It came after us again. We dodged and the craft fired, ripping tear after tear in the ground around us. «They're playing with us!» I yelled.
«I don't like the game,» Rachel said. «No, I mean, like cat and mouse. They can hit us any time. They're missing on purpose. They're enjoying this.»
«Or else they're herding us,» Rachel said grimly. «They want us to keep
going this way.» 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 have to be able to see what's up ahead, up past that herd,» I said. «I'm gonna leapfrog!»
«What?» 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, «You were right, it's a trap!
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.»
«Great! A sheer drop or a wall of space ants! Nice choice.» «On the count of three, we dodge left and keep going no matter what. One ... two ...»
«Three!» 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. «What is it the sky divers always say before they jump?» I asked.
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«Geronimo!» Rachel yelled.
«Yeah, that's it,» 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.
«Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!» I cried.
«Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!» 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.
«Back to the cliff wall,» I said. «The thermals will be strongest there. Maybe we can get enough lift to outrun them straight up!»
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.
«Get ready everyone! Hug that cliff wall!» Page 60
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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.
«Rachel, get ready to grab something!» the first dinosaur yelled.
It was as if someone had stuck a thousand volt wire in my ear.
«Tobias?»
«Jake?»
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.
There was a furious falling, rattling, screaming, dirt-flying tussle that rolled down the cliff, but when the dust cleared, there was Rachel . . . or at least a dinosaur. . . holding tight to the legs of one big leather wing and the neck of another.
She dragged them down the side of that cliff, both of them flapping madly.
I dove after her, calling to the others.
Down, down, down. Then WHAM!
She landed. But not on the valley floor. She landed in midair. She was crumpled on what looked like midair. And the two tattered, leather wings were beside her. Also in midair.
«Force field!» Ax yelled.
I pulled up, just as my breastbone scraped along what seemed like a pure, clear glass roof.
The others swooped down and landed on the force field.
«Rachel?» Cassie cried. «Is that you?!»
«Of course, it's me,» Rachel said, sounding as if the idea of her being some little dinosaur who'd just jumped off a cliff, grabbed a pair of giant leather-wing dinosaurs and landed on an alien force field was totally normal. «Who else would it be?»
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K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs We were all treated to the utterly bizarre sight of an osprey attempting to hug a dinosaur.
«I know this is kind of obvious,» Marco began, «but you're both alive!»
«Of course,» Tobias said. «You think getting eaten by a Kronosaurus was going to kill us? Nah. Or being chased by a pack of Deinonychus?»
«What are you, Dinosaur-boy?» Marco asked.
«Now you know what I've been putting up with since yesterday,» Rachel said. «This-a-saurus and that-a-saurus. Tobias rattles them off like they were, I don't know, like any normal person would rattle off the names of major clothing designers.»
«What do you call the morphs you're in?» I asked.
«Deinonychus. And those flying reptiles there are Pteranodons,» Tobias said. «Am I the only person who ever played with dinosaurs when I was little?»
«Hey. There are buildings down there,» Rachel said. «What's going on? We were being chased by these aliens who are ants but who can join together to form bodies and carry guns. He ... or they . . . said they were the Nesk.»
Every eye turned to Ax. He sounded a little exasperated. «I don't know. Never heard of them. We are millions of years in the past, you know. I can
not be expected to know every species in the history of the galaxy.»
«At least sixty-five million years in the past,» Tobias said. «Cretaceous Age. The last age of dinosaurs.»
Marco moaned. «Oh, man. Sixty-five million years! I thought it was just maybe six or seven million years. I was holding out hope that we'd find some primitive people. You know, like in that old movie Quest for Fire? Only the babe tribe, not the hairy tribe. There would be this primitive tribe and because of my superior knowledge I would become their ruler.»
«Your superior knowledge of what, Marco? Your superior knowledge of Spider-Man's super powers?» Rachel asked scornfully. «You run into a tribe of Neanderthals, you'd end up being their pet monkey.»
Everyone laughed. Even Marco. It was good having the group together again. But I had to get us moving.
«Excuse me, but we seem to be standing on a force field a hundred feet or so above a valley filled with aliens. Maybe we should leave. Unfortunately, there are still a bunch of mad Pteran-odons above us.»
«And maybe a small ship full of those Nesk whatevers,» Tobias pointed out. «Are they the same aliens who are down in this valley?»
«No,» a voice said. «The Nesk and the Mer-cora are not the same.»
I looked at Ax. He looked at me. Everyone looked at everyone else. None of us had spoken. None of us even knew the word "mercora."
Out across the force field, they appeared very gradually. At first there was just a ripple in the air, then a sort of bad TV picture full of static. Then the picture was clear and real and three-dimensional.
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K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs «A localized, force-field-derived sensor shield!» Ax said enthusiastically. «Excellent!»
We were face-to-face with the aliens. Not that we could be sure where the face was, exactly.
Ax
We Andalites know more about alien races than anyone in the galaxy. We have been in space longer and traveled farther. Plus, we are scientists as well as warriors, so when we find a new race we study it. As opposed to wiping it out or enslaving it, as the Yeerks do.
We know of the Gedds and Hork-Bajir and Taxxons, the Korla, the Skrit Na, the humans, and many, many others.
But this race, these Mercora, were just strange. For one thing, they were not at all symmetrical.
There were three of the creatures. They moved upon seven legs. Four on one side, three on the other. To make matters worse, the four legs were larger than the three. So they scuttled sideways in the direction of the small legs.
They stood about half the height of a tall human, and seven or eight feet wide.
On the side with the four big legs, there was a sort of three-way pincer claw. It looked very powerful. It looked like the sort of thing I would not want to have to fight against.
