New Tracks, Part 12
"New Tracks" by Aelfgyfu
PARTS: 20 plus epilogue
RATING: FRT (fan-rated teen: violence, occasional bad language)
CATEGORIES: Drama, angst, hurt/discomfort, some humour; AU, fix-it
SUMMARY: Noel Miller tries to find his place on Nick Cutter's team; Stephen Hart tries to find his way back onto the team; and Nick has to deal with them, creatures from the past, and his own stubbornness.
SPOILERS: Everything through 2.07 and my own story "Fresh Scars"
WARNINGS: Some tasteless humour, some medical detail
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Many thanks to Brilliant Husband (dudethemath), kristen_mara, and lukadreaming, all of whom acted as betas and made many helpful suggestions and corrections. All remaining errors, infelicities, and poor judgement are my own.
DISCLAIMER: Primeval and its characters are owned by Impossible Pictures, ITV Productions, M6 Films, Pro 7, and possibly other entities I couldn't easily find on IMDb. No copyright infringement is intended, and indeed the story probably won't make sense unless you've watched. So watch the show, buy the DVDs, etc. I do not profit from fic except insofar as comments make me happy.
Additional notes and links to all posted parts at this story's launch page
Previous Part: 11
Stephen had thought it would be less frustrating to be at the ARC than at home when calls came in, because he'd have more technology at disposal. He thought it would put him in closer contact. He'd been wrong. He was damned near useless at a desk, even looking at multiple screens. He might as well have been at home, staring at his laptop. Fortunately, once he'd given Miller an idea of how to track it, the man had gone with it. Stephen kept the headset on but muted his microphone as he went to help with their two captive hadrosaurs. At least he could do something here.
Henrietta was inside the room they'd devoted to the hadrosaurs, saying hello and perhaps goodbye. "I've got my assistant fetching loads of salad," she told him with a cheerful smile. "I don't think we'll have any trouble getting these girls in the truck." She looked pointedly at Stephen's leg.
"I wanted to say goodbye before they left," he said, ignoring the direction of her gaze. His leg was fine. The morning was still young; he'd hardly walked at all yet, and he didn't even need his stick. He'd left it back in the atrium.
A smell hit him, and then a thought struck him just as hard. "Miller?" He remembered to turn the mic back on and tried again. "Miller? Sometimes smells help. These things fart worse than cows, you know."
Miller gave a surprised chuckle. "I'll keep that in mind. I'm too slow. I keep losing the trail."
Stephen tried to say something reassuring. He wasn't sure it helped. He wouldn't have been very encouraged if he were the one on the other end.
A young woman wheeled over a trolley full of greens, and Henrietta took a handful. Stephen turned the mic off again and thanked her, taking a handful himself. The hadrosaurs came easily out of the room. They'd come to like their humans. Cutter hadn't wanted them to make friends, but the poor things had such a small space that the only way to give them exercise was by escorting them around the indoor track, and people had to do that. Stephen tried to get Lester to let him take the creatures to the enclosed ARC parking lot, only to find out that Abby had already asked repeatedly. Lester didn't respond favourably to either of them.
"It's been through the cafeteria!" Noel said excitedly in his ears. "Tables have been pushed aside! And it smells like-well, something came through, and I don't think it was schoolkids!"
Stephen remembered to turn his mic on again before saying, "Good work!"
***
Abby drew level with Noel as he jogged through the cafeteria to a pair of doors that had some muck smeared on them; they'd closed again, but he had no doubt the dinosaur had come this way.
"Stay back," he hissed quietly.
She simply lifted her tranq rifle in reply and pointed to his own lethal weapon. Cutter and Connor were right behind them, also carrying tranquillisers, so he was counting on his SA80 if anything did go wrong.
He signalled them all to wait, then slowly pushed open the door to the kitchen. It creaked, of course. He raised his weapon, stuck his head in-and a dinosaur longer than the Hilux slowly turned to look at him, still chewing from a convenient rack of vegetables. It regarded him for a long moment, then turned back to its breakfast. Hart was right about the odour.
Abby joined him. "Beautiful!"
The look on her face was pure joy. A moment later the other two members of the team joined them in the doorway, and soon they were beaming too.
"I hate to ruin the moment," Noel said, "but how are we going to get it out of here?"
"Easy," said Abby, "we'll take the vegetable rack, and...." She stopped.
