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Gun, Not for Dinosaur

Chris Bunch

Now, Paul, you know I can't talk about that, even if you keep pouring til I'm wooden-legged.

Oh.

And what's this you're taking from under the bar, with that little smile?

M'god. I didn't know there was a bottle of Old Rare Jack Dann east of Sydney.

You're trying to bribe me.

And I know what you want me to do my tra-las about. That damned safari the hacks are calling the Mystery Death of Sir Peter Kilbrew, or Murder in the Pleistocene or Strange Time Hunter Killing or… or whatever other cockup labels they can come up with.

Sir Peter my arse. Born and bred a Texan, which is hardly one of my favorite sports, and getting that courtesy knighthood from King Willie just because he got the Royal Army's computer system to quit having the technicolor spits.

Damned glad you Americans beat hell out of the Brits back when, so when I'm here I don't have to worry about damned titles, theirs or mine.

I need another drink.

'Tis misfortune that I'm feeling bribable right now about Sir Peter, for the truth. Most likely it was that damned taxman, who wanted to look at all the records, and wouldn't let me get any real work done today.

I'm just a bit red-arsed about the bloody government, to tell the truth.

For it's not only their wandering about with their thumb up that kept proper sanctions from being put in place, which brought the whole bloody disaster to term, but now they're going to pass laws and regulations and call in air strikes for anyone who's not a proper civilized nation who even thinks about setting up a time machine.

You'd think it was the old days, when everybody who had a nuclear bomb was piss-scared somebody else, generally somebody of a darker complexion, might get one too.

But keep me off politics. I get into raving, and then my wife has got to take hell's own forever to calm me down.

But pour me about six fingers of that Jack Dann, and I'll tell you most, maybe even all, the truth.

I'll even start at the top, with the questions all of these hacks are running about, trying to find the answer to:

Why was Peter Kilgrew killed?

That one's very simple. The stupid git was trying to wipe out all of humanity, though he was too stupid to realize it.

And who killed him?

Everyone is saying I did it, and I'm content to live with whatever blame that brings.

But it's not the truth, and there's the story.

The disaster wasn't the first meeting, or contract, I'd had with Peter Kilgrew.

He'd come to me, about a year before, wanting to shoot an allosaur.

I knew who he was, of course. The third or fourth richest man in the world, depending on whether you included the current president of China.

I don't know if you remember all the press about him?only comparable to the late Bill Gates, the pirate who formed a computer company named Microsoft and then destroyed it. Except that Kilgrew had inherited most of his wealth, determined to build it early on, and in the process became one of the most publicized computer wonks in the world, building not only that stock monitor you've got over there to super-speed series blaggards, plus their software.

Kilgrew was slender, slight, balding, and would pass for any other computer wimbler if you didn't note the hard look of determination in his eye.

Maybe determination isn't the right word, since I've seen the same expression in paintings of Napoleon, and films of Hitler, Stalin, Cho Ke. More a look of power, power that should righteously be given to the eyes' owner.

If you look into the eyes of madmen, you'll see the same thing.

I had seen that look, over the years, but was too thick to take note of it in Kilgrew.

Possibly because I was getting ready to go into the standard speech?no, I won't take you back into the Jurassic to pot a big lizard, for you're too light in the bum, as the late Mister Holzinger proved rather thoroughly, almost getting me dead in the process.

He let me get about two polite sentences into my spiel, when he started shaking his head. I shut up, looked inquiring.

"I don't think that applies to me," he said.

I looked at him pointedly. He grinned, as if a synapse had closed in his brain, telling him what facial expression he should put on. It vanished in a second.

"I assume you have a range about?"

I told him of course, down in the basement.

"Then let me show you something."

He went out to his Bentley hovership, came back in with an aluminum guncase, and followed me down-cellar.

In the case was an almost impossibly ugly bolt action rifle. Most of the ugliness came from the bulky receiver group that looked as if it should have belonged to a military semiautomatic.

It didn't help that the stock was black synthetic, rather than the usual highly-polished Circassian walnut most people who can afford a custom gun, which this clearly was, prefer.

It also had an amazingly large bore.

".500 A-Square," I guessed.

He shook his head.".577 Tyrannosaur. I figured if I was going to mess about with guns, there was little point in going for anything except the heaviest."

Which was true. The Tyrannosaur is an obsolete shoulder cannon, obsolete mainly because it will kick you swilly and also, until the time machine came around, because it was utterly impractical after the near demise of contemporary big game hunting.

Amused at the name, I fired two rounds from one once, that belonged to a friend who was both an antiquarian and, I think, a masochist, and I had no desire at all to fire a third time.

The bullet was huge?over half an inch in diameter, using the archaic system it was invented under. The bullet weighed 750 grains, and was punted out with 170 or so grains of powder, which gave it a muzzle velocity of 755 meters per second, and an incredible muzzle energy of 10,240-foot pounds, although ME is a rather precarious measurement to base real-world impact on.

It would, in the vernacular, knock anything on its ass. On either end of the barrel.

"Take a look at it," Kilgrew invited. "There's only one like it in the world."

The rifle was heavy, probably touching seven kilograms empty, which was good. A heavy rifle may be a bitch to haul through the brush, but it'll soak up recoil far better than a light spitkit.

It was fitted with a wide aperture scope, no more than a 3x magnification, ideal for use in brush or jungle.

"I'd read about your exploits," Kilgrew went on, "and knew of your problem with clients who aren't that heavy in the avoirdupois, and started researching.

