Boundary Read online




  Boundary

  by

  Eric Flint & Ryk Spoor

  Table of Contents

  * * *

  BOUNDARY

  Eric Flint and

  Ryk E. Spoor

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright ©2006 by Eric Flint and Ryk Spoor

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-0932-1

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-0932-5

  First printing, March 2006

  Cover Art by Kurt Millar

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Flint, Eric.

  Boundary / by Eric Flint and Ryk E. Spoor.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 1-4165-0932-1 (hc)

  1. Fossils--Fiction. 2. Life on other planets--Fiction. I. Spoor, Ryk E. II. Title.

  PS3556.L548B68 2005

  813'.54--dc22

  2005035548

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Printed in the United States of America

  PART I: FOSSILS

  Problematica, n: a term used in paleontology

  to refer to fossils that appear to be either of unknown

  taxonomic origin, or whose occurrence in the location

  they are found contradicts current beliefs of the field.

  Chapter 1

  "Dear God, I'm going to die," muttered Joe Buckley, as the SUV bounced from one rutted pothole to another.

  "Oh, come on, Joe, I don't drive that badly."

  The silence caused Helen Sutter to glance over at Joe. His face was pale under its tan, contrasting all the more with his dark hair. His habitually cheerful expression was currently replaced by that of a man who has discovered he has a terminal illness and just two weeks to live. ". . . Do I?"

  "Eyes on road! On the road!!! UNGH!"

  The "ungh" was from the SUV's particularly hard, bottoming-out-the-shocks landing following yet another acrobatic leap across the roadbed, in an attempt to leave the rough dirt track and strike out across the rocky terrain nearby.

  Helen gave a restrained curse and hauled on the steering wheel. The SUV responded, skidding slightly, but heading back into the center of the dirt track leading to the Secord ranch. Holding the line with one hand, Helen brushed her blond hair out of her eyes; as usual it was escaping the ponytail it was supposedly tied into. Despite the fact that it was early in the season and only eleven in the morning, Helen could feel a thin film of sweat on her forehead.

  Well, that's the life of a paleontologist, she thought ruefully. Pay all your grant money for the chance to break rocks, instead of getting sentenced to hard labor and doing it for free.

  "What's wrong with my driving?"

  "Nothing, nothing." Joe paused. "If you're in the Baja 500."

  "Oh, all right, I'll slow down. But who cut down your testosterone ration? As I recall, the first year we came out here, you almost got yourself killed trying to offroad along an arroyo. Nearly lost us our dig, too. Then the second year, you—"

  "Hey, all right, already. It's just that I want to survive this summer. It's my last year."

  Helen smiled a bit sadly. "I know. We're going to miss you, Joe."

  "I'll miss it, too. But . . . push comes to shove, this is ultimately just a hobby for me. If I hadn't taken your course on a whim as an undergraduate, I never would have gotten interested in paleontology at all, it's so far removed from my own field of EE."

  "Yeah, I understand. Now that you're closing in on your Ph.D., you don't have any choice but to clear everything else aside. I know, I've been there. We'll still miss you a lot—and take it from a pro that your skills as a paleontologist are a lot more than those of a 'hobbyist.'"

  "Thanks."

  The gate to the Secord ranch leaped into view as the SUV crested the hill and charged down the other side. Helen expertly maneuvered the vehicle through the gateway and pulled up to the sprawling ranch house in a cloud of dust.

  Joe got out, pausing to let his legs steady, and possibly to give himself an excuse to watch Helen going first. As he was a several-year veteran, she ignored the matter. She was used to the fact that she got a lot of stares; in what was still a male-dominated profession, just about any woman got them. And in her case, a woman whose figure was still very good for someone close to forty years old. For a miracle, even, her face wasn't showing the wrinkles you'd expect from years of wind and sun in rugged country.

  The door to the ranch house opened. "Welcome back, Dr. Sutter!"

  Jackie Secord stepped aside and ushered them in with a wave of her hand. Combined with Jackie's striking appearance, the gesture had a dramatic flair to it that was absurdly out of keeping with its humble purpose.

