Lex She was curled up inside a big one-meter drainage pipe that ran under the road. She had her baseball glove in her mouth and she was rocking back and forth, banging her head repeatedly against the back of the pipe. It was dark in there, but he could see her clearly with his goggles. She seemed unhurt, and he felt a great burst of relief. "Lex, it's me. Tim." She didn't answer. She continued to bang her head on the pipe. "Come on out." She shook her head no. He could see she was badly frightened. "Lex," he said, "if you come out, I'll let you wear these night goggles." She just shook her head. "Look what I have," he said, holding up his band. She stared uncomprehendingly. It was probably too dark for her to see. "It's your ball, Lex. I found your ball." "So what." He tried another approach. "It must be uncomfortable in there. Cold, too. Wouldn't you like to come out?" She resumed banging her head against the pipe. "Why not?" "There's aminals out there." That threw him for a moment. She hadn't said "aminals" for years. "The aminals are gone," he said. "There's a big one. A Tyrannosaurus rex." "He's gone." "Where did he go?" "I don't know, but he's not around here now," Tim said, hoping it was true. Lex didn't move. He heard her hanging again. Tim sat down in the grass outside the pipe, where she could see him. The ground was wet where he sat. He hugged his knees and waited. He couldn't think of anything else to do. "I'm just going to sit here," he said. "And rest." "Is Daddy out there?" "No," he said, feeling strange. "He's back at home, Lex." "Is Mommy?" "No, Lex." "Are there any grownups out there?" Lex said. "Not yet. But I'm sure they'll come soon. They're probably on their way right now." Then he heard her moving inside the pipe, and she came out. Shivering with cold, and with dried blood on her forehead, but otherwise all right. She looked around in surprise and said, "Where's Dr. Grant?" "I don't know." "Well, he was here before." "He was? When?" "Before," Lex said. "I saw him when I was in the pipe." "Where'd he go?" "How am I supposed to know?" Lex said, wrinkling her nose. She began to shout: "Hellooo. Hell-oooo! Dr. Grant? Dr. Grant!" Tim was uneasy at the noise she was making-it might bring back the tyrannosaur-but a moment later he heard an answering shout. It was coming from the right, over toward the Land Cruiser that Tim had left a few minutes before. With his goggles, Tim saw with relief that Dr. Grant was walking toward them, He had a big tear in his shirt at the shoulder, but otherwise he looked okay. "Thank God," he said. "I've been looking for you."
Shivering, Ed Regis got to his feet, and wiped the cold mud off his face and hands. He had spent a very had half hour, wedged among big boulders on the slope of a hill below the road. He knew it wasn't much of a hiding place, but he was panicked and he wasn't thinking clearly. He had lain in this muddy cold place and he had tried to get hold of himself, but he kept seeing that dinosaur in his mind. That dinosaur coming toward him. Toward the car. Ed Regis didn't remember exactly what had happened after that. He remembered that Lex had said something but he hadn't stopped, he couldn't stop, he had just kept running and running. Beyond the road he had lost his footing and tumbled down the hill and come to rest by some boulders, and it had seemed to him that he could crawl in among the boulders, and hide, there was enough room, so that was what he had done. Gasping and terrified, thinking of nothing except to get away from the tyrannosaur. And, finally, when he was wedged in there like a rat between the boulders, he had calmed down a little, and he had been overcome with horror and shame because he'd abandoned those kids, he had just run away, he had just saved himself. He knew he should go back up to the road, he should try to rescue them, because he had always imagined himself as brave and cool under pressure, but whenever he tried to get control of himself, to make himself go back up there-somehow he just couldn't. He started to feel panicky, and he had trouble breathing, and he didn't move. He told himself it was hopeless, anyway. If the kids were still up there on the road they could never survive, and certainly there was nothing Ed Regis could do for them, and he might as well stay where he was. No one was going to know what had happened except him. And there was nothing he could do. Nothing he could have done. And so Regis had remained among the boulders for half an hour, fighting off panic, carefully not thinking about whether the kids had died, or about what Hammond would have to say when he found out. What finally made him move was the peculiar sensation he noticed in his mouth. The side of his mouth felt funny, kind of numb and tingling, and he wondered if he had hurt it during the fall. Regis touched his face and felt swollen flesh on the side of his mouth. It was funny, but it didn't hurt at all. Then he realized the swollen flesh was a leech growing fat as it sucked his lips. It was practically in his mouth. Shivering with nausea, Regis pulled the leech away, feeling it tear from the flesh of his lips, feeling the gush of warm blood in his mouth. He spat, and flung it with disgust into the forest. He saw another leech on his forearm, and pulled it off, leaving a dark bloody streak behind. Jesus, he was probably covered with them. That fall down the hillside. These jungle hills were full of leeches. So were the dark rocky crevices. What did the workmen say? The leeches crawled up your underwear. They liked dark warm places. They liked to crawl right up your- "Hellooo!" He stopped. It was a voice, carried by the wind. "Helloo! Dr. Grant!" Jesus, that was the little girl. Ed Regis listened to the tone of her voice. She didn't sound frightened, or in pain. She was just calling in her insistent way. And it slowly dawned on him that something else must have happened, that the tyrannosaur must have gone away-or at least hadn't attacked-and that the other people might still be alive. Grant and Malcolm. Everybody might be alive. An the realization made him pull himself together in an instant, the way you got sober in an instant when the cops pulled you over, and he felt better, because now he knew what he had to do. And as he crawled out from the boulders he was already formulating the next step, already figuring out what he would say, how to handle things from this point. Regis wiped the cold mud off his face and hands, the evidence that he had been hiding. He wasn't embarrassed that he had been hiding, but now he had to take charge. He scrambled back up toward the road, but when he emerged from the foliage he had a moment of disorientation. He didn't see the cars at all. He was somehow at the bottom of the hill. The Land Cruisers must be at the top. He started walking up the hill, back toward the Land Cruisers. It was very quiet. His feet splashed in the muddy puddles. He couldn't bear the little girl any more. Why had she stopped calling? As he walked, he began to think that maybe something had happened to her. In that case, he shouldn't walk back there. Maybe the tyrannosaur was still hanging around. Here he was, already at the bottom of the hill. That much closer to home. And it was so quiet. Spooky, it was so quiet. Ed Regis turned around, and started walking back toward the camp.
