"They would have hunted us like cats hunt mice," Marco said. "Primitive humans with sharp sticks and maybe a couple of torches? No contest."

  Ax said. Not for the first time, I wondered if Ax had developed a sense of humor. And then the adrenalin and lack of sleep and the physical beating all came together. My eyes closed all on their own. My legs buckled. I fell, and arms reached out to take me.

  Marco

  After we let Jake sort of doze for awhile, we decided that maybe sleeping between a dead long-necked dinosaur the size of Nebraska and a moaning, sick Tyrannosaurus was not a great idea. So despite the fact that it was so dark we couldn't see our own feet, we trudged on. At least it wasn't raining. After that big huge flash, I'd assumed rain was coming. But maybe that's not the way it worked in this millennium.

  "So basically everything is fine," I said, shifting my pathetically dim torch to my other hand. "We're tens of millions of years in the past. We have no food except charred scraps of dinosaur-on-a-stick. There's a river over there, but if we do go and get a drink, some monster crocodile will

  jump out and chomp us. We're lost, which is fine because let's face Page 46

  K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs it, we're not exactly looking for the nearest Taco Bell, so who cares where we are? Plus, just to make things perfect, we're wearing Tyrannosaurus skin sandals, which is going to really, really endear us to the next Big Rex we see."

  "I wish Rachel were here," Cassie said.

  "Yeah," I said, suddenly sad. "She'd say something like, 'I can stand the dinosaurs, Marco, I just can't stand listening to you whine.'" Jake laughed softly. "You do a pretty good Rachel impression." I heard Cassie sniffle.

  "You know what occurs to me," I said. "We survived, right? I mean, twice we've been jumped by tyrannosaurs or tyrannosauri, whichever. I'm still here and I'm not Captain Heroic. And Jake is still here, despite the fact he's a big, galumphing, clumsy oaf, and not even all that bright."

  "Thanks," Jake said.

  "My point is, if we could survive, are you going to tell me Rachel and Tobias - Xena, Warrior Princess, and a Bird-boy who has to hunt his breakfast every morning - didn't make it? Come on, anything that wants to kill Rachel would have to be meaner than Rachel. And you know that's not even possible."

  Cassie chuckled. She sniffled, too. The truth

  was I was talking total bull, but who knew? Maybe somehow Rachel and Tobias really did make it. It was easier to believe they did. I've always said you make a choice in this world. You can see the world as being tragic, or you can see it as being funny. Some things just flat-out aren't funny, of course. But with very few exceptions, you can usually find the humor in life and in people. I guess if you want to see the world as being sad, terrible, unfair, boo-hoo boo-hoo, that's fine. But man, what kind of life is that?

  We trudged. We stopped and dozed. We got up and trudged some more. And gradually that humongous comet in the sky grew faint as the sky began to light up with the rising sun.

  Then with shocking suddenness, pop! The sun just seemed to jump up off the horizon. I tossed away my charred stump of a torch, closed my eyes, and spread my arms wide to welcome good old Mommy Sun. It illuminated a scene out of some museum diorama. The plain stretched out before us, punctuated now with clumps of trees and sudden jutting rocks. The stream still wandered beside us. The woods were off to one side. The volcano was still smoking away, looking intimidating as it towered up above the plain.

  And scattered about on that African-looking

  savanna, where you might expect to see gazelles or wildebeest or lions, there was a small herd of Triceratops. They moved along calmly, maybe a hundred of them. Like an old-west buffalo herd, I guess. Only Buffalo Bill would have hung up his hat rather than go after these bad boys.

  Ax asked.

  "Yeah. Unless it's a school day," I said.

 
  K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs feel better. I can see. Seeing is useful.>

  "Plus it blanks out that comet, and that thing was starting to bug me. On the other hand, I'm looking at a bunch of dinosaurs the size of cement trucks, so -"

 

  "Lightning. So what?"

 

  It took me about five more steps before I said, "What?" I stopped. Jake stopped. Cassie stopped.

  "Artificial?" Jake asked. "What do you mean, artificial? Doesn't that mean man-made? Or at least, made?"

 

  "Just tell us what it was!" Cassie yelled impatiently. That shocked us all. Cassie never yells. But then again, maybe she's just not a morning person.

  Jake took a deep breath. "Ax? Do me a favor. Don't assume we know these things, okay?"

  he said.

  Jake looked at me. "You think Yeerks got transported back to this time with us somehow?"

 

  "Don't call me prince," Jake said automatically.

  "There weren't any Yeerks anywhere near that submarine when it blew up," I said. "Especially not any Yeerk spacecraft. I mean, come on, I think we'd have noticed."

  Ax said.

  "Highly advanced dinosaurs?" I said. "Professor T-rex? I don't think so."

