Oakshott came for him, a juggernaut of flesh and blood and glittering steel. Grant's sword moved mechanically, blocking the attacks, feeling the man's incredible strength, listening to the quick flicking sc.r.a.pes of steel.

Oakshott lunged at him, but Grant sidestepped easily. He rammed the long katana blade through Oakshott's ribs, hoping to drive it home into the man's heart. Oakshott turned enough to make him misshis heart, and the blade was locked in the clutch of ribs. Oakshott swung the hatchet in a backhand blow.

Ducking, Grant caught himself on his left hand in a crouch, then shot his right foot out at his opponent's knee. He aimed the kick from the side, with Oakshott totally exposed and vulnerable. Oakshott grunted but didn't go down. Droplets of blood sprayed from his lips, and Grant knew the knife might have missed the man's heart, but it was buried deep in a lung. An ordinary man would have drowned in his own blood as his lungs filled.

Oakshott grasped the handle of the long sword and drew it from his body, the length of steel car-mined.

He groaned between clenched teeth as he did so. He glanced at it, as if surprised to find it in his hand and dropped it to the beach.

Grant bounded to recover it. Oakshott pistoned out his left arm and his right hand grasped Grant around the neck. Gagging, Grant pried at the fingers crushing flesh, tendon and cartilage into bone. Oakshott lifted him from the ground and slammed him down, putting his weight on Grant's throat to hold him in place. He lifted the hatchet for a skull-splitting blow. Either Brigid or Shizuka or both screamed.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" Grant snarled. He drew up his knees in a protective gesture and shot both heels upward with a pistomng force into the giant's crotch. Lifted in the air, Oakshott sailed backward. He hit the ground hard on the back of his head and neck, the ax blade chiming against the rocks.

Grant staggered to his feet, vision clouded, breath clogging in his throat. Oakshott rose, as well, hatchet in hand. Without looking behind him, Grant rasped, "Brigid, Shizuka, push off in the boat. If I can-"

Whatever else he intended to say was drowned out by a grunting roar. The stamp of heavy feet propelling a monstrous body filled Grant's ears. He dimly heard Shizuka shouting a warning in j.a.panese.

Propelled by gargantuan legs, a creature lunged out of the jungle. Before Grant, Brigid and Shizuka could move, the monster landed on the beach right behind Oakshott. He turned, chopping at it with the hatchet. The mountainous ma.s.s of muscle that made up most of the bulk of the dinosaur did not even flinch as the blade rebounded from its hide. Even in the feeble light, Grant saw blood gleaming darkly on its throat. The creature was wounded, in a frenzy of pain and attacking anything that caught its eye.

The creature lowered its head, its great jaws opened, then closed with a loud snap. Caught by the head and shoulders, Oakshott was lifted high in the air. His legs kicked in a futile spasm. The monster bounded away, its huge fangs shearing through flesh, crunching through bones. Grant saw the lower half of Oakshott's body fall to the ground. Then the dinosaur was gone.

Grant, Shizuka and Brigid stood rooted to the spot, staring in wide-eyed shock. Brigid was the first to speak. "Entropic reversal isn't going to help him now."

"No s.h.i.t," said Kane's voice. He came limping out of the jungle. Brigid ran to him but he waved her away. "I'm all right. I'm all b.l.o.o.d.y, but it's not mine. It's that dinosaur's. He's been after me for the last half hour. I'm glad somebody else caught his attention."

"I'm just glad it was mat madman," Shizuka said, going to Grant's side. They looked thoughtfully at each other in silent surmise.Feeling suddenly awkward, Kane said, "We can always go back to the installation and see if the gateway unit survived."

Grant didn't even look at him when he said,' 'I've got a better idea. Let's go back to New Edo-at least for a few days. Then we can decide how to get back to Cerberus...or even if we really want to."

He cupped the side of Shizuka's face and she embraced him. They kissed pa.s.sionately. Brigid and Kane stepped away, toward the edge of the jungle. She gazed into it without really seeing it. Kane guessed she was looking beyond the vegetation to the distant Operation Chronos complex-or what was left of it.

''I think we should stay in New Edo for a while," she said softly. "We should check out the Chronos base. There are too many secrets there just to turn our backs on."

"What kind of secrets?" he asked suspiciously.

"The secrets of creation," she said dreamily. "The secrets of the beginning of life on Earth." She glanced over at Kane questioningly. "You understand me, right?"

Kane looked down at the deep, three-toed imprints of the dinosaur's feet in the sand. His voice was flat when he said, "Not in a million years, Bap-tiste."