Playing in advance was a good move. As Sobek had predicted, some of the dinosaurs on guard had overheard many humans arguing among themselves about whether or not to make requests, and it hadn't even been an hour since Al's 'disobedience'.
Dreyfus and Malcolm, like many more shrewd ones, had begun to fear the worst. Like Sobek, they too imagined that things would quickly degenerate.
Fortunately, Old Li's public announcement calmed everyone's mind. Knowing that governments around the world wanted to negotiate had rekindled hope in the hearts of humans who were now more likely to wait a little longer. In a flash, every source of revolt was extinguished; even the most belligerent agreed that it was appropriate to observe how the situation would develop.
The other announcement, namely the one in which Old Li passed off Sobek's promise to bring families together as a gift, was received even better: the parents who had been separated from their children almost cried a
"Jocelyne!" Jersey was quite angry. “Go back to your room! This is not your business!"The girl didn't move. "Is this a case of national security that could put the entire population of Odaria at risk?"Jersey was amazed by her daughter's behavior. It was the first time he'd felt her tongue so sharp. "Yes, it is…""And am I part of the Odaria population?""Of course…"“Then I'm really afraid that this is a business that concerns me all right. It concerns everyone, actually”Jocelyne said as she entered the room completely. "And given the way the conversation is going, I would say it is my duty to point out that you are all wrong"Jersey was pissed off at her daughter's temper, but the other heads of the household were shocked. For a backward-minded nation like Odaria it was already absurd to think that a son would talk to his father like that in public, let alone a daughter. "You should discipline your daughter
“Will you go to negotiate? Are they crazy?" Jackson exclaimed.Jocelyne expected that reaction from her guard, but still she couldn't help but sigh in exhaustion. She had really had enough of screaming and scolding for that day.When the meeting was over, her father took her to his study and gave her a really bad time. Markus Jersey had never been so proud of her daughter before, but that hadn't stopped him from unloading on her an endless series of reproaches at the speed of 8 per second until the girl was almost deaf.Her mother had reacted even worse. As soon as she discovered that her daughter had dared to intervene without permission at the meeting, speak so brazenly to the heads of the families and even agreed to be the ambassador who would go to confer with a monstrous group of talking dinosaurs, she had raging like a bull. Jocelyne had very noticeable slap marks on her face and she was pretty sure that her mother would keep beating her until she pa
Finally, after almost two weeks, everything was ready.The Odaria government had proposed to lend the delegation some luxury cars, but Jocelyne had categorically refused: given the desert environment they were going to, it was more convenient to move around with jeeps. In reality, that was just an excuse: Jocelyne suspected that someone would try to sabotage the delegation, so he preferred to move with vehicles from his garage, where he knew for sure that no one had planted bombs.Jackson immediately agreed with this choice, and so did Chloe: they both agreed that moving within their own means was safer. So they had prepared a couple of jeeps to transport them and their escort inside the territory of the dinosaurs.The auction had ended a few days earlier and Jocelyne had earned five million from it, which he had transferred to a secret bank account of his. Such a sum could not hold a candle to the Jersey family's immense fortune, but Jocelyne had learned that i
Of course, one of the dumbest things a person could do when he went to a zoo was to walk into an enclosure and try to ride an animal. And if the aforementioned animal was carnivorous, then in all likelihood that person wouldn't have come out of the cage alive.And now, Jocelyne wasn't just about to climb on the back of an allosaurus, one of the most dangerous predators that ever existed, but the aforementioned allosaurus was also wild, unrestricted and speaking at the same time. Although he had offered himself spontaneously, Jocelyne felt a lump forming in her throat as the animal bent to lift her up, bringing his head a few centimeters from the ground and thus making his teeth as big as a human finger very visible.Trying to not think that what she was touching was a carnivorous dinosaur three times her height, Jocelyne pulled herself up and sat on Al's shoulders. back grew thick plumage which made the animal's skin rather soft. When Al stood up to her full height, Jo
As Sobek awaited the arrival of the human delegation, a familiar smell had begun to make its way into his nostrils, but he had not been able to remember what it was. It was undoubtedly the smell of a human being, but for some reason he remembered it very clearly. Then, when the delegation finally arrived, he almost lost his composure.He would have recognized the human on Al's back with his eyes closed. Even though she physically she had changed slightly she was clearly the child he had saved in the forest earlier! She had grown taller and more developed, and her smell had changed slightly too, but it was undoubtedly her.'What does it mean? Perhaps humans have become convinced that she has a certain influence on dinosaurs? Well. It doesn't matter' he thought quickly. After all, the presence of the child did not change anything: apart from seeing an old acquaintance, what was different from what he had planned?So he was cordial and called out to them: “We