  "Last night I saw some weird flashes far off," Jake said.

  "Me, too," Cassie said. "I assumed they were lightning or something." We resumed walking. "Ax-man, I think maybe you're just nuts."

  Ax said dubiously.

  He droned on for a while about the wavelengths and the retinal impact patterns and distance-sense and a lot of other Andalite stuff that Page 48

  K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs humans would probably learn about someday.

  I tuned it out. I was watching the Triceratops herd, which was off to our side now. I mean, come on, every little kid has a toy plastic Triceratops at some time. And here they were. Real. Actual dinosaurs moving along, munching the grass, occasionally using their huge long horns to dig up a tasty herb. It was cool. Set aside the fact that we had taken a big elevator ride about ten floors down on the food chain. It was still cool.

  "Oh, man, look. I think we're coming up on some kind of big gorge or whatever," Jake said.

  The prairie before us did seem to stop suddenly. The grass wasn't waving beyond a certain point.

  "We'll have to go around," Cassie said.

  "Why?" I wondered. "Where exactly is it we think we're going?"

  "What do you want us to do?" Jake asked peevishly. "Sit down right here and start building a new civilization?"

  "I'm just saying it's not like we have an appointment to be somewhere." We marched on, unable to see the extent of the rift till we got close. And then suddenly we could see. It was incredible. Like walking up on the Grand Canyon the first time. We were at the edge of a valley hundreds of feet deep and miles across. It gave me vertigo just standing there, like I might fall in.

  And it would be a very long fall, with plenty of time to scream on the way down.

  But that wasn't what really knocked the wind out of us. Because see, the valley wasn't empty. Down there, spread across a mile of valley floor, were glittering, shining buildings.

  Buildings.

  And hovering protectively above those buildings was something that looked an awful lot like a flying saucer.

  Tobias

  How's the wing?" Rachel asked.

 

  "They hurt all over again."

 

  "Nope. Not like you hurt my stomach when you opened me up like you were gutting a fish."

 

  "I know. I'm cranky. I didn't exactly have a good night's sleep. I seem to remember having to morph the grizzly bear, only to have you come along and slice me up like I was a pepperoni pizza. Slice me up like I Page 49

  K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs was a hunk of cheese."

  I sighed. I tried to balance on Rachel's shoulder without digging my talons in. We'd ripped a

  patch of the dead Deinonychus's skin to cover her shoulder, but it wasn't staying on.

  "Sliced me up like I was a ham," Rachel muttered. "Like I was bacon. And eggs. And some hash browns. Denny's. I'd give up shopping for a Denny's Grand Slam breakfast right now. The one with the pancakes. Get the hash browns as a side order. Two sausage links, two slices of bacon, two eggs over medium, you know? Not too soft and runny. I don't like them soft and runny. Maple syrup on the pancakes. Has to be maple. What kind of person puts boysenberry syrup on pancakes?"

 

  She turned her icy blue eyes toward me. "Like a loaf of bread. That's how you sliced me up. Like a loaf of bread you get fresh from the bakery, all crusty and crispy and golden on the outside and soft and white and still-warm inside. And raspberry preserves. Has to be raspberry. I like Smuckers. A big jar of raspberry preserves with the seeds. I mean, what kind of baby has to have seedless preserves?" I looked at her with my hawk's eyes. I was inches away. It was like looking at her through a microscope, practically. She hadn't slept, hadn't brushed her hair, and she was in a bad mood. But she looked great. I looked away. What was the point? Jeez, my

  own tiredness and hunger must be affecting me. I was starving. I could see little shrewlike mammals flitting between tree roots and cowering beneath ferns, but with a busted wing there was nothing I could do. All I could do was watch the trees as we walked. We had left the Deinonychus pack behind in the night. As leader of the pack, I'd snarled at them till they backed away. I left them looking lost and stupid. But pretty soon they'd get around to choosing a new leader. Rachel had acquired one of them. It hadn't been easy, but I'd been able to control the murderous creature long enough for her to touch him. Now we were wandering along in the forest. Looking for food. Looking for Jake and the others. Looking for a clue of what to do. We were entering an area with more vegetation now. There were clusters of palm trees here and there. Clumps of five or ten trees with some bushes around the base. It made me nervous. They blocked my view. On the other hand ....

  "Not according to my mom. She's thinking about dating again. You know, it's been awhile since the divorce and ... oh. You mean like dates you eat? I guess they grow on trees."

 

  "Like I know? Like I go food shopping out in the wild? Picking dates off trees and tomatoes off vines and corn out of, I don't know, corn trees?"

 

  "Oh, fine. I'm starving and you're picking on me because I'm not a farm girl like Cassie."

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  "I could use a rest. And some shade."

