We don’t know anything about their physiology, their biochemistry, their nervous systems, their behavior. And we don’t know anything about their sensory equipment, either.” “Yes, but—” “They’re predators, Ian. Good sense of vision, good sense of hearing and smell.” “I assume so, yes.” “But we don’t know what else,” Sarah said. “What else?” Malcolm said. “Ian. There are other sensory modalities. Snakes sense infrared. Bats have echolocation. Birds and turtles have magnetosensors—they can detect the earth’s magnetic field, which is how they migrate. Dinosaurs may have other sensory modalities that we can’t imagine.” “Sarah, this is ridiculous.” “Is it? Then you tell me. What are they doing out there?” Outside, near the trees, the tyrannosaurs had become silent. They were no longer growling, but they were still moving their heads back and forth in slow arcs, turning left and right. Malcolm frowned. “It looks like … they’re looking around.…” “Straight into bright lights? No, Ian. They’re blinded.” As soon as she said it, he realized she was right But the heads were turning back and forth in that regular way. “Then what are they doing? Smelling?” “No. Heads are high. Nostrils aren’t moving.” “Listening?” She nodded “Possibly.” “Listening to what?” “Maybe to the baby.” He glanced over again. “Sarah. The baby is out cold.” “I know.” “It isn’t making any noise.” “None that we can hear.” She stared at the tyrannosaurs. “But they’re doing something, Ian. That behavior we’re seeing has meaning. We just don’t know what it is.” * * * From the high hide, Levine stared through his night-vision glasses at the clearing. He saw the two tyrannosaurs standing at the edge of the forest. They were moving their heads in an odd, synchronized way. They took a few hesitant steps toward the trailer, lifted their heads, turned right and left, and then seemed finally to make up their minds. The animals moved quickly, almost aggressively, across the clearing. Over the radio, they heard Malcolm say, “It’s the lights! The lights are drawing them.” A moment later, the exterior lights were turned off, and the clearing went black. They all squinted in the darkness. They heard Malcolm say, “That did it.” Thorne said to Levine, “What do you see?” “Nothing.” “What’re they doing?” “They’re just standing there.” Through the night-vision goggles, he saw that the tyrannosaurs had paused, as if confused by this change in light. Even from a distance, he could hear their growls, but they were uneasy. They swung their great heads up and down, and snapped their jaws. But they did not move closer. Kelly said, “What is it?” “They’re waiting,” Levine said. “At least for the moment.” Levine had the distinct impression that the tyrannosaurs were unsettled. The trailer must represent a large and fearsome change in their environment. Perhaps they would turn away, he thought, and leave. Despite their enormous size, they were cautious, almost timid animals. They growled again. And then he saw them move forward, toward the darkened trailer.


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“Ian: what do we do?” “Damned if I know,” Malcolm whispered. They were crouched down side by side in the passageway, trying to stay out of sight in the windows. The tyrannosaurs moved implacably forward. They could feel each step as a distinct vibration now—two ten-ton animals, moving toward them. “They’re coming right at us!” “I noticed,” he said. The first of the animals reached the trailer, coming so close that the body blocked the entire window. All Malcolm could see was powerfully muscled legs and underbelly. The head was far above them, out of view. Then the second tyrannosaur came up on the opposite side. The two animals began to circle the trailer, growling and snorting. Heavy footsteps shook the floor beneath them. They smelled the pungent predator odor. One of the tyrannosaurs brushed against the side of the trailer and they heard a scraping sound, scaly flesh on metal. Malcolm felt sudden panic. It was the smell that did it, the smell that he suddenly remembered, from before. He began to sweat. He glanced over at Sarah, and saw that she was intent, watching the movements of the animals. “This isn’t hunting behavior,” she whispered. “I don’t know,” Malcolm said. “Maybe it is. They aren’t lions, you know.” One of the tyrannosaurs bellowed in the night, a frightening, ear-splitting sound. “Not hunting,” she said. “They’re searching, Ian.” A moment later, the second tyrannosaur bellowed in reply. Then the big head swung down, and peered in through the window in front of them, Malcolm ducked down, flattening himself on the trailer floor, and Sarah collapsed on top of him. Her shoe pressed on his ear. “It’s going to be fine, Sarah.” Outside, they heard the tyrannosaurs snorting and growling. Malcolm whispered, “Would you mind moving?” She edged to one side, and he eased up slowly, peering cautiously over the seat cushions. He had a glimpse of the big eye of the rex staring in at him. The eye swiveled in the socket. He saw the jaws open and close. The hot breath of the animal fogged the glass. The tyrannosaur’s head swung away, moving back from the trailer, and for a moment Malcolm breathed more easily. But then the head swung back, and slammed with a heavy thud into the trailer, rocking it hard. “Don’t worry, Sarah. The trailer’s very strong.” She whispered, “I can’t tell you how relieved I am.” From the opposite side, the other rex bellowed and struck the trailer with its snout. The suspension creaked with the impact. The two tyrannosaurs now began an alternating, rhythmic pounding of the trailer from either side. Malcolm and Harding were thrown back and forth. Sarah tried to steady herself, but was knocked away at the next impact. The floor tilted crazily under each blow. Lab equipment flew off the tables. Glass shattered. And then, abruptly, the pounding stopped. There was silence. Grunting, Malcolm got up on one knee.


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He peered out the window, and saw the hindquarters of one of the tyrannosaurs, as it moved forward. “What do we do?” he whispered. The radio crackled. Thorne said, “Ian, are you there? Ian!” “For God’s sake, turn that off,” Sarah whispered. Malcolm reached for his belt, whispered, “We’re okay,” and clicked the radio off. Sarah was crawling on her hands and knees forward through the trailer, into the biology lab. He followed her, and saw the big tyrannosaur peering in through the window, at the baby, strapped down. The tyrannosaur made a soft grunting sound. Then it paused, looking in the window. It grunted again. “She wants her baby, Ian,” Sarah whispered. “Well, God knows,” Malcolm said, “it’s all right with me.” They were huddled on the floor, trying to stay out of sight. “How are we going to get it to her?” “I don’t know. Maybe push it out the door?” “I don’t want them to step on it,” Sarah said. “Who cares?” Malcolm said. The tyrannosaur at the window made a series of soft grunts, followed by a long, menacing growl. It was the big female. “Sarah—” But she was already standing up, facing the tyrannosaur. She immediately began to speak, her voice soft, soothing. “It’s okay.… It’s all right now.… The baby is fine.… I’m just going to loosen these straps here.… You can watch me.…” The head outside the window was so huge it filled the entire glass frame. Sarah saw the powerful muscles of the neck ripple beneath the skin. The jaws moved slightly. Her hands trembled as she undid the straps. “That’s right.… Your baby is fine.… See, it’s just fine.…” Crouched below at her feet, Malcolm whispered, “What are you doing?” She did not change her soft, soothing tone. “I know it sounds crazy.… But it works with lions … sometimes.… There we are.… Your baby is free.…” Sarah unwrapped the blanket, and took away the oxygen mask, all the while speaking calmly. “Now … all I have to do …” She lifted the baby up in her hands. “… is get it to you.…” Suddenly, the female’s head swung back, and smashed side-on into the glass, which shattered into a white spiderweb with a harsh crack. Sarah couldn’t see through it, but she saw a shadow move and then the second impact broke the glass free. Sarah dropped the baby on the tray and jumped back as the head crashed through, and pushed several feet into the trailer. Streams of blood ran down the adult’s snout, from the shards of glass. But after the initial violence it stopped, and became delicate in its movements. It sniffed the baby, starting at the head, moving slowly down the body. It sniffed the cast, too, and licked it briefly with its tongue. Finally, it rested its lower jaw lightly on the baby’s chest. It stayed that way for a long time, not moving. Only the eyes blinked slowly, staring at Sarah.


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Malcolm, lying on the floor, saw blood dripping over the edge of the counter. He started to get up, but she pushed his head back down with her hand. She whispered, “Ssssh.” “What’s happening?” “It’s feeling the heartbeat.” The tyrannosaur grunted, opened its mouth, and gently gripped the infant between its jaws. Then it moved slowly back, out through the broken glass, carrying the baby outside. It set the baby on the ground, below their vision. It bent over, the head disappearing from view. Malcolm whispered, “Did it wake up? Is the baby awake?” “Ssssh!” There was a repetitive slurping sound, coming from outside the trailer. It was interspersed with soft, guttural growls. Malcolm saw Sarah leaning forward, trying to see out the window. He whispered, “What’s happening?” “She’s licking him. And pushing him with her snout.” “And?” “That’s all. She just keeps doing it.” “What about the baby?” “Nothing. It keeps rolling over, like it’s dead. How much morphine did we give him, the last time?” “I don’t know,” he said. “How should I know?” Malcolm remained on the floor, listening to the slurping and the growling. And finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he heard a soft high-pitched squeak. “He’s waking up! Ian! The baby’s waking up!” Malcolm crawled up on his knees, and looked out the window in time to see the adult carrying the baby in its jaws, walking away toward the perimeter of the clearing. “What’s it doing?” “I guess, taking it back.” The second adult came into view, following the first. Malcolm and Sarah watched the two tyrannosaurs move away from the trailer, across the clearing. Malcolm’s shoulders dropped. “That was close,” he said. “Yes. That was close.” She sighed, and wiped blood from her forearm. In the high hide, Thorne pressed the radio button. “Ian! Are you there? Ian!” Kelly said, “Maybe they turned the radio off.” A light rain began to fall, pattering on the metal roof of the shed. Levine was staring through his night-vision glasses toward the cliff. Lightning flashed, and Thorne said, “Can you see what the animals are doing?” “I can,” Eddie said. “It looks … it looks like they’re going away.” They all began to cheer. Only Levine remained silent, watching through the glasses. Thorne turned to him. “Is that right, Richard? Is everything okay?” “Actually, I think not,” Levine said. “I’m afraid we have made a serious error.” Malcolm watched the retreating tyrannosaurs through the shattered glass window. Beside him, Sarah said nothing. She never took her eyes off the animals. Rain started to fall; water dripped from the shards of glass. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning cracked harshly down, illuminating the giant animals as they moved away. At the nearest of the big trees, the adults stopped, and placed the baby on the ground. “Why are they doing that?” Sarah said. “They should be going back to the nest.” “I don’t know, maybe they’re—” “Maybe the baby is dead,” she said.


