Prologue: “Life at the Edge of Chaos” The Santa Fe Institute was housed in a series of buildings on Canyon Road which had formerly been a convent, and the Institute’s seminars were held in a room which had served as a chapel. Now, standing at the podium, with a shaft of sunlight shining down on him, Ian Malcolm paused dramatically before continuing his lecture. Malcolm was forty years old, and a familiar figure at the Institute. He had been one of the early pioneers in chaos theory, but his promising career had been disrupted by a severe injury during a trip to Costa Rica; Malcolm had, in fact, been reported dead in several newscasts. “I was sorry to cut short the celebrations in mathematics departments around the country,” he later said, “but it turned out I was only slightly dead. The surgeons have done wonders, as they will be the first to tell you. So now I am back—in my next iteration, you might say.” Dressed entirely in black, leaning on a cane, Malcolm gave the impression of severity. He was known within the Institute for his unconventional analysis, and his tendency to pessimism. His talk that August, entitled “Life at the Edge of Chaos,” was typical of his thinking. In it, Malcolm presented his analysis of chaos theory as it applied to evolution. He could not have wished for a more knowledgeable audience. The Santa Fe Institute had been formed in the mid-1980s by a group of scientists interested in the implications of chaos theory. The scientists came from many fields—physics, economics, biology, computer science. What they had in common was a belief that the complexity of the world concealed an underlying order which had previously eluded science, and which would be revealed by chaos theory, now known as complexity theory. In the words of one, complexity theory was “the science of the twenty-first century.” The Institute had explored the behavior of a great variety of complex systems—corporations in the marketplace, neurons in the human brain, enzyme cascades within a single cell, the group behavior of migratory birds—systems so complex that it had not been possible to study them before the advent of the computer. The research was new, and the findings were surprising. It did not take long before the scientists began to notice that complex systems showed certain common behaviors. They started to think of these behaviors as characteristic of all complex systems. They realized that these behaviors could not be explained by analyzing the components of the systems. The time-honored scientific approach of reductionism—taking the watch apart to see how it worked—didn’t get you anywhere with complex systems, because the interesting behavior seemed to arise from the spontaneous interaction of the components. The behavior wasn’t planned or directed; it just happened. Such behavior was therefore called “self-organizing.” “Of the self-organizing behaviors,” Ian Malcolm said, “two are of particular interest to the study of evolution. One is adaptation. We see it everywhere.


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

Corporations adapt to the marketplace, brain cells adapt to signal traffic, the immune system adapts to infection, animals adapt to their food supply. We have come to think that the ability to adapt is characteristic of complex systems—and may be one reason why evolution seems to lead toward more complex organisms.” He shifted at the podium, transferring his weight onto his cane. “But even more important,” he said, “is the way complex systems seem to strike a balance between the need for order and the imperative to change. Complex systems tend to locate themselves at a place we call ‘the edge of chaos.’ We imagine the edge of chaos as a place where there is enough innovation to keep a living system vibrant, and enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy. It is a zone of conflict and upheaval, where the old and the new are constantly at war. Finding the balance point must be a delicate matter—if a living system drifts too close, it risks falling over into incoherence and dissolution; but if the system moves too far away from the edge, it becomes rigid, frozen, totalitarian. Both conditions lead to extinction. Too much change is as destructive as too little. Only at the edge of chaos can complex systems flourish.” He paused. “And, by implication, extinction is the inevitable result of one or the other strategy—too much change, or too little.” In the audience, heads were nodding. This was familiar thinking to most of the researchers present. Indeed, the concept of the edge of chaos was very nearly dogma at the Santa Fe Institute. “Unfortunately,” Malcolm continued, “the gap between this theoretical construct and the fact of extinction is vast. We have no way to know if our thinking is correct. The fossil record can tell us that an animal became extinct at a certain time, but not why. Computer simulations are of limited value. Nor can we perform experiments on living organisms. Thus, we are obliged to admit that extinction—untestable, unsuited for experiment—may not be a scientific subject at all. And this may explain why the subject has been embroiled in the most intense religious and political controversy. I would remind you that there is no religious debate about Avogadro’s number, or Planck’s constant, or the functions of the pancreas. But about extinction, there has been perpetual controversy for two hundred years. And I wonder how it is to be solved if—Yes? What is it?” At the back of the room, a hand had gone up, waving impatiently. Malcolm frowned, visibly annoyed. The tradition at the Institute was that questions were held until the presentation ended; it was poor form to interrupt a speaker. “You had a question?” Malcolm asked. From the back of the room, a young man in his early thirties stood. “Actually,” the man said, “an observation.” The speaker was dark and thin, dressed in khaki shirt and shorts, precise in his movements and manner.


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

Malcolm recognized him as a paleontologist from Berkeley named Levine, who was spending the summer at the Institute. Malcolm had never spoken to him, but he knew his reputation: Levine was generally agreed to be the best paleobiologist of his generation, perhaps the best in the world. But most people at the Institute disliked him, finding him pompous and arrogant. “I agree,” Levine continued, “that the fossil record is not helpful in addressing extinction. Particularly if your thesis is that behavior is the cause of extinction—because bones don’t tell us as much about behavior. But I disagree that your behavioral thesis is untestable. In point of fact, it implies an outcome. Although perhaps you haven’t yet thought of it.” The room was silent. At the podium, Malcolm frowned. The eminent mathematician was not accustomed to being told he had not thought through his ideas. “What’s your point,” he said. Levine appeared indifferent to the tension in the room. “Just this,” he said. “During the Cretaceous, Dinosauria were widely distributed across the planet. We have found their remains on every continent, and in every climatic zone—even in the Antarctic. Now. If their extinction was really the result of their behavior, and not the consequence of a catastrophe, or a disease, or a change in plant life, or any of the other broad-scale explanations that have been proposed, then it seems to me highly unlikely that they all changed their behavior at the same time, everywhere. And that in turn means that there may well be some remnants of these animals still alive on the earth. Why couldn’t you look for them?” “You could,” Malcolm said coldly, “if that amused you. And if you had no more compelling use for your time.” “No, no,” Levine said earnestly. “I’m quite serious. What if the dinosaurs did not become extinct? What if they still exist? Somewhere in an isolated spot on the planet.” “You’re talking about a Lost World,” Malcolm said, and heads in the room nodded knowingly. Scientists at the Institute had developed a shorthand for referring to common evolutionary scenarios. They spoke of the Field of Bullets, the Gambler’s Ruin, the Game of Life, the Lost World, the Red Queen, and Black Noise. These were well-defined ways of thinking about evolution. But they were all— “No,” Levine said stubbornly. “I am speaking literally.” “Then you’re badly deluded,” Malcolm said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. He turned away from the audience, and walked slowly to the blackboard. “Now, if we consider the implications of the edge of chaos, we may begin by asking ourselves, what is the minimal unit of life? Most contemporary definitions of life would include the presence of DNA, but there are two examples which suggest to us that this definition is too narrow. If you consider viruses and so-called prions, it is clear that life may in fact exist without DNA.…” At the back of the room, Levine stared for a moment.


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

Then, reluctantly, he sat down, and began to make notes.


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

The Lost World Hypothesis The lecture ended, Malcolm hobbled across the open courtyard of the Institute, shortly after noon. Walking beside him was Sarah Harding, a young field biologist visiting from Africa. Malcolm had known her for several years, since he had been asked to serve as an outside reader for her doctoral thesis at Berkeley. Crossing the courtyard in the hot summer sun, they made an unlikely pair: Malcolm dressed in black, stooped and ascetic, leaning on his cane; Harding compact and muscular, looking young and energetic in shorts and a tee shirt, her short black hair pushed up on her forehead with sunglasses. Her field of study was African predators, lions and hyenas. She was scheduled to return to Nairobi the next day. The two had been close since Malcolm’s surgery. Harding had been on a sabbatical year in Austin, and had helped nurse Malcolm back to health, after his many operations. For a while it seemed as if a romance had blossomed, and that Malcolm, a confirmed bachelor, would settle down. But then Harding had gone back to Africa, and Malcolm had gone to Santa Fe. Whatever their former relationship had been, they were now just friends. They discussed the questions that had come at the end of his lecture. From Malcolm’s point of view, there had been only the predictable objections: that mass extinctions were important; that human beings owed their existence to the Cretaceous extinction, which had wiped out the dinosaurs and allowed the mammals to take over. As one questioner had pompously phrased it, “The Cretaceous allowed our own sentient awareness to arise on the planet.” Malcolm’s reply was immediate: “What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There’s no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told—and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their ‘beliefs.’ The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question.” Now, walking across the courtyard, Sarah Harding laughed. “They didn’t care for that.” “I admit it’s discouraging,” he said. “But it can’t be helped.” He shook his head. “These are some of the best scientists in the country, and still … no interesting ideas. By the way, what’s the story on that guy who interrupted me?” “Richard Levine?” She laughed. “Irritating, isn’t he? He has a worldwide reputation for being a pain in the ass.” Malcolm grunted.


“I’d say.” “He’s wealthy, is the problem,” Harding said. “You know about the Becky dolls?” “No,” Malcolm said, giving her a glance. “Well, every little girl in America does. There’s a series: Becky and Sally and Frances, and several more. They’re Americana dolls. Levine is the heir of the company. So he’s a smartass rich kid. Impetuous, does whatever he wants.” Malcolm nodded. “You have time for lunch?” “Sure, I would be—” “Dr. Malcolm! Wait up! Please! Dr. Malcolm!” Malcolm turned. Hurrying across the courtyard toward them was the gangling figure of Richard Levine. “Ah, shit,” Malcolm said. “Dr. Malcolm,” Levine said, coming up. “I was surprised that you didn’t take my proposal more seriously.” “How could I?” Malcolm said. “It’s absurd.” “Yes, but—” “Ms. Harding and I were just going to lunch,” Malcolm said, gesturing to Sarah. “Yes, but I think you should reconsider,” Levine said, pressing on. “Because I believe my argument is valid—it is entirely possible, even likely, that dinosaurs still exist. You must know there are persistent rumors about animals in Costa Rica, where I believe you have spent time.” “Yes, and in the case of Costa Rica I can tell you—” “Also in the Congo,” Levine said, continuing. “For years there have been reports by pygmies of a large sauropod, perhaps even an apatosaur, in the dense forest around Bokambu. And also in the high jungles of Irian Jaya, there is supposedly an animal the size of a rhino, which perhaps is a remnant ceratopsian—” “Fantasy,” Malcolm said. “Pure fantasy. Nothing has ever been seen. No photographs. No hard evidence.” “Perhaps not,” Levine said. “But absence of proof is not proof of absence. I believe there may well be a locus of these animals, survivals from a past time.” Malcolm shrugged. “Anything is possible,” he said. “But in point of fact, survival is possible,” Levine insisted. “I keep getting calls about new animals in Costa Rica. Remnants, fragments.” Malcolm paused. “Recently?” “Not for a while.” “Umm,” Malcolm said. “I thought so.” “The last call was nine months ago,” Levine said. “I was in Siberia looking at that frozen baby mammoth, and I couldn’t get back in time. But I’m told it was some kind of very large, atypical lizard, found dead in the jungle of Costa Rica.” “And? What happened to it?” “The remains were burned.” “So nothing is left?” “That’s right.” “No photographs? No proof?” “Apparently not.” “So it’s just a story,” Malcolm said. “Perhaps. But I believe it is worth mounting an expedition, to find out about these reported survivals.” Malcolm stared at him. “An expedition? To find a hypothetical Lost World? Who is going to pay for it?” “I am,” Levine said. “I have already begun the preliminary planning.” “But that could cost—” “I don’t care what it costs,” Levine said.