"Actually, I had some of my staff do the work. One of them came up with a couple of interesting rifles from last century. One was the AR15, which was made in various permutations by America, the other was the FN, originally made by Fabrique National, in Belgium, licensed on out to other companies.

"Both were service rifles, both semiautomatic and fully automatic, and both had a singular device. In the plastic stocks were springs, so that when the weapon was fired, the bolt recoiled against this spring, called a buffer group, into the stock.

"I found old examples, fired them, and they had no recoil. I mean, none. You could shoot them against your nose… or your balls… without the slightest problem."

Now that big, balky receiver made sense. It sat in a subreceiver, and there was about three centimeters the upper receiver, bolt and barrel could slide back into.

"That's not much room to move," I ventured.

"It's enough," Kilbrew said. "I've got an eight-hundred-pound spring in the stock for the buffer group. Plus magnaporting up front, and a good hold.

"Do you want a demonstration?"

I nodded, and he took three enormous rounds from the case, shoved them down into the magazine, snicked the bolt closed.

We put on earmuffs, and I touched the button that brought a target, a conventional bulls-eye, up at fifty meters, the best my range could offer.

He braced, and squeezed, not jerked, the trigger.

Even through the protective earmuffs, the slam was shocking. Kilbrew's hair stood up at the blast, and he rocked back.

But he didn't lose his footing, and ejected the case, chambered a new round, and fired again.

I noticed that he showed no sign of flinching and the two holes in the target were touching.

"Here," he said, holding the rifle out to me, with a grin. "At fifty dollars a shot, have one on me."

I aimed, put pressure on the trigger. At about two kilos, the rifle crashed back into my shoulder. I let the muzzle climb a bit instead of fighting it.

I set the rifle back down.

"Well?"

"Whew," was the best I could manage, rubbing my shoulder.

"Not as bad," I grudged, "as a.510 Welles. But still not much fun."

"I've done some hunting up in Alaska, helping the wardens on the Kodiak game preserve, culling brown bear," Kilbrew said. "Not with the Monster, though. Mostly.375's and such. And once I had something in my sights, I never noticed the recoil."

True enough, I admitted to myself.

"What about accuracy?" I asked. "There's got to be some receiver wiggle."

"Probably," Kilbrew said. "But not enough to throw the bullet strike off at the range I plan on shooting at. Fifty, maybe seventy meters at the most. This isn't a long-distance gun, after all."

I nodded agreement. One problem many shooters have when they graduate to a monster caliber is forgetting that, with an incredibly heavy bullet, the point of aim is going to change radically over, say, 300 meters, unlike their favorite ultrasonic wildcat round, which is why the classic elephant rifles were intended for use close in.

But I was still skeptical about Kilbrew's invention. A physicist once told me there's no such thing as a free lunch, and I believe it.

It's a pity… for Kilbrew that he didn't, and a blessing that I did.

"I'll ask 'well? again," Kilbrew said. "This time about whether you'll take me out for an allosaur."

I considered.

"We'll give it a go," I said.

He smiled, clapped me on the back.

"That's great, cobber," he said.

For some reason, that set my teeth on edge a bit. There's no reason I should object to someone using a 'Stralian phrase, and normally I don't, if it's used correctly.

But for some reason I couldn't yet determine, I didn't like anything about Kilbrew.

Not that it showed. If every client I have was required to be a bosom chum, there'd be no Rivers amp; Aiyar firm. I'd most likely be running a popgun gallery in some tourist trap somewhere around Bondi Beach.

I was slightly busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest at the time, since times were… and are… a little strange.

Increasingly, the number of safaris I've been taking out have been photo-only. I guess you'd think that bothers me, but lately I've been wondering what god-given right someone has to go out potting creatures not for his daily meal, but just so he can feel his testicles are bigger than his neighbor's.

My partner, the proper, if never to be acknowledged Rajah of Janpur, Chandra Aiyar, has been feeling much the same. Actually, more so. He's seriously been contemplating retirement, to take up the begging bowl and a life of prayer, as so many successful Indians do in their mid years.

I think he's a bit mad, and keep reminding him that anyone who tucks into a steak the way he does would be miserable on a diet of vegetables and rice.

But it's his life, isn't it?

The first thing I made sure was a proper slot in the Jurassic was available, remembering that law prohibits anyone traveling within a month of anyone else.

There was no problem there.

But remember that point, Paul. And pour me another one while you're remembering.

The other thing to keep in mind… and both of these pertain to my story… is that for some reason, Professor Prochaska's machine doesn't work within 100,000 years of today.

That's to keep paradoxes from paradoxing. Since this is a logical universe… stop laughing… you can't go back and murder your father.

You'd just explode in the attempt.

Ask the man who's had a client get stroppy and do just that, back when we were first getting started.

There have been some suppositions that this paradox-preventer isn't as bulletproof, and yes, I'm making a joke, even though it's deadly serious, as was thought.

There's never been a law about that, however.

There probably will be one very soon, though, and all because of Peter Kilbrew.

But it didn't happen on this trip.

We took the usual crew?Ming the cook, Beauregard Black the camp boss and two helpers. Including Kilbrew, we should have been able to make it in two trips?one for the people, one for the gear.

Instead, it was three. Kilbrew showed up with two men I'd never met, but I knew who they were instantly.

Both were tall, in their thirties, athletically built. They never seemed to smile and always wore dark glasses.