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But no, in the next flash of lightning they could see the baby moving. It was still alive. They could hear its high-pitched squeaking as one of the adults took the baby in its jaws, and gently placed it in a fork among the high branches of a tree. “Oh no,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “This is wrong, Ian. This is all wrong.” The female tyrannosaur remained with the baby for some moments, moving it, positioning it. Then the female turned, opened its jaws, and roared. The male tyrannosaur roared in response. And then both animals charged the trailer at full speed, racing across the clearing toward them. “Oh, my God,” Sarah said. “Brace yourself, Sarah!” Malcolm shouted. “It’s going to be bad!” The impact was stunning, knocking them sideways through the air. Sarah screamed as she tumbled away. Malcolm hit his head and fell to the floor, seeing stars. Beneath him, the trailer rocked on its suspension, with a metallic scream. The tyrannosaurs roared, and slammed into it again. He heard her shouting, “Ian! Ian!” and then the trailer crashed over onto its side. Malcolm turned away; glassware and lab equipment smashed all around him. When he looked up, everything was cockeyed. Directly above him was the broken window the tyrannosaur had smashed. Rain dripped through onto Malcolm’s face. Lightning flashed, and then he saw a big head peering down at him and snarling. He heard the harsh scratching of the tyrannosaurs’ claws on the metal side of the trailer, then the face disappeared. A moment later, he heard them bellowing as they pushed the trailer through the dirt. He called “Sarah!” and he saw her, somewhere behind him, just as the world spun crazily again, and the trailer was upended with a crash. Now the trailer was lying on its roof; Malcolm started crawling along the ceiling, trying to reach Sarah. He looked up at the lab equipment, locked down on the lab benches, above his head. Liquid dripped onto him from a dozen sources. Something stung his shoulder. He heard a hiss, and realized it must be acid. Somewhere in the darkness ahead, Sarah was groaning. Lightning flashed again, and Malcolm saw her, lying crumpled near the accordion junction that connected the two trailers. That junction was twisted almost shut, which must mean that the second trailer was still upright. It was crazy. Everything was crazy. Outside, the tyrannosaurs roared, and he heard a muffled explosion. They were biting the tires. He thought: Too bad they don’t bite into the battery cable. That’d give them a real surprise. Suddenly, the tyrannosaurs slammed into the trailer again, knocking it laterally along the clearing. As soon as it stopped, they slammed again. The trailer lurched sideways. By then he had reached Sarah. She threw her arms around him. “Ian,” she said. The whole left half of her face was dark. When the lightning flashed, he saw it was covered in blood. “Are you okay?” “I’m fine,” she said.


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With the back of her hand, she wiped blood out of her eye. “Can you see what it is?” In another lightning flash, he saw the glint of a large chunk of glass, embedded near her hairline. He pulled it out, and pressed his hand against the sudden gush of blood. They were in the kitchen; he reached up toward the stove, and pulled down a dishtowel. He held it against her head, and watched the cloth darken. “Does it hurt?” “It’s okay.” “I think it’s not too bad,” he said. Outside, the tyrannosaurs roared in the night. “What are they doing?” she said. Her voice was dull. The tyrannosaurs slammed into the trailer again. With this impact, the trailer seemed to move a lot more than before, sliding sideways—and down. Sliding down. “They’re pushing us,” he said. “Where, Ian?” “To the edge of the clearing.” The tyrannosaurs slammed again, and the trailer moved farther. “They’re pushing us over the cliff.” The cliff was five hundred feet of sheer rock, straight down to the valley below. They’d never survive the fall. She held the dishtowel with her own hand, pushing his hand away. “Do something.” “Yeah, okay,” he said. He moved away from her, bracing for the next impact. He didn’t know what to do. He had no idea what to do. The trailer was upside down, and everything was crazy. His shoulder burned and he could smell the acid eating his shirt. Or maybe it was his flesh. It burned a lot. The whole trailer was dark, all the power was out, there was glass everywhere, and he— All the power was out. Malcolm started to get to his feet, but the next impact flung him sideways, and he fell hard, slamming his head against the refrigerator. The door swung open and cartons of cold milk, glass bottles, crashed down on him. But there was no light from the refrigerator. Because all the power was out. Lying on his back, Malcolm looked out the window and saw the big foot of a tyrannosaur standing in the grass. Lightning flashed as the foot raised to kick, and immediately the trailer moved again, sliding easily now, metal screeching, and then tilting downward. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Ian …” But it was too late, the whole trailer was groaning and creaking in metallic protest, and then Malcolm saw the far end sink down, as the trailer slid over the cliff. It started slowly, and then gathered speed, the ceiling they were lying on falling away, everything falling, Sarah falling, clutching at him as she went, and the tyrannosaurs bellowing in triumph. We’re going over the cliff, he thought. Not knowing what else to do, he grabbed the refrigerator door, hanging on tightly. The door was cold, and slippery with moisture. The trailer tilted and fell, the metal creaking loudly.


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Malcolm felt his hands sliding off the white enamel, sliding … sliding.… And then he lost his grip and fell free, dropping helplessly straight down toward the far end of the trailer. He saw the driver’s seat rushing up to him, but before he got there he struck something in the darkness, felt a moment of searing pain, and bent double. And slowly, gently, everything around him went black. Rain drummed on the roof of the shed, and poured in a continuous sheet down the sides. Levine wiped the lenses of his glasses, then lifted them again to his eyes. He stared at the cliffs in the darkness. Arby said, “What is it? What happened?” “I can’t tell,” Levine said. It was hard to see anything in this downpour. Moments before, they had watched in horror as the two tyrannosaurs pushed the trailer toward the cliff. The large animals had done it with ease: Levine guessed the tyrannosaurs had a combined mass of twenty tons, and the trailer only weighed about two tons. Once they had turned it over, it slid easily over the wet grass as they pushed it with their underbellies, and kicked it with their powerful leg muscles. “Why are they doing that?” Thorne said to Levine, standing beside him. “I suspect,” he said, “that we have changed the perceived territory.” “How’s that again?” “You have to remember what we’re dealing with,” Levine said. “Tyrannosaurs may show complex behavior, but most of it is instinctual. It’s unthinking behavior, wired in. And territoriality is part of that instinct. The tyrannosaurs mark territory, they defend territory. It’s not thinking behavior—they don’t have very large brains—but they do it from instinct. All instinctive behavior has triggers, releasers for the behavior. And I’m afraid that, by moving the baby, we redefined their territory to include the clearing where the baby was found. So now they’re going to defend their territory, by driving out the trailers.” Then lightning flashed, and they all saw it in the same horrifying moment. The first trailer had gone over the cliff. It was hanging upside down in space, still connected by the accordion connector to the second trailer in the clearing above. “That connector won’t hold!” Eddie shouted. “Not long!” In the glare of lightning, they saw the tyrannosaurs up in the clearing. Methodically, they were now pushing the second trailer toward the cliff. Thorne turned to Eddie. “I’m going!” he said. “I’ll come with you!” Eddie said. “No! Stay with the kids!” “But you need—” “Stay with the kids! We can’t leave them alone!” “But Levine can—” “No, you stay!” Thorne said. He was already climbing down the scaffolding, slippery in drenching rain, toward the Explorer below. He saw Kelly and Arby looking down at him. He jumped in the car, clicked on the ignition. He was already thinking of the distance to the clearing. It was three miles, maybe more. Even driving fast, it would take him seven or eight minutes to get there.


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And by then it would be too late. He’d never make it in time. But he had to try. Sarah Harding heard a rhythmic creaking, and opened her eyes. Everything was dark; she was disoriented. Then lightning flashed, and she stared straight down toward the valley, five hundred feet below. The view swung gently, back and forth. She was looking through the windshield of the trailer, hanging down the side of the cliff. They were not falling any more. But they were hanging precariously in space. She herself was lying across the driver’s seat, which had broken free of its mounting, and shattered a control panel in the wall; loose wires hung out, panel indicators flickered. She was having trouble seeing, from the blood in her left eye. She pulled out the tail of her shirt, and ripped two strips of cloth. She folded one to make a compress, and pressed it against the gash on her forehead. Then she tied the second strip around her head, to hold the compress down. The pain was intense for a moment; she gritted her teeth until it faded. From somewhere above her, she felt a thumping vibration. She turned, and looked straight up. She saw the whole length of the trailer, suspended vertically. Malcolm was ten feet above her, bent over a lab table, not moving. “Ian,” she said. He didn’t answer. He didn’t move. The trailer shuddered again, creaking under a dull impact. And then Harding realized what was happening. The first trailer was dangling straight down the cliff face, swinging freely in space. But it was still connected to the second trailer, up on the clearing. The first trailer now hung from the accordion connector. And the tyrannosaurs, up above, were now pushing the second trailer off the cliff. “Ian,” she said. “Ian.” She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her body. She felt a wave of dizziness, and wondered how much blood she had lost. She began to climb straight up, standing first on the back of the driver’s seat, grabbing for the nearest biology table. She pulled herself upward, until she could reach a handle mounted in the wall. The trailer swayed beneath her. From the handle, she managed to grab the refrigerator door, putting her fingers through a wire shelf. She tested it, it held, and she gave it her full weight. She raised her leg, until she got her shoe into the refrigerator itself. Then she swung her body still higher, until she was standing up and could reach the handle to the oven. It was like mountain climbing through a damn kitchen, she thought. Soon she was alongside Malcolm. Lightning flashed again, and she saw his battered face. He groaned. She crawled over to him, trying to see how badly he was hurt. “Ian,” she said. His eyes were closed. “Sorry.” “Never mind.” “I got you into this.” “Ian. Can you move? Are you okay?” He groaned. “My leg.” “Ian.


