator/prey ratios throughout the Mesozoic and had an excellent reason for detesting Kevin; he’d date-raped her when she was a sophomore. Amy was attractive in a dark, elfin sort of way, and since she was friendly and unattached and obviously intended to stick around for a few months, we ended up spending the night together. It was hardly her fault that I kept thinking of Sondra.
My room was little different from any other double in the hostel. I’ve never been one for souvenirs, or any other possessions, and the room contained nothing but a bed, desk, closet, chair, and the inevitable dinosaur holo-posters—excellent pictures of Maiasaura and Anatotitan. “How long have you been here?” Amy asked, as she picked her clothes up from the floor.
“Seven years.”
“You don’t look that old.”
“Don’t you believe it,” I said. “I was born in 1962. I could be your greatgrandfather.”
“I wish you had been,” she retorted. “I’d love to have inherited your eyes. Where are you from?”
“Vietnam. Little village called My Lai. I ran away from soldiers one day and crashed into an observation post, full of American history students watching their ancestors acting like monsters. I don’t know how I got in, I had no idea of what anyone was saying, but they decided that they couldn’t just send me out to be killed.” I can still remember the girl who’d held on to me while everyone else was arguing, the first blonde woman I’d ever seen. “So they took me home. I became something of a celebrity about the time you were born, the first war orphan in decades, and a couple who worked for ChronCorp adopted me. ChronCorp ended up giving me a scholarship with a two year bond, and when it ran out, I stayed. What do you want for breakfast?”