Kunbarra and the Whiteants

Sample of “Kunbarra and the Whiteants”

The motorcoach rolled through the shadowed streets of the town at the bottom of the world. That’s what the advertising transponders called it, in between the times they hawked hotels, restaurants, and tourist attractions by pinging Portia Oakeshott’s neuronal interface. Overlaid on her vision of one-story brick-fronted shops and smooth concrete sidewalks played videos of hot air balloon rides, a waterpark, the British history museum—all the sights in and around Blenheim. Except for the dinosaur preserve about thirty kilometers south of town.

At least the transponders knew who she and everyone on the bus worked for.

Portia nestled deeper against the padded backrest. The seat’s servos murmurred to conform the padding to her body while a pop singer crooned in her mind’s ear. Almost a full workday, ten hours on the bus to cross the thousand klicks from Port Bounty on the continent’s north coast. The firewagon, some wit had called it when they’d boarded that morning. All hands on deck. The company’s biggest rollout of dinosaur eggs in a decade.

Over a thousand, mostly mickeys and kunbarras, two similar herbivorous species covered with bony plates. The latest versions from the gene jocks had thicker egg casings and an instinct to bury them deeper into the preserve’s rich soil, further from the reach of small predators. Incubated to within a week of hatching at the company’s Port Bounty headquarters, the eggs flew down earlier that day in the cargo holds of the company’s biggest quadrotor aircraft, while the crews that would place the eggs in the field rode down. In comfort, yes, with snacks, tea, and coffee on demand from the esky and a well-ventilated loo for after the free drinks ran their course.

Still, a long day. Knowing only a couple of klicks remained in their journey made her impatient to get to the hotel. What took so long? Blenheim had an afternoon rush hour, believe it or not, but she’d driven through it before. Traffic shouldn’t be as heavy as this.

The motorcoach turned. The brakes gave a pneumatic hiss. Her upper body swung a few centimeters off the backrest.

The bus came to a halt.

From the row in front of her, a field ecologist muttered, “What the bloody hell?”

She rolled her lips together at the indelicate language. Then something made her pause her music. A crowd’s voices, words indistinct from distance and the motorcoach’s insulated windows. A chant in a millennium-old rhythm of petulant protest.

Portia leaned forward and rested her hand on seat back in front. “Can you make out what they’re saying?”

The field ecologist turned to her a face dominated by a high forehead and a pair of sunglasses. “Nah, Doctor.”

She sat back and used her neury to pipe sound from the bus’ external microphone to her auditory nerves.

The crowd’s chant became clear. “Hey hey ho ho, dinos are abomino!”

She rubbed the side of her nose and darted glances around. Her coworkers in surrounding rows all had the look of listening in. All looked nervously to one another.

“Hey hey ho ho, dinos are abomino!”

The bus rolled a car-length forward, then stopped.

“Who the hell are they?” asked the field ecologist.

“Sounds like religious nutters, mate,” said another male voice.

“Twenty-four-sevens?” the field ecologist said.

Portia spoke up. “No. To them, we’re sinners because we don’t keep Sunday of Earth’s week as the sabbath. What we do with fossil evidence, bird and reptile DNA, simulations, and guesswork doesn’t mean a whit to them.”

The field ecologist looked over the back of his seat. Reflected in his sunnies were a hurricane fence and a nanotube alloy building frame. “Which religious nutters, then?”

Portia shrugged. “There’s enough empty around here for a hundred cults to settle.” Another thought came to mind. “Or maybe they came down from Port Bounty, or one of the big cities on Cookland.”

“Hey hey ho ho, dinos are abomino!”

A third thought came. She shivered and pulled her arms together.

A dozen motorcoaches a day came into Blenheim during New New South Wales’ weeks of summer. How did the protestors know this bus carried company employees? And to which hotel it traveled?

The motorcoach lurched forward, one car length at a time. The chant grew louder. She could make out the words through her own ears. Around her, her coworkers craned their necks to look for the protestors.

Another five meters forward. The chant broke up into ragged roar. A crowd fanned out along both sides of the bus. All wore plain clothes in shades of gray and black, sleeves to wrists, pants cuffs and skirt hems to ankles. Trimmed beards on the men. The women wore scarves knotted at the neck, covering their ears and most of their hair. Righteous anger distorted the faces of either sex. Men and women alike shook raised fists.

Louder than ever. “Hey hey ho ho, dinos are abomino!”

Portia pulled her arms tighter. Could they rock the bus over?

Blue and red lights flickered on the ceiling and the edges of headrests near the windows. The lights grew more intense, dancing on the sides of the protestor’s faces. From somewhere behind the bus, a siren gave an abbreviated bark.

Protestors turned to look. The chant wavered.

Portia leaned toward the window and peered in the right direction, but couldn’t see the source of the siren.

A deep voice boomed from a megaphone. “This is the City of Blenheim Police Department. Interfering with traffic on a public street is a violation of city ordinance. Remove yourselves to the sidewalk or you’ll be arrested.”

The chant stopped. Protestors looked to one another, to the police, and to one of their own. A man, he looked not much older than Portia, thirty standard at the most, and clad all in black. Dirty blond hair parted on the left, and hazel eyes holding a mix of fanaticism and shrewdness.

The man raised his hand and beckoned the protestors toward him. He opened his mouth. His voice, surprisingly gravelly coming from his smooth face, carried through the bus’ insulated windows. “Brothers, sisters, we render unto Caesar. The Lord shall see us to triumph at the time of His choosing.”

With measured steps, the protestors stepped back to the curb. Portia let out a long breath, though she still warily watched the crowd. The anger recently on their faces had turned, but how quickly could it turn back?

Then she saw a woman with green eyes. Wisps of coal-black hair peeped under her scarf. The lines of her cheekbones, the upturned nose, she looked familiar. From uni? That girl who lived down the hall in Portia’s final year. What was her name? Sally? Sandra.

Portia’s nose wrinkled. Sandra had been a girl of colorful, skimpy attire and questionable virtue. Rumor had it she’d sneaked a boy into her room one night when her roommate was away. That couldn’t be her, in a dour dress, four thousand klicks and three standard years from campus.

Could it?

The bus rolled forward. The chant resumed, louder than before. Sandra stood next to the man in black. They and the others watched the bus go with unreadable eyes.