Colony by Benjamin Cross (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

in the Cretaceous, but I reckon you’d’ve seen their direct ancestors alright. And my guess is they’d’ve looked pretty similar.”

There was a silence. Not for the first time, Callum, Darya and Lungkaju stared at Ava as if waiting for a punchline. When none came, Callum asked, “A type of evolved dinosaur?”

She nodded. “That’s one way of putting it.”

3

Callum turned to the others. Their expressions looked the way he imagined his did: a cocktail of wonder, concern and outright disbelief.

“An evolved dinosaur? And you’re basing this entirely on the shape of the teeth?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ava replied. Just as when she’d spoken about the concretions earlier that day, all trace of fear had vanished from her voice. She talked plainly and passionately, as if presenting a lecture. “I know how this probably sounds, and trust me, if I was you I’d be thinking exactly the same thing. Hell, part of me’s thinking it right now. What a fruit cake! She must be delusional with fear or hunger or thirst or whatever the hell you’re thinking! Am I right?”

For a while nobody spoke. Then Callum said, “Ava, nobody thinks—”

“Ah, of course you do! But just remember that I was chosen for this project because I’m one of the best in my field. There are few people that know prehistoric fauna like I do. And I’m also an academic. Credibility is everything to me. I trade on it, same as you, Doctor Ross. I don’t go around making claims that I don’t one, believe in and two, have at least a reasonable evidential basis for.”

“I know that you are very good scientist, Ava,” Darya said. “But what you suggest is that these creatures survived extinction event and lived in small isolated community for tens of millions of years after this. I’m sorry, but I do not think that this is possible.”

“I agree it’s hard to swallow,” Ava replied. “But it’s actually entirely possible. Look. I think this creature may have evolved from a very specific late Cretaceous therapod known as Troodon. We’ve found plenty of troodontid fossils. I’ve pieced many of them together myself, so I’m pretty familiar with their anatomy. They seem to share the attributes of two different genera, the ornithomimids and the dromaeosaurs.”

She ran her hand along the top of the creature’s pale grey snout. “The ornithomimids were anatomically very similar to modern-day flightless birds, African ostriches and emus, Australian cassowaries, and South American rheas. They had long, slender beaks rather than snouts. Their skeletons were lightly built. Their bodies were compact and their legs were long, allowing them to move with incredible speed.”

“Not bad jumpers either,” Callum said.

She pursed her lips in agreement. “They also had long necks and a comparatively small skull.”

Callum frowned. “I wouldn’t call that a small skull.”

“I agree,” Ava replied, patting the side of the dead creature’s cranium. “That’s where the dromaeosaur characteristics take over. Dromaeosaur anatomy was similar to that of the ornithomimids – gracile body, long necks, long legs – but their skulls were much more in proportion, allowing for increased brain size and intelligence.”

She turned from the creature’s head and dragged her hand slowly down the line of the hind leg. Stopping at the ankle, she now placed her fingers over the retracted toe claw. With her hand for scale, it was clear that the formidable-looking weapon was at least seven or eight curved inches. She eased it cautiously forward and released it, letting it spring back into position. “Troodontids can also thank their dromaeosaur heritage for this little beauty.”

She went to continue, then noticed the uncomfortable look on Lungkaju’s face and moved her attention to the creature’s forearms. She stretched one out and straightened it at the elbow. “Both ornithomimids and dromaeosaurs had long arms, but dromaeosaurs in particular had these long, slender fingers, tipped with curving claws. They were certainly capable of grasping objects palm to palm, and they were arguably even more dexterous.”

“And the massive eyes?” Callum asked, trying not to think about those dextrous claws digging into his shoulders. “Do we have dromaeosaurs to thank for those as well?”

“No,” Ava replied. “Those are all Troodon’s. They’re what allowed him to hunt so effectively in the dark and probably to out-compete his dromaeosaur cousins. If you notice, they’re forward-facing as well. This would’ve given another big advantage. Stereoscopic vision.”

“And the feathers?” Darya said. “This is new development?”

“Feathers are just highly developed scales,” Ava replied. “With advances in technology over the last decade or so, we’ve been able to discern that lots of later therapods had them. With feathers, some species of oviraptor now look so similar to birds that there are calls for them to be reclassified as birds.”

“Could they fly?” Darya asked.

“No.” Ava plucked a couple of longer plumes from the underside of the creature’s arm and handed them to her. “Some species evolved to fly, of course, eventually surviving on the wing. But for the non-avian dinosauria, they served a number of different purposes; almost certainly display, increased thermo-regulatory capability, perhaps, and in the case of Troodon, plain old aerodynamics. His long tail gave him an exceptional sense of balance whilst moving, but he could also use those underarm feathers in particular to give him increased manoeuvrability when running down prey at high speed. For example, he could manipulate them to help him make rapid adjustments in speed and direction, to corner more sharply.”

“So kind of like the flaps on a modern aircraft wing.”

“Pretty much,” she replied. “They were really a wonder of predator evolution. Only sharks come anywhere close in terms of streamlined predatory potential, hence their success.”

After fanning through the individual fibres, Darya passed the creature’s feathers to Callum. He looked them over then went to pass them to Lungkaju, who just shook his head.

Ava continued, “As I’ve already explained to Doctor Ross, we know that a northern troodontid population emerged here in the high Arctic and it grew to be genetically distinct from the main genus. It grew even bigger, faster, stronger and more