BESERK! Page 13

  Past noon, the rain came down with ferocity but the heat continued to be oppressive. The tributary they traveled had broadened wide enough to be called a river by itself. High impregnable walls of vegetation rose on either side. The usual primordial forest for centuries.

  The river turned color, dark brown silt laden. Gerald let the dugout flow with the current; the heavy rain was a mere annoyance.

  The creature’s sense was not deterred by the dark brown river water. Up on the river surface it sensed movement, like a spider in its web.

  Bubu called to attention, they had reached the spot where Joef had been attacked. Gerald killed the engine and let the vessel drift with the current.

  With slow but powerful strokes it began rising to the surface.

  Gerald did not like the brown murky water around him, especially with the unseen predator close by. He wished the water would clear.

  Below, it sensed its prey. Fragile, far smaller than itself; an easy target.

  Suddenly the murky river spooked Gerald; involuntarily he yanked the motor into action. The dugout shot forward unbalancing all the men.

  In a single swift movement it lunged at its prey. The ten-foot croc did not have a chance. Within seconds the mighty jaws crushed the reptile killing it instantly. With lazy elegance it stuffed its prey, head first down its huge mouth. Belly full of croc and previously eaten gorilla, it submerged to the bottom.

  The men looked bewildered at Gerald. He avoided their glance. What had made him spooky? He could not show his nervousness for they would not rally under him. He killed the engine once again and let it drift.

  Bubu sat contented, he was glad Gerald was spooked. It meant he was beginning to believe in the beast. He knew they had passed the accident site by miles. He also knew the dead man’s brother was trying to gain respect from his men. He wasn’t doing well as Joef but he was trying.

  At dawn, the next day they continued down the river for an hour or so till it got fast and nasty. Ahead was a waterfall, moving the dugout carefully; they reached a spot where the river had stashed a lot of flotsam against a margin of protruding rocks.

  Immediately Gerald ordered a search among the flotsam. Sometime later a Bkangalasi came up with a piece of wood, a piece of the motorized dugout.

  Evidence was all over it. The vessel hadn’t crashed; it had been crushed effortlessly, like a chewed toothpick. No hippo could do it. These bites weren’t two punctured marks but clean serrated marks like those on a bone. Only this was not a bone, it was several inches thick palm wood. Neither a croc could do it, crocs cannot chew. A croc grasps its prey and rolls over and over, twisting, till they tear off a morsel to swallow it whole. They cannot splinter wood so effortlessly.

  What had done it? Gerald suddenly felt panic set in him. The waterfall tumbled into a space of nearly thirty foot before it hit the jungle floor. Its sound was deafening. And the river was not navigable. Securing the vessel, they combed downstream on foot.

  By dusk they were exhausted and their efforts, fruitless. Gerald decided to set camp for the night on land. Early next morning they would leave of Nbokele. In reality Gerald did not want a nocturnal encounter with whatever worked on the crushed dugout.

  Early next morning he whipped the dugout to its highest speed. He had to leave these waters as soon as possible. Bubu hunched down in satisfaction, now everybody would believe him. He idly watched the dark kerosene exhaust emitting from the dugout.

  Deep below in the river bed the creature was aware of the movement above. Scenting the unpalatable kerosene odor it let the swift moving prey pass unmolested.

  Chapter 4: The Behemoth

  The splintered dugout was examined by Cathy and her team of experts at the camp. The skeptics were checking the tooth marks, making sure they were natural. It would take them a few hours, Gerald and Bubu stood in the back ground. The father had taken the misfortune bravely. Till no corpse was found all harbored optimistic hopes. Gerald also noticed his father had grown pensive, this worried him.

  At last the NIBSians were ready to give their verdict. The lab technician began. “We have taken saliva samples from the wood; the results confirm that it is reptilian.”

  “But no croc can splinter wood like a toothpick! Not this type of wood,” began Cathy, speaking aloud. “Unless a hyena is crossed with a croc!”

  There was feeble laughter in the tent.

  “This is no laughing matter!” A voice spoke and everybody in the tent turned their sights on Louis. “Yes there is something out there,” he continued, “something huge, a behemoth…a dinosaur!”

