Many contemporary animals, including rhinos and deer, preferred to relieve themselves at particular spots. And many times, the behavior of herds was coordinated. Latrine behavior was generally considered to be a method of marking territory. But whatever the reason, no one had ever suspected that dinosaurs acted in this way. As Levine watched, the parasaurs finished urinating, and each moved a few feet to the side. Then they defecated, again in unison. Each parasaur produced a large mound of straw-colored spoor. This was accompanied by low trumpeting from each animal in the herd—along with an enormous quantity of expelled flatus, redolent of methane. Behind him, a voice whispered, “Very nice.” He turned, and saw Eddie Carr sitting on the motorcycle. He was waving his hand in front of his face. “Dino farts,” he said. “Better not light a match around here, you’ll blow the place up.…” “Ssssh,” Levine hissed angrily, shaking his head. He turned back to the parasaurs. This was no time to be interrupted by a vulgar young fool. Several of the animals bent their heads down, and began to lick the puddles of urine. No doubt they wanted to recover lost nutrients, he thought. Perhaps salt. Or perhaps hormones. Or perhaps it was something seasonal. Or perhaps— Levine edged forward. They knew so little about these creatures. They didn’t even know the most basic facts about their lives—how they ate, how they eliminated, how they slept and bred. A whole world of intricate, interlocking behaviors had evolved in these long-vanished animals. Understanding them now could be the work of a lifetime for dozens of scientists. But that would probably never happen. All he could hope to do was make a few conjectures, a few simple deductions that skimmed the surface of the complexity of their lives. The parasaurs trumpeted, and headed deeper into the forest. Levine moved forward to follow them. “Dr. Levine,” Eddie said quietly. “Get on the bike. Now.” Levine ignored him, but as the big animals departed, he saw dozens of tiny green dinosaurs leap chittering out into the clearing. He realized at once what they were: Procompsognathus triassicus. Small scavenger, found by Fraas in 1913, in Bavaria. Levine stared, fascinated. Of course he knew the animal well, but only from reconstructions, because there were no complete skeletons of Procompsognathus anywhere in the world. Ostrom had done the most complete studies, but he had to work with a skeleton that was badly crushed, and fragmentary. The tail, neck, and arms were all missing from the animals Ostrom described. Yet here the procompsognathids were, fully formed and active, hopping around like so many chickens. As he watched, the compys began to eat the fresh dung, and drink what was left of the urine. Levine frowned. Was that part of ordinary scavenger behavior? Levine wasn’t sure.… He edged forward, to look at them more closely. “Dr. Levine!” Eddie whispered.


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

It was interesting that the compys only ate fresh dung, not the dried remnants that were everywhere in the clearing. Whatever nutrients they were obtaining from the dung, it must only be present in fresh specimens. That suggested a protein or hormone that would degrade over time. Probably he should obtain a fresh sample for analysis. He reached into his shirt pocket, and withdrew a plastic baggie. He moved among the compys, which seemed indifferent to his presence. He crouched down by the nearest dung pile, and reached slowly forward. “Dr. Levine!” He glanced back, annoyed, and in that moment one of the compys leapt forward and bit his hand. Another jumped onto his shoulder and bit his ear. Levine yelled, and stood up. The compys hopped onto the ground and scampered away. “Damn it!” he said. Eddie drove up on the motorcycle. “That’s enough,” he said. “Get on the damn bike. We’re getting out of here.”


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

Nest The red Jeep Wrangler came to a stop. Directly ahead, the game trail they had been following continued through the foliage, to a clearing beyond. The game trail was wide and muddy, trampled flat by large animals. They could see large, deep footprints in the mud. From the clearing, they heard a low honking noise, like the sound of very large geese. Dodgson said, “Okay. Give me the box.” King didn’t answer. Baselton said, “What box?” Without taking his eyes off the clearing, Dodgson said, “There’s a black box on the seat beside you, and a battery pack. Give them to me.” Baselton grunted. “It’s heavy.” “That’s because of the cone magnets.” Dodgson reached back, took the box, which was made of black anodized metal. It was the size of a shoebox, except it ended in a flaring cone. Underneath was mounted a pistol grip. Dodgson clipped a battery pack to his belt, and plugged it into the box. Then he picked the box up by the pistol grip. There was a knob at the back, facing him, and a graduated dial. Dodgson said, “Batteries charged?” “They’re charged,” King said. “Okay,” Dodgson said. “I’ll go first, into the nest area. I’ll adjust the box, and get rid of the animals. You two follow behind me, and once the animals are gone, you each take an egg from the nest. Then you leave, and bring them back to the car. I’ll come back last. Then we all drive off. Got it?” “Right,” Baselton said. “Okay,” King said. “What kind of dinosaurs are these?” “I have no fucking idea,” Dodgson said, climbing out of the car. “And it doesn’t make any difference. Just follow the procedure.” He closed the door softly. The others got out quietly, and they started forward, down the wet trail. Their feet squished in the mud. The sound from the clearing continued. To Dodgson, it sounded like a lot of animals. He pushed aside the last of the ferns and saw them. It was a large nesting site, with perhaps four or five low earthen mounds, covered in grasses. The mounds were about seven feet wide, and three feet deep. There were twenty beige-colored adults around the mounds—a whole herd of dinosaurs, surrounding the nesting site. And the adults were big, thirty feet long and ten feet high, all honking and snorting. “Oh, my God,” Baselton said, staring. Dodgson shook his head. “They’re maiasaurs,” he whispered. “This is going to be a piece of cake.” Maiasaurs had been named by paleontologist Jack Horner. Before Horner, scientists assumed that dinosaurs abandoned their eggs, as most reptiles did. Those assumptions fitted the old picture of dinosaurs as cold-blooded, reptilian creatures. Like reptiles, they were thought to be solitary; murals on museum walls rarely showed more than one example from each species—a brontosaurus here, a stegosaurus or a triceratops there, wading through the swamps.


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

But Horner’s excavations in the badlands of Montana provided clear, unambiguous evidence that at least one species of hadrosaurs had engaged in complex nesting and parenting behavior. Horner incorporated that behavior in the name he gave these creatures: maiasaur meant “good-mother lizard.” Watching them now, Dodgson could see the maiasaurs were indeed attentive parents, the big adults circling the nests, moving carefully to step outside the shallow earthen mounds. The beige maiasaurs were duck-billed dinosaurs; they had large heads that ended in a broad, flattened snout, rather like the bill of a duck. They were taking mouthfuls of grass, and dropping it on the eggs in the mounds. This was, he knew, a way to regulate the temperature of the eggs. If the huge animals sat on the eggs, they would crush them. So instead they put a layer of grass over the eggs, which trapped heat and kept the eggs at a more constant temperature. The animals worked steadily. “They’re huge,” Baselton said. “They’re nothing but oversized cows,” Dodgson said. Although the maiasaurs were large, they were plant-eaters, and they had the docile, slightly stupid manner of cows. “Ready? Here we go.” He lifted the box like a gun, and stepped forward, into view. Dodgson expected a big reaction when the maiasaurs saw him, but there was none at all. They hardly seemed to notice him. One or two adults looked over, stared with dumb eyes, and then looked away. The animals continued to drop grass on the eggs, which were pale white, spherical, and nearly two feet long. Each was about twice the size of an ostrich egg. About the size of a small beach ball. No animals had hatched yet. King and Baselton stepped out, and stood beside him in the clearing. Still the maiasaurs ignored them. “Amazing,” Baselton said. “Fine for us,” Dodgson said. And he turned on the box. A continuous, high-pitched shriek filled the clearing. The maiasaurs immediately turned toward the sound, honking and lifting their heads. They seemed agitated, confused. Dodgson twisted the dial, and the shriek became higher, ear-splitting. The maiasaurs bobbed their heads, and moved away from the painful sound. They clustered at the far end of the clearing. Several of the animals urinated in alarm. A few of them moved away into the foliage, abandoning the nest. They were agitated, but they stayed away. “Go now,” Dodgson said. King stepped into the nearest nest, and grunted as he picked up an egg. His arms hardly reached around the huge sphere. The maiasaurs honked at him, but none of the adults moved forward. Then Baselton went into the nest, took an egg, and followed King back to the car. Dodgson walked backward, holding the box on the adults. At the edge of the clearing, he turned the sound off. At once the maiasaurs came back, honking loudly and repeatedly. But as they returned to the nests, it seemed as if the adults forgot what had just happened.


Within a few moments, they ceased honking, and went back to dropping grass over the eggs. They ignored Dodgson as he left and headed back along the game trail. Stupid animals, Dodgson thought, as he went to the car. Baselton and King were setting the eggs into big Styrofoam containers in the back, and fitting the foam packing around them carefully. Both men were grinning like kids. “That was amazing!” “Great! Fantastic!” “What’d I tell you?” Dodgson said. “Nothing to it.” He glanced at his watch. “At this rate, we’ll finish in less than four hours.” He climbed behind the steering wheel and turned on the engine. Baselton got into the back seat. King got in the passenger seat and took out the map. “Next,” Dodgson said.


The High Hide “I tell you, it’s fine,” Levine said irritably. He was sweating in the stifling heat beneath the aluminum roof of the high hide. “Look, it didn’t even break the skin.” He held out his hand. There was a red semicircle where the compy had pressed its teeth into the skin, but that was all. Beside him, Eddie said, “Yeah, well, your ear is bleeding a little.” “I don’t feel anything. It can’t be bad.” “No, it’s not bad,” Eddie said, opening the first-aid kit. “But I better clean it up.” “I prefer,” Levine said, “to get on with my observations.” The dinosaurs were barely a quarter-mile away from him, and he could see them well. In the still midday air, he could hear them breathe. He could hear them breathe. Or at least he could, if this young man would leave him alone. “Look,” Levine said, “I know what I’m doing here. You came in at the end of a very interesting and successful experiment. I actually called the dinosaurs to me, by imitating their cry.” “You did?” Eddie said. “Yes, I did. That was what led them into the forest in the first place. So I hardly think that I need your assistance—” “The thing is,” Eddie said, “you got some of that dino shit on your ear and there’s a couple of little punctures. I’ll just clean it off for you.” He soaked a gauze pad with disinfectant. “May sting a little.” “I don’t care, I have other—Ow!” “Stop moving,” Eddie said. “It’ll only take a second.” “It’s absolutely unnecessary.” “If you just stand still, it’ll be done. There.” He took the gauze away. Levine saw brown and a faint streak of red. Just as he suspected, the injury was trivial. He reached up and touched his ear. It didn’t hurt at all. Levine squinted out at the plain, as Eddie packed up the first-aid case. “Jeez, it’s hot up here,” Eddie said. “Yes,” Levine said, shrugging. “Sarah Harding arrived, and I think they took her back to the trailer. You want to go back now?” “I can’t imagine why,” Levine said. “I just thought you might want to say hello or something,” Eddie said. “My work is here,” Levine said. He turned away, raised his binoculars to his eyes. “So,” Eddie said. “You don’t want to come back?” “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Levine said, staring through binoculars. “Not in a million years. Not in sixty-five million years.”


