Peter followed his father between two pillars. Moisture dripped down the granular face of the rock. A few lichens hung like green beards from a jutting stone chin. Looking up, he saw a small slate-black frog staring down at them from a crevice. It blinked shiny black eyes and retreated out of sight.
"It won't be long now," OBie said with no confidence whatsoever.
The skreeee sounded again, followed by another cry, a heart-stopping bellow of pain and terror. They instinctively backed up against the walls of the narrow passage. Peter's shirtback was soaked by the dripping moisture and he trembled both from chill and fear.
The cry of pain returned, weaker and sadder, subsiding into resigned groans and then black silence. Rain pattered. A mournful whistle rose between the rocks. The sky overhead gloomed charcoal with flinty details. Everything smelled of water and earth and something else—a faint scent of the cages in the circus, a cloying blunt bird smell.
"No lanterns, no coats, no food," OBie said. "We are the prize chumps of all time."
Peter fingered the clasp knife in his pocket. Night came quickly and they huddled between the rocks. Peter thought it would be impossible to sleep, but he underestimated how tired he was. He j erked himself out of a troubled doze to see thin rips of dawn spreading over a clearing sky. He pushed himself out of a clump of lichen and branches, brushing scraps of moss from his hair, and realized someone had made a pillow for him. He rubbed his eyes and saw Ray and OBie standing farther back in the maze, talking softly.
"We could get lost in here really easy," Ray said, voice clear in the quiet.
"I've been through here before, twice," OBie said. "I should recognize the key landmarks. But everything's grown. I'd swear even the rocks have changed."
"You don't see anything familiar?" Ray asked.
"Not yet, damn it," OBie replied. "There's faces all over, and animals, too. Somewhere around here there's an old Indian with
a hooked nose . . ." He tapped his own nose with his finger. "I know the main side route to the east around the maze, where we used to bring out the animals, but it's completely overgrown now. Still, we might try it—if we had a couple of machetes."
Anthony pushed into the gap between the pillars, returning from the edge of the chasm. "How's it going?" he asked Peter.
"I feel a lot better," Peter said. "But thirsty . . . and really hungry."
"We do get used to three squares a day, don't we?" Anthony said. "Dagger's still on patrol. Doesn't look like anybody's planning to come back soon. Maybe they're waiting for Sears Roebuck to deliver a howitzer."
Ray and OBie joined them. "I can't find an easy path through these rocks," OBie said. "I know there is one. Billie ran right through somewhere . . ."
"No sign of him, either," Ray said. "And nothing to eat."
"We might find some fruit in the jungle," OBie said. "Bananas, bijiguao fruit."
"How big's the maze?" Anthony asked.
"About two miles across. There are a few small streams and there might still be a swamp somewhere in the middle."
"I'm really thirsty," Peter repeated.
"Lick the rock," Anthony suggested.
Peter made a face.
"Really. It works."
"There's water pooled on top of some of these rocks, if you don't mind a little scum and frog spawn," OBie said. Peter cupped his hand against a rivulet of water still dribbling down the side of a rock and gathered enough liquid in his palm to wet his tongue and throat.
"We should agree on a plan," Anthony suggested. "We might be here awhile. Is there any way to climb down on this end?" "Not that any Indian or white man has found in a couple of thousand years of searching," OBie said. "It's a mile or more straight down, along stretches of rock smooth as a baby's bottom, but no diaper pins to tie our rope to, even if we had any rope."
Peter saw a shape flit across the gap between the pillars. For a second, he thought the venator had somehow crossed the chasm and found them, but the shape had seemed shorter, smaller, darker. He grabbed Anthony and Ray and pulled them back into the passage.
"Something's out there," he said.
"Maybe it's Billie," OBie said.
"No. An animal."
"Sammy, then."
"Not that big."
"Someone's going to have to peek out," Ray said.
"You volunteering?" Peter asked.
Ray shook his head.
They heard a scrabbling on the rocks above. Peter and Anthony looked up in time to see a dark green and brown animal finish its leap over the passage. They discerned stumpy hind legs and a long tail, and then it was gone.
