Raptor Red Page 9

  Raptor Red has been watching the flowers too, following every movement of the young male. She's anxious. She doesn't like the mass of unknown red substance. She's not intrigued with the carrion aroma. Something else has taken over her mind, an emotion stronger than confusion and inquisitive-ness - jealousy.

  Raptor Red lifts her head very high, half closes her eyes, and makes short, loud sniffy noises. She sucks in air around the very front of her snout. It's an instinctive action that most backboned animals use - you can see it today among horses in a barnyard. It's a way of evaluating potential mates and potential sexual rivals.

  The air drawn into Raptor Red's mouth doesn't go the usual route; aft to the center of smell, which is housed in a chamber just in front of her eyes. Instead, the air is diverted into a small, special channel far forward in the roof of her mouth. This channel leads to a special sensory region, the organ of Jacobson, reserved for pheromones, those potent perfumes of evolution.

  Just a few pheromone molecules tell Raptor Red that she's in danger of losing the young male. The breeze coming from the direction of the flowers carries the distinctive pheromones of three different female Utahraptor, and all three are in a state of sexual aggressiveness.

  Raptor Red strides forward, directly toward the young male. The smell of manure + carrion from the flowers is almost suffocating, but her brain filters out the scent molecules. Her whole sensory being is focused on two groups of female raptors who are approaching her young male from the far side of the thicket.

  She looks back at her sister, who's pacing back and forth, flailing her long arms, and snarling and hissing at the flowers, at the unknown female raptors, and at the young male.

  Raptor Red is relieved that her sister isn't following her.

  The young male is squatting down, his nose buried in a deep profusion of pink petals. His brain refuses to accept the notion that there's no iguanodon dung down there.

  He pops his head up, and sees that he's surrounded by Utahraptor femininity. A strange female, much larger and older than he, is making head-bobbing movements of greeting. Another strange female, younger, taller, thinner, is making mock-charges, spreading her arms outward as she lowers her head. That's a more intense courtship greeting, and it scares the male. He backs away.

  'Sssssss - rrrrrRK!' The older female smacks the younger one with her tail and bites. For a second there's a violent barrage of strikes and counter strikes, as arms and feet, tails and necks slash back and forth.

  The younger female retreats, crying loudly. Clumps of skin, ripped off her back, drift down onto the flowers. The older female turns toward the young male and repeats a courtship dance three times, getting closer and closer to the male.

  He forgets about the manure-scented flowers. He's scared of the big female. He hasn't been fought over before. He's engaged in courtship dances - six times last year he tried out his mating choreography, and six times he was rejected by assorted females. Each time it was a one-on-one situation. He performed, and a single female reacted.

  This year he tried once, with Raptor Red. She gave him equivocal responses, her enthusiasm damped by her sister's presence. Utahraptor courtships between first-time breeders can last for months, since it takes a long time to cement male and female together in a pair-bond. And first-time couples that finally do bond may not actually reproduce until the next season.

  Raptor Red isn't the ideal mate, if her situation were evaluated by some dispassionate computer. The sister is an obvious liability. Still, the young male is captivated by her. Something about Raptor Red makes him want to hang around, to try to make the pair-bond firm. Raptor Red has been gentle in all her responses to his advances, and he finds that attractive.

  'SKKKKKAWK!'

  The big strange female is growing agitated. The presence of so many Utahraptors in one spot is heating up emotions. The sight and scent of the flowers have caused an unnatural concentration of unattached females. The young male finds himself in the unwanted status of Most Desirable Male. It's a self-amplifying situation. As soon as one female pays attention to him, the other females shift their efforts toward courting him.

  It's a universal phenomenon - if you appear desirable, more members of the opposite sex will desire you. The appearance of popularity automatically raises your popularity. It's not a bad evolutionary system - if you see a potential mate being pursued by members of the opposite sex, it pays to check it out. There's a better-than-even chance the potential mate has some superior quality that will lead to a brood of high-survival kids.

  'SKKKAWWK!' An even larger female Utahraptor now interrupts the scene, cutting in on the older female who's been displaying to the young male. This newly arrived female is stupendous - two hundred pounds bigger than he is - and is totally buffed, with huge muscles in her shoulders, thighs, and calves.

  He tries to look away, to avoid having to give a response to the dance. She wheels around, coming at him sideways.

  'Skrrawk... skrrawk... skrrawk. '

  She's insistent. She repeats the beginning moves of the courtship routine, demanding that he reply.

  He steps sideways. There's another strange female, more slender than the dinosaur Valkyrie in front of him. She has an exceptionally bright red snout-patch. He nods to her.

  She nods back and commences a low-key dance.

  'Sssssssssss. ' The big female lurches, half dancing, half threatening, her mouth wide open. She turns toward the young female, then back to the male, then back to the young female.

  The young female looks away, avoiding eye contact. She turns and slides sideways, putting distance between herself and the Valkyrie.