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We have to do something.” From the clearing above them, she heard the tyrannosaurs roaring. It seemed to her that they had been roaring her whole life. The trailer lurched and swung; her legs slid out of the refrigerator and she was hanging free in space from the oven door. The far end of the trailer was some twenty feet below. The oven handle wouldn’t hold her weight, she knew. Not for long. Harding swung her legs, kicking wildly, finally touched something solid. She felt with her feet, then stepped down. Looking back, she saw she was standing on the side of the stainless-steel sink. She moved her foot and the faucet turned on, soaking her feet. The tyrannosaurs roared, pounding hard. The trailer moved farther out into space, swinging. “Ian. There’s not much time. We have to do something.” He raised his head, stared at her with blank eyes. Lightning flashed again. His lips moved. “Power,” he said. “What about it?” “Power is off.” She didn’t know what he was talking about. Of course the power was off. Then she remembered: he had turned it off earlier. When the tyrannosaurs were approaching. The light had bothered them before, maybe it would bother them again. “You want me to turn the power on?” His head nodded fractionally. “Yes. Turn it on.” “How, Ian?” She looked around in the darkness. “There’s a panel.” “Where?” He didn’t answer her. She reached out, shook his shoulder. “Ian: where is the panel?” He pointed downward. She looked down, saw the loose wires from the panel. “I can’t. It’s broken.” “Up …” She could hardly hear him. Vaguely, she remembered that there was another control panel just inside the second trailer. If she could get in, she might be able to turn the power on. “Okay, Ian,” she said. “I’ll do it.” She moved on, going higher. The floor of the trailer was now thirty feet below her. The tyrannosaurs roared, and kicked again. She swung in space. She moved on. She intended to go through the accordion passage into the second trailer, but as she came closer to the top, she saw that it was not possible. In the harsh flare of lightning, she saw the accordion passage was twisted tightly shut. She was trapped in the first trailer. She heard the tyrannosaurs bellowing, and slamming the second trailer above. “Ian!” She looked down. He wasn’t moving. Hanging there, she realized with a sick feeling that she was defeated. Another kick, another two kicks, and it would be all over. They would fall. There was nothing they could do. There was no time left. She was hanging suspended in blackness, the power was out, and there was nothing— Or was there? She heard an electrical hum, not far away in the darkness. Was there a panel up here, at this end of the trailer? Did they design it to have panels at both ends?


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Hanging near the top of the trailer, her shoulders and forearms burning with strain, she looked around for a second power panel. She was up near the far end. If there was a panel, it should be nearby. But where? In the glare of lightning, she looked over one shoulder, then the other. She saw no panel. Her arms ached. “Ian, please …” No panel. It wasn’t possible. She kept hearing that hum. There had to be a panel. She just wasn’t seeing it. There had to be a panel. She swung left and right, and lightning flashed again, casting crazy shadows, and then at last she saw it. It was just six inches above her head. It was upside down, but she could see all the buttons and switches. They were dark now. If she could just figure out which was which— The hell with it. She released her right hand, and hanging from her left, pressed every button on the panel she could touch. Immediately, the trailer began to light up, every interior light coming on. She kept pressing the buttons, one after another. Some shorted out; there were sparks and smoke. She kept pressing more. Suddenly the side monitor came on, just inches from her face, a streaky video blur. Then it came into focus. Although she was looking at it sideways, she could see the tyrannosaurs up on the clearing, standing over the second trailer, their forearms touching it, their powerful legs kicking and pushing at it. She pressed more buttons. The final one had a silver protective cover; she flipped the cover open, and pressed that button, too. On the monitor she saw the tyrannosaurs disappear in a sudden flaring burst of incandescent sparks, and she heard them roar in rage. And then the video monitor went off, and there was a crackling explosion of sparks all around Harding, stinging her face and hands, and then everything in the trailer went off, and it was dark again. There was silence for a long moment. Then, inexorably, the pounding began again.


The Lost World -- Michael Crichton -- 1995 -- ePubLibre -- 9a5d50610e191792d85980874e14fa36 -- Anna’s Archive.1

Thorne The windshield wipers flicked back and forth. Thorne took the curves fast, despite the driving rain. He glanced at his watch. Two minutes gone, perhaps three. Perhaps more. He wasn’t sure. The road was a muddy track, slippery and dangerous. He splashed through deep puddles, holding his breath each time. The car had been waterproofed back in his shop, but you were never sure about these things. Each puddle was another test. So far, so good. Three minutes gone. At least three. The road curved, opened out, and in a flash of lightning he saw a deep puddle ahead. He accelerated through it, the car kicking up plumes of water on both side windows. And then he was through it, still going. Still going! As he headed up a hill, he saw the dashboard needles swing wildly, and he heard the sizzle that he knew meant a fatal electrical short. There was an explosion under the hood, and acrid smoke poured out from the radiator, and the car stopped dead. Four minutes. He sat in the car, hearing the rain pound on the metal roof. He turned the ignition key. Nothing happened. Dead. Rain poured in sheets down the windshield. He sat back in his seat, sighed, and stared at the road ahead. The radio crackled on the seat beside him. “Doc? Are you almost there?” Thorne stared at the road, trying to guess where he was. He estimated that he must still be more than a mile from the trailer in the clearing, maybe more. Too far to try it on foot. He swore, and pounded the seat. “No, Eddie. I shorted.” “You what?” “Eddie, the car’s dead. I’m—” Thorne broke off. He noticed something. From around the curve ahead, he saw a faint, flashing red glow. Thorne squinted, trying to be sure. Yes, his eyes were not playing tricks on him. It was there, all right: a flashing red glow. Eddie said: “Doc? You there?” Thorne didn’t answer; he grabbed the radio and the Lindstradt rifle, jumped out of the car, and ducking his head against the rain, began to run up the hill toward the junction of the ridge road. Coming around a curve, he saw the red Jeep, standing in the middle of the ridge road, its taillights flashing. One of the lights was broken, glaring white. He ran forward, trying to see inside. In a flash of lightning he could see there was no driver. The driver’s door was not even closed; the side was deeply dented. Thorne climbed inside, reaching down with his hand for the steering wheel.… Yes, the keys were there! He turned the ignition. The motor rumbled to life. He shoved the Jeep in gear, backed it around, and headed up the ridge toward the clearing. It was only another few curves before he saw the green roof of the laboratory and turned left, his headlights swinging across the grassy clearing, and shining onto the dinosaurs pushing the trailer.


The Lost World -- Michael Crichton -- 1995 -- ePubLibre -- 9a5d50610e191792d85980874e14fa36 -- Anna’s Archive.2

Confronted by these new lights, the tyrannosaurs turned in unison, and bellowed at Thorne’s Jeep. They abandoned the trailer, and charged. Thorne threw the Jeep into reverse and was backing away frantically before he realized the animals were not coming toward him. Instead, they were running diagonally across the clearing, toward a tree near Thorne. Beneath the tree they paused, their heads turned upward. Thorne doused his lights, and waited. Now he saw the animals only intermittently, in the flashes of lightning. In one crackling burst, he saw them take down the baby from the tree. Then he saw them nuzzling the baby. Obviously his sudden arrival had made them anxious about the infant. The next time lightning flashed, the tyrannosaurs were gone. The clearing was empty. Were they really gone? Or were they just hiding? He rolled down the window, stuck his head out in the rain. That was when he heard an odd, low, continuous squealing sound. It sounded like the extended cry of an animal, but it was too steady, too continuous. As he listened, he realized it was something else. It was metal. Thorne turned on his lights again, and drove forward slowly. The tyrannosaurs were gone. In the pale beam of the headlamps, he saw the second trailer. With a continuous metallic squeal, it was still sliding slowly across the wet grass, toward the edge of the cliff. “What is he doing now?” Kelly yelled, over the rain. “He’s driving,” Levine said, looking through goggles. From the high hide, they could see Thorne’s headlamps cross the clearing. “He’s driving to the trailer. And he’s …” “He’s what?” Kelly said. “What is he doing now?” “He’s driving around and around a tree,” Levine said. “A big tree by the clearing.” “Why?” “He must be running the cable around the tree,” Eddie said. “That’s the only possible reason.” There was a moment of silence. “What’s he doing now?” Arby said. “He’s gotten out of the Jeep. Now he’s running toward the trailer.” Thorne was down on his hands and knees in the mud, holding the big hook of the Jeep winch in his hands. The trailer was sliding away from him, but he managed to crawl beneath it, and get the hook around the rear axle. He pulled his fingers clear just as the hook slammed tight against the brake cover, and he rolled his body away. Newly restrained, the trailer jumped sideways in the grass, the tires slamming down where his body had been moments before. The metal cable from the winch was pulled taut. The whole underbelly of the trailer creaked in protest. But it held. Thorne crawled out from beneath the trailer, and squinted at it in the rain. He looked carefully at the wheels of the Jeep, to see if they were moving at all. No. With the cable wrapped around the tree, the counterbalancing weight of the Jeep was enough to hold the second trailer on the rim of the cliff.


The Lost World -- Michael Crichton -- 1995 -- ePubLibre -- 9a5d50610e191792d85980874e14fa36 -- Anna’s Archive.3

He went back to the Jeep, climbed inside, and set the brake. He heard Eddie saying, “Doc. Doc.” “I’m here, Eddie.” “You manage to stop it?” “Yeah. It’s not moving any more.” The radio crackled. “That’s great. But listen. Doc. You know that connector is just five-mil mesh over stainless rod. It was never intended to—” “I know, Eddie. I’m working on it.” Thorne climbed out of the car again. He ran quickly through the rain toward the trailer. He opened the side door, and went inside. The interior was inky black. He could see nothing at all. Everything was overturned. His feet crunched on glass. All the windows were shattered. He held the radio in his hand. “Eddie!” “Yes, Doc.” “I need rope.” He knew that Eddie had all sorts of supplies squirreled away. “Doc …” “Just tell me.” “It’s in the other trailer, Doc.” Thorne crashed against a table in the darkness. “Great.” “There might be some nylon line in the utility locker,” Eddie said. “But I don’t know how much.” He didn’t sound hopeful. Thorne pushed his way down the trailer, came to the wall cabinets. They were jammed shut. He tugged at them in the darkness, then turned away. The utility locker was just beyond. Maybe there would be rope there. And right now, he needed rope.


