The Valley of the Ancients Page 11

  The giganotosaurus ignored the smaller scavengers but, as one or two larger dinosaurs approached, he grunted savagely and lunged to keep them at their distance. Suddenly he stood erect and stiffened. Two other, smaller, giganotosaurs were approaching and as they drew near they separated to approach on different sides. Their giant quarry looked from one to the other and let out the most amazing roar that could possibly be imagined. Undeterred, the others drew closer.

  Julian spoke. ‘Much as I would love to stay and watch the match of the century, I think we should move on while they’re all occupied.’He looked at the others enquiringly as he somewhat reluctantly put his camcorder away and zipped up the case. ‘This has got to be our best time to go.’

  They all agreed, and Lucy looked up to instruct their giant guide. A moment later they were once again on the move.

  As they walked they discussed the fact that the dinosaurs knew the common tongue but had never heard of Lucy.

  ‘If you think about it,’ said Richard, ‘it makes perfect sense. The common tongue is obviously incredibly old and existed before this valley became isolated. The legend of the Promised One, on the other hand, must have arisen at some time during the age of the mammals, long after the dinosaurs had become extinct in the outside world. The animals trapped in this valley would never have got to know about her. I’m surprised that Grandpa didn’t think of that when we discussed it.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s mean to blame him when he’s not here to defend himself,’ interrupted Lucy.

  ‘Pax!’ said Richard, laughing. ‘I might have known better than to criticize your precious Grandpa in your hearing.’

  ‘And while we’re on the subject,’ said Lucy, ‘I must tell you something really fascinating. Talking to the dinosaur reminded me of what Grandpa told me about speaking to the animals. He said that when they ‘speak’ I am really hearing their thoughts which my brain then turns into my own words. Tina obviously thinks the plane is a kind of giant pterodactyl so I hear her say Great pterokin; in the other valley the animals think it’s a loud bird so I hear them say thunderquill. I can’t wait to tell Grandpa – he’ll be so pleased he’s right.’

  As they moved out of some trees into a small glade they came across two small dinosaurs with parrot-like beaks, pecking at some nuts on the ground. There was a primitive nest nearby, the eggs partially covered with sticks and ferns.

  Suddenly Tina stopped and raised her head. As they watched, the small dinosaurs stood erect on their hind legs, sniffed the air, and then scampered towards a large crevice in the rocks at the base of the cliff.

  ‘Did we frighten them?’ asked Lucy looking up at Tina. It was an eerie sensation, for the dinosaur’s head was in front of her but her colossal body was more than forty feet behind. The great dinosaur was also sniffing the air.

  ‘It is not you they fear, but great danger that comes hither. I am safe because of my great size but you must hide where the little peckosaurs have hidden. Those who come cannot enter there. You must make haste!’ Her voice became urgent and Clio and Michelle, who had been listening, were already scampering after the small dinosaurs. Lucy lost no time.

  ‘Run!’ she shouted to the others, and fled after Clio. She squeezed through the crack without a problem but the men only just managed to fit. As Julian twisted sideways to force himself through he saw a herd of dinosaurs streaming into the glade pursuing a smaller creature that was clearly exhausted and terrified. The pursuers were about three metres long, running on their hind legs like giant birds, with sharp teeth and large claws and Julian immediately recognized them as being similar to dromaeosaurs; ferocious, fast, meat-eating predators. He hurriedly squeezed out of sight through the gap as he heard the screams, followed by rending and crunching noises, that signalled the end of the hapless victim.

  He found himself in a small enclosed space among the rocks at the back of which the cliff face soared into the sky.

  ‘Phew, that was a close one!’ he said to Richard as he sat down next to him on a rock. Lucy looked across to the parrot-beaked dinosaurs huddled fearfully together in the opposite corner of the little den. They gazed in astonishment as she began to speak:

  ‘Fear not little ones,’ she said. ‘We intend you no harm. We seek sanctuary, as ye do, from those that pursue us. The Prodigious One is our friend and she will guard your nest.’ She paused at the sounds of frantic scrabbling and blood-curdling snarls from the entrance to their refuge.

