CHAPTER 74

65 mil ion years BC, jungle

Becks emerged from the surrounding sphere of undulating air, and dropped the last few inches with a soft thud of boots on hard mud.

Crouched, ready for action, her eyes panned across the re-lit clearing: a dancing, ickering impression of hel . The creatures had converged in the centre of the area, picking through the shelters, the palisade, watching the camp re hungrily consuming the last of the branches that had been stacked on it.

A knot of them were gathered around the space where, only a minute ago, the return window had opened. They were examining the ground, a cluster of low ferns nearby, their heads cocked with confusion and bewilderment like curious crows studying road kil .

None of them had yet noticed her standing there. She had a thirty-round ammo clip, and in the blink of an eye had organized the order in which she was going to drop the targets: larger male creatures rst. The rst rapidly red half-dozen shots echoed across the clearing like so many dried and brit le branches snapping, and ve out of six of her targets dropped like leather sacks of bone and meat. The one she’d missed had bobbed of bone and meat. The one she’d missed had bobbed unpredictably, the shot skimming across the top of his head.

The other creatures froze where they were, uncertain as to what the rapid cracks of gun re actual y meant. Becks took advantage of the moment of stil ness and confusion and selected another six targets, al the larger males again. But this time the muzzle ash of her gun had at racted their at ention and they began to bound towards her. She kil ed four and wounded another, before their short-lived charge faltered. They drew up a dozen yards away and fanned out, snapping and snarling.

Beyond them she could see the others, females and cubs being herded away from harm by a large male. She recognized it as the pack’s leader, a claw from one of its four digits missing on its left arm. It was holding one of their spears, waving it around and using it to prod and cajole the pack away into the darkness.

[Assessment: primary target]

The pack leader, the alpha male … logic and

observation dictated that that particular creature was the one who’d been learning from them; the shrewd one, the clever one whose genes and unique acquired knowledge were going to pass onwards to its o spring. In only a few nanoseconds of silicon-based analysis, she realized that the one creature she had to be absolutely certain of kil ing was the one with the missing claw. She was striding forward like an automaton as she red another rapid succession of single shots, kil ing half of the creatures bobbing and single shots, kil ing half of the creatures bobbing and snarling in front of her; those stil standing turned and ed. The noise and the muzzle ash were as startling to them as the sudden inexplicable death it seemed to deal out. The entire pack was in motion now, scat ering like birds startled by a handclap. But her eyes remained on the back of the alpha male. She swung the assault ri e towards it, aimed and red.

The shot spun the creature o its feet.