"Where'd you come from?" Gtiitierrez asked him.
"Mongolia," Levine said. "I was at the Flaming Cliffs, in the Gobi Desert, three hours out of Ulan Bator."
"Oh? What's there?"
"John Roxton's got a dig. He found an incomplete skeleton he thought might be a new species of Velociraptor, and wanted me to have a look."
"And?"
Levine shrugged. "Roxton never really did know anatomy, He's an enthusiastic fund-raiser, but if he actually uncovers something, he's incompetent to proceed."
"You told him that?"
"Why not? It's the truth."
"And the skeleton?"
"The skeleton wasn't a raptor at all," Levine said. "Metatarsals all wrong, pubis too ventral, ischium lacking a proper obturator, and the long bones much too light. As for the skull...." He rolled his eyes. "The palatal's too thick, antorbital fenestrae too rostra], distal carida too small - oh, it goes on and on. And the trenchant ungual's hardly present. So there we are. I don't know what Roxton could have been thinking. I suspect he actually has a subspecies of Stenonychosaurus, though I haven't decided for sure."
"Stenonychosaurus?" Guitierrez said.
"Small Triassic carnivore - two meters from pes to acetabtiltim. In point of fact, a rather ordinary theropod. And Roxton's find wasn't a particularly interesting example. Although there was one curious detail. The material included an integtimental artifact - an imprint of the dinosaur's skin. That in itself is not rare. There are perhaps a dozen good skin impressions obtained so far, mostly among the Hadrosauridae. But nothing like this. Because it was clear to me that this animal's skin had some very unusual characteristics not previously suspected in dinosaurs - "
"Se?ores," the pilot said, interrupting them, "Juan Fernández Bay is ahead."
Levine said, "Circle it first, can we?"
Levine looked out the window, his expression intense again, the conversation forgotten. They were flying over jungle that extended up into the hills for miles, as far as they could see. The helicopter banked, circling the beach.
"There it is now," Guitierrez said, pointing out the window.
The beach was a clean, curving white crescent, entirely deserted in the afternoon light. To the south, they saw a single dark mass in the sand. From the air, it looked like a rock, or perhaps a large clump of seaweed. The shape was amorphous, about five feet across. There were lots of footprints around it.
"Who's been here?" Levine said, with a sigh.
"Public Health Service people came out earlier today."
"Did they do anything?" he said. "They touch it, disturb it in any way?
"I can't say," Guitierrez said.
"The Public Health Service," Levine repeated, shaking his head. "What do they know? You should never have let them near 'it, Marty."
"Hey," Guitierrez said. "I don't run this country. I did the best I could. They wanted to destroy it before you even got here. At least I managed to keep it intact until you arrived. Although I don't know how long they'll wait."
"Then we'd better get started," Levine said. He pressed the button on his mike. "Why are we still circling? We're losing light. Get down on the beach now. I want to see this thing firsthand."
Richard Levine ran across the sand toward the dark shape, his binoculars bouncing on his chest. Even from a distance, he could smell the stench of decay. And already he was logging his preliminary impressions. The carcass lay half-buried in the sand, surrounded by a thick cloud of flies. The skin was bloated with gas, which made identification difficult.
He paused a few yards from the creature, and took out his camera. Immediately, the pilot of the helicopter came up alongside him, pushing his hand down. "No permitado."
"What?"
"I am sorry, se?or. No pictures arc allowed."
"Why the hell not?" Levine said. He turned to Guitierrez, who was trotting down the beach toward them. "Marty, why no pictures? This could be an important - "
"No pictures," the pilot said again, and he pulled the camera out of Levine's hand.
"Marty, this is crazy."
"Just go ahead and make your examination," Guitierrcz said, and then he began speaking in Spanish to the Pilot, who answered sharply and angrily, waving his hands.
Levine watched a moment, then turned away. The hell with this, he thought. They could argue forever. He hurried forward, breathing through his mouth. The odor became much stronger as he approached it. Although the carcass was large he noticed there were no birds, rats, or other scavengers feeding on it. There were only flies - flies so dense they covered the skin, and obscured the outline of the dead animal.
Even so, it was clear that this had been a substantial creature, roughly the size of a cow or horse before the bloat began to enlarge it further. The dry skin had cracked in the sun and was now peeling upward, exposing the layer of runny, yellow subdermal fat beneath.
Oof, it stunk! Levine winced. He forced himself closer, directing all his attention to the animal.
Although it was the size of a cow, it was clearly not a mammal. The skin was hairless. The original skin color appeared to have been green, with a suggestion of darker striations running through it. The epidermal surface was pebbled in polygonal tubercles of varying sizes, the pattern reminiscent of the skin of a lizard. This texture varied in different parts of the animal, the pebbling larger and less distinct on the underbelly. There were prominent skin folds at the neck, shoulder, and hip joints - again, like a lizard.