Dino-Safari

 

 

takes five very remarkable individuals on a hair-raising journey of scientific exploration. Dr. Alexei Baxter, a product of Cold War paranormal research, has mastered the ability to �tempoport�, or travel at will through time and space. He takes Jack Keller and his paleontologist bride on an unprecedented honeymoon: a safari to the late Cretaceous. With Alex� own wife and their redoubtable bodyguard, the Kellers encounter death, disaster, and a surfeit of adventure among the most challenging ecosystems of our planet�s past. At last, under threat of an impending asteroid strike, the survivors meet appropriate heavens or hells of their own devising.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5:

 

 

Bedroom scenes

 

 

 

����������� Jack kissed his wife on the tip of the nose.

�Come on, honey, you�re going to love this. Blackroot is just riddled with secret passages.� He took her by the hand, and drew her with him to the left rear corner of the room.

Passing a giant bookcase groaning with tomes, he led her around a large potted ficus tree. Behind it lay a narrow slit of black. Grinning back at her, Jack turned sideways, pushed past the branches, and edged into the slit. She followed, and soon they were behind the bookcase, sidling along a darkened space so narrow that Kira�s breasts brushed repeatedly against the rough-hewn basalt.

����������� This set off a pleasant, anticipatory tingling in their tips, an excitement augmented by the charm and romance of the secret passage. Then Jack turned a tight corner, leading the way into a marginally wider but still uncomfortably strait corridor.

Here ancient iron sconces supported widely spaced candles, lending a dim yellow glow to the timeless stone. Proceeding in single file, they soon caught the sense in Alex� remark about �following their nose�.

����������� Scattered thickly underfoot were thousands of rose petals, and even whole blooms.

Their perfume was thick in the air, and growing as the flowers were crushed underfoot. Kira�s excitement climbed apace, and she took advantage of the tight quarters to start pinching and prodding, goading Jack along with insistent gropes from behind.

����������� He giggled a little, picking up speed, and after about fifty yards they reached another right-angled baffle. One after another they eased around the turn, slipped past a standing suit of armor, and emerged onto a small arc of landing.

����������� Spiral stairs continued above and below, and this plus the curved wall indicated that they�d reached the promised tower.

Old-fashioned oil lamps mellowly illuminated the black stone throat of the passage, and the carpet of roses led on up the steps. Marshmallows, sugar almonds, chocolate kisses and other candies also littered the floor, and gay streamers and ribbons decked the walls and ceiling. Jack stole a quick kiss and then started right up.

Taking advantage of his greater elevation, Kira gleefully continued her goosing and groping, driving her new man up and around, up and around, through a dizzy fog of scent-drugged excitement, until at last they emerged, breathless and giddy, into the East Tower�s uppermost chamber. Climbing through a hole in the floor they rose and froze, stunned into wonder by their awaiting boudoir.

����������� The simple room was a perfect cylinder, high and spacious and minimally adorned. Yet here adornments were unnecessary, practically superfluous. The omnipresent black walls had been polished to an obsidian gloss, each stone reflecting the fires of over a hundred candles. The only exception was an open arc east, where a wide curved balcony offered another stunning view of the tropical sea and stars.

����������� Planets and constellations shone in glorious profusion, but these distant conflagrations couldn�t hold a candle to the ones inside the stone. Interspersed with and encircled by a blazing galaxy of inch-high flames, the room�s few furnishings consisted of a series of smaller circles, strategically offset within the greater perimeter of the tower.

One of these sank into the floor, a whirlpool spa large enough for a hippo to bathe in. Already it was bubbling, churning, steaming. Past the heated racks of towels et cetera stood a small dressing table and wardrobe. But enormous against the far wall, dominating the rest of the room, rose the elevated, stone-girdled circle of the gigantic feather bed.

����������� The trail of candies, flowers, ribbons and streamers led right up to the rim, the old black rock here worn almost waxy with the passages of millennia. There all but the petals petered out, and sumptuous furs and silken pillows took over.

Kira cast her glance upward, already knowing what she�d see. Sure enough, twenty feet above the bed was a matching round mirror, perfectly reflecting the scene below. The glass was even specially beveled to magnify the image.

Those Romans certainly knew how to live. At last her body remembered to breathe, and Kira sucked in a sudden huge breath.

Dizzy and a bit winded from the long climb, she felt the room spin about her: a million fireflies trapped in a can. Kira was in great shape though, and despite the evening�s earlier excesses (and maybe because of those still to come), sufficient equilibrium soon returned.