  The NIBSians stared at him like he had gone insane. Gerald touched his father’s arm but the old man brushed it off.

  “This thing, we are dealing with…” he started, “is a dinosaur—a mosasaur. These dinosaurs or aquatic lizards were about ten to twelve meters in length. Mosasaurs were many times the size of our modern day crocs. They had powerful jaws and sharp teeth. They fed mainly on shell fish which had turtle-like hard shells. Yet, these reptiles would crush them effortlessly and eat the soft flesh within the shells...”

  Louis stopped to catch his breath.

  The silence in the tent was attentive. Cathy was the first to speak; she spoke with patience as if to a child. “And what makes you say so Mr. Belfour? Have you seen it?”

  They all stared incredulously at him when he nodded. Gerald quickly realized his father’s scheme. His father had not given up hopes, the best way to find Joef was a massive air hunt. The Belfours did not have such kind of resource but the NIBSians did. Cathy would set search for the dinosaur but indirectly the search would cover Joef’s disappearance. Clever Old Man!

  “How can this mosasaur survive for million of years?” She started. “Don’t give me the Rainforest Unexplored Theory and Surviving Dinosaurs...” she continued her tirade, her patience waning. “We have enough crackpots with such idiocy!”

  Gerald felt anger burn his cheeks, he fell silent, as his father began speaking.

  “But aren’t crocs the descendants of dinosaurs?” Started Louis, his patience not waning. “In fact crocs are dinosaurs with identical physiology! Through the ages of evolution the dinosaur grow fitter and better equipped to adapt to the surroundings. Their genes passed on to the next generation and the next till it was perfected. Let’s not forget,” continued the croc expert, “while all other dinosaurs grew extinct the croc survived and thrived. It means that the croc is an heir of all dinosaurs’ traits. If this can be agreed on surely it is possible that the genes of some crocs, for some freak accident of nature reversed-the-gene-sequence. And this freak accident of nature reversed the gene sequence and a mosasaur is born....”

  He rested, before going on further. “Aren’t there cases of perfect and even handsome human couples having children with the likeness of an ape? After all humans are direct descendents of primates, are we not? The theory of Reversal of Gene sequence was put forward by world renowned Biologist Opirtita, and was supported by many....”

  “That was a very good hypothesis Mr. Belfour!” Cathy said genuinely. “But I think you claimed to have seen this... dinosaur.... this Mosasaur...”

  “Sure Ms Jodliker... I have seen it and also touched it. In fact I watched it emerging from the egg.”

  Now everyone in the tent was staring at him in bewilderment.

  “About five-six years ago, it was breeding season of the crocs. The river banks were abundant with croc’s nest. I would move through them watching, studying and recording, but careful of mama croc. At one particular spot, I was in time to see a mother carrying away a few of her hatchlings. As she moved away I began inspecting the nest, two eggs cracked and young crocs emerged, one of it was peculiar, eel-like. It had no distinct trunk, just a head attached to a long tail. A deformity, I presumed but then I realized I was wrong, I was watching a mutation, a completely new species of reptiles. For this little fellow had no clawed feet like an ordinary croc, it had paddles like the appendages of a crab
. I was fascinated, I knew I had to have it, protect it, for it may have not survived in the wild. I tried to grab the little fellow but it turned to me with gaping jaws...” He stopped to take his breath and Gerald observed that none in the tent had shifted.

  Tiredly Louis began, “Even being little as eight inches it was aggressive. Its jaws in particular were perilous, delicate porcelain white teeth but razor sharp. I grabbed it like a snake, behind its head and watched closely. Engrossed in my find, I had got careless. Mama croc stole from behind and grabbed my ankle. I dropped the little dinosaur as she twisted my leg breaking it in two places. I grabbed a stick and jabbed her in her eyes, only then she let go of me. Had it not been concern for her clutch, she would surely have killed me.”

  For a full minute all eyes were on him then he was assaulted with questions.

  x x x

  The red and silver Maule skyrocket M-6, a biplane droned in the bright blue cloudless sky. Below lay the sprawling dark green rainforest interlaced with brown-blue ribbons of water.