“The fact is, survival is possible, it has occurred in a variety of species from other genera, and it may be that there are survivals from the Cretaceous as well.” “Fantasy,” Malcolm said again, shaking his head. Levine paused, and stared at Malcolm. “Dr. Malcolm,” he said, “I must say I’m very surprised at your attitude. You’ve just presented a thesis and I am offering you a chance to prove it. I would have thought you’d jump at the opportunity.” “My jumping days are over,” Malcolm said. “But instead of taking me up on this, you—” “I’m not interested in dinosaurs,” Malcolm said. “But everyone is interested in dinosaurs.” “Not me.” He turned on his cane, and started to walk off. “By the way,” Levine said. “What were you doing in Costa Rica? I heard you were there for almost a year.” “I was lying in a hospital bed. They couldn’t move me out of intensive care for six months. I couldn’t even get on a plane.” “Yes,” Levine said. “I know you got hurt. But what were you doing there in the first place? Weren’t you looking for dinosaurs?” Malcolm squinted at him in the bright sun, and leaned on his cane. “No,” he said. “I wasn’t.” They were all three sitting at a small painted table in the corner of the Guadalupe Cafe, on the other side of the river. Sarah Harding drank Corona from the bottle, and watched the two men opposite her. Levine looked pleased to be with them, as if he had won some victory to be sitting at the table. Malcolm looked weary, like a parent who has spent too much time with a hyperactive child. “You want to know what I’ve heard?” Levine said. “I’ve heard that a couple of years back, a company named InGen genetically engineered some dinosaurs and put them on an island in Costa Rica. But something went wrong, a lot of people were killed, and the dinosaurs were destroyed. And now nobody will talk about it, because of some legal angle. Nondisclosure agreements or something. And the Costa Rican government doesn’t want to hurt tourism. So nobody will talk. That’s what I’ve heard.” Malcolm stared at him. “And you believe that?” “Not at first, I didn’t,” Levine said. “But the thing is, I keep hearing it. The rumors keep floating around. Supposedly you, and Alan Grant, and a bunch of other people were there.” “Did you ask Grant about it?” “I asked him, last year, at a conference in Peking. He said it was absurd.” Malcolm nodded slowly. “Is that what you say?” Levine asked, drinking his beer. “I mean, you know Grant, don’t you?” “No. I never met him.” Levine was watching Malcolm closely. “So it’s not true?” Malcolm sighed. “Are you familiar with the concept of a techno-myth? It was developed by Geller at Princeton. Basic thesis is that we’ve lost all the old myths, Orpheus and Eurydice and Perseus and Medusa.


So we fill the gap with modern techno-myths. Geller listed a dozen or so. One is that an alien’s living at a hangar at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Another is that somebody invented a carburetor that gets a hundred and fifty miles to the gallon, but the automobile companies bought the patent and are sitting on it. Then there’s the story that the Russians trained children in ESP at a secret base in Siberia and these kids can kill people anywhere in the world with their thoughts. The story that the lines in Nazca, Peru, are an alien spaceport. That the CIA released the AIDS virus to kill homosexuals. That Nikola Tesla discovered an incredible energy source but his notes are lost. That in Istanbul there’s a tenth-century drawing that shows the earth from space. That the Stanford Research Institute found a guy whose body glows in the dark. Get the picture?” “You’re saying InGen’s dinosaurs are a myth,” Levine said. “Of course they are. They have to be. Do you think it’s possible to genetically engineer a dinosaur?” “The experts all tell me it’s not.” “And they’re right,” Malcolm said. He glanced at Harding, as if for confirmation. She said nothing, just drank her beer. In fact, Harding knew something more about these dinosaur rumors. Once after surgery, Malcolm had been delirious, mumbling nonsense from the anaesthesia and pain medication. And he had been seemingly fearful, twisting in the bed, repeating the names of several kinds of dinosaurs. Harding had asked the nurse about it; she said he was like that after every operation. The hospital staff assumed it was a drug-induced fantasy—yet it seemed to Harding that Malcolm was reliving some terrifying actual experience. The feeling was heightened by the slangy, familiar way Malcolm referred to the dinosaurs: he called them “raptors” and “compys” and “trikes.” And he seemed especially fearful of the raptors. Later, when he was back home, she had asked him about his delirium. He had just shrugged it off, making a bad joke—“At least I didn’t mention other women, did I?” And then he made some comment about having been a dinosaur nut as a kid, and how illness made you regress. His whole attitude was elaborately indifferent, as if it were all unimportant; she had the distinct feeling he was being evasive. But she wasn’t inclined to push it; those were the days when she was in love with him, her attitude indulgent. Now he was looking at her in a questioning way, as if to ask if she was going to contradict him. Harding just raised an eyebrow, and stared back. He must have his reasons. She could wait him out. Levine leaned forward across the table toward Malcolm and said, “So the InGen story is entirely untrue?” “Entirely untrue,” Malcolm said, nodding gravely. “Entirely untrue.” Malcolm had been denying the speculation for three years. By now he was getting good at it; his weariness was no longer affected but genuine.


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

In fact, he had been a consultant to International Genetic Technologies of Palo Alto in the summer of 1989, and he had made a trip to Costa Rica for them, which had turned out disastrously. In the aftermath, everyone involved had moved quickly to quash the story. InGen wanted to limit its liability. The Costa Rican government wanted to preserve its reputation as a tourist paradise. And the individual scientists had been bound by nondisclosure agreements, abetted later by generous grants to continue their silence. In Malcolm’s case, two years of medical bills had been paid by the company. Meanwhile, InGen’s island facility in Costa Rica had been destroyed. There were no longer any living creatures on the island. The company had hired the eminent Stanford professor George Baselton, a biologist and essayist whose frequent television appearances had made him a popular authority on scientific subjects. Baselton claimed to have visited the island, and had been tireless in denying rumors that extinct animals had ever existed there. His derisive snort, “Saber-toothed tigers, indeed!” was particularly effective. As time passed, interest in the story waned. InGen was long since bankrupt; the principal investors in Europe and Asia had taken their losses. Although the company’s physical assets, the buildings and lab equipment, would be sold piecemeal, the core technology that had been developed would, they decided, never be sold. In short, the InGen chapter was closed. There was nothing more to say. “So there’s no truth to it,” Levine said, biting into his green-corn tamale. “To tell you the truth, Dr. Malcolm, that makes me feel better.” “Why?” Malcolm said. “Because it means that the remnants that keep turning up in Costa Rica must be real. Real dinosaurs. I’ve got a friend from Yale down there, a field biologist, and he says he’s seen them. I believe him.” Malcolm shrugged. “I doubt,” he said, “that any more animals will turn up in Costa Rica.” “It’s true there haven’t been any for almost a year now. But if more show up, I’m going down there. And in the interim, I am going to outfit an expedition. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how it should be done. I think the special vehicles could be built and ready in a year. I’ve already talked to Doc Thorne about it. Then I’ll assemble a team, perhaps including Dr. Harding here, or a similarly accomplished naturalist, and some graduate students.…” Malcolm listened, shaking his head. “You think I’m wasting my time,” Levine said. “I do, yes.” “But suppose—just suppose—that animals start to show up again.” “Never happen.” “But suppose they did?” Levine said. “Would you be interested in helping me? To plan an expedition?” Malcolm finished his meal, and pushed the plate aside. He stared at Levine. “Yes,” he said finally. “If animals started showing up again, I would be interested in helping you.” “Great!” Levine said.


The Lost World -- Michael Crichton -- 1995 -- ePubLibre -- 9a5d50610e191792d85980874e14fa36 -- Anna’s Archive.6

“That’s all I wanted to know.” Outside, in the bright sunlight on Guadalupe Street, Malcolm walked with Sarah toward Malcolm’s battered Ford sedan. Levine climbed into a bright-red Ferrari, waved cheerfully, and roared off. “You think it will ever happen?” Sarah Harding said. “That these, ah, animals will start showing up again?” “No,” Malcolm said. “I am quite sure they never will.” “You sound hopeful.” He shook his head, and got awkwardly in the car, swinging his bad leg under the steering wheel. Harding climbed in beside him. He glanced at her, and turned the key in the ignition. They drove back to the Institute. The following day, she went back to Africa. During the next eighteen months, she had a rough sense of Levine’s progress, since from time to time he called her with some question about field protocols, or vehicle tires, or the best anaesthetic to use on animals in the wild. Sometimes she got a call from Doc Thorne, who was building the vehicles. He usually sounded harassed. From Malcolm she heard nothing at all, although he sent her a card on her birthday. It arrived a month late. He had scrawled at the bottom, “Have a happy birthday. Be glad you’re nowhere near him. He’s driving me crazy.”