  But that was pretty typical of the young woman. She was Indian in her ancestry, on her mother's side. Her good-looking but intense face, black hair, black eyes and dusky complexion sometimes reminded Helen of a cartoon version of a Foreign Spy. Natasha, with a rural Montana accent.

  To make the absurdity perfect, Jackie was a graduate student in engineering—and shared with Joe a fascination with space exploration. Her looks and liking for dramatic gestures aside, the young woman was about as down-home American as anyone could get.

  Despite her intentions to become an astronaut, Jackie shared Joe's longstanding side interest in paleontology. That interest, as with Joe's, had been triggered years before by Helen herself—but not as a student. The first time Helen had showed up in the area, she'd introduced herself to the Secord family since they were one of the largest landowners around and she needed their permission to conduct digs on their property.

  Their daughter Jackie—then eighteen years old and a high school senior—had promptly attached herself to Helen as a combination guide and gofer. Since then, Jackie had become one of Helen's main local contacts and a constant, helpful presence at the digs. She'd developed into a top-notch amateur paleontologist, in fact, and usually tried to spend at least part of her summers on one of Helen's digs.

  "What's with the 'Dr. Sutter' business, Jackie? It's been 'Helen' for years, remember?"

  Jackie grinned. "I figure I gotta practice up on my formalities. I'm not all that far behind Joe when it comes to getting my doctorate—and God help me if I start breezily referring to the head of my committee as 'Frank.' So what's up for this year?"

  "Same as ever," Joe said, coming in after Helen. "Spend a couple months working ourselves to death to dig out a few fossils just like the ones everyone else has. Write some papers about them that no one but us and the reviewers will read. Then Helen and company write another grant proposal."

  "And Joey's still the optimist, I see."

  Joe winced. He detested being called "Joey," Helen knew. But some years before, when they'd both been undergraduates, Jackie and Joe had been casually "sorta-dating" for one summer. Her pet nickname for him had probably seemed cute then. Now, of course, it was inescapable, though he wouldn't put up with anyone else using it.

  Laughing, Helen nodded. "As always. Seriously, I thought we might try that area a bit north of the last dig. The indications we had seem to show that some of the random fossils come from that area in the runoff."

  "You stop by Jeff's?" Helen wasn't sure, but Jackie's gaze seemed somewhat more intense than usual.

  Jeff Little owned a souvenir shop in the nearest town, and specialized in buying and selling fos
sils from the local rock hounds and collectors. If a new group of fossils started showing up, he was generally the first to know.

  "Yes, we did. He didn't seem to have much new, except one bone that might—might—have come from a dromeasaur or related species."

  There was no mistaking the gleam in Jackie's eyes now. "Well, Jeff doesn't get all the good stuff. After the time I've spent working with you, I can spot the real winners out in the field if I run across them. Most of that stuff he gets is junk."

  "Sure, you showed me your better pieces last year, too. Saves us having to bargain with Little for them."

  "I've got something really nifty this year, I think. Came down in the year's runoff, and I think I've got a good idea where it came from. Be right back." Jackie trotted upstairs to fetch her prize.

  Jackie's mother had come in from the kitchen by then. "Would you like some lemonade?" she asked, then gestured at the couches and armchairs scattered about the sprawling ranch-style living room. "And why don't you two sit down a spell before you go out there to start your digging?"

  "Don't mind if I do," Joe said, sighing histrionically. "A chair that isn't bouncing up and down will be a comfort."

  "Cut it out, Joe!"

  Jackie came clattering down the stairs, holding something behind her. "Ready?"

  "Let's see it."

  A few minutes later, Helen looked up. "Joe, take a look at this."

  Joe put down the lemonade Mrs. Secord had handed him, rose from the couch and joined Helen in staring at the object.

  It resembled nothing so much as a large blackish shoehorn— Helen estimated it at around fifteen centimeters long and ranging from three to six centimeters wide, with a concave side and a little hook on the narrow end.

  "Some kind of brachiopod relative?"

  "Not one I'm familiar with. Look at these marks here."

  Joe frowned, then took the object and studied it more closely. "Well, it's definitely a fossil, and . . . those sure look like muscle attachment scars. But what're they doing on both sides of this thing, if it's a shell? Should run down only one side, shouldn't they?"