Trailer Kelly Curtis listened to the sound of the shower. She couldn’t believe it. She stared at the muddy clothes tossed casually on the bed. Shorts and a khaki short-sleeve shirt. Sarah Harding’s actual clothes. She couldn’t help it. Kelly reached out and touched them. She noticed how the fabric was worn and frayed. Buttons sewn back on; they didn’t match. And there were some reddish streaks near the pocket that she thought must be old bloodstains. She reached down and touched the fabric— “Kelly?” Sarah was calling to her, from the shower. She remembered my name. “Yes?” Kelly said, her voice betraying her nervousness. “Is there any shampoo?” “I’ll look, Dr. Harding,” Kelly said, opening drawers hastily. The men had all gone into the next compartment, leaving her alone with Sarah while she washed. Kelly searched desperately, opening the drawers, slamming them shut again. “Listen,” Sarah called, “it’s okay if you can’t find any.” “I’m looking.…” “Is there any dishwashing liquid?” Kelly paused. There was a green plastic bottle by the sink. “Yes, Dr. Harding, but—” “Give it to me. It’s all the same stuff. I don’t care.” The hand reached out, past the shower curtain. Kelly handed it to her. “And my name is Sarah.” “Okay, Dr. Harding.” “Sarah.” “Okay, Sarah.” Sarah Harding was a regular person. Very informal and normal. Entranced, Kelly sat on the seat in the kitchen and waited, swinging her feet, in case Dr. Harding—Sarah—needed anything else. She listened to Sarah humming “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair.” After a few moments, the shower turned off, and her hand reached out and took the towel on the hook. And then she came out, wrapped in the towel. Sarah ran her fingers through her short hair, which seemed to be all the attention she gave to her appearance. “That feels better. Boy, this is a plush field trailer. Doc really did a great job.” “Yes,” she said. “It’s nice.” She smiled at Kelly. “How old are you, Kelly?” “Thirteen.” “What is that, eighth grade?” “Seventh.” “Seventh grade,” Sarah said, thoughtfully. Kelly said, “Dr. Malcolm left some clothes for you. He said he thought they’d fit.” She pointed to a clean pair of shorts and a tee shirt. “Whose are these?” “I think they’re Eddie’s.” Sarah held them up. “Might work.” She took them around the corner, into the sleeping area, and started getting dressed. She said, “What are you going to do when you grow up?” “I don’t know,” Kelly said. “That’s a very good answer.” “It is?” Kelly’s mother was always pushing her to get a part-time job, to decide what she wanted to do with her life. “Yes,” Sarah said. “Nobody smart knows what they want to do until they get into their twenties or thirties.” “Oh.” “What do you like to study?” “Actually, uh, I like math,” she said, in a sort of guilty voice.


Sarah must have heard her tone, because she said, “What’s wrong with math?” “Well, girls aren’t good at it. I mean, you know.” “No, I don’t know.” Sarah’s voice was flat. Kelly felt panic. She had been experiencing this warm feeling with Sarah Harding, but now she sensed it was dissolving away, as if she had given a wrong answer to a disapproving teacher. She decided not to say anything else. She waited in silence. After a moment Sarah came out again, wearing Eddie’s baggy clothes. She sat down and started putting on a pair of boots. She moved in a very normal, matter-of-fact way. “What did you mean, girls aren’t good at mathematics?” “Well, that’s what everybody says.” “Everybody like who?” “My teachers.” Sarah sighed. “Great,” she said, shaking her head. “Your teachers …” “And the other kids call me a brainer. Stuff like that. You know.” Kelly just blurted it out. She couldn’t believe that she was saying all this to Sarah Harding, whom she hardly knew at all except from articles and pictures, but here she was, telling her all this personal stuff. All these things that upset her. Sarah just smiled cheerfully. “Well, if they say that, you must be pretty good at math, huh?” “I guess.” She smiled. “That’s wonderful, Kelly.” “But the thing is, boys don’t like girls who are too smart.” Sarah’s eyebrows went up. “Is that so?” “Well, that’s what everybody says.…” “Like who?” “Like my mom.” “Uh-huh. And she probably knows what she’s talking about.” “I don’t know,” Kelly admitted. “My mom only dates jerks, actually.” “So she could be wrong?” Sarah asked, glancing up at Kelly as she tied her laces. “I guess.” “Well, in my experience, some men like smart women, and some don’t. It’s like everything else in the world.” She stood up. “You know about George Schaller?” “Sure. He studied pandas.” “Right. Pandas, and before that, snow leopards and lions and gorillas. He’s the most important animal researcher in the twentieth century—and you know how he works?” Kelly shook her head. “Before he goes into the field, George reads everything that’s ever been written about the animal he’s going to study. Popular books, newspaper accounts, scientific papers, everything. Then he goes out and observes the animal for himself. And you know what he usually finds?” She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. “That nearly everything that’s been written or said is wrong. Like the gorilla. George studied mountain gorillas ten years before Dian Fossey ever thought of it. And he found that what was believed about gorillas was exaggerated, or misunderstood, or just plain fantasy—like the idea that you couldn’t take women on gorilla expeditions, because the gorillas would rape them. Wrong. Everything … just … wrong.” Sarah finished tying her boots, and stood. “So, Kelly, even at your young age, there’s something you might as well learn now. All your life people will tell you things.


And most of the time, probably ninety-five percent of the time, what they’ll tell you will be wrong.” Kelly said nothing. She felt oddly disheartened to hear this. “It’s a fact of life,” Sarah said. “Human beings are just stuffed full of misinformation. So it’s hard to know who to believe. I know how you feel.” “You do?” “Sure. My mom used to tell me I’d never amount to anything.” She smiled. “So did some of my professors.” “Really?” It didn’t seem possible. “Oh yes,” Sarah said. “As a matter of fact—” From the other section of the trailer, they heard Malcolm say, “No! No! Those idiots! They could ruin everything!” Sarah immediately turned, and went into the other section. Kelly jumped off the seat, and hurried after her. The men were all clustered around the monitor. Everyone was talking at once, and they seemed to be upset. “This is terrible,” Malcolm was saying. “Terrible!” Thorne said, “Is that a Jeep?” “They had a red Jeep,” Harding said, coming up to look. “Then it’s Dodgson,” Malcolm said. “Damn!” “What’s he doing here?” “I can guess.” Kelly pushed through to get a look. On the screen, she saw foliage, and intermittent flashes of a red-and-black vehicle. “Where are they now?” Malcolm said to Arby. “I think they’re in the east valley,” Arby said. “Near where we found Dr. Levine.” The radio clicked. Levine’s voice said, “Do you mean there are now other people on the island?” “Yes, Richard.” “Well, you better go stop them, before they mess everything up.” “I know. Do you want to come back?” “Not without a compelling reason. Inform me if one arises.” And his radio clicked off. Harding stared at the screen, watching the Jeep. “That’s them, all right,” she said. “That’s your friend Dodgson.” “He’s not my friend,” Malcolm said. He got up, wincing in pain from his leg. “Let’s go,” he said. “We have to stop these bastards. There’s no time to waste.”


Nest The red Jeep Wrangler rolled softly to a stop. Directly ahead was a wall of dense foliage. But through it they could see sunlight, from the clearing beyond. Dodgson sat quietly in the car, listening. King turned to him, about to speak, but Dodgson held up his hand, gesturing to him to be silent. Then he heard it clearly—a low rumbling growl, almost a purr. It was coming from beyond the foliage ahead. It sounded like the biggest jungle cat he had ever heard. And intermittently, he felt a slight vibration, hardly anything, but enough to make the car keys clink against the steering column. As he felt that vibration, it slowly dawned on him: It’s walking. Something very big. Walking. Beside him, King was staring forward in astonishment; his mouth hung open. Dodgson glanced back at Baselton; the professor was gripping the seat with white fingers, as he listened to the sound. A shadow moved across the ferns directly ahead. Judging by the shadow, the animal was twenty feet high, and forty feet long. It walked on its hind legs, and had a large body, a short neck, a very big head. A tyrannosaur. Dodgson hesitated, staring at the shadow. His heart was pounding in his chest. He considered going on to the next nest, but he was confident that the box would work here, too. He said, “Let’s get this over with. Give me the box.” Baselton handed him the box, just as he had done before. Dodgson said, “Charged?” “Batteries are charged,” King said. “Okay,” he said. “Here we go. Exactly the same as before. I’ll go first, you two follow, and bring the eggs back to the car. Ready?” “Ready,” Baselton said. King did not answer. He was still staring at the shadow. “What kind of a dinosaur is that?” “That’s a tyrannosaurus.” “Oh Jesus,” King said. “A tyrannosaurus?” Baselton said. “It doesn’t matter what it is,” Dodgson said irritably. “Just follow the plan, like before. Everybody ready?” “Just a minute,” Baselton said. King said, “What if it doesn’t work?” “We already know it works,” Dodgson said. “There’s a rather curious fact about tyrannosaurs that was recently reported,” Baselton said. “A paleontologist named Roxton did a study of the tyrannosaur braincase, and concluded that they have a brain not much different from a frog’s, although of course much bigger. The implication was their nervous systems were adapted to motion only. They can’t see you if you stand still. Stationary objects become invisible to them.” “Are you sure about that?” King said. Baselton said, “That was the report. And it makes perfect sense. One can’t forget that dinosaurs, for all their intimidating size, were actually rather primitive intellects. It’s quite logical that a tyrannosaur would have the mental equipment of a frog.” “I don’t see why we’re rushing into this,” King said, nervously. He stared forward. “It’s much bigger than the other ones.” “So what?” Dodgson said. “You heard what George said.


