- Emilia -

Then we just lie together in the grass while the river clucks beside us.

Sex usually makes me sleepy, and I stifle a yawn. “You now take Emilia to my home?”

It's totally unfair and terrible, I know. I'm using sex to force this innocent, primitive caveman to do what I want him to. But this is life or death we're talking about, and I suddenly feel a strange kinship to women on Earth in earlier days. I can only assume that this was pretty much how they used sex as some kind of bargaining chip to control men. It's not like they had that much else on their side.

This planet is bringing out the cavewoman in me, I guess.

Well, he stands to gain from taking me home, too.

He sighs. “Toh. Go to Emilia home.”

Success! I turn and embrace his neck with both arms, then kiss him on his alien cheek. “Thank you! Ar'ox is wonderful noble warrior. Emilia give Ar'ox many ... umm ... blowjobs.”

I have no idea what that is in cavemanese, and I'm not about to ask anyone. They probably don't have that word.

The good news energizes me and I sit up. “This place not as dangerous as think.”

Ar'ox frowns. “It's very strange. Nothing has attacked us. I haven't even seen predators nearby.”

“Is good thing, yes?”

He doesn't reply, just stands up and looks around with his hand on his hips. Gods, that's a cute little butt he has there! So muscular and still perfectly round and insanely firm.

He stands there for a long time, and finally I get nervous. “Something wrong?”

He doesn't answer, just turns his head this way and that as if he's listening for something.

Then he suddenly throws himself down and presses one ear to the ground.

He stays there for only three heartbeats before he bounces up again and quickly retrieves and puts on his loinkilt. Then he hurriedly rolls up the blanket and packs his little pots in his sack.

I'm starting to feel alarmed. “What's wrong?”

“Bigs. Very many Bigs. Coming here.”

Yikes. Very many dinosaurs? That can't be good. I get my cavewoman dress and put it on, and then Ar'ox takes my hand and we walk fast along the river.

I try to hold him back. “Emilia home not that way,” I protest and point in the other direction. “There, wherefrom came!”

But Ar'ox just holds me firmer and keeps walking. “That's where the Bigs are coming from. We have to get away. I wondered why there was such a nice meadow here. Now I understand – the Bigs sometimes pass by here.”

He has long, powerful legs, and I have to run to keep up with him. “Pass by? Where they go?”

“Sometimes a tribe of Bigs will move to other parts of the lands. They will trod down everything between them and their new home. Most other creatures feel when that happens and make sure to get out of the way long before. No predators here means that this is where the Bigs will come. Right here. And soon.”

Of course. “We have time? To get out of the way?”

He doesn't reply, just keeps going. And that's a reply good enough – he doesn't know.

The idea that we're doing our best to get out of the way of stampeding dinosaurs puts some of the fear back in my mind, but not all of it. Because still Ar'ox radiates safety, and I'm sure that as long as I'm with him, nothing really bad can happen to me.

We leave the meadow and now we're in the jungle again. But I know that the tall trees can't protect us from dinosaurs if they're really big. And if Ar'ox could hear them just by putting his ear to the ground, then I'm guessing they're not cute little things you'd carry around in your purse.

We walk for a long time, and the terrain rises. That's good, because I'm sure huge dinosaurs prefer not to walk uphill. But it's also bad, because neither do I. After a little while I'm winded and breathing pretty heavily, and Ar'ox finally stops and looks behind him.

“Emilia is tired,” he states. “And Bigs are getting closer.”

Now that we're not walking anymore, and not making noises in the grass and the underbrush, I can hear something between my breaths. It's a distant thunder, but not individual booms. It's one continuous thunderclap that sounds like it can go on forever. It doesn't come from directly behind us, but from the side.

The sound makes me squeeze Ar'ox's hand. “How long before they here?”

He listens. “Bigs walk fast. And other Bigs and Smalls will travel ahead of them and beside them and behind them. Good huntings around a herd of travelling Bigs.”

