[COPY] Migration – Containment Protocol-Part 12
Conveniently inconvenient. Fiction. 2100 words, 11-minute read.
Happy New Year! Last time, Booker awoke in a compromising situation, and managed to escape Nohfa, with some shreds of dignity intact. Only to have the prospect of a speedy return to Earth snatched away…
You can find the rest of the Containment Protocol story here: https://raytabler.substack.com/s/rays-serial-fiction
Migration – Containment Protocol-Part 12
By Ray Tabler
“So, what exactly am I looking at?” Booker pulled the binoculars away from his eyes and speared Muñoz with a frustrated frown.
“A klesuf migration.” Muñoz explained.
“Klesuf?” Booker searched his memory for where he’d heard that name before. “You mean that herd of dinos we scared out of the trees on the march here?”
“Yeah.”
Booker focused the binoculars on the klesuf again. They looked to him like triceratops. Or, what he recalled as triceratops, not being an expert on dinosaurs. Although, he and his command had accidentally become Earth’s leading experts in anti-dino warfare over the past twenty-four hours. Which struck Booke as a dubious honor.
The adult klesuf, triceratops, bulked something like thirty feet long, and about fifteen feet high at the crest of their humped backs. Wicked, forward-pointing horns protruded from their heads. A semi-circular plate sprouted from the back of the head to shield the front of the body. Four stout, tree truck-sized legs supported the whole, solid mass of the creatures. Like all of the other dinos encountered here, the klesuf were feathered, mostly a pale green, with red and yellow accents on the undersides, tail, and the outer edge of the boney neck frill.
“Sure are a lot of ‘em.” Booker muttered.
Beyond the size and vibrant coloration of the klesuf, the sheer number of them stunned Booker. There were thousands upon thousands of the beasts. Perhaps millions. Estimation was difficult, because the herd extended beyond sight into gulleys and around hillsides. The visible landscape was a rippling carpet of triceratops as far as he could see. The enormous herd appeared to divide itself into groups of about one hundred, with ten- or twelve-yard gaps between. Within those cells, adults lined the periphery, containing the young in a protective perimeter. The babies looked to be about the size of a Volkswagen beetle. Cute from this distance, but likely tipping the scales at a ton or two. Besides a watchful, growling vigilance for adjoining families (clans?), the klesuf were focused on eating every last blade of grass and leaf they could reach.
“Vinzi says that this is just the leading edge of the migration.” Muñoz said. “It’ll probably take most of a week for the entire herd to pass.”
“A week!’ Booker shook his head. “No way we’re waiting that long. I remember you said that these klesuf are skittish. They’ll run from the tanks, then. We should be able to just bull our way through them.”
“Eh, that’s a bad idea.” Muñoz held up his hands in a hold-on-a-minute gesture.
“Look, The EPA or whoever doesn’t have jurisdiction here. Not yet anyway. If I have to stampede a few dinos to get home on time, that’s just the way things are.”
Muñoz shook his head. “It’s not that. Klesuf in family-sized groups are skittish. But when they’re migrating, even the T-Rexes leave them alone. The predators might risk taking down one who strays from the big herd. But, the whole mass of klesuf will stomp a predator into strawberry jelly in nothing flat.”
Muñoz’s caution reminded Booker of an on-line video he’d seen of a herd of hippos ripping a large crocodile apart in a bloody frenzy. Sure, an Abrams main gun round would probably be as effective against a klesuf as it was on those T-rexes. But, they only had so much ammo. And there were certainly many more klesuf between the platoon and home than ammo in the tanks’ magazines. The damage a single T-Rex had done to pebbles made Booker reluctant to go butting heads with thousands of triceratopses. Let alone millions, of the critters.
Booker let the binoculars drop to hang from the lanyard round his neck, and rubbed a hand across his stubbly face. “Well, that’s just great.”