����������� She looked at Jack then, a long, heavily freighted look that shared their mutual decision to stoke those inner fires just a tiny bit more. They separated, Kira wandering over to examine the magnificent accommodations while Jack moved off to the balcony.

����������� Another big mirror was situated where the stone circles of bed and wall met. Below this, right at the point of intersection, was a small stone lid. Curious, Kira lifted it.

Steam arose, disclosing a deep, heated well filled with hot, damp towels.

The new lady of the household Keller smiled to herself.

This Tonia didn�t miss a trick when it came to arranging bedroom scenes. She replaced the lid, noticed the magnum of champagne chilling nearby, and spun the bottle to see the label.

����������� Dom Perignon, 2014. Naturally. Marveling at her new friends� hospitality, Kira moved at last to check the mattress.

Reputed to be goose-down, over two feet thick, it looked every bit as inviting as Jack�s elaborate blandishments had led her to expect. She tested its plush with a push, and the springy, eager response of the bedding returned her attention to her reflection. She appraised the hot flush in her face, the flaring of her nostrils and the sparkle in her eyes, then reached up to tug free the restraints that bound up her heavy fall of hair.

Thick, shiny blonde locks tumbled free. She shook them out, teased them a bit, then unclasped and dropped her belt. Then, slipping free the buttons on her shirt, she moved at last to join her husband on the balcony

����������� The air was springtime warm, but a cooling breeze licked its way inside her loosened clothing. She moved up to Jack, still admiring the spread of the heavens, and slipped an arm about his waist.

����������� �Hey, lover-boy, why didn�t you tell me any of this before? It bothers me that there�s so much about you I didn�t know.�

����������� Jack turned to meet her gaze. Still looking up a bit, he found another scintillating infinity in the depths of her eyes.

����������� �Because that would have made this trip a contemptible bribe. I wanted to win your hand on my own merits. This way I can call the coming week a reward, the best honeymoon in history in return for the most desirable mate ever.�

Kira smiled at the flattery. But she took the repeated implications of payment as a challenge

�A reward, huh?�Her already whetted smile sharpened, taking on a familiar, extremely devilish cast.

�I�ll reward you, Mister Mars-has-pink-sky-and-blue-sunsets. Never let it be said I couldn�t make commensurate recompense.�

����������� She spun him around, propelling him violently backward and into the room. Ignoring his sputtering protests, she used her superior size and strength to drive him effortlessly toward the bed, picking him up and flinging him down at last into the receptive center of the flower-littered, fur-covered, silk-pillowed goose-down mattress.

�It�s time for my contribution to the incredible, unforgettable honeymoon!�

And with that there was a frenzied ripping and tearing of clothes, a voracious female attack, and like Alexei Baxter, the average reader will have enough propriety to grant their nuptial celebrations a bit of privacy.

 

***

 

����������� Tonia had said she�d be in the Suite of Birds.

����������� After he parted with Dale (following a bit more planning regarding both the trip ahead and the security of Blackroot in their absence), Alex took Cinder with him and headed for the southwest wing of the castle.

A Moorish addition during the reign of Cordoba, this part of the structure was airier than the rest and exceedingly beautiful. Graceful arches curved over tiled mosaics. Deeper in, past the endless halls and galleries, the living rooms were plastered in pastels and decorated with ancient artwork rich in life. Leaving the wolf at the door, Alexei passed into the promised bedchamber and began to remove his clothing.

����������� Elaborate arrangements of peacock tails and ostrich feathers both canopied the bed and hung on all the walls. Even in the corners, rare, stuffed Birds of Paradise pinched from the days of colonial plunder perched on heavily lacquered branches, gaudy ruffs fluffed and ostentatious plumes trailing.

For a moment the glut of lines and shadings swam and ran, intricate colors twisting and writhing in the dim light.

It was too much detail after so much whiskey and pot, and Alex blinked and looked away. He concentrated on quietly stripping then, and his wife remained undisturbed as he crossed the room to join her.

����������� He sat on the edge of the bed, and still she didn�t stir.

Slender and small, barely five feet tall, she lay on her side, facing away. Perfectly molded to the curve of her hip, the thin satin coverlet had been pushed down to puddle about her waist. Visible above this was one arm and small of her back, one shoulder and a bit of neck, ear, and chin. The rest was covered by her amazing sheaf of hair.

Full and thick, nearly waist-length, Tonia�s luscious glory was that magical shade of depthless black that often seems to mimic the silver-limned purple of early midnight. A beautiful, beguiling illusion, this almost ultraviolet overtone glowed even now, in the darkened bedroom, only grudgingly fading away into the straight sable.