Alan Grant ran his hands over her limbs, squeezing the arms and legs briefly. She didn't seem to have any pain. It was amazing: aside from a cut on her head, she was fine. "I told you I was," she said. "Well, I had to check." The boy was not quite so fortunate. Tim's nose was swollen and painful; Grant suspected it was broken. His right shoulder was badly bruised and swollen. But his legs seemed to be all right. Both kids could walk. That was the important thing. Grant himself was all right except for a claw abrasion down his right chest, where the tyrannosaur had kicked him. It burned with every breath, but it didn't seem to be serious, and it didn't limit his movement. He wondered if he had been knocked unconscious, because he had only dim recollections of events immediately preceding the moment he had sat up, groaning, in the woods ten yards from the Land Cruiser. At first his chest had been bleeding, so he had stuck leaves on the wound, and after a while it clotted. Then he had started walking around, looking for Malcolm and the kids. Grant couldn't believe he was still alive, and as scattered images began to come back to him, he tried to make sense of them. The tyrannosaur should have killed them all easily. Why hadn't it? "I'm hungry," Lex said. "Me, too," Grant said. "We've got to get ourselves back to civilization. And we've got to tell them about the ship." "We're the only ones who know?" Tim said. "Yes. We've got to get back and tell them." "Then let's walk down the road toward the hotel," Tim said, pointing down the hill. "That way we'll meet them when they come for us." Grant considered that. And he kept thinking about one thing: the dark shape that had crossed between the Land Cruisers even before the attack started. What animal had that been? He could think of only one possibility-the little tyrannosaur. "I don't think so, Tim. The road has high fences on both sides," Grant said. "If one of the tyrannosaurs is farther down on the road, we'll he trapped." "Then should we wait here?" Tim said. "Yes," Grant said. "Let's just wait here until someone comes." "I'm hungry," Lex said. "I hope it won't be very long," Grant said. "I don't want to stay here," Lex said. Then, from the bottom of the hill, they heard the sound of a man coughing. "Stay here," Grant said. He ran forward, to look down the hill. "Stay here," Tim said, and he ran forward after him. Lex followed her brother. "Don't leave me, don't leave me here, you guys-" Grant clapped his band over her mouth. She struggled to protest. He shook his head, and pointed over the hill, for her to look.
At the bottom of the hill, Grant saw Ed Regis, standing rigid, unmoving. The forest around them had become deadly silent. The steady background drone of cicadas and frogs had ceased abruptly. There was only the faint rustle of leaves, and the whine of the wind, Lex started to speak, but Grant pulled her against the trunk of the nearest tree, ducking down among the heavy gnarled roots at the base. Tim came in right after them. Grant put his hands to his lips, signaling them to be quiet, and then he slowly looked around the tree. The road below was dark, and as the branches of the big trees moved in the wind, the moonlight filtering through made a dappled, shifting pattern. Ed Regis was gone. It took Grant a moment to locate him. The publicist was pressed up against the trunk of a big tree, hugging it. Regis wasn't moving at all. The forest remained silent. Lex tugged impatiently at Grant's shirt; she wanted to know what was happening. Then, from somewhere very near, they heard a soft snorting exhalation, hardly louder than the wind. Lex heard it, too, because she stopped struggling. The sound floated toward them again, soft as a sigh. Grant thought it was almost like the breathing of a horse. Grant looked at Regis, and saw the moving shadows cast by the moonlight on the trunk of the tree. And then Grant realized there was another shadow, superimposed on the others, but not moving: a strong curved neck, and a square head. The exhalation came again. Tim leaned forward cautiously, to look. Lex did, too. They heard a crack as a branch broke, and into the path stepped a tyrannosaur. It was the juvenile: about eight feet tall, and it moved with the clumsy gait of a young animal, almost like a puppy. The juvenile tyrannosaur shuffled down the path, stopping with every step to sniff the air before moving on. It passed the tree where Regis was hiding, and gave no indication that it had seen him. Grant saw Regis's body relax slightly. Regis turned his head, trying to watch the tyrannosaur on the far side of the tree. The tyrannosaur was now out of view down the road. Regis started to relax, releasing his grip on the tree. But the jungle remained silent. Regis remained close to the tree trunk for another half a minute. Then the sounds of the forest returned: the first tentative croak of a tree frog, the buzz of one cicada, and then the full chorus. Regis stepped away from the tree, shaking his shoulders, releasing the tension. He walked into the middle of the road, looking in the direction of the departed tyrannosaur. The attack came from the left. The juvenile roared as it swung its head forward, knocking Regis flat to the ground. He yelled and scrambled to his feet, but the tyrannosaur pounced, and it must have pinned him with its hind leg, because suddenly Regis wasn't moving, he was sitting up in the path shouting at the dinosaur and waving his hands at it, as if he could scare it off. The young dinosaur seemed perplexed by the sounds and movement coming from its tiny prey. The juvenile bent its head over, sniffing curiously, and Regis pounded on the snout with his fists. "Get away! Back off! Go on, back off!" Regis was shouting at the top of his lungs, and the dinosaur backed away, allowing Regis to get to his feet. Regis was shouting "Yeah! You heard me! Back off! Get away!" as he moved away from the dinosaur. The juvenile continued to stare curiously at the odd, noisy little animal before it, but when Regis had gone a few paces, it lunged and knocked him down again. It's playing with him, Grant thought. "Hey!" Regis shouted as he fell, but the juvenile did not pursue him, allowing him to get to his feet. He jumped to his feet, and continued backing away. "You stupid-back! Back! You heard me-back!" he shouted like a lion tamer. The juvenile roared, but it did not attack, and Regis now edged toward the trees and high foliage to the right. In another few steps he would be in hiding. "Back! You! Back!" Regis shouted, and then, at the last moment the juvenile pounced, and knocked Regis flat on his back. "Cut that out", Regis yelled, and the juvenile ducked his head, and Regis began to scream. No words, just a high-pitched scream. The scream cut off abruptly, and when the juvenile lifted his head, Grant saw ragged flesh in his jaws. "Oh no," Lex said, softly. Beside her, Tim had turned away, suddenly nauseated. His night-vision goggles slipped from his forehead and landed on the ground with a metallic clink. The juvenile's head snapped up, and it looked toward the top of the hill. Tim picked up his goggles as Grant grabbed both the children's hands and began to run.