  ‘Are we safe in this place?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Yes,’ said the male, to her great relief. ‘The Relentless Ones roam hither and thither in search of prey, but they cannot enter herein. Only once,’ he continued, with more than a hint of pride, ‘did one of their young manage to squeeze in, and I chased him out again.’

  Lucy turned to the others. ‘They say that those horrid bounding things can’t get in. I’ve told them we won’t hurt them and that Tina will guard their nest – so they think we’re OK. What on earth are they, Julian?’

  Julian managed to crack a nervous smile. ‘Which ones, these or the hunters?’

  ‘These – tell me about the others next.’

  ‘Well, these are very interesting. Can you ask one to come over?’

  Lucy looked a little uncertain but did so and soon the larger of the two came over cautiously and sat at Julian’s feet.

  Julian looked intently at the creature. After a moment it glanced nervously at Lucy and then seemed to relax.

  ‘These are the same species as the creature I found in the other valley which had fallen over the cliff. I was never really able to examine that one because, if you remember, a scavenger pinched it before I had the chance.’ Richard and Lucy nodded. ‘In fact, the place where we cast the rope yesterday I recognized as being the spot where we found it. That can’t be far from here on the other side of the escarpment.’He paused. ‘Good Lord!’ he breathed, ‘the one we found must almost certainly have come from this colony. A dead cousin of these little creatures in front of us is the reason we are all here in the first place.’ It was an extraordinary thought and they all fell silent for a moment, pondering over the curious turns of fate that had brought them to be sitting here.

  Julian examined the animal with renewed interest, then continued: ‘Helen and I thought then that it was a psittacosaurus because of its parrot’s beak but I was puzzled because the only fossils so far found of that species have been in Asia. I think this is actually a bit different; it’s obviously in the same group of dinosaurs – they’re called ceratopsians or “horned lizards” – but, as you can see, this one has got a little frill round its head.’He pointed and they all peered at it.

  ‘I think it is a different species from psittacosaurs and is a forerunner of a bigger, frilled dinosaur that we do know lived in South America – the notoceratops.’

  ‘Well, if we ever get out of here, you can call it Notoceratops fossfinderi,’ said Richard as Julian took photographs and measurements of the little dinosaur while Lucy continued to reassure it.

  ‘This is becoming a familiar theme,’ he continued bitterly, ‘our making incredible scientific discoveries and then not being able to tell anyone about them!’

  ‘What were the things we escaped from?’ said Lucy to change the subject. She hated seeing her father looking so gloomy.

  ‘Well, they’re interesting too – do you remember Jurassic Park?’

  ‘Who could forget?’ she said, nodding vigorously.

  ‘Well these creatures are like the animals they called velociraptors in the film. The things chasing us belong to a different and earlier genus than so-called velociraptors, but are very similar in appearance and behaviour. They are also, fortunately, much larger, otherwise we wouldn’t be here now. Some of the Jurassic Park animals would have had no trouble getting through that gap.’ He looked back at the crevice. ‘So we owe a lot to the knowledge and experience of our newly described specimens of Notoceratops fossfinderi –’ he smiled at his own egotism. ‘It see
ms to have become fashionable in popular literature,’ he added, ‘to call predatory dinosaurs “raptors”, but proper zoologists still reserve this term for predatory birds such as hawks and eagles.’

  Suddenly the two little dinosaurs came hurrying over to Lucy and tried to hide behind her feet. She looked round in alarm and then saw a movement at the base of the rocks opposite where one of the snake/lizard creatures they had seen earlier was emerging from a gap. Julian saw it as well and, picking up a large piece of broken rock, got up and moved towards it. As it saw him it returned immediately into its crevice and they all relaxed.

  ‘As you know, I don’t normally go round thumping animals with rocks,’ he said, ‘but the last thing any of us needs at this stage is to get bitten by a snake. I’ve no idea whether it’s poisonous or not, but it wasn’t worth taking a chance on.’ The others nodded vigorously in agreement.

  ‘The malevopod fears thy kinsman will smite him,’ said the female dinosaur, the first time she had spoken. ‘I am glad, for he sometimes steals my eggs and I cannot stop him since his bite brings doom to all small creatures.’

