A Prehistoric Odyssey

A Prehistoric Odyssey

by Marie Mai Perron
A Prehistoric Odyssey

A Prehistoric Odyssey

by Marie Mai Perron

Paperback

$15.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
    Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by Thursday, April 4
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

Every paleontologist dreams of studying live dinosaurs in their natural environment. There's only one small hurdle in the way: sixty-five million years. But unlike so many of his peers, Matthew Carrington has real reason to believe he'll be making such a journey to the far reaches of a bygone era. Now, thanks to a colleague's major technological breakthrough, time travel has just vaulted from the theoretical to the possible. But before Matthew can experience such an adventure, problems arise: delays, politics, and greed plague the project. Against his better judgment, he chooses to stay on board. The result is nothing short of a disaster. Now, Matthew and his team are stranded in the past, where they have to deal with isolation, predators, disease, and their own shortcomings. Hopes of ever making it back to the Holocene are dwindling with each catastrophe they encounter. Total human world population: nine ... and rapidly decreasing.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781462018666
Publisher: iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date: 06/03/2011
Pages: 240
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.55(d)

Read an Excerpt

A Prehistoric Odyssey


By Marie Mai Perron

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Marie Mai Perron
All right reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1866-6


Chapter One

Nanoseconds and Black Holes

Berkeley, California, August 11, 2:07 AM

"Matt! I did it!"

His brain still murky with sleep, Matthew Carrington glanced over his shoulder to make sure the telephone had not awoken his wife Patricia as well. He squinted at the clock while a deluge of words assaulted his ear.

"Garry, it's freaking two in the morning!" Matthew whispered irritably, not stemming the verbal gush in the least.

"Are you even listening? I did it! The damned thing works!"

Those first intelligible words hit Matthew with the force of a nuclear blast.

"How far?" he asked, checking again on Patricia's slow, regular breathing.

"A nanosecond." A nanosecond. Garry Payton had managed to go back a nanosecond in time. Matthew needed to go back tens of millions of years. His heart was running a marathon in his chest, knowing all too well what this infinitesimal fraction of time meant. Time travel was not hypothetical anymore. It could be done.

The last wisps of lethargy still clinging to Matthew's brain evaporated. "When do you think it'll be ready for longer trips?"

"Six months, a year, maybe," Garry replied with confidence. He probably detected a touch of skepticism in his friend's stunned silence. "The hardest part's over, Matt. Now it's just a matter of expanding time-splitting. That nanosecond proves it's doable. Los Alamos has the computer power to work my equations into bigger time lapses. All I need is money to lease time on their BladeCenters. I'd say you'd better get your team together."

What Garry Payton was proposing was to catapult Matthew's team into the past; first to Cretaceous California, and then all the way back to the Late Jurassic. But the road to success had been long and bumpy. By and large, the scientific community dismissed most of Garry's work as unrealistic. Only a handful gave any credence to what Matthew and his friend were trying to achieve, which made planning an expedition somewhat of a roller-coaster ride. Getting grants and sponsors had been a major headache; getting prominent paleontologists on board proved even harder, partly because they did not believe time travel could be done. Perhaps more injurious, Matthew's peers avoided having anything to do with him, and his involvement with Garry Payton was not the only cause.

Over the years, Matthew had strayed into the speculative domain of dinosaur behaviour and lately had become too ardent an advocate for intelligence in creatures others dismissed as dumber than the dumbest bird. This fall from grace originated from a find in Wyoming. There, toiling in the desert heat, Matthew had found a rock containing two tanycolagreus skeletons and their massive victim, an adult camptosaur, which had crashed down on top of them. Looking at how the two meat-eaters were positioned in relation to the herbivore, Matthew became convinced that this was strong evidence of pack hunting and coordinated behaviour. Everyone else just saw three unrelated carcasses that had been washed downriver together. Those carcasses were not the only things being washed downriver. Matthew's credibility was in free fall and he had just been refused a promotion. The late-night phone call cemented Matthew's hopes of getting his theories proven as facts and restoring his credibility to its original shine.