"It's as big as a dog," Anthony said.
OBie started pushing them. "We'll take our chances deeper in," he said. "Grab a stick, a rock, anything you can find." They walked and slithered and climbed through the winding cuts and gouges and passages, stooping beneath ledges like jutting noses, sinking up to their ankles in marshy pits. After venturing fifty yards or more into the maze, Anthony called a halt in an open space about four yards wide.
They listened and looked all around.
"What do you think it was?" Ray asked OBie.
"I didn't see it clearly," OBie said. "Don't think I'm an expert here, either. There's lots of animals we've never seen, much less captured."
"Stay close. Don't get separated," Anthony said. He reached for Peter's arm. They were both winded from clambering over the rocks. Peter had skinned his knuckles and torn his pants. One knee was bleeding. He could still smell the bird odor. He felt very exposed.
"Are you sorry I brought you with me?" Anthony asked. Peter did not know what to say.
"Into danger," Anthony said, eyes searching Peter's face.
Peter said, "It depends on whether I get eaten or not."
Ray laughed and Anthony responded with a faint smile.
OBie hadn't heard. "What was that?" he asked.
"The success of our expedition," Ray said dramatically, "depends on whether or not we get consumed by the locals."
OBie glowered. "I have never felt so naked and helpless in my life, and I've lived longer than any of you."
"My father was in Italy," Peter said, awkwardly and unexpectedly defensive.
OBie turned his lips down and raised his brows in acknowledgment. "I was too old for the war," he said. "Where would you rather be?" he asked Anthony.
"Italy or here?" Anthony chuckled. "No contest. Italy."
"Battle or here," OBie specified.
Anthony shrugged. "We don't have to kill somebody else to stay alive."
His eyes fixed on something over Peter's head. Peter turned and lifted his gaze to the top of a rock shaped like a pile of pancakes. Ray and OBie looked up as well. A sleek mottled brown and green head watched them intently through large
almond-colored eyes. The animal's body was slender and long and bluish-black with white spots. It stood on four legs and was bigger than a cat and smaller than a beagle. It did not look particularly fierce. It turned its long head sideways and opened its curving mandible, revealing small sharp teeth.
"Don't ask me what it is," OBie murmured. "I've never seen it before. May be one of the northern animals come south."
"Look at the canines," Ray said. Peter examined the dog-like head. It resembled a squat, bowlegged, hairless collie wrapped in lizard skin.
"I think it's a kind of therapsid," Ray said.
Another rose up, and a third, surrounding them in a precise triangle. None seemed in any hurry. Peter judged the distance across the open space. The animals could leap down on them easily.
The first animal raised its snout and gave a whistle. The whistle ended in a hoarse, guttural howl.
OBie raised his stick. Peter and Anthony clutched sharp-edged rocks in their hands. Ray seemed ready to use the movie camera as a club. All three animals backed off with a quick but awkward-looking side-legged gait until they were no longer visible.
"Damn," Anthony said. "I didn't get a picture."
Sw
ift as a snake striking, something leaped from a hole between two boulders and streaked into OBie's side. He fell on his back with a grunt. Anthony caught a second animal on the side of its head with his rock and it gave a hoarse yip. Peter saw the third running up beside him, head cocked, and raised his rock; the animal scuttled sideways like a crab, jerking its gaze from Peter's knees to his head, sizing him up.
OBie's attacker rolled away, then doubled back and leaped again, catching OBie's arm in its jaws. OBie brought the stick down hard on its head, j amming its upper teeth through his shirt into his skin but stunning the animal before it could clamp down. OBie cried out. Peter's animal moved in and nipped at his legs, pushing him away from Anthony. Ray alone seemed free of an adversary. He kicked at OBie's stunned attacker and both of them retreated as two new animals rushed in.
Peter concentrated on the therapsid following him. The animal seemed content to snap and jump in quick feints, leaping sideways just in time to avoid a kick or the rock. Peter reached for a second rock and lobbed it at the animal's head. The rock bounced from the top of its skull and it stopped for a moment, shaking itself all over.
