Caught between predatorial dinosaurs and a group of armed men, Kat worries more about the dinosaurs.
Kat, an out Kat, an outdoor video star, tries to make amends with her mother on her home world, an alternate Earth where dinosaurs never went extin...
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The trip back to Earth Prime went without incident. Kat stayed a week on Prime wrapping up loose ends. Some of it had to do with wrapping up the season; some of it was financial. Some of it was seeing old friends.
Everywhere she went, she ran into fans. Not that everyone knew her. Quite the opposite. But everywhere she went, somebody knew her, and they wanted her autograph or pictures. Some wanted to know if everything they filmed was staged or CGI generated. Not that it mattered to them since they thought she was fantastic, and they were going to watch the show regardless. Kat tried to tell them everything on the show was real, but many still seemed to have doubts. She tried to be gracious to all the fans, but she wished she could just blend in and disappear for a while. On her fifth day back on Earth Prime, she visited a hair solon and had her long tails cut off and had her new shortened hair dyed ginger. The lady at the salon called the cut a genie-bob or something like that and told Kat afterward that she looked very cute with it. She also said it was currently a popular style for those in their mid-twenties. After that, no one asked for an autograph or a selfie with her. Of course, she wasn't going to tell George about the cut until she had to see him.
Ten days after they returned from Earth1912, she took a flight to Earth1854. Also known as Cretacia, it was where she was born, and where her parents still lived. The interverse ship was roughly the same size and had the same appearance on the outside as the shuttle that had transported them to and from the ice-age world. The big flattened-out whale shape with fins on the back, large propeller drums attached to the sides, and a cabin mounted underneath. But the inside was configured totally different. Made for passenger travel rather than equipment transport, it had over a hundred seats rather than the twenty on the shuttle. She stowed her bag in the compartment overhead and slid into her seat by the window. A short time later a man tossed a duffle bag into the compartment overhead and sat down in the aisle seat next to her. While the man's thick dark nest of a beard and the uncombed mop on his head made him look older, Kat doubted he was even her age.
"Hello there." The man glanced at Kat for a moment before turning his gaze to the window.
"Hi." Kat politely smiled at the man and turned back to the news stories waiting on her pad.
"My first time aboard one of this ... ships. You rode before?"
"Yes." Kat replied, wondering about the man's accent and broken English. She turned back to her pad.
"You go before to this one we go today? They say dinosaurs there."
"Yeah. Grew up there." Kat said.
"You did? Oh, sorry. Forgot to tell my name. I am Petru Orhei. You call me Pete. You have name?"
Kat lowered her pad. The man was different than anyone she had met before and perhaps a conversation could be interesting. "I'm Kat."
"Wait." The man turned his eyes back on her and squinted. "You that Katgirl lady I see on video. But you not have wig with ..." The man pointed at the back of his head and made a line down over his shoulder.
