Palaeontology Stories

Cronos. Part Seven. ‘Home darling,’ Brendan said when the ship was still. Audrey stretched and they went up to look at the house as it was back in 1919. ‘When was it built?’ Audrey asked as she held her arm round his waist. ‘I don’t really know. We were living here when one of my great greats fought at the Alamo.’ ‘Well it looks lovely and I’m sure that I’m going to love living here. Can we go out and look at it as it is...

Cronos. Part Six. The familiar hum came along with the slight tremor and the screen of the earth went like a television set with its snow flake effect. It then cleared to show just a haze where the Earth was and the ship was now trembling quite a bit, something they had not felt before. They were silent for a minute, the ship still moving slightly beneath them, the haze not clearing from the screen. ‘Stand by to send it b...

Cronos. Part Five. It was a whirlwind two weeks being chaperoned everywhere for the getting together of her trousseau though her escorts threw their hands up in horror when she said that she expected to honeymoon in the wilds of Argentina. Brendan’s mother had taken on the task of organising the wedding to be held on the back lawn of their stately house. Typical of their class, the back lawn they referred to was the size...

Cronos. Part Four. ‘Did you make notes when you were here last?’ he asked. ‘No, I only made sketches of the dead Brontosaurus at the site,’ she answered as she got her notebook out and thumbed through the pages. ‘Well I know I did,’ as she continued to turn over blank pages until she looked up at him with a puzzled expression. ‘But they’re not here now.’ ‘Different notebook?’ ‘No. I never took it out of my bag. I did seve...

Cronos. Part Three. Audrey, in spite of the couple of hours sleep she’d had in the ship, was tired when she dragged herself out of her tent to put in a stint at the excavation, and was glad when the lunchtime bell rang. Lunch was hurried and she was soon back in her tent for another couple of hours sleep. Getting up to see to the afternoon’s finds, cataloguing them and typing up her notes. She excused herself again straig...

The sun was very hot on her shoulders as she came out into the small clearing. She was perspiring heavily now and realised that over the past couple of hours, the temperature must have gone higher. She mulled this over as she approached the carcass and lifted the visor to see the scene change back to the exposed bones. Audrey turned and made her way back to her tent, noticing that the two men were back at the table, still...

They were on a small treeless plateau about 1700 feet above sea level, on what were the lower slopes of the Eastern side of the Andes range of mountains. The Colorado River was only a mile away in this far corner of La Pampa, Argentina. The campsite was in the form of an upside down horseshoe. On the lower left side were the two latrines, suitably screened but open to the skies, with proper toilet seats fitted to the plan...