"Go away!" Peter yelled. The therapsid had forced him around several turns into a narrow ravine. He could not see any of the others, but he heard Ray and OBie shouting.
He stooped over, head up, hands out, backing into the ravine. "What do you want?" he asked the animal. He did not really expect to be told; it just seemed better to engage the beast in some sort of conversation. The therapsid was clearly a pack animal. There must be others around; it was probably herding Peter toward another group and together they would bring him down.
The therapsid rolled its yellow eyes. All of the noises it made— whines, growls, a short high noise like keuf, keuf—sounded gravelly, rough, old. Peter tried to remember his reading about El Grande. He thought the therapsids might be older than
dinosaurs; he recalled them being related to mammals, somehow.
"You're one of us," Peter said, "a cousin." The animal was not impressed. It rushed in again, snapping its jaws in a quick blur, claws ticking on the rocks. Pebbles skittered beneath Peter's shoes and he slipped and nearly fell.
"You're not going to push me any farther," Peter vowed, and backed up against a gouge in the sandstone face, rock raised. The animal had been hurt once—its scaly, puffy-looking scalp oozed blood—and it seemed unwilling to move in too close. It suddenly dropped down on its stomach, legs crooked on all sides, and lowered its head. It flattened its jaw against the dirt and rock. It seemed to be listening.
Peter could no longer hear the others. He felt a stab of panic at being separated from Anthony and got to his feet, kicking out. The therapsid calmly watched Peter's foot sail harmlessly over its head, moving only its eyes. Then it lifted its head and snapped casually at the air.
"You'd make a dandy pet," Peter said breathlessly. He wondered why he felt better talking to the animal; it would be just as effective, he thought, trying to strike up a conversation with an alligator.
"You and your friends want to crowd in here and strip me down to my bones, don't you?"
The therapsid whistled faintly.
Peter looked quickly to both sides to find the best escape route. "I can't wait around," he said. With a grimace and a yell, he jumped away from the rock and brought his left boot hard against the animal's snout and then its side, catching it by surprise.
He wanted to rejoin the others, but all the rocks looked alike. He jumped down a long, reasonably straight fissure and heard claws ticking and scratching and keuf, keuf right behind. He did not slow to look. With feet and heart pounding, hands deflecting him from jutting rocks, Peter half ran, half tumbled down this
lane.
He veered to the left, rounded a pillar rising from thick tufts of yellow grass, saw a broad open stretch at least twenty yards across, and ran like hell, head back, arms pumping, filling his lungs with a whoop, tears streaming from his eyes. He knew the therapsids were going to catch him in the open, surround him; he knew he had made the wrong move. He had seen the exhibit in the American Museum of Natural History of an elk surrounded by wolves, with dead and dying wolves scattered all around; he did not think he would avenge his death so well.
Something snagged his ankle and he pitched forward on his face. An animal ran right over him. Peter caught its rear leg in his hands before it could turn, and with unexpected strength, he lifted the animal, rolled, and swung it back over his body. It thumped down on another therapsid and both screamed like jackals. Peter's arm hurt like hell at the effort, but he shouted triumphantly in spite of the pain and got to his feet. "Come get me, you little bastards! Come here and get me!"
He felt the spirit of Shellabarger at that moment, and the force of his father's defiance and strength all rolled together, and he knew beyond any doubt he would be with the trainer in a few minutes, and he didn't really care. He would just do as much damage as he could in that short time, like the elk.
Five of the therapsids skulked with heads low and shoulders hunched. Two boulders flanked Peter; he saw with some amazement that he had actually chosen a pretty good place to make a stand. He bent to pick up the rock he had dropped and rotated it in his palm, sharp side foremost.
"Come on," he muttered to the animals. His face was scratched and muddy and his clothing was soaked through.
None of the dog-lizards seemed ready to do more than stalk back and forth, weaving in and out of one another's paths, yellow eyes fixed on Peter. They opened their long jaws and snapped them with distinct toothy clops. Two of the animals
bore spiny crests that rose from their backs like hog bristles.
"You're cute," Peter said through clenched teeth. "You really are."