Good guess, Paul. And now I'll always have to wonder about your background. They weren't plainclothes coppers, but bodyguards. Both of them were Boers, from that fading enclave in South Africa that can't fade soon enough for my tastes. They were named Nicholas and Hendrik, no last names ever offered.

I asked Kilbrew, who I had to force myself to call by his first name, why he needed them. The allosaurs we were going after would kill any of us, not just the lead billionaire.

Unsmilingly, he said his insurance company insisted on it.

Batshit, of course. But I chose not to argue.

The two were armed with small machine pistols, which wouldn't do diddly against a dinosaur, and.375 semiauto Magnum rifles. I thought of saying something, caught myself.

And so we trundled into the chamber, and Bruce Cohen punted us back in time.

It was, is, always a shock to see the chamber door shut on the University of St. Louis, and open again on rolling, wet plains, with the Kansas Sea in the background.

We hiked a klick or two away from the camp to a swamp, potted and staked a hypsilophodon for our bait, and went back to camp.

Beauregard had shot a small sauropod, and had butchered it out into steaks.

Kilbrew turned a bit green.

"Reggie, we're going to actually eat lizard?"

"We are," I said. "First you get one sundowner, no ice, then a nice, thick steak. Contrary to what they tell you, it doesn't taste like chicken, but dinosaur."

"I think I'll be happier with something we brought with us."

I shrugged. His business if he wanted to eat compo rations picked up from the military.

Dinner was, as always with Ming cooking, excellent. He'd done the steak with small baby greens and a real Roquefort.

I tried not to look at Kilbrew, eating some species of mystery meat loaf that came out of a pak.

"You really ought to try this," I said.

Kilbrew shook his head.

"My mother had no more than five dishes in her recipe book, all of them well done. And my father never seemed interested in food. So I grew up a bit of a retard in the gourmet department."

I refrained from saying "pity," helped myself to another slab of dinny.

When I'm in civilization, I watch my diet fairly closely. Great white… or any other color… hunters aren't supposed to have a prosperous paunch about them.

But not in the wild. If nothing else, the adrenaline keeps me from getting fat.

I noted Kilbrew's bodyguards didn't have any of the dietary prejudices of their boss.

Dessert was a wonderful cobbler, made from freeze-dried apples we'd brought with us.

Beauregard was pouring coffee, and, leaning across the fire, somehow managed to knock a metal plate off Hendrik's knee.

The last bite of cobbler spilled on the ground, and Hendrik glowered up at Beauregard.

"Bloody kaffir!" he snapped.

Black jerked back. He started to say something, but I was there first.

"That is language not used in any camp of mine, sir," I said. "I would appreciate your apology. At once."

Hendrik bristled, turned red, bulged a muscle.

I smiled, but there was no humor at all on my face. I shifted my weight forward, and got ready. Bodyguard my ass. I wondered how he'd handle a good solid fist to the voicebox.

"Hendrik!" Kilbrew said.

Hendrik's face stilled.

"I'm sorry," he said, in a voice that said very damned well he didn't mean it.

But Beauregard, being a professional and having heard worse, no doubt, nodded, and went for his tent.

I knew the damned Boers weren't content with having mucked up their share of Africa with absurd racism, but figured that, after almost a century of being driven back and back into their enclave, they were learning better.

How wrong I obviously was.

After a moment, both of the Africans got up, and went for their own tent.

I went to Beauregard's.

He was sitting on his cot, staring into the night.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Why? You din't say shit."

"It was on my watch, as I understand you Americans say," I told him.

Black sat for a minute, then shook his head.

"You think they learn, Reggie. But they don't. Goddamned Kluxers! We ought to do to all these sheet-head bigots what the liberation armies did thirty years ago in Africa."

"That's bloody enlightened," I said sarcastically.

"Ain't no enlightenment about it, boss," he said. "You can't convince a no-neck racist of nothin', not ever. Might as well put a.375 to the back of their necks and have done."

"Well… that's one approach," I said. "But do me a favor and don't start shooting people 'til their bloody check clears."

Beauregard smiled slowly.

"For you, Reggie, I'll do that. I'll do just that."

I went out, and saw Kilbrew sitting alone by the fire. He'd gotten a bottle of cognac from the supply chest, and had poured himself a small shot.

There was an empty glass beside him.

One job a hunter has is being willing to drink with the sahib, especially if there's nothing for the morrow except waiting for an already dead dinosaur to get stinkier.

We sat in silence for a moment.

"People sure go out of their way to find trouble," he said.

"They do," I agreed. "There ought to be a law against us."

He didn't smile.

"Words are only words, and don't have any real harm."

"I can think of a few people… blacks, Jews, Irish, Italians, Asians… who wouldn't agree with that."

"I never let anything like that bother me."

I thought of saying that was easy, since he was bone white, but didn't reply.

"Wouldn't it be a blessing," he said, "if somebody took a time machine to Africa, and jumped back a few thousand years to the first primitive black man?

"One squad of infantry, and there wouldn't be any Africans to worry about. Wouldn't ever have been. And maybe Africa would still be flush with all those wonderful animals nobody can hunt any more. Can't, in some cases, even find them to take pictures of."

"A lot of animals would like that," I said, trying to keep the shock from my voice. "No humans ever to see them as dinner on the hoof."

"You really believe that all life came from Africa?" Kilbrew asked.

"The theory seems to have every scientist I've met believing it."

