Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
himself, as if from a remote distance, setting the huoy with its bright strobing
beacon. The anchor snagged quickly, telling him that he was in shallow water,
just as the planners had promised. His insertion point (and he certainly
hoped, his removal point as well) was now marked in this sea, and at last he
could look around on this fine afternoon, late in the Cretaceous Period.
First impressions: Land was visible nearby, perhaps a hundred yards off;
it was green and lush, with tall trees and a thicker understory. The odor of
fetid jungle and other things unknown to him thrust through the scent of the
sea; the very air was a miasma of pines, flowers, swamp, methane, saurians,
and a thousand other Mesozoic perfumes no man before had ever smelled.
He breathed deeply of this Cretaceous air, both attracted and repelled, and
felt—or imagined he felt—immensely invigorated. He pulled out a small
bottle, opened it to the air around him, and then sealed it, a first sample. He
looked once more towatd land and saw a faint surf painting white streaks on
the distant beach. Fatther inland stood high mountains, and one of them
trailed a thin plume of black smoke and ash, the atmospheric signature of an
active volcano.
Yet these were but the briefest of impressions before a new sight cap-
tured his attention. Movement caught his eye, and he stared up into a sky
full of wonder—winged wonder—for above him wheeled great apparitions of
scale and fur, that could only be pterosauts. These bat-like creatures, some-
how simultaneously monstrous and benign, were flying—not gliding—
majestically overhead, with many smaller reptilian and avian fliers moving
more rapidly among them. He was amazed at the size of the larger reptilian
aviators; it was as though small airplanes had become sentient and now nav-
igated the sky unfetteted by human constraint. His small boat bobbed in the
swell, and our time traveler marveled as the great and small fliers skimmed
the surface for fish, or dived headlong into the sea, like great pelicans at play
in a hallucinogenic airshow.
"It would be good just to float hete," he thought, "offshore of this Meso-
zoic land, and simply watch the aetial circus above." But he had been a diver
for many years, and always the internal clock was ticking, whispering in his