In a state of euphoria, Matthew Carrington bade his friend goodbye, hopped out of bed and locked himself up in his study. From the jumble of papers and journals cluttering his desk, he pulled out a file containing the blueprint for mankind's greatest adventure and who would get to go.

First on the expedition roster was his old colleague Paul Norris. Their friendship dated back to his time at Berkeley, where Paul had come to pursue his life's passion, paleontology, after a few years of practising medicine had driven him to the brink of a nervous breakdown. That medical background might prove invaluable. Next came British zoologist Kerry Kyle, who knew next to nothing about dinosaurs, but plenty about animal behaviour. Two other paleontologists, Robert Sampson and Justine Dupras, although tied up in important digs, had expressed interest in the expedition. Also included was Joanne Vanderbroek, staunchest of assistants and the most obstinate person Matthew ever hoped to befriend. And last, he looked down at his own name. Out of all of them, he had the most valid reason to go, but that last entry doused some of the fireworks exploding in his mind. Like many, Patricia had become convinced of the impossibility of time travelling.

He would have to tell her about Garry's call over breakfast and see how devastating a nanosecond could be.

* * *

Virunga National Park, Congo, August 11, 1:18 PM

Kerry Kyle bowled down a wooded hill with an aggressive silverback careening after her on feet and knuckles. Laughing, Kerry stopped and turned to watch the gorilla skid to a halt and bang the dirt with both fists, hacking warning grunts and baring long canines.

"Yeah, you too, wanker!"

Her cell phone rang. "Kyle here."

"You sound out of breath," came Matthew's distant voice. "What's chasing you now?"

"Oh, it's just Sterling being cheeky again."

"Sorry to intrude on a domestic dispute, but I need to know if you're still interested in making the team."

"Bloody hell, Matt! Payton's finally delivered?"

"He got the sphere to work," Matthew confirmed.

"How much?"

"A nanosecond."

Kerry let out a great guffaw. "Won't start packing yet, then."

"It could be ready within a year."

A thrill of excitement, such as she rarely experienced nowadays, coursed through her. Kerry wasn't about to miss this opportunity—not for all the tea in China. "Sure! Why not?"

"I'll call to give you a heads-up," Matthew replied, and then his voice was replaced by the dial tone.

No, she wasn't going to miss that, even if it meant keeping Matthew in the dark. Nobody needed to learn about her dirty little secret.

* * *

Alameda, California, August 11, 8:11 PM

Paul Norris sat down with a cognac and put Beethoven on. He needed to numb himself. What had he been thinking? He wasn't young anymore.

Back then, it had been fun, elaborating the whole thing in a bar full of smoke, with loud laughter over loud music, drinking beer with Matt just as they did in their college years. He never truly believed in Payton's experiments. Now, in the cold loneliness of his one-room condominium overlooking the twilit bay, it sounded a lot less fun. Perhaps the past should be left well enough alone.

Paul caught his reflection in the windowpane. Although sporting the beginning of a paunch, he was still in shape for a man nearing sixty. Granted, his cholesterol could use some lowering and he should cut back a bit on the cognac. But the man staring back at him looked years older than the fit 58-year-old he met in his mirror every day. The fading light etched deep lines around his quiet brown eyes and down the sides of his stiff mouth, and the grey streaks in his dark, wavy hair stood out sharply. The man staring back at him was in serious doubt.

Matthew Carrington was one of the best vertebrate paleontologists of his time, and he was passionate about his work. That passion could explain why he had overlooked conundrums that plagued Paul. Had Matthew ever given any thought to the Grandfather Paradox and its implication for time travel? Paul was revisited by long-gone Sunday afternoons spent as a boy, reading science fiction magazines with relish and trepidation in his tree house. His favourite story was about an adventurous time traveller visiting man's distant past, shooting an ape-like creature in self-defence, and wham! Humanity was now covered with scales. It stared through lidless orbs and stuck out forked tongues.