"How will it turn around?" Connor voiced all their concerns.
"So you've got it?" Hart's voice sounded in Noel's ear, reminding him that his audience was one larger than he could see.
They sent Connor to see if there was another door around the other side-"preferably a delivery entrance," Abby told him. Noel remembered to take photos for the files. The creature seemed displeased at the flash.
***
Stephen found himself grinning even though he couldn't go on the call. Apparently this new hadrosaur was also a small one, though bigger than the two young ones they had caught some weeks ago. Maybe it was a male. He passed the news on to Henrietta as they walked down the hallway. He pushed the trolley and fed Louise in the front, and Henrietta coaxed Thelma behind them.
"You can't go to the site," she told him gently, but he'd already known that.
"I'll help you get these creatures into the truck," he said as they neared the loading dock.
"Miller, tell Cutter that if the traffic cooperates, we'll have the juveniles to you in under 40 minutes." Stephen turned to push open the doors to the loading dock with his back and pulled the trolley through with him. "Does Connor-"
He turned to look at the trucks and found two guns raised at him and froze. "What the hell?"
Louise calmly continued to eat the lettuce he had in his hand.
"What's going on?" Miller demanded.
"Stephen, dear, we can't get past you," Henrietta called from behind.
Stephen focused on the soldiers in front of him, forcing himself to calm down. For a moment he thought they'd been infiltrated, but this was probably mere incompetence. The guns were not quite pointed at him, he realised, but at Thelma and Louise. "These are herbivores; lower your arms, for God's sake! You should have tranquilliser rifles, not automatic weapons!"
"What the hell?" Miller shouted.
"Some of your men appear to be over-zealous." Even now the older one wasn't changing his stance, though the younger one seemed to be wavering.
"Stephen, did you say they have automatic guns?" Henrietta started to poke her head around the door.
"Henrietta!" Stephen exclaimed. "Stay out!"
One of the soldiers immediately lowered his weapon. "Sorry, ma'am."
"Sorry?" She moved as if to step in, but the hadrosaur made it impossible.
Stephen held up a hand to stop her. "Henrietta, wait until I get this sorted."
"Hart, tell me what's going on!" Miller bellowed.
"Look, stand down!" Stephen ordered. "The hadrosaurs aren't dangerous-"
"Listen to him!" Henrietta snapped. "Do you think I'd be standing here sandwiched between two of them if I thought they were going to hurt anybody? They're no more dangerous than horses or cows, you idiot!"
Only then did the sergeant lower his weapon.
"Hart, for Christ's sake-" Miller's voice sounded in his ear.
"It's all right now," Stephen growled into the mic. He tried to control his temper; it wasn't Miller's fault. "Apparently they take orders from Henrietta but not me."
"You haven't exactly shown the best judgement," the sergeant said unrepentantly, looking Stephen straight in the eye. He turned towards Henrietta. "Sorry, ma'am. I didn't realise you were with him. As far as I knew, he was still on desk duty only."
"Get their names. I want a full report later," Miller ordered.
Stephen tried not to look sheepish when he verified their names; they'd been with the ARC for months, and he did in fact know them both. He hadn't seen them in a while. They hadn't visited him in hospital or at the rehabilitation centre. The younger man had the decency to look ashamed, but not the older one.
He helped Henrietta get the dinosaurs in the truck.
"We're to go with you, ma'am," the sergeant broke the tense silence.
"Like hell," she said. "I'll take this one." She jerked a thumb at the private. "He knows when to take orders. You can tell Lester where we've gone." She gave Stephen a half-hearted smile. "Sorry, Stephen. I'd prefer to have you, duff leg and all, rather than that fool, but Nick would probably have a heart attack on the spot. I do rather like him, and I'd hate to lose him like that."
Stephen secured the doors on the truck while she climbed in. He left the loading dock as quickly as he could with the shreds of dignity he had left, the sergeant glaring after him. He went back to the Atrium to continue being useless.
***
Noel could not believe their own people had given Hart trouble. Sure, he'd heard people bad-mouthing him; hell, he'd agreed with them, up to a point. He'd stopped hearing the gossip after he got added to the team. He probably should have put a stop to it even before that, seeing as he was an officer, but.... No, no probably about it. This was what happened when you let something slide. Hart had assured him they'd seen the hadrosaurs and the vet safely off, but Noel was still fuming.