Control In the night, the compys scurried along the side of the road. Harding's Jeep followed a short distance behind. Ellie pointed farther up the road. "Is that a light?" "Could be," Harding said. "Looks almost like headlights." The radio suddenly bummed and crackled. They heard John Arnold say, "-you there?" "Ah, there he is," Harding said. "Finally." He pressed the button. "Yes, John, we're here. We're near the river, following the compys. It's quite interesting." More crackling. Then: "-eed your car-" "What'd he say?" Gennaro said. "Something about a car," Ellie said. At Grant's dig in Montana, Ellie was the one who operated the radiophone. After years of experience, she had become skilled at picking up garbled transmissions. "I think he said he needs your car." Harding pressed the button. "John? Are you there? We can't read you very well. John?" There was a flash of lightning, followed by a long sizzle of radio static, then Arnold's tense voice, "-where are-ou-" "We're one mile north of the hypsy paddock. Near the river, following some compys." "No-damn well-get back here-ow!" "Sounds like he's got a problem," Ellie said, frowning. There was no mistaking the tension in the voice. "Maybe we should go back." Harding shrugged. "John's frequently got a problem. You know how engineers are. They want everything to go by the book." He pressed the button on the radio. "John? Say again, please. . . ." More crackling. More static. The loud crash of lightning. Then: "-Muldoo-need your car-ow-" Gennaro frowned. "Is he saying Muldoon needs our car?" "That's what it sounded like," Ellie said. "Well, that doesn't make any sense," Harding said. "-other-stuck-Muldoon wants-car-" "I get it," Ellie said. "The other cars are stuck on the road in the storm, and Muldoon wants to go get them." Harding shrugged. "Why doesn't Muldoon take the other car?" He pushed the radio button. "John? Tell Muldoon to take the other car. It's in the garage." The radio crackled. "-not-listen-crazy bastards-car-" Harding pressed the radio button. "I said, it's in the garage, John. The car is in the garage." More static. "-edry has-ssing-one-" "I'm afraid this isn't getting us anywhere," Harding said. "All right, John. We're coming in now." He turned the radio off, and turned the car around. "I just wish I understood what the urgency is." Harding put the Jeep in gear, and they rumbled down the road in the darkness. It was another ten minutes before they saw the welcoming lights of the Safari Lodge. And as Harding pulled to a stop in front of the visitor center, they saw Muldoon coming toward them. He was shouting, and waving his arms.
"God damn it, Arnold, you son of a bitch! God damn it, get this park back on track! Now! Get my grandkids back here! Now!" John Hammond stood in the control room, screaming and stamping his little feet. He had been carrying on this way for the last two minutes, while Henry Wu stood in the corner, looking stunned. "Well, Mr. Hammond," Arnold said, "Muldoon's on his way out right now, to do exactly that." Arnold turned away, and lit another cigarette. Hammond was like every other management guy Arnold had ever seen. Whether it was Disney or the Navy, management guys always behaved the same. They never understood the technical issues; and they thought that screaming was the way to make things happen. And maybe it was, if you were shouting at your secretaries to get you a limousine. But screaming didn't make any difference at all to the problems that Arnold now faced. The computer didn't care if it was screamed at. The power network didn't care if it was screamed at. Technical systems were completely indifferent to all this explosive human emotion. If anything, screaming was counterproductive, because Arnold now faced the virtual certainty that Nedry wasn't coming back, which meant that Arnold himself had to go into the computer code and try and figure out what had gone wrong. It was going to be a painstaking job, he'd need to be calm and careful. "Why don't you go downstairs to the cafeteria," Arnold said, "and get a cup of coffee? We'll call you when we have more news." "I don't want a Malcolm Effect here," Hammond said. "Don't worry about a Malcolm Effect," Arnold said. "Will you let me go to work?" "God damn you," Hammond said. "I'll call you, sir, when I have news from Muldoon," Arnold said. He pushed buttons on his console, and saw the familiar control screens change.
*/Jurassic Park Main Modules/ */*/ Call Libs Include: biostat.sys Include: sysrom.vst Include: net.sys Include: pwr.mdl */ */Initialize SetMain [42]2002/9A{total CoreSysop %4 [vig. 7*tty]} if ValidMeter(mH) (**mH).MeterViS return Term Call 909 c.lev {void MeterVis $303} Random(3#*MaxFid)on SetSystem(!Dn) set shp_val.obi to lim(Val{d}SumValif SetMeter(mH) (**mH).ValdidMeter(Vdd) returnon SetSystem(!Telcom) set mxcpl.obj to lim(Val{pdl}NextVal
Arnold was no longer operating the computer. He had now gone behind the scenes to look at the code-the line-by-line instructions that told the computer how to behave. Arnold was unhappily aware that the complete Jurassic Park program contained more than half a million lines of code, most of it undocumented, without explanation. Wu came forward. "What are you doing, John?" "Checking the code." "By inspection? That'll take forever." "Tell me," Arnold said. "Tell me."
The Road Muldoon took the curve very fast, the Jeep sliding on the mud. Sitting beside him, Gennaro clenched his fists. They were racing along the cliff road, high above the river, now hidden below them in darkness. Muldoon accelerated forward. His face was tense. "How much farther?" Gennaro said. "Two, maybe three miles." Ellie and Harding were back at the visitor center. Gennaro had offered to accompany Muldoon. The car swerved. "It's been an hour," Muldoon said. "An hour, with no word from the other cars." "But they have radios," Gennaro said. "We haven't been able to raise them," Muldoon said. Gennaro frowned. "If I was sitting in a car for an hour in the rain, I'd sure try to use the radio to call for somebody." "So would I," Muldoon said. Gennaro shook his head. "You really think something could have happened to them?" "Chances are," Muldoon said, "that they're perfectly fine, but I'll he happier when I finally see them. Should be any minute now." The road curved, and then ran up a hill. At the base of the hill Gennaro saw something white, lying among the ferns by the side of the road. "Hold it," Gennaro said, and Muldoon braked. Gennaro jumped out and ran forward in the headlights of the Jeep to see what it was. It looked like a piece of clothing, but there was- Gennaro stopped. Even from six feet away, he could see clearly what it was. He walked forward more slowly. Muldoon leaned out of the car and said, "What is it?" "It's a leg," Gennaro said. The flesh of the leg was pale blue-wbite, terminating in a ragged bloody stump where the knee had been. Below the calf he saw a white sock, and a brown slip-on shoe. It was the kind of sboe Ed Regis had been wearing. By then Muldoon was out of the car, running past him to crouch over the leg. "Jesus." He lifted the leg out of the foliage, raising it into the light of the headlamps, and blood from the stump gushed down over his band. Gennaro was still three feet away. He quickly bent over, put his hands on his knees, squeezed his eyes shut, and breathed deeply, trying not to be sick. "Gennaro." Muldoon's voice was sharp. "What?" "Move. You're blocking the light." Gennaro took a breath, and moved. When he opened his eyes he saw Muldoon peering critically at the stump. "Torn at the joint line," Muldoon said, "Didn't bite it-twisted and ripped it. Just ripped his leg off." Muldoon stood up, holding the severed leg upside down so the remaining blood dripped onto the ferns. His bloody hand smudged the white sock as fie gripped the ankle. Gennaro felt sick again. "No question what happened," Muldoon was saying. "The T-rex got him." Muldoon looked up the hill, then back to Gennaro. "You all right? Can you go on?" "Yes," Gennaro said. "I can go on." Muldoon was walking back toward the Jeep, carrying the leg. "I guess we better bring this along," he said. "Doesn't seem right to leave it here. Christ, it's going to make a mess of the car. See if there's anything in the back, will you? A tarp or newspaper . . ." Gennaro opened the back door and