It’s just a big frog. Let’s get it done. Get out of the fucking car. And don’t slam the doors.” George Baselton had felt quite good and authoritative, recalling that obscure article from the journals. He had been in his accustomed role, dispensing information to people who lacked it. Now that he approached the nest, he was astonished to notice that his knees had begun to tremble. His legs felt like rubber. He had always thought that was a figure of speech. He was alarmed to realize it could be literally true. He bit his lip, and forced himself under control. He was not, he told himself, going to show fear. He was the master of this situation. Dodgson was already moving ahead, holding the black box like a gun in his hand. Baselton glanced over at King, who was deathly pale and sweating. He looked on the verge of collapse; he moved forward slowly. Baselton walked alongside him. Making sure he was all right. Up ahead, Dodgson gave a final glance back, waved to Baselton and King to catch up. He glared at both of them, and then he stepped through the foliage into the clearing. Baselton saw the tyrannosaur. No—there were two! They stood on both sides of a mud mound, two adults, twenty feet high on their hind legs, powerful, dark red, with big vicious jaws. Like the maiasaurs, the animals stared at Dodgson for a moment, a dumb stare, as if amazed to see an intruder. And then the tyrannosaurs roared in fury. An incredible, bellowing, air-shaking roar. Dodgson lifted the box, pointed it at the animals. Immediately, a continuous, high-pitched shriek filled the clearing. The tyrannosaurs roared in response, and lowered their heads, extending their necks forward, snapping their jaws, preparing to attack. They were huge—and they were unaffected by the sound. They started to come around the mound, toward Dodgson. The earth shook as they moved. “Oh fuck,” King said. But Dodgson stayed cool. He twisted the dial. Baselton clapped his hands over his ears. The shriek became higher, louder, ear-splitting, incredibly painful. The response was immediate: the tyrannosaurs stepped back as if they had received a physical blow. They ducked their heads. They blinked their eyes rapidly. The sound seemed to vibrate in the air. They roared again, but weakly now, without conviction. A terrible screaming came from inside the mud nest. Dodgson moved forward, pointing the box in the air, directly at the animals. The tyrannosaurs backed away, looking into the nest, then to Dodgson. They swung their heads back and forth rapidly, as if trying to clear their ears. Dodgson calmly adjusted the dial. The sound went higher. It was now excruciating. Dodgson began to climb the mud mound of the nest. Baselton and King scrambled up, following him. Baselton found himself looking down into a nest with four mottled white eggs, and two young babies that looked for all the world like scrawny oversized turkeys.


Anyway, some kind of gigantic baby birds. The two tyrannosaurs were at the far end of the clearing, held away by the sound. Like the maiasaurs, they urinated in agitation. They stomped their feet. But they did not come closer. Over the ear-splitting shriek of the box, Dodgson shouted, “Get the eggs!” In a daze, King stumbled down into the nest, grabbing the nearest egg. He fumbled it in his shaking hands; the egg flew into the air; he caught it again, and lurched back. He stepped on the leg of one of the babies, which screamed in fear and pain. At this, the parents tried to come forward again, drawn by the infant’s cries. King hastily clambered out of the nest, ducked away through the foliage. Baselton watched him go. “George!” Dodgson shouted, still aiming the box at the tyrannosaurs. “Get the other egg!” Baselton turned to look at the adult tyrannosaurs, seeing their agitation and their anger, watching their jaws snap open and closed, and he had the sudden feeling that sound or no sound, these animals would not allow anyone to enter the nest again. King had been lucky but Baselton would not be lucky, he could feel it, and— “George! Now!” Baselton said, “I can’t!” “You dumb fuck!” Holding the gun high, Dodgson began to climb down into the nest himself. But as he started, he twisted his body—and the battery plug pulled out of the box. The sound abruptly died. In the clearing, there was silence. Baselton moaned. The tyrannosaurs shook their heads a final time, and roared. Baselton saw Dodgson go rigidly still, his body frozen. Baselton also stood still. Somehow, he forced his body to stay where he was. He forced his knees to stop trembling. He held his breath. And he waited. On the far side of the clearing, the tyrannosaurs began to move toward him. “What are they doing?” Arby cried, in the trailer. He was so close to the monitor his nose almost touched the screen. “Are they crazy? They’re just standing there.” Beside him, Kelly said nothing. She watched the screen silently. “Want to be out there now, Kel?” Arby said. “Shut up,” Kelly said. “No, they’re not crazy,” Malcolm said over the radio, as he stared at the dashboard monitor. The Explorer lurched down the trail, heading toward the eastern sector of the island. Thorne was driving. Sarah and Malcolm were in the back seat. Sarah said, “He should be trying to put his sound machine together again. Are they really just going to stand there?” “Yes,” Malcolm said. “Why?” “They are misinformed,” Malcolm said.


Dodgson Dodgson watched the lead tyrannosaur come toward him. For such big animals, they were cautious. Only one of the two parents approached them, and although it paused to roar fiercely every few paces, it seemed oddly tentative, as if it was perplexed by the fact that the men were staying there. Or perhaps it could not see them. Perhaps he and Baselton had vanished from their view. The other parent hung back, remaining toward the other side of the nest. Bobbing and ducking its head, agitated. Agitated but not attacking. Of course, the roars of the approaching dinosaur were terrifying, blood-chilling. Dodgson didn’t dare glance at Baselton, just a few yards away. Baselton was probably peeing in his pants right now. Just so he didn’t turn and run, Dodgson thought. If he ran, he was a dead man. If he stayed perfectly still, everything would be all right. Standing stiffly, keeping his body rigid, Dodgson held the anodized box at waist level in his left hand, near his belt buckle. With his right hand, he slowly, ever so slowly, pulled up the disconnected power cord. In a few moments he would feel the end plug in his hands, and then he would slip it back into the box. Meanwhile, he never took his eyes off the approaching tyrannosaur. He felt the ground shake beneath his feet. He heard the cries of the infant that King had stepped on. Those cries seemed to bother the parents, to arouse them. No matter. Just a few seconds more, and he would have the plug back in the power pack. And then … The tyrannosaur was very close now. Dodgson could smell the rotten odor of the carnivore. The animal roared, and he felt hot breath. It was standing right by Baselton. Dodgson turned his head fractionally, to watch. Baselton stood entirely still. The tyrannosaur came close, and lowered his big head. He snorted at Baselton. He raised his head again, as if perplexed. He really can’t see him, Dodgson thought. The tyrannosaur bellowed, a ferocious sound. Somehow Baselton stayed unmoving. The tyrannosaur bent over, bringing his huge head down again. The jaws opened and closed. Baselton stared straight forward, not blinking. With huge flaring nostrils, the tyrannosaur smelled him, a long snuffling inhalation that fluttered Baselton’s trouser legs. Then the tyrannosaur nudged Baselton tentatively with his snout. And in that moment Dodgson realized that the animal could see him after all, and then the tyrannosaur swung his head laterally, striking Baselton in the side and easily knocking him to the earth. Baselton yelled as the tyrannosaur’s big foot came down, pinning him to the ground. Baselton raised his arms and shouted “You son of a bitch!” just as the head came down, jaws wide, and closed on him.


The movement was gentle, almost delicate, but in the next instant the head snapped high, tearing the body, and Dodgson heard a scream and saw something small and floppy hanging from the jaws, and realized it was Baselton’s arm. Baselton’s hand swung freely, the metal band of his wristwatch glinting beneath the tyrannosaur’s huge eye. Baselton was screaming, a continuous undifferentiated sound, and hearing it, Dodgson broke into a dizzying sweat. Then he turned and ran, back toward the car, back toward safety, back toward anything. He ran. Kelly and Arby turned away from the monitor at the same moment. Kelly felt sick. She couldn’t watch. But through the radio they could still hear the tinny screams of the man lying on his back, while the tyrannosaur tore him apart. “Turn it off,” Kelly said. A moment later, the sound stopped. Kelly sighed, let her shoulders drop. “Thank you,” she said. “I didn’t do anything,” Arby said. She glanced back at the screen, and quickly looked away again. The tyrannosaur was tearing at something red. She shivered. It was silent in the trailer. Kelly heard the tick of electronic counters, and the thumping of the water pumps under the floor. Outside, there was the faint sound of wind rustling the tall grass. Kelly suddenly felt very alone, very isolated on this island. “Arby,” she said, “what are we going to do?” Arby didn’t answer her. He bolted for the bathroom. “I knew it,” Malcolm said, staring at the dashboard monitor. “I knew that would happen. They tried to steal eggs. Now look—the tyrannosaurs are leaving! Both of them!” He pushed the radio transmitter. “Arby. Kelly. Are you there?” “We can’t talk,” Kelly said. The Explorer continued down the hillside, toward the area of the tyrannosaur nest. Thorne gripped the wheel grimly as he drove. “What a damn mess.” “Kelly. Are you listening? We can’t see what’s happening down there. The tyrannosaurs have left the nest! Kelly? What’s happening?” Dodgson sprinted for the Jeep. The battery pack fell off his belt as he ran, but he didn’t care. Up ahead in the Jeep, he saw King waiting, tense and pale. Dodgson got behind the wheel, started the engine. The tyrannosaurs roared. “Where’s Baselton?” King asked. “Didn’t make it,” Dodgson said. “What do you mean?” “I mean he fucking didn’t make it!” Dodgson yelled, and slammed the car into gear. The Jeep took off, bouncing up the hill. They heard the tyrannosaurs bellowing behind them. King was holding the egg, looking back down the road. “Maybe we should get rid of this,” he said. “Don’t you fucking dare!” Dodgson said. King was rolling down the window. “Maybe he just wants the egg back.” “No,” Dodgson said. “No!” He reached across the passenger seat, struggling with King as he drove. The trail was narrow, with deep ruts. The Jeep lurched forward. Suddenly, one of the tyrannosaurs burst from the trees in the road ahead. The animal stood there, snarling, blocking the road.


“Oh Christ,” Dodgson said, slamming on the brakes. The car slid sickeningly in the muddy track, came to a stop. The tyrannosaur lumbered toward them, bellowing. “Turn around!” King screamed. “Turn around!” But Dodgson didn’t turn around. He slammed the car into reverse, and started backing down the trail. He was driving fast, and the road was narrow. “You’re crazy!” King said. “You’re going to kill us!” Dodgson swung his arm, smacked King with his hand. “Shut the fuck up!” he shouted. It took all his attention to maneuver the car back down the winding trail. Even going as fast as he could, he was sure the tyrannosaur would be faster. It wasn’t going to work. They were in a fucking Jeep with a fucking cloth top, and they were going to get killed and— “No!” King shouted. Behind them, Dodgson saw the second tyrannosaur, charging up the road toward them. He looked forward, saw the first tyrannosaur bearing down on them. They were trapped. He twisted the wheel in panic and the car ran off the road, crashing backward into dense underbrush and surrounding trees, and he felt a jolting impact. Then the rear of the car dropped sickeningly, and he realized the back wheels were hanging over the edge of a hill. He gunned the engine frantically, but the wheels just spun in the air. It was hopeless. And slowly, the car sank backward, deeper into foliage so dense he could not see through it. But they were over the edge. Beside him, King was sobbing. He heard the tyrannosaurs roaring, very near now. Dodgson flung open the car door, and jumped out into space. He plunged through the foliage, fell, hit a tree trunk, and tumbled down a steep jungle hill. Somewhere along the way he felt a sharp pain in his forehead, and saw stars for the brief moment before blackness enveloped him, and he lost consciousness.