Obviously, hardly any member of the group went to sleep right away. Everyone had their chores to do before they could rest.Jackson and the escort were working to establish a perimeter so that they could defend themselves in the event of an attack. They knew that if the dinosaurs really wanted to attack them they could do little, but their role was to defend the other members of the group and so they had to do. Furthermore, Jackson was more afraid of individual dinosaurs than of the entire herd: it was not impossible for someone to decide independently to undermine the peace by attacking them, so as to cancel the negotiation. Among humans he was full of fanatics and obsessed, it was possible that even among the dinosaurs there were such elements.Peter, Sebas and Tuare had chosen a room and turned on their computers, sending all the material they had obtained since that day to their news houses and writing a detailed account of everything that had happened. They were t
“Abe? Abe!""I'm awake, Mr. Jersey, I'm awake!" she screamed the big man pulling himself to his feet with a snap, only to find himself in front of a female face that giggled under his mustache. "I'm not your boss" Dariela said making him blush.Abe grunted like a bear in response and sat up. He hadn't slept very well for the past few days. The soldiers Dariela took care of had become more unstable, so the two had decided to take turns on guard to keep them in check and prevent them from doing anything irreparable. But Abe also wanted to stay awake during the day, since both dinosaurs and humans were awake at the time, and he wanted to be alert in case something happened. If all this was combined with the anxiety, fear and tension of the current situation, well, sleeping became quite difficult. Abe now did not rest more than four hours a night, with the result that he often ended up dozing off during the day without wanting to, as in that case, for example.
While Jackson was busy arguing with Abe and Chloe talking about the conditions of the prisoners, Jocelyne was left behind. She certainly didn't need to go and interrogate anyone to find out what the captive humans were thinking and she was sure that Sobek had been telling the truth about how the dinosaurs treated them. After all, despite the frightened faces, no prisoners looked hurt, thin or particularly traumatized.Rather than wasting precious time talking to humans, Jocelyne preferred talking to the dinosaurs.It was Sobek she had to convince, that was clear; however, Sobek was unlikely the only one that take the decisions. As charismatic, intelligent and wise as a leader might be, he couldn't rule such a large herd on his own strength alone. He would need to lend some of his power to other dinosaurs to administer the various departments into which the pack was divided efficiently.That was probably why the herd was divided into castes. This was primarily du
It took Sobek a few moments before he realized he was back in the room where it all began. That room where time and space ceased to exist, and where everything and nothing seemed to have changed at the same time. He already knew where he had to go; walking through the infinitely large (or perhaps infinitely small) room, in a few minutes (or perhaps a few centuries, who knows) he reached the familiar armchair on which was seated a woman with white skin and light hair.God didn't even seem to move since she sent him to Eden. Even her expression didn't seem to have changed at all. She was still the same, beautiful and terrible at the same time, whose gaze was both magnetic and loving on him. “Welcome back, son,” she greeted him in her crystal clear voice.Sobek advanced on her. This time there wasn't an armchair waiting for him, but a large mattress wide enough to allow him to lie down. She lay back on it and gazed intently at God. Even now, after he'd grown i
On the continent of Maakanar, near a river that was once a typical spinosaurus nesting place, something immense could be seen. A huge creature was lying on its belly, but nevertheless it was so tall that its dorsal sail towered over the surrounding masts.Sobek was now thirty-three years old. To say he had grown into a behemoth was an understatement: he now measured 150 meters from head to tail and reached 45.6 meters in height. Even without activating the mutation he was now larger than Godzilla: the gigantic atomic reptile was a tiny lizard compared to him. All kaiju would be small compared to him. Even King Ghidorah would have been forced to acknowledge its superiority.In the last five years he had hardly moved. After the death of his last loyalist he returned to his birthplace and settled there. He ate what was provided to him from the [Personal Manger] and drank the water from the river. Otherwise, he remained calm, warming himself in the sun or admiring the star
After a few days Nefertiti settled at the lake together with her father and her last remaining uncle. With the help and indications of Sobek she built a comfortable nest and there she laid her egg.Thus began the brood. The female spinosaurus never moved from above her little egg, keeping it constantly warm. Sobek and Buck brought her food and water. When Nefertiti was hot, Sobek used her huge wing as a parasol and Buck fanned her with his tail. In the rare moments when it was cold, the two of her huddled to help her warm up.That routine went on for three months. Finally, at the end of the third month, a familiar clicking sound came from under Nefertiti's paws.The female spinosaurus reared up and looked down. A small crack was opening on the egg. With a smile she moved from above it. The crack widened more and more and finally a large piece of egg broke off, showing a lively green eye that stared intently at Nefertiti.“Hello, baby. I'm your mothe