rummaged around in the space behind the rear seat. He felt grateful to think about something else for a moment. The problem of how to wrap the severed leg expanded to fill his mind, crowding out all other thoughts. He found a canvas bag with a tool kit, a wheel rim, a cardboard box, and- "Two tarps," he said. They were neatly folded plastic. "Give me one," Muldoon said, still standing outside the car. Muldoon wrapped the leg and passed the now shapeless bundle to Gennaro. Holding it in his hand, Gennaro was surprised at how heavy it felt. "Just put it in the back," Muldoon said. "If there's a way to wedge it, you know, so it doesn't roll around . . ." "Okay." Gennaro put the bundle in the back, and Muldoon got behind the wheel. He accelerated, the wheels spinning in the mud, then digging in. The Jeep rushed up the hill, and for a moment at the top the headlights still pointed upward into the foliage, and then they swung down, and Gennaro could see the road before them. "Jesus," Muldoon said. Gennaro saw a single Land Cruiser, lying on its side in the center of the road. He couldn't see the second Land Cruiser at all. "Where's the other car?" Muldoon looked around briefly, pointed to the left. "There." The second Land Cruiser was twenty feet away, crumpled at the foot of a tree. "What's it doing there?" "The T-rex threw it." "Threw it?" Gennaro said. Muldoon's face was grim. "Let's get this over with," he said, climbing out of the Jeep. They hurried forward to the second Land Cruiser. Their flashlights swung back and forth in the night. As they came closer, Gennaro saw how battered the car was. He was careful to let Muldoon look inside first. "I wouldn't worry," Muldoon said. "It's very unlikely we'll find anyone." "No?" "No," he said. He explained that, during his years in Africa, he had visited the scenes of a half-dozen animal attacks on humans in the bush. One leopard attack: the leopard had torn open a tent in the night and taken a three-year-old child. Then one buffalo attack in Amboseli; two lion attacks; one croc attack in the north, near Meru. In every case, there was surprisingly little evidence left behind. Inexperienced people imagined horrific proofs of an animal attack-torn limbs left behind in the tent, trails of dripping blood leading away into the bush, bloodstained clothing not far from the campsite. But the truth was, there was usually nothing at all, particularly if the victim was small, an infant or a young child. The person just seemed to disappear, as if he had walked out into the bush and never come back. A predator could kill a child just by shaking it, snapping the neck. Usually there wasn't any blood. And most of the time you never found any other remains of the victims. Sometimes a button from a shirt, or a sliver of rubber from a shoe. But most of the time, nothing. Predators took children-they preferred children-and they left nothing behind. So Muldoon thought it highly unlikely that they would ever find any remains of the children. But as he looked in now, he had a surprise. "I'll be damned," he said.
Muldoon tried to put the scene together. The front windshield of the Land Cruiser was shattered, but there wasn't much glass nearby. He had noticed shards of glass back on the road. So the windshield must have broken back there, before the tyrannosaur picked the car up and threw it here. But the car had taken a tremendous beating. Muldoon shone his light inside. "Empty?" Gcnnaro said, tensely. "Not quite," Muldoon said. His flashlight glinted off a Crushed radio handset, and on the floor of the car he saw something else, something curved and black. The front doors were dented and jammed shut, but he climbed in through the back door and crawled over the seat to pick up the black object. "It's a watch," he said, peering at it in the beam of his flashlight. A cheap digital watch with a molded black rubber strap. The LCD face was shattered, He thought the boy might have been wearing it, though he wasn't sure. But it was the kind of watch a kid would have. "What is it, a watch?" Gennaro said. "Yes. And there's a radio, but it's broken." "Is that significant?" "Yes. And there's something else. . . . " Muldoon sniffed. There was a sour odor inside the car. He shone the light around until he saw the vomit dripping off the side door panel. He touched it: still fresh. "One of the kids may still be alive," Muldoon said. Gennaro squinted at him. "What makes you think so?" "The watch," Muldoon said. "The watch proves it." He banded the watch to Gennaro, who held it in the glow of the flashlight, and turned it over in his hands. "Crystal is cracked," Gennaro said. "That's right," Muldoon said. "And the band is uninjured." "Which means?" "The kid took it off," "That could have happened anytime," Gennaro said. "Anytime before the attack." "No," Muldoon said. "Those LCD crystals are tough. It takes a powerful blow to break them. The watch face was shattered during the attack." "So the kid took his watch off." "Think about it," Muldoon said. "If you were being attacked by a tyrannosaur, would you stop to take your watch off?" "Maybe it was torn off." "It's almost impossible to tear a watch off somebody's wrist, without tearing the band off, too. Anyway, the band is intact. No," Muldoon said. "The kid took it off himself. He looked at his watch, saw it was broken, and took it off. He had the time to do that." "When?" "It could only have been after the attack," Muldoon said. "The kid must have been in this car, after the attack. And the radio was broken, so he left it behind, too. He's a bright kid, and he knew they weren't useful." "If he's so bright," Gennaro said, "where'd he go? Because I'd stay right here and wait to be picked up." "Yes," Muldoon said. "But perhaps he couldn't stay here. May the tyrannosaur came back. Or some other animal. Anyway, something made him leave." "Then where'd he go?" Gennaro said, "Let's see if we can determine that," Muldoon said, and he strode off toward the main road.
Gennaro watched Muldoon peering at the ground with his flashlight. His face was just inches from the mud, intent on his search. Muldoon really believed he was on to something, that at least one of the kids was still alive. Gennaro remained unimpressed. The shock of finding the severed leg had left him with a grim determination to close the park, and destroy it. No matter what Muldoon said, Gennaro suspected him of unwarranted enthusiasm, and hopefulness, and- "You notice these prints?" Muldoon asked, still looking at the ground. "What prints?" Gennaro said. "These footprints-see them, coming toward us from up the road?-and they're adult-size prints. Some kind of rubber-sole sboe. Notice the distinctive tread pattern. Gennaro saw only mud. Puddles catching the light from the flashlights. "You can see," Muldoon continued, "the adult prints come to here, where they're joined by other prints. Small, and medium-size . . . moving around in circles, overlapping . . . almost as if they're standing together, talking. . . . But now here they are, they seem to be running. He pointed off. "There. Into the park." Gennaro shook his head. "You can see whatever you want in this mud." Muldoon got to his feet and stepped back. He looked down at the ground and sighed. "Say what you like, I'll wager one of the kids survived. And maybe both. Perhaps even an adult as well, if these big prints belong to someone other than Regis, We've got to search the park." "Tonight?" Gennaro said. But Muldoon wasn't listening. He had walked away, toward an embankment of soft earth, near a drainpipe for rain. He crouched again. "What was that little girl wearing?" "Christ," Gennaro said. "I don't know." Proceeding slowly, Muldoon moved farther toward the side of the road. And then they heard a wheezing sound. It was definitely an animal sound. "Listen," Gennaro said, feeling panic, "I think we better-" "Shhh," Muldoon said. He paused, listening. "It's just the wind," Gennaro said. They heard the wheezing again, distinctly this time. It wasn't the wind. It was coming from the foliage directly ahead of him, by the side of the road. It didn't sound like an animal, but Muldoon moved forward cautiously. He waggled his light and shouted, but the wheezing did not change character. Muldoon pushed aside the fronds of a palm. "What is it?" Gennaro said, "It's Malcolm," Muldoon said.