Decision They sat in the Explorer, on top of the ridge overlooking the jungle-covered east valley. The windows were down. They listened to the bellowing of the tyrannosaurs, as the huge animals crashed through the underbrush. “They both left the nest,” Thorne said. “Yeah. Those guys must have taken something.” Malcolm sighed. They were silent a while, listening. They heard a soft buzzing, and then Eddie pulled up alongside them, in the motorcycle. “I thought you might need help. Are you going to go down?” Malcolm shook his head. “No, absolutely not. It’s too dangerous—we don’t know where they are.” Sarah Harding said, “Why did Dodgson just stand there like that? That’s not the way to act around predators. You get caught around lions, you make a lot of noise, wave your hands, throw things at them. Try to scare them off. You don’t just stand there.” “He probably read the wrong research paper,” Malcolm said, shaking his head. “There’s been a theory going around that tyrannosaurs can only see movement. A guy named Roxton made casts of rex braincases, and concluded that tyrannosaurs had the brain of a frog.” The radio clicked. Levine said, “Roxton is an idiot. He doesn’t know enough anatomy to have sex with his wife. His paper was a joke.” “What paper?” Thorne said. The radio clicked again. “Roxton,” Levine said, “believed that tyrannosaurs had a visual system like an amphibian: like a frog. A frog sees motion but doesn’t see stillness. But it is quite impossible that a predator such as a tyrannosaur would have a visual system that worked that way. Quite impossible. Because the most common defense of prey animals is to freeze. A deer or something like that, it senses danger, and it freezes. A predator has to be able to see them anyway. And of course a tyrannosaur could.” Over the radio, Levine snorted with disgust. “It’s just like the other idiotic theory put forth by Grant a few years back that a tyrannosaur could be confused by a driving rainstorm, because it was not adapted to wet climates. That’s equally absurd. The Cretaceous wasn’t particularly dry. And in any case, tyrannosaurs are North American animals—they’ve only been found in the U.S. or Canada. Tyrannosaurus rex lived on the shores of the great inland sea, east of the Rocky Mountains. There are lots of thunderstorms on mountain slopes. I’m quite sure tyrannosaurs saw plenty of rain, and they evolved to deal with it.” “So is there any reason why a tyrannosaur might not attack somebody?” Malcolm said. “Yes, of course. The most obvious one,” Levine said. “Which is?” “If it wasn’t hungry. If it had just eaten another animal. Anything larger than a goat would take care of its hunger for hours to come. No, no. The tyrannosaur sees fine, moving or still.” They listened to the roaring, coming up from the valley below. They saw thrashing in the underbrush, about half a mile away, to the north. More bellowing.


The two rexes seemed to be answering each other. Sarah Harding said, “What are we carrying?” Thorne said, “Three Lindstradts. Fully loaded.” “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.” The radio crackled. “I’m not there,” Levine said, over the radio. “But I’d certainly advise waiting.” “The hell with waiting,” Malcolm said. “Sarah’s right. Let’s go down there and see how bad it is.” “Your funeral,” Levine said. Arby came back to the monitor, wiping his chin. He still looked a little green. “What are they doing now?” “Dr. Malcolm and the others are going to the nest.” “Are you kidding?” he said, alarmed. “Don’t worry,” Kelly said. “Sarah can handle it.” “You hope,” Arby said.


Nest Just beyond the clearing, they parked the Explorer. Eddie pulled up in the motorcycle, and leaned it against the trunk of a tree and waited while the others climbed out of the Explorer. Sarah Harding smelled the familiar sour odor of rotting flesh and excrement that always marked a carnivore nesting site. In the afternoon heat, it was faintly nauseating. Flies buzzed in the still air. Harding took one of the rifles, slung it over her shoulder. She looked at the three men. They were all standing very still, tense, not moving. Malcolm’s face was pale, particularly around the lips. It reminded her of the time that Coffmann, her old professor, had visited her in Africa. Coffmann was one of those hard-drinking Hemingway types, with lots of affairs at home, and lots of tales of his adventures with the orangs in Sumatra, the ring-tailed lemurs in Madagascar. So she took him with her to a kill site in the savannah. And he promptly passed out. He weighed more than two hundred pounds, and she had to drag him out by the collar while the lions circled and snarled at her. It had been a good lesson for her. Now she leaned close to the three men and whispered, “If you’ve got any qualms about this, don’t go. Just wait here. I don’t want to worry about you. I can do this myself.” She started off. “Are you sure—” “Yes. Now keep quiet.” She moved directly toward the clearing. Malcolm and the others hurried to catch up with her. She pushed aside the palm fronds, and stepped out into the open. The tyrannosaurs were gone, and the mud cone was deserted. Over to the right, she saw a shoe, with a bit of torn flesh sticking out above the ragged sock. That was all there was left of Baselton. From within the nest, she heard a plaintive, high-pitched squeal. Harding climbed up the mud bank, with Malcolm struggling to follow. She saw two infant tyrannosaurs there, mewling. Nearby were three large eggs. They saw heavy footprints all around, in the mud. “They took one of the eggs,” Malcolm said. “Damn.” “You didn’t want anything to disrupt your little ecosystem?” Malcolm smiled crookedly. “Yeah. I was hoping.” “Too bad,” she said, and moved quickly around the edge of the pit. She bent over, looking at the baby tyrannosaurs. One of the babies was cowering, its downy neck pulled into its body. But the second one behaved very differently. It did not move as they approached, but remained lying sprawled on its side, breathing shallowly, eyes glazed. “This one’s been hurt,” she said. Levine was standing in the high hide. He pressed the headset to his ear, and spoke into the microphone near his cheek. “I need a description,” he said. Thorne said, “There’s two of them, roughly two feet long, weighing maybe forty pounds. About the size of small cassowary birds. Large eyes. Short snouts. Pale-brown color.


And there’s a ring of down around the necks.” “Can they stand?” “Uh … if they can, not very well. They’re kind of flopping around. Squeaking a lot.” “Then they’re infants,” Levine said, nodding. “Probably only a few days old. Never been out of the nest. I’d be very careful.” “Why is that?” “With offspring that young,” Levine said, “the parents won’t leave them for long.” Harding moved closer to the injured infant. Still mewling, the baby tried to crawl toward her, dragging its body awkwardly. One leg was bent at an odd angle. “I think the left leg’s hurt.” Eddie came closer, standing alongside her to see. “Is it broken?” “Yeah, probably, but—” “Hey!” Eddie said. The baby lunged forward, and clamped its jaws around the ankle of his boot. He pulled his foot away, dragging the baby, which held its grip tightly. “Hey! Let go!” Eddie lifted his leg up, shook it back and forth, but the baby refused to let go. He pulled for a moment longer, then stopped. Now the baby just lay there on the ground, breathing shallowly, jaws still locked around Eddie’s boot. “Jeez,” Eddie said. “Aggressive little guy, isn’t he,” Sarah said. “Right from birth …” Eddie looked down at the tiny, razor-sharp jaws. They hadn’t penetrated the leather. The baby held on firmly. With the butt of his rifle, he poked the infant’s head a couple of times. It had no effect at all. The baby lay on the ground, breathing shallowly. Its big eyes blinked slowly as they stared up at Eddie, but it did not release its grip. They heard the distant roars of the parents, somewhere to the north. “Let’s get out of here,” Malcolm said. “We’ve seen what we came here to see. We’ve got to find where Dodgson went.” Thorne said, “I think I saw a track up the trail. They might have gone off there.” “We better have a look.” They all started back to the car. “Wait a minute,” Eddie said, looking down at his foot. “What am I going to do about the baby?” “Shoot it,” Malcolm said, over his shoulder. “You mean kill it?” Sarah said, “It’s got a broken leg, Eddie, it’s going to die anyway.” “Yeah, but—” Thorne called, “We’re going back up the trail, Eddie, and if we don’t find Dodgson, we’ll take the ridge road going toward the laboratory. Then down to the trailer again.” “Okay, Doc. I’m right behind you.” Eddie lifted his rifle, turned it in his hands. “Do it now,” Sarah said, climbing into the Explorer. “Because you don’t want to be here when Momma and Poppa get back.”


Gambler’s Ruin Driving up the trail, Malcolm stared at the dashboard monitor, as the image flicked from one camera view to another. He was looking for Dodgson and the rest of his party. Over the radio, Levine said, “How bad was it?” “They took one egg,” Malcolm said. “And we had to shoot one of the babies.” “So, a loss of two. Out of a total hatching brood of what, six?” “That’s right.” “Frankly, I’d say it’s a minor matter,” Levine said. “As long as you stop those people from doing anything more.” “We’re looking for them now,” Malcolm said morosely. Harding said, “It was bound to happen, Ian. You know you can’t expect to observe the animals without changing anything. It’s a scientific impossibility.” “Of course it is,” Malcolm said. “That’s the greatest single scientific discovery of the twentieth century. You can’t study anything without changing it.” Since Galileo, scientists had adopted the view that they were objective observers of the natural world. That was implicit in every aspect of their behavior, even the way they wrote scientific papers, saying things like “It was observed …” As if nobody had observed it. For three hundred years, that impersonal quality was the hallmark of science. Science was objective, and the observer had no influence on the results he or she described. This objectivity made science different from the humanities, or from religion—fields where the observer’s point of view was integral, where the observer was inextricably mixed up in the results observed. But in the twentieth century, that difference had vanished. Scientific objectivity was gone, even at the most fundamental levels. Physicists now knew you couldn’t even measure a single subatomic particle without affecting it totally. If you stuck your instruments in to measure a particle’s position, you changed its velocity. If you measured its velocity, you changed its position. That basic truth became the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: that whatever you studied you also changed. In the end, it became clear that all scientists were participants in a participatory universe which did not allow anyone to be a mere observer. “I know objectivity is impossible,” Malcolm said impatiently. “I’m not concerned about that.” “Then what are you concerned about?” “I’m concerned about the Gambler’s Ruin,” Malcolm said, staring at the monitor. Gambler’s Ruin was a notorious and much-debated statistical phenomenon that had major consequences both for evolution, and for everyday life. “Let’s say you’re a gambler,” he said. “And you’re playing a coin-toss game. Every time the coin comes up heads, you win a dollar. Every time it comes up tails, you lose a dollar.” “Okay …” “What happens over time?” Harding shrugged. “The chances of getting either heads or tails is even. So maybe you win, maybe you lose. But in the end, you’ll come out at zero.” “Unfortunately, you don’t,” Malcolm said. “If you gamble long enough, you’ll always lose—the gambler is always ruined. That’s why casinos stay in business. But the question is, what happens over time?


What happens in the period before the gambler is finally ruined?” “Okay,” she said. “What happens?” “If you chart the gambler’s fortunes over time, what you find is the gambler wins for a period, or loses for a period. In other words, everything in the world goes in streaks. It’s a real phenomenon, and you see it everywhere: in weather, in river flooding, in baseball, in heart rhythms, in stock markets. Once things go bad, they tend to stay bad. Like the old folk saying that bad things come in threes. Complexity theory tells us the folk wisdom is right. Bad things cluster. Things go to hell together. That’s the real world.” “So what are you saying? That things are going to hell now?” “They could be, thanks to Dodgson,” Malcolm said, frowning at the monitor. “What happened to those bastards, anyway?”


