In the time of dinosaurs.., p.8
In the Time of Dinosaurs (Animorphs 20), page 8
>
Tobias said.
Page 53
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs The creature gazed curiously at us with what seemed to be eyes, although they were mere indentations in its face. From its head a pair of antennae, flexible as whips, grew and began waving toward us. Satisfied after a few seconds of this, the antennae were retracted.
"You may not kill those creatures. There are very few left. They are ours. All creatures are ours. All things are ours. What are you?" it asked in a rough, raspy, buzzing voice.
It was speaking English. Now, on Star Trek you see aliens speak English all the time. Like that would be normal. But in real life when you encounter an alien speaking English, it's just weird. You figure at the very least they should be speaking Russian or Japanese or something.
"Answer."
I said, feeling fairly idiotic.
"You speak now without making sound. Explain."
I said.
And how do you speak our language?>
"We hear while you are talking. Listening long time. Since night."
I asked Tobias.
"Change to your other form."
Tobias demanded.
"We are the Nesk. This is our planet. Change to your other form."
I said.
"This weapon can cause creatures to become unconscious. This happened to the great beast you were attacking. But it can also cause death. Change into your other forms. Or I will cause your death." The Nesk raised the weapon and pointed it at us.
Now, maybe I have to back down before a fifty-foot-long Spinosaurus. But I've faced plenty of pushy aliens with ray guns.
I knew this Nesk character with the ego problem would expect me to charge him, like a
dinosaur. But I'm a human. Better yet, I'm a gymnast. So, just like on the balance beam, I spun on one leg and whipped my rigid tail into the Nesk.
Page 54
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs My tail hit hard. It slammed into the Nesk at his chest level. My tail broke him in two. The top half simply fell off. Like I'd chopped through a tree.
I cried, horrified. I'd only intended to knock him down. But then my horror changed tone. The severed lower body seemed to be dissolving. Breaking into thousands and tens of thousands of tiny squirming pieces!
And the fallen upper body was still holding the weapon. Raising it toward me again!
No time for pity. I lunged, mouth wide-open. I bit down on that raised hand. It dissolved. Crumbled. I felt a squirming in my mouth. Then stinging, burning. I spit out the gun. It hit the dirt. And a wave made up of the Nesk's body parts raced to reach it.
My mouth was still alive with stinging and burning. The tiny reddish body parts began to crawl out of my jaw, up onto my muzzle. Up where my eyes could see them clearly.
Then I remembered that smell. The acrid
smell of a tunnel, the stink of deadly automatons racing to tear me apart.
Ants!
The Nesk was made up of millions and millions of ants. Cassie
Okay, those buildings were not built by dinosaurs," Marco said. Jake looked at Ax. "Ax? Do you have any idea what is going on here?" Ax looked as puzzled as he was capable of looking.
"Ax, at this point humans aren't even a gleam in some tiny mammal's eye. We're a long, long way from seeing the first primate. Let alone an actual human. Could they be Andalites?"
Ax said.
"A simple 'no' would do," Marco interrupted.
"The Pemalites?" I suggested. We knew of the Pemalites from Erek. Erek looked and acted like a normal kid, but he was actually an android-a Chee - built by the extinct race called Pemalites. Marco shook his head. "Erek told us when they arrived on Earth, the last Pemalites were dying. The Chee joined their essence or whatever with wolves. There aren't any wolves. We're probably tens of millions of years away from wolves, too."
Page 55
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs
"So who is hanging around on Earth in this era who can build cities and flying saucers?" Jake asked impatiently.
"Why don't I go ask them?" I said, pointing to the small city in the valley. "Or at least go check them out. My osprey morph would be perfect. There are birds in this era, so I shouldn't be too obvious." Jake nodded. "Okay. That's what we'll do. We'll all go. But this just gets weirder and weirder."
"You know, only one of us has to go," I suggested. "Why don't I do it? You guys can all stay here for now." Jake cocked an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"
"Well, shouldn't we take the absolute minimum risk?" Jake shook his head and kept looking at me like he couldn't figure me out.
