Dusk falls on the jungle. Ferns the size of cars sway in gentle breeze. Giant insects never seen by human eyes buzz and swarm, some drawn to the warmth of evening flower blossoms, others searching for cold reptilian blood. Four small moons float in the sky, low over a river that snakes past rocky banks.
There are fires on the pebble-covered beaches tonight. Around them huddle shapes large and small, feathery and scaled, two-legged and four. Sometimes one of them moves from one fire to another. They speak, but not in ways that could be heard by human ears, were any present. The ideas that pass between them are bladed, tense, on edge.
In the middle of the makeshift gathering place is a boulder, the space around it conspicuously empty.
There is a splash on the other side of the river. The murmur of thoughts quiets as all eyes turn to see who is approaching.
The figure that emerges from the water and shakes itself dry is not the one that any of them are expecting. Short grey feathers cover most of the bipedal body, with turquoise-and-red crests on the head and elbows. Golden eyes reflect the dancing light of the fires, eyes that can see… more.
A tracker.
You have nothing to fear from me, they say as they pick their way across the rocky beach. I am unarmed.
As if that would matter. All trackers are vulnerable. The dinosaurs gathered around the fires regard the tracker with a mix of emotions: mockery, greed, skepticism, hunger.
The tracker does their best to project an air of confidence, but they know that they have everything to fear. They reach the boulder and flutter-climb to the top.
The only sound is the crackle of fires and the quiet burble of the shallow river.
We have not come to fight. We have not come to bargain. The tracker punctuates the thoughts with small vocal chirps. We have come to explain a relationship.
The intruders came to take, they say simply. We trackers can sense more than you can. We have more of what they want. So we are the first to be taken. But we are not the only ones who have. And when we are gone, who will be the next?
Ideas ripple across the gathering:
There will always be those with more sight than me.
These “intruders” have brought us together against our dependency upon you and your kind, tracker.
They are from somewhere that is not here, but they are not intruders. They offer us wonders that have never been seen in our world, and they have much more to give us — and more to give us than you do.
Not long ago, the tracker interrupts, we were one people, regardless of our gifts. Now you trade us to the strangers and are rewarded with tools of death. We cannot fight you. You will wipe us out, or enslave us, and all that will happen is that our kind — you, us, all — will lose the abilities that would allow us to fight back.
Again:
The intruders mean us no harm. They only want you. And we can exchange you for many, many amazing things.
You are only here to beg. You are pitiful, and a disgrace to our kind. We should rip you feather from bone.
The tracker smiles. They project an aura of calm and peace that they do not feel. And then they reveal the image in their mind: a figure who looks not so dissimilar from the intruders, standing upright on two legs, but who also bears a certain semblance to the giant reptiles assembled here.
A mental shockwave at the obscene vision washes over the whole riverbank. Rage that something so profane could be invoked, but, buried beneath, dismay that such an obvious parallel could be drawn, or so unambiguously pointed out.
Remember the chains we broke in ages past, and who forged them. The tracker surveys the crowd, grimly pleased with their work. We do not need to trade who we are for what the intruders have to offer, they say. If we remain who we are, together, we can take anything we want.
A single question takes shape: How?
The tracker closes their eyes and looks, and sees. The intruders’ world is not so far from our own, they reply, reassured. We see the ripples in the interstice that their travels make, and soon we will be able to follow them. We can take the weapons they have used to divide us and claim whatever we want.
You trackers are only trying to stay useful, says a large segment of doubt. This is only a trick to put off your own deaths.
The tracker gives what may as well be a shrug. Are those who gather food less important than those who raise the young? We all have gifts. We seek only to remind you that we can be your weapons. Why would you lay down your weapons in exchange for chains?
The tracker continues. We have seen the ways they use to cross to our world, and followed them nearly the whole way back. They paint a picture of a path through probability, one that any of them could walk. Once or twice more, and we will know the hidden steps to walk. And you will have far more interesting things to hunt than trackers.
Those encamped around the fires trade thoughts and feelings and ideas. Is this a trap? Can we trust them? Why should we? What if they are correct? We can always overpower them if they are lying.
A thought coalesces: Perhaps we have nothing to lose but our chains.
The tracker hops down off the boulder, satisfied, as a clap of thunder sounds in the distance. Planting the seed of unity was the easy part, but also the most important; with the course of probability altered, action will flow naturally from this point. As they make their way down to the water’s edge they can feel the approval of both the gathering they addressed and the band of other trackers that waits at a safe distance across the river. What luck, the trackers think, that we have thought of this strategy.
Deep beneath the foundations of the mountain where the trackers make their own camp, a single humanoid covered in scales, sitting crosslegged, sinks to the floor of a cave and exhales and opens their eyes, before disappearing to somewhere else altogether.
Hello hello!
Dinosaurs and reptilians and psychic vitamins oh my! I’d planned on putting this episode later in the season but I was getting bored and it seems like a good week for psychic dinos so here we are.
As far as generative ai “art” goes, the debate rages on, but Adobe’s Firefly (which is free to use) is at least trained on Adobe Stock, meaning the actual artists and photographers have (theoretically, at least) given their consent to being included in Adobe’s data set, and its output is pretty decent. So that’s better than not. [I’d rather use real human-made photos, but I had a hard time of finding good photos of dinosaurs.]
I hope you (the reader) are doing great! Thank you, as always, for reading, and I’ll see you again soon!
:: Jaer