Trailer Sarah Harding, still hanging by her arms from the top of the trailer, stared up at the twisted accordion connector, leading to the second trailer. The pounding from the dinosaurs had stopped, and the other trailer was no longer moving. But now she felt water, dripping cold onto her face. And she knew what that meant. The accordion connector was beginning to leak. She looked up, and saw a tear had begun to open in the mesh fabric, revealing the twisted coils of steel that formed the connector. The tear was small now, but it would rapidly widen. And as the mesh broke, the steel would begin to uncoil, to lengthen, and finally snap. They had only minutes before the hanging trailer broke free and fell to the ground below. She climbed back down to Malcolm, bracing herself to stand beside him. “Ian.” “I know,” he said, shaking his head. “Ian, we have to get out of here.” She grabbed him under his armpits, and pulled him upright. “And you’re coming with me.” He shook his head, defeated. She had seen that gesture before in her life, that futile shake, giving up. She hated to see it. Harding never gave up. Not ever. Malcolm grunted. “I can’t.…” “You have to,” she said. “Sarah …” “I don’t want to hear it, Ian. There’s nothing to talk about. Now let’s go.” She was pulling him, and he groaned, but he straightened his body. She pulled hard, and got him up off the table. Lightning flashed, and he seemed to find some energy. He managed to stand on the edge of the seat, facing the table. He was unsteady, but standing. “What do we do?” “I don’t know, but we’re going to get out of here.… Is there any rope?” He nodded, weakly. “Where?” He pointed straight down, toward the nose of the trailer, now hanging in space. “Down there. Under the dash.” “Come on.” She leaned out into space, and spread her legs so she was braced against the floor opposite her. She was standing like a rock climber in a chimney. Twenty feet below her to the dashboard. “Okay, Ian. Let’s go.” Malcolm said, “I can’t do it, Sarah. Seriously.” “Then lean on me. I’ll carry you.” “But—” “Now, damn it!” Malcolm hoisted himself up, grasped a wall fitting, his arm trembling. He was dragging his right leg. Then she felt his weight on her, sudden and heavy, almost knocking her free. His arms locked around her neck, choking her. She gasped, reached back with both arms, grabbed his thighs, and lifted him while he adjusted his arms better around her neck. Finally she could breathe. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s okay,” she said. “Here we go.” She started to make her way down the vertical passageway, grabbing at whatever she could.


In places there were handholds, and when there were no handholds, she clutched at drawer handles, table legs, window latches, even the carpeting on the floor, her fingers tearing the cloth. At one point, the carpet came away in a big strip, and she slipped before her legs tightened wider, and she halted her downward slide. Hanging behind her, Malcolm wheezed; his arms around her neck were trembling. He said, “You’re very strong.” “But still feminine,” she said, grimly. She was only ten feet from the dashboard. Then five. She found a wall grip, hung, dangling her legs. Her feet touched the steering wheel. She lowered herself down, easing Malcolm onto the dashboard. He lay back, gasping. The trailer creaked and swayed. She fumbled under the dashboard, found a utility box, popped it open. Metal tools spilled out, clattering. And she found a rope. Half-inch nylon, easily fifty feet of it. She got up, staring down through the windshield at the bottom of the valley hundreds of feet below. Directly to her side, she saw the driver’s door to the trailer. She twisted the handle, pushed it open. It clanged against the outer surface of the trailer, and she felt rain on her face. She leaned out and looked up the side of the trailer. She saw smooth metal paneling, with no hand grips. But underneath the trailer, there must be axles and boxes and other things to stand on. Gripping the wet metal of the doorjamb, she bent over, trying to look at the underside of the trailer. She heard a metallic clanking, and she heard someone say, “Finally!” And a bulky shape suddenly loomed in front of her. It was Thorne, hanging on the undercarriage. “For Christ’s sake,” Thorne said. “What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Let’s go!” “It’s Ian,” she said. “He’s hurt.” Typical, Kelly thought, looking at Arby in the high hide. When things got tough, he just couldn’t handle it. Too much emotion, too much tension, and he got all trembly and weird. Arby had long since turned away from the cliff, and now was looking out the other side of the shelter, toward the river. Almost as if nothing was going on. Typical. Kelly turned back to Levine. “What’s happening now?” she said. “Thorne just went in,” Levine said, peering through the goggles. “He went in? You mean, in the trailer?” “Yes. And now … someone’s coming out.” “Who?” “I think Sarah. She’s getting everybody out.” Kelly strained in the night, trying to see. The rain had almost stopped; there was only a light drizzle now. Across the valley, the trailer still swung free in space. She thought she could make out a figure, clinging to the undercarriage. But she couldn’t be sure. “What’s she doing?” “Climbing.” “Alone?” “Yes,” Levine said. “Alone.” Sarah Harding came out through the door, twisting her body in the rain. She did not look down. She knew the valley was five hundred feet below her.


She could feel the trailer swinging. She had the rope slung around her shoulder. She edged around, lowered her leg, and stood on a gearbox. She felt with her hand, gripped a cable. Swung around. Thorne was inside the trailer, talking to her. “We’ll never get Malcolm up without a rope,” he said. “Can you climb it?” Lightning flashed. She stared straight up at the underside of the trailer, glistening wet with rain. She saw the slick gleam of grease. Then blackness again. “Sarah: can you do it?” “Yes,” she said. She reached up, and started to climb. In the high hide, Kelly was saying, “Where is she? What’s happening? Is she all right?” Levine watched through the glasses. “She’s climbing,” he said. Arby listened to their voices distantly. He was turned away, staring off at the river in the darkened plain. He waited impatiently for the next lightning flash. Waited to see if it was true, what he had seen earlier. She did not know how, but slipping and sliding, she somehow got to the top of the cliff, and flung herself over the side. There was no time to waste; she uncoiled the rope, and crawled beneath the second trailer. She looped the rope through a metal bracket, quickly knotted it. Then she went back to the edge of the cliff, and threw the rope down. “Doc!” she shouted. Standing at the trailer door, Thorne caught the rope, and tied it around Malcolm, who groaned. “Let’s go,” Thorne said. He put his arm around Malcolm and swung them both out, until they were standing on the gearbox. “Christ,” Malcolm said, looking upward. But Sarah was already pulling him, the rope tightening. “Just use your arms,” Thorne said. Malcolm started to rise; in a few moments, he was ten feet above Thorne. Sarah was up on the cliff, but Thorne couldn’t see her; Ian’s body blocked his view. Thorne began to climb, his legs struggling for purchase. The underside of the trailer was slippery. He thought: I should have made it nonskid. But who would ever make the undercarriage of a vehicle nonskid? In his mind’s eye, he saw the accordion connector, tearing … slowly tearing … opening wider.… He climbed upward. Hand over hand. Foot by foot. Lightning flashed, and he realized that they were close to the top. Sarah was standing on the edge of the cliff, reaching down for Malcolm. Malcolm was pulling himself up with his arms; his legs swung limp, free. But he was still going. Another few feet … Sarah grabbed Malcolm by the shirt collar, and hauled him up the rest of the way. Malcolm flopped over, out of sight. Thorne continued up. His feet slipped. His arms ached. He climbed. Sarah was reaching down to him. “Come on, Doc,” she said. Her hand was extended. Fingers reaching toward him. With a metallic whang! the mesh ripped on the connector, and the trailer dropped down ten feet, the coils widening.


The Lost World -- Michael Crichton -- 1995 -- ePubLibre -- 9a5d50610e191792d85980874e14fa36 -- Anna’s Archive.4

Thorne climbed faster. Looking up toward Sarah. Her hand still reached down. “You can do it, Doc.…” He climbed, closing his eyes, just climbing, holding the rope, gripping it tightly. His arms ached, his shoulders ached, and the rope seemed to become smaller in his hands. He twisted it around his fist, trying to hold on. But at the last moment he began to slip, and then he felt a sudden burning pain in his scalp. “Sorry about that,” Sarah said, and she pulled him up by his hair. The pain was intense but he didn’t care, he hardly noticed, because now he was alongside the accordion connector, watching the coils pop free like a bursting corset, and the trailer dropped lower but she still pulled him, she was immensely strong, and then his fingers touched wet grass, and he was over the side. Safe. Beneath them, there was a sharp series of metallic sounds—whang! whang! whang!—as the coiled metal rods snapped one after another, and then, with a final groan, the trailer broke all connection, and fell free down the cliff face, growing smaller and smaller, until it smashed on the rocks far below. In the glare of lightning, it looked like a crumpled paper bag. Thorne turned, and looked up at Sarah. “Thanks,” he said. Sarah sat heavily on the ground beside him. Blood dripped from her bandaged head. She opened her fingers, and released a handful of his gray hair, which fell in a wet clump onto the grass. “Hell of a night,” she said.


The High Hide Watching through the night-vision glasses, Levine said, “They made it!” Kelly said, “All of them?” “Yes! They made it!” Kelly began to jump and cheer. Arby turned, and grabbed the glasses out of Levine’s hand. “Hey,” Levine said. “Just a minute—” “I need them,” Arby said. He spun back around and looked out at the dark plain. For a moment, he couldn’t see anything, just a green blur. His fingers found the focus knob, he twisted it quickly, and the image came into view. “What the hell is so important?” Levine said irritably. “That’s an expensive piece of equipment—” And then they all heard the snarling. It was coming closer. In pale shades of luminous green, Arby saw the raptors clearly. There were twelve of them, moving in a loose cluster through the grass, heading in the direction of the high hide. One animal was a few yards ahead and seemed to be the leader; but it was hard to discern any organization in the pack. The raptors were all snarling and licking the blood off their snouts, wiping their faces with their clawed forearms, a gesture oddly intelligent, almost human. In the night-vision glasses, their eyes glowed bright green. They did not seem to have noticed the high hide. They never looked up toward it. But they were certainly headed in that direction. Abruptly, the glasses were yanked out of Arby’s hands. “Excuse me,” Levine said. “I think I’d better handle this.” Arby said, “You wouldn’t even know about it, if it wasn’t for me.” “Be quiet,” Levine said. He brought the glasses to his eyes, focused them, and sighed at what he saw. Twelve animals, about twenty yards away. Eddie said quietly, “Do they see us?” “No. And we’re downwind of them, so they won’t smell us. My guess is they’re following the game trail that runs past the hide. If we’re quiet, they’ll go right past us.” Eddie’s radio crackled. He hastily reached to turn it down. They all stared out at the plain. The night was now calm and still. The rain had stopped, and the moon was breaking through thinning clouds. Faintly, they saw the approaching animals, dark against the silver grass. Eddie whispered, “Can they get up here?” “I don’t see how,” Levine whispered. “We’re almost twenty feet above the ground. I think we’ll be fine.” “But you said they can climb trees.” “Ssssh. This isn’t a tree. Now, everybody down, and quiet.” * * * Malcolm winced in pain as Thorne stretched him out on a table in the second trailer. “I don’t seem to have much luck on these expeditions, do I?” “No, you don’t,” Sarah said. “Just take it easy, Ian.” Thorne held a flashlight while she cut away Malcolm’s trouser. He had a deep gash on his right leg, and he had lost a lot of blood.