Aberrant Forms In the fading afternoon light, the helicopter skimmed low along the coast, following the line where the dense jungle met the beach. The last of the fishing villages had flashed by beneath them ten minutes ago. Now there was only impenetrable Costa Rican jungle, mangrove swamps, and mile after mile of deserted sand. Sitting beside the pilot, Marty Gutierrez stared out the window as the coastline swept past. There weren’t even any roads in this area, at least none that Gutierrez could see. Gutierrez was a quiet, bearded American of thirty-six, a field biologist who had lived for the last eight years in Costa Rica. He had originally come to study toucan speciation in the rain forest, but stayed on as a consultant to the Reserva Biológica de Carara, the national park in the north. He clicked the radio mike and said to the pilot, “How much farther?” “Five minutes, Señor Gutierrez.” Gutierrez turned and said, “It won’t be long now.” But the tall man folded up in the back seat of the helicopter didn’t answer, or even acknowledge that he had been spoken to. He merely sat, with his hand on his chin, and stared frowning out the window. Richard Levine wore sun-faded field khakis, and an Australian slouch hat pushed low over his head. A battered pair of binoculars hung around his neck. But despite his rugged appearance, Levine conveyed an air of scholarly absorption. Behind his wire-frame spectacles, his features were sharp, his expression intense and critical as he looked out the window. “What is this place?” “It’s called Rojas.” “So we’re far south?” “Yes. Only about fifty miles from the border with Panama.” Levine stared at the jungle. “I don’t see any roads,” he said. “How was the thing found?” “Couple of campers,” Gutierrez said. “They came in by boat, landed on the beach.” “When was that?” “Yesterday. They took one look at the thing, and ran like hell.” Levine nodded. With his long limbs folded up, his hands tucked under his chin, he looked like a praying mantis. That had been his nickname in graduate school: in part because of his appearance—and in part because of his tendency to bite off the head of anyone who disagreed with him. Gutierrez said, “Been to Costa Rica before?” “No. First time,” Levine said. And then he gave an irritable wave of his hand, as if he didn’t want to be bothered with small talk. Gutierrez smiled. After all these years, Levine had not changed at all. He was still one of the most brilliant and irritating men in science. The two had been fellow graduate students at Yale, until Levine quit the doctoral program to get his degree in comparative zoology instead. Levine announced he had no interest in the kind of contemporary field research that so attracted Gutierrez.


With characteristic contempt, he had once described Gutierrez’s work as “collecting parrot crap from around the world.” The truth was that Levine—brilliant and fastidious—was drawn to the past, to the world that no longer existed. And he studied this world with obsessive intensity. He was famous for his photographic memory, his arrogance, his sharp tongue, and the unconcealed pleasure he took in pointing out the errors of colleagues. As a colleague once said, “Levine never forgets a bone—and he never lets you forget it, either.” Field researchers disliked Levine, and he returned the sentiment. He was at heart a man of detail, a cataloguer of animal life, and he was happiest poring over museum collections, reassigning species, rearranging display skeletons. He disliked the dust and inconvenience of life in the field. Given his choice, Levine would never leave the museum. But it was his fate to live in the greatest period of discovery in the history of paleontology. The number of known species of dinosaurs had doubled in the last twenty years, and new species were now being described at the rate of one every seven weeks. Thus Levine’s worldwide reputation forced him to continually travel around the world, inspecting new finds, and rendering his expert opinion to researchers who were annoyed to admit that they needed it. “Where’d you come from?” Gutierrez asked him. “Mongolia,” Levine said. “I was at the Flaming Cliffs, in the Gobi Desert, three hours out of Ulan Bator.” “Oh? What’s there?” “John Roxton’s got a dig. He found an incomplete skeleton he thought might be a new species of Velociraptor, and wanted me to have a look.” “And?” Levine shrugged. “Roxton never really did know anatomy. He’s an enthusiastic fund-raiser, but if he actually uncovers something, he’s incompetent to proceed.” “You told him that?” “Why not? It’s the truth.” “And the skeleton?” “The skeleton wasn’t a raptor at all,” Levine said. “Metatarsals all wrong, pubis too ventral, ischium lacking a proper obturator, and the long bones much too light. As for the skull …” He rolled his eyes. “The palatal’s too thick, antorbital fenestrae too rostral, distal carina too small—oh, it goes on and on. And the trenchant ungual’s hardly present. So there we are. I don’t know what Roxton could have been thinking. I suspect he actually has a subspecies of Troodon, though I haven’t decided for sure.” “Troodon?” Gutierrez said. “Small Cretaceous carnivore—two meters from pes to acetabulum. In point of fact, a rather ordinary theropod. And Roxton’s find wasn’t a particularly interesting example. Although there was one curious detail. The material included an integumental artifact—an imprint of the dinosaur’s skin. That in itself is not rare. There are perhaps a dozen good skin impressions obtained so far, mostly among the Hadrosauridae. But nothing like this.


Because it was clear to me that this animal’s skin had some very unusual characteristics not previously suspected in dinosaurs—” “Señores,” the pilot said, interrupting them, “Juan Fernández Bay is ahead.” Levine said, “Circle it first, can we?” Levine looked out the window, his expression intense again, the conversation forgotten. They were flying over jungle that extended up into the hills for miles, as far as they could see. The helicopter banked, circling the beach. “There it is now,” Gutierrez said, pointing out the window. The beach was a clean, curving white crescent, entirely deserted in the afternoon light. To the south, they saw a single dark mass in the sand. From the air, it looked like a rock, or perhaps a large clump of seaweed. The shape was amorphous, about five feet across. There were lots of footprints around it. “Who’s been here?” Levine said, with a sigh. “Public Health Service people came out earlier today.” “Did they do anything?” he said. “They touch it, disturb it in any way?” “I can’t say,” Gutierrez said. “The Public Health Service,” Levine repeated, shaking his head. “What do they know? You should never have let them near it, Marty.” “Hey,” Gutierrez said. “I don’t run this country. I did the best I could. They wanted to destroy it before you even got here. At least I managed to keep it intact until you arrived. Although I don’t know how long they’ll wait.” “Then we’d better get started,” Levine said. He pressed the button on his mike. “Why are we still circling? We’re losing light. Get down on the beach now. I want to see this thing firsthand.” Richard Levine ran across the sand toward the dark shape, his binoculars bouncing on his chest. Even from a distance, he could smell the stench of decay. And already he was logging his preliminary impressions. The carcass lay half-buried in the sand, surrounded by a thick cloud of flies. The skin was bloated with gas, which made identification difficult. He paused a few yards from the creature, and took out his camera. Immediately, the pilot of the helicopter came up alongside him, pushing his hand down. “No permitido.” “What?” “I am sorry, señor. No pictures are allowed.” “Why the hell not?” Levine said. He turned to Gutierrez, who was trotting down the beach toward them. “Marty, why no pictures? This could be an important—” “No pictures,” the pilot said again, and he pulled the camera out of Levine’s hand. “Marty, this is crazy.” “Just go ahead and make your examination,” Gutierrez said, and then he began speaking in Spanish to the pilot, who answered sharply and angrily, waving his hands. Levine watched a moment, then turned away. The hell with this, he thought. They could argue forever. He hurried forward, breathing through his mouth. The odor became much stronger as he approached it. Although the carcass was large he noticed there were no birds, rats, or other scavengers feeding on it.


There were only flies—flies so dense they covered the skin, and obscured the outline of the dead animal. Even so, it was clear that this had been a substantial creature, roughly the size of a cow or horse before the bloat began to enlarge it further. The dry skin had cracked in the sun and was now peeling upward, exposing the layer of runny, yellow subdermal fat beneath. Oof, it stunk! Levine winced. He forced himself closer, directing all his attention to the animal. Although it was the size of a cow, it was clearly not a mammal. The skin was hairless. The original skin color appeared to have been green, with a suggestion of darker striations running through it. The epidermal surface was pebbled in polygonal tubercles of varying sizes, the pattern reminiscent of the skin of a lizard. This texture varied in different parts of the animal, the pebbling larger and less distinct on the underbelly. There were prominent skin folds at the neck, shoulder, and hip joints—again, like a lizard. But the carcass was large. Levine estimated the animal had originally weighed about a hundred kilograms, roughly two hundred and twenty pounds. No lizards grew that large anywhere in the world, except the Komodo dragons of Indonesia. Varanus komodoensis were nine-foot-long monitor lizards, crocodile-size carnivores that ate goats and pigs, and on occasion human beings as well. But there were no monitor lizards anywhere in the New World. Of course, it was conceivable that this was one of the Iguanidae. Iguanas were found all over South America, and the marine iguanas grew quite large. Even so, this would be a record-size animal. Levine moved slowly around the carcass, toward the front of the animal. No, he thought, it wasn’t a lizard. The carcass lay on its side, its left rib cage toward the sky. Nearly half of it was buried; the row of protuberances that marked the dorsal spinous processes of the backbone were just a few inches above the sand. The long neck was curved, the head hidden beneath the bulk of the body like a duck’s head under feathers. Levine saw one forelimb, which seemed small and weak. The distal appendage was buried in sand. He would dig that out and have a look at it, but he wanted to take pictures before he disturbed the specimen in situ. In fact, the more Levine saw of this carcass, the more carefully he thought he should proceed. Because one thing was clear—this was a very rare, and possibly unknown, animal. Levine felt simultaneously excited and cautious. If this discovery was as significant as he was beginning to think it was, then it was essential that it be properly documented. Up the beach, Gutierrez was still shouting at the pilot, who kept shaking his head stubbornly. These banana-republic bureaucrats, Levine thought. Why shouldn’t he take pictures? It couldn’t harm anything. And it was vital to document the changing state of the creature.