  Inside the biplane Bubu sat behind the pilot. Opposite to him were Gerald and Cathy. A technician hovered around them setting up the sonar.

  Two monitor screens were placed before them one receiving the sonar readings and the other filming the landscape below. The camera and the sonar receiver were mounted under the craft between the two floaters.

  It had taken just two days for Cathy to acquire the accessories for the mosasaur-hunt, Behemoth-Hunt they named it. She and her team had drilled Louis for hours; only when she was convinced did she contact her HQ in Seattle. The process was set in progress. All they needed was a day to get through customs and red tape. The equipment which arrived was again all state-of-the-art. For they knew the discovery of such a beast would get them world wide acclaim.

  The technician asked Cathy to order the pilot to fly lower for the sonar to function efficiently. It could track the mosasaur underwater, like tracking a submarine. The sonar was programmed to pick up images of sizes over fifteen-foot.

  “Get her lower.” Cathy ordered the pilot. The biplane banked lower towards the river.

  x x x

  It was late noon; Louis sat poring over a tome. He wanted all possible information on dinosaurs. A particular sentence caught his eye; Mosasaurs leaped from below, high above the water surface to pluck prey out off the skies…

  For a moment Louis stared at the sentence. It meant trouble for the mosasaur-hunters; they had taken a biplane—an Amphibian. Such a craft was meant to land on the water and fly several feet above the river. The mosasaur-hunters assumed this reptile had the characteristic of a crocodile. If this reptile was truly a mosasaur, then the hunters were in trouble. He had to radio them.

  Chapter 5: The Behemoth

  The noon heat inside the plane was stifling when the sonar picked up a signal from the river. Something was moving below, the river had broadened and deepened. Silent feverish excitement grew in the plane. The river was swift and murky, brown with sediments. The yellowish elongated dash on the sonar screen moved in unison with them.

  “Go slower.” Cathy ordered, her eyes fixed on the screen “And lower.” She added.

  The pilot expertly maneuvered the aircraft below the tree tops. A dark shadow began forming beneath the water. Their sights moved from the sonar screen to the camera mounted screen. Slowly, they could discern its length; it was over twenty-foot long.

  “Lower...” she ordered. The biplane dipped and continued to keep the low altitude. Now its entire length of over twenty-foot, and its six-foot, dark gray, smooth girth was visible.

  “Down…down.” She croaked her voice feverish with excitement.

  The creature raised its ugly huge croc-like head above the surface of the water. Just then the radio crackled to life. “Come in …Maule M-6…Come in…over.”

  Gerald recognized his father’s voice. But like the others he was caught up in fascination with the brute below.

  Once again Cathy ordered the plane lower.

  Once again Louis’ voice came over the radio

  “Maule M-6 here…over.” The pilot answered.

  “Maule M-6, have you found it…? Over.”

  The brute was rising, looking terrible but fantastic like a submarine, water streaming off its back.

  “Yeah pa…,” Gerald began but Cathy snatched the radio and spoke curtly, “Listen Nbokele we will talk to you later…over.”

  “Listen Maule M-6…” Louis’ voice came over, urgency fraught in his voice. “Whatever you do don’t fly below the tree tops…I repeat, Maule M-6, whatever you do don’t fly below the tree tops… over.”

  “Why Nbokele...? Why…? Over.”Cathy asked.

  “Just do it. Maule M-6... Just do it.” Alarm rising in his voice.

  Gerald looked at Cathy. “Do it ... do it,” she ordered. She had begun to trust the old man’s intuition.

  The pilot pulled back the throttle and the craft lifted sharply. Instantly a dull reptilian bellow sounded from below. The river surface broke as it hurled itself after its fleeing prey. Its jaws just managed to clamp on one of the biplane’s floater.

  The craft shuddered violently, tilting nearly to one side. Then it began to descent, weighed down by the metric tonne body.

  The occupants in the craft fell to one side, experiencing acute fear in the descent. Somewhere along the fall, they heard a metallic crunch as the floater gave way. With the severed piece of floater still in its jaws the monster began falling into the water.

