A Timeless Treasure
By: Lance Holloway

	It was another typical day at work in the badlands.  The sun beat
down from above.  No trees for shade.  No source of water for miles.
Even, the bright dirt reflected the heat so Anna could get sunburned on
both sides.

	Dr. Anna Fulkert was used to this weather.  She had been out
digging for dinosaur bones since her father let her tag along on an
excavation site when she was twelve.  She fell in love with it instantly.
Now, in her late forties, Anna has as much love for paleontology as she
did then, if not more.

	Anna continued brushing away dirt from her new discovery: a
complete stegosaurus skeleton.  Nature had virtually left it untouched.
It was her rarest find ever.  When she called the university, they sent
out a group of scientists and graduate students to help her.  The team set
up camp on the spot.

	Dr. Frank Hemmings had insisted on accompanying them on the dig.
Anna had hoped that he would have kept his nose out of her business.
Every dig she is on, he is there trying to take the credit.  On this dig,
she made a point not to allow him to steal her discoveries.  This was her
prize.

The team of twelve other diggers had left earlier to go to the nearest
town for lunch.  Anna stayed with the skeleton.  She could not leave it
behind.  Carol had offered to bring Anna back something.  The young
graduate student reminded Anna of herself at a younger age.  They both
shared the same enthusiasm about excavations.  Anna accepted and continued
to slowly uncover her buried treasure.

There was a sparkle of blue.  The brush had revealed something blue and
shiny buried with the skeleton.  It appeared to be a marble.  "Hello,"
Anna said out loud.  "And what might you be?"

Curious, she brushed away more dirt.  It turned out it was indeed a sphere
about half an inch in diameter.  Light reflected off the inside edges of
the deep-blue translucent object giving it a brilliant shimmer.  It was
the most beautiful thing Anna had ever seen.

"This can't be a gastrolith, can it?" she asked herself.  From the
orientation of where the object lay buried, it was near the front legs of
the stegosaurus.  A gizzard stone would be in the stomach area.  "Perhaps
over time it just moved," she concluded.

Her mind on gizzard stones, she realized that she hadn't found one yet.
Normally a dinosaur like this would have a small pile of stones in the
stomach area. This one had none, except for the shiny blue sphere.  If it
were a gastrolith at all.

Anna bent down closer to the stone and poked it with her index finger.  It
felt smooth and cool.  Suddenly, the stone shocked her.  Anna
instinctively pulled her hand back from the stone.  She sat there holding
her hand and staring at the strange marble.

Realizing she wasn't in any more danger, she approached the stone again.
As she got closer, the stone turned dull and brown until it was nothing
more than the same type of dirt around it.

"How odd," she said and picked up her brush.

Anna continued brushing away the dirt from the skeleton, but she kept
looking over to where the marble had been.  Of course, it was not there.
She fussed at herself for touching it.  It would have been a great
artifact if she were able to have displayed and studied it.

Her stomach growled.  "Where is Carol with that lunch?" she asked the
badlands.  She was growing hungry.  And her muscles were cramping up.  She
hated to think about it, but she felt like she was getting too old for
this kind of work.  However, that wouldn't keep her from continuing
uncovering her greatest find.  This one should get her in the history
books.

But first, she took a break.  Getting up and stretching after hours of
crawling around in the dirt usually does wonders, especially for her back.
This time, however, her back still hurt.  She reached back as far as she
could and rubbed her aching spine.

She suddenly stopped.  Something felt odd.  Small ridges were under her
shirt along her back.  She stood there in confused shock.  What were those
ridges?  Her mind shifted from that thought when she saw her hands.  They
were green.  They were green and big.

Anna didn't have as much time to think about her hands as she did about
the ridges on her back because she fell to the ground in pain.  She felt
her insides churning like boiling noodles.  Bones crunched and stretched.
She bellowed in pain.  It was a deep bellow.

"Dr. Fulkert!" yelled a voice.  Anna recognized it as Carol's, but she was
in so much pain that she couldn't keep her eyes open to see.  "Dr
Fulkert!"  Carol's voice was closer.  She sounded horrified and worried.

Anna called out, "Carol," but all that she was able to utter was another
bellow.

"Oh!  Dr!" Carol said almost to tears.  Anna could feel the young woman's
hand on her side for a second.  Carol must have jerked her hand back
quickly.  Was Anna so hideous?

"Dr. Hemmings!  Help!" Carol screamed.

Anna could hear footsteps running toward her as her bones continued to
twist and grind.  A series of gasps could be heard as soon as the
footsteps stopped.

"What is that?" Anna heard Frank Hemmings ask in a shaky voice.

"It's Dr. Fulkert," Carol answered still crying.  "She looked more like
herself a few moments ago."

