Just Like Old Times

Cohen was disappointed. The battle of the dinosaurs had been fun, the killing had been well engineered, and there had certainly been enough blood, but there was no terror. No sense that the Triceratops had been quivering with fear, no begging for mercy. No feeling of power, of control. Just dumb, mindless brutes moving in ways preprogrammed by their genes.

It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

Judge Hoskins looked across the desk in her chambers at the lawyer.

“A Tyrannosaurus, Mr. Axworthy? I was speaking figuratively.”

“I understand that, my lady, but it was an appropriate observation, don’t you think? I’ve contacted the Chronotransference people, who say they can do it, if they have a rex specimen to work from. They have to back-propagate from actual physical material in order to get a temporal fix.”

Judge Hoskins was as unimpressed by scientific babble as she was by legal jargon. “Make your point, Mr. Axworthy.”

“I called the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller and asked them about the Tyrannosaurus fossils available worldwide. Turns out there’s only a handful of complete skeletons, but they were able to provide me with an annotated list, giving as much information as they could about the individual probable causes of death.” He slid a thin plastic printout sheet across the judge’s wide desk.

“Leave this with me, counsel. I’ll get back to you.”

Axworthy left, and Hoskins scanned the brief list. She then leaned back in her leather chair and began to read the needlepoint on her wall for the thousandth time:

My object all sublime

I shall achieve in time -

She read that line again, her lips moving slightly as she subvocalized the words: “I shall achieve in time … ”

The judge turned back to the list of tyrannosaur finds. Ah, that one. Yes, that would be perfect. She pushed a button on her phone. “David, see if you can find Mr. Axworthy for me.”

There had been a very unusual aspect to the Triceratops kill — an aspect that intrigued Cohen. Chronotransference had been performed countless times; it was one of the most popular forms of euthanasia. Sometimes the transferee’s original body would give an ongoing commentary about what was going on, as if talking during sleep. It was clear from what they said that transferees couldn’t exert any control over the bodies they were transferred into.

Indeed, the physicists had claimed any control was impossible. Chronotransference worked precisely because the transferee could exert no influence, and therefore was simply observing things that had already been observed. Since no new observations were being made, no quantum-mechanical distortions occurred. After all, said the physicists, if one could exert control, one could change the past. And that was impossible.

And yet, when Cohen had willed the rex to alter its course, it eventually had done so.

Could it be that the rex had so little brains that Cohen’s thoughts could control the beast?

Madness. The ramifications were incredible.

Still …

He had to know if it was true. The rex was torpid, flopped on its belly, gorged on ceratopsian meat. It seemed prepared to lie here for a long time to come, enjoying the early evening breeze.

Get up, thought Cohen. Get up, damn you!

Nothing. No response.

Get up!

The rex’s lower jaw was resting on the ground. Its upper jaw was lifted high, its mouth wide open. Tiny pterosaurs were flitting in and out of the open maw, their long needle-like beaks apparently yanking gobbets of hornface flesh from between the rex’s curved teeth.

Get up, thought Cohen again. Get up!

The rex stirred.

Up!

The tyrannosaur used its tiny forelimbs to keep its torso from sliding forward as it pushed with its powerful legs until it was standing.

Forward, thought Cohen. Forward!

The beast’s body felt different. Its belly was full to bursting.

Forward!

With ponderous steps, the rex began to march.

It was wonderful. To be in control again! Cohen felt the old thrill of the hunt.

And he knew exactly what he was looking for.

“Judge Hoskins says okay,” said Axworthy. “She’s authorized for you to be transferred into that new T. rex they’ve got right here in Alberta at the Tyrrell. It’s a young adult, they say. Judging by the way the skeleton was found, the rex died falling, probably into a fissure. Both legs and the back were broken, but the skeleton remained almost completely articulated, suggesting that scavengers couldn’t get at it. Unfortunately, the chronotransference people say that back-propagating that far into the past they can only plug you in a few hours before the accident occurred. But you’ll get your wish: you’re going to die as a tyrannosaur. Oh, and here are the books you asked for: a complete library on Cretaceous flora and fauna. You should have time to get through it all; the chronotransference people will need a couple of weeks to set up.”