That obviously oriental hair, the creamy-butter color of her skin and a hint of epicanthic fold about the large almond eyes betrayed Tonia�s mixed blood, as did the intense, striking green of her striated irises.

Alex considered this to be the source of her extraordinary beauty, but ironically it had also been the source of unconscionable suffering.

In the small Spanish village of her birth, the women were generally larger in build, much darker of skin and eye, and their black hair was coarser in texture.

Tonia�s mother, the product of an American soldier and a Japanese geisha woman, had bequeathed these distinctive features to her daughter despite the solid Spanish pedigree of her paternal line. Unfortunately, she�d also bequeathed her the pain and misery such obviously mixed-breed people suffer the entire world over, wherever poverty and ignorance hold sway.

His wife�s extreme shyness was the result of a lifetime of discriminatory maltreatment culminating in atrocity. Once again, Alex found himself despairing about the ignorance and cruelty of most human beings. Outcasting such an amazing creature for such contemptible reasons...

Ah, well. Their loss was his gain. Suddenly Tonia awoke, as he�d known she soon would. She gave a small gasp and rolled over, her lovely hair tumbling everywhere.

�Alex! Good morning, my love. Did you have a nice visit with Jack? And his new wife? I�m sorry I did not stay up to meet her. I hope they enjoy the tower!�

�I�m sure they will, my dear. We all had a wonderful visit.�

He stopped there, but he didn�t need to go any further. Tonia could read his manner, and her forehead immediately creased. Her tiny chin jutted out, and her lovely little heart-shaped face clouded over with reproof.

�Well, then? Where have they convinced you to go now? Roman Pompeii? The moon? The freaking Ice Ages?�

Alex smiled wearily. �Worse, I�m afraid. Antonia, my love, my only love ever, we are going to see the dinosaurs. All the way back seventy million years or so. For a week we will be gone.�

Time didn�t stop while Alex traveled. He was always obliged to return to the linearly progressing present after his adventures. This made waiting at home onerous, and was one of the reasons Tonia didn�t like him to tempoport.

�You are kidding me.�

�Nope.�

�Then I am going with you.�

�No! This will be dangerous, Antonia. Very dangerous. We will have Dale, and guns, and Kira is an expert, but accidents can happen. Plus, five people and all their gear, that is asking a lot. You know what this stuff does to me.�

�Yes. I do know. I know very well. And I hate it. I hate it absolutely. I hate these trips. I hate the drugs, the time-jumping. They hurt you, mi amo. They hurt your soul, the most important part of you, and the hardest to heal.

�Therefore I must come along. To stop the hurt before it sets in. I will not wait home alone, a whole week with the servants, worrying about you, before I even get to see what damage has been done! No my love, if you are going, then I am going, too.�

����������� Alex persisted, resisted, but he had an inkling that this was an argument he wasn�t going to win. Usually shy and compliant, Tonia had decided to take a stand. Defiant, she remained quietly steadfast, overcoming his every objection. Finally, running out patience, she used her trump card, the same one that resolved all their rare battles, including the first a short time after she�d arrived.

Se�or Alex, my beautiful darling, wouldn�t you rather have this along? And wouldn�t you rather make love than argue?�

Lying on her side, propped up on an elbow, she cast the thin coverlet dramatically away. Helpless in the face of this insidious ploy, Alex let his drunken eyes feast.

Big mistake. The body before him was only twenty-six years old, exquisitely proportioned without an once of superfluous flesh. The only exception was up top, where like Kira Keller, Mother Nature had been more than generous. But unlike Kira�s wide, sloping ovals, Tonia�s tight breasts were high-set and spherical, so round, firm, and emphatically upswept that one might suspect silicon responsible for the way they outsized her ninety-pound frame. Yet any discerning eye could see, as Alex did now, how they barely obeyed gravity by sagging slightly sideways, rolling with the motion of her body in the deliciously liquid fashion of all genuine flesh.

The naturally protuberant nipples were large and dark, as pert and jaunty as ever, rising and hardening even further as gooseflesh began to marble her skin. Below, darker round shadows lay on the delicate cage of her ribs, which opened gracefully out onto the taut flat hollow of her belly. After that, clean, lean flanks and the tiniest of waists curved perfectly into lyre-like hips.

Indeed, those bunching round buttocks seemed almost feral by contrast: the haunches of a satyr on the body of a sprite. But ultimately Tonia�s sylph-like shape was saved by the slenderness of her thighs. Beautifully contoured, her well-muscled legs tapered elegantly into tiny, almost magically dexterous feet.

