The Dinosaur Hunters Read online

  “Ha!” Renton, or possibly Matfield, said. “Just our luck. Stuck for a week on this blasted flying balloon, then torn out of the sky by some wretched flying lizard.”

  “The airship is quite safe,” the captain assured him. “The balloon is reinforced and impervious to their claws or beaks. But anyone on the viewing platform might be vulnerable.”

  “You know we’re out here hunting dinosaurs?” the young man said with a laugh. “We’re not exactly scared of a few flapping reptiles. Wouldn’t mind taking a potshot on the way past, though.”

  “If you please,” the captain insisted, holding open the door.

  “We should get back,” Bertrand whispered into Harriet’s ear. “I shouldn’t leave the countess’s room unwatched. Not until we’ve caught the confounded thief.”

  With a suppressed sigh, Harriet turned away.

  Inside, the ship’s automatic servants were lined up in a glittering metal row. Sir Angus Cameron, the newspaper proprietor, had emerged from his cabin and appeared to be haranguing the young journalist, Neville Seymour.

  “Might I suggest that you pack whatever you wish to take from the airship?” the captain said, as he closed the door to the viewing platform. “The expedition has a base set up in the Wall, and those of you going on the hunt itself will descend to the ground this evening. The automatic servants are available to help, should anyone wish to make use of them.”

  “You go,” Bertrand said in a quiet voice. “Pack my stuff too, if you don’t mind. I want to keep an eye on the countess’s room until I know she’s got her baggage.”

  Harriet hadn’t brought much with her, just the few changes of boy’s clothes that she’d been able to lay her hands on without raising Amy’s suspicions. Harriet had seen the way Matfield and Renton had sneered at her when they’d realized she only had a couple of outfits, but there were few things Harriet cared less about than their opinion, and anyway, they’d reserved most of their contempt for Neville Seymour, who’d been wearing the same jacket since they’d boarded. Harriet had almost felt sorry for him, even though he was her rival.

  Within five minutes Harriet had packed her and Bertrand’s trunks and handed them off to the automatic servants.

  “Anything?” she asked as she rejoined Bertrand.

  He shook his head. “They’re all in their own cabins.”

  Harriet hadn’t expected the Glass Phantom to strike on the airship. If she’d been the thief, she would have waited until the dinosaur hunt was underway and everyone’s attention was distracted.

  “I think it’s that Baron de Sorville,” Bertrand said. “He’s always hanging around the countess.”

  “Maybe,” Harriet said. She’d be disappointed if it was. She didn’t think the Glass Phantom would be so obvious.

  “I’ve a good mind to arrest him right now.”

  “On what charge?”

  Bertrand glared around the lounge. “Just … because. Come on, Harry. Don’t you think he looks guilty?”

  The door to the lounge opened, and the countess emerged, arm-in-arm with Baron de Sorville and followed by her maid, Maria.

  The Great Wall was approaching, filling the forward windows like a bank of storm clouds. The airship had been descending for the last hour, and now the Wall loomed dark and massive ahead of them. This close, Harriet could see cracks and openings in the smooth rock of the Wall.

  “Why are we coming in so low?” Harriet asked. They were a good hundred yards below the top of the Wall.

  “The winds sweep up the side of the Wall,” said Major Beaumont, his heavy jowls shaking as he puffed out the words. “Too high up and the turbulence can throw an airship out of the sky.”

  “You’ve done this trip before, then?” Bertrand asked.

  “My fifth hunt,” the major huffed. “Winged a gnarly old Triceratops my first time out. Trying to bag the beast ever since. Magnificent horns and shield on it. Plan to mount them over my fireplace. Ha!”

  Mrs. Patterson sniffed. “I always thought the Triceratops terribly common. Our neighbor, Mr. Casson, has a Triceratops head.”

  “Not like this one, madam,” Major Beaumont snorted. “Not like this one, I assure you.”

  The airship juddered in the air. Its propellers whined.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Patterson demanded, turning to her husband. “What’s happening, Harold?”

  Mr. Patterson shrank down. His face had turned white.

