Danger Dinosaurs! полностью

“You sound kind of nervous. What’s the matter? Is anything wrong, Brock?”

Another foot. One more foot. His hands reached out for the flatness of the ledge. He got a good grip on the surface and then slowly swung his legs onto it. He could see Masterson behind the protection of his boulder now, far below. The big man had a rifle, and it was pointed across the clearing at Dr. Ferry and Gardel. Slowly, cautiously, he unholstered the .45 at his waist, checked the clip and released the safety. He looked down again, saw Denise and Dr. Dumar huddled on Mastersons right. From the other side of the cliff, beyond his own vision and beyond Master-son’s, he heard a curious sound. A scraping sound or the sound of something treading on loose rocks. He was just turning his head to locate the source of the sound when Gardel pulled his arm away from Dr. Perry. He started to run across the clearing, and his mouth was open in a hoarse warning.

“Look out, Dirk! The boy! With a gun!

It all happened very suddenly and yet it seemed to take ages. From his perch on the ledge, Chuck viewed the entire scene stretched out below him. He had the vague impression that he was sitting in the balcony and watching a play on an immense stage. Gardel’s shout served as a signal, and everything followed from it-like the opening gun in a horse race or the bell in a prize fight. Gardel shouted and ripped away from Dr. Perry, starting across the clearing toward the boulders.

But Gardel hadn’t pointed and he hadn’t looked up. He’d done nothing to indicate where Chuck was, and Masterson had no way of knowing.

Masterson reacted the way any man in his position would have. The situation had been a tense one up to then, and his finger was probably curled nervously around the trigger of his rifle. When Gardel shouted, he pulled the trigger all the way.

He didn’t aim. He fired blindly across the clearing and he continued to fire.

Gardel screamed and threw his head back, clutching at the steel-jacketed slugs that were ripping into his chest.

“Brock!” Masterson shouted. He stopped shooting. The ragged edges of his voice seeped into the land. The smoke from his rifle rose in a mournful black cloud that hung over his head like a specter of doom and then vanished.

“Brock!” he called again.

Gardel dropped to his knees, his fingers threaded with the red strands of blood that spilled from his torn chest.

He staggered forward, moving on his knees, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

“Dirk-Dirk-” His voice was a dry whisper, the voice of a man a hundred million years from all other men, the dry voice of a man who was dying in a strange time, in a strange land. There was fright in the voice and a pathetic disbelief. He could not understand why Masterson had shot him, and worse, he could not understand why he should be dying at this time.

He pitched forward on his face, rolled over onto his back and spread his arms.

Brock Gardel would do no more wondering.

“Brock! I didn’t… Brock!” The last was almost a scream. Masterson was alone now. It was Masterson against the land and Masterson against his fellow men, and Masterson against whatever conscience he had. Chuck dropped to his belly and shouted, “All right, Masterson, it’s all over now.”

Masterson whirled, bringing up the rifle and triggering off a fast shot.

Chuck hugged the ledge, his face and chest pressed against the coarse rock. He heard the strange sound again, far off to Masterson’s left. The sound of… of hoofs. Above that sound, the terrible soul-shattering cry of a nonhuman thing.

Masterson heard the sound, too, and he turned rapidly, bringing the gun to bear on the boulders over to his left.

It appeared suddenly.

There was nothing at first. Only boulders and a gray sky and an alien land.

And then the land was filled. The thing blotted out the sky, reared high on its hind legs. The blood cry tore from its throat again, and Chuck froze to the ledge, unable to move, his muscles paralyzed.

Allosaurus!