Feeding off his avid scrutiny, Tonia rolled onto her back and opened up wide, arms and legs and everything.

Drawing up her knees and splaying out her thighs, exposing her most private self to his greedy inspection, she arched her back, lifting her now barely oblate but still goose-pebbled breasts and stretching forth her arms in a timeless gesture of carnal supplication. Toes curled up tight, and shivers of lust wracked her tiny frame. But for Alex the most compelling sight of all was the tortured yearning in those amazingly expressive, meltingly large and limpid, gleaming-wet emerald-green eyes. Only human despite his rare powers, he at last cast caution to wind and gave in again.

Afterward, Tonia coaxed him over onto his back. Needing rest for the trip he had planned, Alexei was practically asleep already. She reached into the bedside well, withdrew a hot cloth and gently toweled him off.

Smiling at the way he twitched even on the edge of unconsciousness, Tonia spent a practical minute or two sitting on a washcloth herself. Then she got up, and turned on the Jacuzzi.While it filled, she walked quietly to the room�s balcony.

Far to the east, the dawn was just breaking. For five minutes she did nothing but watch, paying her usual pagan homage to the newly rising sun. Then at last, feeling completely at peace with herself and the enormous challenge she�d just undertaken, she returned inside to bathe and dress.

After that it would be a long day of entertaining their guests, and helping Dale to make arrangements with the staff for their absence.

Busy, busy, busy day. She smiled happily at the prospect and slipped into the bubbling tub.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 11:

 

 

The Naiad Pool

 

 

 

����������� After reorganizing packs and weapons, Jack and Kira made their manners and parted from the others. Heading downstream they moved quickly at first, impelled by Kira�s enthusiasm. With her weapons slung and camera recording she strode along the riverbank, half a step ahead of her husband. But they hadn�t covered half a klick before their pace began to slow. Too many scenes begged their attention, too many wonders demanded to be examined in greater detail.

As a scientist Kira felt compelled to document each little furball that skittered out of her path, each feathered insectivore that strutted or fluttered past. Equally often she found herself struck by beauty, astounded at the vibrancy and color of the flowering plants and bushes flourishing here. This richest of little floodplains supported flora and fauna as lovely and fascinating as any temperate climate in her experience.

Birds of all size and hue nested in the bushes, patrolled the ground and air above or splashed and perched along the river. Their abundant prey spanned every class of animals. Insects were large and iridescent; fish fat and sassy, and reptiles and amphibians of diverse kind made their homes in timeless fashion by the slowly moving watercourse. Kira saw lots of frogs, salamanders, turtles and snakes, and even a few good-sized lizards plying the crystalline stream. Yet even this profligacy of life was not the most compelling of surrounding sights. Sheer geology made the canyon they were traveling as impressive and awe-inspiring as any ascension-seeking soul could ask for.

Kira was reminded of the journals of Colonel John Wesley Powell, the nineteenth-century American who was the first white man to explore the Grand Canyon. While not nearly as deep and grandiose, these river-cut cliffs were the same orange-red sandstone, and featured the same kind of curiously fluted, gracefully curved erosion patterns as those of the glorious Colorado. Occasional falls trickled down from above, leaving glittering deposits of minerals and even revealing veins of pure ore folded through the rock. But that wasn�t all the years had revealed. Fossils were protruding as well, jutting undisturbed from the eroded cliff face in a fashion that endless millennia of human curiosity had denied the paleontology of their own time. It was all Kira could do to keep from picking and digging at these, and trying to pocket specimens. From the pebbles and calcified shells underfoot, to the myriad water-rounded rocks poking out of the stream, to vast, jumbled boulders the size of houses tumbled down from the crumbling heights above, the bones of the Earth were as evocative and intriguing here as anywhere else in the world. The very shape and stone of the valley seemed worthy of endless inspection.

Playing Explorer themselves, the Kellers continued in halting fashion for almost three hours, covering little more than a like number of kilometers. Gradually the middle-aged river curved east, making a long gentle meander that would eventually find the other canyon wall and close off this isolated floodplain. But before they drew close to that distant narrows, they came upon a kink in the high cliff wall that was cradling nirvana.

