Show 9 The Herald Journal Logan Utah Monday February 27 1984 mvraiM VBBzasaiEX "I did it!" he gasped in ecstatic disblief His triumph was short-live- d His two remaining antagonists split up one dropping back to an immediate six o'clock position the other wheeling away to come screaming in from a high ten o'clock both cannons biasing Tristan cut a steep bank dropping a vertical forty-fiv- e degrees to port to avoid the fatal pinch An explosion at the shuttle’s stern flipped it in a complete He sensed it only through the diszying spiral of the starfield before the cockpit and the way his stomach converged on his Tristan had enough flight time in both shuttles and fighters to know that his craft could never hope to outrun his pursuers But he'd go as far as he could Being only a passenger transport it had no need for weaponry he could not offer even a token resistance But he wasn't about to submit to a fiery finish without making them work for it! Tristan scanned his naviscreen and tracker The latter showed four of light advancing rapidly from the blip which diagramed the station Fighters He set an arcing course toward the system perimeter hopelessly aware that he’d be lucky to even make it that far Even in routine service shuttles were known to develop difficulties and were accordingly furnished with distress signals out of desperation Tristan activated it And then he cut the clumsy little craft into full throttle Despite his pushing the shuttle to its limits the foursome of bright green blips on the traffic monitor proceeded to close the distance with frigtening inevitability Tristan pin-poin- mk fyz fete? t&tfr wished his vessel had a three-dimension- ship-to-surfa- point-blan- avoidance But through his shock it gave him' a glimmer of inspiration Though his awkward shuttle lacked the agility of the fighters it didn't have their instability either If by some chance he could cause one or more of the fighter er throat A new series of flashing lights on the instrument panel banished Tristan's momentary vertigo by their urgency Malfunction signals he recognized at once Starboard aft stabilizers and two thrusters gone the aft cargo compartment sealed off due to decompression — the hull must have been Mown open! The traffic scanner still worked It showed one fighter bearing down on him from high at three o’clock A quick glance upward even as he touched the thrust controls confirmed the angle of its approach and its weaponry afire Tristan threw his crippled vessel straight forward heard the protesting whine of its engines and the groan of its position scope as al the fighters did: but the traffic scanner and what he could view from the cockpit would have to suffice Within a matter of 15 minutes the fighters had closed sufficiently to set off the red urgency light and the warning beep of a dangerously close traffic range Noting their strategic approach on the traffic scanner Tristan reached out to activate deflector shields and found his hand hovering ever — nothing! A passenger transport had no use for deflector shields "Blast! " he spat gritting his teeth A static flare on the scanner revealed firing from one of the ships following him hard at starboard With a touch of the thrusters he wrenched his craft into a steep roll to port felt it rock as the bolt clipped its hull The dose-rang- e warning beep had shot into a rapid staccato ping A swift glance at the scanner showed that he had missed a mutually fatal collision with another pursuing warship only by its idiot's instant reaction to careen clear It would’ve k had a shot at him if not for the necessity of Sts' roll-ov- ts structure e The beeper which had subsided from time to time during the skirmish had set off once more Tristan started They were closing on him he couldn't possibly outrun them Evasion grew more difficult with two directional thrusters lost Giving the traffic monitor a determined scan he fingered the control switches and locked his teeth What he saw accompanied by the racing to the Mack void he beeps Jerked his attention dose-rang- t to over compensate on those minutely pilots to touchy controls He set his teeth glanced at the flaring traffic scanner again He could almost envision the fury iff the pilot he'd so narrowly missed obliterating: he felt his mouth draw into a tight deadly grin and paused only long enough on an even keel to draw his bait's vengeful fire Calculating allowable time and space with the scanner and velocity gauge he shot his eliptoid craft forty-fiv- e degrees — horisontal to starboard — and gasped at the violent Jolt of his infuriated pursuer's blast Even as he dodged the continuing volley of fire a billowing flash erupted beyond the periphery of his cockpit canopy When Tristan twisted his head about to look he saw one warship reeling uncontrolled into cold