"Look, we've already lost Rachel and Tobias," I blurted. "I lost my best friend. I don't want to lose . . . you know. Anyone else." Marco looked like he was right on the verge of making a wisecrack. But he stopped. Still, I guess he just couldn't totally restrain himself, so he said, "Why don't I go with Cassie? Somehow I don't think it's me she's worried about losing." He gave Jake a sidelong smirk. Jake rolled his eyes. "We are not going to lose anyone, okay? It's probably safer for us all to be in the air together. Here on the ground we have Big Rex to worry about."
It made sense. But it didn't make me feel any better. It had been just twenty-four hours since I'd last seen Rachel. I hadn't had all that much time to think about her. I'd been busy staying alive. And I guess the truth is, I almost didn't want to think about her really being gone. But last night, in that terrible black chaos, blind, unable to tell where Jake's terrified cries
were coming from, I just kept thinking, No, it can't happen again. I can't lose Jake, too.
Now here we were, staring down at what might be our only salvation in this dangerous world. But I was more worried than before. Maybe I trust animals more than civilization.
"Okay," I said. "But I get a bad feeling about this. See, this can't be right. There can't be a city down there. It doesn't make sense. There are no cities in the age of dinosaurs. And no flying saucers, either. I know we have to check it out, but we need to be careful." I began to focus on my osprey morph. An os-prey is a type of hawk that normally lives by water and eats fish.
Gray feather patterns began to appear on my skin. I saw my bare feet become talons, my arms twist into wing shapes. It was a morph I had done many times before. But it was a morph from a different world. This was a world where true birds seemed to be small in number. There was a nice breeze blowing. And I could guess that there would be excellent thermals - warm updrafts - welling up from the steep valley walls.
Jake asked.
Page 56
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs
Marco yelled.
Half a dozen small dinosaurs, each standing
on two legs and no more than three feet high, goggled at us with huge yellow eyes.
Jake said.
The dinosaurs attacked at a run. A very fast run.
Marco said as we flapped into the breeze and raced along on our talons.
I reached the edge of the cliff. I opened my wings and sprang out into the void. The tiny dinosaurs stopped at the edge and watched us go.
Ax said.
I pointed out.
Ax asked, puzzled.
Marco said. <"Flintstones, meet the Flintstones, they're the modern stone age family."> I'd been right about the thermals. It felt good to be floating on a warm breeze. I know this seems crazy, but I somehow felt more at home in the osprey morph than my own human body. Humans just seemed so totally out of place in this era.
We flew toward the shining city in the valley. With osprey eyes I could see much more clearly. I saw buildings that rose in steep, smooth sweeps, like they'd grown from the bedrock. Windows were stuck in odd locations, some aiming out, others more like skylights. And there were fields planted with green and arranged in neat circles instead of rows.
<"From the town of Bedrock, they're a page right out of histo-ree,"> Marco sang.
As we got closer, I could see creatures of some sort. They looked a little like large - very large - crabs. Only with shells in a wild array of colors, deep blue, spring green, orange. And while on one side there was something very much like a large pincer, on the other side there was a pair of hands.
Ax volunteered.
Marco said.
WHAM!
Something hit me! I was tumbling through the air. I fell ten feet, opened my wings again and veered into a breeze. I caught air. Nothing broken. I cried.
Jake yelled. Page 57
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs I turned my head just in time to see it fill my
entire field of vision. Like some monstrous bat. Green-and-yellow leather wings twenty feet across. An impossibly long, bony head.
I said.
Ax said tersely.
They were dropping from caves in the valley wall. Three, four, six of them. They opened their wide leather wings and swooped toward us. Tobias
They swarmed toward Rachel. Millions of ants. And a group of them was already reforming around the weapon, forming a sort of hand to raise it high and aim it.
I had a very low-tech idea of how to deal with that. I leaped. I landed with both feet on the ants around the weapon. And I began to stomp. I stomped like mad with my Deinonychus feet. They weren't great feet for stomping because they were basically built like bird feet. But they were fast. I was stomping at a rate of several stomps per second. And whatever kind of super-alien ants these might be, they couldn't stand some man-sized dinosaur stomping on them.
The Nesk broke and ran. I roared in triumph
and turned to Rachel. She was avidly licking the ants off her with her long tongue.
I said.
Rachel said.
Ch-ch-ch-CHEEEEEW! Ch-ch-ch-CHEEEEEW! Ch-ch-ch-CHEEEEEW!