�Sweet, merciful heaven, look at the size of that tree!� Jack marveled. �Strange to see one so large down here in such a deep canyon. It must be five hundred years old!�

�This canyon�s that many million, and then some. But I agree it�s a beautiful tree. And I absolutely love the waterfall.�

As they drew closer, the scent from the enormous tree�s blossoms wafted over them. These were either snow white or a delicate rose pink, and they blazed like glory in the bright morning sun. Leaf and branch they covered the entire tree, and fluttered down gently to carpet the ground beneath it. Some fell or blew into the nearby stream, and that was where paradise really began. Here the river took a convenient little crook, the better to accommodate the addition of a couple little tributaries that tumbled down a cleft in the cliff from the land above.

This sparkling waterfall had carved a deep pool at its base, and behind the endless flowing liquid gleamed and glimmered intricate patterns of the by now familiar mineral deposits: primarily pyrite but many other equally shiny varieties besides. Brilliantly plumed heron-like wading birds hunted all around the pool�s misty fringes, and the entire scene was so surpassingly idyllic that there was absolutely no question: they�d found their campsite. Just beyond the outermost flower-laden limbs they stopped, the noontime sun beating down. On shared impulse their hands clasped.

�Holy shit, this place could have been made for a honeymooning couple! Have you ever seen a more beautiful, more romantic spot?� Jack was gushing like the fifty-meter fall. �I can�t believe it! How the hell does Alex do it? How does he find these places? He must have located the prettiest damn valley in the whole history of the Earth for us!�

�For Tonia, you mean. Too bad she didn�t get to see this. After all, there are dawn horses down here, too. See them? Maybe we should share this place with the others. But first I say we enjoy it like the only two newlyweds on Earth!�

�Agreed!� They shared a deep, relishing kiss, and when Jack broke it off his eyes were alight with mischief. �Tell you what. Let�s have us a little competition. Let�s see who can provide the tastiest lunch in the quickest time. I�m absolutely starving!�

�You�re on!�

They dropped their packs and rifles beneath the tree.

�No gunfire allowed,� declared Kira. �We don�t want to alarm the others. Poor Tonia�s spooked enough as it is, after that terrible battle with the wolf-bears. And if you go and blast the guts out of one of those cute little Eohippus with that blunderbuss of yours, you forfeit the game. Not only that, but I�ll have to box your ears for you.�

�No worries, Madam. These critters have never seen humans before. I doubt we�ll need any technological advantage.�

They did not. Jack had no trouble surprising and overpowering one of the large wading birds. He wrung its neck. Then while he was busy plucking, cleaning, and roasting the fellow, Kira captured and boiled nearly two dozen large crayfish: freshwater crustaceans nearly six inches long.

Together they feasted on the firm, white, finger-sized tails, and also made a serious dent in the spitted waterfowl. The competition was declared a draw, and afterwards they stretched out beneath the tree to digest and keep a watch on the sky, stream and floodplain: alert for any particularly interesting species to document.

Alert, that was, at first. But the big meal, the warmth of the afternoon, and the skipped night of sleep all combined to induce a luxurious lethargy. Stretched out next to each other on linked sleeping pads, both Kellers soon indulged in an unplanned nap.

Dozing deepened into a real sleep of several hours for both of them, and later both confessed to having experienced curiously rich, especially sensual dreams. Perhaps this was only natural, and perhaps it wholly accounted for what happened to them next. Nevertheless, for the rest of her life persistent questions would plague Kira Keller about the strange influences present that hot afternoon and evening in the mid-Eocene Epoch.

When they awoke in the late afternoon, apparently simultaneously, their heads were curiously groggy. Putting it off to disrupted sleep patterns and the fact that they were drenched with sweat and overheated (the sun had crossed the sky and dropped enough to find them), they looked around to discover what had awakened them.

�Look at the Naiad Pool!� Kira at last called softly.

�The what?� mumbled Jack, blinking blearily.

�I mean the waterfall.�

�Why�d you call it that?� Jack asked, then he trailed off as his gaze followed hers. Captivated, he barely caught her hesitant, distracted response.

�I� I don�t know. It just slipped into my head then...� She faltered as well, and they both fell silent, staring. The sight was so wondrous that words were superfluous, perverting, even. The declining sun had not only found their spot beneath the tree. Its slanting rays had also magically transformed the waterfall.

Within its red-rock nook, the double stream coming down from above was now bathed in brilliant golden light. Fine mist made prisms everywhere: rainbows that reflected from every larger sparking drop. This corona was entrancing enough, but within its heart the strong solar radiance shining on the thin sheets of water flowing over the sparkling mineral deposits was also creating a flashing, undulating, constantly metamorphosing curtain of silver, gold, and multi-hued jewels as beautiful as they were ephemeral.