King There was a buzzing, like the sound of a distant bee. Howard King was dimly aware of it, as he came slowly back to consciousness. He opened his eyes, and saw the windshield of a car, and the branches of trees beyond. The buzzing was louder. King didn’t know where he was. He couldn’t remember how he got here, what had happened. He felt pain in his shoulders, and at his hips. His forehead throbbed. He tried to remember but the pain distracted him, prevented him from thinking clearly. The last thing he remembered was the tyrannosaur in front of him on the road. That was the last thing. Then Dodgson had looked back and— King turned his head, and cried out as sudden, sharp pain ran up his neck to his skull. The pain made him gasp, took his breath away. He closed his eyes, wincing. Then he slowly opened them again. Dodgson was not in the car. The driver’s door hung wide open, a dappled shadow across the door panel. The keys were still in the ignition. Dodgson was gone. There was a streak of blood across the top of the steering wheel. The black box was on the floor by the gearshift. The open driver’s door creaked a little, moved a little. In the distance, King heard the buzzing again, like a giant bee. It was a mechanical sound, he now realized. Something mechanical. It made him think of the boat. How long would the boat wait at the river? What time was it, anyway? He looked at his watch. The crystal was smashed, the hands fixed at 1:54. He heard the buzzing again. It was coming closer. With an effort, King pushed himself away from the seat, toward the dashboard. Streaks of electric pain shot up his spine, but quickly subsided. He took a deep breath. I’m all right, he thought. At least, I’m still here. King looked at the open driver’s door, in the sunlight. The sun was still high. It must still be sometime in the afternoon. When was the boat leaving? Four o’clock? Five o’clock? He couldn’t remember any more. But he was certain that those Spanish fishermen wouldn’t hang around once it started to get dark. They’d leave the island. And Howard King wanted to be on the boat when they did. It was the only thing he wanted in the world. Wincing, he raised himself up, and painfully slid over to the driver’s seat. He settled himself in, took a deep breath, and then leaned over, and looked out the open door. The car was hanging over empty space, supported by trees. He saw a steep jungle hillside, falling away beneath him. It was dark beneath the canopy of trees. He felt dizzy, just looking down. The ground must be twenty or thirty feet below him. He saw scattered green ferns, and a few dark boulders. He twisted his body to look more. And then he saw him.


Dodgson lay on his back, head downward, on the slope of the hill. His body was crumpled, arms and legs thrown out in awkward positions. He was not moving. King couldn’t see him very well, in the dense foliage on the hillside, but Dodgson looked dead. The buzzing was suddenly very loud, building rapidly, and King looked forward and saw, through the foliage that blocked the windshield, a car driving by, not ten yards away. A car! And then the car was gone. From the sound of it, he thought, it was an electric car. So it must be Malcolm. Howard King was somehow encouraged by the thought that other people were on this island. He felt new strength, despite the pain in his body. He reached forward, and turned the key in the ignition. The engine rumbled. He put the car in gear, and gently stepped on the accelerator. The rear wheels spun. He engaged the front-wheel drive. At once, the Jeep rumbled forward, lurching through the branches. A moment later, he was out on the road. He remembered this road now. To the right, it led down to the tyrannosaurus nest. Malcolm’s car had gone to the left. King turned left, and headed up the road. He was trying to remember how to get back to the river, back to the boat. He vaguely recalled that there was a Y-fork in the road at the top of the hill. He would take that fork, he decided, drive down the hill, and get the hell off this island. That was his only goal. To get off this island, before it was too late.


Bad News The Explorer came to the top of the hill, and Thorne drove onto the ridge road. The road curved back and forth, cut into the rock face of the cliff. In many places, the dropoff was precipitous, but they had views over the entire island. Eventually they came to a place where they could look over the valley. They could see the high hide off to the left, and closer by, the clearing with the two trailers. Off to the right was the laboratory complex, and the worker complex beyond. “I don’t see Dodgson anywhere,” Malcolm said unhappily. “Where could he have gone?” Thorne pushed the radio button. “Arby?” “Yes, Doc.” “Do you see them?” “No, but …” He hesitated. “What?” “Don’t you want to come back here now? It’s pretty amazing.” “What is?” Thorne said. “Eddie,” Arby said. “He just got back. And he brought the baby with him.” Malcolm leaned forward. “He did what?”


Baby In the trailer, they were clustered around the table where the baby Tyrannosaurus rex now lay unconscious on a stainless-steel pan, his large eyes closed, his snout pushed into the clear plastic oval of an oxygen mask. The mask almost fitted the baby’s blunt snout. The oxygen hissed softly. “I couldn’t just leave him,” Eddie said. “And I figured we can fix his leg.…” “But Eddie,” Malcolm said, shaking his head. “So I shot him full of morphine from the first-aid kit, and brought him back. You see? The oxygen mask almost fits him.” “Eddie,” Malcolm said, “this was the wrong thing to do.” “Why? He’s okay. We just fix him and take him back.” “But you’re interfering with the system,” Malcolm said. The radio clicked. “This is extremely unwise,” Levine said, over the radio. “Extremely.” “Thank you, Richard,” Thorne said. “I am entirely opposed to bringing any animal back to the trailer.” “Too late to worry about that now,” Sarah Harding said. She had moved forward alongside the baby, and began strapping cardiac leads to the animal’s chest; they heard the thump of the heartbeat. It was very fast, over a hundred and fifty beats a minute. “How much morphine did you give him?” “Gee,” Eddie said. “I just … you know. The whole syringe.” “What is that? Ten cc’s?” “I think. Maybe twenty.” Malcolm looked at Harding. “How long before it wears off?” “I have no idea,” she said. “I’ve sedated lions and jackals in the field, when I tagged them. With those animals, there’s a rough correlation between dose and body weight. But with young animals, it’s unpredictable. Maybe a few minutes, maybe a few hours. And I don’t know a thing about baby tyrannosaurs. Basically, it’s a function of metabolism, and this one seems to be rapid, bird-like. The heart’s pumping very fast. All I can say is, let’s get him out of here as quickly as possible.” Harding picked up the small ultrasound transducer and held it to the baby’s leg. She looked over her shoulder at the monitor. Kelly and Arby were blocking the view. “Please, give us a little room here,” she said, and they moved away. “We don’t have much time. Please.” As they moved away, Sarah saw the green-and-white outlines of the leg and its bones. Surprisingly like a large bird, she thought. A vulture or a stork. She moved the transducer. “Okay … there’s the metatarsals … and there’s the tibia and fibula, the two bones of the lower leg.…” Arby said, “Why are the bones different shades like that?” The legs had some dense white sections within paler-green outlines. “Because it’s an infant,” Harding said. “His legs are still mostly cartilage, with very little calcified bone. I’d guess this baby probably can’t walk yet—at least, not very well. There. Look at the patella.… You can see the blood supply to the joint capsule.…” “How come you know all this anatomy?” Kelly said. “I have to.


I spend a lot of time looking through the scat of predators,” she said. “Examining pieces of bones that are left behind, and figuring out which animals have been eaten. To do that, you have to know comparative anatomy very well.” She moved the transducer along the baby’s leg. “And my father was a vet.” Malcolm looked up sharply. “Your father was a vet?” “Yes. At the San Diego Zoo. He was a bird specialist. But I don’t see … Can you magnify this?” Arby flicked a switch. The image doubled in size. “Ah. Okay. All right. There it is. You see it?” “No.” “It’s mid-fibula. See it? A thin black line. That’s a fracture, just above the epiphysis.” “That little black line there?” Arby said. “That little black line means death for this infant,” Sarah said. “The fibula won’t heal straight, so the ankle joint can’t pivot when he stands on his hind feet. The baby won’t be able to run, and probably can’t even walk. It’ll be crippled, and a predator will pick it off before it gets more than a few weeks old.” Eddie said, “But we can set it.” “Okay,” Sarah said. “What were you going to use for a cast?” “Diesterase,” Eddie said. “I brought a kilo of it, in hundred-cc tubes. I packed lots, for glue. The stuff’s polymer resin, it solidifies hard as steel.” “Great,” Harding said, “That’ll kill him, too.” “It will?” “He’s growing, Eddie. In a few weeks he’ll be much larger. We need something that’s rigid, but biodegradable,” she said. “Something that will wear off, or break off, in three to five weeks, when his leg’s healed. What have you got?” Eddie frowned. “I don’t know.” “Well, we haven’t got much time,” Harding said. Eddie said, “Doc? This is like one of your famous test questions. How to make a dinosaur cast with only Q-tips and super-glue.” “I know,” Thorne said. The irony of the situation was not lost on him. He had given problems such as these to his engineering students for three decades. Now he was faced with one himself. Eddie said, “Maybe we could degrade the resin—mix it with something like table sugar.” Thorne shook his head. “Hydroxy groups in the sucrose will make the resin friable. It’ll harden okay, but it’ll shatter like glass as soon as the animal moves.” “What if we mix it with cloth that’s been soaked in sugar?” “You mean, to get bacteria to decay the cloth?” “Yeah.” “And then the cast breaks?” “Yeah.” Thorne shrugged. “That might work,” he said. “But without testing, we can’t know how long the cast will last. Might be a few days, it might be a few months.” “That’s too long,” Sarah said. “This animal is growing rapidly. If growth is constricted, it’ll end up being crippled by the cast.” “What we need,” Eddie said, “is an organic resin that will form a decaying binder. Like a gum of some kind.” “Chewing gum?” Arby said.