He heard a thumping, and looked up to see a second helicopter circling the bay, its dark shadow sliding across the sand. This helicopter was ambulance-white, with red lettering on the side. In the glare of the setting sun, he couldn’t read it. He turned back to the carcass, noticing now that the hind leg of the animal was powerfully muscled, very different from the foreleg. It suggested that this creature walked upright, balanced on strong hind legs. Many lizards were known to stand upright, of course, but none so large as this. In point of fact, as Levine looked at the general shape of the carcass, he felt increasingly certain that this was not a lizard. He worked quickly now, for the light was fading and he had much to do. With every specimen, there were always two major questions to answer, both equally important. First, what was the animal? Second, why had it died? Standing by the thigh, he saw the epidermis was split open, no doubt from the gaseous subcutaneous buildup. But as Levine looked more closely, he saw that the split was in fact a sharp gash, and that it ran deep through the femorotibialis, exposing red muscle and pale bone beneath. He ignored the stench, and the white maggots that wriggled across the open tissues of the gash, because he realized that— “Sorry about all this,” Gutierrez said, coming over. “But the pilot just refuses.” The pilot was nervously following Gutierrez, standing beside him, watching carefully. “Marty,” Levine said. “I really need to take pictures here.” “I’m afraid you can’t,” Gutierrez said, with a shrug. “It’s important, Marty.” “Sorry. I tried my best.” Farther down the beach, the white helicopter landed, its whine diminishing. Men in uniforms began getting out. “Marty. What do you think this animal is?” “Well, I can only guess,” Gutierrez said. “From the general dimensions I’d call it a previously unidentified iguana. It’s extremely large, of course, and obviously not native to Costa Rica. My guess is this animal came from the Galápagos, or one of the—” “No, Marty,” Levine said. “It’s not an iguana.” “Before you say anything more,” Gutierrez said, glancing at the pilot, “I think you ought to know that several previously unknown species of lizard have shown up in this area. Nobody’s quite sure why. Perhaps it’s due to the cutting of the rain forest, or some other reason. But new species are appearing. Several years ago, I began to see unidentified species of—” “Marty. It’s not a damn lizard.” Gutierrez blinked his eyes. “What are you saying? Of course it’s a lizard.” “I don’t think so,” Levine said. Gutierrez said, “You’re probably just thrown off because of its size. The fact is, here in Costa Rica, we occasionally encounter these aberrant forms—” “Marty,” Levine said coldly. “I am never thrown off.” “Well, of course, I didn’t mean that—” “And I am telling you, this is not a lizard,” Levine said.


“I’m sorry,” Gutierrez said, shaking his head. “But I can’t agree.” Back at the white helicopter, the men were huddled together, putting on white surgical masks. “I’m not asking you to agree,” Levine said. He turned back to the carcass. “The diagnosis is settled easily enough, all we need do is excavate the head, or for that matter any of the limbs, for example this thigh here, which I believe—” He broke off, and leaned closer. He peered at the back of the thigh. “What is it?” Gutierrez said. “Give me your knife.” “Why?” Gutierrez said. “Just give it to me.” Gutierrez fished out his pocketknife, put the handle in Levine’s outstretched hand. Levine peered steadily at the carcass. “I think you will find this interesting.” “What?” “Right along the posterior dermal line, there is a—” Suddenly, they heard shouting on the beach, and looked up to see the men from the white helicopter running down the beach toward them. They carried tanks on their backs, and were shouting in Spanish. “What are they saying?” Levine asked, frowning. Gutierrez sighed. “They’re saying to get back.” “Tell them we’re busy,” Levine said, and bent over the carcass again. But the men kept shouting, and suddenly there was a roaring sound, and Levine looked up to see flamethrowers igniting, big red jets of flame roaring out in the evening light. He ran around the carcass toward the men, shouting, “No! No!” But the men paid no attention. He shouted, “No, this is a priceless—” The first of the uniformed men grabbed Levine, and threw him roughly to the sand. “What the hell are you doing?” Levine yelled, scrambling to his feet. But even as he said it, he saw it was too late, the first of the flames had reached the carcass, blackening the skin, igniting the pockets of methane with a blue whump! The smoke from the carcass began to rise thickly into the sky. “Stop it! Stop it!” Levine turned to Gutierrez. “Make them stop it!” But Gutierrez was not moving, he was staring at the carcass. Consumed by flames, the torso crackled and the fat sputtered, and then as the skin burned away, the black, flat ribs of the skeleton were revealed, and then the whole torso turned, and suddenly the neck of the animal swung up, surrounded by flames, moving as the skin contracted. And inside the flames Levine saw a long pointed snout, and rows of sharp predatory teeth, and hollow eye sockets, the whole thing burning like some medieval dragon rising in flames up into the sky.


San José Levine sat in the bar of the San José airport, nursing a beer, waiting for his plane back to the States. Gutierrez sat beside him at a small table, not saying much. An awkward silence had fallen for the last few minutes. Gutierrez stared at Levine’s backpack, on the floor by his feet. It was specially constructed of dark-green Gore-Tex, with extra pockets on the outside for all the electronic gear. “Pretty nice pack,” Gutierrez said. “Where’d you get that, anyway? Looks like a Thorne pack.” Levine sipped his beer. “It is.” “Nice,” Gutierrez said, looking at it. “What’ve you got there in the top flap, a satellite phone? And a GPS? Boy, what won’t they think of next. Pretty slick. Must have cost you a—” “Marty,” Levine said, in an exasperated tone. “Cut the crap. Are you going to tell me, or not?” “Tell you what?” “I want to know what the hell’s going on here.” “Richard, look, I’m sorry if you—” “No,” Levine said, cutting him off. “That was a very important specimen on that beach, Marty, and it was destroyed. I don’t understand why you let it happen.” Gutierrez sighed. He looked around at the tourists at the other tables and said, “This has to be in confidence, okay?” “All right.” “It’s a big problem here.” “What is.” “There have been, uh … aberrant forms … turning up on the coast every so often. It’s been going on for several years now.” “‘Aberrant forms’?” Levine repeated, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s the official term for these specimens,” Gutierrez said. “No one in the government is willing to be more precise. It started about five years ago. A number of animals were discovered up in the mountains, near a remote agricultural station that was growing test varieties of soy beans.” “Soy beans,” Levine repeated. Gutierrez nodded. “Apparently these animals are attracted to beans, and certain grasses. The assumption is that they have a great need for the amino acid lysine in their diets. But nobody is really sure. Perhaps they just have a taste for certain crops—” “Marty,” Levine said. “I don’t care if they have a taste for beer and pretzels. The only important question is: where did the animals come from?” “Nobody knows,” Gutierrez said. Levine let that pass, for the moment. “What happened to those other animals?” “They were all destroyed. And to my knowledge, no others were found for years afterward. But now it seems to be starting again. In the last year, we have found the remains of four more animals, including the one you saw today.” “And what was done?” “The, ah, aberrant forms are always destroyed. Just as you saw. From the beginning, the government’s taken every possible step to make sure nobody finds out about it. A few years back, some North American journalists began reporting there was something wrong on one island, Isla Nublar.


Menéndez invited a bunch of journalists down for a special tour of the island—and proceeded to fly them to the wrong island. They never knew the difference. Stuff like that. I mean, the government’s very serious about this.” “Why?” “They’re worried.” “Worried? Why should they be worried about—” Gutierrez held up his hand, shifted in his chair, moved closer. “Disease, Richard.” “Disease?” “Yeah. Costa Rica has one of the best health-care systems in the world,” Gutierrez said. “The epidemiologists have been tracking some weird type of encephalitis that seems to be on the increase, particularly along the coast.” “Encephalitis? Of what origin? Viral?” Gutierrez shook his head. “No causative agent has been found.” “Marty …” “I’m telling you, Richard. Nobody knows. It’s not a virus, because antibody titres don’t go up, and white-cell differentials don’t change. It’s not bacterial, because nothing has ever been cultured. It’s a complete mystery. All the epidemiologists know is that it seems to affect primarily rural farmers: people who are around animals and livestock. And it’s a true encephalitis—splitting headaches, mental confusion, fever, delirium.” “Mortality?” “So far it seems to be self-limited, lasts about three weeks. But even so it’s got the government worried. This country is dependent on tourism, Richard. Nobody wants talk of unknown diseases.” “So they think the encephalitis is related to these, ah, aberrant forms?” He shrugged. “Lizards carry lots of viral diseases,” Gutierrez said. “They’re a known vector. So it’s not unreasonable, there might be a connection.” “But you said this isn’t a viral disease.” “Whatever it is. They think it’s related.” Levine said, “All the more reason to find out where these lizards are coming from. Surely they must have searched …” “Searched?” Gutierrez said, with a laugh. “Of course they’ve searched. They’ve gone over every square inch of this country, again and again. They’ve sent out dozens of search parties—I’ve led several myself. They’ve done aerial surveys. They’ve had overflights of the jungle. They’ve had overflights of the offshore islands. That in itself is a big job. There are quite a few islands, you know, particularly along the west coast. Hell, they’ve even searched the ones that are privately owned.” “Are there privately owned islands?” Levine asked. “A few. Three or four. Like Isla Nublar—it was leased to an American company, InGen, for years.” “But you said that island was searched …” “Thoroughly searched. Nothing there.” “And the others?” “Well, let’s see,” Gutierrez said, ticking them off on his fingers. “There’s Isla Talamanca, on the east coast; they’ve got a Club Med there. There’s Sorna, on the west coast; it’s leased to a German mining company. And there’s Morazan, up north; it’s actually owned by a wealthy Costa Rican family. And there may be another island I’ve forgotten about.” “And the searches found what?” “Nothing,” Gutierrez said. “They’ve found nothing at all. So the assumption is that the animals are coming from some location deep in the jungle.


And that’s why we haven’t been able to find it so far.” Levine grunted. “In that case, lots of luck.” “I know,” Gutierrez said. “Rain forest is an incredibly good environment for concealment. A search party could pass within ten yards of a large animal and never see it. And even the most advanced remote sensing technology doesn’t help much, because there are multiple layers to penetrate—clouds, tree canopy, lower-level flora. There’s just no way around it: almost anything could be hiding in the rain forest. Anyway,” he said, “the government’s frustrated. And, of course, the government is not the only interested party.” Levine looked up sharply. “Oh?” “Yes. For some reason, there’s been a lot of interest in these animals.” “What sort of interest?” Levine said, as casually as he could. “Last fall, the government issued a permit to a team of botanists from Berkeley to do an aerial survey of the jungle canopy in the central highlands. The survey had been going on for a month when a dispute arose—a bill for aviation fuel, or something like that. Anyway, a bureaucrat in San José called Berkeley to complain. And Berkeley said they’d never heard of this survey team. Meantime, the team fled the country.” “So nobody knows who they really were?” “No. Then last winter, a couple of Swiss geologists showed up to collect gas samples from offshore islands, as part of a study, they said, of volcanic activity in Central America. The offshore islands are all volcanic, and most of them are still active to some degree, so it seemed like a reasonable request. But it turned out the ‘geologists’ really worked for an American genetics company called Biosyn, and they were looking for, uh, large animals on the islands.” “Why would a biotech company be interested?” Levine said. “It makes no sense.” “Maybe not to you and me,” Gutierrez said, “but Biosyn’s got a particularly unsavory reputation. Their head of research is a guy named Lewis Dodgson.” “Oh yeah,” Levine said. “I know. He’s the guy who ran that rabies-vaccine test in Chile a few years back. The one where they exposed farmers to rabies but didn’t tell them they were doing it.” “That’s him. He also started test-marketing a genetically engineered potato in supermarkets without telling anybody they were altered. Gave kids low-grade diarrhea; couple of them ended up in the hospital. After that, the company had to hire George Baselton to fix their image.” “Seems like everybody hires Baselton,” Levine said. Gutierrez shrugged. “The big-name university professors consult, these days. It’s part of the deal. And Baselton is Regis Professor of Biology. The company needed him to clean up their mess, because Dodgson has a habit of breaking the law. Dodgson has people on his payroll all around the world. Steals other companies’ research, the whole bit. They say Biosyn’s the only genetics company with more lawyers than scientists.” “And why were they interested in Costa Rica?” Levine asked. Gutierrez shrugged.