Thank God Cutter seemed to have missed the whole exchange; he was helping Abby move the vegetable rack around a confused dinosaur while Noel held the Professor's tranquilliser gun because the man insisted.
The plan was to lure the creature outside, across a playground, and back into the building towards the steps. God help them if the thing decided it was full, or if the anomaly closed. Connor had run back to check on the anomaly.
Luring the creature turned out to be slow work. Noel worried that Abby or the Professor might get crushed by the thing, and he didn't like the looks of its teeth, to be honest. Connor had plenty of time to go back inside, assure them the anomaly was still strong, and join them back outdoors with his laptop.
"I think it's a Lophorhothon," he announced cheerfully.
Cutter left the rack for a moment to go and look at the laptop, now covered with a big piece of plastic. It was still drizzling. Noel kept the rifle trained on the beast, in case. He doubted the tranquilliser would work in time if things went belly-up.
"Different genus than we've got," the professor grumbled.
"I thought we didn't know what Thelma and Louise were," Connor objected.
"Look at the bill. Does that look the same to you?" Cutter ran around in front of the creature, who continued to crunch, unperturbed by the humans dashing around it.
"Not exactly," Connor admitted. "Did you ever determine the genus or species of ours?"
"What do I do if she finishes the vegetables?" Abby asked, a little peevishly. Noel couldn't blame her;. She was dragging a cafeteria rack through the rain, while the other two argued about the shape of its muzzle.
"Maybe you should walk faster," Cutter suggested.
"Maybe you should take a turn at the rack!"
Looking surprised, Cutter did. It wasn't that he wasn't willing to help; he just didn't always think along the most helpful lines, Noel thought.
Abby pulled out a video camera and began recording. Noel nodded approvingly. He should have thought of that. Video was even better than the stills they had begun collecting.
They maneuvered the creature into the building and even to the bottom of the stairs before it finished the vegetables.
"Turn off the hall lights," Abby hissed. "Maybe the light of the anomaly will attract it!"
That proved harder than Noel had expected; apparently the lights were on some kind of motion sensor system. Connor managed to disable a few, and then the dinosaur started up the stairs.
When they'd come back into the building, Noel realised the anomaly had its own smell, a sort of wet, woody odour that must be coming from the vegetation beyond. Perhaps that helped attract the dinosaur, too. It seemed very hesitant, however, perhaps not liking the stairway. Still, when Abby and Connor started lobbing vegetables into the light, it went through.
Abby and Connor squealed and gave each other high fives. Noel remembered to update Hart on the situation; he sounded relieved, but somehow distant. Noel wasn't looking forward to going back to the ARC and dealing with the two idiots had disobeyed direct orders from the Professor's assistant.
Henrietta came with the ARC's hadrosaurs a little later, and the two of them proved quite tractable.
"I hope we're doing the right thing," Cutter temporised as they brought Thelma and Louise into the building. "I'm not sure it's even really the same era, nor that they'll find others of their kind...."
"We can't keep them," Abby pointed out, though her face left little doubt that she would if she felt she could. She patted each on the snout.
Louise went towards the light as if she might have had a dim memory of it, or perhaps the smell and the illumination attracted her. With the drizzle continuing outside and most of the lights now off indoors, the anomaly gave off the brightest light in view. Thelma, though, hovered nervously by Abby at the foot of the stairs, and Abby started walking her up.
"Do you think that's wise?" Noel asked, handing Cutter back his tranq rifle and putting a hand on his rifle in case. "Something else could come through, and we'd hardly have time to react!"
Abby smiled. "Throw me a head of lettuce," she said.
"She'll have a tummy ache," said Henrietta fondly. "I hope she doesn't just turn around and come back!"
Abby gave Thelma a mouthful of lettuce and then lobbed the rest gently into the anomaly. Thelma followed. Abby came back down the stairs, two at a time despite the water and mud making them slick. "Everyone out of sight," she said.
Noel slipped reluctantly into the shadows by a water fountain; the others seemed more amenable to hiding. Abby's instincts had been right. One of them reappeared moments later; Noel thought it was Thelma. She looked down the steps, blinked, and then turned and vanished back into the light.
They ended up waiting over an hour for the anomaly to close. Lester called Cutter, but the professor put him off. No one wanted to leave in case anything-especially their hadrosaurs-came through again. Noel felt rather silly claiming dinosaurs as theirs, but he had to admit to himself that he'd begun to think of them that way. They were the first ones he'd tracked, too. He'd become fonder of them than he'd realised.