She said, “We have a medical kit?” Thorne said, “I think there’s one outside, where we store the bike.” “Get it.” Thorne went outside to get it. Malcolm and Harding were alone in the trailer. She shone the light into the wound, peering closely. Malcolm said, “How bad is it?” “It could be worse,” she said lightly. “You’ll survive.” In fact, the wound cut deep, almost to the bone. Somehow it had missed the artery; that was lucky. But the gash was filthy—she saw grease and bits of leaves mashed into the ragged red muscle. She’d have to clean it out, but she’d wait for the morphine to take effect first. “Sarah,” Malcolm said, “I owe you my life.” “Never mind, Ian.” “No, no, I do.” “Ian,” she said, looking at him. “This sincerity is not like you.” “It’ll pass,” he said, and smiled a little. She knew he must be in pain. Thorne returned with the medical kit, and she filled the syringe, tapped out the bubbles, and injected it into Malcolm’s shoulder. He grunted. “Ow. How much did you give me?” “A lot.” “Why?” “Because I have to clean the wound out, Ian. And you’re not going to like it when I do.” Malcolm sighed. He turned to Thorne. “It’s always something, isn’t it? Go on, Sarah, do your damnedest.” * * * Levine watched the approaching raptors through the night glasses. They moved in a loose group, with their characteristic hopping gait. He watched, hoping to see some organization in the pack, some structure, some sign of a dominance hierarchy. Velociraptors were intelligent and it made sense that they would organize themselves hierarchically, and that this would appear in their spatial configuration. But he could see nothing. They were like a band of marauders, shapeless, hissing and snapping at one another. Near Levine in the high hide, Eddie and the kids were crouched down. Eddie had his arms around the kids, comforting them. The boy especially was panicky. The girl seemed to be okay. She was calmer. Levine didn’t understand why anyone was afraid. They were perfectly secure, high up here. He watched the approaching pack with academic detachment, trying to discern a pattern in their rapid movements. There was no doubt they were following the game trail. Their path exactly matched the paras earlier in the day: up from the river, then over the slight rise, and along the back of the high hide. The raptors paid no attention to the hide itself. They seemed mostly to interact with each other. The animals came around the side of the structure, and were about to continue on, when the nearest animal paused. It fell behind the rest of the pack, sniffing the air. Then it bent over, and began to poke its snout through the grass around the bottom of the hide. What was it doing? Levine wondered. The solitary raptor growled. It continued to root in the grass.


And then it came up with something in its hand, something it held in its clawed fingers. Levine squinted, trying to see it. It was a piece of wrapping paper from a candy bar. The raptor looked up at the high hide, its eyes glowing. It stared right at Levine. And it snarled.


Malcolm “You feel okay?” Thorne said. “Better all the time,” Malcolm said. He sighed. His body relaxed. “You know, there’s a reason why people like morphine,” he said. Sarah Harding adjusted the inflatable plastic splint around Malcolm’s leg. She said to Thorne, “How long until the helicopter comes?” Thorne glanced at his watch. “Less than five hours. Dawn tomorrow.” “For sure?” “Yes, absolutely.” Harding nodded. “Okay. He’ll be okay.” “I’m fine,” Malcolm said, in a dreamy voice. “I’m just sad that the experiment is over. And it was such a good experiment, too. So elegant. So unique. Darwin never knew.” Harding said to Thorne, “I’m going to clean this out now. Hold his leg for me.” More loudly, she said, “What didn’t Darwin know, Ian?” “That life is a complex system,” he said, “and everything that goes along with that. Fitness landscapes. Adaptive walks. Boolean nets. Self-organizing behavior. Poor man. Ouch! What are you doing there?” “Just tell us,” Harding said, bent over the wound. “Darwin had no idea …” “That life is so unbelievably complex,” Malcolm said. “Nobody realizes it. I mean, a single fertilized egg has a hundred thousand genes, which act in a coordinated way, switching on and off at specific times, to transform that single cell into a complete living creature. That one cell starts to divide, but the subsequent cells are different. They specialize. Some are nerve. Some are gut. Some are limb. Each set of cells begins to follow its own program, developing, interacting. Eventually there are two hundred and fifty different kinds of cells, all developing together, at exactly the right time. Just when the organism needs a circulatory system, the heart starts pumping. Just when hormones are needed, the adrenals start to make them. Week after week, this unimaginably complex development proceeds perfectly—perfectly. It’s incredible. No human activity comes close. “I mean, you ever build a house? A house is simple in comparison. But even so, workmen build the stairs wrong, they put the sink in backward, the tile man doesn’t show up when he’s supposed to. All kinds of things go wrong. And yet the fly that lands on the workman’s lunch is perfect. Ow! Take it easy.” “Sorry,” she said, continuing to clean his wound. “But the point,” Malcolm said, “is that this intricate developmental process in the cell is something we can barely describe, let alone understand. Do you realize the limits of our understanding? Mathematically, we can describe two things interacting, like two planets in space. Three things interacting—three planets in space—well, that becomes a problem. Four or five things interacting, we can’t really do it. And inside the cell, there’s one hundred thousand things interacting. You have to throw up your hands. It’s so complex—how is it even possible that life ever happens at all? Some people think the answer is that living forms organize themselves. Life creates its own order, the way crystallization creates order.


Some people think life crystallizes into being, and that’s how the complexity is managed. “Because, if you didn’t know any physical chemistry, you could look at a crystal and ask all the same questions. You’d see those beautiful spars, those perfect geometric facets, and you could ask, What’s controlling this process? How does the crystal end up so perfectly formed—and looking so much like other crystals? But it turns out a crystal is just the way molecular forces arrange themselves in solid form. No one controls it. It happens on its own. To ask a lot of questions about a crystal means you don’t understand the fundamental nature of the processes that led to its creation. “So maybe living forms are a kind of crystallization. Maybe life just happens. And maybe, like crystals, there’s a characteristic order to living things that is generated by their interacting elements. Okay. Well, one of the things that crystals teach us is that order can arise very fast. One minute you have a liquid, with all the molecules moving randomly. The next minute, a crystal forms, and all the molecules are locked in order. Right?” “Right …” “Okay. Now. Think of the interaction of life forms on the planet to make an ecosystem. That’s even more complex than a single animal. All the arrangements are very complicated. Like the yucca plant. You know about that?” “Tell me.” “The yucca plant depends on a particular moth which gathers pollen into a ball, and carries the ball to a different plant—not a different flower on the same plant—where it rubs the ball on the plant, fertilizing it. Only then does the moth lay its eggs. The yucca plant can’t survive without the moth. The moth can’t survive without the plant. Complex interactions like that make you think maybe behavior is a kind of crystallization, too.” “You’re speaking metaphorically?” Harding said. “I’m talking about all the order in the natural world,” Malcolm said. “And how perhaps it can emerge fast, through crystallization. Because complex animals can evolve their behavior rapidly. Changes can occur very quickly. Human beings are transforming the planet, and nobody knows whether it’s a dangerous development or not. So these behavioral processes can happen faster than we usually think evolution occurs. In ten thousand years human beings have gone from hunting to farming to cities to cyberspace. Behavior is screaming forward, and it might be nonadaptive. Nobody knows. Although personally, I think cyberspace means the end of our species.” “Yes? Why is that?” “Because it means the end of innovation,” Malcolm said. “This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they’ll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big continent, and their evolution slows down. Now, for our own species, evolution occurs mostly through our behavior. We innovate new behavior to adapt.


And everybody on earth knows that innovation only occurs in small groups. Put three people on a committee and they may get something done. Ten people, and it gets harder. Thirty people, and nothing happens. Thirty million, it becomes impossible. That’s the effect of mass media—it keeps anything from happening. Mass media swamps diversity. It makes every place the same. Bangkok or Tokyo or London: there’s a McDonald’s on one corner, a Benetton on another, a Gap across the street. Regional differences vanish. All differences vanish. In a mass-media world, there’s less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas. People worry about losing species diversity in the rain forest. But what about intellectual diversity—our most necessary resource? That’s disappearing faster than trees. But we haven’t figured that out, so now we’re planning to put five billion people together in cyberspace. And it’ll freeze the entire species. Everything will stop dead in its tracks. Everyone will think the same thing at the same time. Global uniformity. Oh, that hurts. Are you done?” “Almost,” Harding said. “Hang on.” “And believe me, it’ll be fast. If you map complex systems on a fitness landscape, you find the behavior can move so fast that fitness can drop precipitously. It doesn’t require asteroids or diseases or anything else. It’s just behavior that suddenly emerges, and turns out to be fatal to the creatures that do it. My idea was that dinosaurs—being complex creatures—might have undergone some of these behavioral changes. And that led to their extinction.” “What, all of them?” “It just takes a few,” Malcolm said. “Some dinosaur roots in the swamps around the inland sea, changes the water circulation, and destroys the plant ecology that twenty other species depend on. Bang! They’re gone. That causes still more dislocations. A predator dies off, and its prey grow unchecked. The ecosystem becomes unbalanced. More things go wrong. More species die. And suddenly it’s over. It could have happened that way.” “Just behavior …” “Yes,” Malcolm said. “Anyway, that was the idea. And I had this nice thought that we might prove it.… But now it’s finished. We have to get out of here. You better tell the others.” Thorne clicked on the radio. “Eddie? It’s Doc.” There was no answer. “Eddie?” The radio crackled. And then they heard a noise that at first sounded like static. It was a moment before they realized it was a high-pitched human scream.


The High Hide The first of the raptors hissed as it began jumping up, clattering against the high hide, shaking the structure. Its claws raked against the metal, and it fell down again. Eddie was astonished at how high it jumped—the animal could leap eight feet straight up, again and again, without apparent effort. Its jumps attracted the other animals, which slowly came back to circle the hide. Soon the hide was surrounded by leaping, snarling raptors. It swayed back and forth as the animals slammed into it, clawed for purchase, and fell back again. But more ominously, Levine saw, they were learning. Already, some of them had begun to use their clawed forearms to grip the structure, holding on while their legs got footing. One of the raptors came within a few feet of their little shelter before finally falling back. The falls never seemed to hurt the animals. They immediately leapt up, and jumped again. Eddie and the kids scrambled to their feet. Levine said, “Get back! Don’t look out,” and he pushed the kids into the center of the shelter. Eddie was bent over his knapsack, and held up an incandescent flare. He popped it and flung it over the side; two of the raptors fell away. The flare sputtered on the wet ground, casting harsh red shadows. But the raptors kept coming. Eddie pulled up one of the aluminum bars from the floor, leaned over the side railing brandishing the bar like a club. One of the raptors had already climbed high enough to dart forward, jaws gaping, at Eddie’s neck. Surprised, Eddie shouted and jerked his head back; the raptor narrowly missed him, but its jaws closed on his shirt. Then the raptor fell back, jaws clenched tight, and its weight pulled Eddie forward over the railing. He yelled “Help me! Help!” as he started to topple over the side; Levine threw his arms around him, dragging him back. Levine looked past Eddie’s shoulder at the raptor, which was now dangling in space, hissing furiously, still gripping the shirt. Eddie pounded the raptor on the snout with his bar. But the raptor held on like a bulldog. Eddie was bent precariously over the railing; he might fall at any moment. He jabbed the bar into the animal’s eye, and abruptly the raptor released its grip. The two men fell back into the shelter. When they got to their feet, they saw raptors climbing up the sides of the hide. As they appeared at the rail, Eddie swung at them with the strut, knocking them back. “Quick!” he shouted to the kids. “Up on the roof! Quick!” Kelly started climbing one of the struts, then pushed herself easily up onto the roof. Arby stood there, his expression blank. She looked back down and said, “Come on, Arb!” The boy was frozen, his eyes wide with fear. Levine ran to help him, lifted him up.