  "That'd be my expectation, too. But if this is a bone, why is it so thin and concave? I've never even heard of anything like that."

  Joe was good at visualizing anatomy—much better than Helen, in fact, who always had to sit down and sketch it out a piece at a time. His face now screwed up in concentration. "If you had a. . . no, no, that wouldn't make sense. Oh, but maybe . . . no, not that either. I suppose if . . ."

  He turned the fossil over, examining the backside carefully. "Darn. No sign of it being a piece of something else, either, which might have explained it." He turned it over and over a couple more times, shifting his point of view as though it might suddenly become an obvious and familiar fossil from some different angle, then handed it back to Helen.

  "Okay, you win, Jackie. I'm beat. Do you know what it is?"

  Jackie shook her head, looking excited and trying not to—after all, she wasn't a high school girl any longer, and hadn't been for a number of years. "No, not really. I knew it didn't look like anything I'd seen before, but I was sure you people would know right away. Are you guys putting me on? You really, truly don't know what it is?"

  "Really, truly, Jackie," Helen said. "I've never seen anything like it, or heard of anything like it. You say you know where you found it?"

  Jackie looked hurt. "Of course I do, Helen! Haven't I been keeping a journal since my second year doing this?"

  "I'm sorry. I should have said: will you show us where you found it, and where you think it came from?"

  "Of course. Let me get my hiking boots on, and we'll go out there now."

  * * *

  "There" turned out to be a few miles out, not all that far from the old dig site, but to the northwest up a small arroyo. "I found it lying over here, half under some sand. I think it washed down from somewhere up the arroyo."

  Helen measured the area by eye, trying to visualize the rains, the wash coming down, the size of the fossil.

  She thought Jackie was right. "Let's go up a ways, then, and see if we find anything."

  Luck, luck, luck.

  The word kept repeating itself over and over in Helen's mind, as she stood there looking at the wall of the arroyo in a state of half-shock.

  "Jesus Christ," Joe repeated for the fifth time, finally straightening up from his examination. "Helen, that's a Deinonychus, or I'm just a first-year student."

  "And if the rest is in the same condition, we've got ourselves a fully articulated skeleton."

  Amateur or not, Jackie understood how very rare that was, and her excitement was only restrained by an attempt to be more professional and dignified than the professionals around her. Theropod skeletons, like the Deinonychus, were rare enough to be noteworthy, but fully articulated skeletons—skeletons that had remained pretty much connected as they had been in life—were vanishingly rare.

  Helen glanced down the arroyo, frowning. "Odd, though."

  "What's odd?"

  She pulled out the unknown fossil. "If this came from here, there's no way it's a shell. Not of a water dweller, anyway."

  Joe nodded. "These are land formations; late Cretaceous, maybe even Maastrichtian."

  "No 'maybe' involved, Joe. Look at where your hand is."

  Joe looked at the rock wall he'd been leaning against. "What—"

  He suddenly started laughing. "You can't be serious, Helen! It's like pulling three jackpots in a row at Vegas!"

  "What is it?" Jackie asked, seeing the narrow, dark band both Joe and Helen were staring at. Then she whipped around, eyes wide.

  "You mean . . .?"

  "Yes." Helen was hardly able to believe it herself. "It looks like our fossil is sitting right smack on the K-T boundary."

  "Where the comet—um, sorry." Jackie caught herself before finishing the sentence. She tended to forget that the Alvarez Hypothesis was still a touchy subject for a lot of paleontologists, even if she herself thought it was a darn neat idea.

  "Yes, where the comet." Helen said the words with a half-snort, half-chuckle.

  Fortunately for Jackie, Helen was less hostile to the Alvarez Hypothesis than most members of her profession. She didn't doubt at all that an impact had happened at the K-T Boundary, which marked the end of the Mesozoic Era. She simply questioned whether it had the worldwide cataclysmic effects that the hypothesis proposed. There were other impact craters about as big as the one in Yucatan, after all. The Manicouagan, to name just one. But they'd had no discernable ecological effects at all; not even regional ones, so far as anyone could determine.