  The young male feels his Jacobson organ fill up with dueling pheromones. A dozen female Utah-raptors have opened up their throat-glands, narrow slits on the underside of their lower jaws. Each gland releases a potent cocktail of sexually provocative molecules.

  The giant female advances fast, in a series of runs. He can't avoid looking at her massive muzzle.

  THHHHHHNK!

  He's bumped very hard. This female is very insistent - and pissed off that he refuses to play his part in the ritual. The raptor dance is a duet. One partner makes a move, and the other must respond, inducing the first partner to continue. Either partner can break off the ceremony, but usually the breakup comes after the two partners have danced for many minutes, checking each other out, evaluating size, vigor, health, and athletic prowess.

  Thnk! He gets another forceful nudge from the monstrous female. Her behavior is becoming uncontrolled - stoked by unnatural levels of competitiveness.

  He still refuses to join the duet.

  Snp.

  He flinches. He can see a tiny red spot at the base of his shoulder. She's bitten him. Love and hate are adjacent emotions in the mating season. ï FWWWNNK!

  A flying object sends the huge female sprawling twelve feet. She slides on her back into the flowers, gets up and emits shrieks of rage, beating the branches with fury. An avalanche of pink flowers cascades down from the tree and gradually hides her from view.

  The young male draws himself up to full height and stares at the object that collided with the giant female.

  It's Raptor Red.

  The young male tries to make himself look as small as possible. He lowers his body and lays his head down among the purple-pink flowers. He knows he's about to be fought over by two female Utahraptors. He's seen this happen to other males - and it's not an event he's ever looked forward to.

  The giant female lying on the ground puffs out her chest and hisses. She contracts her finger-flexing muscles so that Raptor Red can see the tendons, thick as pine saplings, bulging at the wrist. The female Goliath looks awkward and clumsy sprawled out on her backside, so Raptor Red advances, making her own hissing threats.

  But with one quick push-off from her thighs, the female rolls over, throws her torso four feet into the air, and lands on her feet. It's a marvelously graceful motion. Raptor Red takes a short step backward. The giant f
emale bobs her head in a slow, exaggerated movement, as if to acknowledge the unspoken admiration for the move. And then she turns to the young male and makes a low, hoarse cooing noise.

  Raptor Red half closes her eyelids and jumps forward, howling a threat-call that makes the young male cringe. But the giant female doesn't move an inch. Instead, she chomps her jaws together noisily, showing the gleaming-white row of recurved teeth. The young male can't help noticing that those teeth are of exceptional dimensions for a Utahmptor.

  He sees the giant female's eyes locked with Raptor Red's, and he takes the opportunity to move out of the way a few yards to the right. The giant shifts her gaze for half a second, gives him an eyelid threat that means Now don't YOU move! and returns her stare to Raptor Red.

  Raptor Red fought some female-female battles when she courted her first consort, years ago. It was all puffery and shadowboxing, the combatants making fake charges and indulging in grandiose gestures with head and arms. Raptor Red discovered she was very proficient at this sort of Darwinian histrionics.

  The giant female won't play this game. She makes no theatrical movements. She just sways back and forth on her hindlegs, the motion that raptors use just before they lunge forward to kill.

  Raptor Red watches the giant's ankles. One, two, three swaying cycles. There's an almost imperceptible pause, and the ankle tendon tenses. Raptor Red throws herself to the left.

  Whmmmmp! The giant's hindclaws land on the spot where Raptor Red had stood.

  SssssssSSS. The long arms swing outward and a claw tip rips a thin, shallow wound down Raptor Red's calf.

  Raptor Red retreats another three yards. She stares at the giant's chest - it rises and falls slowly, evenly. The female giant isn't breathing hard, and that makes her much scarier.

  Raptor Red's thoughts evaluate the dreadful situation. That one isn't normal... She's not a courtship-competitor... She's a murderess.

  Raptor Red makes a high-pitched distress call. She listens for her sister's response. There is none. She repeats the call. Sisters are supposed to help each other in tough situations like this one. Normal Utahraptor genes are coded for dual-courtship, when two sisters join together to win a desirable mate.

  Raptor Red tries the sister-assistance call once more, but she already knows that no help will come. She knows that her sister-bond isn't a normal one.

  The female giant takes a few long, smooth strides in the direction of the young male. Raptor Red notes that the giant isn't merely huge - she's also quite limber and possesses great balance.

  Raptor Red isn't ready to give up - not yet. She gives ground slowly, keeping enough space between her and the giant so she can dodge the next attack. The giant tenses. Raptor Red jumps. But she's been fooled - the giant doesn't lunge.

  Raptor Red feels a twinge of panic. She begins to worry not just about losing this courtship fight, but losing her life.

  The giant's eyes are bright yellowish orange and show no emotion other than a steady confidence. Raptor Red stops monitoring the ankles and watches the giant's eyelids.

