"Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor - Boundary" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

determine.

Nor had anyone ever really explained, to Helen’s satisfaction, exactly how the impact had
killed off so many species. Nor the peculiar mechanism by which it had killed off some, but
not others. In what mystifying manner, for instance, had it killed off all ammonites—but
spared their close relatives, the squids and the octopi? These were the sort of nitty-gritty
questions that paleontologists focused on, and that physicists tended to ignore.

Still, she was willing to entertain it as a valid and testable hypothesis. In truth, she’d
privately admit to herself, Helen’s residual animosity toward the Alvarez Hypothesis was
emotional rather than intellectual. Like most paleontologists, she was often rankled by the
over-bearing arrogance of many of the physicists who were so charmed by the hypothesis and
took it as Revealed Truth. When they pontificated on the subject, physicists tended to dismiss
the inconvenient facts paleontologists kept bringing up, much like an exasperated adult
brushes aside the foolish questions of little children.

One of those facts, however, was that there was no evidence that any dinosaur had survived
till the end of the Cretaceous. But now…

It looked as if they’d found the evidence.

“Yes, where the comet,” she repeated.

She dusted her hands off on her jeans, and straightened up. “It’s going to be a hike back
and it’ll be getting dark in a few hours. Even if it weren’t, we can’t do anything yet. This is on
your folks’ land, Jackie. We’ll have to get their permission to dig here, and I’ve absolutely got to
call the Museum of the Rockies. Probably a few other people.”

She took a long, slow breath. “This is going to be a big dig, Jackie. Whatever your funny
fossil is, it’s led us to the mother lode.”



That night, on the telephone from her motel room, she conveyed her excitement to the
director of the Museum of the Rockies. It wasn’t hard, actually. Ever since the days of Jack
Horner, the Museum had prided itself on its eminence in the world of paleontology, especially
dinosaur paleontology. The director immediately grasped the significance of finding what
appeared to be an articulated velociraptor skeleton on the very edge of the K-T boundary. He
promised to give her the full support of the museum.

In fact, he even came out himself, three days later. By then, Helen, Joe, and Jackie had been
joined by Carol Danvers and Bill Ishihara, the other members of Helen’s team. Three days of
careful digging had uncovered the entire lower half of the fossil. And, in the process, had found
the leg bone of another velociraptor underneath it, the body apparently extending off to the
side of the first.
 Helen heard the footsteps coming up behind her, but continued scraping away. The smell
of chipped rock, a dusty hot scent that always reminded her of striking flints, lingered strongly
in the bright heat of a Montana summer.

“Dr. Sutter?”