The ground beside me exploded, like it had been ripped by an invisible plow. I jumped. Another plow mark just behind me! I saw movement. And there, racing toward us across the plain, was a gleaming, silver craft. Maybe twice the size of a Bug fighter, but shaped like an elongated pyramid, long end forward.
Ch-ch-ch-CHEEEEEW! Ch-ch-ch-CHEEEEEW! Ch-ch-ch-CHEEEEEW!
The ship fired again and blew two more five-foot-long furrows in the ground.
Rachel said.
I agreed.
We ran. Deinonychus can run when it wants to. Very fast. Maybe Page 58
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs twenty miles an hour. Too bad the silver pyramid was about a thousand times faster.
But it hesitated. I glanced back and saw it pause over the spot where we'd been. A sort of tube with a scoop on the end lowered to the ground. And I swear it vacuumed up the ants we'd scattered. It came after us again. We dodged and the craft fired, ripping tear after tear in the ground around us.
I yelled.
Rachel said.
Rachel said grimly.
Directly ahead of us was a small herd of Triceratops. Of course, small only referred to the number of animals in the herd. Each one was the size of an elephant.
I said.
I didn't have time to explain. We reached the Triceratops. One huge bull swung his three-foot-long horns toward us in challenge. I sidestepped him and leaped onto the back of an equally big but less alert female. I leaped! Soared through the air, coiled my legs, timed it just right to slam my legs down on the Triceratops's back, bounced off her, and hurtled another ten feet in the air.
From up there I could see the trap. Then I was fall ing.
WHUMPF!
I hit, rolled, jumped up and yelled,
There's a whole wall of them. A whole wall of ants! Billions! The only way out is left, but there's a sheer drop there. Can't tell how deep.>
. . . two . . .>
Rachel yelled.
We hauled left.
Ch-ch-ch-CHEEWWW!
Explosions of earth and rock cut across our path but I didn't care. I'd seen what was up ahead. This was better.
We raced, panting and gasping, toward what looked to us like the end of the world. A sudden gap. An emptiness.
I asked. Page 59
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs
Rachel yelled.
I said and leaped into emptiness. Rachel was three seconds behind me.
It might have been a five foot drop. It might have been ten feet. Unfortunately, it was about five hundred feet.
I cried.
Rachel agreed.
Falling, falling, spinning out of control, no time to morph. I was going to die. I would be slammed against the ground far below and die. But even as I spun crying through the air, I swear I saw bright buildings. And then, much closer, a bird. A very familiar bird. Back in my own world I have to watch out for peregrine falcons. See, every now and then one of them will actually take a shot at a hawk. It was like some insane joke. Like fate was trying to get a good laugh at me. Dinosaurs, aliens, and now my old nemesis, a peregrine falcon. Then I saw the other set of wings.
The twenty-five-foot-wide wings and bony chisel-head of a creature no human had ever seen before.
Pteranodon! I thought. I used to play with you.
Jake
The flying dinosaurs were above us. That was the problem. We were more maneuverable, but they had the altitude. And slowly but surely, by circling above us, they were forcing us down and down. Down toward the glimmering city below us.
I looked in every direction. How to get away? How to get out from under this trap?
The silver flying saucer was now only twenty feet below us, the highest spires of the alien city just another thirty feet lower than that. We were trapped. If we went up, the flying dinosaurs. If we went down, the city full of bright, bizarre, two-handed crabs.
I said.
We curved back toward the cliff wall. Four of us. Cassie and Marco in osprey morph, Ax as a northern harrier, and me, a peregrine falcon. We flapped at full speed for the cliffs. I could see colonies of the flying dinosaurs nesting there on crags in shallow caves. More were taking wing.
Stupid! I was leading everyone right back toward more of the creatures. And yet it might just work.
Page 60
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs I was ten seconds from slamming right into the cliff. Five. Three!
Something falling toward me! Quick turn left. Two dinosaurs, looking like miniature tyran-nosaurs, were falling, kicking and scrabbling. They'd leaped off the cliff! A shower of falling rock was dislodged behind them.