Time had passed again. Sobek couldn't even figure out how much time had actually passed now. One year? Two? Maybe three? He didn't know.After his retirement, Sobek had gone deep into the forest of Maakanar. It was hard for him to move his huge body through the trees and very often ended up destroying them: his passage was evident as a trail of uprooted trunks was always behind him. He had moved permanently to the lake where he had met Buck and where he had established his first army. And he hadn't gone there alone.Carnopo and Buck had joined him just a month after his departure. They, too, had decided they'd had enough and abandoned their roles entirely. After all, in the new world there was no longer a need for either an army commander or one of the shock legion. Now there was peace, and the old war veterans had no reason to try to find their place in their world. So they had decided to do what they had always done: follow their pack leader.The trio spent th
Another year had passed. In Sobek's eyes, time seemed to have begun to flow more rapidly. The months and weeks all passed almost the same and in a flash the morning turned into evening.Humanity had continued its advance. By now, Aphrodites had been fully colonized. Whole cities had sprung up on it and millions of settlers had begun to live there. Davis had now reached more than a billion inhabitants and Hermes now owned thousands of mining establishments.Thanks to teleportation technology it was so advanced that traveling between planets was even easier than going from one city to another. Since energy and material consumption were now no longer a concern thanks to solar panels on Hermes and mining plants on asteroids, everyone had a portable teleportation device. By now, being hired to work a mine on an asteroid was no different than being hired to work at the local convenience store.Colonies on the moons of Leviathan and Behemoth had multiplied, providing e
More time, more changes. In just one year, many things had changed.Nefertiti had assumed control of the entire astrophysics division of the dinosaur pack, effectively acting as acting pack leader for them. After the first shared mission, she had begun to promote more policies of integration and union between humans and animals. She had facilitated interspecies interspace operations, sending animals and humans to work together in the new worlds to be colonized. Furthermore, there was still much to colonize, as human attention was slowly shifting beyond the outer Solar System to the dwarf planets and comets of the Oort Cloud.The work was not cheap and with it the possibilities of working together. With the Dyson Sphere nearing completion, energy was no longer an issue. After determining which moons to colonize, the Eden Union had begun an intensive mining program in the asteroids of the main belt in order to be able to build huge lenses to capture the sunlight and also
One more year, more innovations. The more time passed, the more progress seemed to accelerate. It was like a speeding train that multiplied its speed every second: first slow, then faster and faster, until it turned into a giant projectile.Sobek knew that progress was bound to accelerate more and more, after all it was his nature. For each new discovery, countless doors open. And every door leads to other doors. This was the nature of progress. It was no coincidence that it took humanity less than two hundred years to go from horses to aircraft capable of leaving the orbit of their home planet.He recalled that on Earth, where he came from, progress had become so fast in the 21st century that it was enough to be born even a generation later or further back to find oneself in a completely different world. While in 1990 the main communication system was the satellite phone, in 2020 people used social networks for the most disparate things. While in 1990 movies were watc
More time had passed. This time it was a year… or maybe a year and a half? I don't know. Not that it mattered much, actually.The world's attention to the inner solar system was gradually waning. Now that three planets had been terraformed, even if one of them still wasn't enough, and Hermes had become a stable colony that was continuously producing large panels of glass that joined in the orbit of the Sun to form the Dyson Sphere, the humanity was beginning to anticipate new challenges. From the inner solar system it was time to move to the outer solar system.Although some colony outposts were already present on some moons of Behemoth, they could not be defined as true colonies. However, now that energy consumption was no longer a problem thanks to the Dyson Sphere, which although not completed already released enormous amounts of energy, the Eden Union decided to start an exploration program of the entire outer solar system, or at least of the space between B
Two more years had passed. The advance of humanity towards the stars continued inexorably.The hypotheses of the scientists had proved to be correct: using a combination of gravity control technology and energy obtained from the Dyson sphere, although still incomplete, they had managed to accelerate the rotation of Aphrodites. The planet was slowly accelerating, though not too fast. There was generally talk of an hour each week. At this speed there was no risk of destroying the infrastructure already present on the planet. Yes two years, the rotation period had gone from 2082 hours to 1978 hours. Continuing at this rate, it was expected to reach 24 hours in 'just' another 38 years.Once this process was completed, the huge orbiting mirrors could finally be taken off. The day/night cycle would no longer be artificially determined and there would no longer be the risk that something would go wrong due to the impact of a micrometeorite. In addition, the accelerated rotati