“I don’t know, but the whole attitude toward research has changed, Richard. It’s very noticeable here. Costa Rica has one of the richest ecologies in the world. Half a million species in twelve distinct environmental habitats. Five percent of all the species on the planet are represented here. This country has been a biological research center for years, and I can tell you, things have changed. In the old days, the people who came here were dedicated scientists with a passion to learn about something for its own sake—howler monkeys, or polistine wasps, or the sombrilla plant. These people had chosen their field because they cared about it. They certainly weren’t going to get rich. But now, everything in the biosphere is potentially valuable. Nobody knows where the next drug is coming from, so drug companies fund all sorts of research. Maybe a bird egg has a protein that makes it waterproof. Maybe a spider produces a peptide that inhibits blood clotting. Maybe the waxy surface of a fern contains a painkiller. It happens often enough that attitudes toward research have changed. People aren’t studying the natural world any more, they’re mining it. It’s a looter mentality. Anything new or unknown is automatically of interest, because it might have value. It might be worth a fortune.” Gutierrez drained his beer. “The world,” he said, “is turned upside down. And the fact is that a lot of people want to know what these aberrant animals represent—and where they come from.” The loudspeaker called Levine’s flight. Both men stood up from the table. Gutierrez said, “You’ll keep all this to yourself? I mean, what you saw today.” “To be quite honest,” Levine said, “I don’t know what I saw today. It could have been anything.” Gutierrez grinned. “Safe flight, Richard.” “Take care, Marty.”


Departure His backpack slung over his shoulder, Levine walked toward the departure lounge. He turned to wave goodbye to Gutierrez, but his friend was already heading out the door, raising his arm to wave for a taxi. Levine shrugged, turned back. Directly ahead was the customs desk, travelers lined up to have their passports stamped. He was booked on a night flight to San Francisco, with a long stopover in Mexico City; not many people were queuing up. He probably had time to call his office, and leave word for his secretary, Linda, that he would be on the flight; and perhaps, he thought, he should also call Malcolm. Looking around, he saw a row of phones marked ICT TELEFONOS INTERNATIONAL along the wall to his right, but there were only a few, and all were in use. He had better use the satellite phone in his backpack, he thought, as he swung the pack off his shoulder, and perhaps it would be— He paused, frowning. He looked back at the wall. Four people were using the phones. The first was a blonde woman in shorts and a halter top, bouncing a young sunburned child in her arms as she talked. Next to her stood a bearded man in a safari jacket, who glanced repeatedly at his gold Rolex watch. Then there was a gray-haired, grandmotherly woman talking in Spanish, while her two full-grown sons stood by, nodding emphatically. And the last person was the helicopter pilot. He had removed his uniform jacket, and was standing in short sleeves and tie. He was turned away, facing the wall, shoulders hunched. Levine moved closer, and heard the pilot speaking in English. Levine set his pack down and bent over it, pretending to adjust the straps while he listened. The pilot was still turned away from him. He heard the pilot say, “No, no, Professor. It is not that way. No.” Then there was a pause. “No,” the pilot said. “I am telling to you, no. I am sorry, Professor Baselton, but this is not known. It is an island, but which one … We must wait again for more. No, he leaves tonight. No, I think he does not know anything, and no pictures. No. I understand. Adiós.” Levine ducked his head as the pilot walked briskly toward the LACS A desk at the other end of the airport. What the hell? he thought. It is an island, but which one … How did they know it was an island? Levine himself was still not sure of that. And he had been working intensively on these finds, day and night, trying to put it together. Where they had come from. Why it was happening. He walked around the corner, out of sight, and pulled out the little satellite phone. He dialed it quickly, calling a number in San Francisco. The call went through, rapidly clicking as it linked with the satellite. It began to ring. There was a beep.


An electronic voice said, “Please enter your access code.” Levine punched in a six-digit number. There was another beep. The electronic voice said, “Leave your message.” “I’m calling,” Levine said, “with the results of the trip. Single specimen, not in good shape. Location: BB-17 on your map. That’s far south, which fits all of our hypotheses. I wasn’t able to make a precise identification before they burned the specimen. But my guess is that it was an ornitholestes. As you know, this animal is not on the list—a highly significant finding.” He glanced around, but no one was near him, no one was paying attention. “Furthermore, the lateral femur was cut in a deep gash. This is extremely disturbing.” He hesitated, not wanting to say too much. “And I am sending back a sample that requires close examination. I also think some other people are interested. Anyway, whatever is going on down here is new, Ian. There haven’t been any specimens for over a year, and now they’re showing up again. Something new is happening. And we don’t understand it at all.” Or do we? Levine thought. He pressed the disconnect, turned the phone off, and replaced it in the outer pocket of his backpack. Maybe, he thought, we know more than we realize. He looked thoughtfully toward the departure gate. It was time to catch his flight.


Palo Alto At 2 a.m., Ed James pulled into the nearly deserted parking lot of the Marie Callender’s on Carter Road. The black BMW was already there, parked near the entrance. Through the windows, he could see Dodgson sitting inside at a booth, his bland features frowning. Dodgson was never in a good mood. Right now he was talking to the heavyset man alongside him, and glancing at his watch. The heavyset man was Baselton. The professor who appeared on television. James always felt relieved whenever Baselton was there. Dodgson gave him the creeps, but it was hard to imagine Baselton involved in anything shady. James turned off the ignition and twisted the rearview mirror so he could see as he buttoned his shirt collar and pulled up his tie. He glimpsed his face in the mirror—a disheveled, tired man with a two-day stubble of beard. What the hell, he thought. Why shouldn’t he look tired? It was the middle of the fucking night. Dodgson always scheduled his meetings in the middle of the night, and always at this same damn Marie Callender restaurant. James never understood why; the coffee was awful. But then, there was a lot he didn’t understand. He picked up the manila envelope, and got out of the car, slamming the door. He headed for the entrance, shaking his head. Dodgson had been paying him five hundred dollars a day for weeks now, to follow a bunch of scientists around. At first, James had assumed it was some sort of industrial espionage. But none of the scientists worked for industry; they held university appointments, in pretty dull fields. Like that paleobotanist Sattler whose specialty was prehistoric pollen grains. James had sat through one of her lectures at Berkeley, and had barely been able to stay awake. Slide after slide of little pale spheres that looked like cotton balls, while she nattered on about polysaccharide bonding angles and the Campanian-Maastrichtian boundary. Jesus, it was boring. Certainly not worth five hundred dollars a day, he thought. He went inside, blinking in the light, and walked over to the booth. He sat down, nodded to Dodgson and Baselton, and raised his hand to order coffee from the waitress. Dodgson glared at him. “I haven’t got all night,” he said. “Let’s get started.” “Right,” James said, lowering his hand. “Fine, sure.” He opened the envelope, began pulling out sheets and photos, handing them across the table to Dodgson as he talked. “Alan Grant: paleontologist at Montana State. At the moment he’s on leave of absence and is now in Paris, lecturing on the latest dinosaur finds. Apparently he has some new ideas about tyrannosaurs being scavengers, and—” “Never mind,” Dodgson said. “Go on.” “Ellen Sattler Reiman,” James said, pushing across a photo. “Botanist, used to be involved with Grant. Now married to a physicist at Berkeley and has a young son and daughter. She lectures half-time at the university.


Spends the rest of her time at home, because—” “Go on, go on.” “Well. Most of the rest are deceased. Donald Gennaro, lawyer … died of dysentery on a business trip. Dennis Nedry, Integrated Computer Systems … also deceased. John Hammond, who started International Genetic Technologies … died while visiting the company’s research facility in Costa Rica. Hammond had his grandchildren with him at the time; the kids live with their mother back east and—” “Anybody contact them? Anybody from InGen?” “No, no contact. The boy’s started college and the girl is in prep school. And InGen filed for Chapter 11 protection after Hammond died. It’s been in the courts ever since. The hard assets are finally being sold off. During the last two weeks, as a matter of fact.” Baselton spoke for the first time. “Is Site B involved in that sale?” James looked blank. “Site B?” “Yes. Has anybody talked to you about Site B?” “No, I’ve never heard of it before. What is it?” “If you hear anything about Site B,” Baselton said, “we want to know.” Sitting beside Baselton in the booth, Dodgson thumbed through the pictures and data sheets, then tossed them aside impatiently. He looked up at James. “What else have you got?” “That’s all, Dr. Dodgson.” “That’s all?” Dodgson said. “What about Malcolm? And what about Levine? Are they still friends?” James consulted his notes. “I’m not sure.” Baselton frowned. “Not sure?” he said. “What do you mean, you’re not sure?” “Malcolm met Levine at the Santa Fe Institute,” James said. “They spent time together there, a couple of years ago. But Malcolm hasn’t gone back to Santa Fe recently. He’s taken a visiting lectureship at Berkeley in the biology department. He teaches mathematical models of evolution. And he seems to have lost contact with Levine.” “They have a falling out?” “Maybe. I was told they argued about Levine’s expedition.” “What expedition?” Dodgson said, leaning forward. “Levine’s been planning some kind of expedition for a year or so. He’s ordered special vehicles from a company called Mobile Field Systems. It’s a small operation in Woodside, run by a guy named Jack Thorne. Thorne outfits Jeeps and trucks for scientists doing field research. Scientists in Africa and Sichuan and Chile all swear by them.” “Malcolm knows about this expedition?” “He must. He’s gone to Thorne’s place, occasionally. Every month or so. And of course Levine’s been going there almost every day. That’s how he got thrown in jail.” “Thrown in jail?” Baselton said. “Yeah,” James said, glancing at his notes. “Let’s see. February tenth, Levine was arrested for driving a hundred and twenty in a fifteen zone. Right in front of Woodside Junior High. The judge impounded his Ferrari, yanked his license, and gave him community service. Basically ordered him to teach a class at the school.” Baselton smiled. “Richard Levine teaching junior high. I’d love to see that.” “He’s been pretty conscientious. Of course he’s spending time in Woodside, anyway, with Thorne.