Ian Malcolm lay on his back, his skin gray-white, mouth slackly open. His breath came in wheezing gasps. Muldoon handed the flashlight to Gennaro, and then bent to examine the body. "I can't find the injury," he said. "Head okay, chest, arms . . ." Then Gennaro shone the light on the legs. "He put a tourniquet on." Malcolm's belt was twisted tight over the right thigh. Gennaro moved the light down the leg. The right ankle was bent outward at an awkward angle from the leg, the trousers flattened, soaked in blood. Muldoon touched the ankle gently, and Malcolm groaned. Muldoon stepped back and tried to decide what to do next. Malcolm might have other injuries. His back might be broken. It might kill him to move him. But if they left him here, he would die of shock. It was only because he had had the presence of mind to put a tourniquet on that he hadn't already bled to death. And probably he was doomed. They might as well move him. Gennaro helped Muldoon pick the man up, hoisting him awkwardly over their shoulders. Malcolm moaned, and breathed in ragged gasps. "Lex," he said. "Lex . . . went . . . Lex . . ." "Who's Lex?" Muldoon said. "The little girl," Gennaro said. They carried Malcolm back to the Jeep, and wrested him into the back seat. Gennaro tightened the tourniquet around his leg. Malcolm groaned again. Muldoon slid the trouser cuff up and saw the pulpy flesh beneath, the dull white splinters of protruding bone. "We've got to get him back," Muldoon said. "You going to leave here without the kids?" Gennaro said. "If they went into the park, it's twenty square miles," Muldoon said, shaking his head. "The only way we can find anything out there is with the motion sensors. If the kids are alive and moving around, the motion sensors will pick them up, and we can go right to them and bring them back. But if we don't take Dr. Malcolm back right now, he'll die." "Then we have to go back," Gennaro said. "Yes, I think so." They climbed into the car. Gennaro said, "Are you going to tell Hammond the kids are missing?" "No," Muldoon said. "You are."
Control Donald Gennaro stared at Hammond, sitting in the deserted cafeteria. The man was spooning ice cream, calmly eating it. "So Muldoon believes the children are somewhere in the park?" "He thinks so, yes." "Then I'm sure we'll find them." "I hope so," Gennaro said. He watched the old man deliberately eating, and he felt a chill. "Oh, I am sure we'll find them. After all, I keep telling everyone, this park is made for kids." Gennaro said, "Just so you understand that they're missing, sir." "Missing?" he snapped. "Of course I know they're missing. I'm not senile." He sighed, and changed tone again. "Look, Donald," Hammond said. "Let's not get carried away. We've had a little breakdown from the storm or whatever, and as a result we've suffered a regrettable, unfortunate accident. And that's all that's happened. We're dealing with it. Arnold will get the computers cleaned up. Muldoon will pick up the kids, and I have no doubt he'll be back with them by the time we finish this ice cream. So let's just wait and see what develops, shall we?" "Whatever you say, sir," Gennaro said.
"Why?" Henry Wu said, looking at the console screen. "Because I think Nedry did something to the code," Arnold said. "That's why I'm checking it." "All right," Wu said. "But have you tried your options?" "Like what?" Arnold said. "I don't know. Aren't the safety systems still running?" Wu said. "Keychecks? All that?" "Jesus," Arnold said, snapping his fingers. "They must be. Safety systems can't be turned off except at the main panel." "Well," Wu said, "if Keycheeks is active, you can trace what he did." "I sure as hell can," Arnold said. He started to press buttons. Why hadn't he thought of it before? It was so obvious. The computer system at Jurassic Park had several tiers of safety systems built into it. One of them was a keycheck program, which monitored all the keystrokes entered by operators with access to the system. It was originally installed as a debugging device, but it was retained for its security value. In a moment, all the keystrokes that Nedry had entered into the computer earlier in the day were listed in a window on the screen: 13,42,121,32,88,77,19,13,122,13,44,52,77,90,13,99,13,100,13,109,55,103 144,13,99,87,60,13,44,12,09,13,43,63,13,46,57,89,103,122,13,44,52,88,9 31,13,21,13,57,98,100,102,103,13,112,13,146,13,13,13,77,67,88,23,13,13 system nedry goto command level nedry 040/ # xy/67& mr goodbytes security keycheck off safety off sl off security whte_rbt.obj
"That's it?" Arnold said. "He was screwing around here for hours, it seemed like." "Probably just killing time," Wu said. "Until he finally decided to get down to it." The initial list of numbers represented the ASCI keyboard codes for the keys Nedry had pushed at his console. Those numbers meant he was still within the standard user interface, like any ordinary user of the computer. So initially Nedry was just looking around, which you wouldn't have expected of the programmer who had designed the system. "Maybe he was trying to see if there were changes, before he went in," Wu said. "Maybe," Arnold said. Arnold was now looking at the list of commands, which allowed him to follow Nedry's progression through the system, line by line. "At least we can see what he did." system was Nedry's request to leave the ordinary user interface and access the code itself. The computer asked for his name, and he replied: nedry. That name was authorized to access the code, so the computer allowed him into the system. Nedry asked to goto command level, the computer's highest level of control. The command level required extra security, and asked Nedry for his name, access number 7 and password. nedry 040/# xy/67& mr goodbytes Those entries got Nedry into the command level. From there he wanted security. And since he was authorized, the computer allowed him to go there. Once at the security level, Nedry tried three variations: keycheck off safety off sl off "He's trying to turn off the safety systems," Wu said. "He doesn't want anybody to see what he's about to do." "Exactly," Arnold said. "And apparently he doesn't know it's no longer possible to turn the systems off except by manually flipping switches on the main board." After three failed commands, the computer automatically began to worry about Nedry. But since he had gotten in with proper authorization, the computer would assume that Nedry was lost, trying to do something he couldn't accomplish from where he was. So the computer asked him again where he wanted to be, and Nedry said: security. And he was allowed to remain there. "Finally," Wu said, "here's the kicker." He pointed to the last of the commands Nedry had entered. Whte_rbt.obj "What the hell is that?" Arnold said. "White rabbit? Is that supposed to be his private joke?" "It's marked as an object," Wu said. In computer terminology, an "object" was a block of code that could be moved around and used, the way you might move a chair in a room. An object might be a set of commands to draw a picture, or to refresh the screen, or to perform a certain calculation. "Let's see where it is in the code," Arnold said. "Maybe we can figure out what it does." He went to the program utilities and typed: FIND WHTE-RBT.OBJ The computer flashed back: OBJECT NOT FOUND IN LIBRARIES "It doesn't exist," Arnold said. "Then search the code listing," Wu said. Arnold typed: FIND/LISTINGS: WHTE-RBT.OBJ.
