Danger Dinosaurs! полностью

“It’s easy,” Owen replied. “These are simply methods of classification. For example, let’s take a horse. We can start by saying that he is a mammal. We can then classify him as that mammal which is a horse. And from there, we can go on to say he is a Shetland or an Arabian or what have you. Do you follow?”

“I think I understand,” Masterson said.

“In the same manner, we can pinpoint any particular dinosaur. The stegosaurs we ran into happened to be the genus called Stegosaurns, which is the type that gave the name to the entire stegosaur group. But there are other stegosaurs we haven’t as yet seen-and may not see.”

“That sounds simple enough,” Gardel said, nodding.

“Now, a pterosaur is a flying reptile. There are two subdivisions of pterosaurs. The one we saw earlier today was called Rhamphorhynchus”

Pete’s eyes opened wide. “Wow!” he said.

“About the sauropods over there,” Owen said, pointing, “I think they’re of the Brontosaurus group, though I can’t be sure at this distance. Whatever they are, they’re darned big, much bigger than the stegosaurs we ran into yesterday, and I think we’d better get out of here while the getting’s good.”

“How far away are they?” Masterson asked.

“At the edge of the lake. About a hundred yards or so.”

“They won’t bother us,” Masterson said calmly.

“I might be inclined to agree with you,” Owen said, “if I didn’t know how trigger-happy you were. The sauropods are plant eaters, and I doubt if they’d be very interested in us as food.”

“I’m not interested in them, either,” Masterson assured Owen. “Don’t worry about them.”

“Did somebody mention food?” Denise asked, trying to lift the conversation out of the menacing route it was taking.

“Be ready in a few minutes,” Pete said. He stood over the fire, stirring a huge caldron of hot soup. He was reaching over for a ladle when the shadow fell over the ground again.

Masterson leaped to his feet instantly, his eyes turning eagerly to the sky. “Another one!” he shouted. “Another of those pterosaurs.” His face flushed with excitement as he sprinted for the truck. “Where’s my rifle?”

“You just said you weren’t going to do any more shooting,” Owen said desperately.

“I didn’t say anything like it,” Masterson yelled over his shoulder. He had his rifle and was already ramming cartridges into the loading chamber.

“The sauropods…” Chuck started, but Masterson had lifted the rifle to his shoulder and was taking aim at the pterosaur overhead. When the rifle shot came, it was loud and echoing. It seemed to fill the land with its angry bellow.

“I’ll get it this time,” Masterson muttered. He swung around as the reptile drifted past, sighting along the barrel of his gun.

“Masterson,” Owen said. “The sauropods! Your fire is attracting…”

“Shut up, Spencer!” Masterson snapped. He squeezed the trigger, and another shot burst on the air, reverberating in every hollow of the land. The echoes were a long time dying, but before they were gone, another sound had replaced them.

The sound was low and steady like the sodden beat of a tom-tom. It got louder as they listened, seemed to expand until it rolled like thunder.

Owen took one look in the direction of the lake. Then he turned his head and his voice was deadly cold when he spoke.

“They’re coming, Masterson,” he said. “And your popgun isn’t going to be much help this time.”

Chuck’s eyes followed his brother’s. He looked at the sauropods as they tramped out of the lake. Owen had been right in his first guess; they were brontosaurs, some of the largest of the reptiles. He listened to the sound of their ponderous hoofs as they pounded against the earth, and he thought they had been named correctly: brontosaurs, thunder lizards.

Thunder lizards they were. Mighty thunder lizards that rumbled forward with an awkward gait. Thunder lizards with all the fury of a storm behind them. Thunder lizards that could crush the jeep, smash the truck, tear the expedition asunder.

These were no stegosaurs. Compared to these beasts, the stegosaurs with their armored backs and tails seemed like barnyard pets. No, these were real dinosaurs, the dinosaurs everyone automatically pictured whenever the word was mentioned. They barged up out of the lake, dripping vegetation from their jaws.

The land trembled, and the party was gripped in the clutches of a tight, unreasoning fear.

They looked like islands on legs. From the tips of their small heads to the ends of their long, bulky tails, they measured more than sixty-five feet. Their backs were humped in the center, giving the illusion of a mountain with a weathered, rounded peak. Their color was a dull green, the color of bread mold or tarnished metal. They moved rapidly for their size. Their weight: thirty-eight tons! Thirty-eight tons of powerful muscle and ponderous bone. Thirty-eight tons of fury and stupidity that now sought the source of the explosions.