'I never lied to you,’ Bronte said in her own defence.

  'No, but you deceived Florella, and because I appointed her your daily guardian in my stead that is tantamount to lying to me.'

  'That's a roundabout way of looking at things, Grandma.'

  'A leader's prerogative. Whichever way you look at it, Bronte, your deceit is inexcusable.'

  'As is your ridiculous ban on my seeing Chappy.'

  'Your insolence borders on perfidy.'

  'Are you speaking now as my leader or as my grandmother?'

  'The two roles are indivisible.'

  'I disagree.'

  The Grand Matriarch suppressed a compulsion to shout insanely. Her heir proved as quick-minded and belligerent as she was. Marshalling her self-restraint, the oldster said ‘Walk with me a way, child.’ Bronte obediently fell in beside Balticea and they paced along the forest verge—two cows, two generations apart. ‘What's so special about this Duckbill acquaintance of yours?’ probed the oldster.

  'His name is Chappy, grandma.'

  'I don't care what he's called,’ snorted Balticea. ‘What is your fascination with him?'

  Bronte considered the query and answered truthfully. ‘He makes me laugh.'

  'There's more to life than being amused,’ said her workaholic grandmother. ‘You'll find that a measure of seriousness comes with adulthood.'

  'What exactly have you got against him?’ Bronte asked straightforwardly.

  'Personally, nothing. Only he is not a Thunderfoot and you should not consort with him.'

  'I never took you for a snob.'

  'Snobbery is not the issue here. Your association with this foreign bull needlessly endangers you.'

  'From what?'

  'Must I point it out for you? Duckbills are the preferred prey of the Killjaws. Befriending one could well bring the unwanted attention of our arch-enemies and, believe me, finding and slaying my sole heir would be a great coup for Rexus and his cronies.'

  Bronte rumbled her understanding. ‘I should have known it would end up being about you.'

  'You're wrong,’ disputed the Grand Matriarch. ‘Every time you sneak off into Mother Forest unescorted you unthinkingly place not only yourself in jeopardy but the herd also.'

  'I don't follow.'

  'If you are ambushed and killed because of your foolish naiveté, who will lead the herd after my own death? I won't live forever, my dear, and if there is no kin to plod in my tracks then a leaderless band of disordered Thunderfeet will be easy pickings for the vile Killjaws.'

  The anticipated rain eventuated as a drizzle that delicately sprinkled the diverse landscape with a dismal mist. It served to emphasise Bronte's unwelcome cognisance that her life was truly not her own. She belonged to her grandmother's idealistic dream of matriarchship. From the moment of her hatching Bronte had been in servitude to the well-being of her herd.

  'I have never wanted to lead,’ she argued.

  Balticea was unsympathetic. ‘Your wants are irrelevant. You have a birthright to uphold, as did I. Have you never once considered that I may not have wished to be matriarch?'

  Bronte was stunned. ‘You were hatched for the role, Grandma.'

  'My point exactly, Bronte. I, like you, was destined to become leader the instant my mother laid her clutch, and it was the same for her and her mother and the generations of ruling cows before them.'

  'Were you the eldest daughter then?'

  'As a matter of fact I was fourth in line, but my older sisters did not survive to become adults and I inherited this matriarchy.’ Balticea's reckoning may well have been innocently misleading, for most plant-eating dinosaurs could not count beyond the number of their legs and anything beyond that figure was automatically counted as four.

  Bronte could well relate to the poor survival odds of Thunderfoot hatchlings. Of her nursery numbering fifteen calves, herself included, only seven of those who had so cruelly teased her about her birthmark had lived beyond their first year, in spite of adult supervision, due to predation and accidents. By year three that number had been whittled down to just four and by the time Bronte entered her adolescence she was accompanied by just one of her tormentors from the crèche. Yes, she fully appreciated the high mortality rate of sauropod infants.

  'I did not ask for the burden of command,’ Balticea went on, ‘but Chance is a fickle mistress. Leadership is a heavy responsibility and I've always done what is best for the herd.’ Her mood turned dolorous. ‘Beliann was supposed to have taken over from me by now. She had the makings of a truly great matriarch.’ The old cow smiled ruefully. ‘One can never predict the future.'