Its as though in this brief interval all of the world�s treasuries were being poured through an enchantrix� hourglass. Diamonds and rubies, opals and emeralds, sapphires and amethysts and precious stones of every description flashed briefly into being and then winked back out again, only to magically reappear in a billion other continuously rearranged but undoubtedly mystically significant configurations. Spellbound, the humans watched the show, and the more they attended to this beguiling chiaroscuro, the more that kaleidoscopic dance of color and light seemed to make a strange sort of sense to them. It was like the patter and babble of the ceaselessly falling water: an intricate, surpassingly sophisticated language that called to one on a level just a bit too deep for conscious understanding. Still rather drugged with sleep, hardly aware they were responding, both Kira and Jack suddenly began to roll and crawl toward the river.

They gained their feet just in time to stumble across the shallows and slip into the pool. But rather than slap them back to their senses, the touch of the water only seemed to deepen their distraction.

The pool and falling shower were womb-warm, enough solar heat trapped by the cradling rocks to create a natural sauna. The surrounding air was humid, thick with mist, only barely stirred by the light breeze that wafted pink-white petals and floral perfume into the secluded nook. Completely immersing themselves, then rising to cavort in the mineral-laden influx, the Kellers basked and bathed without speaking, as though instinctively following some ancient, preparatory, sacrosanct ritual. Somehow their clothes got shed and washed up as well, and flung over flower-laden branches to dry. Then at last they devoted the entirety of their befuddled attention to each other. Wallowing in the pool and spray, they kissed and caressed and squirmed their slippery skins together � at first slowly and exquisitely but soon in a mindless frenzy, stoking the raging lust that had seemed to come out of sleep to compel them into this living dream. Their abstracted state of consciousness deepened; still the mist, scent, color and light, and the endless patter and babble of the water spoke directly to their simpatico souls. Without thinking about it, Kira gradually came to the perception that all these influences were somehow combining in this warm, fluid medium with her and Jack�s own life-lust-force to concentrate and empower some kind of elemental spirit of the river. Her words upon waking recurred to Kira, and regardless of the future�s endless uncertainty, for that brief period of time she believed.

Some incomprehensibly ancient and yet eternally lubricious naiad inhabited this pool. A normally incorporeal life force, it had drawn them here, seduced them, and at last emerged to magically merge with these mortal and yet amazingly self-conscious creatures. Whatever the cause, either truly an eternal demigoddess or merely their own deeply matched emotional states, the two shortly found themselves utterly subsumed. Their individual egos were swamped in an unthinking carnal carnival that quickly overcame them. It was at sunset that a crucial threshold seemed to be crossed. The moment darkness found their pool a communal surge seemed to carry the Kellers ashore, where they landed in a tangled, fleshy knot at the foot of the enormous, ancient scent-tree. There the spirit that possessed them sought to sate its eternal hunger while at the same time elevating their own puny mortal passions to an intensity that could only be described as divine.

Possessed, the two linked up to copulate like African lions: a hundred manic couplings in one short night. And whether supernaturally guided or merely inspired, their continuously escalating rhythm was always perfectly synchronized: their opposing movements and experience completely complementary, relentlessly reciprocal. Like Alexei and Antonia Baxter (had they but only known it) they briefly seemed to share a kind of whole-body, whole-mind telepathy.

Perhaps it was the effect of the ego-transfer: the earlier consciousness sharing that had left such a residue of each other�s self in the newlyweds� minds. Or perhaps it was that mythical naiad after all: uniting them all psychically for the better satiation of its eons-old needs. Perhaps it was even both, and the effects of drug-induced telepathy and time-travel had left them open to the uses of such a being. Regardless, for Jack and Kira Keller the rewards of the experience far outstripped the mystery of its genesis. It wasn�t until the leering moon had risen above one canyon wall and set behind the other that the strange spirit of lust at last left them. Then they fell into a deep, exhausted sleep beneath the twinkling springtime stars.

 

 

 

Chapter 29:

 

 

Incandescent

 

 

 

����������� Many hours later it was Dale who sat up alone, squatting quietly in the mouth of the cave. Flanked by the severely depleted woodpile, he stared out and down over the wooded hillside to the valley floor sprawled below.

����������� Innumerable spots of shimmering red could be seen: the thermal images of animals detected by his infrared prosthesis. Nearly all the spots were motionless, muted, indicating that the animals slept. Only rarely did nocturnal predators come creeping around their mountainside, and most of these were either turkey-sized or smaller, or they remained so distant and furtive that they were almost indistinguishable.