That is, until he left the country.” “When did he leave the country?” Dodgson said. “Two days ago. He went to Costa Rica. Short trip, he was due back early this morning.” “And where is he now?” “I don’t know. And I’m afraid, uh, it’s going to be hard to find out.” “Why is that?” James hesitated, coughed. “Because he was on the passenger manifest of the flight from Costa Rica—but he wasn’t on the plane when it landed. My contact in Costa Rica says he checked out of his hotel in San José before the flight, and never went back. Didn’t take any other flight out of the city. So, uh, for the moment, I’m afraid that Richard Levine has disappeared.” There was a long silence. Dodgson sat back in the booth, hissing between his teeth. He looked at Baselton, who shook his head. Dodgson very carefully picked up all the sheets of paper, tapped them on the table, making a neat stack. He slipped them back into the manila envelope, and handed the envelope to James. “Now listen, you stupid son of a bitch,” Dodgson said. “There’s only one thing I want from you now. It’s very simple. Are you listening?” James swallowed. “I’m listening.” Dodgson leaned across the table. “Find him,” he said.


Berkeley In his cluttered office, Malcolm looked up from his desk as his assistant, Beverly, came into the room. She was followed by a man from DHL, carrying a small box. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Dr. Malcolm, but you have to sign these forms.… It’s that sample from Costa Rica.” Malcolm stood, and walked around the desk. He didn’t use his cane. In recent weeks, he had been working steadily to walk without the cane. He still had occasional pain in his leg, but he was determined to make progress. Even his physical therapist, a perpetually cheery woman named Cindy, had commented on it. “Gee, after all these years, suddenly you’re motivated, Dr. Malcolm,” she had said. “What’s going on?” “Oh, you know,” Malcolm had said to her. “Can’t rely on a cane forever.” The truth was rather different. Confronted by Levine’s relentless enthusiasm for the lost-world hypothesis, his excited telephone calls at all hours of the day and night, Malcolm had begun to reconsider his own views. And he had come to believe that it was quite possible—even probable—that extinct animals existed in a remote, previously unsuspected location. Malcolm had his own reasons for thinking so, which he had only hinted at to Levine. But the possibility of another island location was what led him to walk unaided. He wanted to prepare for a future visit to this island. And so he had begun to make the effort, day after day. He and Levine had narrowed their search down to a string of islands along the Costa Rican coast, and Levine was as always very intense in his excitement. But to Malcolm it remained hypothetical. He refused to get excited until there was hard evidence—photographs, or actual tissue samples—to demonstrate the existence of new animals. And so far, Malcolm had seen nothing at all. He was not sure whether he was disappointed or relieved. But in any case, Levine’s sample had arrived. Malcolm took the clipboard from the delivery man and quickly signed the top form: “Delivery of Excluded Materials / Samples: Biological Research.” The delivery man said, “You have to check the boxes, sir.” Malcolm looked at the list of questions running down the page, with a check box beside each. Was the specimen alive. Was the specimen cultures of bacteria, fungi, viruses, or protozoa. Was the specimen registered under an established research protocol. Was the specimen contagious. Was the specimen taken from a farm or animal-husbandry site. Was the specimen plant matter, propagative seeds, or bulbs. Was the specimen insect or insect-related.… He checked off “No” to everything. “And the next page, too, sir,” the delivery man said. He was looking around the office, at the stacks of papers heaped untidily about, the maps on the walls with the colored pins stuck in them. “You do medical research here?” Malcolm flipped the page, scrawled his signature on the next form. “No.” “And one more, sir.…” The third form was a release of liability to the carrier.


Malcolm signed it as well. The delivery man said, “Have a good day,” and left. Immediately Malcolm sagged, resting his weight on the edge of the desk. He winced. “Still hurt?” Beverly said. She took the specimen to the side table, pushed some papers away, and began to unwrap it. “I’m okay.” He looked over at the cane, resting beside his chair behind the desk. Then he took a breath, and crossed the room, slowly. Beverly had the wrapping off the package, revealing a small stainless-steel cylinder the size of his fist. A triple-bladed biohazard sign was taped across the screwtop lid. Attached to the cylinder was a second small canister with a metal valve; it contained the refrigerant gas. Malcolm swung the light over the cylinder, and said, “Let’s see what he was so excited about.” He broke the taped seal and unscrewed the lid. There was a hiss of gas, and a faint white puff of condensation. The exterior of the cylinder frosted over. Peering in, he saw a plastic baggie, and a sheet of paper. He upended the cylinder, dumping the contents onto the table. The baggie contained a ragged piece of greenish flesh about two inches square, with a small green plastic tag attached to it. He held it up to the light, examined it with a magnifying glass, then set it down again. He looked at the green skin, the pebbled texture. Maybe, he thought. Maybe … “Beverly,” he said, “call Elizabeth Gelman, over at the zoo. Tell her I have something I want her to look at. And tell her it’s confidential.” Beverly nodded, and went out of the room to phone. Alone, Malcolm unrolled the strip of paper that had come with the sample. It was a piece of paper torn from a yellow legal pad. In block printing, it said: I WAS RIGHT AND YOU WERE WRONG. Malcolm frowned. That son of a bitch, he thought. “Beverly? After you call Elizabeth, get Richard Levine at his office. I need to talk to him right away.”


The Lost World Richard Levine pressed his face to the warm rock cliff, and paused to catch his breath. Five hundred feet below, the ocean surged, waves thundering brilliant white against the black rocks. The boat that had brought him was already heading east again, a small white speck on the horizon. It had to return, for there was no safe harbor anywhere on this desolate, inhospitable island. For now, they were on their own. Levine took a deep breath, and looked down at Diego, twenty feet below him on the cliff face. Diego was burdened with the backpack that contained all their equipment, but he was young and strong. He smiled cheerfully, and nodded his head upward. “Have courage. It is not far now, señor.” “I hope so,” Levine said. When he had examined the cliff through binoculars from the boat, this had seemed like a good place to make the ascent. But in fact, the cliff face was nearly vertical, and incredibly dangerous because the volcanic rock was crumbling and friable. Levine raised his arms, fingers extending upward, reaching for the next handhold. He clung to the rock; small pebbles broke free and his hand slipped down. He gripped again, then pulled himself upward. He was breathing hard, from exertion and fear. “Just twenty meters more, señor,” Diego said encouragingly. “You can do it.” “I’m sure I can,” Levine muttered. “Considering the alternative.” As he neared the top of the cliff, the wind blew harder, whistling in his ears, tugging at his clothes. It felt as if it was trying to suck him away from the rock. Looking up, he saw the dense foliage that grew right to the edge of the cliff face. Almost there, he thought. Almost. And then, with a final heave, he pushed himself over the top and collapsed, rolling in soft wet ferns. Still gasping, he looked back and saw Diego come over lightly, easily; he squatted on the mossy grass, and smiled. Levine turned away, staring at the huge ferns overhead, releasing the accumulated tension of the climb in long shuddering breaths. His legs burned fiercely. But no matter—he was here! Finally! He looked at the jungle around him. It was primary forest, undisturbed by the hand of man. Exactly as the satellite images had shown. Levine had been forced to rely on satellite photographs, because there were no maps available of private islands such as this one. This island existed as a kind of lost world, isolated in the midst of the Pacific Ocean. Levine listened to the sound of the wind, the rustle of the palm fronds that dripped water onto his face. And then he heard another sound, distant, like the cry of a bird, but deeper, more resonant. As he listened, he heard it again. A sharp sizzle nearby made him look over. Diego had struck a match, was raising it to light a cigarette.


Quickly, Levine sat up, pushed the younger man’s hand away, and shook his head, no. Diego frowned, puzzled. Levine put his finger to his lips. He pointed in the direction of the bird sound. Diego shrugged, his expression indifferent. He was unimpressed. He saw no reason for concern. That was because he didn’t understand what they were up against, Levine thought, as he unzipped the dark-green backpack, and began to assemble the big Lindstradt rifle. The rifle had been specially manufactured for him in Sweden, and represented the latest in animal-control technology. He screwed the barrel into the stock, locked in the Fluger clip, checked the gas charge, and handed the rifle to Diego. Diego took it with another shrug. Meanwhile, Levine removed the black anodized Lindstradt pistol in its holster, and buckled it around his waist. He removed the pistol, checked the safety twice, and put the pistol back in the holster. Levine got to his feet, gestured for Diego to follow him. Diego zipped up the backpack, and shouldered it again. The two men started down the sloping hillside, away from the cliff. Almost immediately, their clothes were soaked from the wet foliage. They had no views; they were surrounded on all sides by dense jungle, and could see only a few yards ahead. The fronds of the ferns were enormous, as long and broad as a man’s body, the plants twenty feet tall, with rough spiky stalks. And high above the ferns, a great canopy of trees blocked most of the sunlight. They moved in darkness, silently, on damp, spongy earth. Levine paused often, to consult his wrist compass. They were heading west, down a steep slope, toward the interior of the island. He knew that the island was the remains of an ancient volcanic crater, eroded and decomposed by centuries of weathering. The interior terrain consisted of a series of ridges that led down to the floor of the crater. But particularly here on the eastern side, the landscape was steep, rugged, and treacherous. The sense of isolation, of having returned to a primordial world, was palpable. Levine’s heart pounded as he continued down the slope, across a marshy stream, and then up again. At the top of the next ridge, there was a break in the foliage, and he felt a welcome breeze. From his vantage point, he was able to see to the far side of the island, a rim of hard black cliff, miles away. Between here and the cliffs they saw nothing but gently undulating jungle. Standing beside him, Diego said, “Fantástico.” Levine quickly shushed him. “But señor,” he protested, pointing to the view. “We are alone here.” Levine shook his head, annoyed. He had gone over all this with Diego, during the boat ride over. Once on the island, no speaking. No hair pomade, no cologne, no cigarettes. All food sealed tightly in plastic bags. Everything packed with great care. Nothing to produce a smell, or make a sound.


