A team consisting of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu and security officers Tanka and Wadsworth materializes on the barren, hot and dangerous planet surface. The planet is exactly like Earth during the prehistoric Cretaceous Period, 130 million years ago. Even before the team can go very far, they are beset by huge pterodactyls - flying dinosaurs, and Wadsworth is nearly killed. They dash behind nearby rocks and try to defend themselves with phasers on the highest setting. Their energy weapons don't harm the flying monsters, but they manage to get to the relative safety of a cave.

   Since they are not safe outside the cave, the band continues to search through the caverns, walking along the edge of a narrow river of golden liquid. They notice that the walls are lined with rare gems - the large inner cavern is covered with huge slabs of rubies, diamonds and emeralds. Wadsworth's eyes bulge at the wealth all around them, and he goes so far as to advocate that they kill the animals and claim the planet's riches for the Federation. Kirk and Sulu calm him down, and Kirk admonishes Wadsworth for his lack of respect for the Federation's charter - respect for the rights of intelligent life-forms.

   Just then, several immense Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs approach. Spock and Sulu notice that these specimens are different from Earth's T-Rex's in that these have longer arms and larger brains. Spock makes the amazing pronouncement that the Tyrannosaurus Rex's are the intelligent life-forms that were detected by ship's sensors.

   The dinosaurs communicate with them telepathically and tell them that they realized that the Federation men were peaceful because Spock discovered their secret of intelligence. Wadsworth is still somewhat unhinged due to his brush with death, and he states that the dinosaurs are probably not peaceful. He says the T-Rex's will try to kill them and keep all of the gems and liquid gold for themselves. He shoots at them with his phaser which starts the collapse of the cavern.

   Kirk asks the dinosaurs to help them escape from the cavern and the gentle giants agree. The Starfleet men mount the scaly backs of the beasts and are borne to safety. They reach daylight just in the nick of time as the whole mountain collapses.

   The planet of dinosaurs is admitted to the Federation and the Enterprise returns home.

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This story appeared in the following packages:

Record 15

Record 20

Record 23

Notes:

• This story was sometimes accompanied by a 20 Page Read-Along Comic Book.
• The read-along comic depicted the gray Starfleet uniforms and Enterprise as they appeared in STAR TREK: The Motion Picture.
• This is the only story that contains a variation of Kirk's famous opening narration. This story's opening is, "these are the new voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its mission to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before."
• This story features the characters of security officers Frank Tanka and Wadsworth.
• In this story, Sulu's rank was incorrectly given as Ensign, instead of Lieutenant.
• Even though it was established in original series episodes that money is not important to Starfleet personnel because such gems can be created with technology, this story has security officer Wadsworth greedily coveting the jewels that they find in a cave on the planet's surface.
• There was an error is this story, when Spock mentions that Earth's sun is a yellow dwarf.

STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures Corporation. All Rights Reserved. The STAR TREK story records were produced by Peter Pan Records, and Power Records a Division of Peter Pan Industries.

Email: cdanhauser@yahoo.com