They fell. The leather-winged flying dinosaurs closed in on us. In a flash of swift movement, one of the falling dinosaurs reached out with its little forepaw and snagged one of the leather wings! To my utter amazement, I saw him reach with his free claw to grab the other wing tip. The dinosaur spread the wings as far as it could. Twenty feet of leathery wing. Like a hang glider. Just enough to glide with. The second dinosaur caught a leg on a jutting rock. It slowed the fall, but only for a second, then it tumbled away. But now there was enough time. The dinosaur with the living hang glider swept toward it.
the first dinosaur yelled. It was as if someone had stuck a thousand volt wire in my ear.
WHAM! Tobias aimed for Rachel and slammed into her. Rachel was knocked into the cliff wall. Tobias was able to catch a ledge. Rachel scrabbled frantically, but kept missing her hold. She tumbled into a nest of the flying dinosaurs.
Tobias said.
Page 53
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs The creature gazed curiously at us with what seemed to be eyes, although they were mere indentations in its face. From its head a pair of antennae, flexible as whips, grew and began waving toward us. Satisfied after a few seconds of this, the antennae were retracted.
"You may not kill those creatures. There are very few left. They are ours. All creatures are ours. All things are ours. What are you?" it asked in a rough, raspy, buzzing voice.
It was speaking English. Now, on Star Trek you see aliens speak English all the time. Like that would be normal. But in real life when you encounter an alien speaking English, it's just weird. You figure at the very least they should be speaking Russian or Japanese or something.
"Answer."
"You speak now without making sound. Explain."
And how do you speak our language?>
"We hear while you are talking. Listening long time. Since night."
"Change to your other form."
"We are the Nesk. This is our planet. Change to your other form."
"This weapon can cause creatures to become unconscious. This happened to the great beast you were attacking. But it can also cause death. Change into your other forms. Or I will cause your death." The Nesk raised the weapon and pointed it at us.
Now, maybe I have to back down before a fifty-foot-long Spinosaurus. But I've faced plenty of pushy aliens with ray guns.
I knew this Nesk character with the ego problem would expect me to charge him, like a
dinosaur. But I'm a human. Better yet, I'm a gymnast. So, just like on the balance beam, I spun on one leg and whipped my rigid tail into the Nesk.
Page 54
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs My tail hit hard. It slammed into the Nesk at his chest level. My tail broke him in two. The top half simply fell off. Like I'd chopped through a tree.
And the fallen upper body was still holding the weapon. Raising it toward me again!
No time for pity. I lunged, mouth wide-open. I bit down on that raised hand. It dissolved. Crumbled. I felt a squirming in my mouth. Then stinging, burning. I spit out the gun. It hit the dirt. And a wave made up of the Nesk's body parts raced to reach it.
My mouth was still alive with stinging and burning. The tiny reddish body parts began to crawl out of my jaw, up onto my muzzle. Up where my eyes could see them clearly.
Then I remembered that smell. The acrid
smell of a tunnel, the stink of deadly automatons racing to tear me apart.
Ants!
The Nesk was made up of millions and millions of ants. Cassie
Okay, those buildings were not built by dinosaurs," Marco said. Jake looked at Ax. "Ax? Do you have any idea what is going on here?" Ax looked as puzzled as he was capable of looking.
"Ax, at this point humans aren't even a gleam in some tiny mammal's eye. We're a long, long way from seeing the first primate. Let alone an actual human. Could they be Andalites?"
"A simple 'no' would do," Marco interrupted.
"The Pemalites?" I suggested. We knew of the Pemalites from Erek. Erek looked and acted like a normal kid, but he was actually an android-a Chee - built by the extinct race called Pemalites. Marco shook his head. "Erek told us when they arrived on Earth, the last Pemalites were dying. The Chee joined their essence or whatever with wolves. There aren't any wolves. We're probably tens of millions of years away from wolves, too."
Page 55
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs
"So who is hanging around on Earth in this era who can build cities and flying saucers?" Jake asked impatiently.
"Why don't I go ask them?" I said, pointing to the small city in the valley. "Or at least go check them out. My osprey morph would be perfect. There are birds in this era, so I shouldn't be too obvious." Jake nodded. "Okay. That's what we'll do. We'll all go. But this just gets weirder and weirder."
"You know, only one of us has to go," I suggested. "Why don't I do it? You guys can all stay here for now." Jake cocked an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"
"Well, shouldn't we take the absolute minimum risk?" Jake shook his head and kept looking at me like he couldn't figure me out.
