Short Story: The Uninvited Guest
When dinosaurs fooled the Earth
Image credit: University Of Edinburgh
Here’s the second edition of short stories for the blog. Another blast from the past, I wrote this in 2014, and if I’m truly honest, I prefer the original title: Velociraptor In Spectacles. Still, I think I can use that title again, especially since I do want to revisit Dr. Clarke.
There was an uncomfortably long moment of silence before Professor Guildenstern spoke. “So you absolutely did not threaten to eat the young man, or cause him to be harmed in any way?”
Though her calm features didn’t give anything away, Dr. Clarke’s feathers ruffled momentarily before she answered. “Most certainly not! All I said was, ‘who exactly are you and what the hell are you doing in my chrono-chamber?’ I may have reached towards him, but that was it. I’m afraid it’s really not my fault if he reacted like a frightened mammal who has never seen a fully-grown, lab-created, talking velociraptor before.”
If he had been a ticking time bomb of frustration before, Guildenstern now exploded. “HE HASN’T SEEN A TALKING VELOCIPRATOR BEFORE! HE’S FROM 2007! ALL HE KNOWS ABOUT DINOSAURS HE LEARNED FROM MUSEUMS AND POPULAR CULTURE!”
“I don’t look anything like the raptors he might have seen in the culture of his time,” said Clarke, breezily.
“That might be true,” snarled Guildenstern. “But you’re not exactly what he expected to encounter, either!”
“Let’s not forget, the man took it upon himself to jump into an active time stream because he felt some romantic connection to Dr. Walker,” said Clarke, attempting to mollify her boss.
For most of the staff at the Wells Institute For Temporal Study, Professor Aldus Guildenstern was something akin to a god, with the wrath to match. Despite his human background, he looked more like a hulking bear that has been shaved and squeezed awkwardly into tweed clothing. And it had been said that his outbursts often made younger members of the team contemplate a change of career or continent once they were free of his presence. Not Dr. Clarke, though, who because she was a sentient dinosaur, boasted a thicker skin than most. Not to mention a relentlessly sunny nature, which often got her into trouble.
“Dr… Clarke,” continued Guildenstern, forcing himself with some effort into a more reasonable, if still angry tone of voice, “might you be willing to walk me through what exactly happened one more time?”
Clarke showed her teeth in her usual approximation of a smile, which had variously been described as ‘nightmarish’ and ‘unnerving’. “My report was very thorough. I may have included a drawing or two as part of it.”
“Indulge me,” sighed Guildenstern.
“The morning was clear and bright with the wind from the east, and I began the day breakfasting on…”
“Just the incident…” snarled Guildenstern. Clarke peered innocently up from her chair.
“As you wish.” She adjusted her spectacles, something of an affectation since her eyesight was far beyond that of most humans. “Dr. Walker and her team were due to return from their long-range, two–week mission gathering data on social cultures in the early 21st Century. I was in charge of the terminal and was awaiting their arrival. A warning began flashing that there was an anomaly in the stream, an extra person in addition to the good doctor and her two assistants. I briefly considered forcing his signal to stay unresolved in case there was some danger of contamination, but you know how fragile you mammals can be, particularly those from earlier in time. And the system wasn’t picking anything up, so I wondered if Dr. Walker had brought some animal back with her.”
“That, as you very well know, is a contradiction of the rules,” cautioned Guildenstern.
“Yes, sir. I know. I wrote half of them. Regardless, the transmission arrived and when the usual distortion had abated, there he was, huddled in a corner, appearing much like any other unprepared human that has just travelled in our technology. By which I mean he looked like he had the flu and was ready to throw up all over the main platform. Disgraceful behaviour if you ask me.”
“You’re not always very sympathetic to the health needs of humans, are you, Clarke?” said Guildenstern.
“I am as thoughtful and caring as my post-decanting training and basic nature allows!” protested Clarke. “I’m simply as my creator made me.”
“Yes, that still surprises me, given Professor Todd’s personality,” said Guildenstern with a resigned sigh. “He was kicked out of Baliol for drunkenly punching another member of the faculty.”
“A man, I might add, who had deigned to stalk one of the good professor’s female students. Good on him, I say!”
“We’re getting off track,” barked Guildenstern. “I’m more interested in what happened next during this morning’s incident.”
Clarke removed the look of peaceful reminiscence that had landed on her face and got back to the matter at hand. Well, claw. “Dr. Walker seemed surprised to see the gentleman on the platform, and immediately called for medical assistance. I’m not sure why she didn’t just ask me to help, I hold, as you know, a degree in biology from Brasenose.”
“Oh, do you?” scowled Guildenstern. “It’s not as if you don’t mention your esteemed educational qualifications at every ruddy opportunity! You are aware, are you not, that your nickname in this facility is Soul Sister, because you can’t stop talking about your three degrees?”
“Quite aware, sir. I’ve always seen it as a sign of respect and affection.”
“Have you...” Guildenstern’s voice dripped with acid sarcasm.
“But as I was saying, before anyone could arrive to assist our, shall we say, unwanted guest, he saw me and began screaming in a most unhelpful manner. If the real wall of the chamber had been made of soil, I fair say he’d have dug himself into a hidey-hole and stayed there.”
“He’s a man,” said Guildenstern. “Not a mouse.”
“Debatable,” replied Clarke.
“So you brought it upon yourself to ask him what he was doing there?” said Guildenstern, trying to steer them back to the reason the velociraptor was sitting opposite him in his office.