At last, though, the anomaly closed and they could return to base, leaving a team of soldiers to clean-up duty as directed by Captain Robinson and Jenny Lewis.
Back at the ARC, Noel dug up Hart long enough to get the names of the men who'd held weapons on him and the hadrosaurs. Damn-he didn't want to have to deal with Sergeant Burroughs this way. The man was in his late forties. Noel respected and even liked him; his own father had worked his way up to sergeant-major, and he never got the respect he deserved. Of course, his colour had been part of that, but Noel knew plenty of good people, even some great ones, could be found in the ranks. He'd thought Burroughs was one of them. Apparently, he'd been wrong.
Burroughs had been one of those to welcome the new soldiers assigned at the same time as Noel, and he'd welcomed Noel too, the sole new officer. He'd told him who was who and what was what. Now that Noel thought back, that included telling him about Helen Cutter and Stephen Hart. Noel should have seen this coming.
Noel located Burroughs and Private Rollins. At least the private was young enough for this to have been stupidity and following the more senior soldier present. The older man had no such excuse. Noel told them in no uncertain terms that they needed to follow orders from the civilians unless they directly contradicted orders from one of their military superiors.
"Mr Lester told us to keep the creatures secure," Burroughs said baldly.
"With automatic weapons?" Noel demanded.
"He left the weapons to my discretion, sir." Burroughs met his gaze and held it.
"Well, apparently your 'discretion' leaves a lot to be desired! Hart's been on the project since the start. And I understand you weren't pointing weapons only at dinosaurs, given the civilians' proximity to them!"
Rollins looked directly in front of him, absolutely still, but Burroughs opened his mouth.
"Don't want to hear it!" Noel shouted, channelling one of his instructors. "Cock up again, and you'll find yourself transferred! For now, you're not to go out on shouts, because neither of you can be trusted around civilians. I'll revisit the matter in a month. But if I hear anything more about either of you, your time here is over. Dismissed!"
Rollins barely kept to a walk as he left the room.
"With permission, sir?" Burroughs asked, remaining where he was.
Noel stared at him. He couldn't believe the man wasn't leaving. But maybe there was something he needed to know. "This had better be damned good," he said.
"Have you spoken to Captain Robinson about this, sir? Because, with all due respect, sir, you're not our commanding officer."
"Captain Robinson is still at the scene," Noel began before he realised he should not be explaining himself to this man. Since shouting obviously had little effect on this man, he lowered his voice and hoped it sounded sufficiently menacing. "I will inform him on his return. When you disobey orders from senior staff, whether they're civilians or not, I don't wait for your commanding officer before I speak to you. Understood?"
"I had not heard that Mr Hart-"
"Understood?" Noel demanded.
"Understood." Burroughs didn't sound menaced.
Noel dismissed him and watched him leave the room before he let out his breath.
He found Hart reviewing footage from the rover and from Abby's video camera. "Sorry about that, Hart. You haven't had any problems of this sort before, have you?
Hart gave him a sardonic look. "Haven't had much chance, working a few hours a day here, but no."
"Well, do let me know if anything happens again. But it shouldn't. I've taken care of it." Noel very much hoped that he had. Burroughs was career military; even if he didn't like it, he should get it. And Rollins had looked scared silly.
"Thanks!" Hart smiled a little. "And here I was thinking you didn't like me!"
"It's nothing to do with liking. We need to keep order!"
He realised how that sounded only after the smile vanished from Hart's face. He tried to think of a way to soften the words, but Hart began speaking again.
"Cutter doesn't need to know about this, right?" Hart wasn't quite pleading. "Most of the soldiers are fine; they even visited me while I was in hospital, and then at the rehab facility. Those two just...." he trailed off.
"I don't need to tell him," Noel said hastily. "I can't say what Dr Farnam will do." That was something else he didn't need to say. Brilliant.
But Hart thanked him, anyway, and asked him more about the hadrosaur they'd found that day, and pretty much acted like Noel hadn't all but said he didn't like him. Noel played along; he didn't know what else to do.
Captain Robinson told him later that he'd done well with the situation. He said he'd keep Lester informed and implicitly took the matter out of Noel's hands. Noel could only hope the Captain took the matter with appropriate seriousness.