"Look, we've already lost Rachel and Tobias," I blurted. "I lost my best friend. I don't want to lose . . . you know. Anyone else." Marco looked like he was right on the verge of making a wisecrack. But he stopped. Still, I guess he just couldn't totally restrain himself, so he said, "Why don't I go with Cassie? Somehow I don't think it's me she's worried about losing." He gave Jake a sidelong smirk. Jake rolled his eyes. "We are not going to lose anyone, okay? It's probably safer for us all to be in the air together. Here on the ground we have Big Rex to worry about."
It made sense. But it didn't make me feel any better. It had been just twenty-four hours since I'd last seen Rachel. I hadn't had all that much time to think about her. I'd been busy staying alive. And I guess the truth is, I almost didn't want to think about her really being gone. But last night, in that terrible black chaos, blind, unable to tell where Jake's terrified cries
were coming from, I just kept thinking, No, it can't happen again. I can't lose Jake, too.
Now here we were, staring down at what might be our only salvation in this dangerous world. But I was more worried than before. Maybe I trust animals more than civilization.
"Okay," I said. "But I get a bad feeling about this. See, this can't be right. There can't be a city down there. It doesn't make sense. There are no cities in the age of dinosaurs. And no flying saucers, either. I know we have to check it out, but we need to be careful." I began to focus on my osprey morph. An os-prey is a type of hawk that normally lives by water and eats fish.
Gray feather patterns began to appear on my skin. I saw my bare feet become talons, my arms twist into wing shapes. It was a morph I had done many times before. But it was a morph from a different world. This was a world where true birds seemed to be small in number. There was a nice breeze blowing. And I could guess that there would be excellent thermals - warm updrafts - welling up from the steep valley walls.
Page 56
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs
Half a dozen small dinosaurs, each standing
on two legs and no more than three feet high, goggled at us with huge yellow eyes.
The dinosaurs attacked at a run. A very fast run.
Marco said as we flapped into the breeze and raced along on our talons.
I reached the edge of the cliff. I opened my wings and sprang out into the void. The tiny dinosaurs stopped at the edge and watched us go.
We flew toward the shining city in the valley. With osprey eyes I could see much more clearly. I saw buildings that rose in steep, smooth sweeps, like they'd grown from the bedrock. Windows were stuck in odd locations, some aiming out, others more like skylights. And there were fields planted with green and arranged in neat circles instead of rows.
<"From the town of Bedrock, they're a page right out of histo-ree,"> Marco sang.
As we got closer, I could see creatures of some sort. They looked a little like large - very large - crabs. Only with shells in a wild array of colors, deep blue, spring green, orange. And while on one side there was something very much like a large pincer, on the other side there was a pair of hands.
WHAM!
Something hit me! I was tumbling through the air. I fell ten feet, opened my wings again and veered into a breeze. I caught air. Nothing broken.
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs I turned my head just in time to see it fill my
entire field of vision. Like some monstrous bat. Green-and-yellow leather wings twenty feet across. An impossibly long, bony head.
I said.
They were dropping from caves in the valley wall. Three, four, six of them. They opened their wide leather wings and swooped toward us. Tobias
They swarmed toward Rachel. Millions of ants. And a group of them was already reforming around the weapon, forming a sort of hand to raise it high and aim it.
I had a very low-tech idea of how to deal with that. I leaped. I landed with both feet on the ants around the weapon. And I began to stomp. I stomped like mad with my Deinonychus feet. They weren't great feet for stomping because they were basically built like bird feet. But they were fast. I was stomping at a rate of several stomps per second. And whatever kind of super-alien ants these might be, they couldn't stand some man-sized dinosaur stomping on them.
The Nesk broke and ran. I roared in triumph
and turned to Rachel. She was avidly licking the ants off her with her long tongue.
Rachel said.
The ground beside me exploded, like it had been ripped by an invisible plow. I jumped. Another plow mark just behind me! I saw movement. And there, racing toward us across the plain, was a gleaming, silver craft. Maybe twice the size of a Bug fighter, but shaped like an elongated pyramid, long end forward.
Ch-ch-ch-CHEEEEEW! Ch-ch-ch-CHEEEEEW! Ch-ch-ch-CHEEEEEW!