  “It’s the wind,” the major said. “It’s lifting us.”

  Through the windows, the Great Wall seemed to be falling away, as though crumbling at its base. The airship shook and turned in the air as the captain fought to keep it level.

  “You might want to hold onto something,” the major said.

  Harriet steadied herself on a nearby table. They were ascending more and more rapidly. She swallowed to stop her eardrums popping.

  “This is where it gets interesting!” the major shouted. A moment later, the Wall fell away below and the airship was flung up into the sky, spinning around like a loose top. Harriet grabbed tighter to the table as the violent motion threatened to throw her from her feet. Bertrand sprawled to his knees, and he wasn’t the only one. For a moment, it seemed as though their airship was tumbling free, like a tossed stone, arcing through the air to inevitably fall back to earth. Then the airship’s propellers gained traction and slowly the airship steadied. When Harriet pulled herself over to the windows, she saw that they had passed over the Great Wall. Beyond, the Amenthes Peninsula stretched away further than she could see, rising and falling in a rumpled quilt of green and cut through by glittering blue rivers and lakes. Far in the haze of the horizon, hills rose.

  “My apologies, ladies and gentlemen.” The captain’s voice emerged from a speaking tube in the ceiling. “The winds are particularly strong today. We’ll be descending to our docking point in a couple of minutes. Enjoy your hunt!”

  The far side of the Great Wall was quite different to the side they’d approached from. Enormous elliptical openings dotted the Wall every few hundred yards, and the openings themselves must have been a good fifty yards across. As their airship descended past one, Harriet caught sight of an airship moored inside.

  “We’re not the only ones here!” she said.

  “Indeed not,” Professor Riemann said. “The Great Wall was once inhabited, thousands of years ago, and it is riddled with chambers and passages. There are several teams of archaeologists working within it.”

  “Can’t see the blasted point,” Matfield, or Renton, said. “Why spend your life poking around some moldy old wall when you could be shooting dinosaurs on the other side?”

  “The point, young man, is artifacts,” said the professor.

  Renton, or Matfield, snorted. “Thought they were all in the dragon tombs in the desert. That’s what they told us when we went up to Lunae City anyway.”

  The professor lifted his chin. “It is true that most Ancient Martian artifacts have been recovered from the dragon tombs of Lunae Planum. The dry desert air preserves them, and it seems the Ancient Martians delighted in filling their tombs with their greatest mechanisms. Here, storms batter the Great Wall through much of the year and the air is humid so most artifacts have decayed, but I understand that there are still some to be found deep in the Wall, and those are valuable.”

  “Valuable?” Mrs. Patterson laughed. “As though those primitives could have anything worth finding.”

  Those primitives, Harriet thought, had built a wall big enough to swallow any of Earth’s cities without a trace. Their artifacts were basis of every technological advancement in the last hundred years. Those primitives had had a civilization greater than any on Earth.

  “Ah!” Major Beaumont called. “Looks like we’re here!”

  The airship had come to a halt, hovering in front of one of the wide, elliptical openings in the Wall. Inside, a line of bright lights burned. The airship turned, and within minutes, it had docked inside the cavernous opening. With a
last sigh, the propellers disengaged. The automatic servants moved forward to crank down the gangway in the middle of the lounge. Humid air rolled over Harriet, and she took a deep breath. This high above the wilderness, all she could catch was a slight hint of the rich, damp, spicy smells of vegetation below, but even so, it tasted wonderful. I could live out here, she thought. Compared to the claustrophobic staleness of Tharsis City with people pressed in on every side, watching everything she did, this was freedom. Dinosaurs don’t care how you dress. The storm hawks don’t care if you speak out of turn.

  The gangway hit the floor of the docking bay with a clang, revealing a single figure outlined by the landing lights. The man was tall and broad shouldered, carrying the kind of muscle only seen on those who grew up in the higher gravity of Earth. If Harriet had had to guess, she would have put him at a good ten years older than Bertrand.

  “Who the devil are you?” the major demanded, stepping onto the gangway. “Where’s Perkins? He leads the hunts.”