Part 13
PARTS: 20 plus epilogue
RATING: FRT (fan-rated teen: violence, occasional bad language)
CATEGORIES: Drama, angst, hurt/discomfort, some humour; AU, fix-it
SUMMARY: Noel Miller tries to find his place on Nick Cutter's team; Stephen Hart tries to find his way back onto the team; and Nick has to deal with them, creatures from the past, and his own stubbornness.
SPOILERS: Everything through 2.07 and my own story "Fresh Scars"
WARNINGS: Some tasteless humour, some medical detail
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Many thanks to Brilliant Husband (dudethemath), kristen_mara, and lukadreaming, all of whom acted as betas and made many helpful suggestions and corrections. All remaining errors, infelicities, and poor judgement are my own.
DISCLAIMER: Primeval and its characters are owned by Impossible Pictures, ITV Productions, M6 Films, Pro 7, and possibly other entities I couldn't easily find on IMDb. No copyright infringement is intended, and indeed the story probably won't make sense unless you've watched. So watch the show, buy the DVDs, etc. I do not profit from fic except insofar as comments make me happy.
Additional notes and links to all posted parts at this story's launch page
Previous Part: 11
Stephen had thought it would be less frustrating to be at the ARC than at home when calls came in, because he'd have more technology at disposal. He thought it would put him in closer contact. He'd been wrong. He was damned near useless at a desk, even looking at multiple screens. He might as well have been at home, staring at his laptop. Fortunately, once he'd given Miller an idea of how to track it, the man had gone with it. Stephen kept the headset on but muted his microphone as he went to help with their two captive hadrosaurs. At least he could do something here.
Henrietta was inside the room they'd devoted to the hadrosaurs, saying hello and perhaps goodbye. "I've got my assistant fetching loads of salad," she told him with a cheerful smile. "I don't think we'll have any trouble getting these girls in the truck." She looked pointedly at Stephen's leg.
"I wanted to say goodbye before they left," he said, ignoring the direction of her gaze. His leg was fine. The morning was still young; he'd hardly walked at all yet, and he didn't even need his stick. He'd left it back in the atrium.
A smell hit him, and then a thought struck him just as hard. "Miller?" He remembered to turn the mic back on and tried again. "Miller? Sometimes smells help. These things fart worse than cows, you know."
Miller gave a surprised chuckle. "I'll keep that in mind. I'm too slow. I keep losing the trail."
Stephen tried to say something reassuring. He wasn't sure it helped. He wouldn't have been very encouraged if he were the one on the other end.
A young woman wheeled over a trolley full of greens, and Henrietta took a handful. Stephen turned the mic off again and thanked her, taking a handful himself. The hadrosaurs came easily out of the room. They'd come to like their humans. Cutter hadn't wanted them to make friends, but the poor things had such a small space that the only way to give them exercise was by escorting them around the indoor track, and people had to do that. Stephen tried to get Lester to let him take the creatures to the enclosed ARC parking lot, only to find out that Abby had already asked repeatedly. Lester didn't respond favourably to either of them.
"It's been through the cafeteria!" Noel said excitedly in his ears. "Tables have been pushed aside! And it smells like-well, something came through, and I don't think it was schoolkids!"
Stephen remembered to turn his mic on again before saying, "Good work!"
***
Abby drew level with Noel as he jogged through the cafeteria to a pair of doors that had some muck smeared on them; they'd closed again, but he had no doubt the dinosaur had come this way.
"Stay back," he hissed quietly.
She simply lifted her tranq rifle in reply and pointed to his own lethal weapon. Cutter and Connor were right behind them, also carrying tranquillisers, so he was counting on his SA80 if anything did go wrong.
He signalled them all to wait, then slowly pushed open the door to the kitchen. It creaked, of course. He raised his weapon, stuck his head in-and a dinosaur longer than the Hilux slowly turned to look at him, still chewing from a convenient rack of vegetables. It regarded him for a long moment, then turned back to its breakfast. Hart was right about the odour.
Abby joined him. "Beautiful!"
The look on her face was pure joy. A moment later the other two members of the team joined them in the doorway, and soon they were beaming too.
"I hate to ruin the moment," Noel said, "but how are we going to get it out of here?"
"Easy," said Abby, "we'll take the vegetable rack, and...." She stopped.
"How will it turn around?" Connor voiced all their concerns.