On the other side, the weak side, there were two arms similar to my own, but even stronger than human arms. The arms ended in long, tapered, delicate fingers.
There were a lot of eyes. They kept opening and shutting, one or two or three at a time. They were each hidden beneath tiny trap doors in the Mercora's exoskeleton or shell. Eyes were forever appearing and disappearing. It was very, very distracting.
«Finally,» Marco muttered. «Someone who can win a staring contest with Ax.»
«We are the Mercora,» one of them said in thought-speak. «We are immigrants to this planet. We thought we had encountered most of the many species on this planet. But we have never encountered an intelligent species here before.»
«They think we're intelligent,» Rachel whispered. «So, Marco, keep quiet. We don't want them to learn the truth.»
It is strange the way humans will resort to what they call humor when they are frightened. Once again it struck me as strange that they had risen to dominate the very dangerous and hostile environment of Earth. I wondered how well they would have fared if they had coexisted with the dinosaurs.
«May I ask what you call yourselves?» the Mercora spokesman said.
«Is it safe to tell them the truth?» Cassie asked us all privately.
«We're sixty-five million years before the first Yeerk will show up on Earth,» Prince Jake said. «And maybe these Mercora can help us get back
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K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs home.»
Prince Jake stepped forward. As well as a falcon walking on a force field could step. «We are called humans. Except for this one . . .» He tilted his head toward me. «He is an Andalite.»
The Mercora looked confused. Maybe. It was hard to tell. I can barely interpret human facial expressions. But in any case it opened and closed groups of eyes in rapid succession.
«Do you inhabit this continent?»
«Well . . .» Prince Jake said. «That's kind of a long story. Um, Ax? You probably can explain better than I can.»
«Yes, Prince Jake. We are from the future,» I said.
«Hey, that's a much better explanation than Jake could have come up with,» Marco said. «"We are from the future." Thank goodness we have a brilliant alien Space-boy here who can explain things.»
«The future?» the Mercora said. «How far in the future?»
«A . . . a long, long way,» I responded. «Not to get all technical or anything,» Marco said dryly. «Look, sir, ma'am, whatever you are, Mr. or Ms. Mercora, we aren't what we seem. If you promise not to tell some people who won't even exist for another sixty-five million years, we'll show you, okay?»
«Yeah, let's do it,» Prince Jake said. «What do we have to lose?»
«Aside from our lives,» Rachel added dryly.
«My decision,» Prince Jake said heavily. «I think we should demorph.»
I began to do so. It must have been a bizarre sight for the Mercora. They each opened a startling number of eyes. Tobias went from dinosaur to hawk. Rachel from dinosaur to human. Cassie, Marco, and Prince Jake from bird to human. And I morphed from bird to Andalite.
«As you see,» I explained, «we are two different species. They are human. I am Andalite.»
«And what is he?» the Mercora asked, pointing both hands at Tobias.
«He is a human, but he suffered an accident and was trapped in his morph.»
«You are a strange species,» the Mercora said. «But you are welcome as long as you come in peace and do not serve the Nesk.»
"It was the Nesk that chased us here," Rachel said.
«Now it speaks with sound!» the Mercora commented.
"Yes, it does that when it's not in morph," Rachel said. "I get the idea you and the Nesk don't get along."
«They are attempting to destroy us. They want this planet for themselves. We do not wish to leave. This is our world now. Our original planet was destroyed when our sun was drawn toward a black hole. We are all that is left of the Mercora. And we cannot leave this planet. Not
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K[1]._A._Applegate_-_Megamorphs_02_-_In_The_Time_of_Dinosaurs that we would ever wish to. It is wonderful. Wonderful. And it will be our home forever.»
A second Mercora spoke up. «What planet in the future are you from, you humans and Andalites?»
Cassie started to answer. "Actually, we're from Earth. Which is our name for -"
Suddenly she fell silent and looked shocked. Tobias was staring intensely at her. And then he spoke to me in the personal, private thoughtspeak whisper he'd used to silence Cassie. A whisper the Mercora could not hear.
«No one tell them we're from this planet,» Tobias said. «Hear me? No one tells them this is our planet.»
For a moment I was surprised. Slowly, understanding dawned on me.
The Mercora were wrong: They were not going to be a part of Earth's future. They were destined either to leave ... or to be destroyed.
Marco
"You know, for being big, lopsided crabs with way too many eyeballs, these guys are really all right," I said, as I reclined against a force field shaped into an easy chair and tinted an attractive blue. r />
A day had gone by. The Mercora had speed-healed Tobias's busted wing, fed us, custom-designed a place for us to stay, and even attempted to make clothing for us. I was feeling pretty relaxed, gazing out of a window down at the Mercora who were busily working in the fields tending their broccoli.
Yes, broccoli. Turns out broccoli isn't even from Earth originally. The Mercora imported it from their home planet. Which explains a lot, I think.
"We have a nice apartment. We have food. Sadly, it's all vegetables, but hey, later we can introduce the concept of the McRex: two all-Tyrannosaurus patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. The McRex, the Quarter Tonner with cheese. And not to be impolite about our new pals here, but I'll bet these Mercora would be pretty tasty served with some melted butter."
"What are we doing here?" Rachel demanded. "What are we going to do, just sit around on these La-Z-Boy force fields, eat broccoli, and listen to Marco babble like an idiot?"
That's when Ax came back in the room. He'd been talking to the Mercora. They found it easier communicating with him because he uses thought-speak like they do.
«I have questioned the Mercora,» Ax announced. «In order to repair the Sario Rip and snap us back to our own time, they say -and I agree that we would need an explosion of great power. At least as great as the power of that fusion weapon aboard the submarine. The Mercora point out that such an explosion would annihilate this entire settlement.»
"So? We do the explosion out in the countryside," Rachel said.