  We headed toward the second nearest clump of trees. Two monstrously big Triceratops were over in the shade of the nearest trees. Supposedly they were peaceful plant-eaters. But they were big as elephants, with three-foot-long horns. So no matter how peaceful they were, I didn't want to share the shade with them.

  I said. I could see pods of some sort clustered under the fanlike fronds. We reached the shade of the tree. Rachel set me down on the ground and threw rocks till she knocked a pod down. It was brown, about the size of a coconut. She used another rock to bash it open. Inside was a whitish pulp.

  "Well? What do you think?"

  Rachel made a face. She held a piece of the

  pulp up to her nose. "Smells okay." Then she shrugged, popped some in her mouth and swallowed. "Hmm. Not bad."

  I asked. I gazed up jealously at the fruit. I was low down on the ground, not able to see much but the towering trees. But something caught my eye. Through the smooth trunks and riotous bushes, I saw something curved. It looked ridiculously like a handheld fan. Only much bigger. There were spines or spokes with brightly-patterned green and red fabric between them. No, not fabric. Skin. But it had to be from something dead. It wasn't moving. Totally still.

 

  The fan had moved.

  Rachel froze. "Please don't tell me it's another of your dinosaurs."

  Rachel reached down to lift me up. "What is it?"

 

  We backed away, keeping our eyes firmly fixed on the spotted fan or sail. But as we backed away I realized Rachel's shoulder was getting tougher to hold on to.

 

  "I'm morphing," she said. "I'm hungry, you're hungry. Maybe we can take this guy down and have a nice big dinosaur breakfast."

 

  "I'm morphing that dannynockorus."

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  She couldn't answer. Her tongue was no longer human. Her skin was pebbly and rough. Her shoulder sloped downward and I jumped off to land in the grass.

  I wasn't exactly happy with Rachel at that point. But at the same time, I wondered if maybe she was right. We had the Deinonychus morph. Why not use it?

  I began to morph myself. Great, it would mean resetting my splint yet again. This was no way to heal. Then again, starving wasn't all that good for your health, either.

  The breeze shifted. The skin and bone sail moved. It moved to catch the breeze. Why? I should know. There was some fact hiding just in the back of my head. What was I forgetting?

  I pictured my toy dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus rex, Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, Spinosaurus.

  Spinosaurus?

  Big sail on its back. What about it? What was it like? What did it do?

  Was it an herbivore?

  Moving!

  CRASH! CRASH! Crrrrr-UNCH!

  Up rose the sail as the Spinosaurus stood up. Crash went the bushes as it swiveled to look at us. Crunch went a tree trunk as it thrust its head through the trees to get a closer look at us. The head was bigger than Rachel.

  She was just completing her Deinonychus morph. Would she be able to control the dinosaur's active instincts? She was more experienced at morphing than I was.

  The Spinosaurus glared at us. Or at Rachel, at least.

  she said.

 

 

  The Spinosaurus rose up to its full standing height, looming up huge behind the trees. The curved sail on its back was more than five feet high. Tail to nose it was fifty feet long. It stood on two legs smaller and weaker legs than a Tyran-nosaurus, but plenty to move with. The Spinosaurus was silent. It just stared as two Deinonychus emerged from a girl and a bird.

 

  That would be Rachel, of course. I'd never say

  anything so stupid.

 

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  We turned. We ran.

  We ran right into the Spinosaurus's mate.

  Rachel

  What could I do? I had to attack. The Deinonychus body was surging with power and deadly energy.

  Then again, the Spinosaurus was way, way too big. To give you some idea, if we'd both been dogs, the Spinosaurus would be a German shepherd and I'd be a Chihuahua.

  No choice. No way around the second Spinosaurus.

  I yelled.

  I leaped. The steel spring legs lifted me off the ground and I flew through the air, deadly raking claws outward. I was aiming for the Spin-osaurus's exposed belly.

  SLASH! With my oversized talons. Two bright red lines in the Spinosaurus's belly!

  Two little lines that looked like something the Spinosaurus might put a Band-Aid on. The Spin-osaurus looked puzzled. And then it looked annoyed. It ruffled its weird sail back and opened its jaws and looked at me like I had "Oscar Mayer" printed on my back.

  And that's when I noticed the other creature step smoothly out from the bushes.

  It walked on two legs. It was rough-textured, like it had really chapped skin. It was reddish in color. It had two big eyes and a small mouth, all of the same reddish-rust hue. It stood about eight feet tall. It was carrying a weapon.

  It was not a dinosaur.

  The creature raised the weapon and pointed it at the wounded and angry Spinosaurus. I saw no flash. Heard no explosion. But the Spinosaurus fell over. Like a redwood falling in the forest, it fell over.

  WHAMMM!

  The second Spinosaurus processed this and decided to go back to sleep. Tobias and I stared at the rough-textured creature with the gun.

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