I kept returning to Jack’s and Reggie’s hunting grounds on the edge of Rainforest World and the Dinosaur Swamps but they weren’t there. Opal scanned for them, but they hadn’t been around in several days.

  I really hoped nothing bad had happened to them.

  During those days, since I couldn’t find my guard dogs, I knocked some things off my to-do list. We gave the bedding a thorough cleaning, I gathered more lumber for my back deck project and did some planning.

  Before I started a big construction project, there were two things I wanted to accomplish, and that meant taking a little trip to the Dinosaur Swamps.

  Our first stop was the Fodoron Obelisk. I wanted to see if I could get access. Sliding the 10X crystal into the housing, I was very happy when the stone melted away and the entrance appeared. We didn’t have much time. The 10X crystal had 80% of it’s charge left, which meant we had eighty minutes, but I wanted to ration that, since such big Inferna crystals were rare.

  Both Billie and Khanna clung to me as the maps appeared, the red energy glowing around, as we saw the other active Obelisks showed us various sectors of K’Shaul.

  Holly walked around the central sphere with her mouth open. She was blinking, completely overwhelmed by the energy and spectacle. “This…this is incredible.”

  Again, Opal asked if she should pair with the Obelisk, and I got a bad feeling in my stomach. I told her we’d wait until she was at 100%. That seemed to satisfy her.

  Again, we saw the motorcycles in Fry City, and again, they were too far away for us to see who was riding them. However, this time, I did catch a glimpse of power crystals, glinting off the bikes. Some of the motorcycles were powered by the Inferna gems, while others had internal combustion engines. Exhaust pipes leaked smoke as they drove the blasted streets of Fry City.

  I didn’t want to spend a bunch of energy hanging out in the Obelisk. The only reason I was there was to make sure that we could use our crystal to gain access.

  We left and made our way to New Ireland. We got lucky and found a herd of the octosheep.

  Billie took down three of the sheep with the hunting rifle. She was a good shot—three shots and three sheep dropped. They were good-sized males as well. Khanna and Billie carried one, each of them walking holding legs, while I lugged back to the two, one over each shoulder.

  We made our way back down to Lonetree Ridge and dropped off two of the octosheep. We took a second to shave off the wool and did some butchering. We then hung the corpse up to drain.

  I knew Jack and Reggie were more nocturnal than your average dinosaur, and I hoped that they would find a way back to their hunting ground that evening. If not, I’d leave the sheep to lure them back. When the suns started to set in the various skies, we all left for the hunting grounds.

  I made sure that the women were okay, hiding back in the ferns, and then I crept through the underbrush.

  “Opal, can you scan for the T. rexes?”

  Affirmative. HOST COMPANIONS: Jack and Reggie are fifty meters away. Analyzing fungal armor. Anomalous fungal compounds detected! Fungi is not native to any known versions of Earth. Scanning. Processing. Please wait.

  “Not native, Opal? What does that mean?”

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  Pausing processing to answer HOSTNAME: Sid Marshall’s query. Potential source of fungi unknown. One possible explanation is that the fungi in question crossed from an unknown sector taken from an unknown world.

  Great. I was dealing with a couple of T. rexes infected by some alien form of athlete’s foot. Well, things on K’Shaul were never boring.

  I wasn’t going to mess around. I was going to really test to see what kind of relationship I had with Jack and Reggie.

  Laying the sheep down in the ferns, I walked right out into the open with my survival suit glowing a little. The two T-rexes were chewing on a couple of tusked deer carcasses.

  Both turned to stare at me with their tiny eyes. With the sun setting and the lights reflecting off the many moons above, I was still the brightest thing in the forest.

  “Okay, Jack…Reggie, you’re not attacking me. That’s a good sign. I think you know that I’m better for you alive than dead. Is that the case?”

  Jack let out a series of grunts. Reggie hissed. They came forward with their nostrils flaring as they snorted.

  “You're sniffing to see if I have food, aren't you? Well, I'm wondering what you’ll do if you think I don't have food.”

  Jack moved first, stomping closer, until he was within a couple of yards of me. If he bit me, we’d be really testing the limits of my survival suit and optimized skin. Both might be like aluminon foil compared to the strength of the dinosaur’s jaws.

  The T. rexes didn’t smell too bad, not like athlete’s foot, just kind of a dusty smell.

  Jack’s huge head brushed me, and his nostrils flared again. He had to be smelling the sheep.

  He was close enough for me to touch. I put a hand on one of the fungal ridges covering him. It wasn’t dusty or dirty, jut a hard unyielding layer of mushroom stuff. It almost felt like plastic.

  Reggie roared and shoved Jack aside, and I crouched, ready to leap away.

  Jack was almost knocked over, but he withdrew, letting Reggie have a turn sniffing me. It was like I was dealing with two Labrador Retrievers and not monstrous predators whose only instinct was to kill and devour anything made of meat. Damn. I was made of meat.

  I touched Reggie, and he kind of shoved his face against mine.

  “Sid Marshall.” A quiet voice whispered to me.

  It was Khanna. She’d crept to the edges of the ferns. Her eyes were wide. Behind her stood Billie and Holly, equally frightened.

  Those girls…I’d told them to stay back.

  Jack raised his head to stare at them, and a second later, Reggie was as well. Both of them took in the women, who stood with their mouths hanging.

  Jack sniffed the air, grunted, and then pushed Reggie back to get to me.

  Jack’s nostrils flared again, and this time, he looked at me with some annoyance in his eyes.

  “I think I know what's wrong, Jack. You're wondering why I'm not feeding you? Is our relationship only based on food? I'm kind of okay with that. Hey, since you girls obviously can't listen to directions, you could make yourself useful. Grab a sheep and toss it out here.”

  Khanna and Billie laid one of the sheep out in the open.

  Reggie was faster—he was a little smaller than Jack and more slender. Reggie snapped up the sheep in a heartbeat, chewing loudly. Jack was not to be outdone. The big white T. rex lunged forward and ripped the sheep in half. Both chewed vigorously. The squishing sounds were almost as disgusting as the crunching sounds. But those were happy dinosaurs as they filled their bellies.

  I walked by them, as they ate, and picked up the other sheep, with my muscles glowing.

  It was a good sign at the Jack and Reggie weren’t going for me or the women once they crunched through the sheep. They made happy grunting noises the entire time as they ate.

  When they were done, they turned to me, and I tossed them the second octosheep.

  Jack grabbed the head, Reggie grabbed the bottom, and they ripped the thing in half.

  Billie stepped forward. “Sid, you’re genius. They aren’t going to eat us because we are bringing them food. This is awesome.”

  “Careful,” I said, my heart pounding. I hadn’t realized I was breathing so hard. I really hadn’t known if my plan would work, and if anything happened to any of the girls, I would never forgive myself.

  Billie went up to Jack’s big leg—he seemed to be a little tamer than Reggie. “I have to pet it. I can’t believe it’s an actual dinosaur.” She touched the leg.

  Jack twisted around to look at her, noticed it was one of the humans there, and then went back to eating. It was exactly like a dog, more interested in eating than us humans.

  Processing complete. Sentience detected. Fungal growths on large reptiles form complex patterns. More data needed. Possible communication. Possible.

  “Wait." My mind raced. "Opal, are you saying that you can talk to the fucking mushroom armor on the back of the T. rex?"

  Affirmative.

  Land of the Lust: Guns of K'Shaul), so if you can't wait, you can run on over there to keep on reading. And if you have some extra cash and like the story, I have a PayPal.