The screen scrolled rapidly, the lines of code blurring as they swept past. It continued this way for almost a minute, and then abruptly stopped. "There it is," Wu said. "It's not an object, it's a command." The screen showed an arrow pointing to a single line of code:
curv = GetHandl {ssm.dt} tempRgn {itm.dd2}.curh = GetHandl {ssd.itli} tempRgn2 {itm.dd4}.on DrawMeter(!gN) set shp-val.obi to lim(Val{d})-Xval.if ValidMeter(mH) (**mH).MeterVis return. if Meterband](vGT) ((DrawBack(tY)) return. limitDat.4 = maxbits (%33) to {limit 04} set on.limitDat.5 = setzero, setfive, 0 {limit .2-var(szb)}.on whte-rbt.obi call link.sst {security, perimeter} set to off.Vertrange={maxrange+setlim} tempVgn(fdn-&bb+$404).Horrange={maxRange-setlim/2} tempHgn(fdn-&dd+$105).void DrawMeter send-screen.obi print.
"Son of a bitch," Arnold said. Wu shook his head. "It isn't a bug in the code at all." "No," Arnold said. "It's a trap door. The fat bastard put in what looked like an object call, but it's actually a command that links the security and perimeter systems and then turns them off. Gives him complete access to every place in the park." "Then we must be able to turn them back on," Wu said. "Yeah, we must." Arnold frowned at the screen. "All we have to do is figure out the command. I'll run an execution trace on the link," he said. "We'll see where that gets us." Wu got up from his chair. "Meanwhile," he said, "meanwhile, that somebody went into the freezer about an hour ago. I think I better go count my embryos."
Ellie was in her room, about to change out of her wet clothes, when there was a knock on the door. "Alan?" she said, but when she opened the door she saw Muldoon standing there, with a plastic-wrapped package under his arm. Muldoon was also soaking wet, and there were streaks of dirt on his clothes. "I'm sorry, but we need your help," Muldoon said briskly. "The Land Cruisers were attacked an hour ago. We brought Malcolm back, but he's in shock. He's got a very bad injury to his leg. He's still unconscious, but I put him in the bed in his room. Harding is on his way over." "Harding?" she said. "What about the others?" "We haven't found the others yet, Dr. Sattler," Muldoon said. He was speaking slowly now. "Oh, my God." "But we think that Dr. Grant and the children are still alive. We think they went into the park, Dr. Sattler." "Went into the park?" "We think so. Meanwhile, Malcolm needshelp. I've called Harding." 'Shouldn't you call the doctor?" "There's no doctor on the island. Harding's the best we have." "But surely you can call for a doctor-" she said. "No." Muldoon shook his head. "Phone lines are down. We can't call out." He shifted the package in his arm. "What's that?" she said. "Nothing. Just go to Malcolm's room, and help Harding, if you will." And Muldoon was gone. She sat on her bed, shocked. Ellie Sattler was not a woman disposed to unnecessary panic, and she had known Grant to get out of dangerous situations before. Once he'd been lost in the badlands for four days when a cliff gave way beneath him and his truck fell a hundred feet into a ravine. Grant's right leg was broken. He had no water. But he walked back on a broken leg. On the other hand, the kids . . . She shook her head, pushing the thought away. The kids were probably with Grant. And if Grant was out in the park, well . . . what better person to get them safely through Jurassic Park than a dinosaur expert?
In the Park "I'm tired," Lex said. "Carry me, Dr. Grant." "You're too big to carry," Tim said. "But I'm tired," she said. "Okay, Lex," Grant said, picking her up. "Oof, you're heavy." It was almost 9:00 p.m. The full moon was blurred by drifting mist, and their blunted shadows led them across an open field, toward dark woods beyond. Grant was lost in thought, trying to decide where he was. Since they had originally crossed over the fence that the tyrannosaur had battered down, Grant was reasonably sure they were now somewhere in the tyrannosaur paddock. Which was a place he did not want to be. In his mind, he kept seeing the computer tracing of the tyrannosaur's home range, the tight squiggle of lines that traced his movements within a small area. He and the kids were in that area now. But Grant also remembered that the tyrannosaurs were isolated from all the other animals, which meant they would know they had left the paddock when they crossed a barrier-a fence, or a moat, or both. He had seen no barriers, so far. The girl put her head on his shoulder, and twirled her hair in her fingers. Soon she was snoring. Tim trudged alongside Grant. "How you holding up, Tim?" "Okay," he said. "But I think we might be in the tyrannosaur area." "I'm pretty sure we are. I hope we get out soon." "You going to go into the woods?" Tim said. As they came closer, the woods seemed dark and forbidding. "Yes," Grant said. "I think we can navigate by the numbers on the motion sensors." The motion sensors were green boxes set about four feet off the ground. Some were freestanding; most were attached to trees. None of them were working, because apparently the power was still off. Each sensor box had a glass lens mounted in the center, and a painted code number beneath that. Up ahead, in the mist-streaked moonlight, Grant could see a box marked T/S/04. They entered the forest. Huge trees loomed on all sides. In the moonlight, a low mist clung to the ground, curling around the roots of the trees. It was beautiful, but it made walking treacherous. And Grant was watching the sensors. They seemed to be numbered in descending order. He passed T/S/03, and T/S/02. Eventually they reached T/S/01. He was tired from carrying the girl, and he had hoped this would coincide with a boundary for the tyrannosaur paddock, but it was just another box in the middle of the woods. The next box after that was marked T/N/01, followed by T/N/02. Grant realized the numbers must be arranged geographically around a central point, like a compass. They were going from soutb to north, so the numbers got smaller as they approached the center, then got larger again. "At least we're going the right way," Tim said. "Good for you," Grant said. Tim smiled, and stumbled over vines in the mist. He got quickly to his feet. They walked on for a while. "My parents are getting a divorce," he said. "Uh-huh," Grant said. "My dad moved out last month. He has his own place in Mill Valley now. "Uh-huh." "He never carries my sister any more. He never even picks her up." "And he says you have dinosaurs on the brain," Grant said. Tim sighed. "Yeah." "You miss him?" Grant said. "Not really," Tim said. "Sometimes. She misses him more." "Who, your mother?" "No, Lex. My mom has a boyfriend. She knows him from work." They walked in silence for a while, passing T/N/03 and T/N/04. "Have you met him?" Grant said. "Yeah." "How is he?" "He's okay," Tim said. "He's younger than my dad, but he's bald." "How does he treat you?" "I don't know. Okay. I think he just tries to get on my good side. I don't know what's going to happen. Sometimes my mom says we'll have to sell the house and move. Sometimes he and my mom fight, late at night. I sit in my room and play with my computer, but I can still hear it." "Uh-huh," Grant said. "Are you divorced?" "No," Grant said. "My wife died a long time ago." "And now you're with Dr. Sattler?" Grant smiled in the darkness. "No. She's my student." "You mean she's still in school?" "Graduate school, yes." Grant paused long enough to shift Lex to his other shoulder, and then they continued on, past T/N/05 and T/N/06. There was the rumble of thunder in the distance. The storm had moved to the south. There was very little sound in the forest except for the drone of cicadas and the soft croaking of tree frogs. You have children?" Tim asked. "No," Crant said. "Are you going to marry Dr. Sattler?" "No, she's marrying a nice doctor in Chicago sometime next year. "Oh," Tim said. He seemed surprised to hear it. They walked along for a while. "Then who are you going to marry?" "I don't think I'm going to marry anybody," Grant said. "Me neither," Tim said. They walked for a while. Tim said, "Are we going to walk all night?" "I don't think I can," Grant said. "We'll have to stop, at least for a few hours." He glanced at his watch. "We're okay. We've got almost fifteen hours before we have to be back. Before the ship reaches the mainland." "Where are we going to stop?" Tim asked, immediately. Grant was wondering the same thing. His first thought was that thev might climb a tree, and sleep up there. But they would have to climb very high to get safely away from the animals, and Lex might fall out while she was asleep. And tree branches were hard; they wouldn't get any rest. At least, he wouldn't. They needed someplace really safe. He thought back to the plans he had seen on the jet coming down. He remembered that there were outlying buildings for each of the different divisions. Grant didn't know what they were like, because plans for the individual buildings weren't included. And he couldn't remember exactly where they were, but he remembered they were scattered all around the park. There might be buildings somewhere nearby. But that was a different requirement from simply crossing a barrier and getting out of the tyrannosaur paddock, Finding a building meant a search strategy of some kind. And the best strategies were- "Tim, can you hold your sister for me? I'm going to climb a tree and have a look around."