  Worry plagued Bronte and she hesitantly asked, ‘Grandmother, are you dying?'

  Balticea actually laughed. ‘Not that I know of, but then I'm hardly a spring Fastclaw am I?’ Nothing was truer. At 148 years of age, the Grand Matriarch had existed for nearly half as much again the allotted Thunderfoot life span of a century and suffered from the niggling pain of arthritis to prove it. ‘My aching joints are reminding me I must complete your training, my dear, before I am called to the Spirit Forest.'

  'Not more lessons,’ complained Bronte. This season had begun with her formative instruction in the nuances of leading a herd of thirty or so. She had first resisted her verbal schooling, but as Balticea patiently imparted her matriarchal teachings Bronte had grudgingly developed an interest in her future role. Her eyes were opened up to the complexities of rule, from the daily chore of finding fresh fodder to the difficulty of matchmaking to ensure the procreation of their fading species. Management of a Thunderfoot band soon became a fascinating topic of discussion.

  The aged cow knew then that her granddaughter's bemoaning was half-hearted. It was time to finish her education. ‘Tell me what you've learnt of Thunderfoot history,’ she said.

  Bronte wrinkled her snout thoughtfully. ‘Our kind is ancient, not like the recent Duckbills or Shieldhorns. Not even the Killjaws match us for racial oldness.'

  'That's where you're wrong. Close your eyes.'

  'Are you going to cover herd defence this time?’ asked the teen cow. It was the only subject remaining relevant to leadership duties that Balticea had not taught.

  'In a manner of speaking. Now shut your peepers,’ impelled her grandmother. ‘Let your thoughts drift with the breeze.'

  Bronte did as bidden, strange though it seemed. Balticea's voice took on a peculiar lilt and her words became sonorously hypnotic.

  'Imagine a land far different from the one we live in. The air is warmer and moister, alive with a bewildering array of flapping and squawking Lizardwings. The countryside is wetter too and swamps dot the thickly-forested treescape. Out on the marshy scrubland roam mighty herds of our forebears numbering in the hundreds each. There are the thudding Trunklegs, uncommonly like us, as well as the slenderer Whiptails, joined by the rarer, heavyset Groundshakers. This is the heyday of our family. Can you see them, granddaughter?'

  Bronte concentrated hard to picture the described giants and was surprised by the vividness of her imagination as she stepped back in time a hundred million years to walk the Jurassic. The sauropods recreated by Balticea's storytelling were bodily alike but showed subtle discrepancies in girth, height, weight and length that oddly did not detract from their sameness. Bronte experienced a remote, yet very tangible, affinity with these beasts. They were indeed kindred spirits.

  'Watch now for the Killjaws,’ warned Balticea, ‘for they stalked our kind even here, though under the name of Fiercejaws. Envisage if you will two mid-sized hunters prowling the area.'

  That was harder for the teenager to portray, as she had never before seen one of the hulking predators close up. However, her minds-eye soon conjured up a scary looking pair of slavering carnosaurs, authentic enough that she quite clearly scented their repulsive, rank odour. Bronte snapped her eyes open and involuntarily shuddered.

  'Where was I?’ she breathlessly asked.

  'The creatures you've just seen are all long dead and belong to a distant past otherwise forgotten. We are their progeny, as is the current pack of Killjaws.'

  'It seemed so real.'

  'All Matriarchs, old and young unlike, have this ability to “see” snippets of the past in remarkable detail. It's quite a breathtaking experience. I can take you back farther if you'd like.'

  'No!’ Bronte declined pretty hastily. The vision had been rather too life-like.

  'For a first-timer the past-dream state is a little frightening,’ conceded Balticea. ‘In time you'll master your initial fear. The trick is to remember that you're only a passive observer to such events. It's only an illusion, so nothing can harm you.'

  'Did mother have this talent too?'

  'This gift runs strong in our line. We can generally see better than other matriarchal families. Beliann was an adept pupil and I sense in you the same degree of talent she exhibited.'

