Kingdom of Monsters by John Schneider (microsoft ebook reader .TXT) 📗

along the dragon's scaly neck, clearing the needle, and injected the shot into the thick hide.

The rex didn't even interrupt a snore.

“He's been sedated,” Shanna said, her voice drifting up.  “That was a shot of antibiotics.  Tyrannosaurs heal up pretty fast as a rule, but he's had a rough go of it lately.”

Betty leaned over, observing the rex' hide, which did indeed seem to be a collage of scrapes and abrasions.

“He's injured?”

“Life's tough for your male T. rex,” Shanna said, patting the somnolent beast on its massive, over-muscled cheek.  “Especially during mating season.  He's got bites all over him.”

“Other males?”

“The females,” Shanna said.  “T. rex packs are lorded over by the females.  Males are too aggressive, and the pack will eject or kill them once they reach adolescence.  Except for a few weeks during mating season.”

Shanna ran her hand over some of the big tyrannosaur's wounds – rather similar, Kate thought, to 'mating-bites' she had seen on large Great White sharks.

“Very few males grow to full adulthood,” Shanna said.  “Those that do, like Big Rex here, are usually loners.  They spend most of their time driving off the competing predators, like the big carcharodonts and the packs of sickle-claws.  That's why we have to keep them sequestered.  The predators would all kill each other long before they even touched the herd animals.”

“So,” she said, “in the interest of genetic diversity, being that the island territory is too small, and left to his own instincts, he'd just stake out the whole island as his, and bite any critter who thought different...”  Shanna shrugged.  “We just give him a little time-out up here.”

She gave the sleeping dragon one last pat before turning for the exit.

The moment she turned her back, the rex' head suddenly popped up behind her, perking awake like some giant bird.

In the space of a heartbeat, the six-foot head dipped forward.

Kate's voice caught in her throat as she started to shout out a warning – rendered moot, as Betty let out a full-throated scream.

Shanna turned, just as the massive jaws parted – a long, thick, pink tongue lulled out, reaching towards her slender form...

… and licked her from her thigh to her head, a slobbering wet dog-kiss that nearly knocked her off her feet.

“Rex!” Shanna blurted, laughing.  “Stop it!  Lay down!”

And the ten-ton beast lay its head down beside her.  A rumble reverberated deep in its chest – a sound like purring.

On the ridge above, the four visitors to the island exhaled as one.

“Big dope,” Shanna said, swatting playfully at the rex' gnarled hide.  “God forbid he and Congo bump into each other when we turn him loose tomorrow.  They're both jealous as dogs.”

“Jealous of what?” Kate asked.

Kate scratched the rex behind the ears.

“Of me.  Both of them want to be the favorite.”

Beneath her scratching fingers, over skin that hadn't even noticed a shot from a pneumatic-needle, the big rex was lulled back into a doze.  The nostrils again flared into snores.  Shanna stepped back.

“Lazy animals,” she said.  “Worse than lions.”

Shanna locked the enclosure behind her – a fairly token gesture to Kate's eye, as the animal within looked fully capable of getting out on its own.

Yet, it lounged peaceably enough.

On the other hand, at the moment the rex had first reared its head, the little lizard, Otto, had jumped from under the seat and scurried through the gate, disappearing into the compound.

“Otto doesn't like the T. rex either,” Shanna explained, as she rejoined them on the road.  “Which, I suppose is fair.  Given the chance, tyrannosaurs eat those little guys like popcorn.”

She pulled the lever on the main gate – latched, not locked – no particular need for that kind of security.

“Where exactly are you taking us?” Kate asked.

Shanna motioned them all through, closing the gate behind them.

“I have to keep you here in the compound until someone shows up to arrest you.”  She shrugged.  “It shouldn't be long.”

“Keep us here?” Maverick objected.  “What if we don't want to be kept?”

“Well,” Shanna said, “I have an eight-ton gorilla that could force the issue.  But considering your other option is to wander around in the jungle....?”  She nodded down into the valley.  “Be my guest.”

Maverick looked down where hundred-foot sauropods lounged like scaled-up elephants under the wash of the falls.

“You know,” he said, “I would kind of like to ride one.”

Cameron patted Maverick on the shoulder, turning him away, nodding placatingly to Shanna.

“Let's not tempt him,” he said.  “We're fine with being kept.”

Kate, however, was not.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but my communication was with Professor Nolan Hinkle.  I was unaware he even had a daughter.”

Shanna frowned, eyeing Kate skeptically.

“I don't know how that's possible,” she said.  “My father doesn't have correspondence.  With anybody.”

Shanna fell silent as she led them through the compound, until they came to a large building that seemed to be the utilitarian centerpiece, mounted on the ridge, directly above the animal enclosures.

The building was space-age, looking even more bizarre in the tropical prehistoric landscape, with a preponderance of glass, like a clean-room in a high-tech development lab.

Through the thick, transparent-alloy windows, they could see the distorted image of a man puttering about inside, a morphing shadow among an assortment of blinking screens and bubbling cauldrons.

Shanna tapped a button, and the door slid open with a loud buzz.

After a moment, the man inside paused – belatedly, as if the sound took a moment to register – perhaps hard of hearing.

Shanna motioned them inside.  The automatic glass doors slid shut behind them.

It was like standing on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, stepping right out of the lost world into a futuristic space-age.

Shanna pressed a second button and two more glass doors slid apart, accessing the main lab.

The man inside turned towards them.  He was white-haired and balding, clad in a well-worn lab coat and glasses – short, squat and rather toad-like in his face and form.

The old man blinked, as if confused.

“What's this?” he said.  “Visitors?”

“Daddy?” Shanna said, doubtfully, “these people tell me they were invited here