He had warned Diego, again and again, of the importance of all these precautions. But now it was obvious that Diego had paid no attention. He didn’t understand. Levine poked Diego angrily, and shook his head again. Diego smiled. “Señor, please. There are only birds here.” At that moment, they heard a deep, rumbling sound, an unearthly cry that arose from somewhere in the forest below them. After a moment, the cry was answered, from another part of the forest. Diego’s eyes widened. Levine mouthed: Birds? Diego was silent. He bit his lip, and stared out at the forest. To the south, they saw a place where the tops of the trees began to move, a whole section of forest that suddenly seemed to come alive, as if brushed by wind. But the rest of the forest was not moving. It was not the wind. Diego crossed himself quickly. They heard more cries, lasting nearly a minute, and then silence descended again. Levine moved off the ridge and headed down the jungle slope, going deeper into the interior. He was moving forward quickly, looking at the ground, watching for snakes, when he heard a low whistle behind him. He turned and saw Diego pointing to the left. Levine doubled back, pushed through the fronds, and followed Diego as he moved south. In a few moments, they came upon two parallel tracks in the dirt, long since overgrown with grass and ferns, but clearly recognizable as an old Jeep trail, leading off into the jungle. Of course they would follow it. He knew their progress would be much faster on a road. Levine gestured, and Diego took off the backpack. It was Levine’s turn; he shouldered the weight, adjusted the straps. In silence, they started down the road. In places, the Jeep track was hardly recognizable, so thickly had the jungle grown back. Clearly, no one had used this road for many years, and the jungle was always ready to return. Behind him, Diego grunted, swore softly. Levine turned and saw Diego lifting his foot gingerly; he had stepped to mid-ankle in a pile of green animal-droppings. Levine went back. Diego scraped his boot clean on the stem of a fern. The droppings appeared to be composed of pale flecks of hay, mixed with green. The material was light and crumbly—dried, old. There was no smell. Levine searched the ground carefully, until he found the remainder of the original spoor. The droppings were well formed, twelve centimeters in diameter. Definitely left behind by some large herbivore. Diego was silent, but his eyes were wide. Levine shook his head, continued on. As long as they saw signs of herbivora, he wasn’t going to worry. At least, not too much. Even so, his fingers touched the butt of his pistol, as if for reassurance. * * * They came to a stream, muddy banks on both sides. Here Levine paused. He saw clear three-toed footprints in the mud, some of them quite large.


The palm of his own hand, fingers spread wide, fitted easily inside one of the prints, with room to spare. When he looked up, Diego was crossing himself again. He held the rifle in his other hand. They waited at the stream, listening to the gentle gurgle of the water. Something shiny glinted in the stream, catching his eye. He bent over, and plucked it out. It was a piece of glass tubing, roughly the size of a pencil. One end was broken off. There were graduated markings along the side. He realized it was a pipette, of the kind used in laboratories everywhere in the world. Levine held it up to the light, turning it in his fingers. It was odd, he thought. A pipette like this implied— Levine turned, and caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. Something small and brown, scurrying across the mud of the riverbank. Something about the size of a rat. Diego grunted in surprise. Then it was gone, disappearing in foliage. Levine moved forward and crouched in the mud by the stream. He peered at the footprints left by the tiny animal. The footprints were three-toed, like the tracks of a bird. He saw more three-toed tracks, including some bigger ones, which were several inches across. Levine had seen such prints before, in trackways such as the Purgatoire River in Colorado, where the ancient shoreline was now fossilized, the dinosaur tracks frozen in stone. But these prints were in fresh mud. And they had been made by living animals. Sitting on his haunches, Levine heard a soft squeak coming from somewhere to his right. Looking over, he saw the ferns moving slightly. He stayed very still, waiting. After a moment, a small animal peeked out from among the fronds. It appeared to be the size of a mouse; it had smooth, hairless skin and large eyes mounted high on its tiny head. It was greenish-brown in color, and it made a continuous, irritable squeaking sound at Levine, as if to drive him away. Levine stayed motionless, hardly daring to breathe. He recognized this creature, of course. It was a mussaurus, a tiny prosauropod from the Late Triassic. Skeletal remains were found only in South America. It was one of the smallest dinosaurs known. A dinosaur, he thought. Even though he had expected to see them on this island, it was still startling to be confronted by a living, breathing member of the Dinosauria. Especially one so small. He could not take his eyes off it. He was entranced. After all these years, after all the dusty skeletons—an actual living dinosaur! The little mussaur ventured farther out from the protection of the fronds. Now Levine could see that it was longer than he had thought at first. It was actually about ten centimeters long, with a surprisingly thick tail. All told, it looked very much like a lizard. It sat upright, squatting on its hind legs on the frond.


He saw the rib cage moving as the animal breathed. It waved its tiny forearms in the air at Levine, and squeaked repeatedly. Slowly, very slowly, Levine extended his hand. The creature squeaked again, but did not run. If anything it seemed curious, cocking its head the way very small animals do, as Levine’s hand came closer. Finally Levine’s fingers touched the tip of the frond. The mussaur stood on its hind legs, balancing with its outstretched tail. Showing no sign of fear, it stepped lightly onto Levine’s hand, and stood in the creases of his palm. He hardly felt the weight, it was so light. The mussaur walked around, sniffed Levine’s fingers. Levine smiled, charmed. Then, suddenly, the little creature hissed in annoyance, and jumped off his hand, disappearing into the palms. Levine blinked, unable to understand why. Then he smelled a foul odor, and heard a heavy rustling in the bushes on the other side. There was a soft grunting sound. More rustling. For a brief moment, Levine remembered that carnivores in the wild hunted near streambeds, attacking animals when they were vulnerable, bending over to drink. But the recognition came too late; he heard a terrifying high-pitched cry, and when he turned he saw that Diego was screaming as his body was hauled away, into the bushes. Diego struggled; the bushes shook fiercely; Levine caught a glimpse of a single large foot, its middle toe bearing a short curving claw. Then the foot pulled back. The bushes continued to shake. Suddenly, the forest erupted in frightening animal roars all around him. He glimpsed a large animal charging him. Richard Levine turned and fled, feeling the adrenaline surge of pure panic, not knowing where to go, knowing only that it was hopeless. He felt a heavy weight suddenly tear at his backpack, forcing him to his knees in the mud, and he realized in that moment that despite all his planning, despite all his clever deductions, things had gone terribly wrong, and he was about to die.


School “When we consider mass extinction from a meteor impact,” Richard Levine said, “we must ask several questions. First, are there any impact craters on our planet larger than nineteen miles in diameter—which is the smallest size necessary to cause a worldwide extinction event? And second, do any craters match in time a known extinction? It turns out there are a dozen craters this large around the world, of which five coincide with known extinctions.…” Kelly Curtis yawned in the darkness of her seventh-grade classroom. Sitting at her desk, she propped her chin on her elbows, and tried to stay awake. She already knew this stuff. The TV set in front of the class showed a vast cornfield, seen in an aerial view, the curving outlines faintly visible. She recognized it as the crater in Manson. In the darkness, Dr. Levine’s recorded voice said, “This is the crater in Manson, Iowa, dating from sixty-five million years ago, just when dinosaurs became extinct. But was this the meteor that killed the dinosaurs?” No, Kelly thought, yawning. Probably the Yucatán peninsula. Manson was too small. “We now think this crater is too small,” Dr. Levine said aloud. “We believe it was too small by an order of magnitude, and the current candidate is the crater near Mérida, in the Yucatán. It seems difficult to imagine, but the impact emptied the entire Gulf of Mexico, causing two-thousand-foot-high tidal waves to wash over the land. It must have been incredible. But there are disputes about this crater, too, particularly concerning the meaning of the cenote ring structure, and the differential death rates of phytoplankton in ocean deposits. That may sound complicated, but don’t worry about it for now. We’ll go into it in more detail next time. So, that’s it for today.” The lights came up. Their teacher, Mrs. Menzies, stepped to the front of the class and turned off the computer which had been running the display, and the lecture. “Well,” she said, “I’m glad Dr. Levine gave us this recording. He told me he might not be back in time for today’s lecture, but he’ll be with us again for sure when we return from spring break next week. Kelly, you and Arby are working for Dr. Levine, is that what he told you?” Kelly glanced over at Arby, who was slouched low in his seat, frowning. “Yes, Mrs. Menzies,” Kelly said. “Good. All right, everyone, the assignment for the holidays is all of chapter seven”—there were groans from the class—“including all of the exercises at the end of part one, as well as part two. Be sure to bring that with you, completed, when we return. Have a good spring break. We’ll see you back here in a week.” The bell rang; the class got up, chairs scraping, the room suddenly noisy. Arby drifted over to Kelly. He looked up at her mournfully. Arby was a head shorter than Kelly; he was the shortest person in the class.


He was also the youngest. Kelly was thirteen, like the other seventh-graders, but Arby was only eleven. He had already been skipped two grades, because he was so smart. And there were rumors he would be skipped again. Arby was a genius, particularly with computers. Arby put his pen in the pocket of his white button-down shirt, and pushed his horn-rim glasses up on his nose. R. B. Benton was black; both his parents were doctors in San Jose, and they always made sure he was dressed very neatly, like a college kid or something. Which, Kelly reflected, he would probably be in a couple of years, the way he was going. Standing next to Arby, Kelly always felt awkward and gawky. Kelly had to wear her sister’s old clothes, which her mother had bought from Kmart about a million years ago. She even had to wear Emily’s old Reeboks, which were so scuffed and dirty that they never came clean, even after Kelly ran them through the washing machine. Kelly washed and ironed all her own clothes; her mother never had time. Her mother was never even home, most of the time. Kelly looked enviously at Arby’s neatly pressed khakis, his polished penny loafers, and sighed. Still, even though she was jealous, Arby was her only real friend—the only person who thought it was okay that she was smart. Kelly worried that he’d be skipped to ninth grade, and she wouldn’t see him any more. Beside her, Arby still frowned. He looked up at her and said, “Why isn’t Dr. Levine here?” “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe something happened.” “Like what?” “I don’t know. Something.” “But he promised he would be here,” Arby said. “To take us on the field trip. It was all arranged. We got permission and everything.” “So? We can still go.” “But he should be here,” Arby insisted stubbornly. Kelly had seen this behavior before. Arby was accustomed to adults being reliable. His parents were both very reliable. Kelly wasn’t troubled by such ideas. “Never mind, Arb,” she said. “Let’s just go see Dr. Thorne ourselves.” “You think so?” “Sure. Why not?” Arby hesitated. “Maybe I should call my mom first.” “Why?” Kelly said. “You know she’ll tell you that you have to go home. Come on, Arb. Let’s just go.” He hesitated, still troubled. Arby might be smart, but any change in plan always bothered him. Kelly knew from experience he would grumble and argue if she pushed for them to go alone. She had to wait, while he made up his own mind. “Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s go see Thorne.” Kelly grinned. “Meet you in front,” she said, “in five minutes.” As she went down the stairs from the second floor, the singsong chant began again. “Kelly is a brainer, Kelly is a brainer.…” She held her head high. It was that stupid Allison Stone and her stupid friends. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, taunting her.


