Michael Swanwick - Shezro with Tyrannosaur

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"Shezro with Tyrannosaur" by Michael Swanwick

Schezro with Tyrannosaur by Michael Swanwick

A keyboardist was playing a selection of Scarlotti’s harpsichord sonatas, brief pieces one to three minutes long,

very complex and refined, while the Hadrosaurus herd streamed by the window. There were hundreds of the

brutes, kicking up dust and honking that lovely flattened near-musical note they make. It was a spectacular

sight.

But the hors d’oeuvres had just arrived: plesiosaur wrapped in kelp, beluga smeared over sliced maiasaur egg,

little slivers of roast dodo on toast, a dozen delicacies more. So a stampede of common-as-dirt herbivores just

couldn’t compete.

Nobody was paying much attention.

Except for the kid. He was glued to the window, staring with an intensity remarkable even for a boy his age. I

figured him to be about ten years old.

Snagging a glass of champagne from a passing tray, I went over to stand next to him. "Enjoying yourself, son?"

Without looking up, the kid said, "What do you think spooked them? Was it a—?" Then he saw the wranglers in

their jeeps and his face fell. "Oh."

"We had to cheat a little to give the diners something to see." I gestured with the wine glass past the herd,

toward the distant woods. "But there are plenty of predators lurking out there—troodons, dromaeosaurs . . .

even old Satan."

He looked up at me in silent question.

"Satan is our nickname for an injured old bull rex that’s been hanging around the station for about a month,

raiding our garbage dump."

It was the wrong thing to say. The kid looked devastated. T. rex a scavenger! Say it ain’t so!

"A tyrannosaur is an advantageous hunter," I said, "like a lion. When it chances upon something convenient,

believe you me, it’ll attack. And when a tyrannosaur is hurting, like old Satan is—well, that’s about as savage

and dangerous as any animal can be. It’ll kill even when it’s not hungry."

That satisfied him. "Good," he said. "I’m glad."

In companionable silence, we stared into the woods together, looking for moving shadows. Then the chime

sounded for dinner to begin, and I sent the kid back to his table. The last hadrosaurs were gone by then.

He went with transparent reluctance.

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"Shezro with Tyrannosaur" by Michael Swanwick

The Cretaceous Ball was our big fund-raiser, a hundred thousand dollars a seat, and in addition to the silent

auction before the meal and the dancing afterward, everybody who bought an entire table for six was entitled to

their very own paleontologist as a kind of party favor.

I used to be a paleontologist myself, before I was promoted. Now I patrolled the room in tux and cummerbund,

making sure everything was running smoothly.

Waiters slipped in and out of existence. You’d see them hurry behind the screen hiding the entrance to the time

funnel and then pop out immediately on the other side, carrying heavily laden trays. Styracosaurus medallions

in mastodon mozzarella for those who liked red meat. Archaeopteryx almondine for those who preferred white.

Raddichio and fennel for the vegetarians.

All to the accompaniment of music, pleasant chitchat, and the best view in the universe.

Donald Hawkins had been assigned to the kid’s table—the de Cherville Family. According to the seating plan

the heavy, phlegmatic man was Gerard, the money-making paterfamilias. The woman beside him was Danielle,

once his trophy wife, now aging gracefully. Beside them were two guests—the Cadigans—who looked a little

overwhelmed by everything and were probably a favored employee and spouse. They didn’t say much. A sullen

daughter, Melusine, in a little black dress that casually displayed her perfect breasts. She looked bored and

restless—trouble incarnate. And there was the kid, given name Philippe.

I kept a close eye on them because of Hawkins. He was new, and I wasn’t expecting him to last long. But he

charmed everyone at the table. Young, handsome, polite—he had it all. I noticed how Melusine slouched back

in her chair, studying him through dark eyelashes, saying nothing. Hawkins, responding to something young

Philippe had said, flashed a boyish, devil-may-care grin. I could feel the heat of the kid’s hero-worship from

across the room.

Then my silent beeper went off, and I had to duck out of the late Cretaceous and back into the kitchen, Home

Base, year 2140.

There was a Time Safety Officer waiting for me. The main duty of a TSO is to make sure that no time

paradoxes occur, so that the Unchanging wouldn’t take our time privileges away from us. Most people think that

time travel was invented recently, and by human beings. That’s because our sponsors don’t want their

presence advertised.

In the kitchen, everyone was in an uproar. One of the waiters was leaning, spraddle-legged and arms wide

against the table, and another was lying on the floor clutching what looked to be a broken arm. The TSO

covered them both with a gun.

The good news was that the Old Man wasn’t there. If it had been something big and hairy—a Creationist bomb,

or a message from a million years upline—he would have been.

When I showed up, everybody began talking at once.

"I didn’t do nothing, man, this bastard—"

"—guilty of a Class Six violation—

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Michael Swanwick - Shezro with Tyrannosaur

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