Eddie was swinging the strut in wide arcs, the metal smacking against the raptors. One of the raptors caught the strut in its jaws and jerked it hard. Eddie lost his balance, twisted, and fell backward, toppling over the side. He cried “Nooo!” as he fell. Immediately all the animals dropped down to the ground. They heard Eddie screaming in the night. The raptors snarled. Levine was terrified. He was still holding Arby in his arms, pushing him up to the roof. “Go on,” he kept saying. “Go on. Go on.” From the roof, Kelly was saying, “You can do it, Arb.” The boy gripped the roof, pulling himself up, his legs churning in panic. He kicked Levine hard in the mouth and Levine dropped him. He saw the boy slide away, and drop backward to the ground. “Oh Christ,” Levine said. “Oh Christ.” Thorne was underneath the trailer, unhooking the cable. He released it, crawled out, and sprinted for the Jeep. He heard the whirr of a motor and saw that Sarah had gotten onto the motorbike, and was already racing off, a Lindstradt rifle slung across her shoulder. He got behind the wheel, turned on the engine, and waited impatiently while the cable winched in, the hook sliding across the grass. It seemed to take forever. Now the cable was snaking around the tree. He waited. He looked over and saw the light from Sarah’s bike moving off through the foliage, heading down toward the high hide. At last the winch motor stopped. Thorne threw the car in gear, and roared away from the clearing. The radio clicked. “Ian,” he said. “Don’t worry about me,” Malcolm said, in a dreamy voice. “I’m just fine.” Kelly was lying flat on the angled roof of the shed, looking down over the side. She saw Arby hit the ground, on the other side of the structure from Eddie. He seemed to hit hard. But she didn’t know what happened to him, because she had turned away to grip the wet roof, and when she looked back down again, Arby was gone. Gone. Sarah Harding drove fast on the muddy jungle road. She wasn’t sure where she was, but she thought by following the terrain downward she would eventually come out onto the plain. At least that was her hope. She accelerated, came around a curve, and suddenly saw a big tree blocking the road. She braked to a stop, spun the bike around, and headed back again. Farther up the road, she saw Thorne’s twin headlights, turning off to the right. She followed his Jeep, racing her engine in the night. Levine stood in the center of the high hide, frozen with terror. The raptors were no longer jumping, no longer trying to climb the structure. He heard them down on the ground, snarling. He heard the sharp crunch of bones. The boy had never made a sound. Cold sweat broke out all over his body.


Then he heard Arby shout, “Back! Get back!” Up on the roof, Kelly twisted around, trying to see down on the other side. In the dying light of the flare, she saw that Arby was inside the cage. He had managed to close the door, and was reaching his hand back through the bars, to turn the key in the lock. There were three raptors near him; they leapt forward when they saw his hand, and he pulled it back quickly. He shouted, “Get back!” The raptors began to bite the cage, turning their heads sideways to gnaw the bars. One of the animals got its lower jaw tangled up in the looped elastic band that hung from the key. The raptor pulled its head away, stretching the elastic, and suddenly the key snapped out of the lock, smacking against its neck. The raptor squealed in surprise and stepped backward. The elastic was now looped tight around the lower jaw, the key glinting in the light. The raptor scratched at it with its forearms, trying to pull the elastic loop off, but it was caught around the curved back teeth, and the animal’s efforts just made the elastic snap on the skin. Soon it gave up, and began rubbing its snout in the dirt, trying to get the key off. Meanwhile the other raptors managed to pull the cage free from the superstructure, and knock it over onto the ground. They ducked their heads, slashing Arby behind the bars. When they realized that wouldn’t work, they kicked and stomped the cage repeatedly. More animals joined them. Soon seven raptors were clustered over the cage. They kicked it and it rolled away from the hide. Their bodies blocked her view of Arby. She heard a faint sound, and looked up to see two headlights in the distance. It was a car. Someone was coming. Arby was in hell. Inside the cage, he was surrounded by black snarling shapes. The raptors couldn’t get their jaws through the spaces in the bars, but their hot saliva dripped down on him, and when they kicked their claws came through, slashing his arms and shoulders as he rolled. His body was bruised. His head hurt from banging against the bars. His world was swirling, terrifying pandemonium. He knew only one thing with certainty. The raptors were rolling him away from the hide. * * * As the car came closer, Levine went to the railing and looked down. In the light of the red flare, he saw three raptors dragging what remained of Eddie’s body toward the jungle. They paused frequently to fight over it, snapping at each other, but they still managed to haul it away. Then he saw that another group of raptors were kicking and pushing the cage. They rolled it down the game trail, and into the forest. Now he could hear the rumble of the Jeep engine, as the car came closer. He saw Thorne’s silhouette behind the wheel.


He hoped he had a gun. Levine wanted to kill every one of these damned animals. He wanted to kill them all. Up on the roof, Kelly watched the raptors kicking the cage, rolling it away. One raptor remained behind, turning around and around in circles, like a frustrated dog. Then she saw it was the raptor that had caught its jaw in the elastic loop. The key still dangled along its cheek, glinting in the red light. The raptor jerked its head up and down, trying to get free. The Jeep came roaring forward, and the raptor seemed confused by the sudden bright lights. Thorne accelerated, trying to hit it with his car. The raptor turned and ran off, out into the plain. Kelly scrambled off the roof, and headed down. Thorne threw open the door as Levine jumped into the car. “They got the kid,” Levine said, pointing along the trail. Kelly was still coming down, shouting, “Wait!” Thorne said, “Get back up there. Sarah’s coming! We’ll get Arby!” “But—” “We can’t lose them!” Thorne gunned the engine, and started to drive down the game trail, chasing the raptors. In the trailer, Ian Malcolm listened to the voices shouting over the radio. He heard the panic, the confusion. Black noise, he thought. Everything going to hell at once. A hundred thousand things interacting. He sighed, and closed his eyes. Thorne drove fast. The jungle was dense around them. The trail ahead began to narrow, the big palms edging closer, slapping the car. He said, “Can we make it?” “It’s wide enough,” Levine said. “I walked it earlier today. Paras use this trail.” “How could this happen?” Thorne said. “The cage was attached to the scaffolding.” “I don’t know,” Levine said. “It broke off.” “How? How?” “I didn’t see. A lot happened.” “And Eddie?” Thorne said grimly. “It was fast,” Levine said. The Jeep plunged through the jungle, bouncing hard as it followed the game trail; they banged their heads on the cloth roof. Thorne drove recklessly. Up ahead, the raptors were moving fast; he could hardly see the last of the animals, sprinting in the darkness up ahead. “They wouldn’t listen to me!” Kelly shouted, as Sarah pulled up on the motorcycle. “About what?” “The raptor took the key! Arby’s locked in the cage and the raptor took the key!” “Where?” Sarah said. “There!” she said, pointing across the plain. In the moonlight they could just see the dark shape of the fleeing raptor. “We need the key!” “Get on,” Sarah said, unshouldering her rifle. Kelly climbed behind her on the bike. Sarah thrust the gun into her hands. “Can you shoot?” “No. I mean, I never—” “Can you drive a bike?” “No, I—” “Then you have to shoot,” Sarah said. “Now, look: trigger’s here. Okay? Safety’s here. Twist it like this. Okay? It’ll be a rough ride, so don’t release it until we get close.” “Close to what?” But Sarah didn’t hear her.


The Lost World -- Michael Crichton -- 1995 -- ePubLibre -- 9a5d50610e191792d85980874e14fa36 -- Anna’s Archive.5

She gunned the engine, and the bike accelerated, heading out into the plain, chasing the fleeing raptor. Kelly put one arm around Sarah, and tried to hold on. The Jeep bounced along the jungle trail, splashing through muddy pools. “I don’t remember it this rough,” Levine said, clutching the armhold. “Maybe you should slow down—” “Hell no,” Thorne said. “If we lose sight of him, it’s over. We don’t know where the raptor nest is. And in this jungle, at night … Ah, hell.” Up ahead, the raptors were leaving the trail, running off into the underbrush. The cage was gone. Thorne could not see the terrain very well, but it looked like a sheer hill, going almost straight down. “You can’t do it,” Levine said. “It’s too steep.” “I have to do it,” Thorne said. “Don’t be crazy,” Levine said. “Face facts. We’ve lost the kid, Doc. It’s too bad, but we’ve lost him.” Thorne glared at Levine. “He didn’t give up on you,” he said. “And we’re not giving up on him.” Thorne spun the wheel and drove the Jeep over the edge. The car nosed down sickeningly, gained speed, and began a steep descent. “Shit!” Levine yelled. “You’ll kill us all!” “Hang on!” Bouncing, they plunged downward into darkness.