Booker, Muñoz, Mulroney, and Vinzi stood surveying the unexpected obstacle of the migrating klesuf from a broad ledge at the end of a winding tunnel through the walls of Bedrock. What was the local name for the place? It escaped Booker’s recollection. He decided with a mental groan that the name didn’t really matter at the moment. The ledge perched about a hundred feet above the foot of Bedrock’s outer wall, fields of cultivated crops and the dino weed barrier laid out like a sand table exercise below. The mega herd of klesuf wrapped around beyond sight to either side, giving a wide berth to the dino weed.
“Is there a way around this...migration?” Booker asked Muñoz.
Muñoz and Vinzi discussed the matter, punctuated by much shrugging, shaking of the head, and finger pointing.
“Well?” Booker prompted, already expecting disappointment from the body language displayed.
Muñoz sighed. “There is a sort of back door out of Malso. A cave or tunnel runs under the fields and dino weed, then lets out on the river bank below the water level. The klesuf won’t cross the river until they’re ready to continue with the migration. Which they won’t do until they’ve consumed all of the forage around here. So, if we take the tunnel, we can get around the herd.”
“Below the water level?” Booker asked.
Muñoz shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. The vehicles won’t fit through the tunnel in the first place. And even if we could ford the river with them, the herd is sitting smack dab on the only route Abrams and Bradleys can manage back to the gate site. Any other path leads through pretty rough country. The vehicles would never make it.”
“Maybe we could put up a drone to look for another way.” Mulroney suggested.
Muñoz grimaced. “You can do what you want. But this is the tribe’s home. They know every inch of ground for fifty miles in all directions. If they say there’s not another practical route, I’d believe them.” He tilted his head at the klesuf carpeting the way they’d come yesterday. “The herd is right in the way, and there’s no getting through until they decide to move along.”
“Did the tribe expect this?” Booker swept a hand at the klesuf road-block.
“Not for another month or so.” Muñoz answered. “They’re early.”
Booker’s eyes narrowed. “That really big dino that tried to crawl through the gate wasn’t supposed to be this far north either. Was he?”
“No. He wasn’t.”
“That’s two conveniently inconvenient things happening to us.” Booker chewed his lip.
“A third must be enemy action.” Mulroney recited. “Or so the saying goes.”
“If there is an enemy.” Muñoz cautioned.
“I’m starting to think it would be prudent to assume there is one.” Booker tapped his fingers on the binoculars. “I am not happy about cooling our heels here for a few days. Let alone a week.”
“I could think of worse places to be delayed.” Muñoz tried to see the drinking horn as half full.
Booker’s sour expression told both Muñoz and Mulroney that he viewed his particular drinking horn as more than half empty. An outlook no doubt induced by the prospect of several more days in enforced proximity to a certain predatory blonde. Vinzi watched the three soldiers discuss matters with the serenity decades of contending with what life tossing out teaches.
Booker pivoted and opened his mouth to ask more questions or begin issuing orders. Which remained a mystery, as a teenaged indig boy pelted out of the tunnel at full speed, skidding to a stop only a foot or two before he would’ve tumbled off the ledge to the ground below. Eyes wild, the boy jabbered breathlessly at Vinzi. The chief barked a stunned question or two at the messenger. Who replied between gasps, bent over, hands on knees. Vinzi dashed back down the tunnel, without a word to the soldiers. The boy followed doggedly in his chief’s wake.
“What the hell was that all about?” Booker demanded.
“We better get back down there.” Muñoz blurted. “A mob is trying to burn Pinsky at the stake!”
***
By the time the three soldiers made it back to the village commons, huffing and puffing from the run, a tense scene awaited. The shaman had a firm grip on Pinsky’s arm, dragging him toward the big fire pit. Jackson and Rusty resisted, clamped onto Pinsky’s other arm. A noisy crowd of shouting, gesturing tribespeople outnumbered the handful of soldiers contesting ownership of Fred’s loader. Vinzi, who ran faster than Booker thought a man of his years could, shouted and pointed a finger in the shaman’s face. Everyone was yelling, and no one seemed to be listening to a word being said.
