'Join the club,’ murmured the male hadrosaur. ‘Where does that leave us?'

  'We'll always be friends, Chap.'

  'Oh be realistic, Bronte. Once you're mated, the next step is the matriarchship and then kids. When made leader you won't have time for me. You're following exactly in Balticea's tracks.'

  'What did you expect? I'm a Thunderfoot and her heir.'

  'A little backbone would be nice,’ snapped the disgruntled bull.

  'I've got to heed the wishes of the Grand Matriarch.'

  'Then what are you doing here?'

  Bronte was flummoxed.

  'I'll tell you,’ declared Chappy. ‘You came here to say goodbye.'

  The weighty truth hit Bronte like a rock-fall and she felt her mammoth legs starting to buckle. She began to protest but promptly shut up. Chappy was sadly right. Aside from her personal obligations, the near adult Thunderfoot was getting too big to go squeezing through the narrow forest pathways on clandestine meetings in the middle of the night.

  With a flash of female insight, the cow guessed, ‘Why, you're jealous!'

  'Don't be absurd.'

  'Am I? Tell me then that you aren't feeling even a little envy that you won't be my sole confidant any longer, and that you dislike the thought of my sharing my innermost feelings with another bull.'

  It was Chappy's turn to desperately want to refute his chum's argument, but like Bronte he could not. ‘I have a solution to our dilemma,’ he offered.

  'What's that?'

  'Run away with me.'

  'Now who's being silly.'

  'Please think about it, Bron. The trek north is not just for Duckbills. Shieldhorns journey to the summer feeding grounds too. What difference if a Thunderfoot cow happens to tag along? You'd love the tasty plants up there and we could be together without any hassle. Be your own reptile and come with me.'

  'I can't. I have commitments here.'

  'Stuff being a slave to tradition. You Thunderfeet are all the same—as stoic and unbending as a redwood.'

  'Grow up, Chappy. We are not calves anymore. We each have adult responsibilities now.'

  The Duckbill was stung by his friend's criticism. ‘You've certainly changed your tune.'

  'It was a case of waking up and smelling the magnolias. I should go. Grandmother knows of our meetings and will be furious if she catches me away from the herd again.'

  'How did she find out?’ There was a note of fearfulness in Chappy's enquiry. Despite his machismo, the bull was genuinely afraid of the imposing Grand Matriarch.

  'Beats me, but I've a nagging suspicion my cousin might be playing informant.'

  'Kahla,’ Chappy said with a derisive hoot. ‘I never liked her.'

  'You and half of Fernwalk,’ added Bronte.

  'I'd like her, especially if she was tasty,’ growled an intruding voice.

  The teens started and looked about in unison. The surrounding foliage was ominously dark and still. They involuntarily began to back away to the cover of the deep forest.

  'Don't go. We've just begun to play,’ the growl came again.

  The pair froze. Chappy took the initiative and challenged in a tone he sincerely hoped sounded intimidating, ‘Show yourself, you bloodthirsty fiend, or else I'll have my big friend come into the brush and stomp on you.'

  Bronte was not amused at being volunteered so.

  A mirthless chortle preceded a bipedal, muscled reptilian body cautiously entering the glade. Chappy had guessed right. Their intruder was a hungry carnosaur. The beast was a Dwarf Killjaw, although at twenty-six feet in length and tipping the scales at two tons he could hardly be considered dwarfish. His mottled skin, black stripes on a tan background reminiscent of a giant feline yet to evolve, was a patchwork of moonlit greys. He snarled, revealing a mouth filled with wicked serrated teeth that glinted in the silvery light like icicles of death.

  'What an uncommon find this is,’ declared the predator, his snout split in a leering grin as he came to a wary halt before the adolescents'. ‘A Thunderfoot bitch and Duckbill braggart skulking in the night-time forest. You are stupid to both be so far from the protection of your herds.’ The hunter clicked the hooked claws of his elongated forearms together suggestively.

  'What business is it of yours, fang-face?’ honked Chappy.

  'Don't give him cheek!’ censured Bronte. ‘We don't want to antagonise him.'

  The Duckbill cast a dubious eye over the Killjaw, whose muscles were bunched in readiness to attack. ‘I'd say it's a little late for that, Bron.'

  'You should listen to your tame Thunderfoot, flat-nose. Don't you know who I am?'