space with a brilliant flame should've arching from the point where one wing-panbeen attached The other was only a dissipating fireball over-reac- el full-fro- nt was plowing into: Another ship loomed up in a collision course ten or twelve times larger than the passenger shuttle Spiked with missive cannon it drew dose enough to blot out most of the starfield spreading before Tristan's cockpit canopy EdJtor'i non: This it a cwapttr from Logan writer Oiam Thornicy't naval “Legacy af Dwai'lai" Thornier who hat puMithed In The Herald Jaumal previously it the quest of ll year oid Tristan to sock his father the Ailed Systems Commander from whom he and hit mother were separated by a piracy in space when Tristan was a young child Captured by enemy soldiers and turned over to a world governor who ence served under his father Tristan discovert he has become a pawn in a gaiatk conspiracy m Our knowledge of dinousaurs continues to grow By Becky Smith You might think that the world could get along without three more books about those extinct giant reptiles but as it turns out the study of dinaesaurs is by bo means fossilized Many scientists now suspect that the tyrannosaurus and his kind were not reptiles at all but were more closely related to the birds and possibly warmblooded as well Dinosaurs may not have been nearly as slow or stupid as we have always assumed and there is new evidence that some even cared for their young in a maternal and quite unlizardlike way That's the aspect of the creatures approached in Russell Freedman’s book "Dinosaurs and their young" a simple carefully reasoned book that will surely be enjoyed by the young of our own species It tells of the discovery in 1171 of a nest of duckbill dinosaur egg fossils with the skull of an adult duckbill nearby This and other discoveries in the same area led scientists to conjecture that duckbilled dinosaurs or hadrosaurs cared for their young rather than Just burying their eggs and then deserting them as previous theories Book review Logan Library suggested The author explains this new theory as well as the earlier ones and shows how the hadrosaurs could have behaved millions of years ago Dinosaurs! Science and myth — The stories are rampant Many of these stories are contained in "Monster Dinosaur" by Daniel Cohen "Monster Dinosaur" is the story of Mr Cohen's lifelong love of dinosaurs and of related topics such as the lively history of cranks and glory seekers in the early days of paleontology One of the stories is that of Benjamin ' Waterhouse Hawkins a wildlife painter who was the first man to reconstruct a dinosaur from fossilized remains He didn't have many remains — mostly teeth — and so he visualized his dinosaur as a cross between a rhinoceros and a lizard Later it was discovered that he's put most of the bones in the wrong places But it was probably a good thing he didn't know this because if he had there never would have been enough room for his famous “dinner in the dinosaur” On New Year's Eve 1153 Hawkins had a banquet table put inside his dinosaur model and he entertained 21 of Great Britain's leading scientists and scholars there The seating was a bit cramped but by all accounts the banquet was a splendid success! i "Monster Dinosaur" also discusses the mote possibility that dinosaurs survive today in the deep seas in Loch Ness or in the jungles of Africa: and it traces the career of the dinosaur in fiction and in the movies Despite its inappropriate title "Monster Dinosaur" is well worth reading for anyone who enjoys dinosaur stories The best dinosaur book to come out in years is unquestionably Helen Roney Battler's “II- lustrated Dinosaur Dictionary" This is a comprehensive readable work that not only names and describes more than 300 dinosaurs that ranged worldwide but also informs on dinosaur history and evolution and on various terms that apply to dinosaurs: biped for example or gastroliths (stomach stones) The entry for each creature indues a pronunciation guide source of name brief description of physical characteristics mention of its feeding habits and dassificatfon (order of dinosaur) Many entries also specify the fossil remains from which the dinosaur's appearance has been deduced whether whole skeletons or merely About half of the entries are footprints illustrated by drawings of the dinosaurs under discussion Supplementary sections indude a list of books for further reading a geographical list of dinosaur discoveries (which creatures were found in which places all over the world) maps of continental formation and a evolutionary chart showing which dinosaurs could be found In different areas From "AcanthophoUs" to Zigongosaurus" this book is a treasure trove of dinosaur information and is sure to become one of the leading ref rrence works on the subject Mack-and-whi- te |