"Bullshit," Kilbrew said mildly. "I made my money not listening to anything any scientist said as being absolute. And this belief that everything started up, where, in Ethiopia is obvious nonsense."

"Why?" I asked.

"It's only common sense!"

I started to argue, remembered what Beauregard had said a few minutes ago, and remembered there's many, many ways to package racism.

If he wanted to believe in spontaneous evolution, or a pure-white God, I suppose that was his business.

"Best we put our heads down," I said. "Your allie might just decide to wander up a little early, and your monster gun probably isn't any easier when you touch off a cap when you're hungover."

Maybe I didn't watch my voice, because Kilbrew gave me a cold look. I smiled, and went for my tent.

The allosaur didn't materialize, so we spent the next day getting some more meat for the camp.

I was just as happy. The third day would hopefully be the charm, especially as the transition chamber would make its first check on us then.

Kilbrew was chill, formal to me. I suppose, even as mildly as I thought I'd spoken, I must've been the first person to disagree with him since he made his first billion. His pet thugs weren't any more friendly.

As much for a little punishment as anything else, I decided we'd build a blind near our nicely-reeking hypsilophodon that night, and hope for results the next morning. Some smaller sauropods had already been sniffing around the carcass, and I hoped for some luck.

It rained most of the night, and then dawn was chill, gray and foggy.

It's always a surprise to be reminded how softly a carnivore moves. One minute, there was nothing in the small clearing but a very dead dinosaur, then, almost as tall as the cycads around him, the dark gray bulk of our theropod was there.

It couldn't scent us… the rotting hypsilophodon would mask the stink of a regiment of Napoleonic infantry on the march.

I touched Kilbrew. He jerked… I think he was dozing… and saw the allosaur.

Kilbrew came up, just as Nicholas also saw the brute.

I moved to the side, and eased the safety off my.600 double.

But Kilbrew didn't panic.

The allosaur saw movement, turned, and its jaws gaped.

Kilbrew sent his first round down the beast's mouth.

It stumbled back, fell on its side, came back up, screaming rage, hate.

I was holding steady on where its tiny brain was, and Kilbrew's rifle went off again, putting a fist-size hole where I'd been aiming.

The allosaurus staggered, and Kilbrew's third round went in just below its eye.

It bellowed, and fell.

Kilbrew started forward.

"No!" I shouted, pulling at his arm, and then Hendrik had him.

"Reload," somebody shouted, probably me, and Kilbrew obeyed.

I stood, waiting, while the dinosaur thrashed about, its body taking a good long time to realize it was dead.

Finally it lay still.

"Now," I told Kilbrew. "Put one in the back of its head, to mak' siccar."

"No," he said. "I don't want to ruin the head any further."

I admired him as a cool one, even if a few minutes later, he had a very impressive case of the shakes.

The shots brought Black and the two handlers, with the butcher's kit, and in less than an hour we had the head and a good section of the snaky neck off.

We went back to the camp, and, right on schedule, Bruce was there with the chamber.

Even success didn't defrost Kilbrew.

It didn't matter much to me, other than I figured the bonus clients normally pay wouldn't come forth this time.

But it wasn't as if I'd expected many customer recommendations from Kilbrew anyway.

Surprisingly enough, not only did he pay the fee promptly, but there was a very fat bonus attached. I split my share with Beauregard, and told him it was for his vast brotherhood and gentility.

It was a good fifteen minutes before we stopped laughing.

We went back to business, and business was suddenly very good and very interesting.

Over the past few years, there had been transition chambers set up in other places than St. Louis: Australia; the Japanese one in Ulan Bator, Mongolia; and now the University of Nairobi was building one, a very big one. The one Rivers amp; Aiyar used was big enough only for people and a mule or two. No more.

Surprisingly, Professor Prochaska was mad enough to bite beer bottle necks.

Bruce Cohen explained why.

"He was one of the first consulted by Nairobi, and wasn't at all taken with the people in charge of the project."

"Why not?"

"The first thing is that he doesn't think they're that honest, which may or may not be the truth.

"But the second thing is really worrisome. The project is especially designed to benefit anthropologists and archeologists."

"Uh-oh," I said.

"Yeah," Cohen said. "There's been some interesting math theories done lately that suggest our nice and comfortable belief that nature won't allow a paradox may not be precisely true.

"So all of a sudden we're going to have these soft science… I'm not talking about archeologists here… wandering around Northern Africa."

"Looking," I said, "for a chance to get a really good look at primitive Man."

"Exactly," Cohen said. "Prochaska and I went to a conference a couple of months ago, and the savants, as I think they'd like to be known as, swear most piously they won't be bothering any early Man.

"But they might be hiding cameras in bushes.

"Someone running across a nice Nikon whirring away in the brush might think differently than he did before or after, might he not?"

I nodded, then remembered a rather disastrous trip I'd made a few years ago.

"At least that'll shut up the bible-shouters."

"You wanna make a big bet on that?" Cohen asked. "They've been able to deny science for a few hundred years now. What makes you think there'll be any change from the nonsense they spout that God created everything as is in 1883 or whenever it's supposed to be.

"I tell you, Reginald, I can see some really interesting problems coming up from all this."

I decided to do a little research.

The people with the trowels and dust brooms had slowly but surely inched man's beginnings back and back, as I discovered after a few minutes on my computer terminal.

Right now, the oldest example of close-to-Man, Australopithecus afarensis, is about four million and a bit old, in the Middle Pleistocene.

One colony only, if that's what it should be called, some thirty, hairy shorties a bit more than a meter tall, but who were human enough to use appropriately-jagged flints for tools.

It had been labeled Awash man, after the Ethiopian National Park it was found in.

Interesting, but I always thought Cohen worried too much.

Chandra and I were quite busy, for with a whole new continent opening up, many of my longtime clients came swarming back, eager to blast an entirely new species.

I discovered something that made me a bit unsettled. This new time machine in Nairobi had been supposedly built for scientists. Scientists, of course, who could afford the rather steep ticket. Transition chambers use a lot of power, especially one big enough to hold a helicopter.

But all of a sudden, through hunting circles, I started hearing stories about hunters who'd managed to get themselves back to prehistoric Africa, hunters whose only claim to scientification was being able to calculate the cubic meters of their bank account.

I remembered what Cohen had said about Prochaska's worries, and started worrying myself.

Somebody might go back, and do something and suddenly I, and everybody I know, would be nonexistent. Or, on the other hand, we might all become peace-loving vegetarians, in tune with the Cosmos.

My bet went, very firmly, if cynically, on the former possibility.

But if there could be paradoxes, and if I could end up never having existed, it wouldn't be as if I'd have any time to get pissed, so I concentrated on getting some of my better-heeled clients on the list with Nairobi.

I did a little digging, and found the names of a couple of people who, if given an appropriately-sized check, would suddenly swear that you were a Doctor of Paleontology from the University of Fort Knox.

We'd been able to make two trips into Africa, when I got a call from Sir Peter Kilbrew, who wanted to hire me, instanter, to take him hunting again.

I'd seen his name on the news channels, and not just in the business section. He'd gotten himself involved in one of those schemes I understand you Americans come up with from time to time, offering blacks money to go back to Africa. As if they weren't at least, probably more so, as American as he was.

I laughed til I pissed myself when the organizer of this back-to-Africa nonsense turned out to be a scam artist, and disappeared into the woodwork with nobody-ever-said-for-sure how much of Kilbrew's money.

But as I've said, I try to stay out of my clients' politics.

Kilbrew sent two plane tickets, one for me, one for my wife, to come to Dallas and discuss things.

Since I'd told Brenda more than a sufficiency about Kilbrew, she passed on the trip.

The Kilbrew mansion sat on the south side of Dallas, on a half dozen acres of land that probably went for a couple of mil per acre, or more. The house was styled like a mansion out of Gone With the Breeze, or whatever that mawky book is, with columns, a bloody huge drive, outbuildings and such.

Kilbrew's two goons opened the door for me, and then Kilbrew appeared, wearing what he must have imagined old Hemingway wore in his Kenya days.

He introduced me to the Mrs. Kilbrew, who was a blonde, walking monument to silicone. She simpered, pointed her cleavage at me, and said, "Call me Wandi."

I doubted that she was his first wife. Rich ones like Kilbrew generally take a few tries before they hit the proper combination of brainless and rutting ability.

Kilbrew showed me his trophy room, packed with mounted trophies. I noted with some satisfaction «my» allosaur head had pride of place. Oddly, the furnishings in the room were more suitable to a corporate board room than a living room.

"My negotiating room," he said. "I put 'em in here, underneath your boy's fangs, and you've no idea how amenable they get to my offers."

I made an understanding sort of noise, and he poured me a drink.

"Let me show you my latest," Kilbrew said, unlocking one of the gun cabinets, and taking something that looked like a black powder shotgun from its huge bore. But it evidently fired smokeless powder, for it had a curved magazine below the receiver.

"You figuring on doing some serious poaching around here?" I joked. "That ought to land you enough ducks, one blast, to feed the neighborhood."

"It wouldn't be bad for that, now would it?" Kilbrew said, again with his forced smile. "No. I may offer this to the UN Military. Eight gauge, and of course my now-patented buffer group. Twenty rounds, either shot or solid. Cyclic rate of fire about three hundred rounds per minute."

The shell he showed me was as long as the palm of my hand, and I've got a rather large paw. The shell's diameter was about 2 cm or so.

Kilbrew took it back, and held it with a rather unpleasant smile.

"A nice riot agent, don't you think?"

"I don't know," I said. "I try to stay away from riots."

Then we had dinner, which of course was as mid-American and dully inedible as you'd imagine, and after Mrs. Kilbrew had simpered her way to her "sewing room," and what that might have been, I've not a clue, Kilbrew got to business.

"I want you to take me out again," he said. "To Africa."

"I'm pleased you thought to call," I said. "Might I ask why you haven't consulted any of the local lads?"

"I did." Kilbrew harrumphed. "They were damned amateurs. The main hunter, of course being black, couldn't find any game where he'd said it'd be, and the camp staff were a bunch of numblebums, and most of the equipment was jerry-built. We even had to abandon one of our hovercraft, as a matter of fact."

"About what you'd expect, given who they were," Hendrik put in.

I ignored him.

"I'd gone in after one thing, and didn't get it," Kilbrew said. "Of course, when we got back, the billing was twice the estimate, which I'm in litigation about right now.

"I should have gone to you in the first place, but I didn't know until recently you've had experience in Africa."

"What were you after?" I asked.

"I want a giant hippopotamus."

I managed to hide my wince.

I don't like hippos.

I've shot a couple of contempo hippopotami with clients who managed to get permission to hunt on one of the great African preserves.

A hippo, as one client put it, is a mean piece of work.

The only good things I'll have to say about them is their steaks are among the tastiest meat in the world, and their hides make extraordinarily tough and, properly cured, pliable leather.

Beyond that, nothing.

With the exception of the black mamba and the crocodile, I doubt if any animal, including those few remaining lions and buffalo, kills more Africans every year.

And no one, yet, has hired me to hunt either the mamba or crocs.

Hippos, which in this time get to be about 4–6 meters long and 1.5 meters tall, weighing in at about 3–4 metric tons, are a long ways from the funny fatties of animated films.

In the water, if they yawn at you, that's not sleepiness, but a threat, most generally a precursor to biting your boat?and you, if they can get away with it?in half.

But that's not where they're most dangerous.

Hippos graze on land at night.

God help you if you get between them and the water. Because they can move almost as fast as an antelope. And if you're in their way, you'll be lucky if you're only trampled. The hippo's fangs are jagged, misshapen, and the length of your forearm.

They won't eat you, but once they get a good hold or three you might wish they had.

I rate the hippo's temper as being only just shorter than that of the cape buffalo, and his intelligence is quite a bit higher.

As I said, I don't like them, from the day one sent me into the Pafuri River, to watch all my gear, including a beautiful Purdy double that had cost me a year's wages, to the bottom, as a phalanx of crocodile slithered into the water from the opposite bank.

A hippopotamus of the Pleistocene (Hippopotamusgigans, to use the new and rather obnoxious taxonomy) gets at least twice as big as one of today's brutes.

I'll underline that at least, since all these eras are being explored, and no one really knows how big any prehistoric creature actually grew.

Remember that Pleistocene riverine croc they found about six klicks north of here five or six years back? Twenty feet long, when nobody thought those monsters had ever gotten over 15 or so.

"That might be an interesting hunt," I managed.

"Sure as hell will be, especially because, with Nairobi's chamber, we'll be able to bring the whole damned thing back," Kilbrew said.

"Won't that jolt 'em, standing in my foyer?"

I nodded. "Whereabouts do you want to hunt?"

"There's a lake, a great big one, in Ethiopia, near where a little town named Abomsa is."

I didn't know the location. Nicholas got an atlas.

I whistled.

"Damned close to Awash," I said. "I'm surprised they're willing to let any hunting go on there."

"The… blacks," Nicholas said, and I noted the pause, "will let anybody do anything over there, so long as you've got the dollars to pay for it."

I looked at Kilbrew, his two bodyguards. A smile went between them, as if they were sharing a secret.

I smelt something strange.

But stronger, I smelt money.

And so, for the filthy lucre, I took the contract.

Before we left St. Louis, Beauregard Black took me aside.

"You owe me for this one, Reggie."

"Come on, Beau," I protested. "You'd think I was throwing you in a den of murderers."

"Nary a den, boss," Black said. "Three of 'em's enough."

"Look, I'm giving you a chance to see the land we all came from."

"Only land I come from is right here in Saint Louis," he said. "Men who go lookin' for their past likely to find out some skeletons or worse.

"Besides, I hear Ethiopia these days is about as attractive as a good plague of locusts. You best be thinking of just how huge a Christmas bonus I'll be getting."

And so everyone assembled at Kilbrew's house, and packed for the expedition.

It was hot in the Texas sun, and we worked stripped to the waist.

I noticed with some amusement that Wandi Kilbrew was particularly fascinated with Beauregard Black's rather rugged build. Beauregard, happily married with four children, never noticed.

I don't think Kilbrew saw Wandi's interest. It wouldn't have improved matters any.

Everything packed, and the packing list checked twice, we left for Africa.

Beauregard was right about Ethiopia. It seemed that every five or six years somebody else laid claim to Addis Ababa, and came in with guns to back up their demands.

We did an overflight of Awash, even though I knew it'd look seriously different in the Paleolithic, although I did an automatic check on two extinct volcanoes that could be used to locate the site.

The pilot pointed out where the Awash Man dig was going on, then we went back and grabbed a jet down to Nairobi and the time chamber.

Even as big as the chamber was, we still needed four trips. The first was Black and the workers we'd hired for the campsite, then two huge Daimler hovercraft, since we would be traveling a ways to the lake. Last came the sahibs.

It was just after dawn when we loaded up outside the chamber, and took off north.

"I've heard that the Ethiopians have an armed guard back here in the Pleistocene, making sure the scientists don't cheat around the Awash colony," I said.

"Not my concern," Kilbrew said casually. "I'm after hippos, not scientists."

In the rear seat, Hendrik laughed. Not pleasantly.

Probably one of the countries with the biggest differences between now and then is Ethiopia. Now it's arid desert, with deep ravines rutting the landscape. Water, when you can find it, is brown, brackish.

It feels like an old, tired country, a country who died a long, long time ago, and is now nothing but a desiccated corpse.

Its people move slowly in the heat, conserving their energy and the low calories they're able to scrub up from the soil.

Pleistocene Ethiopia is brawling, alive. It's still hot, of course, near the equator, but muggy. There are swamps everywhere, opening into lakes.

I looked as we flew on, and counted three active volcanoes.

The hunting camp was to be on the northern shore of this lake… "No name," Kilbrew said. "If I were an egomaniac, I'd think about naming it after myself."

"Or Wandi, your wife," I suggested.

He looked at me, didn't smile, and stared back out the side of the open hovercraft.

I'd given Beauregard a copy of the map Kilbrew had made when he was here the first time, and picked up his beacon after about two hours flight.

I followed it, and set down next to the tents that had already sprung up.

Beauregard and Ming were quite used to changing scenery, but the workers we'd picked up in Nairobi weren't. They were working, but kept looking over their shoulders, as if expecting some horrid monster to burst out of the ferny swamp around us.

I did a reccie down to the lake, saw no signs of hippos at all. I didn't hear their honk, but I didn't know if Hippo gigans called out the way modern beasts did.

I asked Kilbrew what evidence he had there were giant hippos floating around out there.

He said from a survey he'd gotten from an Ethiopian.

"But if it's wrong, we'll search on south until we find what we're after."

Strangely, he didn't seem particularly disturbed at the thought of losing a few days.

Quite surprisingly, he then announced that this first day he'd throw a barbecue. A proper Texas barbecue, and he and his bodyguards would do the cooking and serving.

I found it almost impossible to believe that these three would actually wait on blacks, but after Ming had set up the serving line, Kilbrew opened up a large container, and took out cow-type steaks, baked beans that'd been made in the twenty-first century, coleslaw and cherry pie. He fired up a charcoal grill, and the trio set to work, cheerful as diggers on the inside when the innkeeper calls time, winks and locks the door.

"The whole meal's just like the men, real men, who settled Texas, ate at their roundups," Kilbrew shouted. "Including the Rocky Mountain oysters."

For some reason, I wasn't that hungry, and ate lightly, only having a couple of the deep-fried calves' testicles Kilbrew called "oysters," and some tea.

I felt unaccountably sleepy, and yawning, begged off dessert.

"Maybe a bit of a nap?" Kilbrew suggested. "Give us some rest, and get up later, and figure out what happens tomorrow."

I nodded, and, almost stuporous, stumbled off to my tent.

I was almost instantly asleep.

I had terrible dreams that had me tossing, dreams of someone or something entering my tent. I kept trying to wake up, to reach the.600 I always kept at bedside when I was on safari, but couldn't.

The thing, whatever it was, was getting closer, then it had me, was shaking me.

I tried to shout for help, but then my eyes came open, and I was awake, and Beauregard Black was the one shaking me.

"Come on, boss. Wake up. Come on, Reggie," he was saying. "The bastards tried to poison us."

The shock brought me up into a sitting position.

"Come on, man. Wake up. That Kluxer took one of the hovercraft and took off north."

"Why… what… " and then I had it, remembering that conversation on our first trip, when Kilbrew had talked about how one infantry squad could have wiped out Awash man, and prevented any blacks from being born.

I stumbled up, seeing two and three Beauregards, made it out into the campsite.

There were bodies sprawled here and there.

"Poison," Beauregard said. "I don't know why. Ming's the only one who's still alive."

"Why… what about you?"

"I swore I'd be damned if I'd take anything in the way of food from that bastard," Black said. "Then, when one of the workers fell over, and one of those Boer bastards started laughing, I figured his game.

"I pretended to be sleepy, went for my tent, and ducked into the brush, trying to figure out what to do.

"One of the helpers must've figured something was going wrong, because he went for Kilbrew. One of his goons shot the poor son of a bitch with one of those monster guns they brought along.

"I didn't look back til I found something to hide under. Then I saw them lift, and came back, hoping I could find somebody alive who might know what the hell is going on."

I stumbled down to the lake, and fell on my face, splashing about, hoping the tepid water would wake me up, not giving a damn about prehistoric bilharzia.

"Where are they going, Reggie? They've only been gone a few minutes. We've got to go after them or something."

I managed to find the words and explained.

"Those mothers are just plain wack!" he said. "Wipe out those puppies, and everybody goes."

"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe not. Maybe the paradox thing will work. Or maybe it won't. If it doesn't work… can you fly that Daimler?"

"There hasn't been anything I can't drive or fly," Black said. "Come on."

"No," I said. "First we'll need guns."

We took my.600, and Black a camp.375, plus boxes of shells.

I flopped into the passenger's seat, and Beauregard got the hovercraft started and airborne.

"Where are we going?"

I was suddenly grateful for that overflight over contemporary Awash Park, and my rather adept sense of direction.

"East-northeast," I said. "And keep it as low as you can. And I don't give a damn if you fry the turbine."

Beauregard shoved the power quadrant up to its stop, and the hovercraft nosed over and accelerated.

I was scanning the sky ahead, hoping Kilbrew would keep it at a sensible altitude, and we could spot him.

But my eyes were still blurring. I was still under the effect of that bit of whatever poison that'd been in that ever so bloody kindly barbecue.

"There," Beauregard said. He pointed, and then I could see a dot ahead of us.

Kilbrew's hovercraft had an additional passenger, and maybe ours was in a little better tune, for we were closing on them.

Someone must've seen us, because the hovercraft climbed, banked and came down on us.

"Reggie, I ain't no fighter pilot! Gimme some help here!"

I thought.

"Go straight for him, like we're going to ram the bastard."

"And then what?"

"Then he'll break first."

I didn't add "I hope."

I had my.600 loaded, and the safety off.

"I don't like this," Black muttered, but held firm.

We were within a few hundred meters of the other ship, closing fast. I heard a pair of shots, but we were out of effective range of either Kilbrew's.577 or those damnable shotguns he'd had built, all the while dreaming of mass murder, murder that might include the entire human race.

"Closer… closer… " I was muttering, wondering if maybe I'd been wrong and maybe whoever was flying the hovercraft had rock solid nerves.

Only a moment before my nerve broke, about to shout to Beauregard to dive, the other hovercraft banked steeply to the right.

"Go right," I called, and Beauregard obeyed.

I had a perfect shot at the bottom of the other ship, and put a left and a right into its bottom.

Anything that will set a behemoth on its hind legs will, rather thoroughly, put paid to machinery.

The hovercraft bucked, spun, almost out of control.

I was shoving new rounds into the.600.

"There, you shitheel!" Black shouted, and I looked up, and saw one of the Boers fall out of the hovercraft.

It was a few hundred feet, and he screamed all the way down.

Kilbrew's ship was wobbling, going in.

"Stay on its ass!"

Beauregard nodded.

I heard another bang, saw the other Boer… Hendrik, I recognized, leaning out, at the driver's seat of the hovercraft. He fired at us twice, one-handed, with one of the alley sweepers Kilbrew had devised.

The windscreen of our ship starred, then blew out, and Black swore, and ducked as Kilbrew himself fired once, then again with his monster gun.

I chanced a shot back at him, missed.

We were dropping, and the ground was coming up fast.

Beauregard flared it just above some brush, and we came in for a stickery, if soft, landing.

"Now," I said. "Now we go after them."

I tossed Beauregard his rifle, reloaded the empty chamber of my.600 and we jumped out of the hovercraft. Black had the presence of mind to grab the ignition keys and shut the engine down.

Then it was silent, silent except for the high whine of the other ship, turbine spinning out of control, down somewhere to our right.

The land was mucky, ferny, with cycads that looked much like the ones around prehistoric Saint Louis.

Beauregard looked scared. He wasn't a hunter, didn't pretend to be.

Nor was I a mankiller. But I was about to learn how.

I'd better.

I motioned silence, waved Beauregard to my left rear, and we started forward.

I moved slowly, as slowly as I'd ever stalked. Even Tyrannosaurus doesn't shoot back.

I saw Hendrik as he saw me.

He had one of those super shotguns.

I stepped sideways, into the slight cover of a drooping fern, and had my gun up.

I fired just an instant before he did.

My.600 round took him in the mouth, and took off most of his head.

His shot went wide. At least most of it did.

One of the pellets got me in the forearm, and I jerked, dropping my rifle.

Kilbrew came up from a crouch, behind Hendrik's body. He was carrying the.577.

I went for my.600, but it was far, too far away.

He had me cold.

Being Kilbrew, he savored the moment, aiming carefully.

There was a tight grin on his face.

"Fuck you!" I managed, damned if I'd give him the satisfaction of any fear.

I braced for the shock, even though I knew there wouldn't be any pain.

Just instant death.

He was less than ten meters away when he fired.

The bullet sprayed muck a meter away from me. Kilbrew gaped at the impossible miss, worked the bolt, and then Beauregard shot him in the guts.

The bullet, intended for one-shot kills of anything short of an elephant, almost cut Kilbrew in two.

Kilbrew went back, and down, completely motionless.

Illogically, since there was nothing left to kill, I scrabbled for my rifle, broke it, fumbled another slug in, and snapped the action closed.

Then I looked up.

Coming out of the brush to the side was a small, hairy biped. It had a furred face, and wide, lemur-like eyes that were watching me curiously, not afraid, not worried.

I froze, seeing Australopithecus afarensis.

He, for I could see it was a male, eyed me calmly, then looked up at Beauregard, who stood, petrified, rifle in his hand.

Afarensis nodded then, as if making a judgment, and was gone.

Bloody hell.

I felt like I'd just met my own grandfather. I know with that tiny head he couldn't have been very intelligent, but to me he looked as if he had all the wisdom of all mankind.

Paul, I've been dry for ten minutes, and I really need another, very badly… thank you.

Better. Some better.

I walked over, picked up Kilbrew's rifle. I'd been right. There aren't any free lunches in physics. That few centimeters Kilbrew had so cleverly designed had also given the gun's recoil a chance to get a little momentum, enough to shock-shear one of the scope mounts. Kilbrew hadn't noticed it, but the scope was twisted about 20 degrees to the side.

Sometimes, the scientists are right…

So we piled the bodies into our hovercraft, and went back to our camp.

It wasn't quite as bad as we thought.

Only four of the help died. The others, after careful nursing by us, then shuttled back to where the transition chamber would come, and rushed to the best hospital in Nairobi, all lived.

I told an inspector of the Kenyan police what had happened.

"One of the richest men in the world… murdered. This is not good," he decided. "Did he say anything about having bribed the Ethiopian guards around Awash?"

"Nothing," I said. "But we weren't on chatting terms by then."

He turned everything over to the local UN representative, who turned everything in turn over to the US ambassador.

Surprisingly, no one leaked.

At least, not yet.

But suddenly there's mention of laws completely closing off Ethiopia from any time travel under ten million years ago. Or maybe closing it off completely.

I don't know.

I don't really care, since I'll never go back to the Pleistocene again.

One look at those eyes, and that was enough for me forever.

Of course, Wandi Kilbrew refused to pay the bill, and lawyers are now talking. When his estate eventually comes through, you can bloody bet Beauregard Black will get a bonus that will stagger his people for half a dozen generations.

And I'm thinking that maybe from now on I'll do nothing but sightseeing or photo safaris.


Ripples Richard Foss | The Enchanter Completed | Father Figures Susan Shwartz