He dragged the man under the dark water. The silver disc on the man’s wrist blinked. ERROR. Temporal anchor lost. Paradox imminent.
Hunger. That was all that was left. The oldest, stupidest, strongest thing in his brain. crocodile -2000-
K’tharr rose from the river an hour later, mud dripping from his snout. The fog was gone. The tadpoles wiggled. The fish swam. And in his ancient, aching gut, he felt something new: a small, hard knot of wrongness. A piece of the future, digesting. He dragged the man under the dark water
Then the disc went dark.
K’tharr’s jaws, strong enough to crush a turtle’s shell, strong enough to hold a drowning ox, closed around the man’s middle. The white suit cracked. The clear helmet shattered. The stick flew into the water, hissing impotently. Temporal anchor lost
But somewhere, in a timeline that would never exist, a team of scientists stared at a blank screen and whispered: “What happened to Unit 7?”