  Nor had anyone ever really explained, to Helen's satisfaction, exactly how the impact had killed off so many species. Nor the peculiar mechanism by which it had killed off some, but not others. In what mystifying manner, for instance, had it killed off all ammonites—but spared their close relatives, the squids and the octopi? These were the sort of nitty-gritty questions that paleontologists focused on, and that physicists tended to ignore.

  Still, she was willing to entertain it as a valid and testable hypothesis. In truth, she'd privately admit to herself, Helen's residual animosity toward the Alvarez Hypothesis was emotional rather than intellectual. Like most paleontologists, she was often rankled by the overbearing arrogance of many of the physicists who were so charmed by the hypothesis and took it as Revealed Truth. When they pontificated on the subject, physicists tended to dismiss the inconvenient facts paleontologists kept bringing up, much like an exasperated adult brushes aside the foolish questions of little children.

  One of those facts, however, was that there was no evidence that any dinosaur had survived till the end of the Cretaceous. But now. . .

 

    The Grantville Gazette Volumn VI Read onlineThe Grantville Gazette Volumn VIGrantville Gazette, Volume IX Read onlineGrantville Gazette, Volume IXRing of Fire III Read onlineRing of Fire IIIGrantville Gazette-Volume XIII Read onlineGrantville Gazette-Volume XIIIGrantville Gazette V Read onlineGrantville Gazette V1635: The Eastern Front Read online1635: The Eastern FrontRing of Fire Read onlineRing of FireMother of Demons Read onlineMother of Demons1824: The Arkansas War Read online1824: The Arkansas WarGrantville Gazette 43 Read onlineGrantville Gazette 43Forward the Mage Read onlineForward the MageThe World Turned Upside Down Read onlineThe World Turned Upside DownRing of Fire II Read onlineRing of Fire IIBoundary Read onlineBoundaryGrantville Gazette VI Read onlineGrantville Gazette VI1812: The Rivers of War Read online1812: The Rivers of War1633 Read online1633All the Plagues of Hell Read onlineAll the Plagues of HellGrantville Gazette, Volume 7 Read onlineGrantville Gazette, Volume 7Worlds Read onlineWorlds1632 Read online1632The Alexander Inheritance Read onlineThe Alexander InheritanceDiamonds Are Forever Read onlineDiamonds Are ForeverThe Philosophical Strangler Read onlineThe Philosophical StranglerGrantville Gazette, Volume VIII Read onlineGrantville Gazette, Volume VIIIGrantville Gazette-Volume XIV Read onlineGrantville Gazette-Volume XIVGenie Out of the Bottle Read onlineGenie Out of the BottlePyramid Scheme Read onlinePyramid Scheme1636- the China Venture Read online1636- the China VentureGrantville Gazette, Volume XII Read onlineGrantville Gazette, Volume XIIGrantville Gazette, Volume I Read onlineGrantville Gazette, Volume IThe Demons of Constantinople Read onlineThe Demons of ConstantinopleThe Macedonian Hazard Read onlineThe Macedonian Hazard1634- the Galileo Affair Read online1634- the Galileo AffairThe Shaman of Karres Read onlineThe Shaman of Karres1636: The Ottoman Onslaught Read online1636: The Ottoman OnslaughtThe Genie Out of the Vat Read onlineThe Genie Out of the VatThe Grantville Gazette Volumn II Read onlineThe Grantville Gazette Volumn II1636: The Saxon Uprising Read online1636: The Saxon Uprising1634 The Baltic War Read online1634 The Baltic War1636: Mission to the Mughals Read online1636: Mission to the Mughals!632: Joseph Hanauer Read online!632: Joseph HanauerGrantville Gazette-Volume XI Read onlineGrantville Gazette-Volume XI1637: The Peacock Throne Read online1637: The Peacock Throne1636: The China Venture Read online1636: The China VentureThe Rats, the Bats & the Ugly Read