"Anna?" Frank asked.  He was forcing himself to be calm.  "Anna, what's
happening?"

Anna bellowed as such a stupid question.  That's all she could do.  She
couldn't force any words out.

"No!  Stay back!" Frank scolded someone.  "We have no idea what's going on
here."  His voice seemed to fade away.

Anna felt like swiping him with her tail right then.  "Tail?" the thought.
When did she get a tail?  The pain dulled, allowing her to think more on
what had been happening.  She opened her eyes to see what abomination she
had become.

However, the first question that came across her mind was, "Where am I?"
The surroundings were completely unfamiliar.  Tall lush trees covered the
landscape reaching for the sky.  Their large leaves provided shade to the
steamy underbrush.  Strange animal noises could be heard all around.  The
badlands, Carol, Frank, and the skeleton were no where to be seen.  There
was no trace at all of the campsite.

A large dragonfly darted by her head and few off into the forest.  "There
hadn't been an insect that big since...." Anna thought.  Then she
remembered something about herself.  She wasn't Anna anymore.  She turned
her head to look at herself.  Standing on all fours, she saw the body of a
stegosaurus.  Large plates stood up on her back, and she did indeed have a
tail.  A large magnificent tail.

She shook her head.  "I'm _not_ a stegosaurus!  I am a human!" she
bellowed.  Of course, it was just a large growl.  From her point of view,
she saw that her muzzle was long and not capable of human speech.  Her
bellow was followed by another similar bellow off in the forest, but
nothing showed itself.  "It must be another dinosaur," she though.
"Another stegosaurus.  Perhaps my bellow was just a signal to say that I
was still here.  Like I was part of their herd.  Interesting."

Her thoughts returned to her stomach.  She decided it was time to look for
food.  All the plants around her looked scrumptious, but which ones were
poisonous, if any?  She recognized some of the plants from books her
paleobotanist friend had, but she didn't know anything about the plants.
Without thinking, she lumbered on all fours over to a small bush and began
eating.  It tasted wonderful.

Her body seemed to know what it wanted, and where to get it.  So, she let
her instincts guide her.  She was too scared to let go too much.  As long
as her instincts led her to food and kept her away from any other
dinosaurs she would be fine.

Knowing how small a stegosaurus's brain was, she didn't know how much room
she had for her own thoughts.  Or how much longer they would last.  Every
now and then she would catch herself almost drifting off into pure
instinct, and she would concentrate to keep her thoughts alive.

About half an hour after she arrived, or at least what she thought had
been half an hour, she heard a strange noise.  It was coming from the sky
above the tall things.... "Trees" she forced herself to think of the word.

Even in broad daylight, she could see a bright streak across the sky.  And
the streak was heading in her direction.  She watched the strange
phenomenon with curiosity.  The object fell through the trees with a
thundering crash.  

Anna lumbered quickly in the direction of the crash.  It wasn't too far.
She came upon a clearing and saw a charred impression in the ground.  She
walked carefully toward the crater and looked around.  Nothing was there.

Shaking her head in disgust that she was getting forgetful, she started
digging with her front claws to see what had fallen from the sky.  The
dirt was soft and easily pushed aside.  Her huge forefeet were perfect for
digging through it.

She finally saw what she was looking for.  It was a blue shiny sphere.
Much smaller than the one she saw earlier, but exactly the same.
Realizing her logic was flawed again, she remembered that she was bigger
now.

She bent down as close as she could without touching the stone to get a
good look.  She wasn't about to touch it this time.  Besides, she didn't
know if her claws could be so precise to pick up something that small and
round.  She knew she had to use that marble somehow.  She knew it was
responsible for her current predicament.

She scanned the area trying to see if she could find something to use to
pick it up with.  A small branch had fallen from one of the trees nearby
that was just the right size for her to carry in her mouth.

She headed in that direction.  At least she tried.  Her legs were stuck in
the dirt.  The soft dirt seemed to be giving under her weight.  She
struggled to pull a leg free, but it only forced the other three legs
deeper.  The marble had already sunk under it's own weight.

"Quicksand?" she asked.  She should have known better than to wander
around in a strange environment.  She restrained her bellowing.  She
didn't want to bring a predator near while she was helpless.

Nothing in reach for her to grab with her mouth she continued sinking.
"Maybe my instincts know what to do?" she thought.  "What do I have to
lose?  I don't want to die like this."

She stopped concentrating on keeping her mind and she felt like she was
floating.  She felt like she was in that state between being awake and
being asleep.  Things seemed simpler.  No worries clouded her mind except
the fact that she was sinking.

The stegosaurus roared and frantically tried to get herself free from the
trap.  The bellowing finally subsided as the creature's head sunk beneath
the surface.