"So you've got it?" Hart's voice sounded in Noel's ear, reminding him that his audience was one larger than he could see.
They sent Connor to see if there was another door around the other side-"preferably a delivery entrance," Abby told him. Noel remembered to take photos for the files. The creature seemed displeased at the flash.
***
Stephen found himself grinning even though he couldn't go on the call. Apparently this new hadrosaur was also a small one, though bigger than the two young ones they had caught some weeks ago. Maybe it was a male. He passed the news on to Henrietta as they walked down the hallway. He pushed the trolley and fed Louise in the front, and Henrietta coaxed Thelma behind them.
"You can't go to the site," she told him gently, but he'd already known that.
"I'll help you get these creatures into the truck," he said as they neared the loading dock.
"Miller, tell Cutter that if the traffic cooperates, we'll have the juveniles to you in under 40 minutes." Stephen turned to push open the doors to the loading dock with his back and pulled the trolley through with him. "Does Connor-"
He turned to look at the trucks and found two guns raised at him and froze. "What the hell?"
Louise calmly continued to eat the lettuce he had in his hand.
"What's going on?" Miller demanded.
"Stephen, dear, we can't get past you," Henrietta called from behind.
Stephen focused on the soldiers in front of him, forcing himself to calm down. For a moment he thought they'd been infiltrated, but this was probably mere incompetence. The guns were not quite pointed at him, he realised, but at Thelma and Louise. "These are herbivores; lower your arms, for God's sake! You should have tranquilliser rifles, not automatic weapons!"
"What the hell?" Miller shouted.
"Some of your men appear to be over-zealous." Even now the older one wasn't changing his stance, though the younger one seemed to be wavering.
"Stephen, did you say they have automatic guns?" Henrietta started to poke her head around the door.
"Henrietta!" Stephen exclaimed. "Stay out!"
One of the soldiers immediately lowered his weapon. "Sorry, ma'am."
"Sorry?" She moved as if to step in, but the hadrosaur made it impossible.
Stephen held up a hand to stop her. "Henrietta, wait until I get this sorted."
"Hart, tell me what's going on!" Miller bellowed.
"Look, stand down!" Stephen ordered. "The hadrosaurs aren't dangerous-"
"Listen to him!" Henrietta snapped. "Do you think I'd be standing here sandwiched between two of them if I thought they were going to hurt anybody? They're no more dangerous than horses or cows, you idiot!"
Only then did the sergeant lower his weapon.
"Hart, for Christ's sake-" Miller's voice sounded in his ear.
"It's all right now," Stephen growled into the mic. He tried to control his temper; it wasn't Miller's fault. "Apparently they take orders from Henrietta but not me."
"You haven't exactly shown the best judgement," the sergeant said unrepentantly, looking Stephen straight in the eye. He turned towards Henrietta. "Sorry, ma'am. I didn't realise you were with him. As far as I knew, he was still on desk duty only."
"Get their names. I want a full report later," Miller ordered.
Stephen tried not to look sheepish when he verified their names; they'd been with the ARC for months, and he did in fact know them both. He hadn't seen them in a while. They hadn't visited him in hospital or at the rehabilitation centre. The younger man had the decency to look ashamed, but not the older one.
He helped Henrietta get the dinosaurs in the truck.
"We're to go with you, ma'am," the sergeant broke the tense silence.
"Like hell," she said. "I'll take this one." She jerked a thumb at the private. "He knows when to take orders. You can tell Lester where we've gone." She gave Stephen a half-hearted smile. "Sorry, Stephen. I'd prefer to have you, duff leg and all, rather than that fool, but Nick would probably have a heart attack on the spot. I do rather like him, and I'd hate to lose him like that."
Stephen secured the doors on the truck while she climbed in. He left the loading dock as quickly as he could with the shreds of dignity he had left, the sergeant glaring after him. He went back to the Atrium to continue being useless.
***
Noel could not believe their own people had given Hart trouble. Sure, he'd heard people bad-mouthing him; hell, he'd agreed with them, up to a point. He'd stopped hearing the gossip after he got added to the team. He probably should have put a stop to it even before that, seeing as he was an officer, but.... No, no probably about it. This was what happened when you let something slide. Hart had assured him they'd seen the hadrosaurs and the vet safely off, but Noel was still fuming.
