"Will Hubbell - Cretaceous Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hubbell Will)

momentarily and returned with something in his hand. He held it out to Rick. "You've had your eye on this
ever since you were a kid. I think it's time you had it."

Rick looked down at the precious hunting knife in its weathered leather sheath, the thing he coveted most
as a child, and a lump formed in his throat. "Tom... I... I..."

"Can't send my baby brother to the Cretaceous un-armed, can I?" said Tom with a false heartiness to
mask his feelings. "I want you to have it."

"I don't know what to say."

"Say thanks. Then say good-bye, you've got a plane to catch tomorrow morning."

Rick hugged his brother. "Thanks."

"Bring me back an ammonite," called out Tom, as Rick headed down the hall.
Rick turned. "I'll try," he said. Then, with one last wave, he walked out of Tom's life forever.

4

RICK GREW INCREASINGLY ANXIOUS DURING HIS TRIP TO

the rendezvous point. The closer he got to his destination, the more Tom's arguments on the improbability
of time travel weighed on his mind. By the time his flight landed, Rick almost expected disappointment.
Still, he could not fig-ure out what anyone had to gain by fooling him. Only that slim rationale sustained
his hope that the trip was not point-less.

The man who met Rick when he disembarked did not iden-tify himself. He drove Rick in silence to the
outskirts of Chicago. "Here's your stop," the stranger finally said. As the car drove away, Rick found
himself outside a small, one-story brick building in an industrial zone. The building and the surrounding
area looked run-down and late-twentieth-century. A small sign taped to the inside of the glass door to
the building read p.g. enterprises. It seemed an unlikely site for the greatest scientific breakthrough of the
twenty-first century.

The door was locked, and Rick had to pound on it loudly before anyone came to open it. Eventually, a
burly, dark-haired man appeared. He looked Rick over thoroughly before entering a code on a keypad
next to the door. The bolts snapped open.

"You Clements?" the man asked.

"Yes," replied Rick.

"I'm Nick," said the man without offering his hand, "I work for Mr. Green. Come on." He turned and
walked down a corridor. As Rick followed him, he heard the bolts in the door automatically snap shut.
Nick led him to a door and opened it. "In here." Rick passed through the doorway; then Nick, who had
remained in the corridor, closed the door. Rick stood and glanced at the three other occupants of the
room.

A dark, tall black man in his late thirties smiled sympa-thetically at Rick's confusion. "I see you've met the
ever-charming Nick Zhukovsky," he said. "I'm Joe Burns, the pilot for this little junket."