“Kelly is a brainer.…” She swept past the girls, ignoring them. Nearby, she saw Miss Enders, the hall monitor, paying no attention as usual. Even though Mr. Canosa, the assistant principal, had recently made a special homeroom announcement about teasing kids. Behind her, the girls called: “Kelly is a brainer.… She’s the queen … of the screen … and it’s gonna turn her green.…” They collapsed in laughter. Up ahead, she saw Arby waiting by the door, a bundle of gray cables in his hand. She hurried forward. When she got to him, he said, “Forget it.” “They’re stupid jerkoffs.” “Right.” “I don’t care, anyway.” “I know. Just forget it.” Behind them, the girls were giggling. “Kel-ly and Ar-by … going to a party … take a bath, in their math.…” They went outside into the sunlight, the sounds of the girls thankfully drowned in the noise of everyone going home. Yellow school buses were in the parking lot. Kids were streaming down the steps to their parents’ cars, which were lined up all around the block. There was a lot of activity. Arby ducked a Frisbee that whooshed over his head, and glanced toward the street. “There he is again.” “Well, don’t look at him,” Kelly said. “I’m not, I’m not.” “Remember what Dr. Levine said.” “Jeez, Kel. I remember, okay?” Across the street was parked the plain gray Taurus sedan that they had seen, off and on, for the past two months. Behind the wheel, pretending to read a newspaper, was that same man with the scraggly growth of beard. This bearded man had been following Dr. Levine ever since he started to teach the class at Woodside. Kelly believed that man was the reason why Dr. Levine asked her and Arby to be his assistants in the first place. Levine had told them their job would be to help him by carrying equipment, Xeroxing class assignments, collecting homework, and routine things like that. They thought it would be a big honor to work for Dr. Levine—or anyway, interesting to work for an actual professional scientist—so they had agreed to do it. But it turned out there never was anything to be done for the class; Dr. Levine did all that himself. Instead, he sent them on lots of little errands. And he had told them to be careful to avoid this bearded man in the car. That wasn’t hard; the man never paid any attention to them, because they were kids. Dr. Levine had explained the bearded man was following him because of something to do with his arrest, but Kelly didn’t believe that. Her own mother had been arrested twice for drunk driving, and there was never anybody following her. So Kelly didn’t know why this man was following Levine, but clearly Levine was doing some secret research and he didn’t want anybody to find out about it. She knew one thing—Dr. Levine didn’t care much about this class he was teaching.


He usually gave the lecture off the top of his head. Other times he would walk in the front door of the school, hand them a taped lecture, and walk out the back. They never knew where he went, on those days. The errands he sent them on were mysterious, too. Once they went to Stanford and picked up five small squares of plastic from a professor there. The plastic was light, and sort of foamy. Another time they went downtown to an electronics store and picked up a triangular device that the man behind the counter gave them very nervously, as if it might be illegal or something. Another time they picked up a metal tube that looked like it contained cigars. They couldn’t help opening it, but they were uneasy to find four sealed plastic ampoules of straw-colored liquid. The ampoules were marked EXTREME DANGER! LETHAL TOXICITY! and had the three-bladed international symbol for biohazard. But mostly, their assignments were mundane. He often sent them to libraries at Stanford to Xerox papers on all sorts of subjects: Japanese sword-making, X-ray crystallography, Mexican vampire bats, Central American volcanoes, oceanic currents of El Niño, the mating behavior of mountain sheep, sea-cucumber toxicity, flying buttresses of Gothic cathedrals … Dr. Levine never explained why he was interested in these subjects. Often he would send them back day after day, to search for more material. And then, suddenly, he would drop the subject, and never refer to it again. And they would be on to something else. Of course, they could figure some of it out. A lot of the questions had to do with the vehicles that Dr. Thorne was building for Dr. Levine’s expedition. But most of the time, the subjects were completely mysterious. Occasionally, Kelly wondered what the bearded man would make of all this. She wondered whether he knew something they did not. But actually, the bearded man seemed kind of lazy. He never seemed to figure out that Kelly and Arby were doing errands for Dr. Levine. Right now, the bearded man glanced over at the entrance to the school, ignoring them. They walked to the end of the street, and sat on the bench to wait for the bus.


Tag The baby snow leopard spit the bottle out, and rolled over onto its back, paws in the air. It made a soft mewing sound. “She wants to be petted,” Elizabeth Gelman said. Malcolm reached out his hand, to stroke the belly. The cub spun around, and sunk its tiny teeth into his fingers. Malcolm yelled. “She does that, sometimes,” Gelman said. “Dorje! Bad girl! Is that any way to treat our distinguished visitor?” She reached out, took Malcolm’s hand. “It didn’t break the skin, but we should clean it anyway.” They were in the white research laboratory of the San Francisco Zoo, at three o’clock in the afternoon. Elizabeth Gelman, the youthful head of research, was supposed to report on her findings, but they had to delay for the afternoon feeding in the nursery. Malcolm had watched them feed a baby gorilla, which spit up like a human baby, and a koala, and then the very cute snow-leopard cub. “Sorry about that,” Gelman said. She took him to a side basin, and soaped his hand. “But I thought it was better that you come here now, when the regular staff is all at the weekly conference.” “Why is that?” “Because there’s a lot of interest in the material you gave us, Ian. A lot.” She dried his hand with a towel, inspected it again. “I think you’ll survive.” “What have you found?” Malcolm said to her. “You have to admit, it is very provocative. By the way, is it from Costa Rica?” Keeping his voice neutral, Malcolm said, “Why do you say that?” “Because there are all these rumors about unknown animals showing up in Costa Rica. And this is definitely an unknown animal, Ian.” She led him out of the nursery, and into a small conference room. He dropped into a chair, resting his cane on the table. She lowered the lights, and clicked on a slide projector. “Okay. Here’s a close-up of your original material, before we began our examination. As you see, it consists of a fragment of animal tissue in a state of very advanced necrosis. The tissue measures four centimeters by six centimeters. Attached to it is a green plastic tag, measuring two centimeters square. Tissue cut by a knife, but not a very sharp one.” Malcolm nodded. “What’d you use, Ian, your pocketknife?” “Something like that.” “All right. Let’s deal with the tissue sample first.” The slide changed; Malcolm saw a microscopic view. “This is a gross histologic section through the superficial epidermis. Those patchy, ragged gaps are where the postmortem necrotic change has eroded the skin surface. But what is interesting is the arrangement of epidermal cells. You’ll notice the density of chromatophores, or pigment-bearing cells. In the cut section you see the difference between melanophores here, and allophores, here. The overall pattern is suggestive of a lacerta or amblyrhynchus.” “You mean a lizard?” Malcolm said. “Yes,” she said.


“It looks like a lizard—though the picture is not entirely consistent.” She tapped the left side of the screen. “You see this one cell here, which has this slight rim, in section? We believe that’s muscle. The chromatophore could open and close. Meaning that this animal could change color, like a chameleon. And over here you see this large oval shape, with a pale center? That’s the pore of a femoral scent gland. There is a waxy substance in the center which we are still analyzing. But our presumption is that this animal was male, since only male lizards have femoral glands.” “I see,” Malcolm said. She changed the slide. Malcolm saw what looked like a close-up of a sponge. “Going deeper. Here we see the structure of the subcutaneous layers. Highly distorted, because of gas bubbles from the clostridia infection that bloated the animal. But you can get a sense of the vessels—see, one here—and another here—which are surrounded by smooth muscle fibers. This is not characteristic of lizards. In fact, the whole appearance of this slide is wrong for lizards, or reptiles of any sort.” “You mean it looks warm-blooded.” “Right,” Gelman said. “Not really mammalian, but perhaps avian. This could be, oh, I don’t know, a dead pelican. Something like that.” “Uh-huh.” “Except no pelican has a skin like that.” “I see,” Malcolm said. “And there’s no feathers.” “Uh-huh.” “Now,” Gelman said, “we were able to extract a minute quantity of blood from the intra-arterial spaces. Not much, but enough to conduct a microscopic examination. Here it is.” The slide changed again. He saw a jumble of cells, mostly red cells, and an occasional misshapen white cell. It was confusing to look at. “This isn’t my area, Elizabeth,” he said. “Well, I’ll just give you the highlights,” she said. “First of all, nucleated red cells. That’s characteristic of birds, not mammals. Second, rather atypical hemoglobin, differing in several base pairs from other lizards. Third, aberrant white-cell structure. We don’t have enough material to make a determination, but we suspect this animal has a highly unusual immune system.” “Whatever that means,” Malcolm said, with a shrug. “We don’t know, and the sample doesn’t give us enough to find out. By the way, can you get more?” “I might be able to,” he said. “Where, from Site B?” Malcolm looked puzzled. “Site B?” “Well, that’s what’s embossed on the tag.” She changed the slide. “I must say, Ian, this tag is very interesting. Here at the zoo, we tag animals all the time, and we’re familiar with all the ordinary commercial brands sold around the world. Nobody’s seen this tag before. Here it is, magnified ten times. The actual object is roughly the size of your thumbnail. Uniform plastic outer surface, attaches to the animal by a Teflon-coated, stainless-steel clip on the other side. It’s a rather small clip, of the kind used to tag infants.