Chase The motorcycle raced forward across the grassy plain. Kelly clutched Sarah with one hand, and held the rifle with the other; the rifle was heavy; her arm was getting tired. The motorcycle jolted over the terrain. The wind blew her hair around her face. “Hold on!” Sarah shouted. The moon broke through the clouds, and the grass before them was silver in the moonlight. The raptor was forty yards ahead of them, the animal just within range of their headlamp. They were gaining steadily. Kelly saw no other animals on the plain, except for the apatosaur herd in the far distance. They came closer to the raptor. The animal ran swiftly, its tail stiff, barely visible above the grass. Sarah angled the bike to the right, as they came alongside the raptor. They moved steadily closer. She leaned back, her mouth close to Kelly’s ear. “Get ready!” she shouted. “What do I do?” They were running parallel to the raptor, back by its tail. Sarah accelerated, passing the legs, moving toward the head. “The neck!” she shouted. “Shoot it in the neck!” “Where?” “Anywhere! The neck!” Kelly fumbled with the gun. “Now?” “No! Wait! Wait!” The raptor panicked as the motorcycle approached. It increased its speed. Kelly was trying to find the safety. The gun was bouncing. Everything was bouncing. Her fingers touched the safety, slid off. She reached again. She was going to have to use two hands, and that meant letting go of Sarah— “Get ready!” Sarah shouted. “But I can’t—” “Now! Do it! Now!” Sarah swerved the bike, coming alongside the raptor. They were now just three feet away. Kelly could smell the animal. It turned its head and snapped at them. Kelly fired. The gun bucked in her hands; she grabbed Sarah again. The raptor kept running. “What happened?” “You missed!” Kelly shook her head. “Never mind!” Sarah shouted. “You can do it! I’ll get closer!” She angled the bike toward the raptor again, moving closer. But this time was different: as they came alongside, the raptor abruptly charged them, butting at them with its head. Sarah howled and twisted the bike away, widening the gap. “Smart bastards, aren’t they!” she shouted. “No second chances!” The raptor chased them for a moment, then suddenly turned, changing direction, racing away across the plains. “It’s going for the river!” Kelly shouted. Sarah gunned the engine. The bike shot forward. “How deep?” Kelly didn’t answer. “How deep!” “I don’t know!” Kelly shouted. She was trying to remember how the raptors looked when they crossed the river. She seemed to remember they were swimming. That meant it must be at least— “More than three feet?” Sarah said. “Yes!” “No good!” They were now ten yards behind the raptor, and losing ground. The animal had entered an area marked with thick Benettitalean cycads. The rough trunks scratched at them. The terrain was uneven; the bike bounced and jolted over the bumps. “Can’t see!” Sarah shouted.


“Hold on!” She angled left, moving away from the raptor, heading for the river. The animal was disappearing in the grass. “What’re you doing?” Kelly shouted. “We have to cut him off!” Shrieking, a flock of startled birds rose up in front of them. Sarah drove through flapping wings, and Kelly ducked her head. The rifle thunked in her hand. “Careful!” Sarah shouted. “What happened?” “It went off!” “How many shots do I have?” “Two more! Make ’em good!” The river was up ahead, shimmering in the moonlight. They burst out of the grass and came onto the muddy bank. Sarah turned, the motorcycle swerved, slipped, and the bike shot away. Kelly fell, hitting the cold mud, Sarah landing hard on top of her. Immediately Sarah jumped up, running for the bike, shouting, “Come on!” Dazed, Kelly followed her. The rifle in her hands was thick with mud. She wondered if it would still work. Sarah was already on the bike, gunning the engine, waving her forward. Kelly jumped on, and Sarah headed up the riverbank. The raptor was twenty yards ahead of them. Approaching the water. “It’s getting away!” Thorne’s Jeep crashed down the hillside, out of control. Palms slapped against the windshield; they could see nothing at all, but they felt the steepness of the incline. The Jeep fished sideways. Levine yelled. Thorne gripped the steering wheel, tried to turn the car back. He touched the brake; the Jeep straightened and continued down the hill. There was a gap in the palms—he saw a field of black boulders looming directly ahead. The raptors were scrambling over the boulders. But maybe if he went left— “No!” Levine shouted. “No!” “Hang on!” Thorne yelled, and he twisted the wheel. The car lost traction and slid downward. They hit the first of the boulders, shattering a headlight. The car swung up at an angle, crashed down again. Thorne thought that had finished the transmission but somehow the car was still going, angling down the hillside, moving off to the left. The second headlight smashed on a tree branch. They continued down in darkness, through another layer of palms, and then abruptly they banged down on level ground. The Jeep tires rolled across soft earth. Thorne brought the car to a stop. Silence. They peered out the windows, trying to see where they were. But it was so dark, it was hard to see anything. They seemed to be at the bottom of a deep gully, a canopy of trees overhead. “Alluvial contours,” Levine said. “We must be in a streambed.” As his eyes adjusted, Thorne saw he was right. The raptors were running down the center of the streambed, which was lined with big boulders on both sides. But the bed itself was sandy, and it was wide enough for the car to pass through. He followed them. “You have any idea where we are?” Levine said, staring at the raptors. “No,” Thorne said. The car drove forward.


The streambed widened, opening out into a flat basin. The boulders disappeared; there were trees on both sides of the river. Patches of moonlight appeared here and there. It was easier to see. But the raptors were gone. He stopped the car, rolled down the window, and listened. He could hear them hissing and growling. The sound seemed to be coming from off to the left. Thorne put the car in gear, and left the streambed, moving off among ferns and occasional pine trees. Levine said, “Do you suppose the boy survived that hill?” “I don’t know,” Thorne said. “I can’t imagine.” He drove forward slowly. They came to a break in the trees, and saw a clearing where the ferns had been trampled flat. Beyond the clearing, they saw the banks of the river, moonlight glinting on the water. Somehow they had returned to the river. But it was the clearing itself that held their attention. Within the broad open space, they saw the huge pale skeletons of several apatosaurs. The giant rib cages, arcs of pale bone, shone in the silver light. The dark hulk of a partially eaten carcass lay on its side in the center, clouds of flies buzzing above it in the night. “What is this place?” Thorne said. “It looks like a graveyard.” “Yes,” Levine said. “But it’s not.” The raptors were all clustered to one side, fighting over the remains of Eddie’s carcass. At the opposite side of the clearing they saw three low mud mounds; the walls were broken in many places. Within the nests they saw crushed fragments of eggshells. There was the strong stench of decay. Levine leaned forward, staring. “This is the raptor nest,” he said. In the darkness of the trailer, Malcolm sat up, wincing. He grabbed the radio. “You found it? The nest?” The radio crackled. Levine said, “Yes. I think so.” “Describe it,” Malcolm said. Levine spoke quietly, reporting features, estimating dimensions. To Levine, the velociraptor nest appeared slovenly, uncared for, ill-made. He was surprised, because dinosaur nests usually conveyed an unmistakable sense of order. Levine had seen it time and again, in fossil sites from Montana to Mongolia. The eggs in the nest were arranged in neat concentric circles. Often there were more than thirty eggs in a single nest, suggesting that many females cooperated to share a single mud mound. Numerous adult fossils would be found nearby, indicating that the dinosaurs cared communally for the eggs. At a few excavations, it was even possible to get a sense of the spatial arrangement, with the nests in the center, the adults moving carefully around the outside, so as not to disturb the incubating eggs. In this rigid structure, the dinosaurs were reminiscent of their descendants the birds, which also displayed precise courtship, mating, and nest-building patterns. But the velociraptors behaved differently.


There was a disorderly, chaotic feeling to the scene before him: ill-formed nests; quarreling adults; very few young and juvenile animals; the eggshells crushed; the broken mounds stepped on. Around the mounds, Levine now saw scattered small bones which he presumed were the remains of newborns. He saw no living infants anywhere in the clearing. There were three juveniles, but these younger animals were forced to fend for themselves, and they already showed many scars on their bodies. The youngsters looked thin, undernourished. Poking around the periphery of the carcass, they were cautious, backing away whenever one of the adults snapped at them. “And what about the apatosaurs?” Malcolm asked. “What about the carcasses?” Levine counted four, all together. In various stages of decomposition. “You have to tell Sarah,” Malcolm said. But Levine was wondering about something else: he was wondering how these big carcasses had gotten here in the first place. They hadn’t died here by accident, surely all animals would have avoided this nest. They couldn’t have been lured here, and they were too large to carry. So how did they get here? Something was tickling the back of his mind, some obvious thought that he wasn’t— “They brought Arby,” Malcolm said. “Yes,” Levine said. “They did.” He stared at the nest, trying to figure it out. Then Thorne nudged him. “There’s the cage,” he said, pointing. At the far side of the clearing, lying on the ground, partially hidden behind fronds, Levine saw the glint of aluminum struts. But he couldn’t see Arby. “Way over there,” Levine said. The raptors were ignoring the cage, still fighting over Eddie’s carcass. Thorne brought out a Lindstradt rifle, snapped open the cartridge pack. He saw six darts. “Not enough,” he said, and snapped it shut. There were at least ten raptors in the clearing. Levine rummaged in the back seat, found his knapsack, which had fallen to the floor. He unzipped it, came out with a small silver cylinder the size of a large soft-drink bottle. It had a skull and crossbones stenciled on it. Beneath, lettering read: CAUTION TOXIC METACHOLINE (MIVACURIUM). “What’s that?” Thorne said. “Something they cooked up in Los Alamos,” Levine said. “It’s a nonlethal area neutralizer. Releases a short-acting cholinesterase aerosol. Paralyzes all life forms for up to three minutes. It’ll knock all the raptors out.” “But what about the boy?” Thorne said. “You can’t use that. You’ll paralyze him.” Levine pointed. “If we throw the canister to the right of the cage, the gas’ll blow away from him, toward the raptors.” “Or it may not,” Thorne said. “And he may be badly injured.” Levine nodded. He put the cylinder back in the knapsack, then sat, facing forward, staring at the raptors. “So,” Levine said. “What do we do now?” Thorne looked over at the aluminum cage, partially blocked by ferns. Then he saw something that made him sit up: the cage moved slightly, the bars shifting in the moonlight. “Did you see that?” Levine said.


Thorne said, “I’m going to get that kid out of there.” “But how?” Levine said. “The old-fashioned way,” Thorne said. He climbed out of the car. * * * Sarah accelerated, racing the motorcycle up the mud banks of the river. The raptor was just ahead, cutting diagonally toward them, heading for the water. “Go!” Kelly shouted. “Go!” The raptor saw them and changed course, angling farther ahead. It was trying to get distance on them but they were moving faster on the open banks. They came abreast of the animal, flanking it, and then Sarah left the banks, heading back onto the grassy plain. The raptor moved right, deeper into the plain. Away from the river. “You did it!” Kelly shouted. Sarah maintained her speed, moving slowly closer to the raptor. It seemed to have given up on the river, and now had no plan. It was just running up the plain. And they were steadily, inexorably gaining. Kelly was excited. She tried to wipe the mud off her rifle, preparing to shoot again. “Damn!” Sarah shouted. “What?” “Look!” Kelly leaned forward, stared past Sarah’s shoulder. Directly ahead, she saw the herd of apatosaurs. They were only fifty yards from the first of the enormous animals, which bellowed and wheeled in sudden fear. Their bodies were green-gray in the moonlight. The raptor streaked directly toward the herd. “It thinks it’s going to lose us!” Sarah gunned the bike, moving closer. “Get it now! Now!” Kelly aimed and fired. The gun bucked. But the raptor kept going. “Missed!” Up ahead, the apatosaurs were turning, their big legs stomping the ground. Their heavy tails whipped through the air. But they were too slow to move away. The raptor raced forward, heading directly beneath the big apatosaurs. “What do we do?” Kelly shouted. “No choice!” Sarah yelled. She pulled parallel to the raptor just as they passed into shadow, racing beneath the first animal. Kelly glimpsed the curve of the belly, hanging three feet above her. The legs were as thick as tree trunks, stamping and turning. The raptor ran on, darting among the moving legs. Sarah swerved, followed. Above them, the animals roared and turned, and roared again. They were beneath another belly, then out into moonlight, then in shadow again. Now they were in the middle of the herd. It was like being in a forest of moving trees. Directly ahead, a big leg came down with a slam! that shook the ground. The bike bounced as Sarah swung left; they scraped against the animal’s flesh. “Hang on!” she shouted, and swerved again, following the raptor. Above them, the apatosaurs were bellowing and moving. The raptor dodged and turned, and then broke clear, racing out the back of the herd. “Shit!” Sarah said, spinning the bike around. A whiptail swung low, narrowly missing them, and then they too were free, chasing the raptor again. The motorcycle raced across the grassy plain. “Last chance!” Sarah shouted.