  The two females make a slow half-circle, the giant advancing to her left, Raptor Red retreating to her right. And then Raptor Red sees a slight flutter in the giant's eyes, a contraction of the pupil. The big female holds her breath for a moment, exhales noisily, and moves her weight back on her right foot and tail.

  Raptor Red feels the hot breath of another dinosaur behind her left shoulder. She doesn't have to turn around - she knows from the musky scent that it's her consort. He starts to hiss, louder and louder.

  The giant hesitates, then very slowly backs up. Raptor Red is now shoulder-to-shoulder with her consort, and they raise and lower their heads together, smacking their jaws open and shut. He snaps his muzzle forward and bites at the air a few feet from the giant's nose.

  The female Goliath knows she's beaten. These two Utahraptors work as one double-headed adversary, and their demeanor shows that they will attack in another step or two.

  The big female sighs, her head lowers, and her body language becomes submissive. She's very sad. All day males have rejected her. All day her unusual size has caused anxiety in potential mates. She's the victim of discrimination built into the courtship instinct, the inbred distrust of anyone who is too different from the norm.

  With her body held low, the unhappy giant walks away, not looking back.

  Raptor Red bumps her forehead against her consort's, and they make cooing noises. The male grooms the nape of her neck with his small front teeth, smells the wound on her leg, and licks it gently.

  TANK DESTROYER

  EARLY JUNE

  What is she doing? The young male Utahraptor turns his head one way, then the other, trying to understand what Raptor Red's sister is up to.

  Raptor Red can't figure it out either. Her sister is grunting and growling with her head stuck down a hole in the ground. Now she pulls her head out, sticks her thumb in, and pulls. Nothing happens, so she pulls her thumb out and sticks her big left hind-claw inside the burrow.

  'OOPH!' Her claw cuts through the soil, and her body falls over backward. She squints, growls, and repeats the procedure.

  She's trying to dig outfurballs, the young male concludes. That's foolish.

  Raptors are poor diggers. Their sharp, curved claws don't make good shovels. But Raptor Red's sister has decided this morning that her chicks must have food, that furballs are food, that furballs are down in their burrows, and that she'll get them out.

  'GrrrrRRRRRRRRR - OOOP!' She tries to cut away another burrow wall but falls sideways.

  Ck-ck-ck-ck-ck. The furry four-pound multi clicks his gnawing teeth in defiance from three feet down. Raptor Red's sister loses what little composure she has left. She whacks at the burrow opening with both forepaws and bites the rocks embedded in the dirt, breaking three tooth crowns.

  Ck-ck-ck-ck.

  The young male raptor senses that sanity will return to the pack only if they find meat. He looks around, sniffing and listening. Far away there's a low, haunting sound.

  WHOOOOooo - CLUNK!

  WHOOOOooooo - CLUNK!

  Raptor Red picks up the sound too - she doesn't recognize it. Her sister doesn't pay any attention -she's too busy trying to untangle her thumbs from roots growing around a multi burrow.

  'Whoooooooooo - clunk!'

  But the young male thinks he knows what the sound means. It's a noise he heard three years ago, when he was still with his own family. A sound that may mean a pack of Utahraptors can do something otherwise impossible - kill the spike-armored herbivore.

  The young male gets up and starts down the hill. Raptor Red looks at him, gets up, looks at her sister, and sits down. Her sister isn't budging. In fact, she's stuck, with both arms and her left foot entangled in the base of a small tree growing over a big burrow.

  Raptor Red calls to her sister. Her sister grunts, pulls herself free, and turns away, refusing eye contact, a gesture that says, I won't go hunting with that male friend of yours.

  Raptor Red gets up again and nudges her sister's neck gently. There is no reaction.

  Whmmmp!

  Raptor Red kicks her sister's ribs hard. Her sibling's eyes fly open, and she raises her head in a jerk.

  With a deep sigh, Raptor Red's sister stretches her thighs and ankles, raises her body off the ferns in slow motion, and stands up. The family needs food.

  The two sisters trot downslope, and the chicks follow.

  WHOOOOOO - CLUNKKK!

  Raptor Red pauses. The noise is much louder now, and she can hear an undercurrent of struggle-sounds - heavy feet pushing in the mud, giant unknown creatures huffing and puffing and snorting.

  A canebrake of tall horsetail plants blocks her view.

  WhhhhhOOO - THUNK-CLUNK-OOOOF!

  CRASH!

  A wide, ugly object smashes through the horsetails. The thing wriggles back and forth in a huge arc, breaking off the brittle horsetail stems.

  Raptor Red backs up.

&n
bsp; WHACK-WHACK-CRASH!

  The object grows larger - it's a horrible headless monster with a long tapered neck. Sharp-edged chunks of bone armor stick out in every direction.

  CRUNNNCH!

  The monster's four-toed paws squash the horsetails flat. Raptor Red backs up even further. She weaves her head back and forth, trying to figure out this armor-plated apparition.