Leading in and out of the mouth were great saurian prints.
"I think I found its lair," King whispered.
Nancy knelt to examine the prints. When she stood up, her features were pale.
"These prints are fresh," she said.
"Of course," King said. "Made since the last rain."
"And there are three distinct sets," Nancy added. "Larger than the one we found."
"You mean the one I got isn't full grown?" King gulped.
Nancy nodded soberly.
Everyone carrying rifles clenched them more tightly, and those who had no weapons crowded closer to those who did.
"Let's keep our heads, shall we?" Skip suggested.
"What do you think, Thorpe?" Nancy asked.
"Why do you ask him and not me?" King demanded. "I'm expedition leader."
He was ignored.
Thorpe was looking at the tracks now. He motioned to Tyrone, who joined him. They exchanged short words in Bantu and Thorpe looked up.
"The freshest tracks are those going in. I'd say there are at least three more of the brutes in that cave, trapped."
"No!"
" 'Fraid so, Dr. Derringer."
"Is there anything we can do to get them out?"
"Doubtful. You're looking at tons of dirt and rock that came down all at once. And there's no guarantee that the beggers inside survived the cave-in."
"Then our beast might be the last survivor!" King said.
"It's likely," Thorpe admitted glumly.
"That makes him worth a fortune!"
"That makes him an endangered species," Nancy said fiercely, "and I will not have him endangered any further by your irresponsible macho bull."
"I resent that!"
"Resent it all you want, about from now on, I'm calling the shots."
"My ass," King snarled.
"All in favor of doing things my way," Nancy announced to everyone within hearing, "raise their hands."
The natives immediately lifted their hands. First, those who spoke English, and then the others when the first ones nudged them into following suit. Thorpe lifted one hand. As did two of the camera crew.
"All in favor of doing what Mr. King demands may now raise their hands," Nancy said.
Skip King raised his hand defiantly. His was the only one aloft.
"What about you clowns?" he yelled at the remaining members of the Burger Triumph observation team.
"We're abstaining," said one.
"In the interest of our long-term career prospects," said another.
"And our short-term survival," added the third man.
"Now that the new pecking order has been established," Nancy said. "Let's look around."
"For what?" King wanted to know.
"Anything that might be useful."
Circling the great lake, they found more dinosaur trails. The creatures seemed to have dwelt close to the cave and the pool, where fruit-bearing lianas grew thickest.
Nancy stopped to examine one. The creeper was thick and dotted with broad white flowers. At intervals, the great fruit sprouted like oversized greenskinned footballs.
"Jungle chocolate?" Nancy asked Thorpe.
"Likely. Recognize it?"
"Botanically, no. Earlier researchers have theorized it's probably a species of Landolphia-some unknown wild mango."
Thorpe took a knife to one of the big melons and hacked out a piece. It smelled like a green apple and had a vaguely nutty taste, like avocado.
They spit out their pieces and washed their mouths clean with canteen water.
The dinosaur trails ended at the line of hills that seemed to cut the Kanda Tract in two.
They found, on the other side of the great escarpment, a long stretch where the earth was flat and tawny grass grew around sparse, wind-slanted baobab trees. Savannah. Mixed in the grass were fields and fields of toadstools, every one a glossy orange color, like crouching elves who had pulled their caps down protectively.
"Odd," Nancy said, fingering one of them.
"Yes?" asked Thorpe.
"These are the same orange coloration as the Apatosaur's markings."
"You imagine a connection?"
"We know from old stories that N'yamala is reputed to eat so-called jungle chocolate. And we saw him eating fronds."
"We did."
"But his markings are all wrong for a jungle dweller. He's black and orange, like a salamander. If he had natural jungle camouflage, he should be green or brown or gray. Not orange and black."
"What are you suggesting?"
"Remember a year or so ago, they found the largest living creature in a Washington state forest? A behemoth underground fungus ten miles long, which had been feeding off dead tree roots?"
"Vaguely."
"They estimated it was thousands of years old. And it was entirely underground. Except for the mushrooms."
"Mushrooms?"
"They sprouted up all along the ground that covered it," Nancy said distantly as she crumbled the toadstool to fragments and watched the spongy bits cling to her fingers. "According to our best knowledge, Apatosaurs ate ginkgo trees, conifers, and other roughage."
"No pine cones hereabouts," Thorpe snorted.
"But there might have been prior to the period of continental drift that dispersed its populations to the newly created continents," she returned. "When flowering plants came along in the Cretaceous, Apatosaur would have suffered from a severe food shortage, but could have survived in small numbers on a modified diet."
"I fear I do not follow."
"Suppose the Apatosaur population went underground with the onset of the Lower Cretaceous period, induced by climactic changes and the rise of unfamiliar and unappetizing fauna?" Nancy mused. "Not excusively underground. But feeding on great subterranean expanses of fungi, and only occasionally emerging to forage for palatable food, like lianas and jungle chocolate."
"Would that turn the beasts orange?"
"It might. Or the coloration might be an adaptive response to cave living."
"A kind of underground camouflage, eh?"
Nancy shook off the last bits of toadstool and her voice cleared. "It's a theory," she said. "Let's find the others. We have to do something about our young Apatosaur."
"Such as?"
"If it is the last one, then we have no choice but do exactly what that idiot King wants if it is to survive."
"How are we going to move a brute that size, Dr. Derringer?"
"We'll ask B'wana King."
Ralph Thorpe looked skeptical.
"And then we do the opposite," Nancy said archly.
Chapter 4
At the Salt Lake City Airport payphone, Remo reported in.
He lifted the receiver and depressed the One button until the automated switching relays clicked into place and a distant phone rang once.
A thin, lemony voice said, "Yes, Remo?"
"Chalk up another triumph for the ACLU," Remo said airly.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I told my targets I was with the ACLU. It cut through a lot of unnecessary bull."
"I trust these individuals are-um-no longer . . ." "You can say it, Smitty. Go ahead. Say, 'dead.' "
Remo could almost hear his superior wince over two thousand miles away.
"Remo, please."
"Okay, they're landfill. Happy now?"
"That is satisfactory."
"All except Roy Shortsleeve."
"He did not get away?"
"No. I left him where he sat."
"Why, Remo?"
"Because he's innocent. I could tell, having been an innocent on death row once myself. I think someone should reopen his case."
"That is not our mission," Smith said flatly.