"Michael Swanwick - Bones of the Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

side.
"Here, the apatosaur becomes aware of its danger. Perhaps the wind shifts and it smells the allosaurs.
Maybe the creatures scream as they attack. We'll never know. Whatever alerted it left no trace in the fossil
record.
"It runs.
"See how the distance between strides increases. And see how back here, the same thing happens to
the allosaur tracks. They've gone into an all-out sprint. They're charging, much like a lion charges its prey.
Only, their prey is as big as a mountain and they themselves are so large and fierce they could eat lions for
breakfast.
"Now look, see how there's a little skip here in the one allosaur's tracks, and an identical one here in
the other's. They're matching strides with the apatosaur. For the rest of the chase, they're all three running
in lockstep. The allosaurs are in position to leap."
He was paying no attention at all to his auditor now, caught up once again in the drama of the fossil.
Life pursued by death. It was an experience common to all creatures, but somehow it always came as a
surprise when it actually happened.
"Could the apatosaur outrun them? It's possible. If it could get up to speed quickly enough. But
something that big simply can't accelerate as fast as the allosaurs can. So it has to turn -- here, where the
three tracks converge -- and fight."
He double-cocked the trackball's right button to zoom up so that they could see a larger area in the
screen.
"This is where things get interesting. Look how confused the trackway is -- all these trampled places,
all this churned-up mud. That's what makes this fossil unique. It's the actual record of the fight itself.
Look at those footprints -- hundreds of them! -- where the apatosaur is struggling with its attackers. See
how deep these paired footprints are? I haven't worked out the ergonomics yet, but it's possible the brute
actually rears up on its hind legs and then falls forward again, trying to crush its tormentors. If it can only
take advantage of its immense weight, it can still win the battle.
"Alas for our friend, it does not. Over here, where the mud is pushed every which way, is where poor
Patty falls. Wham! Leaving one hell of a nice body print, incidentally. This and this are definitely tail
thrashes. She's a game creature, is Patty. But the fight is all over now, however much longer it lasts. Once
the apatosaur is down, that's it. These little beauties are never going to let her get up again."
He zoomed outward again, revealing yet more of the mudstone that had once been ancient lakeside.
The trackway was, all told, over half a mile long. His back still ached at the thought of all the work it had
taken first to uncover it -- unearthing representative samples for the first two-thirds, skipping and
sampling until at the end it got exciting and they had to excavate the whole damned thing -- and then,
when their photographs were taken and measurements done, to rebury it under layers of Paleomat and
sterile sand in order to protect the tracks from rain and snow and commercial fossil hunters.


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 Michael Swanwick - Bones of the Earth

"And then, over here--" This was the exciting part, and involuntarily his voice rose. There was nothing
he loved so much as a scientific puzzle, and this trackway was the mother of all brain-teasers. Besides the
allosaur prints, there were also traces of secondary scavengers -- birds, smaller dinos, even a few
mammals -- criss-crossing one another in such exuberant profusion that it seemed they might never be
untangled. He welcomed the challenge. He looked forward to the work. "--this section is where our
unfortunate Patty dies, and is eaten by the allosaurs.
"The incredible thing, though, is that some of the scattered bones were pressed into the mud deeply
and firmly enough in the process to leave clean impressions. We made rubber molds from them -- an ulna,
parts of a femur, three vertebrae -- enough to make a positive identification. The first direct,