  “Mr. Perkins,” the man said, “was killed by a Megalosaurus last month. My name is Stanley Scott. I’m his replacement. You must be Major Beaumont.”

  The major harrumphed. “Always thought Perkins was more careful than that.”

  Harriet tried to catch Bertrand’s eye. Scott was old enough to be the Glass Phantom, and he’d turned up here unexpectedly. But Bertrand was too busy gaping around the cavern.

  “The automatic servants will bring your luggage,” Scott said, pacing back and forth with a compressed-air gun slung over one shoulder – prowling, Harriet thought. “Rooms have been prepared for you in the Wall. All of them have excellent views out over the peninsula. I must caution you, however, that you may not stray from the lighted areas. The Great Wall is a restricted area, by agreement of the Martian governments. There are alarms at all exits, and we are only allowed to use this section for the hunts on the condition that everyone remains within at all times.”

  He dropped his gun into both hands. “This is for your own safety. The interior of the Wall is dark, crumbling, and dangerous. Things from the wilderness have taken up residence in places. It would be highly dangerous to stray.

  “For those of you who are intending to take part in the hunt itself, we will be descending to our camp at the base of the Wall this evening. I’ve been tracking a pack of Coelophysis for the last week. They should prove an excellent introduction to the hunt. They are fast, vicious, and intelligent, but they are small and not an enormous threat if you keep your heads. If you need to borrow weapons, please talk to me. Those of you who will not be hunting will have the opportunity to observe dinosaurs in safety from our viewing lodge tomorrow.” He nodded. “Thank you. Be ready in two hours.”

  One of the automatic servants led Harriet and Bertrand down a hallway that had been cut from the slick rock of the Wall toward their rooms. Harriet had no idea how the passageways had been lit when the Wall had been built, thousands of years ago – they passed a stairway that descended into unrelieved blackness – but friction lamps, powered by coiled springs, had been set at intervals along the hallway they were using.

  Scott was a complication she didn’t need. Another potential suspect to add to an airship full. He didn’t seem like a jewel thief. But wouldn’t that be the point? Anyway, so far no one had seemed like a jewel thief.

  Harriet’s room was the third along. As the automatic servant placed her trunk beside her bed, she made her way across to the wide window of her room and peered out. Far below, the green wilderness stretched to the horizon. Harriet squinted to see if she could catch a glimpse of the mighty reptiles that roamed the peninsula, but from this high she couldn’t spot anything. She hurried across to her trunk to dig out her spyglass.

  The countess had made it quite clear that she wouldn’t be taking part in the actual hunt. She’d be waiting for the next day to fly out to the viewing lodge and observe the dinosaurs in comfort. That meant Harriet and Bertrand would have to stay too. It made Harriet want to shout in frustration. She’d come here to catch the Glass Phantom, but now she was here, all she wanted to do was get down there into the wilderness. Not to hunt the dinosaurs, but to walk on the same ground as them, smell the same smells, feel the same rain on her back. Be as free.

  She wished the Glass Phantom would just get on with it.

  A scream echoed from the corridor outside. Harriet froze, her heart suddenly pounding.

  Well. That was quicker than she’d expected. Unless something horrific had crawled out of the Wall. She shivered and wished she’d brought a weapon.

  The door burst open, making Harriet’s heart leap again, and Bertrand appeared. His hair was disheveled and his eyes wide. “Come on, Harry!”

  Harriet took off in pursuit. They dashed down the long hallway and into the docking bay. Most of the rest of the party were already there, clustered around the countess, although Harriet noticed that the young men, Matfield and Renton, were missing, and Major Beaumont was only just arriving behind them, his wide face red. The Baron de Sorville was hanging solicitously on the countess’s arm, and the countess’s maid, Maria, hovered white-faced behind her.

  “What is it?” Bertrand demanded. “What’s happened?”

  “My jewels!” the countess said. “My necklace! It is gone.”

  For a moment, Bertrand just stood there, his mouth gaping open.

  Harriet nudged him. “You’re up.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a policeman. Remember?”

