Indiana Jones and the Dinosaur Eggs (19 page)

The egg bounced out of the pouch. It fell for several seconds and then struck the lava river with a hiss.

"Oh my God!" Joan said. "I'm sorry, I tried—"

"It wasn't your fault," Indy said. "There's too many of us on this rope. We need to get to the other side, as quickly as we can."

"But Indy," Joan protested. "I can't reach the rope with my arms. I don't have the strength. And Indy, I am really dizzy and I am really tired."

"Hang on," Indy said.

He moved quickly across to where she hung. Then, switching the torch again and looping his left arm around the rope once more, he extended his right arm toward her.

She struggled against her own weight and reached up with her left hand. Their fingertips brushed, then Indy had her hand in his and hauled her up.

The rope shook again as more strands separated.

Joan started to cry.

"Let's go," Indy said. "Don't worry about it. It was absolutely not your fault. We've got two whole eggs left."

"Correction," Granger said as he dipped his fingers in the fluid dripping from his pouch. "We've got your whole egg left, but I'm afraid mine's been scrambled somehow. Actually, it doesn't smell half bad."

"This is worse than the egg toss at the county fair," Indy said. "And Granger? If I don't get out of this thing, please do me a favor and don't deliver the eulogy at my memorial service. I don't want you sticking me with a fork."

"Wouldn't dream of it, old boy. Brown eyes, you know."

Once they all had reached the other side, Indy took out his sheath knife and hacked through the rest of the rope. He watched the frayed end as it fell into the darkness.

"That will make it a little harder for Tzi," Indy said.

"If he comes," Starbuck suggested.

"No," Granger put in. "
When
he comes."

"But what if we want to go back?" Joan asked.

"We'll make ourselves a slingshot," Indy said.

"Come," Starbuck said. "We are almost there."

In another three hundred yards, the passage ended in a large cavern. They slid down a clay slope to the floor, then walked out of the mouth of the cavern into a sunlit valley.

Indy blinked. The valley was filled with pine trees, broad leafy ferns, and a number of flowering plants that he could not identify. A girl of about eighteen or twenty, bare from the waist up and wearing a skirt made of antelope skin, came over to Indy and placed a garland of the unusual flowers around his neck. Then she laughed and ran away.

"Welcome," Starbuck said, "to the Stone Age."

"These are the Dune Dwellers," Starbuck explained as he laid the remaining dinosaur egg on a bed of ferns inside a little wooden shrine that had quickly been fashioned for it. "Or at least they are cousins of the Dune Dwellers whose jewelry you found outside the Flaming Cliffs. They revere the
allergorhai-horhai,
the triceratops, just as the Plains Indians worshiped the buffalo. It has been the center of their life for countless generations. Only, the dinosaurs are all gone now, except for our single egg."

"But this valley," Indy said. "How has it survived untouched for so long? This isn't
like
the late Cretaceous. This is it."

"Well, you saw what it took to get here," Starbuck said. "It is protected by the Flaming Cliffs, of course. And this area is so remote. These people have been cut off for several thousand years from the rest of the world. A stray traveler has obviously gotten through from time to time, judging from Mongolian folklore about the
horhai,
but that of course can be dismissed as myth. Actually, the introduction of an occasional stranger has helped these people survive by adding to the genetic stock. It is a common genetic stock and apparently hasn't upset things too badly."

"How many are they?" Granger asked.

"Forty-six," Starbuck said. "That includes about twenty-five adults. There are a dozen children, and the rest are old people. Both the children and the elderly are cared for by the community as a whole."

"I wish I had a camera," Joan said. "This place is unbelievable. Can you imagine the sensation a story with photos would make?"

"That is precisely why I am glad that you don't have a camera," Starbuck said. "There is nothing that would destroy these people more than being discovered. There would be an airstrip in this valley in a matter of weeks, and then what would we have?"

"But wouldn't they be happier?" Granger asked. "Surely disease takes its toll on these people. Wouldn't the modern world be a blessing for them?"

"No." Starbuck was emphatic. "It would be a curse. They have been isolated for so long that they are free of the diseases that most modern cultures spread. Smallpox, for example. You've all been vaccinated? Good. It spread through the Native American tribes like wildfire after the invasion of America."

"Invasion?" Granger asked.

"I have a deep conviction, Mr. Granger, that the American Indians would have fared much better had their continent not been discovered by the Europeans. Our Dune Dwellers here are the same. Look at them! Laughing and playing like children. They are well fed and free of most of the diseases that ravage humanity, and they live in a valley that is perpetually temperate. The lamastery has guarded this valley for hundreds of years, and they will set a broken bone when needed or assist with a difficult childbirth, but otherwise there is a strict prohibition against contact."

"Incredible," Granger said. "I don't know whether to pity these people or to envy them."

"Why the confusion?" Starbuck asked. "The People do not have to work for their survival. All they need is here. And they have never been introduced to the idea of sin."

"It's the Garden of Eden," Joan said.

"Pardon me, Professor," Granger said. "I appreciate your views, but what about your responsibility to science. Aren't you being selfish, keeping all this to yourself as your own paradise?"

"I believe I can best serve that duty by remaining here," Starbuck said. "I have taken voluminous notes since I first arrived six months ago, and I intend to continue. Why, I have just scratched the surface of their language and their way of life. I don't even know what to call them. They call themselves the
canobi,
which simply means 'the People.' They have no word or concept for what a stranger is. They make no distinction between themselves and others. To them, we are all part of the tribe—we've just been away so long they can't remember us. That's why they have no fear."

"Original innocence," Joan said.