����������� That left plenty of time for idle thought. Back in the inner chamber the others slept soundly on behind him, and yet once again Dale found himself curiously unsettled. Over and over in his head he relived the adventures just past, recalled the stories just told: exulting within at the memory of combat, the immediacy of life-and-death actions and decisions. Not since his days with the government had he seen such action, and back then everything had been tainted by the knowledge that his deeds had often been unappreciated, unnecessary, and sometimes even downright evil in their inception. Now at last he had an indisputably noble use for his skills, and he reveled in it.

It was so much better to choose your own fights, and your allies as well.

Not that he hadn�t had some damn fine teammates back in his SEAL days, and later with the CIA. But his current comrades-in-arms were people he actually cared about, people he liked and admired and enjoyed being with. Jack and Alex were his two best friends in the world, and Tonia�s air of shy vulnerability touched him. It was to protect people like her that he should have been built, not to further the malign interests of the men in power. And as for Lady Kira�

����������� Once again Dale found himself squirming within, trying to come to grips with alien stirrings. He re-examined the camaraderie they�d been sharing: that of fellow soldiers, but also of increasingly close friends. He seemed to be developing some indefinable tie with his friend�s new wife that affected him both pleasantly and disturbingly. Establishing bonds of mutual admiration, understanding and respect with her didn�t seem sufficient to explain it. There was a strange, nascent something stirring somewhere deep inside his chest and gut that made him feel both excited and sick, eager and yet weak. Such strange, foreign sensations! Earlier, after the first battle with the raptors, he�d had his first experience with these stirrings. But then the subsequent battle, Jack�s wounding and the desperate push back to the base camp had temporarily obliterated all consideration but that of immediate necessities. Now however the racing of his heart and the churning in his innards had returned with redoubled force.

What the hell was going on here? For three quarters of his shift Dale sat and kept watch and wrestled with himself, trying to settle or at least comprehend his troubled inner state. But finally his sense of turmoil grew until he could no longer even sit still. A conditioned compulsion demanded activity, and he rose to rebuild the slowly dying fire.

Whoops. First he would have to rebuild the woodpile.

For all their sloth earlier they could have done this job during daylight. But as this was agreed to be their last night in this particular base camp, the need hadn�t seemed particularly compelling at the time. But now if Dale dismantled their once formidable barricade any further there would be nothing left of it. Worse, when Kira came on for her three a.m. to dawn shift, she would eventually have to forage. As a cyborg Dale was of course much better protected and equipped for this chore, especially at night. His need for activity combined with a habitual sense of solicitousness drove him off his heels and up the mountainside: toward the large deadfall they�d been systematically mining for fuel.

It was a beautiful late summer night. High overhead, the full moon shone like a blazing spotlight, stabbing shafts of argent down through innumerable gaps in the trees. The air was comfortably warm and much less humid than during the steamy tropical afternoons, and the songs of insects and frogs had gone from eerie to monotonous to somehow soothing. Dale moved briskly uphill, the exertion almost thrilling him, the combination of the gorgeous Cretaceous night and the job to be done temporarily superseding his strange emotional and psychological problems. He reached the deadfall and began wrenching pieces of dry, dead pine free. Muscles bunched and flexed with glorious life, and the wood of the tree succumbed to his attack. He broke loose a substantial load of heavy branches, then busted them up into manageable lengths and carried them back to the caves. Piling them at the entrance, he returned twice more, ensuring that enough fuel was stacked handy for the rest of their stay.

Still the barricade at the front entrance was but a shadow of its former self. It was well that they were leaving. Their defenses hadn�t yet been needed, but it was foolish to take any unnecessary risks. With that in mind, Dale retained several big sticks from his last load and re-entered the cave, intending to rebuild the interior guard fire.

He was an ace away from tossing on the dry branches with a great clatter and crackle when a sound caught his attention. How ironic, that he�d been musing on the necessity of their defenses only to at last receive some inkling that they were necessary.

There was some sort of disturbance further back in the complex, beyond their dying fire.

Instantly Dale�s own inner tinder leaped into combustion, filling him with a hot, happy elation. Here at last was the distraction he needed, the opportunity for combat he so desperately craved! Thinking animal intruders he leaped, quite literally, at the chance for action. Silent as smoke the cyborg set down his burden of branches and jumped lightly over the dying fire: through the crack in the back of the cave.