  Bronte was gladdened by the compliment. She had no memory of her dead mother, and so to be likened to Beliann brought a special closeness between dam and daughter that death had contrarily rendered absent.

  'Why are you showing me this, Grand Matriarch?'

  Balticea was taken aback by her granddaughter's formality. Was Bronte at last exhibiting the maturity required from a potential leader? She answered forthrightly, ‘So that you may fully understand your heritage. Listen well while I explain.

  'A matriarch has presided over herds of our kind for seemingly time immemorial, but this was not always so. Our forebears plodded the land in loosely-knit bands comprising several families, with no one individual in charge making decisions. They were untidy, leaderless groups, much the same as the chaotic Duckbills, but they muddled through the rigours of daily survival in spite of the handicap.'

  Understanding did dawn upon Bronte. Balticea did not hate Chappy perse, rather she disapproved of the mob rule his race favoured.

  'That is until the appearance of the forerunner of the Killjaws,’ continued her grandmother. ‘Though no match for a determined adult, the Fiercejaws were a real threat to the younglings of the herd. Up till then our ancestors had only to deal with smaller predators easily driven off; now they faced a vicious and fearless foe. That is what prompted the creation of the matriarchs.'

  Bronte, always quick on the uptake, said with incredulity, ‘The meat-eaters are responsible for bringing about Thunderfoot leadership?'

  'Indeed. This strategy arose from the simple need to survive. It was generally felt that if the great herds splintered into smaller, more mobile groups they would stand a better chance of repelling predators. A further advantage was to have each band headed by an individual whose prime concern was the safety of the group. From the outset cows were proposed as the ideal candidates to lead an organised defence.'

  'Why?'

  'Probably nothing more special than size. A cow, after all, carries slightly more bulk than a bull and size is an effective deterrent against attack.'

  'I bet that went down well with the males.'

  'Though there was officially no dissent, I have my doubts,’ Balticea said skeptically. ‘I could not imagine any bull accepting totalitarian female authority without argument.'

  'Is Father included in that generalisation?'

  'I meant back then, Bronte. Sorrin, along with his fellow bulls, are well accustomed to matriarchal control. Now where was I up to?'

  'The choosing of the female leaders,’ supplied Bronte.

  'Ah yes. Cleverness and bravery were considered good attributes of any matriarch and the appropriate selections were made. The mass herds were dissolved and splintered, the resulting offshoots taken over by their respective ruling cows. It was also decided at this time that the first-born cow of each leader would inherit that role upon her mother's death.'

  'Shrewd move,’ Bronte concurred. ‘That eliminates infighting by rival cows vying to replace their dead ruler.'

  Balticea's heart was warmed by the younger cow's perceptiveness. ‘Thus began the longstanding tradition of having the eldest daughter perpetuate the matriarchy—or, in this case, the granddaughter.’ Shrugging off her resurgent melancholy, the elderly cow concluded, ‘It was also significant for being the last time our race made a decision by consensus. From then on matriarchal word was law.'

  'How did the flesh-biters react, Grandmother?'

  'They grew crueller and some got bigger but it was to no avail. Within a generation or so our ancestors had effectively blunted Fiercejaw killing sprees. The Trunklegs prospered and eventually parented we Thunderfeet.'

  'So why all the fuss over my going walkabout in the forest?’ queried the teenager. ‘If they are now such poor hunters of us, I should have nothing to be afraid of.'

  'The predecessors of the Killjaws took exception to the ingenuity of our leading forebears. They pledged themselves to eradicate them all as punishment.’ Balticea came to a halt and Bronte did likewise. Her grandmother stared long and hard into her searching eyes. ‘That lunatic vow still stands, which is why you must be on constant guard.'

  'But I'm only one teen cow,’ claimed Bronte.

  'Don't be so naive, child. You are a future matriarch. If caught by the Killjaws you'll be made an example of. The only means those fanged devils have to break up a herd is to slay the immature heir. Without a leader, the structure of a band crumbles like a riverbank eroded by floodwaters.'