High in the branches, he had a good view of the forest, the tops of the trees extending away to his left and right. They were surprisingly near the edge of the forest-directly ahead the trees ended before a clearing, with an electrified fence and a pale concrete moat. Beyond that, a large open field in what he assumed was the sauropod paddock. In the distance, more trees, and misty moonlight sparkling on the ocean. Somewhere he heard the bellowing of a dinosaur, but it was far away. He put on Tim's night-vision goggles and looked again. He followed the gray curve of the moat, and then saw what he was looking for: the dark strip of a service road, leading to the flat rectangle of a roof. The roof was barely above ground level, but it was there. And it wasn't far. Maybe a quarter of a mile or so from the tree. When he came back down, Lex was sniffling. "What's the matter?" "I heard an aminal." "It won't bother us. Are you awake now? Come on." He led her to the fence. It was twelve feet high, with a spiral of barbed wire at the top. It seemed to stretch far above them in the moonligbt. The moat was immediately on the other side. Lex looked up at the fence doubtfully. "Can you climb it?" Grant asked her. She handed him her glove, and her baseball. "Sure. Easy." She started to climb. "But I bet Timmy can't." Tim spun in fury: "You shut up." "Timmy's afraid of heights." "I am not." She climbed higher. "Are so." "Am not." "Then come and get me." Grant turned to Tim, pale in the darkness. The boy wasn't moving. "You okay with the fence, Tim?" "Sure." "Want some help?" "Timmy's a fraidy-cat," Lex called. "What a stupid jerk," Tim said, and he started to climb.
"It's freezing," Lex said. They were standing waist-deep in smelly water at the bottom of a deep concrete moat. They had climbed the fence without incident, except that Tim had torn his shirt on the coils of barbed wire at the top. Then they had all slid down into the moat, and now Grant was looking for a way out. "At least I got Timmy over the fence for you," Lex said. "He really is scared most times." "Thanks for your help," Tim said sarcastically. In the moonlight, he could see floating lumps on the surface. He moved along the moat, looking at the concrete wall on the far side. The concrete was smooth; they couldn't possibly climb it. "Eww," Lex said, pointing to the water. "It won't hurt you, Lex." Grant finally found a place where the concrete had cracked and a vine grew down toward the water. He tugged on the vine, and it held his weight. "Let's go, kids." They started to climb the vine, back to the field above. It took only a few minutes to cross the field to the embankment leading to the below-grade service road, and the maintenance building off to the right. They passed two motion sensors, and Grant noticed with some uneasiness that the sensors were still not working, nor were the lights. More than two hours had passed since the power first went out, and it was not yet restored. Somewhere in the distance, they heard the tyrannosaur roar. "Is he around here?" Lex said. "No," Grant said. "We're in another section of park from him." They slid down a grassy embankment and moved toward the concrete building. In the darkness it was forbidding, bunker-like. "What is this place?" Lex said. "It's safe," Grant said, hoping that was true. The entrance gate was large enough to drive a truck through. It was fitted with heavy bars. Inside, they could see, the building was an open shed, with piles of grass and bales of bay stacked among equipment. The gate was locked with a heavy padlock. As Grant was examining it, Lex slipped sideways between the bars. "Come on, you guys." Tim followed her. "I think you can do it, Dr. Grant." He was right; it was a tight squeeze, but Grant was able to ease his body between the bars and get into the shed. As soon as he was inside, a wave of exhaustion struck him. "I wonder if there's anything to eat," Lex said. "Just hay." Grant broke open a bale, and spread it around on the concrete. The hay in the center was warm. They lay down, feeling the warmth. Lex curled up beside him, and closed her eyes. Tim put his arm around her. He heard the sauropods trumpeting softly in the distance. Neither child spoke. They were almost immediately snoring. Grant raised his arm to look at his watch, but it was too dark to see. He felt the warmth of the children against his own body. Grant closed his eves, and slept.
Control Muldoon and Gennaro came into the control room just as Arnold clapped his bands and said, "Got you, you little son of a bitch." "What is it?" Gennaro said, Arnold pointed to the screen:
Vgl = GetHandl {dat.dt} tempCall {itm.temp}Vg2 = GetHandl {dat.itl} tempCall {itm.temp}if Link(Vgl,Vg2) set Lim(Vgl,Vg2) returnif Link(Vg2,Vgl) set Lim(Vg2,Vgl) returnon whte_rbt.obj link set security (Vgl), perimeter (Vg2)limitDat.1 = maxbits (%22) to {limit .04} set onlimitDat.2 = setzero, setfive, 0 {limit .2-var(dzh)}on fini.obi call link.sst {security, perimeter} set to onon fini.obi set link.sst {security, perimeter} restoreon fini.obi delete line rf whte_rbt.obj, fini.objVgl = GetHandl {dat.dt} tempCall {itm.temp}Vg2 = GetHandl {dat.itl} tempCall {itm.temp}IimitDat.4 = maxbits (%33) to {limit .04} set onlimitDat.5 = setzero, setfive, 0 {limit .2-var(szh)} "That's it," Arnold said, pleased. "That's what?" Gennaro asked, staring at the screen. "I finally found the command to restore the original code. The command called 'fini.ob' resets the linked parameters, namely the fence and the power. "Good," Muldoon said. "But it does something else," Arnold said. "It then erases the code lines that refer to it. It destroys all evidence it was ever there. Pretty slick." Gennaro shook his head. "I don't know much about computers." Although he knew enough to know what it meant when a high-tech company went back to the source code. It meant big, big problems. "Well, watch this," Arnold said, and he typed in the command: FINI.OBJ The screen flickered and immediately changed.