That was an idiotic outcome, obviously, but it did spell out the dilemma rather nicely. And there were other concerns. What if they went into the past only to come back in a completely different future? If they shot some animal, how much would that pollute the fossil record? After all, dinosaurs were not supposed to die of gunshots, he thought, shaking his head and swallowing a generous gulp of cognac. The burning sensation in his throat felt comforting. And what if one of them died out there? What if that one was Paul?

This eventuality might weigh on his mind, but backing out was simply out of the question. How could he fail Matthew when everyone else was doing just that? Paul was nothing if not loyal, and he would remain loyal to Matthew until the bitter end.

The famous "Allegro con brio" was shaking the windowpanes. Paul poured himself another drink. Christ! He was scared.

* * *

CERN, northwest of Geneva, Switzerland, September 27, 2:02 PM

Like all physicists present, Carl Greer leaned over the screen. Any minute now. Although the walls were thick and soundproofed, he could feel vibrations coursing through the floor. He was imagining them, of course, but they were no less real to him. Any minute now.

For months they had tirelessly slaved towards this goal and there had been too many disappointments.

"Cette saloperie de conducteur a intérêt à tenir le coup, j'te jure!" Lesouëf grumbled.

Carl concurred. The last thing they needed was for one of the superconducting magnets to short out yet again. The previous failure had slowed their work considerably. He crossed his fingers and toes and leaned closer.

"Do we have a reading from Atlas?" someone asked.

"Est-ce qu'on a quelque chose?"

"Come on ..." Carl coaxed.

And then, data came flooding in. Around him, the room exploded with loud cheers and multilingual expletives. Carl Greer stood there, transfixed and mute, unable to believe his eyes. Nevertheless, the raw data of success flashing on every screen was unequivocal. An event horizon was forming.

"Bon Dieu!" Lesouëf breathed, wiping his mouth. "Bon Dieu! Cette fois on le tient."

Somewhere in the Large Hadron Collider, a miniature black hole was being born.

* * *

MLB Group's headquarters, Los Angeles, California, October 17, 9:34 PM

Leonard Mak hung up, satisfied.

He got up, briskly rubbing his hands, and walked to the window to admire the lit-up streets of Los Angeles spread out like a beautiful jewel before him. Mak, short and stocky as a pit bull and just as aggressive, came from a long line of entrepreneurs dating back to the very beginning of British-owned Hong Kong. There, his forebears had flourished until communist China began closing its iron fist around the City of Life, at which time his family had fled. Father and son continued to prosper, fleecing China of its capital assets via their former hometown. From a family enterprise, MLB Group had matured into an international giant employing the best engineers, innovative thinkers and daring architects that yuans could buy. China was a boomtown; everything had to be built. The country lacked modern infrastructure, and Leonard Mak was certainly not above hiring locally. With the pitiful salary his labour force was paid, Mak was able to outbid every other contender, and the profits were staggering. Although there were many complaints about his cutthroat dealings, he mostly navigated in legal waters, taking advantage of every loophole at his disposal and hiding from the authorities what needed to be hidden.

Tonight, however, Mak was banking on an altogether different venture. The amount of money he stood to make left him a bit dizzy. And to think he had felt let down when his only child turned her back on the business world! As it was, she was about to generate more profit than all the Maks put together.

Who knew paleontology could pay such dividends?

Chapter Two

Trouble and Delays

Stern Hall, UC Berkeley, California, December 2, 3:14 AM

Stifling a scream, Betty Mak sat up in bed, drenched in sweat. Frightened enough to be sick, she rushed to the bathroom, a hand firmly clamped on her mouth, but by the time she stood over the sink, the nightmare had faded enough to let her breathe again.

