Part 45 (2/2)

Guided and protected by the mantas, she rejoined Veg and the Orn-birds. A month pa.s.sed, an instant and an eternity for both people, sharing their awful grief. The phantom Cal did not reappear -- but Aquilon had continuing cause to wonder, for she had no period. Veg had not touched her -- not that way. Only in futile comfort had he put his arm about her.

In three months she knew she was pregnant. Yet there was no way -- except that day and night in the cave. On occasion, she returned to it, past the frozen hulk of Tyrann at the entrance, but she never found anything. She had made love to a phantom -- and she carried the phantom's child.

Veg shouldered more of the burden of survival as her condition progressed. The two sapient birds also helped, guarding her as she slept, bringing her delicacies such as small freshly slaughtered reptiles. She learned to eat them, and Veg understood: to survive in nature, one had to live nature's way. She was a vegetarian no longer.

”Also,” she explained with a certain difficulty, ”it's Cal's baby. I have to live this way.” She was not certain he would see the logic of that, or if there were any logic in it, but it was the way she felt. Her intake nourished Cal's baby; Cal's standards governed. Had it been Veg's baby...

”I loved him, too,” Veg said, and that sufficed. He was not jealous of his friend -- only glad that even this much remained of Cal. She had never told him the details of the conception, letting him a.s.sume it was before the dinosaur chase began. There had, after all, been opportunity.

”After this one is born, the next must be yours,” she said. ”I love you, too, -- and this would be necessary for survival of our species even if I did not.”

”Yeah,” he said a bit wryly. ”I'm glad you had the sense to go with him first. If he had to die, that was the way to do it.”

In civilization, among normal people, this would have been unreal. Here, with Veg, it was only common sense. Veg had always wanted what was best for his friend Cal, and it was a compliment to her that he felt she had been worthy.

”We argued about whether man should colonize,” she said. ”We were wrong, both sides. We a.s.sumed it had to be all Earth or nothing. Now we know that there was a middle ground. This ground: just a few people, blending into the Cretaceous enclave, cutting our little niche without destroying any other creature's niche. If we had realized that before, Cal might not have felt compelled to match Tyrann, and they both would be alive today.”

”Yeah,” he said, and turned away.

The baby was birthed without difficulty, as though nature had compensated her by making natural birth easy. There was pain, but she hardly cared. Veg helped, and so did the birds: They made a fine soft nest for the infant. She named him Cave.

If her relation with the birds had been close, it was closer now. They nested, for their season had come 'round again. Aquilon would leave baby Cave in the nest with the eggs, and Ornette would sit on them all protectively. Aquilon took her turns guarding the eggs while the birds hunted. They were an extended family.

When Cave was three months old, and Aquilon was just considering inviting Veg to father a sibling, disaster struck. Agents from Earth appeared. Concerned by the nonreport from the advance party -- Cal, Veg, and Aquilon -- the authorities had followed up with a more reliable mission.

The mantas spotted them first: a prefabricated s.h.i.+p coming in past the islands of Silly and Cherybdis. Three agents, one of whom was female.

Veg made a wheeled cart with a loose harness that either bird could draw, and set a nest in it. This made the family mobile -- for there was no stationary place safe from agents. One manta was designated for each adult ent.i.ty: Hex went with Veg, Circe with Aquilon, Diam with Orn, and Star with Ornette. Their function was to give advance warning when any agent was near any of the others, so that person could flee. There was to be no direct contact with any agent unless the nest was in danger. With luck, they would be able to stay clear until the agents left.

It was not to be. The agents were not merely surveying the land, they were after the people, too. The agents quickly ascertained the presence of a baby, and this seemed to surprise them. Hex, in hiding as two of them examined the deserted nest site, picked up some of their dialogue and reported on it: ”Cooperation with tame birds I can understand, though they've really gone primitive,” the male said. ”But a human baby? There wasn't time!”

”She must have been pregnant before leaving Earth,” the female said. ”Then birthed it prematurely.”

Aquilon was in turn amazed. ”How long do they think human gestation is? Two years? Cave was full-term!”

But the riddle of the agents' confusion had to wait. There was no question that the agents intended to take the trio and the baby captive for return to Earth -- they apparently did not know that Cal was gone -- and this could not be permitted.

One would have thought the home team had the advantage: two human beings toughened by a year among the dinosaurs, two fighting birds, and four mantas -- the most efficient predators known to man. But there were three eggs and a baby to protect -- and the three agents were equipped with Earth's technology. In one sense, the contest of champions Cal had visualized was to be joined again -- but this time the weapons were different. One agent could wipe out one tyrannosaurus with one shot. Cal could have directed an efficient program of opposition -- but Cal was gone. The agents were stronger, faster, and better armed than Veg and Aquilon.

”We've got to get out of here,” Veg said. ”They're canva.s.sing this whole valley and the neighboring ones. They know we're here, somewhere, and they're drawing in the net. They'd probably have picked us up by now if they'd located Cal; they must figure he's hiding.”

”Even now, he's helping us, then,” she said, nodding. ”And if we leave, what happens to the dinosaurs?”

”Earth will wipe them out, or put them in zoos, same thing,” he said glumly. ”We've had our problems with the reps, but it's their world, and they have a right to live, too. But we've been over this; we can't kill the agents. Even if we had the weapons, we couldn't do it. We'd be murderers.”

”If we could stop the agents from returning to their base...”

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