“Because I have plenty of—” “No, I was thinking of a different kind of gum. Chemically speaking, the diesterase resin—” “We’ll never solve it chemically,” Thorne said. “We don’t have the supplies.” “What else can we do? There’s no choice but—” “What if you make something that’s different in different directions?” Arby said. “Strong one way and weak in another?” “You can’t,” Eddie said. “It’s a homogeneous resin. It’s all the same stuff, goopy glue that turns rock-hard when it dries, and—” “No, wait a minute,” Thorne said, turning to the boy. “What do you mean, Arby?” “Well,” Arby said, “Sarah said the leg is growing. That means it’s going to grow longer, which doesn’t matter for a cast, and wider, which does, because it’ll start to squeeze the leg. But if you made it weak in the diameter—” “He’s right,” Thorne said. “We can solve it structurally.” “How?” Eddie said. “Just build in a split-line. Maybe using aluminum foil. We have some for cooking.” “That’d be much too weak,” Eddie said. “Not if we coat it with a layer of resin.” Thorne turned to Sarah. “What we can do is make a cast that is very strong for vertical stresses, but weak for lateral stresses. It’s a simple engineering problem. The baby can walk around on its cuff, and everything is fine, as long as the stresses are vertical. But when its leg grows, it will pop the split-line open, and the cuff will fall away.” “Yes,” Arby said, nodding. “Is that hard to do?” she said. “No. It should be pretty easy. You just build a cuff of aluminum foil, and coat it with resin.” Eddie said, “And what’ll hold the cuff together while you coat it?” “How about chewing gum?” Arby said. “You got it,” Thorne said, smiling. At that moment, the baby rex stirred, its legs twitching. It raised its head, the oxygen mask dropping away, and gave a low, weak squeak. “Quickly,” Sarah said, grabbing the head. “More morphine.” Malcolm had a syringe ready. He jabbed it into the animal’s neck. “Just five cc’s now,” Sarah said. “What’s wrong with more? Keep him out longer?” “He’s in shock from the injury, Ian. You can kill him with too much morphine. You’ll put him into respiratory arrest. His adrenal glands are probably stressed, too.” “If he even has adrenals,” Malcolm said. “Does a Tyrannosaurus rex have hormones at all? The truth is, we don’t know anything about these animals.” The radio clicked, and Levine said, “Speak for yourself, Ian. In point of fact, I suspect we will find that dinosaurs have hormones. There are compelling reasons to imagine they do. As long as you have gone to the misguided trouble of taking the baby, you might draw some tubes of blood. Meanwhile, Doc, could you pick up the phone?” Malcolm sighed. “That guy,” he said, “is starting to get on my nerves.” Thorne moved down the trailer to the communications module near the front.


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

Levine’s request was odd; there was a perfectly good system of microphones throughout the trailer. But Levine knew that; he had designed the system himself. Thorne picked up the phone. “Yes?” “Doc,” Levine said, “I’ll get right to the point. Bringing the baby to the trailer was a mistake. It’s asking for trouble.” “What sort of trouble?” “We don’t know, is the point. And I don’t want to alarm anybody. But why don’t you bring the kids out to the high hide for a while? And why don’t you and Eddie come, too?” “You’re telling me to get the hell out of here. You really think it’s necessary?” “In a word,” Levine said, “yes. I do.” As the morphine was injected into the baby, he gave a sighing wheeze, and collapsed back onto the steel pan. Sarah adjusted the oxygen mask around his face. She glanced back at the monitor, checking the heart rate, but once again Arby and Kelly were blocking her view. “Kids, please.” Thorne stepped forward, clapped his hands. “Okay, kids! Field trip! Let’s get moving.” Arby said, “Now? But we want to watch the baby—” “No, no,” Thorne said. “Dr. Malcolm and Dr. Harding need room to work. This is the time for a field trip to the high hide. We can watch the dinosaurs for the rest of the afternoon.” “But Doc—” “Don’t argue. We’re just in the way here, and we’re going,” Thorne said. “Eddie, you come, too. Leave these two lovebirds to do their work.” In a few moments, they left. The trailer door slammed shut behind them. Sarah Harding heard the soft whirr of the Explorer as it drove away. Bent over the baby, adjusting the oxygen mask, she said, “Lovebirds?” Malcolm shrugged. “Levine …” “Was this Levine’s idea? Clearing everybody out?” “Probably.” “Does he know something we don’t?” Malcolm laughed. “I’m sure he thinks he does.” “Well, let’s start the cast,” she said. “I want to get it done quickly, and take this baby home again.”


The High Hide The sun had disappeared behind low-hanging clouds by the time they reached the high hide. The entire valley was bathed in a soft reddish glow as Eddie parked the Explorer beneath the aluminum scaffolding, and they all climbed up to the little shelter above. Levine was there, binoculars to his eyes. He did not seem glad to see them. “Stop moving around so much,” he said irritably. From the shelter, they had a magnificent view over the valley. Somewhere in the north, thunder rumbled. The air was cooling, and felt electric. “Is there going to be a storm?” Kelly asked. “Looks like it,” Thorne said. Arby glanced doubtfully at the metal roof of the shelter. “How long are we staying out here?” “For a while,” Thorne said. “This is our only day here. The helicopters are taking us away tomorrow morning. I thought you kids deserved a chance to see the dinosaurs in the field one more time.” Arby squinted at him. “What’s the real reason?” “I know,” Kelly said, in a worldly tone. “Yeah? What?” “Dr. Malcolm wants to be alone with Sarah, stupid.” “Why?” “They’re old friends,” Kelly said. “So? We were just going to watch.” “No,” Kelly said. “I mean, they’re old friends.” “I know what you’re talking about,” Arby said. “I’m not stupid, you know.” “Knock it off,” Levine said, staring through the binoculars. “You’re missing the interesting stuff.” “What’s that?” “Those triceratops, down at the river. Something’s bothering them.” The triceratops herd had been drinking peacefully from the river, but now they were beginning to make noise. For such huge animals, their vocalizations were incongruously high-pitched: they sounded more like yelping dogs. Arby turned to look. “There’s something in the trees,” he said, “across the river.” There was some hint of dark movement, beneath the trees. The triceratops herd shifted, and began backing toward each other until they formed a sort of rosette, with their curved horns facing outward, against the unseen menace. The solitary baby was in the center, yelping in fear. One of the animals, presumably its mother, turned and nuzzled it. Afterward, the baby was silent. “I see them,” Kelly said, staring at the trees. “They’re raptors. Over there.” The triceratops herd faced the raptors, the adults barking as they swung their sharp horns up and down. They created a kind of barrier of moving spikes. There was an unmistakable sense of coordination, of group defense against predators. Levine was smiling happily. “There’s never been any evidence for this,” he said, suddenly cheerful. “In fact, most paleontologists don’t believe it happens.” “Don’t believe what happens?” Arby said. “This kind of group defensive behavior. Especially with trikes—they look a bit like rhinos, so they’ve been assumed to be solitary, like rhinos. But now we will see.… Ah. Yes.” From beneath the trees, a single velociraptor hopped out into view. It moved quickly on its hind legs, balancing with a stiff tail.


The triceratops herd barked noisily at the appearance of the raptor. The other raptors remained hidden beneath the trees. The solitary velociraptor in full view moved in a slow semicircle around the herd, entering the water on the far side. It crossed, swimming easily, and came out on the other bank. It was now about fifty yards upstream from the barking triceratops herd, which wheeled to present a united front. All their attention was focused on the single velociraptor. Slowly, other raptors began to slink out of their hiding place. They moved low, bodies hidden in the tall grass. “Jeez,” Arby said. “They’re hunting.” “In a pack,” Levine said, nodding. He picked up a bit of candy bar wrapper from the floor of the shelter, and dropped it, watching it flutter off in the wind. “The main pack is downwind, so the trikes can’t smell them.” He raised the binoculars to his eyes again. “I think,” he said, “that we’re about to see a kill.” They watched as the raptors closed in around the herd. And then suddenly, lightning cracked on the island rim, brilliantly lighting the valley floor. One of the stalking raptors stood up in surprise. Its head was briefly visible above the grass. Immediately, the triceratops herd wheeled again, regrouping to face the new menace. All the raptors stopped, as if to reconsider their plan. “What happened?” Arby said. “Why are they stopping?” “They’re in trouble.” “Why?” “Look at them. The main pack is still across the river. They’re too far away to mount an attack.” “You mean they’re giving up? Already?” “Looks like it,” Levine said. One by one, the raptors in the grass raised their heads, making their positions known. As each new predator appeared, the triceratops barked loudly. The raptors seemed to know the situation was hopeless. They slunk away, moving back toward the trees. Seeing them retreat, the triceratops barked even louder. And then the single raptor by the water’s edge charged. It moved incredibly fast—astonishingly fast—streaking like a cheetah across the fifty yards that separated it from the herd. The adult triceratops had no time to re-form. The baby was exposed. It squealed in fright as it saw the approaching animal. The velociraptor leapt into the air, raising both its hind legs. Lightning cracked again, and in the brilliant light they saw the twin curved claws high in the air. At the last moment, the nearest adult turned, swiveling its big horned head with the wide bony crest, and it knocked the raptor a glancing blow, sending the animal sprawling on the muddy bank. Immediately the adult triceratops charged forward, its head high. When it reached the raptor it stopped abruptly and swung its big head down, lowering its horns toward the fallen animal. But the raptor was quick; hissing, it leapt to its feet, and the triceratops’ horns slashed harmlessly into the mud. The raptor spun sideways, and kicked the adult on the snout, drawing blood with its big curved claw.


The adult bellowed, but by then two other adults were charging forward, while the others remained behind with the baby. The raptor scrambled away, back into the grass. “Wow,” Arby said. “That was something!”


The Herd King gave a long sigh of relief as he came to the Y-fork in the road, and drove the red Jeep left, coming onto a wide dirt road. He recognized it at once: this was the ridge road that led back to the boat. As he looked off to his left, he could see down across the east valley. The boat was still there! All right! He gave a shout and accelerated sharply, relief flooding through him. On the deck, he could see the Spanish fishermen, staring up at the sky. Despite the threatening storm, they didn’t seem to be preparing to leave. Probably they were waiting for Dodgson. Well, he thought, that was fine. King would be there in a few minutes. After working his way through dense jungle, he could finally see exactly where he was. The ridge road was high, following the crest of one of the volcanic spines. There was almost no foliage up here, and as the road twisted and turned, he had views across the entire island. To the east, he could look down into the ravine, and the boat at the shore. To the west, he could look straight across at the laboratory, and Malcolm’s twin trailers parked near the far edge of the clearing. They never did find out what the hell Malcolm was doing here, he thought. Not that it mattered now. King was getting off the island. That was the only thing that mattered. He could almost feel the deck beneath his feet. Maybe one of the fishermen would even have a beer. A nice cold beer, while they chugged down the river, and pulled out of this damned island. He’d toast Dodgson, is what he’d do. Maybe, he thought, I’ll have two beers. * * * King came around a curve, and saw a herd of animals standing thickly in the road. They were some kind of green dinosaurs, about four feet tall, with big domed heads and a bunch of little horns. They reminded him of green water buffalo. But there were a lot of them. He braked sharply; the car swerved to a stop. The green dinosaurs looked at his car, but they did not move. The herd just stood there in a lazy, contented way. King waited, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. When nothing happened, he honked the horn, and flashed his headlights. The animals just stared. They were funny-looking creatures, with that smooth bulging curve on the forehead and all those little horns around it. They just stared at him, with a stupid cow-like look. He slipped the car into gear and edged it forward slowly, expecting that he could push his way through the animals. They didn’t move aside. Finally his front bumper nudged the nearest animal, which grunted, took a couple of steps back, lowered its head, and butted the front of the car, hard, with a metallic clang! Christ, he thought.