Thank God Cutter seemed to have missed the whole exchange; he was helping Abby move the vegetable rack around a confused dinosaur while Noel held the Professor's tranquilliser gun because the man insisted.
The plan was to lure the creature outside, across a playground, and back into the building towards the steps. God help them if the thing decided it was full, or if the anomaly closed. Connor had run back to check on the anomaly.
Luring the creature turned out to be slow work. Noel worried that Abby or the Professor might get crushed by the thing, and he didn't like the looks of its teeth, to be honest. Connor had plenty of time to go back inside, assure them the anomaly was still strong, and join them back outdoors with his laptop.
"I think it's a Lophorhothon," he announced cheerfully.
Cutter left the rack for a moment to go and look at the laptop, now covered with a big piece of plastic. It was still drizzling. Noel kept the rifle trained on the beast, in case. He doubted the tranquilliser would work in time if things went belly-up.
"Different genus than we've got," the professor grumbled.
"I thought we didn't know what Thelma and Louise were," Connor objected.
"Look at the bill. Does that look the same to you?" Cutter ran around in front of the creature, who continued to crunch, unperturbed by the humans dashing around it.
"Not exactly," Connor admitted. "Did you ever determine the genus or species of ours?"
"What do I do if she finishes the vegetables?" Abby asked, a little peevishly. Noel couldn't blame her;. She was dragging a cafeteria rack through the rain, while the other two argued about the shape of its muzzle.
"Maybe you should walk faster," Cutter suggested.
"Maybe you should take a turn at the rack!"
Looking surprised, Cutter did. It wasn't that he wasn't willing to help; he just didn't always think along the most helpful lines, Noel thought.
Abby pulled out a video camera and began recording. Noel nodded approvingly. He should have thought of that. Video was even better than the stills they had begun collecting.
They maneuvered the creature into the building and even to the bottom of the stairs before it finished the vegetables.
"Turn off the hall lights," Abby hissed. "Maybe the light of the anomaly will attract it!"
That proved harder than Noel had expected; apparently the lights were on some kind of motion sensor system. Connor managed to disable a few, and then the dinosaur started up the stairs.
When they'd come back into the building, Noel realised the anomaly had its own smell, a sort of wet, woody odour that must be coming from the vegetation beyond. Perhaps that helped attract the dinosaur, too. It seemed very hesitant, however, perhaps not liking the stairway. Still, when Abby and Connor started lobbing vegetables into the light, it went through.
Abby and Connor squealed and gave each other high fives. Noel remembered to update Hart on the situation; he sounded relieved, but somehow distant. Noel wasn't looking forward to going back to the ARC and dealing with the two idiots had disobeyed direct orders from the Professor's assistant.
Henrietta came with the ARC's hadrosaurs a little later, and the two of them proved quite tractable.
"I hope we're doing the right thing," Cutter temporised as they brought Thelma and Louise into the building. "I'm not sure it's even really the same era, nor that they'll find others of their kind...."
"We can't keep them," Abby pointed out, though her face left little doubt that she would if she felt she could. She patted each on the snout.
Louise went towards the light as if she might have had a dim memory of it, or perhaps the smell and the illumination attracted her. With the drizzle continuing outside and most of the lights now off indoors, the anomaly gave off the brightest light in view. Thelma, though, hovered nervously by Abby at the foot of the stairs, and Abby started walking her up.
"Do you think that's wise?" Noel asked, handing Cutter back his tranq rifle and putting a hand on his rifle in case. "Something else could come through, and we'd hardly have time to react!"
Abby smiled. "Throw me a head of lettuce," she said.
"She'll have a tummy ache," said Henrietta fondly. "I hope she doesn't just turn around and come back!"
Abby gave Thelma a mouthful of lettuce and then lobbed the rest gently into the anomaly. Thelma followed. Abby came back down the stairs, two at a time despite the water and mud making them slick. "Everyone out of sight," she said.
Noel slipped reluctantly into the shadows by a water fountain; the others seemed more amenable to hiding. Abby's instincts had been right. One of them reappeared moments later; Noel thought it was Thelma. She looked down the steps, blinked, and then turned and vanished back into the light.
They ended up waiting over an hour for the anomaly to close. Lester called Cutter, but the professor put him off. No one wanted to leave in case anything-especially their hadrosaurs-came through again. Noel felt rather silly claiming dinosaurs as theirs, but he had to admit to himself that he'd begun to think of them that way. They were the first ones he'd tracked, too. He'd become fonder of them than he'd realised.
