DS02 Night of the Dragonstar Read Free

time.”
    Lorkner did his job quickly, while Lindstrom raced around the dead though still twitching thing, snapping the pictures she needed of the deformities.
    “There’s something coming!” Penovich cried.
    With surprising calm, Mikaela helped Lorkner dump the bagged body into the back of the OTV, then jumped into the back seat, arms smeared with blood. Lorkner was right behind her. He jumped behind the wheel, started the engine, and sped the car away.
    Several creatures broke from the clearing, running toward the fallen Iguanodon to get their share of the easily obtained feast.
    Lorkner closed the bubble top this time, even though they were in no apparent danger. “Who knows?” he said in a whisper. “That thing’s brother may be lurking around.” He couldn’t contain a shudder as he looked down at his arms, smeared with Hagermann’s blood.
    “I’ve never seen anything like that before, Dr. Penovich,” Mikaela said after taking a deep breath.
    Dr. Penovich simply stared ahead in kind of a numb trance, clearly not hearing his colleague.
    “Something is wrong,” Mikaela said, the tears beginning to come. “Something is dreadfully wrong here.”

2028 A.D. — Washington, D.C.

    The Washington Sheraton Hotel on Connecticut and Woodley Northwest was the unofficial site of most official IASA conference functions and social affairs interfacing with the U.S. government. It was the natural choice for Colonel Phineas Kemp’s press conference, two months after the ‘Dragonstar War’, as it had come to be known by the media.
    Phineas Kemp was by nature a man who preferred getting around under his own steam; but because of the peculiar situation, and the attention he was getting, his IASA superiors had insisted that he arrive in a limousine, along with an armed guard.
    “What we’ve got here, Phineas, is an ostentatious affair, so you’ve got to forget about your Volkswagen,” General Mitchell Hopper had told him tersely. “Besides, with the amount of publicity this business has been getting, there’s no telling what crazed antievolutionist is out there, ready to shoot you for the Devil.”
    “I just want the announcement to be heard by everyone, and I want to make the press conference as short as possible,” Kemp had said. “I’m going to leave it to my documentary to straighten out the whole picture. In the end, the show will be what people and posterity will remember, not all of this nonsensical hype that’s been going on.”
    “You can’t expect people to find out that an alien artifact is floating around in the solar system, that it may be the factory for life as we know it on this planet, and not be curious,” Colonel Waterford said in his soft but clear voice. “We’ve been feeding them only the barest facts and a few pictures, and look at all the furor that’s been caused. I for one wish we could dispense with the whole story right now.”
    “Don’t you understand, Colonel?” Kemp’s gray eyes blazed above his no-nonsense features. “This isn’t something that people are going to accept with just a story and some pictures. This may well change the course of human history. If the people of the world are not properly informed, God knows what they’re going to make of it.”
    “And you’re going to be the one to tell them, eh Phineas?” A dim smile played over Waterford’s bland features. “Center stage.”
    “That’s my duty as I see it,” Phineas replied curtly. “I was there. I have the command and the authority and the sources. This is what the board has decided. The project has been underway for the past month, and now that we have set a date, we can announce it and perhaps dispel some of the controversy.”
    Waterford shook his head. “Haven’t changed a bit since you were last Earthside, have you, Phin?”
    Damn the man! thought Phineas Kemp as the sleek, chauffeur-driven car eased up the horseshoe driveway to the front entrance of the Sheraton. Gus Waterford had always