The animal that he had flung walked with a slight limp and whistled plaintively, jaw open and thick forked purple tongue thrust limply out. It shook its head woozily and licked both sides of its upper jaw at once.
"I can't tell which of you are boys and which are girls," Peter said. He did not feel as brave as his words, did not feel anything in particular, but it still seemed better—even necessary—to keep talking. When he talked he felt less alone, and he hoped somebody—his father, OBie, Ray—would hear him and come running.
Or maybe Peter was appealing directly to the dog-lizards, showing them that he was a pack hunter, too, and it wouldn't be right to eat him. He had heard that wolves regarded humans as fellow hunters.
That's stupid. Wolves are a lot closer cousins to me than these fellows.
It was time to do something besides talk. He saw three more good-sized chunks of rock and bent to pry them from the muck. The dog-lizards closed in. He stood erect with the rocks cradled in his arms.
The first rock he threw missed. It landed in the middle of the pack, however, and disrupted their pattern. Two of the animals bumped into each other and snapped warnings, and a third— the limping one—actually retreated, licking its thick-whiskered chops and blinking rapidly. Peter threw another rock and caught the animal with the highest fringe of bristles right across its muzzle. It screeched and hunched backward, nose bloody.
"YeaAAAHHH!" Peter shouted, waving the last two rocks and jumping at them.
As if making an instant committee decision, all five of the dog-lizards turned and ran, bumping into one another, snarling and whining as they lined up to dash back into the fissure single-file.
Peter stood alone, breath ragged, a rock in each hand, too stunned to make a move.
I scared them off, he thought. Then, They 're going back to get the others. They 're going to join up with the rest of the pack and overwhelm Anthony and OBie and Ray.
Peter chased after them, down the lane, hoping the dog-lizards would guide him back to his father and friends; hoping he might be some help in the battle.
Chapter Two
The wind picked up, blowing shrubs and small trees back and forth with a sound like whispering crowds. Peter climbed up one rock alley and down another, listening for
voices; but all he heard were ghosts: wind, blowing leaves, and once, a drawn-out thrum like the croak of a huge frog. Muttering in frustration, arms and legs burning with exertion and his chest heaving, Peter found one of his own footprints in a muddy patch and realized he had come full circle through the maze.
"Father!" he called. "OBie! Ray!"
No response. The wind subsided. A front of cloud settled over the plateau in billows and streamers. Cloud filled the alleys and passageways between the rocks. Peter looked up and saw the late afternoon sun surrounded by millions of water-drop sparkles; then the sun was shut out and a gray uniformity enveloped him. Water condensed on his clothes and soaked him through. He sneezed. He wiped his face and beaded hair with his fingers, then sucked on the wet fingers for moisture.
Finally, too exhausted to go on, unable to see more than a couple of feet ahead or behind, Peter stepped into a muddy pool and knelt to get a drink. He pushed aside grass and algae, hesitated, then thought of making a kind of grass filter to screen the larger pieces of muck. He sucked up the water through a mesh of grass blades and had his first good drink in hours.
Something wriggled in his cheek. Tonguing the wriggler to his lips, he plucked an insect larva from his mouth and flung it aside.
After a few minutes of rest, Peter began to twitch. He had to do something, keep searching at least until dark or he thought he would go crazy. He wondered what his mother would think, seeing him in this situation; he could hardly believe where he was himself. Too tired to be afraid, his body tingled at the obscene prospect of ending up in some animal's stomach.
Peter felt his way through the cloud by hand. He advanced a few dozen yards down a series of zigs and zags between boulders. His neck hair prickled. He sniffed a colder kind of air. Something was different. Something had changed. Up ahead, the dense cloud seemed to swirl.
He took a tentative step—
And his foot came down on nothingness. With a surprised yawp, Peter tumbled out into space. He grabbed a tree branch and hung for a dizzying moment with one foot braced against rock and one hand slipping slowly along the bunched leaves of a slick green limb. The clouds cleared beneath his feet, showing him with nature's blind perversity just where he was: about a mile above the Gran Sabana, spreading far beneath his kicking foot like a lumpy carpet of bread mold.