onlineThe Rats, the Bats & the UglyGrantville Gazette, Volume X Read onlineGrantville Gazette, Volume XThe Course of Empire Read onlineThe Course of EmpirePyramid Power Read onlinePyramid Power1636: The Devil's Opera Read online1636: The Devil's OperaRing of Fire IV Read onlineRing of Fire IVGrantville Gazette. Volume XX (ring of fire) Read onlineGrantville Gazette. Volume XX (ring of fire)1634: The Baltic War (assiti chards) Read online1634: The Baltic War (assiti chards)The tide of victory b-5 Read onlineThe tide of victory b-51634: The Ram Rebellion Read online1634: The Ram RebellionThe Rats, the Bats and the Ugly trtbav-2 Read onlineThe Rats, the Bats and the Ugly trtbav-2Castaway Resolution Read onlineCastaway ResolutionCouncil of Fire Read onlineCouncil of FireSlow Train to Arcturus Read onlineSlow Train to Arcturus1637_The Volga Rules Read online1637_The Volga RulesBoundary b-1 Read onlineBoundary b-11637: No Peace Beyond the Line Read online1637: No Peace Beyond the LineThe Sorceress of Karres Read onlineThe Sorceress of KarresDestiny's shield b-3 Read onlineDestiny's shield b-3In the Heart of Darkness b-2 Read onlineIn the Heart of Darkness b-2Grantville Gazette.Volume 22 Read onlineGrantville Gazette.Volume 22Carthago Delenda Est э-2 Read onlineCarthago Delenda Est э-21635: The Eastern Front (assiti shards) Read online1635: The Eastern Front (assiti shards)1812-The Rivers of War Read online1812-The Rivers of WarThe Dance of Time b-6 Read onlineThe Dance of Time b-6Belisarius II-Storm at Noontide Read onlineBelisarius II-Storm at NoontideIron Angels Read onlineIron Angels1636:The Saxon Uprising as-11 Read online1636:The Saxon Uprising as-111812: The Rivers of War tog-1 Read online1812: The Rivers of War tog-1Jim Baens Universe-Vol 1 Num 6 Read onlineJim Baens Universe-Vol 1 Num 6Fortune's stroke b-4 Read onlineFortune's stroke b-41637 The Polish Maelstrom Read online1637 The Polish MaelstromThe Shadow of the Lion hoa-1 Read onlineThe Shadow of the Lion hoa-1Grantville Gazette.Volume XVI Read onlineGrantville Gazette.Volume XVI1636:The Kremlin games rof-14 Read online1636:The Kremlin games rof-141824: The Arkansas War tog-2 Read online1824: The Arkansas War tog-2Time spike Read onlineTime spikeJim Baen's Universe-Vol 2 Num 1 Read onlineJim Baen's Universe-Vol 2 Num 1Grantville Gazette.Volume VII Read onlineGrantville Gazette.Volume VII1634: The Ram Rebellion (assiti shards) Read online1634: The Ram Rebellion (assiti shards)Grantville Gazette.Volume XVII (ring of fire) Read onlineGrantville Gazette.Volume XVII (ring of fire)Jim Baens Universe-Vol 2 Num 5 Read onlineJim Baens Universe-Vol 2 Num 51635: The Cannon Law (assiti shards) Read online1635: The Cannon Law (assiti shards)Grantville Gazette. Volume 21 Read onlineGrantville Gazette. Volume 21Rats, Bats and Vats rbav-1 Read onlineRats, Bats and Vats rbav-11636_The Vatican Sanction Read online1636_The Vatican SanctionThe Aethers of Mars Read onlineThe Aethers of MarsJim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 5 Read onlineJim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 51634: The Bavarian Crisis (assiti chards) Read online1634: The Bavarian Crisis (assiti chards)Grantville Gazette Volume 24 Read onlineGrantville Gazette Volume 24TITLE: Grantville Gazette.Volume XVIII (ring of fire) Read onlineTITLE: Grantville Gazette.Volume XVIII (ring of fire)Ring of fire II (assiti shards) Read onlineRing of fire II (assiti shards)1635:The Dreeson Incident (assiti shards) Read online1635:The Dreeson Incident (assiti shards)Jim Baen's Universe-Vol 2 Num 4 Read onlineJim Baen's Universe-Vol 2 Num 4In the Heart of Darkness Read onlineIn the Heart of DarknessMuch Fall Of Blood hoa-3 Read onlineMuch Fall Of Blood hoa-3