It could puncture the radiator, if he wasn’t careful. He stopped the car again and waited, the motor idling. The animals settled down again. Several of them lay down on the road. He couldn’t drive over them. He looked ahead toward the river and saw the boat, not more than a quarter of a mile away. He hadn’t realized it was so near. As he watched, he realized that the fishermen were very busy on the deck. They were swinging the crane back, lashing it down. They were getting ready to leave! The hell with waiting, he thought. He opened the door, and climbed out, leaving the car in the center of the road. Immediately, the animals jumped to their feet, and the nearest one charged him. He had the door open; the animal smashed into it, slamming it shut, leaving a deep dent in the metal. King scrambled toward the edge of the hill, only to find he was at the top of a steep vertical descent of more than a hundred feet. He’d never make it down, at least not here. Farther along, the slope was not so steep. But now more animals were charging him. He had no choice. He ran around the back of the car, just as another animal smashed into the rear taillight, shattering the plastic. A third animal charged the back of the car directly. King scrambled up onto the spare tire, as the animal slammed into the bumper. The jolt knocked him off, and he fell to the ground, rolling, while the buffaloes snorted all around him. He got to his feet and ran to the opposite side of the road, where there was a slight rise; he scrambled up it, moving into foliage. The animals did not pursue him. Not that it did him any good—now he was on the wrong side of the road! Somehow he had to get back to the other side. He climbed to the top of the rise and started down, swearing to himself. He decided to work his way forward a hundred yards or so, until he was beyond the butting animals, and then cross the road. If he could do that, then he could get to the boat. Almost immediately, he was surrounded by dense jungle. He tripped, tumbled down a muddy slope, and when he got to his feet was no longer sure which way to go. He was at the bottom of a ravine, and the palm trees were ten feet tall, and very thick. He couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. In a moment of panic, he realized he didn’t know which way to go. He pushed forward through the wet leaves, hoping to get his bearings back. The kids were still peering over the railing, looking at the departing raptors. Thorne pulled Levine to one side, and said quietly, “Why did you want us to come here?” “Just a precaution,” Levine said.


“Bringing the infant to the trailer is asking for trouble.” “What sort of trouble?” Levine shrugged. “We don’t know, is the point. But in general, parents don’t like it when their babies are taken away. And that baby has some very big parents.” From the other side of the shelter Arby said, “Look! Look!” “What is it?” Levine said. “It’s a man.” Gasping for breath, King emerged from the jungle and walked out onto the plain. At last he could see where he was! He paused, soaked and muddy, to get his bearings. He was disappointed to find that he was nowhere near the boat. In fact, he still seemed to be on the wrong side of the road. He was facing a broad grassy plain, with a river coursing through it. The plain was mostly deserted, although there were several dinosaurs farther down the banks. They were the horned ones: triceratops. And they looked a little agitated. The big adults were raising their heads up and down, making barking sounds. Obviously, he would have to follow the river, until it brought him to the boat. But he’d have to be careful getting past these triceratops. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a candy bar. He ripped the wrapping while he watched the triceratops, wishing they would go away. How long would it take him to reach the boat? That was the only question on his mind. He decided to move, triceratops or not. He began walking through the tall grass. Then he heard a reptilian hiss. It was coming from the grass, somewhere to his left. And he noticed a smell, a peculiar rotten smell. He paused, waiting. The candy bar didn’t taste so good, any more. Then, behind him, he heard splashing. It was coming from the river. King turned to look. “It’s one of those men from the Jeep,” Arby said, standing in the high hide. “But why is he waiting?” From their vantage point, they could see the dark shapes of the raptors, moving through the grass on the other side of the river. Now two of the raptors came forward, splashing in the water. Moving toward the man. “Oh no,” Arby said. King saw two dark, striped lizards moving across the river. They walked on their hind legs, with a sort of hopping motion. Their bodies were reflected in the flowing water of the river. They snapped their long jaws, and hissed menacingly at King. He glanced upstream, and saw another lizard crossing, and another beyond that. Those other animals were already deep in the water, and had begun to swim. Howard King backed away from the river, moving deeper into the tall grass. Then he turned, and ran. He was chest-deep in grass and running hard, gasping for breath, when suddenly another lizard head rose up in front of him, hissing and snarling. He dodged, changed direction, but suddenly the nearest lizard leapt in the air.


It jumped so high its body cleared the grass; he could see the entire animal flying through the air, its two hind legs raised to pounce. He glimpsed curved, dagger-like claws. King turned again and the lizard shrieked as it landed on the ground behind him, and tumbled away in the grass. King ran on. He was energized by pure fear. Behind him he heard the lizard snarling. He ran hard: ahead was another twenty yards of grassy clearing, and then the jungle began again. He saw trees—big trees. He could climb one and get away. Off to the left, he saw another lizard moving diagonally across the clearing toward him. King could only see the head above the grass. The lizard seemed to be moving incredibly fast. He thought: I’m not going to make it. But he would try. Panting, lungs searing, he sprinted for the trees. Only ten more yards now. His arms pumped, his legs churned. His breath came in ragged gasps. And then something heavy struck him from behind, forcing him to the ground, and he felt searing pain down his back and he knew it was the claws, they dug into the flesh of his back as he was knocked down. He hit the dirt hard, and tried to roll, but the animal on his back held on, he could not move. He was pinned down on his stomach, hearing the animal snarl behind him. The pain in his back was excruciating, dizzying. And then he felt the animal’s hot breath on the back of his neck, and he heard the snorting breath, and his terror was extreme. Then suddenly a kind of lassitude, a deep and welcome sleepiness, took him. Everything became slow. As if in a dream, he could see all the blades of grass in the ground in front of his face. He saw them with a kind of languid intensity, and he almost did not mind the sharp pain on his neck, and he almost did not care that his neck was within the animal’s hot jaws. It seemed to be happening to someone else. He was many miles away. He had a moment of surprise when he felt the bones of his neck crunching loudly— And then blackness. Nothing. “Don’t look,” Thorne said, turning Arby away from the railing in the high hide. He drew the boy toward his chest, but Arby impatiently pushed away again, to watch what was happening. Thorne reached for Kelly, but she stepped away from him, and stared out at the plain. “Don’t look,” Thorne kept saying. “Don’t look.” The kids watched, in silence. Levine focused his binoculars on the kill. There were now five raptors snarling around the man’s body, tearing viciously at the carcass. As he watched, one of the raptors jerked its head up, tearing away a piece of blood-soaked shirt, the ragged edge of the collar.


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

Another was shaking the man’s severed head in its jaws, before finally dropping it on the ground. Thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed in the distant sky. It was growing dark, and Levine was having difficulty seeing exactly what was happening. But it was clear that whatever hierarchical organization they had adopted for hunting was abandoned for a kill. Here it was every animal for itself; the frenzied raptors hopped and ducked their heads as they tore the body to pieces; and there was plenty of nipping and fighting among themselves. One animal came up, with something brown hanging from its jaws. The animal got an odd expression on its face as it chewed. Then it turned away from the rest of the pack, and held the brown object carefully in its forearms. In the growing darkness, it took Levine a moment to recognize what it was doing: it was eating a candy bar. And it seemed to be enjoying it. The raptor turned back, and buried its long nose in the bloody carcass again. From across the plain, other raptors were racing to join the feast, half-running, half-bounding in great forward leaps. Snarling and furious, they threw themselves into the fray. Levine lowered his glasses, and looked at the two kids. They were staring silently and calmly at the kill.


Dodgson Dodgson was awakened by a noisy chittering, like the sound of a hundred tiny birds. It seemed to be coming from all around him. Slowly, he realized that he was lying on his back, on damp sloping ground. He tried to move, but his body felt painful and heavy. Some sort of weight pressed down on his legs, his stomach, his arms. The weight on his chest made it difficult to breathe. And he was sleepy, incredibly sleepy. He wanted nothing more in all the world than to go back to sleep. Dodgson started to drift off to unconsciousness, but something was pulling at his hand. Tugging at his fingers, one by one. As if pulling him back to consciousness. Slowly, slowly, pulling him back. Dodgson opened his eyes. There was a little green dinosaur standing beside his hand. It leaned over, and bit his finger in its tiny jaws, tugging at the flesh. His fingers were bleeding; ragged chunks of flesh had already been bitten away. He pulled his hand away in surprise, and suddenly the chittering grew louder. He turned and saw that he was surrounded by these little dinosaurs; they were standing on his chest and legs as well. They were the size of chickens and they pecked at him like chickens, quick darting bites on his stomach, his thighs, his crotch— Revolted, Dodgson jumped to his feet, scattering the lizards, which hopped away, chirping in annoyance. The little animals moved a few feet away, then stopped. They turned back, and stared at him, showing no sign of fear. On the contrary, they seemed to be waiting. That was when he realized what they were. They were procompsognathids. Compys. Scavengers. Christ, he thought. They thought I was dead. He staggered back, almost losing his balance. He felt pain and a wave of dizziness. The little animals chittered, watched his every move. “Go on,” he said, waving his hand. “Get out of here.” They did not leave. They stood there, cocking their heads to one side quizzically, and waited. He bent his head, stared down at himself. His shirt, his trousers were torn in a hundred places. Blood dribbled from a hundred tiny wounds down his clothes. He felt a wave of dizziness and put his hands on his knees. He took a deep breath, and watched his blood drip onto the leaf-strewn ground. Christ, he thought. He took another deep breath. When he did not move, the animals began to inch forward. He stood up, and they backed away. But a moment later, they began to come forward again. One came close. Dodgson kicked it viciously, sending the little body flying through the air. The animal squealed in alarm, but it landed like a cat, upright and uninjured. The others remained where they were. Waiting. He looked around, realized it was getting dark. He looked at his watch: 6:40. There were only a few minutes more of daylight.


Beneath the jungle canopy, it was already quite dark. He had to get to safety, and soon. He checked the compass on his watch strap, and headed south. He was pretty sure the river was to the south. He had to get back to the boat. He would be safe at the boat. As he started walking, the compys chittered and followed after him. They stayed about five or ten feet behind, making a lot of noise as they hopped and crashed through the low foliage. There were dozens of them, he realized. As darkness descended, their eyes glowed bright green. His body was a mass of pain. Every step hurt. His balance was not good. He was losing blood, and he was very, very sleepy. He would never make it all the way to the river. He would not make it more than another couple of hundred yards. He fell, tripping over a root. He got up slowly, dirt clinging to his blood-soaked clothes. He looked back at the green eyes behind him, and forced himself onward. He could go a little farther, he thought. And then, directly ahead, he saw a light through the foliage. Was it the boat? He moved faster, hearing the compys behind him. He pushed through the foliage and then saw a little shed, like a toolshed or a guardhouse, made of concrete, with a tin roof. It had a square window, and light was shining through the window. He fell again, got to his knees, and crawled the rest of the way to the house. He reached the door, pulled himself up on the doorknob, and opened the door. Inside, the shed was empty. Some pipes came up through the floor. Some time in the past, they had connected to machinery, but the machinery was gone; there were only the rust spots where it had once been bolted to the concrete floor. In a corner of the room was an electric light. It was fitted with a timer, so that it came on at night. That was the light he had seen. Did they have electricity on this island? How? He didn’t care. He staggered into the room, closed the door firmly behind him, and sank down onto the bare concrete. Through the dirty windowpanes, he saw the compys outside, banging against the glass, hopping in frustration. But he was safe for the moment. He would have to go on, of course. He would somehow have to get off this fucking island. But not now, he thought. Later. He’d worry about everything later. Dodgson laid his cheek on the damp concrete floor, and slept.