“I did. And, as I explained, I reached towards him to see if I could help in some way. I fear that may have made matters worse if the pitch of his vocal outpouring was any indication. Dr. Walker suggested I leave the room, which I did, and from the antechamber, I could then hear her and the rest of the team trying to calm him down. If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, everyone is making it as though I announced he had just been transported to a planet of intelligent dinosaurs and he was the next morsel on the menu. If he’d had any sense about him, he’d have figured out that I…” Guildenstern cut her off mid-sentence.
“Dr. Clarke, this is the most ridiculous debacle I have witnessed in all my days at Wells. And I’ve seen a few. I’m still not sure why someone thought it was a good idea to bring a live cannon back from the siege of Kazan.”
“Oh, boomsday! That was a fun afternoon!” exclaimed Dr. Clarke, letting the wistful look return for a moment before catching Guildenstern’s reaction to her outburst and forcing her features back into studied concern.
“My point,” glowered Guildenstern, looking like the thunder clouds were gathering once more on his brow, “Is that there is far too much of this sort of thing happening. Standards are slipping. Regulations are being ignored. Orders dism… Are you mouthing along to what I’m saying?”
“Most certainly not, sir,” replied Clarke, who most certainly was. She’d heard that so many times recently she was beginning to think it was her boss’s catchphrase.
“Orders dismissed,” said Guildenstern, who felt like he should finish the sentence regardless. “So what do you suggest we should do with the young man in question?”
“I could eat him…”
“You definitely could not!”
“A mere attempt at humour sir, to lighten the mood.”
“You have outdone yourself in not being able to read the mood in the first place, Clarke.”
“Apologies, sir. It’s just you’re all so difficult to interpret without the olfactory clues.”
“Next time I will tailor my deodorant appropriately.”
Clarke blithely waved the comment away as if Guildenstern had been serious. “And anyway, sir, we can’t just yank him from the past. Think of the implications. The space-time continuum as we know it could simply collapse.”
“And yet, here we are, Clarke. No massive changes to history. No” – he narrowed his eyes at the velociraptor squatting on her booster cushion – “dinosaurs ruling the Earth once more.”
“Highly unlikely sir, since he’s from the early 21st. He couldn’t have enough impact on the continuum because… that… wasn’t what you meant, was it?”
“It was not. I was getting to the fact that he’s clearly not too important in history as Carmichael and his quantum chart room boys have not tracked any major changes aside from a couple of altered families.”
“Nevertheless, sir, I feel we should send him back. He’s a man out of time. If he couldn’t cope with me, I do wonder how he’d react to everything else?”
“For once, Clarke, you are talking sense. My concern, however, is what happens if we do shunt him back to his own time.”
“In what way, sir?”
“What if he starts talking about what he’s seen? About you! Do we have the technology to wipe his short-term memory?”
“Ah, you mean the DX37, sir?”
“Is that the new memory drug being developed at Google?”
“No, sir. It’s Dr. Patterson’s latest homebrew. Works wonders on mammalian memory. Well, mostly losing it….”
“We’re not getting him drunk!” roared Guildenstern. Clarke saw which way the wind was blowing (or in this case, the hurricane) and opted for appeasement.
“My thinking is this, sir: we send him back to a moment after he left at some random, isolated location. Perhaps we inject some measure of alcohol into his system and if he starts babbling about what he’s seen, everyone will think he’s been, as Patterson likes to put it, ‘on the sauce.’”
Guildenstern’s rage seemed to subside somewhat as he considered this. His brows knitted in concentration. “You know that might actually work,” he said finally. “I’m beginning to think I’m not surrounded by absolute blithering idiots.” He saw Clarke starting to open her jaws, presumably to offer some argument. He raised his chin. She shut her snout.
“Very well then, have Patterson knock up some of his special stuff, inject the man and get him back to where he belongs.”
“There is one small other matter, sir…” interjected Clarke.
Guildenstern’s eyes rose to the ceiling. “I’m not going to like this, am I, Clarke?”
“That depends on your spirit of romance, sir!” Guildenstern’s eyes flicked back down and locked on to her with the precision of a laser-guided tracking system. “…Which I can see might be limited at the present time,” continued Clarke diplomatically. “But it seems that Walker has some feelings herself for our visitor.” Guildenstern slowly rose up in his chair, with the effect of a volcano starting to erupt.
“DOCTOR. WALKER. KNOWS. THE. RULES. ABOUT. THAT. SORT. OF. THING!” Guildenstern lowered the volume back down. “You tell her that if she doesn’t want to be dumped back in the Middle Ages at the height of the bubonic plague, she’ll adjust her worldview on this matter and assist in getting him back to his proper decade!”
Clarke simply nodded. “Understood, sir. I’m sure she’ll see sense in the matter; she’s always been a very practical person. For a human.”
“Let us hope,” said Guildenstern, “that the practical side wins out. Is there anything else that must be done, Dr. Clarke? Do I have to start shepherding fact-finding missions myself so nothing of this sort happens again?”
“I doubt that will be necessary, sir. And anyway, you know how the hologenerators have trouble projecting clothes on someone of your si…” She caught his look. It wasn’t tough; he’d thrown it straight at her. “I’ll take my leave, if I may?”
“You may.”
Dr. Clarke hopped down from the chair and walked to the door of Guildenstern’s beautifully appointed study. As soon as it closed behind her, Guildenstern let his head slump to his desk. It was already a longer day than most, and lunch was still hours away.