  Chappy feigned forgetfulness. ‘I have so many Killjaw acquaintances. I'm sorry but your stinking name eludes me.'

  With an earsplitting roar the insulted carnosaur howled his rage. ‘You insolent mush-eater! I represent your true master, Rexus—King of the Killjaws. You would do well to remember that, lest I make your death painfully slow in his exalted name.'

  'You're about as scary as a tree rat,’ taunted the Duckbill.

  'Argh, you dare liken me to one of those rodents!’ The Killjaw hunkered down, poised to spring.

  Bronte came to stand protectively before her smaller friend, swishing her tail menacingly. She planned on using her considerable bulk to shield Chappy. No Dwarf Killjaw would risk tackling a herbisaur her size.

  'What's wrong, big-teeth—lost your nerve?’ teased Chappy.

  The meat-eater roared again and took a clawed step forward.

  'Are you insane?’ Bronte whispered to her pal. ‘You're provoking him.'

  'I do hope so.'

  'Whatever for?'

  'Bron, my kind have more dealings with Killjaws than yours. We are their chief prey source.’ He said the last with a certain amount of immodesty. ‘The first thing we learn as hatchlings is that a clear-headed predator is the most dangerous of all. Muddle its thinking with insults and you stand a better chance of escaping with your scaled hide intact.'

  Bronte doubted such a tactic would work in this case. Deferring to Chappy's impulse, she cringed as the enraged hunter bellowed a third time.

  The Killjaw's strike occurred with such blinding speed that the Thunderfoot was caught off-guard in spite of her expectancy. The taut carnosaur exploded into life and thrust his smaller bulk past the surprised cow, clawing madly for Chappy. The Duckbill rashly bounded forward to meet his attacker and swung his forelimbs mightily in an effort to knock the meat-eater off-balance. Deftly sidestepping Chappy's defensive measure, the Killjaw raked his talons across the bull's exposed belly before darting away. Chappy trumpeted in pain as vivid streaks of red stained his bright yellow underside, the contrasting shades made paler by the silvering moonlight.

  'I draw first blood,’ snarled the predator, wheeling about to charge the wounded Duckbill again.

  Bronte's sturdy tail whipped from out of the darkness to deliver a stunning blow to the cocky hunter. He stopped in his tracks, shaking his head numbly. A second lash stung his muzzle again and forced him to rethink his assault. The rallying Thunderfoot once more placed herself in front of her bleeding friend as the thwarted killer backed off.

  Two angry welts creased the Killjaw's snout, wrinkled now as he snarled hatefully at the Thunderfoot blocking his victim. Pain mingled with outrage in those cruel eyes and he began to methodically circle his prey. Bronte was compelled to constantly shift position in order to keep her bulk between Chappy and his attacker's fearsome claws and teeth—no mean feat for such a bulky reptile. The carnosaur growled confidently. This was a favoured tactic of his kind when the element of surprise had been lost: to circle alert and defiant prey in an ever-decreasing spiral. The dizzying movement was intended to throw the target out of sorts before the final rush at the disoriented meal on legs. Bronte was already showing signs of confusion.

  A throbbing hum rent the terse night air. All three dinosaurs, paused in their ageless life and death struggle, were shocked by the alien noise. The darkness itself sounded alive with a plangent, toneless drone that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Then the source of the reverberation appeared above the treetops behind them, a shining ball of silver that floated delicately on the night breeze like a wind-blown leaf. Clearing the moonlit boles, it descended into the glade to hover three feet above the ground, its polished surface glimmering like the stars overhead.

  The Dwarf Killjaw stared in amazement at the sphere. He exchanged glances of bewilderment with Bronte and Chappy, who was furtively peering from under the Thunderfoot's belly. The carnosaur turned and bolted from the glade. Instinct screamed at the plant-eaters to follow the predator's example, but some compulsion held them rooted to the spot like trees.

  'Tell me I'm seeing things,’ Bronte rumbled to Chappy.

  'If you are then we're having the same hallucination,’ groaned the wounded Duckbill.

  'Shouldn't we be fleeing about now?'

  'Be my guest. I can't even move my tail.'

  'What'd you think it is?'

  'Simple explanation—it's a giant floating egg.'

  Unsure if Chappy was joking or not, Bronte replied, ‘Whoever laid it must be a truly mammoth cousin of the Thunderfeet then.'