"What we are dealing with is the source of all cultures—all of us sprang from people like the Dune Dwellers, if not the Dune Dwellers themselves. In the geological scheme of things, modern man has just left this happy valley. Imagine what a boon to the world it would be if we could get a glimpse inside those Neolithic heads and find out what makes
us
tick. There is much to be done, Dr. Jones, and so very little time to do it."

"What do you mean?" Indy asked.

"Time is running out for this happy valley," Starbuck told him. "It is inevitable that the rest of the world will discover them. When that happens, the opportunity to study them in their natural environment will be over. Then this will no longer be the Stone Age—it will be just another backwater blemish on the face of the twentieth century."

"Say," Granger interjected, examining the contents of his pouch. "What are we going to do about this ruined egg? Is there any way we can preserve it?"

"I'm afraid not," Starbuck said. "They spoil rather quickly."

"What a waste." Granger shook his head.

"Perhaps not," Starbuck said. "The People consider the eggs a great delicacy, and I have had a devil of a time keeping them from making Neolithic omelettes out of our three. They also think there is something mystical about the consumption of the dinosaur eggs which confers vitality upon them and ensures survival for the species. Since there's nothing we can do to save this egg, let's cook it up and put their superstition to the test."

"Bravo," Granger said.

Starbuck patted the egg, covered it with a frond, and rose.

"My hope is to buy the People a little more time. In a few more years—in a few more decades, if we're lucky—it will be all over. But until that happens, I will remain here, living and studying these people, and that baby triceratops that's about to hatch. Then, when the world comes bursting in, clamoring for the story—the story will be ready to be told."

"What about Joan?" Indy asked.

She had left the conversation to wander among the People. A slim young man with a shock of black hair was following behind her, a bouquet of Cretaceous buds in his hand.

"She will have to make up her own mind," Starbuck said. "One photo, one wire dispatch, will prove the happy valley's undoing. But I am not her master. Only her father."

"There's something I'm curious about," Indy said. "That girl that greeted us seemed to be extremely friendly. Pardon my asking, but how intimate are you with these people?"

"They call me grandfather." Starbuck laughed. "And I feel grandfatherly toward them, as well. Besides, I am too old to adopt their ways. And no one could take the place of Joan's mother, who died in childbirth."

"Pull up a seat, old man," Granger said.

It was after the feast of the dinosaur-egg omelette that evening, and Granger was sitting contentedly on a rock, smoking his pipe. Indy sat next to him and plucked up a blade of grass and began to chew on it.

"That egg was delicious," Granger began.

"Didn't eat any of it," Indy said. "Reminded me of when I was a kid and I'd get an egg at breakfast that had an embryo in it. I'd be sick for days just thinking about it. I just wish there was some way we could have preserved it—what I wouldn't give for a little bit of formaldehyde—but it was useless."

"Why, we could make a fortune if we could just get our hands on some more of those eggs. We could serve 'em up at one-thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner parties. Granger's famous chicken-fried dinosaur. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"

"Will you be serious for a moment?"

"I was only partially joking," Granger said. "You know, that egg does belong on the outside. It is much too valuable to leave in this lost valley, where it runs the risk of being eaten by the inhabitants.... What is it, Jones? You look like you've gotten your marching orders."

"In a way," Indy said. "I went back into the cavern a few minutes ago, and I could hear Tzi's dogs sniffing out our trail on the other side of the rope gorge. Starbuck is wrong about how much time these people have. It isn't a matter of decades or years... it's a matter of hours. And when Tzi finds this valley, he will destroy everything in it."

"So what do we do?" Granger asked.

"I'm leaving," Indy said. "Going to try to put Tzi off the trail, to lead him far away from here and into the steppes. To do anything to get him away from this valley."

"You always were the idealist," Granger said. "Actually, I had hoped to stay here for a little while. We've been here only a few hours. It's a pleasant valley and I haven't even had time to meet these people, to learn their names and so forth. Some of them seem quite clever, actually. Not to mention beautiful."

"We can't know these people," Indy said. "They are wonderful children and we are big awkward adults. Besides, what good are we doing ourselves if we stay here? How are we supposed to fight when Tzi finally comes down out of that cavern with his dogs and his soldiers?"

"We fight like we always have," Granger said. "We've managed to save our skins through a little tenacity and a lot of luck enough times to know that you never know how these things will turn out. One should never give up. It's better to die on your feet than on your knees."

"Okay," Indy said. "Say a miracle happens and we win. We train these people to use spears and clubs and we drive Tzi out of this valley by force. We'll still have lost, because we'll have taught these people how to kill."

"They'll learn that soon enough anyway."

"I want to stay," Indy said. "I've wanted to stay from the minute I set foot here and that girl with the wonderful eyes gave me the flowers. When I asked Starbuck if he was intimate with these people, it wasn't just out of curiosity. I wanted to plan a life here. No more fighting, no more curses, and especially no more jackbooted fascists. But I can't. For me, it's wrong."

"Jones, you're giving me a headache."

"I'll make it simple for you." Indy stood up and shouldered the Thompson and its five-round clip. "I'm going to do what I can. You can come with me or not."

"All right," Granger said. "But there's just two things. Our discussion on the last triceratops egg is far from over. I still think it belongs in a museum, or if it hatches, in some kind of zoo."

"Okay," Indy said. "We'll talk that over when the time comes. What's the second thing?"

"I get the gun," Granger said.

9
Thunder Child

Indy looked over the lip of the ravine and across the steppe with red-rimmed eyes. His gaze took in every feature, each rock and scrubby tree, anxious for any sign of Tzi.