  The occupants felt weightless, instantly. The pilot grasped the throttle trying to get the craft in line.

  The monster hit the river with a tremendous splash, Twin walls of water rose like tidal waves, smashing against the tiny craft. The biplane quivered with the impact in the air and miraculously landed on its single floater. The pilot eased the craft on the river surface like an expert water skier.

  The monster twisted around and turned to give chase to the fleeting craft. These few seconds of delay were precious to the craft, it rose to take off.

  The monster reached sniffing distance, stretching full length to catch the airborne craft. But like all its crocodilian-kind it had overexerted itself, so the second leap was out of the question. Yet, it chased the craft from below in the river, exhibiting itself in full profile to the occupants.

  They watched it with fear and fascination. The enormous crocodilian snout measuring over seven-foot long, yawning jaws lined with rows of dagger-like teeth. Its girth at the thickest was six-foot which tapered to the end in two-foot at the thinnest.

  The complete torso moved through the water in quick knots. It eyes were dark yellow and the size of baseballs, its grayish paddles were the size of mini airplane wings. The river seemed to have shrunk before its enormous size.

  Gradually it began to immerse into the river, defeated.

  All sat silent in the craft, too shocked. Slowly, Gerald placed a hand on the pilot’s shoulder, a thankful gesture. The radio crackled, actively. “Maule M-6 come in, Maule M-6 come in ... over.”

  “Yes... Maule M-6... here, over,” answered the pilot immediately.

  “What was it? Everything’s ok Maule M-6... Over,” asked the radio.

  “Fine Nbokele…fine, we are returning back. Over,” answered the shaken pilot. Leaving the tributary, they headed back to camp. This time he kept the aircraft high above the jungle canopy

  x x x

  There was no visible sign of shock on Cathy. A little later she called for a private NIBSian meeting.

  She then summoned Gerald, Louis and Bubu for a separate meeting. As expected, she was going after the mosasaur, to trap it alive and show it to the world. She said it would be a major discovery, sure to create havoc in the world of science. It would give the paleontologists a closer look at the missing link in the evolution of dinosaurs through this mosasaur. She spoke as if she was doing science a favor.

  Then it was their turn to be showered with her favor, coupled with a condition
. She promised the three of them a good amount of cash on the announcement of the discovery. But they had to keep it a secret till then. The NIBsians, Belfours and Bubu would be the only parties to know of the existence of the living mosasaur. Secrecy was the key to their success.

  Then she grew grim and began speaking about the funds. NIBS would have to pour funds into this project and how she would have to twist arms to get the funds...

  Gerald was ready to puke at her talks. She sounded as if she was into charity work. Funds would be invested not poured. Anything invested was meant to get returns in two folds, three folds... several folds.

  Cathy and her kin—the NIBS would put out this reptile like a circus. Mere exhibition fee would comfortably cover the invested funds, besides other innumerable perks. The mosasaur was hundred times better than a gold mine. It would be a money-spinner.

  So when Gerald asked for a seven figure cheque, she agreed and promised to put it on paper as soon as she was ready

  x x x

  Within a day a patch of land was cleared close to the mosasaur territory. The timber acquired was utilized to build a shed, a makeshift HQ. This would house the huge amount of electronic equipment to arrive. It would be the nerve centre in this mosasaur hunt and would be referred to as Behemoth-Hunt or simply B-H for security reasons.

  Three days later a huge contingent of goods arrived sans the manpower. After all, Secrecy was the key! The Bkangalashis, NIBsians and Belfours burdened their shoulders like menial laborers.

  A temporary electrified fence was erected around the camp. This was mainly as a deterrent for natives and rogue animals rather than theft. Dish antennas mushroomed all over the place. Dark power cables snaked all over threatening to trip anyone with a careless step.

  Six unmanned cameras festooned strategic trees all along the river banks sending live pictures of the mosasaur habitat. Again, these cameras were imprisoned in electrified cages, as a deterrent.

  Six monitors always stayed wide-eyed in the makeshift HQ to show the mosasaur’s antics. Each of the NIBsians took a six hour watch round the clock.

  Chapter 6: The Behemoth