“Do it!” Kelly raised the rifle. Sarah was driving hard and fast, pulling very close to the running raptor. The animal turned to butt her, but she held her position, punched it hard in the head with her fist. “Now!” Kelly shoved the barrel against the flesh of the neck, and squeezed the trigger. The gun snapped back hard, jolting her in the stomach. The raptor ran on. “No!” she shouted. “No!” And then suddenly the raptor fell, tumbling end over end in the grass, and Sarah swung the bike away and pulled to a stop. The raptor was five yards away, flopping in the grass. It snarled and yelped. Then it was silent. Sarah took the rifle, snapped open the cartridge pack. Kelly saw five more darts. “I thought that was the last one,” she said. “I lied,” Sarah said. “Wait here.” Kelly stayed by the bike while Sarah moved cautiously forward through the grass. Sarah fired one more shot, then stood waiting for a few moments. Then she bent down. When she came back, she was holding the key in her hand. In the nest, the raptors were still tearing at the carcass, off to one side. But the intensity of the behavior was diminishing: some of the animals were turning away, rubbing their jaws with their clawed hands, drifting slowly toward the center of the clearing. Moving closer to the cage. Thorne climbed into the back of the Jeep, pushing aside the canvas cover. He checked the rifle in his hands. Levine slid into the driver’s seat. He started the engine. Thorne steadied himself in the back of the Jeep, gripped the rear bar. He turned to Levine. “Go!” The Jeep raced forward across the clearing. By the carcass, the raptors looked up in surprise as they saw the intruder. By then the Jeep was past the center of the clearing, driving past the enormous dead skeletons, the broad ribs high over their heads, and then Levine was swinging the car left, pulling alongside the aluminum cage. Thorne jumped out, and grabbed the cage in both hands. In the darkness he couldn’t tell how badly Arby was hurt; the boy was turned face down. Levine climbed out of the car; Thorne yelled for him to get back in, as he rifted the cage high and swung it onto the back of the Jeep. Thorne jumped into the back, next to the cage, and Levine shoved the car in gear. Behind them, the raptors snarled and raced forward in pursuit, running among the skeletal ribs. They crossed the clearing with stunning speed. As Levine stepped on the gas, the nearest raptor leapt high, landing up on the back of the car, and grabbing the canvas tarp in its teeth. The animal hissed and held on. Levine accelerated, and the Jeep bounced out of the clearing. * * * In darkness, Malcolm sank back into morphine dreams.


Images floated in front of his eyes: fitness landscapes, the multicolored computer images now employed to think about evolution. In this mathematical world of peaks and valleys, populations of organisms were seen to climb the fitness peaks, or slide down into the valleys of nonadaptation. Stu Kauffman and his coworkers had shown that advanced organisms had complex internal constraints which made them more likely to fall off the fitness optima, and descend into the valleys. Yet, at the same time complex creatures were themselves selected by evolution. Because complex creatures were able to adapt on their own. With tools, with learning, with cooperation. But complex animals had obtained their adaptive flexibility at some cost—they had traded one dependency for another. It was no longer necessary to change their bodies to adapt, because now their adaptation was behavior, socially determined. That behavior required learning. In a sense, among higher animals adaptive fitness was no longer transmitted to the next generation by DNA at all. It was now carried by teaching. Chimpanzees taught their young to collect termites with a stick. Such actions implied at least the rudiments of a culture, a structured social life. But animals raised in isolation, without parents, without guidance, were not fully functional. Zoo animals frequently could not care for their offspring, because they had never seen it done. They would ignore their infants, or roll over and crush them, or simply become annoyed with them and kill them. The velociraptors were among the most intelligent dinosaurs, and the most ferocious. Both traits demanded behavioral control. Millions of years ago, in the now-vanished Cretaceous world, their behavior would have been socially determined, passed on from older to younger animals. Genes controlled the capacity to make such patterns, but not the patterns themselves. Adaptive behavior was a kind of morality; it was behavior that had evolved over many generations because it was found to succeed—behavior that allowed members of the species to cooperate, to live together, to hunt, to raise young. But on this island, the velociraptors had been re-created in a genetics laboratory. Although their physical bodies were genetically determined, their behavior was not. These newly created raptors came into the world with no older animals to guide them, to show them proper raptor behavior. They were on their own, and that was just how they behaved—in a society without structure, without rules, without cooperation. They lived in an uncontrolled, every-creature-for-himself world where the meanest and the nastiest survived, and all the others died. The Jeep picked up speed, bouncing hard. Thorne held on to the bars, to keep from being thrown out. Behind him, he saw the raptor swinging back and forth in the air, still clinging to the tarp. It wasn’t letting go. Levine drove back onto the flat muddy banks of the river, and turned right, following the edge of the water. The raptor hung on tenaciously. Directly ahead, lying in the mud, Levine saw another skeleton. Another skeleton?


Why were all these skeletons here? But there was no time to think—he drove forward, passing beneath the row of ribs. Without lights, he leaned forward and squinted in the moonlight, looking for obstacles ahead. In the back of the car, the raptor scrambled up, released the tarp, clamped its jaws on the cage, and began to pull it out of the back of the Jeep. Thorne lunged, grabbed the end of the cage nearest him. The cage twisted, rolling Thorne onto his back. He found himself in a tug of war with the raptor—and the raptor was winning. Thorne locked his legs around the front passenger seat, trying to hold on. The raptor snarled; Thorne sensed the sheer fury of the animal, enraged that it might lose its prize. “Here!” Levine shouted, holding a gun out to Thorne. Thorne was on his back, gripping the cage in both hands. He couldn’t take the gun. Levine looked back, and saw the situation. He looked in the rearview mirror. Behind them, he saw the rest of the pack still in pursuit, snarling and growling. He could not slow down. Thorne could not let go of the cage. Still driving fast, Levine swung around in the passenger seat, and aimed the rifle backward. He tried to maneuver the gun, knowing what would happen if he accidentally shot Thorne, or Arby. “Watch it!” Thorne was shouting. “Watch it!” Levine managed to get the safety off, and swung the barrel straight at the raptor, which was still gripping the cage bars in its jaws. The animal looked up, and in a quick movement closed its jaws over the barrel. It tugged at the gun. Levine fired. The raptor’s eyes popped wide as the dart slammed into the back of its throat. It made a gurgling sound, then went into convulsions, toppling backward out of the Jeep—and yanking the gun from Levine’s hands as it fell. Thorne scrambled to his knees, and pulled the cage inside the car. He looked down inside it, but he couldn’t tell about Arby. Looking back, he saw the other raptors were still pursuing, but they were now twenty yards back, and losing ground. On the dashboard, the radio hissed. “Doc.” Thorne recognized Sarah’s voice. “Yes, Sarah.” “Where are you?” “Following the river,” Thorne said. The storm clouds had now cleared, and it was a bright moonlit night. Behind him, the raptors still continued to chase the Jeep. But they were now falling steadily behind. “I can’t see your lights,” Sarah said. “Don’t have any.” There was a pause. The radio crackled. Her voice was tense: “What about Arby.” “We have him,” Thorne said. “Thank God. How is he?” “I don’t know. Alive.” The landscape opened out. They came back into a broad valley, the grass silvery in the moonlight. Thorne looked around, trying to orient himself. Then he realized: they were back on the plain, but much farther to the south.


They must still be on the same side of the river as the high hide. In that case, they ought to be able to make their way up onto the ridge road, somewhere to the left. That road would lead them back to the clearing, and the remaining trailer. And safety. He nudged Levine, pointed to the right. “Go there!” Levine turned the car. Thorne clicked the radio. “Sarah.” “Yes, Doc.” “We’re going back to the trailer on the ridge road.” “Okay,” Sarah said. “We’ll find you”. She looked back at Kelly. “Where’s the ridge road?” “I think it’s that one up there,” Kelly said, pointing to the spine of the ridge, on the cliffs high above them. “Okay,” Sarah said. She gunned the bike forward. The Jeep rumbled across the plain, deep in silvery grass. They were moving fast. The raptors were no longer visible behind them. “Looks like we lost them,” Thorne said. “Maybe,” Levine said. When he had pulled out of the streambed, he had seen several animals dart off to the left. They would now be hidden in the grass. He wasn’t sure they would give up so easily. The Jeep was roaring toward the cliffs. Directly ahead he saw a curving switchback road, running up from the valley floor. That was the ridge road, he felt sure. Now that the terrain was smoother, Thorne crawled back between the seats and crouched over the cage. He peered in through the bars at Arby, who was groaning softly. Half the boy’s face was slick with blood, and his shirt was soaked. But his eyes were open, and he seemed to be moving his arms and legs. Thorne leaned close to the bars. “Hey, son,” he said gently. “Can you hear me?” Arby nodded, moaning. “How you doing there?” “Been better,” Arby said. The Jeep ground onto the dirt road, and headed upward along the switchbacks. Levine felt a sense of relief as they moved higher, away from the valley. He was finally on the ridge road, and he was going to be safe. He looked up, toward the crest. And then he saw the dark shapes in the moonlight, already at the top of the road, hopping up and down. Raptors. Waiting for him. He pulled to a stop. “What do we do now?” “Move over,” Thorne said grimly. “I’ll take it from here.”