  Only now was Bronte fully aware of her importance, and she was humbled by the realisation.

  'That is why I've refused to plod my heavenly way to the Spirit Forest for so long,’ Balticea admitted with a wry smile. ‘Even though I'm old and weary, I could not leave my herd unattended. Beliann was prematurely taken from us and so it was left to me to ready her daughter—you, Bronte—to rule in my place. Your time is nearly at claw now.'

  'I'm unprepared!'

  Balticea disagreed with a low rumble. ‘I've passed on to you the final part of matriarchal lore. There is nothing more I can teach you. All you lack is experience, which only time can provide. I have but one act left to do for you before I die.'

  'What is that?'

  A glint of shrewdness twinkled in the Grand Matriarch's eyes. ‘To see you mated.'

  Bronte dumbly stood like a monolith of immovable rock while Balticea sauntered away, the old cow's thoughts buoyant in spite of the cheerless rainy morning.

  Chapter Four

  The silver globe orbited in silence.

  Four miles below, the blueness of the sparkling oceans, offset by the drab greens and browns of the forested landmasses, passed beneath its mirrored surface. A month earlier the starsphere had entered the Solar System and begun to decelerate. Its braking had continued well past the gaseous giants until it slowed enough to engage sublight drive. Bypassing the lifeless Red Planet, the impossibly small interstellar craft glided by the equally dead moon of the water-world lying at the end of its eight year trek and parked itself in orbit over the unnamed blue planet.

  That had been more than an hour ago. Since then the orb's complex, miniaturised onboard computer had been making preparations to revive its sleeping occupant. Cryogenics was a necessity when faced with crossing the boundless stellar distances. Long ago the alienaut's people had ventured to the stars and devised the means to safely freeze their intrepid spacefarers, lowering the body's pulse of life to a point barely above death where aging was very nearly halted. Married to the unique law of physical reality, whereby the closer a traveller ventured to the unobtainable speed of light the slower time ticked, life came to a literal standstill for those crewing the starspheres.

  The comatose pilot of this spherical vessel was no exception. Reclining in a cushioned metallic couch that served as both his bed for the dreamless cryogenic sleep and his seat of command, he had aged barely a week during the near decade-long flight. His gloved fingers began to twitch spasmodically as he stirred. Garbed in typical astronautical attire, the white-suited and helmeted being at last came fully awake and lay unmoving, taking in his surrounds.

  His windowless ship afforded no outside view beyond the rounded metal hull. The flier instead relied solely upon computer-generated graphics for visual reference. These exquisite holograms reproduced shapes and colours with near three-dimensional perfection. Such artificial imagery more than made up for the lack of viewports, although fluctuations in air density made the laser renditions shimmer much like the heat haze over a desert landscape.

  The alien studied the computerised painting of the pristine world revolving below. It currently depicted a northern hemisphere continent, the configuration of the landmass broadly similar to the outline that might one day be mapped by native explorers of this planet, save for a shrinking seaway that split its southern extremities in western and eastern halves.

  A muted growl interrupted his contemplation. Emergence from suspended animation brought the invariable side effect of ravenous hunger. For eight years his body had hovered so close to lifelessness that sustenance was superfluous. Revival changed all that. His stomach remembered being without food for the duration of the lengthy flight and now demanded filling. Food would have to wait. The only victuals a craft this size carried in its cramped, yet ergonomically sound, interior were the standard freeze-dried rations abhorred by Berranian spacefarers. While highly nutritious, a meal of those brittle and bland-tasting wafers was decidedly unappetising.

  The extraterrestrial activated the luminous half-globe floating in weightlessness to one side of the couch with a casual sweep of his hand before affixing the radiant crystal to a metal wristband on his left sleeve with an audible click. Garish lines of florid green replaced the rainbow hues of the holographic image, outlining still the targeted mainland but without the previous detail.

  'Computer, superimpose tactical grid referencing.’ The alien's voice was understandably hoarse, not having been used for so long.

  Squares of blue lines appeared across the digitally sketched landmass.