Realistic raptor head on the side of the torso

The crew on Hollin Ridge finally let the old lizard out of the cold store this morning, and I have to tell someone who won't laugh at me. It was the one from the first survey, the grey-brown animal the ship's naturalists called Sable because nobody could agree on its real name. Six years in a crate, and it still turned its head over its shoulder the way it did on the old footage, as if it had heard someone calling from a long way off. Its eyes were the only bright thing in the room.

Mr Okonedo wanted it logged as dead. The count was short by one, he said, and the paperwork has to balance before the transport arrives in spring. I told him the animal had blinked at me, which was true, and he said blinking was a reflex. I said filing a false loss report was a reflex too, and he went red to the ears and walked out.

So here is my plan, and you mustn't talk me out of it. There is a valley past the eastern ridge where the scrub grows thick and the river runs green. I have checked the maps twice. Nobody will come looking for a clerical error in a place with no roads. I'll carry the crate down on the sled myself and open it at the water's edge.

I'm writing this by the stove with my boots still wet. When you read it, look for the three slashes I scratched into the crate lid. If you see them near the river, I will have left the door open behind me.

Yours in haste, Ilse