I'm glad I don't know exactly how long it will be, because I'm scared enough already if I didn't have to deal with a deadline, too. A very literal one. Because I've seen some Bigs before, and I totally believe that they will easily trample down everything in their path.

The terrain gets steeper, and we keep going. My knees feel like jello and I'm soaked in sweat. So much for the bath I took earlier. But it's interesting how little you care about things like that when you're trying to save your life and get out of the way of migrating dinosaurs. On the other hand, if those things turn out to be the size of chihuahuas, then I'll have a word or two with my caveman guide here.

Suddenly there are no more trees in front of us and Ar'ox stops short. I see why – we're on the top of a cliff, and in front of us is a sheer drop of too many feet to estimate. Hundreds, at least. It's a dead end.

“This is ... what Ar'ox ... plan?” I ask between breaths.

He strokes his chin and looks past me back the way we came. “No. This is better than what I planned. Look!”

He doesn't have to point, because when I turn around, it's obvious what he means. There's a long cloud like the contrail from a plane hanging over the jungle in the distance. Except the contrail isn't white, but a dirty brown. Beneath it there's now what looks like a highway where everything has been trampled flat. Everything, as in every single tree. The track disappears over the horizon. But if it were a highway, it would have to be two miles wide. And there's movement.

There's so much brown mist that I can't quite make it out. I squint into the light. It looks most of all like a river of gray and brown and blue and black. And beyond that ...

“Oh my stars!” It's like a city walking towards us. I can see it against the horizon – giant dinosaurs the size of office blocks are coming this way. Hundreds of them, easily trampling down trees with trunks as thick as refrigerators and breaking them like toothpicks. I can't quite make out the shape of the dinos, but they appear to have long necks.

“What they is?” The sight makes me forget the little grammar I know.

“The biggest Bigs,” Ar'ox says with some satisfaction. “Bobont.”

“They bobont?” I've never heard that word before.

He sets his hands on his hips. “Toh.”

So, they're bobonts. Each one must weigh as much as a sizeable oil tanker, and now I can feel the ground trembling under my feet. The continuous thunder gets slowly louder, and it looks to me as if the gigantic things are coming straight for us. “They coming here?”

“Close,” Ar'ox says. “Bobonts move in straight lines when they can. I'm not sure if they can do that right here.”

I look up at him. I feel panic tugging at me, but he seems as cool as ever. “Ar'ox not worry?”

He shrugs in his alien way. “Being killed by a bobont is a great honor. They won't eat you.”

I think for a moment. “That matters?”

“The Ancestors smile when you're killed by the sacred bobont. Bobonts are Ancestors who come back to experience life again.”

Yeah, the religious aspects are less important to me right now. I'm itching to get as far away from them as possible. “We walk more?”

He shrugs. “If Emilia want.”

I want. I really want. “Emilia want.”

He gives me a little smile and then we're walking along the cliff. This isn't so much a hilltop as it is a ridge, and it appears that the ridge runs at an angle to the closing dinosaur stampede. So far we've been moving perpendicularly to it, which should take us out of their path in the shortest time, but the cliff set a stop to that.

I keep turning around to check out the bobonts. They are catching up with us. Fast. Now I can see that the river of movement in front of them is thousands of other beings, still huge, but dwarfed by the bobonts.

But still I'm not panicking. If I were alone, I totally would. Now, the presence of the calm and totally competent Ar'ox is calming me down, too. I feel as if he can fix everything. Because he has done that so far. I'm maybe not super thrilled with him being so okay with being trampled by these bont things, but I suppose I should have some understanding, too. I know life can be short and tough for cavemen here, so I guess it stands to reason that they're not quite as attached to their lives as we are on Earth.

We walk fast for at least two hours, and then we're on an even taller cliff. I'm afraid to turn around and see how close the dinosaur stampede is. The thunder has come much closer, and I want to clamp my hands over my ears. The ground has gone from slight trembling to pretty hard shaking, so they must be very close now.

“They're very close now.” Ar'ox looks past me and calmly chews on the end of a green straw like a cowboy.