The cold water Betty splashed on her face felt good, helping to dilute the horrific vision of a putrid maw closing in. She straightened up and stared in the mirror at the short wet hair clinging to a round face lacking the bold features her father prized. She didn't look one bit like him; Betty was delicate, like her mother. Why had she not been born a boy? Why wasn't she obsessed with money? All her life she had struggled to earn her father's love and approval, doing as she was told, getting the best grades, being the perfect daughter. Daughter. Betty was a girl obsessed with old bones, and that couldn't be helped. Getting her father to recognize her career choice, now, that could be helped.

When Leonard yanked her out of Maryland to put her in Berkeley in the middle of the fall semester, Betty had foolishly believed he wanted her closer to home. She had believed wrong. Since Daddy had arranged for her to be under Matthew Carrington's tutelage, Betty's disappointment was minimal. One of the best paleontologists around, Dr. Carrington enjoyed a controversial reputation. This basically meant he was hot.

When Leonard explained what he expected of her, Betty was horrified. How in the world was she supposed to steal eggs from nesting dinosaurs? Daddy thought they would be sluggish and stupid, easy to outwit and outrun. They wouldn't be.

"Then get eggs from the small ones!" he had argued.

Evidently, he had never heard of dromaeosaurs. Good thing they were extinct. And even if she did get eggs, how would she smuggle them back?

Under pressure to accept her father's offer, Betty obeyed, as any dutiful daughter would do. After all the money and trouble he put into getting her into Berkeley and under Dr. Carrington's protective wing, it was the least she could do.

"You're such an idiot," she told the pale, scared face in the mirror. "What are the odds of making the team? You're not good enough. You're pathetic."

Betty swallowed another Ativan and went back to bed.

* * *

Mojave Desert, seventy miles from San Bernardino, January 14, 9:42 PM

"Damn!"

Garry Payton slammed both fists on the shiny metal tabletop.

"Damn!" he repeated, examining the data once more, hoping against hope to see the shift disappear. It was still there. The promising nanosecond had come with its share of disappointments and headaches. Photons came back with the telltale shift of contamination. They had not gone where or when they should have gone and Garry was at a loss to figure out at what level that contamination had occurred. The longer the time lapse, the more variation from its original state the photons underwent. "What's causing the phase-out?"

"Beats me," answered one of his partners.

"Something wrong with our parameters?" Please be the parameters, please be the parameters, Garry silently begged, sliding his gangling frame off the stool and running a nervous hand through his irongrey frizz. His glasses were so thick he gave the impression of looking everywhere but straight ahead.

"Parameters? Could be," his partner agreed. "Or maybe we need more computer power to deal with them. I just don't know."

"I wonder ..." mused another assistant hovering near the faulty photon signature, a dubious look on his face.

"What is it?" Garry urged him.

"Probably nothing, but—something Manderson told me ..."

"Manderson at Fermilab?" Garry asked.

"The one and only. He was pretty drunk, so we'd both get in a lot of trouble if I repeat what he said," the young lab assistant warned.

"My lips are sealed. Let's have it."

"They're in a race against the Swiss. Fermilab's trying to send gravitons into other dimensions. CERN is trying to prove that those dimensions exist by producing mini black holes. Last October, CERN succeeded in making several black holes. Manderson's rather pissed about that."

"Why hasn't anyone published yet?" Garry whispered, flabbergasted.

"CERN's trying to get more data by replicating their experiment. I hear they've been busting one piece of equipment after the other. That's been slowing them down. Anyway, they're bound to go public sometime soon."

Garry Payton sank into a chair, disheartened. He now had a fairly good idea as to why there was an increase in shift with any increase in time lapse he achieved; those extra universes were exponentially increasing the variation outcome seen in the tainted photons and his programs were nowhere near sophisticated enough to take them all into account.

(Continues...)



Excerpted from A Prehistoric Odyssey by Marie Mai Perron Copyright © 2011 by Marie Mai Perron. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews