Free An Accidental Alliance by Jonathan Edward Feinstein Page A

I have no idea if these things will behave like the ones in our time.”
          “This is our time too, Park,” she reminded him.
          “It is, yes,” he agreed, “but you know what I meant. These are new creatures to us. They seem to be acting like ones that are familiar to us, but we haven’t been watching them very long either. Similarities may be deceiving. I’m not even sure these plate-skinned creatures are mammals.”
          “They are warm-blooded and obviously not birds,” Iris pointed out.
          “In two-hundred and fifty million years there may be a lot of new animals that are warm blooded. In our time… our original time, that is, the only warm-blooded classes of life were the birds and mammals. Two hundred and fifty million years before that, there was no warm-bloodedness, just the beginnings of a transition toward it. Now? Well who knows what may have evolved. These may be mammals or they could be the descendants of descendants of mammals. Mammals as a class of animal life may no longer exist, except for us, of course.”
          “What about those birds we saw last night?” Iris asked. “Are they still birds?”
          “Or something descended from them is my guess,” Park nodded.
          As they continued to watch the grazers, they spotted other creatures as well. Since leaving Van Winkle Base they had seen a fair number of insects although none of them seemed to be interested in biting humans for which Park was grateful. They had also seen flyers, although not close up. High in the sky there had been slowly circling creatures with bat-like wings. Since they had been out in the day, neither Park nor Iris had been certain they were actually bats or if some new animal had evolved a similar wing design. Unlike the bats they were acquainted with, these appeared to circle and glide like hawks and Park conjectured that they might be this era’s equivalent of hawks or vultures.
          What had puzzled Park the most, however was waking up that first morning on the river and looking at the southern shore where they had seen the grass moving slightly in the water. In the light of day there did not appear to be any grass that was actually in the water, but he decided that maybe the level of the river had dropped just enough to expose the muddy bank on that side.
          It did not take long for the grazers to ignore the two humans There were other creatures in the vicinity but the grazers were the largest and most plentiful in sight and whatever normally preyed on them was not currently in the vicinity. After a while some of the smaller creatures came outside the protective ring of bulls, if they were bulls, and began to graze where the grass was still plentiful.
          Park lifted the rifle to his shoulder, chose a target and fired. The herd immediately reacted by tightening up into a rough circle with the massive bulls on the outside. The wounded beast also retreated within the protective perimeter, but not before Iris shot it as well. It screamed piteously and fell to the ground.
          “The poor thing is suffering,” Iris told Park.
          “I know,” Park agreed. “Our guns are underpowered for these things. We’ll have to find a way to put it out of its misery. Move back a couple dozen yards and I’ll see if I can spook the herd into running off.”
          “Why move back?” Iris asked.
          “So there will be someone to give my flattened corpse a decent burial if this doesn’t work,” Park told her with a wink. Iris shivered at the thought, but did as he had asked. A moment later, Park fired several shots into the air over the grazers and to his satisfaction they ran in the opposite direction. Then he and Iris went up to the whimpering animal and put it down. “Cover my back while I gut this one,” he requested. “With natural protections like these critters have, there must be a range of carnivores who find