  As she spoke, Clio, who had been peering through the rock gap, turned and said something to Lucy.

  ‘It looks as if the coast is clear,’ said Lucy, and just at that moment she heard Tina, also calling to say that all was safe. She trusted the judgement of the monkey and the dinosaur implicitly and without further ado she scrambled through the gap and back out into the glade.

  As they moved on it became apparent that the broken rock formation that had provided a safe haven for them was simply one end of a massive slippage from the cliff face. And it was now clear that this was indeed the same place on the other side of which they had secured their rope. It was the only major fault visible in the entire central range of hills. Julian was almost certainly correct in his conclusion about the little dinosaur he had found on his previous visit being from the same colony as their recent companions. At the base of the cliff various herbivores were wandering about foraging among the fallen rocks. There was no obvious vegetation and it was not clear what the animals were looking for.

  Julian looked at the cliff formation with a geologist’s eye. The cliff face was still a sheer precipice up to a height of about eighty feet where there was a ledge. Above this major ledge a succession of smaller ledges led to the very top of the escarpment which, at this point, was about two hundred feet above them. The ledges must have been formed by successive slides of rock because of a geological fault at this point in the cliff. If the process continued for another few thousand years the valleys, which had been isolated from each other for countless millions of years, would be separate no longer.

  He turned to the others who were looking at the cliff with mounting excitement.

  ‘This is the place,’ he said simply, and as they nodded in agreement he continued:

  ‘We’ve just got to get Clio up the first eighty feet.’

  ‘Just …’ said Richard, laughing, and Lucy was relieved to see him cheerful again. ‘Just to get up a sheer face as high as a six-storey building with no equipment – a piece of cake.’

  But Lucy was busy listening to Tina.

  ‘Many, great and small, come to this place to eat the hard ones,’ said the dinosaur. Lucy looked more closely at the various animals among the rocks and, to her astonishment, saw that the browsing herbivores were not seeking out ferns and greenery but were actually swallowing stones and small rocks.

  ‘The best ones only I and my kin can reach,’ Tina continued and Lucy followed the dinosaur’s gaze to the first ledge above the smooth cliff face. It was covered in a scree of loose rocks and stones.

  ‘But why do you eat rocks?’ asked Lucy. ‘Is it their taste?’ She had read how the game in Africa concentrated on saltlicks to obtain the minerals they lacked in their diet and wondered if the dinosaurs did the same.

  ‘I know not why,’ replied Tina. ‘The hard ones do not taste pleasant like the trees, but I am driven to swallow them. I am told my kin have done this since time immemorial and will always do so.’

  Lucy turned back to the others, eyes sparkling. ‘You’re not going to believe this but the animals come here to eat stones and rocks. And guess where Tina gets the best ones?’ As she spoke, Tina put her forefeet on the mound of fallen rocks, and stretching her enormous neck to the utmost she could just reach the first ledge above the smooth cliff face. ‘All Clio has to do is climb up Tina’s neck and then she can get to the top. But I still don’t know why Tina eats the stones. I asked her if they were salty but she didn’t really understand.’

  ‘It’s gastroliths!’ exclaimed Julian.

  ‘Gastro what?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Gastroliths. They’re gizzard or stomach stones. Many herbivorous animals swallow stones which help to grind up the food in their stomach. Modern hens eat grit for this purpose and stones up to ten centimetres long are found in ostrich stomachs. Other modern animals such as crocodiles and sea-lions seem to use them as a kind of ballast. Zoologists think that the weight of the stones helps crocs to sink more easily under the water. Palaeontologists have found stones several kilograms in weight in the fossils of dinosaurs. They think that, as the dinosaurs eat massive amounts of fibrous vegetation but don’t have proper grinding teeth, they need the stones to digest their food. Over time the stones are worn smooth in the stomach by their constant grinding, and they often come from rock strata miles away which helps in working out the migration patterns of the animals.’

  He looked to see if Lucy was interested but she was already talking to Clio and Tina. He looked at Richard who shrugged his shoulders and smiled. ‘I found it interesting, even if nobody else did, Julian.’