  Bertrand blinked. “Ah. Yes.” He cleared his throat and peered around the gathered group. “Ladies and gentlemen. If you please?”

  Faces turned toward Bertrand and his face reddened. “Ah…”

  “What do you have to say for yourself, young man?” the countess demanded. “Do you know where my jewels are?”

  “I am very sorry to inform you,” Bertrand said, his voice shaking slightly, “that your necklace has been stolen by the Glass Phantom.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Matfield, or possibly Renton, snorted. “You’re making up stories.”

  “I am an inspector in the Tharsis City Police Force,” Bertrand said. “I know what I’m talking about. It was my job to find the Glass Phantom and prevent the theft of the necklace.”

  “And how’s that going?” the other young man said with a laugh.

  Bertrand reddened further.

  Damnation! Harriet had hoped they would uncover the Glass Phantom before he or she struck so Bertrand would never find himself in this situation. Now that he was, he was making a hash of it.

  “You need to search them,” she hissed.

  Bertrand glanced around. “What?”

  “You have to search them and their luggage.”

  Bertrand’s jaw dropped. “I can’t search the ladies!” He frowned. Then his eyes lit up. “Perhaps you…”

  “No,” Harriet said firmly. To do that, she would have to reveal herself as a girl. It would completely spoil her disguise and ruin her plan to save them. It wasn’t an option. “Ask the ladies to search each other.”

  In any case, Harriet didn’t believe for a second that they would find the stolen necklace so easily. The Glass Phantom had eluded Napoleon’s spies and half the police forces of Earth. He – or she – wouldn’t have the jewels hidden in their luggage or stashed in a pocket.

  And she was right. She and Bertrand spent over two hours carrying out a thorough search of the airship and their rooms in the Wall, but to no avail. The necklace had vanished.

  “The problem is,” Harriet said, as she helped Bertrand repack the last trunk, “the thief might not even have the necklace anymore. They might just as easily have tossed it out the airship or into one of those dark staircases in the Wall to retrieve it later.”

  “I don’t even know how he did it, Harry,” Bertrand said “I mean, I know no one went into the countess’s cabin without her being present.”

  “Except her maid,” Harriet said.

  “You think it was the ma
id?”

  Harriet shrugged. “Could have been. Or it could have been someone else entirely. The Glass Phantom is clever.”

  “But I’m not.” Bertrand drooped. “We’re not going to manage this, are we? I know what will happen if I come back empty-handed and the Glass Phantom gets away again. I’ll be finished. I’m just not clever enough for this.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Harriet said. “I’ll help, and our thief isn’t going anywhere. He’s stuck in the Wall like the rest of us.”

  “Are you done?” the major called across the docking bay. “Can we get on with the dashed hunt now?”

  Well, Harriet corrected herself. Maybe not stuck in the Wall. Maybe stuck out among the ravening dinosaurs instead.

  “Come on,” Harriet said. “We can do this. Just keep asking questions. We’ll find your thief in the end. I know it.”

  Bertrand sighed. “If you say so, Harry.” He raised his voice and called across the bay. “Lady Krakendorff. Might we have a word with you in private?”

  The countess gave Bertrand a long, cool look, then slowly made her way across the docking bay.

  “I am not accustomed,” she said, as she seated herself in a winged armchair that had been brought down from the airship, “to being summoned like a common servant.”

  Bertrand and Harriet seated themselves opposite her.

  “My apologies, my lady,” Bertrand said. “But we must ask you some questions if we are to recover your stolen jewelry. Could you tell us when you last saw your necklace?”

  The countess lifted her chin. “I took it off after dinner last night. Since then, it has been locked in a strongbox in my cabin. There is only one key, and I keep it on my person at all times.”

  Bertrand gave Harriet a pained look. She knew that look. It was the one that said Bertrand had come to the end of his ideas. Harriet jumped in before Bertrand could dry up altogether.

  “Did you notice anyone loitering around your cabin or showing particular interest in you?”

  The countess looked away. “I am accustomed to particular interest. When one occupies the station that I do, such attention is my due.”