Well, I guess I have to face it sooner or later. I take a deep breath.

My skin crawls when I turn around. Yep, very close. Very very close. It feels like they're only a stone's throw away now, but it's probably a mile or so.

The river of other, smaller beings that run ahead of the bobonts must be in some kind of panic, because it's not a smooth-flowing river, but a chaos of heads and limbs and claws and spears and horns and eyes and fangs and tails. They seem to be fighting with each other as they run, and part of the terrible thunderous sound comes from their screams and thumping and screeching and crashing.

And it looks like they're coming straight for us, with the bobonts following.

Ar'ox calmly takes the straw out of his mouth. “They would get us before the bobonts could.”

My body feels numb. We can't possibly escape this. “We dead now?” My voice is small and thin.

He places a hand on my shoulder, and even something as simple as that helps a little. “Deh. We're high up. They won't come here.” His voice is as deep and sure as ever.

I place my hand on top of his hand on my shoulder. I need that touch right now. “They won't?”

He just shrugs, which is not very reassuring. But now we have pretty high drops on two sides, so it's not like we have a choice but to hope that he's right.

I can clearly see the first bobont in the stampede now. They have six legs each, very short and stubby compared to the rest of their immense bodies. Their necks are positioned about midway down the creatures' backs. They're long and slender and remind me of swans, not least because they have beaks like ducks – very flat and long. Their four eyes are mounted on stalks that swing around from the back of their heads. And the tails are just as long as the necks and end in a mess of spikes that each has to be as long as a flagpole. They're both frightening and faintly comical, because they have a funny, jerking gait.

But I'm not laughing. Because now I realize that I can see something familiar in the distance. It's Bune, the mountain that is really an ancient, crashed spaceship. And it looks as if this whole herd of giant dinos have come straight from there. If so, there's a really good chance they came very close to the cave where the girls are. And if they did, then ...

I find Ar'ox's hand with mine and squeeze it.

He squeezes back and smirks. “How does Emilia like coming back?” He has to raise his voice considerably for me to hear him over the racket of the approaching dinosaurs.

Coming back? As if I've been here before? Or does he mean come back with him to his village?

I just look at him. It's too noisy to speak now, and there's only one thing on my mind: if this stampede passed close to our cave, or even right over it, then there's a good chance there's nobody left there anymore. Hopefully the girls and Jax'zan got away before this flood wave of destruction got there, because the thunder and the trembling would give them some warning. But I suspect it would be very hard to live in the cave after all this passed through it. There would be nothing left of the woods nearby.

I take a deep, trembling breath, trying to keep the tears down. “Girls, please be alive.”

Ar'ox frowns and leans down, putting his ear close to my mouth.

“Where is Ar'ox village?” I yell.

He points. It's right in the one safe direction, straight away from this crazy and deadly stampede.

And now that I'm looking, I think I can see some not-dactyls circling it, too. Huge, flying horrors with four bat wings and two whip-like tails each. Of all the terrible, deadly and horrific things on this planet, they're what I fear the most.

The way he's pointing is the opposite one from where the cave is, the cave that is my home. Ar'ox agreed to take me back there. It's probably not a bad idea to hold him to that.

But those bobonts came from there. And I can see how they totally trample everything. If the girls are in trouble because of that, there's not much I can do to make a difference.

Except going to Ar'ox's village and seeing if we might be able so seek refuge there. We tried with Jax'zan's tribe, but that didn't work out. We all agreed that we need to be part of a larger tribe to be safe. My urge to get home to the cave stems from that being my only home here. Now I think it'll make more sense if I go with him and check out his tribe.

A new, strange tribe that I know nothing about. The idea would have scared me numb, if this particular caveman hadn't banished panic from my mind, allowing me to think straight for the first time in months.

I wanted to be useful. Well, finding a new and better home for us is probably the best anyone can do.

Ar'ox's hand is dry and warm around mine. He wants to keep me safe. Fine, I won't make it harder for him.

I look up at him, then nod in the direction he pointed. “We go.”