  Lucy turned back to them. ‘Sorry, what were you saying, Julian? Oh yes, stomach stones; fascinating. Now, can you write a note to send back with Clio to the others?’

  Julian obediently flipped his scientific notebook open to a fresh page. After they had agreed on the contents of the note Julian taped it firmly to a Velcro strap from his rucksack which Lucy then fixed gently round Clio’s neck before looking up to Tina.

  ‘The arborikin who helped thee with thy nest now goes on a quest over the great rock. Canst thou lift her up on high?’

  Tina didn’t answer. She simply lowered her great head almost to the ground and Clio sprang nimbly onto it, carefully avoiding the dreadful gash on the dinosaur’s face. As the monkey clung on, her prehensile tail now wrapped firmly around the top of Tina’s neck, the dinosaur slowly extended her immense length against the side of the cliff and stretched her neck up to the ledge. Clio bounded onto the ledge and then, with an alacrity that amazed the excited onlookers, romped effortlessly from ledge to ledge up the precipitous face of the cliff. She reached the top in a couple of minutes, stood erect to look around, sniffed the air, and set off to the west along the high ridge. Soon she was lost to view among the jagged peaks and crags along the crest.

  The three looked at each other with relief.

  ‘What an achievement,’ said Julian. He put his arm round Lucy and hugged her. ‘Thank God you thought of bringing the monkey – it looks as if you’ve saved our lives once again!’

  Lucy blushed but was saved from any further embarrassment by Tina who leaned down to attract her attention.

  ‘The little Agile One is safely gone but there is always danger near this place. The Merciless Ones know that the Timid Ones come here to eat the hard food and they often attack us. You must return to the safe place where you sought refuge before.’

  Lucy explained this to the others and they started to move back towards their small rocky sanctuary. As they did so Lucy stopped and said something else to Tina, then joined the others as the dinosaur moved to some nearby trees. When they had sat down in their refuge Richard asked Lucy what she had said. Before answering she grinned and pointed. To Richard’s astonishment he saw the dinosaur returning with an enormous mouthful of fruit-laden foliage which she lowered into their little retreat, looki
ng for all the world like a crane manoeuvring materials into a building site.

  ‘We don’t know how long we might have to wait here till Clio gets back with some news. We’ve got water …’ she gestured to the rivulets running down the cliff face and across the ground at their feet … ‘but without Clio we can’t easily get food. As we don’t know what’s safe to eat I’ve asked Tina only to get us the same things that Clio brought.’

  The men exchanged amused glances at her organization and foresight, then set to work stripping the branches. The parrot-like dinosaurs, attracted by the smell of delicacies they could never normally reach, reappeared through the entrance fissure and Lucy gave them some fruit. She sat with one dinosaur on either side, their forefeet resting on her lap, and Michelle leaning forward from her shoulder perch to share in the feast. Julian got out his camcorder and filmed her giving succulent morsels in turn to the three eager little creatures.

  ‘When we get back,’ he said to Richard, who was watching the little scene with a disbelieving smile, ‘we’re going to make the most fascinating nature film of all time!’

  13

  Biggles Blunders into a Bog

  The night before the dinosaur hunters arrived in the Valley of the Mighty Ones the six villains had been discussing the progress of their project to create new invisibility suits from the special ore in the crater. Chopper, desperately eager to get his hands on a suit he could work himself, had suggested to the professor that he should tell the group how many suits he had now made and demonstrate how to use one. He pointed out that it was important to maintain enthusiasm in the team and reassure them that a fortune was now just round the corner. Somewhat reluctantly, Luke had agreed – he could hardly refuse – and he had explained to the men that he had completed two suits and helmets, complete with portable energizers. He had now mastered the technology and could make a new suit every couple of days. He had then shown Chopper how to don one of the suits and energize it and the villains had been truly amazed to see their leader disappear into thin air before their very eyes. The meeting had been a great success and all had gone to bed dreaming of the riches that would soon be within their evil grasp; once four more suits were made they would each be in possession of a unique criminal tool.