  The bull laughed in spite of his pain.

  The loud buzzing suddenly changed in pitch to a whine that peaked in a keening whistle before abruptly ceasing, at the end of which the shiny globe made a gentle touchdown amongst the fern cover. A pendulous quiet settled over the clearing.

  'Hey, I can move!’ whispered Bronte, flexing her great neck.

  'Bully for you, Bron. It might have escaped your notice, but I'm bleeding to death here.'

  She looked down. Chappy was doubled over clutching his belly and honking piteously. ‘Don't be such a baby,’ scolded Bronte. ‘Your lucky it's just a flesh wound.'

  'You call this luck?’ snapped the Duckbill. ‘Boy, it hurts!'

  'It should do. You got scratched on a very tender region.'

  'What makes you such an expert on injuries anyhow?'

  'By observing Rosade at work. Now will you please be silent. I'm trying to fathom exactly what this thing is.'

  'Fine, I'll die quietly,’ he honked melodramatically.

  Bronte studied the seamless orb, fascinated by its metallic beauty. She was mystified by what kept the rounded object from rolling away. A soft whirring emanated from the starsphere and a horizontal split appeared midway around the circumference of its flawless hull, accompanied by the hiss and steam of escaping gases shooting outwards from the widening crack.

  'You're blocking my view,’ Chappy complained to his Thunderfoot bodyguard. ‘What's happening?'

  'Your egg is hatching,’ Bronte rumbled nervously.

  She watched in disbelief as the sphere separated in two after the gaseous cloud evaporated. The lower half remained in place while the upper section lifted clear and arced backwards free of any visible supporting struts or braces. A figure in brilliant white with an ungainly head and a huge, black cyclopean eye sat in the bottom segment of the halved globe staring blatantly at the lizard teens.

  'Tell me what's going on,’ insisted Chappy. Bronte moved so that the Duckbill could see. Always the joker, he made the comment, ‘Are we babysitters now for unwanted calves?’ He looked again. ‘And what a damned ugly baby it is.'

  The figure stood to stretch cramped and unused limbs. Bronte gaped. Bipeds were not uncommon in the dinosaur world, where the general rule was plant-eaters walked on four legs while meat-eaters prowled on two. She momentarily considered Chappy and his Duckbill kin, who could alternate. It was not a hard and fast rule. What was exceptional amongst reptiles, however, was the utter lack of a tail.

  'Look, Chappy. It's tail-less,’ she pointed out.

  For once in his life the comic Duckbill was speechless.

  The oddball creature hopped out of the opened sphere and took a few halting steps toward the astounded herbisaurs before a nagging voice with a metallic ring decried, ‘You took an oath not to do this.'

  'Shut up, Vai, and do quit sounding like my mother,’ the two-legged being said, its voice equally tinny. ‘She was a constant nag too, even after I had left home.'

  'What in Mother Forest are you?’ Bronte breathed aloud. She had the queerest sensation of deja vu.

  'Don't be getting friendly out there with another female, sweetie,’ Vai quipped.

  'Jealously is so unbecoming for you,’ retorted the alienaut. ‘Keep tracking that predator. I want to be certain that we scared it off.'

  'Continuing scan.'

  'You're not a Killjaw then?’ asked Bronte.

  'No, I'm just henpecked. Greetings, my name is Gideon.’ He shuffled to a stop directly before the Thunderfoot titan and gazed up. ‘My, you're a lot bigger on the ground than from the air,’ the new arrival exclaimed.

  Bronte regarded the one-eyed intruder closely. He was dreadfully small by dinosaur standards, standing a little over five feet tall. His ivory skin was unmarked and crinkled as he moved. He walked peculiarly with a rolling gait dictated by his bow-legged stance.

  'He must be one of those weird southern reptiles, Bron,’ Chappy decided after finding his voice, ‘for I've not seen the likes of him anywhere on the migration north.'

  Gideon overheard the assumption. ‘My territory lays somewhat farther afield than that, my Duckbill friend.’ Noticing the bull's bloodied belly, he approached Chappy. ‘You're hurt.'

  'Just a few scratches.'

  'Nothing that a roll in some river mud and bit of time won't heal,’ recommended Bronte. At least that's what she thought Rosade would prescribe.

  'I think I can manage something better than the local witch doctor's remedy,’ interjected the alien. ‘Vai, power me up.'