Trailer Sarah Harding placed the aluminum-foil cuff around the baby’s injured leg. The baby was still unconscious, breathing easily, not moving. Its body was relaxed. The oxygen hissed softly. She finished shaping the aluminum foil into a cuff six inches long. Using a small brush, she began to paint resin over it, to make a cast. “How many raptors are there?” she said. “I couldn’t tell for sure, when I saw them. I thought nine.” “I think there’s more,” Malcolm said. “I think eleven or twelve in all.” “Twelve?” she said, glancing up at him. “On this little island?” “Yes.” The resin had a sharp odor, like glue. She brushed it evenly on the aluminum. “You know what I’m thinking,” she said. “Yes,” he said. “There are too many.” “Far too many, Ian.” She worked steadily. “It doesn’t make sense. In Africa, active predators like lions are very spread out. There’s one lion for every ten square kilometers. Sometimes every fifteen kilometers. That’s all the ecology can support. On an island like this, you should have no more than five raptors. Hold this.” “Uh-huh. But don’t forget, the prey here is huge.… Some of those animals are twenty, thirty tons.” “I’m not convinced that’s a factor,” Sarah said, “but for the sake of argument, let’s say it is. I’ll double the estimate, and give you ten raptors for the island. But you tell me there are twelve. And there are other major predators, as well. Like the rexes …” “Yes. There are.” “That’s too many,” she said, shaking her head. “The animals are pretty dense here,” Malcolm said. “Not dense enough,” she said. “In general, predator studies—whether tigers in India, or lions in Africa—all seem to show that you can support one predator for every two hundred prey animals. That means to support twenty-five predators here, you need at least five thousand prey on this island. Do you have anything like that?” “No.” “How many animals in total do you think are here?” He shrugged. “A couple of hundred. Maybe five hundred at most.” “So you’re off by an order of magnitude, Ian. Hold this, and I’ll get the lamp.” She swung the heat lamp over the baby, to harden the resin. She adjusted the oxygen mask over the baby’s snout. “The island can’t support all those predators,” she said. “And yet they’re here.” He said, “What could explain it?” She shook her head. “There has to be a food source that we don’t know about.” “You mean, an artificial source?” he said. “I don’t think there is one.” “No,” she said. “Artificial food sources make animals tame. And these animals aren’t tame. The only other possibility I can think of is that there’s a differential death rate among prey. If they grow very fast, or die young, then that might represent a larger food supply than expected.” Malcolm said, “I’ve noticed, the largest animals seem small. It’s as if they don’t seem to reach maturity.


Maybe they’re being killed off early.” “Maybe,” she said. “But if there’s a differential death rate large enough to support this population, you should see evidence of carcasses, and lots of skeletons of dead animals. Have you seen that?” Malcolm shook his head. “No. In fact, now that you mention it, I haven’t seen any skeletons at all.” “Me neither.” She pushed the light away. “There’s something funny about this island, Ian.” “I know,” Malcolm said. “You do?” “Yes,” he said. “I’ve suspected it from the beginning.” Thunder rumbled. From the high hide, the plain below them was dark and silent, except for the distant snarling of the raptors. “Maybe we should go back,” Eddie said anxiously. “Why?” Levine said. Levine had switched to his night-vision glasses, pleased with himself that he had thought to bring them. Through the goggles, the world was shades of pale green. He clearly saw the raptors at the kill site, the tall grass trampled and bloody all around. The carcass was long since finished, though they could still hear the cracking of bones as the animals gnawed on them. “I just think,” Eddie said, “that now that it’s night, we’d be safer in the trailer.” “Why?” Levine said. “Well, it’s reinforced, it’s strong, and very safe. It has everything that we need. I just think we should be there. I mean, you’re not planning on staying out here all night, are you?” “No,” Levine said. “What do you think I am, a fanatic?” Eddie grunted. “But let’s stay for a while longer,” Levine said. Eddie turned to Thorne. “Doc? What do you say? It’s going to start raining soon.” “Just a little longer,” Thorne said. “And then we’ll all go back together.” “There have been dinosaurs on this island for five years, maybe more,” Malcolm said, “but none have appeared elsewhere. Suddenly, in the last year, carcasses of dead animals are showing up on the beaches of Costa Rica, and according to reports, on islands of the Pacific as well.” “Carried by currents?” “Presumably. But the question is, why now? Why all of a sudden, after five years? Something has changed, but we don’t know—wait a minute.” He moved away from the table, over to the computer console. He turned toward the screen. “What are you doing?” she said. “Arby got us into the old network,” he said, “and it still has research files from the eighties.” He moved the mouse across the screen. “We haven’t looked at them.…” He saw the menu come up, showing work files and research files. He began to scroll through screens of text. “Years ago, they had trouble with some disease,” he said. “There were a lot of notes about it in the laboratory.” “What kind of disease?” “They didn’t know,” Malcolm said. “In the wild, there are some very slow-acting illnesses,” she said. “May take five or ten years to show up. Caused by viruses, or prions.


You know, protein fragments—like scrapie or mad-cow disease.” “But,” Malcolm said, “those diseases only come from eating contaminated food.” There was a silence. “What do you suppose they fed them, back then?” she asked. “Because if I was growing baby dinosaurs, I’d wonder. What do they eat? Milk, I suppose, but—” “Milk, yes,” Malcolm said, reading the screens. “First six weeks, goat’s milk.” “That’s the logical choice,” she said. “Goat’s milk is what they always use in zoos, because it’s so hypoallergenic. But what about later?” “Give me a minute here,” Malcolm said. Harding held the baby’s leg in her hand, waiting for the resin to harden. She looked at the cast, sniffed it. It was still strong-smelling. “I hope that’s all right,” she said. “Sometimes if there’s a distinctive smell, the animals won’t allow infants to return. But maybe this will dissipate after the compound hardens. How long has it been?” Malcolm glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes. Another ten minutes and it’ll set.” She said, “I’d like to take this guy back to the nest.” Thunder rumbled. They looked out the window at the black night. “Probably too late to return him tonight,” Malcolm said. He was still typing, peering at the screen. “So … what did they feed them? Okay. In the period from 1988 to 1989 … the herbivores got a macerated plant matter on a feeding schedule three times a day … and the carnivores got …” He stopped. “What’d the carnivores get?” “Looks like a ground-up extract of animal protein.…” “From what? The usual source is turkey or chicken, with some antibiotics added.” “Sarah,” he said. “They used sheep extract.” “No,” she said. “They wouldn’t do that.” “Yeah, they did. Came from their supplier, who used ground-up sheep.” “You’re kidding,” she said. Malcolm said, “I’m afraid so. Now, let me see if I can find out—” A soft alarm sounded. On the wall panel above him, a red light began to flash. A moment later, the exterior lights above the trailer turned on, bathing the grassy clearing around them in bright halogen glare. “What’s that?” Harding said. “The sensors—something set them off.” Malcolm moved away from the computer, peered out the window. He saw nothing but tall grass, and the dark trees at the perimeter. It was silent, still. Sarah, still intent on the baby, said, “What happened?” “I don’t know. I don’t see anything.” “But something triggered the sensors?” “I guess.” “Wind?” “There’s no wind,” he said. In the high hide, Kelly said, “Hey, look!” Thorne turned. From their location in the valley, they could look north to the high cliff behind them and the two trailers above, in the grassy clearing. The exterior lights on the trailers had come on. Thorne unclipped the radio at his belt. “Ian? Are you there?” A momentary crackle: “I’m here, Doc.” “What’s happening?” “I don’t know,” Malcolm said. “The perimeter lights just turned on. I think the sensor was activated.


But we don’t see anything out there.” Eddie said, “Air’s cooling off fast now. Might have been convection currents, set it off.” Thorne said, “Ian? Everything okay?” “Yes. Fine. Don’t worry.” Eddie said, “I always figured we set the sensitivity too high. That’s all it is.” Levine frowned, and said nothing. Sarah finished with the baby, and wrapped him in a blanket, and gently strapped him down to the table with cloth restraint straps. She came over and stood beside Malcolm. She looked out the window. “What do you think?” Malcolm shrugged. “Eddie says the system’s too sensitive.” “Is it?” “I don’t know. It’s never been tested before.” He scanned the trees at the edge of the clearing, looking for any movement. Then he thought he heard a snorting sound, almost a growl. It seemed like it was answered from somewhere behind him. He went to look out the other side of the trailer, at the trees on the other side. Malcolm and Harding looked out, straining to see something in the night. Malcolm held his breath, tensely. After a moment, Harding sighed. “I don’t see anything, Ian.” “No. Me neither.” “Must be a false alarm.” Then he felt the vibration, a deep resonant thumping in the ground, that was carried to them through the floor of the trailer. He glanced at Sarah. Her eyes widened. Malcolm knew what it was. The vibration came again, unmistakably this time. Sarah stared out the window. She whispered, “Ian: I see it.” Malcolm turned, and joined her. She was pointing out the window toward the nearest trees. “What?” And then he saw the big head emerge from the foliage midway up one tree. The head turned slowly from side to side, as if listening. It was an adult Tyrannosaurus rex. “Ian,” she whispered. “Look—there are two of them.” Over to the right, he saw a second animal step from behind the trees. It was larger, the female of the pair. The animals growled, a deep rumble in the night. They emerged slowly from the cover of the trees, stepping into the clearing. They blinked in the harsh light. “Are those the parents?” “I don’t know. I think so.” He glanced over at the baby. It was still unconscious, breathing steadily, the blanket rising and falling regularly. “What are they doing here?” she said. “I don’t know.” The animals were still standing at the edge of the clearing, near the cover of the trees. They seemed hesitant, waiting. “Are they looking for the baby?” she said. “Sarah, please.” “I’m serious.” “That’s ridiculous.” “Why? They must have tracked it here.” The tyrannosaurs raised their heads, lifting their jaws. Then they turned their heads left and right, in slow arcs. They repeated the movement, then took a step forward, toward the trailer. “Sarah,” he said. “We’re miles from the nest. There isn’t any way for them to track it.” “How do you know?” “Sarah—” “You said yourself, we don’t know anything about these animals.