The ship fired again and blew two more five-foot-long furrows in the ground.
We ran. Deinonychus can run when it wants to. Very fast. Maybe Page 58
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs twenty miles an hour. Too bad the silver pyramid was about a thousand times faster.
But it hesitated. I glanced back and saw it pause over the spot where we'd been. A sort of tube with a scoop on the end lowered to the ground. And I swear it vacuumed up the ants we'd scattered. It came after us again. We dodged and the craft fired, ripping tear after tear in the ground around us.
Rachel said.
Directly ahead of us was a small herd of Triceratops. Of course, small only referred to the number of animals in the herd. Each one was the size of an elephant.
I said.
I didn't have time to explain. We reached the Triceratops. One huge bull swung his three-foot-long horns toward us in challenge. I sidestepped him and leaped onto the back of an equally big but less alert female. I leaped! Soared through the air, coiled my legs, timed it just right to slam my legs down on the Triceratops's back, bounced off her, and hurtled another ten feet in the air.
From up there I could see the trap. Then I was fall ing.
WHUMPF!
I hit, rolled, jumped up and yelled,
There's a whole wall of them. A whole wall of ants! Billions! The only way out is left, but there's a sheer drop there. Can't tell how deep.>
. . . two . . .>
We hauled left.
Ch-ch-ch-CHEEWWW!
Explosions of earth and rock cut across our path but I didn't care. I'd seen what was up ahead. This was better.
We raced, panting and gasping, toward what looked to us like the end of the world. A sudden gap. An emptiness.
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs
It might have been a five foot drop. It might have been ten feet. Unfortunately, it was about five hundred feet.
Falling, falling, spinning out of control, no time to morph. I was going to die. I would be slammed against the ground far below and die. But even as I spun crying through the air, I swear I saw bright buildings. And then, much closer, a bird. A very familiar bird. Back in my own world I have to watch out for peregrine falcons. See, every now and then one of them will actually take a shot at a hawk. It was like some insane joke. Like fate was trying to get a good laugh at me. Dinosaurs, aliens, and now my old nemesis, a peregrine falcon. Then I saw the other set of wings.
The twenty-five-foot-wide wings and bony chisel-head of a creature no human had ever seen before.
Pteranodon! I thought. I used to play with you.
Jake
The flying dinosaurs were above us. That was the problem. We were more maneuverable, but they had the altitude. And slowly but surely, by circling above us, they were forcing us down and down. Down toward the glimmering city below us.
I looked in every direction. How to get away? How to get out from under this trap?
The silver flying saucer was now only twenty feet below us, the highest spires of the alien city just another thirty feet lower than that. We were trapped. If we went up, the flying dinosaurs. If we went down, the city full of bright, bizarre, two-handed crabs.
We curved back toward the cliff wall. Four of us. Cassie and Marco in osprey morph, Ax as a northern harrier, and me, a peregrine falcon. We flapped at full speed for the cliffs. I could see colonies of the flying dinosaurs nesting there on crags in shallow caves. More were taking wing.
Stupid! I was leading everyone right back toward more of the creatures. And yet it might just work.
Page 60
K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs I was ten seconds from slamming right into the cliff. Five. Three!
Something falling toward me! Quick turn left. Two dinosaurs, looking like miniature tyran-nosaurs, were falling, kicking and scrabbling. They'd leaped off the cliff! A shower of falling rock was dislodged behind them.
They fell. The leather-winged flying dinosaurs closed in on us. In a flash of swift movement, one of the falling dinosaurs reached out with its little forepaw and snagged one of the leather wings! To my utter amazement, I saw him reach with his free claw to grab the other wing tip. The dinosaur spread the wings as far as it could. Twenty feet of leathery wing. Like a hang glider. Just enough to glide with. The second dinosaur caught a leg on a jutting rock. It slowed the fall, but only for a second, then it tumbled away. But now there was enough time. The dinosaur with the living hang glider swept toward it.
WHAM! Tobias aimed for Rachel and slammed into her. Rachel was knocked into the cliff wall. Tobias was able to catch a ledge. Rachel scrabbled frantically, but kept missing her hold. She tumbled into a nest of the flying dinosaurs.