At last, though, the anomaly closed and they could return to base, leaving a team of soldiers to clean-up duty as directed by Captain Robinson and Jenny Lewis.
Back at the ARC, Noel dug up Hart long enough to get the names of the men who'd held weapons on him and the hadrosaurs. Damn-he didn't want to have to deal with Sergeant Burroughs this way. The man was in his late forties. Noel respected and even liked him; his own father had worked his way up to sergeant-major, and he never got the respect he deserved. Of course, his colour had been part of that, but Noel knew plenty of good people, even some great ones, could be found in the ranks. He'd thought Burroughs was one of them. Apparently, he'd been wrong.
Burroughs had been one of those to welcome the new soldiers assigned at the same time as Noel, and he'd welcomed Noel too, the sole new officer. He'd told him who was who and what was what. Now that Noel thought back, that included telling him about Helen Cutter and Stephen Hart. Noel should have seen this coming.
Noel located Burroughs and Private Rollins. At least the private was young enough for this to have been stupidity and following the more senior soldier present. The older man had no such excuse. Noel told them in no uncertain terms that they needed to follow orders from the civilians unless they directly contradicted orders from one of their military superiors.
"Mr Lester told us to keep the creatures secure," Burroughs said baldly.
"With automatic weapons?" Noel demanded.
"He left the weapons to my discretion, sir." Burroughs met his gaze and held it.
"Well, apparently your 'discretion' leaves a lot to be desired! Hart's been on the project since the start. And I understand you weren't pointing weapons only at dinosaurs, given the civilians' proximity to them!"
Rollins looked directly in front of him, absolutely still, but Burroughs opened his mouth.
"Don't want to hear it!" Noel shouted, channelling one of his instructors. "Cock up again, and you'll find yourself transferred! For now, you're not to go out on shouts, because neither of you can be trusted around civilians. I'll revisit the matter in a month. But if I hear anything more about either of you, your time here is over. Dismissed!"
Rollins barely kept to a walk as he left the room.
"With permission, sir?" Burroughs asked, remaining where he was.
Noel stared at him. He couldn't believe the man wasn't leaving. But maybe there was something he needed to know. "This had better be damned good," he said.
"Have you spoken to Captain Robinson about this, sir? Because, with all due respect, sir, you're not our commanding officer."
"Captain Robinson is still at the scene," Noel began before he realised he should not be explaining himself to this man. Since shouting obviously had little effect on this man, he lowered his voice and hoped it sounded sufficiently menacing. "I will inform him on his return. When you disobey orders from senior staff, whether they're civilians or not, I don't wait for your commanding officer before I speak to you. Understood?"
"I had not heard that Mr Hart-"
"Understood?" Noel demanded.
"Understood." Burroughs didn't sound menaced.
Noel dismissed him and watched him leave the room before he let out his breath.
He found Hart reviewing footage from the rover and from Abby's video camera. "Sorry about that, Hart. You haven't had any problems of this sort before, have you?
Hart gave him a sardonic look. "Haven't had much chance, working a few hours a day here, but no."
"Well, do let me know if anything happens again. But it shouldn't. I've taken care of it." Noel very much hoped that he had. Burroughs was career military; even if he didn't like it, he should get it. And Rollins had looked scared silly.
"Thanks!" Hart smiled a little. "And here I was thinking you didn't like me!"
"It's nothing to do with liking. We need to keep order!"
He realised how that sounded only after the smile vanished from Hart's face. He tried to think of a way to soften the words, but Hart began speaking again.
"Cutter doesn't need to know about this, right?" Hart wasn't quite pleading. "Most of the soldiers are fine; they even visited me while I was in hospital, and then at the rehab facility. Those two just...." he trailed off.
"I don't need to tell him," Noel said hastily. "I can't say what Dr Farnam will do." That was something else he didn't need to say. Brilliant.
But Hart thanked him, anyway, and asked him more about the hadrosaur they'd found that day, and pretty much acted like Noel hadn't all but said he didn't like him. Noel played along; he didn't know what else to do.
Captain Robinson told him later that he'd done well with the situation. He said he'd keep Lester informed and implicitly took the matter out of Noel's hands. Noel could only hope the Captain took the matter with appropriate seriousness.
Part 13