With the light at his back now he was at a disadvantage, so he maxed the power on his IR prosthesis, and raised his weaponed arm. Easing through the deepening dark, forgetting about the flashlight he�d left behind, he followed the narrow passage toward the disturbance he�d detected: a feral, urgent grunting, perhaps the sound of feeding or fighting deinonychus.

His eagerness mounting, Dale pressed forward, passing through a crooked, baffling turn that finally cut off the last of the light from behind. Nevertheless, trusting to his enhancements he continued, at last moving cautiously around yet another rocky dogleg and into what was revealed as another, lower chamber in the extensive complex. There he froze, for the first time ever finding himself entirely unable to proceed.

That eerie, minimalist setting wasn�t all that was revealed. That dank black hole in the ancient mountain rock proved to be the stage for a scene that would haunt Dale McGrath to the end of his days. Smack-dab in front of him, not eight feet away, his powered-up infrared prosthesis brilliantly illuminated the stark naked form of his friend Kira Keller, vigorously riding her husband Jack.

Stunned by the sight, all the more potent for its complete unexpectedness, Dale stood there and goggled in unselfconscious amazement. Fully face-on, Kira�s incredible body was incandescent, a glorious form of golden-orange light that seemed to be the only object in the otherwise completely featureless pitch-black chamber.

Her hottest points burned an angry red, accenting her nipples and crotch and spreading in hectic splotches across her face. Most of Jack�s body was hidden by the tilted shelf of rock he lay propped against, with only the cool round dome of his head and the broken yellow Y of his splayed apart legs showing. In any case, Kira dominated the mind-blowing tableau, appearing more like a feasting predator than a tender lover. Leaning forward, her fists clamped to rock on either side of her husband�s head, she straddled his supine form and heaved her clutching hips back and forth relentlessly, panting and grunting with the demanding, brutish intensity that had drawn him here.

As Dale watched in open-mouthed shock she suddenly dropped her pneumatic rhythm to fall forward, trapping Jack�s head between her arms and writhing her body against him. Growling possessively all the while, she thrashed his hidden cheeks back and forth with the swinging, slapping weight of her pendulous breasts, simultaneously grinding and squirming and swiveling about the spike of their connection. Then she just as suddenly released him and leaned back, reaching behind on both sides to grab under his knees, using them as an anchor to renew her frenzied rhythm.

This tactic arched her back and spread her shoulders, thrusting those amazing breasts upward and out in a glorious unconscious display. While she humped and pumped and rode away with the mindless vigor of total abandon they bounced and bobbed and throbbed red on her chest like binary suns about to go nova. Lady Kira threw back her head, that glorious mane of hair appearing gray-green in its cooler color, and at last her animalistic grunts gave way to mounting, uncontainable cries of ecstasy. Her impossible pace accelerated even more, bringing moans of impending crisis from Jack, and at last Dale�s unacknowledged conflict (and a bit of belated propriety) made him jerk away.

Just as silently as he�d entered he retreated, finding his way back over the fire, through the outer cave and outside.

His face burned hotly in the slightly cooler air, his guts were in greater turmoil than ever, and wonder of wonders, he actually had an erection.

Disbelievingly Dale pressed it, feeling it press back.

Still his mind was filled with the vision of that blazing golden goddess in full career; he heard again the desperate, almost whimpered moans of the captive male, pinned beneath her and propelled headlong toward an ejaculation of excruciating intensity.

How long had it been? A decade? More? Thanks to his damn conditioning, Dale had long ago transformed and sublimated all of his sexual energies into soldiery, training, and combat. Still physically capable, he�d been practically impotent for nearly ten years. But the shock of that unexpected scene � or perhaps his still unresolved feelings toward his friend�s new wife � had somehow managed to temporarily override his conditioning. Apparently, despite the best efforts of the CIA�s mindfuckers, something in this world remained capable of arousing him. Too bad it was so far off limits�

Dale took a deep breath, feeling his unaccustomed hardness melt away, and his familiar self-control return. Cold rationality faced futile questions then.

Could it be true? Could he be falling in love with his best friend�s wife? And could this Kira cure him of his conditioning, if she so chose?

If so, it made no difference in either case. Dale was not the kind of man to steal his best friend�s woman, and he had no doubt that Kira�s love for her husband was thorough and secure. The week�s adventures had made that perfectly obvious.

Paradoxically relieved, more understanding of his situation and thus less upset about his unsettled inner state, Dale sat down in the cave mouth to wait out the last half hour of his shift.

That was his job, and he would do it or die. Still, in his mind�s eye, those forbidden images of an attacking, incandescent fire-goddess persisted.

 

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