BOUNDARY(10)

The "shriekers" were strange things, looking a bit like large versions of the paddles found on a defibrillator unit, but ending with quivering blobs that looked like nothing so much as firm blue jello. They were labeled Kaled 1 and Kaled 2.



"What's that stuff?" Jackie asked, pointing to the blue blobs.



"Couplant gel. The attenuation of the signal through air is something fierce, so you try to use couplant to bring it more directly to the target. I wash the area off with a high-pressure water jet, then push the gel up against the rock. That increases the efficiency by many times. Even so, it'd be just plain useless without the Fairy Dust. You can immerse a sample in liquid and get good results, but in the field you just wouldn't get the penetration needed. With the sensor motes properly programmed and all over the place, and digitized pulses for signature return filtering, I can get results out of returns almost a hundred times weaker than I could with normal sensors."



"Anything else we can do to help?" Helen put in, seeing that he was now laying out his devices in a carefully planned order.



"Yeah," A.J. said. "Go away. Meaning no offense, just that once I start taking the readings the more people and objects in the area, the harder it's going to be for me to compensate for the signals. I have to sit dead still while the data's being gathered, and even so I'll probably be having an effect that I'll notice later."



"No problem, we understand." Helen and Jackie started off. "Let us know when you're done."



"Sure thing," A.J. replied absently, already staring at a display on his VRD unit. "Your problems are just about over."





Chapter 4




"What the hell is that?"



A.J. was taken aback by the vehemence of Helen's question. "Hey, cool down. And why are you asking me? You're the paleontologist. I just image what's there."



Joe shook his head, then bent down to A.J. and spoke quietly. "Look, I don't know what you think you're doing, but cut out the joking and give us the real data."



A.J.'s eyes narrowed. "That is the real data. Top of the line. Imaged in three different spectra, multiple wavelengths, filtered, neural-net-processed, compared with known data for verisimilitude, and data-fused and analyzed out the wazoo. If I wasn't doing this for you and my own entertainment, you'd be paying about a hundred grand for this little job—over and above expenses. That is exactly, precisely, and inarguably what is down there."



"But that's just . . . impossible," Joe said defensively. He gestured at the projected image before them.



The computer-enhanced graphic showed the entire dig area in three-dimensional, mostly pastel false color. The rock still to be removed was present as an outline, an overlay of faintly gray glass. The fossils of the three raptors were clearly visible, the two newer ones now fully visible in their curved death poses. In addition, two more raptor skeletons were revealed, one on either side of the other three, making a rough three-quarter circle around the perimeter of the dig area. All five skeletons were fully articulated, possibly the finest specimens of Deinonychus ever uncovered— and all of them were sitting on a stippled red and purple layer that was the K-T boundary itself. White dots showed the position of hundreds of the strange pebbles, both around and past the raptor skeletons.



But it was what squatted ominously in the center of the image, in the middle of the rough circle delineated by the fossilized predators, that was the focus of such utter disbelief. It was large—close to four meters long, from end to end—and was as clearly defined as the other skeletons. The problem was . . .



"That's not even a skeleton," Helen said finally. "I'm not sure what to make of it."



"I thought it was like some kind of squid," A.J. said. "I know there was a lot of squiddage back then. Squids with shells, if I remember right. Ammonites, they were called?"



Joe frowned. "Well, we do have a sort of cephalopodic outline here." He sketched an elongated oval in the air. "Those could be tentacles, sort of. I only see three of them, though. And it looks almost like there are more at the rear."



"A lot shorter, though," Helen pointed out. "And much of the rest looks like it is a skeleton. Well, sort of. Weird though it is, that part here, near the longer, um, tentacles, looks like a skull to me, and it's attached to these other parts. But it's not an ammonite or any kind of shell, that's for damn sure. And what's the segmentation effect we have here? What are those things you're rendering in blue, A.J.? Look like layered armor plates or something."