What worried Booker were the M-4 carbines some of his men waved about. They appeared on the verge of shooting the shaman to rescue Pinsky. The locals obviously didn’t realize that the carbines were actually weapons. The tension was already high. If the tribesmen felt threatened, there would be no turning back. His men would open fire. Innocent people would be injured, or killed.
“Sergeant.” Booker grabbed Mulroney by the shoulder. “Get those men with the M-4s outta here, and back to the lager.”
“You sure about that, sir?”
“Positive. The indigs outnumber us a hundred to one. Carbines or not, they’ll mob and overwhelm us in short order.”
Mulroney’s eyes darted about, reading the mood of the crowd. “Yes sir!” He started shoving the soldiers toward the edge of the gathering.
Pinsky’s crew-mates, Jackson and Rusty, wouldn’t budge. Booker decided to just let them be. Neither was armed with more than a pistol side arm. And, knowing his crew fairly well, Booker judged that neither of the men would do anything rash until Pinsky was in imminent danger. He did, however, wade through the mess to place himself between Pinsky and the screaming shaman. Muñoz followed in the lieutenant’s wake.
“El-tee, what’s going on?” Pinsky’s eyes darted back and forth. He seemed like he’d rather be anywhere else than playing the role of rope in a tug-o-war between his crew-mates and the leather-skinned, wild-eyed witch doctor.
“Sit tight, Pinsky.” Booker reassured him. “We’ll get this sorted out.”
Booker wished he was as confident about that as he tried to sound. At least progress toward the fire pit was momentarily arrested. Vinzi and the shaman barked angry, incomprehensible words at each other, but Vinzi stood in the witch doctor’s way. not far away, the apprentice shaman frantically supervised a handful of cavemen in setting up a stake and piling brush around its base. The witch doctor was apparently serious about turning Pinsky into a human tiki torch.
Suddenly, Zunta and three or four of his companions pushed through the crowd to surround the principal actors of the drama. They scared the closest, most aggressive spectators back a few paces, or bodily shoved those who wouldn’t be intimidated. The situation calmed down considerably. The witch doctor, sensing control of the situation slipping from his fingers tightened his death grip on Pinsky’s arm. Pinsky winced in pain. The old bird might’ve looked a bit frail, but he still had an almost hysterical strength. Vinzi and the shaman continued their argument, at reduced volume but with heightened intensity. Zunta and his impromptu, prehistoric constabulary kept the mob at bay, maintaining a perimeter of a few yards around the center of the action. The crowd was momentarily quiet, eyes narrowed, muttering uncertainly.
“Muñoz, what the hell did Pinsky do?” Booker hissed.
“I didn’t do nuthun, sir!” Pinsky pleaded.
“Bunzo, the shaman, wants to light Pinsky on fire.” Muñoz divided his attention between answering Booker and following the tense conversation between Bunzo and the chief.
“I figured that much out on my own.” Booker huffed. “Why does he want to burn my loader at the stake?”
“Pinsky offended the gods. Broke taboo.”
“He did what?” Booker shot a puzzled look at Pinsky. “What did you do, Pinsky?”
Pinsky held up his hands. “Honest. I didn’t know she was married.”
Booker shoved a finger in Pinsky’s face. “Pinsky, I swear to God. If you—”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with his love life.” Muñoz interrupted. “The witch doctor claims he desecrated the sacred shrine. And, for that he has to burn.”
Over at the fire pit, the apprentice shaman emptied a wine skin over the stake and brush piled around its base. He stepped back, and flung the wine skin aside. A bystander presented the apprentice shaman with a blazing torch. The witch doctor in training snatched the torch, spun about, and held it high. He bellowed what must’ve been an announcement that all was ready for the heretic’s barbecue, in a high-pitched squeaking voice. The mob roared its approval.
Pinsky fainted.
END.
Tune in next time for part 13 – Taboo.
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