  'Complying, big-boy.'

  'And cut the wisecracks.'

  A muted yellow flashed against the ghostly moonlight as Bronte noticed for the first time the strangely glowing half globe of transparent crystal strapped to Gideon's left wrist. Before either she or Chappy realised what he was about, the tail-less stranger stood on tiptoes and placed his gloved hands on the Duckbill's shredded underside.

  Chappy trembled beneath that unearthly, velvet touch but did not back away. Comforting warmth radiated from the humanoid's covered fingertips, numbing Chappy's belly, making him feel light-headed. He closed his eyes for a moment and when he reopened them Gideon had stepped back.

  'Impossible!’ denounced Bronte.

  Chappy rose up onto his hind legs and looked down. He honked in bafflement. The slashes rent by the Killjaw's razor sharp claws were healing with miraculous swiftness. Already they had closed over and scabs were forming. The amazed bull gingerly touched his abdomen. There was no pain, only slight discomfort. ‘How?’ he said wonderingly.

  'There's no need for alarm, ah.... I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.'

  'Chappy. My colossal friend over there is Bronte.'

  'I am pleased to make your acquaintances. Now in reply to your query, I merely speeded up your body's healing processes. It's a little trick my people picked up over the ages.'

  Bronte decided to exercise caution. While impressed by his magical doctoring, this white-skinned cyclops might just as easily inflict an equal measure of harm if the mood took him. ‘Where did you say your herd lived?'

  'That's unimportant.'

  'It's not to me. Kindly answer my question.'

  'Bronte, is it? Let's not get off on the wrong foot here.'

  'Stop being evasive then.'

  'You certainly are a forward young beast, aren't you?'

  The Thunderfoot cow stamped a massive foreleg impatiently and the ground underfoot quaked from the impact, coaxing Gideon to be more forthcoming.

  'My “herd", as you so quaintly put it, lived far away.'

  'South of here?'

  'Way south of this place. You couldn't possibly imagine how distant.'

  'I can,’ ventured Chappy. ‘We Duckbills migrate a heck of a long way.'

  'What are you doing here?’ Bronte pointedly asked of Gideon.

  'Visiting.'

  'Who?'

  'Stop interrogating him,’ Chappy chided his friend. ‘We should be thanking Gideon for frightening away that Killjaw and fixing me up.’ Bronte glowered at the alien. ‘Forgive my pal's rudeness,’ the Duckbill apologised. ‘Thunderfeet are infamous for their suspicious nature.'

  'Caution is always a prudent thing,’ said Gideon, ‘considering I am a stranger to you both. But I come to you in the spirit of friendship.'

  'That has yet to be proven,’ muttered the sauropod.

  'Bronte! How can you say such a terrible thing? Gideon drove off that meat-eater. I'd say that makes him our friend.'

  'You're too trusting, Chappy. We saw that Killjaw leave of his own accord.'

  'He bolted. You saw for yourself that he was as surprised as we were by the arrival of the flying egg.'

  'Or so he made out.’ Bronte addressed Gideon. ‘Mind if I speak with Chappy in private?'

  'Go right ahead.’ The towering Thunderfoot glared at the alien. ‘I'll just wait over there,’ decided Gideon and he walked off to the timberline.

  'What's so important that you have to tell it to me in secret, Bron?’ the Duckbill asked.

  'Chappy, you are my best friend in the land but you can be so gullible at times.'

  'That's a bit hurtful.'

  'I'm sorry, but consider this. Gideon refuses to say where he comes from other than a vague allusion to a distant place he won't even name. Surely you find that odd?'

  'We probably haven't heard of his home range. There are territories beyond Mother Forest and Fernwalk you know.'

  'Don't patronise me, Chappy. The issue here is not where Gideon has sprung from, but what race of reptile he is.'

  'Just what are you getting at, Bronte?'

  The giant cow cast a sidelong glance the alien's way. Gideon was engrossed in studying the glossy leaves of a plain shrub illuminated by a stray moonbeam. Lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper she proposed, ‘What if our “friend” over there is a Killjaw?'

  Chappy stifled a honk of surprise. ‘What makes you think that? He has no fang-filled jaws. Come to think of it, he hasn't even got a snout or a mouth.’ The Duckbill sniffed the air. ‘Plus he doesn't have the musty smell of a meat-eater.'