Report, day 2
Feb. 7th, 2008 06:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackWe had travelled for a day across the gentle plains of the valley, sweeping down from the low crests behind us before rising to the dizzying ascent of the craggy sides of the Mountain. I felt Hillary or Scott would have given his life to be where we were going, and yet I think we would have given ours not to.
In the late afternoon of the second day, Johnson's stego crunched something brittle underfoot. She covered us with the rifle, and we al dismounted to examine it.
Kicking aside grass and scrub with our boots, we revealed a vast set of bones. Even to my untrained eye saw they resembled that of a dinosaur forefoot of the more prehensile sort, except that firstly each finger, claw or talon bone (however they would be designated) was the size of a full-grown human, the entire foot being nearly the size of a stego; and secondly, one of the claws was rotated relative to the others, and with a shiver I imagined it closing, the scrape and clack of bone if the vast hand grasped blindly at long-dead prey.
I tuned back in to the professor's lecture in time to hear her confirming my diagnosis. The claw was opposable, and the technical jargon corresponded with that of a dinosaur.
Janice pounced on this weakness, and asked if it was certainly the remains of a live dinosaur, or might have occurred in some other (unspecified) way. But the professor was already busy answering the question.
Directing us to hold ready various tobacco pouches and canteens she had made us each carry, she produced from the packs on her stego a small bird, one of several she had captured and stunned before entering the valley.
Now with a typically academic regret -- I was sure Clive, Johnson or I would not have hesitated -- she efficiently snapped its neck and bashed it against the largest bone.
A flicker of orange and yellow light flared and disappeared, and the bones acquired a faint pearly glow. I was immediately reminded of mystical experiences in the opium dens of the orient, but the reassuring orange glow of the low sun gleamed overhead, and I was forced to admit the professor seemed to have had a point here too.
[Much of the follow paragraphs are smudged, as if the paper was handled brusquely when wet. Some fragments are clear.] ...d ancient race that [....] ...r time the mountain had been a [..] of mystical and [...] continue in the direction a... [....]
[......] shuddered [...] bone swung at [...] ...ggling to raise itself from the gr [...] ...rapped Clive, and Janice and I rushed forward to pry [...] no great sinews to provide that strength but [....]
[.....] ...scattered the ashes of the remains of our last few dinners, [..] the cremated remains of purified saurians [..] flared and went [..] heads to the departing spark of the bird, thanking it for its service.
We stood, breathing heavily, trying to grasp the import of what we'd seen. Clearly for no saurian nor mammal of this region was death the clear-cut dividing line we had come to know. But not even the professor had a clear idea of the differences between the even vaster saurians of legend and those now suffering whatever strange diseases of the mind we had seen.
In the late afternoon of the second day, Johnson's stego crunched something brittle underfoot. She covered us with the rifle, and we al dismounted to examine it.
Kicking aside grass and scrub with our boots, we revealed a vast set of bones. Even to my untrained eye saw they resembled that of a dinosaur forefoot of the more prehensile sort, except that firstly each finger, claw or talon bone (however they would be designated) was the size of a full-grown human, the entire foot being nearly the size of a stego; and secondly, one of the claws was rotated relative to the others, and with a shiver I imagined it closing, the scrape and clack of bone if the vast hand grasped blindly at long-dead prey.
I tuned back in to the professor's lecture in time to hear her confirming my diagnosis. The claw was opposable, and the technical jargon corresponded with that of a dinosaur.
Janice pounced on this weakness, and asked if it was certainly the remains of a live dinosaur, or might have occurred in some other (unspecified) way. But the professor was already busy answering the question.
Directing us to hold ready various tobacco pouches and canteens she had made us each carry, she produced from the packs on her stego a small bird, one of several she had captured and stunned before entering the valley.
Now with a typically academic regret -- I was sure Clive, Johnson or I would not have hesitated -- she efficiently snapped its neck and bashed it against the largest bone.
A flicker of orange and yellow light flared and disappeared, and the bones acquired a faint pearly glow. I was immediately reminded of mystical experiences in the opium dens of the orient, but the reassuring orange glow of the low sun gleamed overhead, and I was forced to admit the professor seemed to have had a point here too.
[Much of the follow paragraphs are smudged, as if the paper was handled brusquely when wet. Some fragments are clear.] ...d ancient race that [....] ...r time the mountain had been a [..] of mystical and [...] continue in the direction a... [....]
[......] shuddered [...] bone swung at [...] ...ggling to raise itself from the gr [...] ...rapped Clive, and Janice and I rushed forward to pry [...] no great sinews to provide that strength but [....]
[.....] ...scattered the ashes of the remains of our last few dinners, [..] the cremated remains of purified saurians [..] flared and went [..] heads to the departing spark of the bird, thanking it for its service.
We stood, breathing heavily, trying to grasp the import of what we'd seen. Clearly for no saurian nor mammal of this region was death the clear-cut dividing line we had come to know. But not even the professor had a clear idea of the differences between the even vaster saurians of legend and those now suffering whatever strange diseases of the mind we had seen.