Vg1 = GetHandl {dat.dt} tempCall {itm.temp}Vg2 = GetHandl {dat.itl} tempCall {itm.temp}if Link(Vgl,Vg2) set Lim(Vgl,Vg2) returnif Link(Vg2,Vgl) set Lim(Vg2,Vgl) returnlimitDat.1 = maxbits (%22) to {limit .04} set onlimitDat.2 = setzero, setfive, 0 {limit .2-var(dzh)}Vgl = GetHandl {dat.dt} tempCall {itm.temp}Vg2 = GetHandl {dat.itl} tempCall {itm.temp}IimitDat.4 = maxbits (%33) to {limit .04} set onlimitDat.5 = setzero, setfive, 0 {limit .2-var(szh)}
Muldoon pointed to the windows. "Look!" Outside, the big quartz lights were coming on throughout the park, They went to the windows and looked out. "Hot damn," Arnold said, Gennaro said, "Does this mean the electrified fences are back on?" "You bet it does," Arnold said. "It'll take a few seconds to get up to full power, because we've got fifty miles of fence out there, and the generator has to charge the capacitors along the way. But in half a minute we'll be back in business," Arnold pointed to the vertical glass see-through map of the park. On the map, bright red lines were snaking out from the power station, moving throughout the park, as electricity surged through the fences. "And the motion sensors?" Gennaro said. "Yes, them, too. It'll be a few minutes while the computer counts. But everything's working," Arnold said. "Half past nine, and we've got the whole damn thing back up and running."
Grant opened his eyes. Brilliant blue light was streaming into the building through the bars of the gate. Quartz light: the power was back on! Groggily, he looked at his watch. It was just nine-thirty. He'd been asleep only a couple of minutes. He decided he could sleep a few minutes more, and then he would go back up to the field and stand in front of the motion sensors and wave, setting them off. The control room would spot him; they'd send a car out to pick him and the kids up, he'd tell Arnold to recall the supply ship, and they'd all finish the night in their own beds back in the lodge. He would do that right away. In just a couple of minutes. He yawned, and closed his eyes again.
"Not bad," Arnold said in the control room, staring at the glowing map. "There's only three cutouts in the whole park. Much better than I hoped for." "Cutouts?" Gennaro said. "The fence automatically cuts out short-circuited sections," he explained. "You can see a big one here, in sector twelve, near the main road." "That's where the rex knocked the fence down," Muldoon said. "Exactly. And another one is here in sector eleven. Near the sauropod maintenance building." "Why would that section be out?" Gennaro said. "God knows," Arnold said. "Probably storm damage or a fallen tree. We can check It on the monitor in a while. The third one is over there by the jungle river. Don't know why that should be out, either." As Gennaro looked, the map became more complex, filling with green spots and numbers. "What's all this?" "The animals. The motion sensors are working again, and the computer's starting to identify the location of all the animals in the park. And anybody else, too." Gennaro stared at the map. "You mean Grant and the kids . . ." "Yes. We've reset our search number above four hundred. So, if they're out there moving around," Arnold said, "the motion sensors will pick them up as additional animals." He stared at the map. "But I don't see any additionals yet." "Why does it take so long?" Gennaro said. "You have to realize, Mr. Gennaro," Arnold said, "that there's a lot of extraneous movement out there. Branches blowing in the wind, birds flying around, all kinds of stuff. The computer has to eliminate all the background movement. It may take-ah. Okay. Count's finished." Gennaro said, "You don't see the kids?" Arnold twisted in his chair, and looked back to the map. "No," he said, "at the moment, there are no additionals on the map at all. Everything out there has been accounted for as a dinosaur. They're probably up in a tree, or somewhere else where we can't see them. I wouldn't worry yet. Several animals haven't shown up, like the big rex. That's probably because it's sleeping somewhere and not moving. The people may be sleeping, too. We just don't know." Muldoon shook his head. "We better get on with it," he said. "We need to repair the fences, and get the animals back into their paddocks. According to that computer, we've got five to herd back to the proper paddocks. I'll take the maintenance crews out now." Arnold turned to Gennaro. "You may want to see how Dr. Malcolm is doing. Tell Dr. Harding that Muldoon will need him in about an hour to supervise the herding. And I'll notify Mr. Hammond that we're starting our final cleanup."
Gennaro passed through the iron gates and went in the front door of the Safari Lodge. He saw Ellie Sattler coming down the hallway, carrying towels and a pan of steaming water. "There's a kitchen at the other end," she said. "We're using that to boil water for the dressings." "How is he?" Gennaro asked. "Surprisingly good," she said. Gennarro followed Ellie down to Malcolm's room, and was startled to hear the sound of laughter. The mathematician lay on his back in the bed, with Harding adjusting an IV line. "So the other man says, 'I'll tell you frankly, I didn't like it, Bill. I went back to toilet paper!'" Harding was laughing. "It's not bad, is it?" Malcolm said, smiling. "Ah. Mr. Gennaro. You've come to see me. Now you know what happens from trying to get a leg up on the situation." Gennaro came in, tentatively. Harding said, "He's on fairly high doses of morphine." "Not high enough, I can tell you," Malcolm said. "Christ, he's stingy with his drugs. Did they find the others yet?" "No, not yet," Gennaro said. "But I'm glad to see you doing so well." "How else should I be doing," Malcolm said, "with a compound fracture of the leg that is likely septic and beginning to smell rather, ah, pungent? But I always say, if you can't keep a sense of humor . . ." Gennaro smiled. "Do you remember what happened?" "Of course I remember," Malcolm said. "Do you think you could be bitten by a Tyrannosaurus rex and it would escape your mind? No indeed, I'll tell you, you'd remember it for the rest of your life. In my case, perhaps not a terribly long time. But, still-yes, I remember." Malcolm described running from the Land Cruiser in the rain, and being chased down by the rex. "It was my own damned fault, he was too close, but I was panicked. In any case, he picked me up in his jaws." "How?" Gennaro said. "Torso," Malcolm said, and lifted his shirt. A broad semicircle of bruised punctures ran from his shoulder to his navel. "Lifted me up in his jaws, shook me bloody hard, and threw me down. And I was fine-terrified of course, but, still and all, fine-right up to the moment he threw me. I broke the leg in the fall. But the bite was not half bad." He sighed. "Considering." Harding said, "Most of the big carnivores don't have strong jaws. The real power is in the neck musculature. The jaws just hold on, while they use the neck to twist and rip. But with a small creature like Dr. Malcolm, the animal would just shake him, and then toss him." "I'm afraid that's right," Malcolm said. "I doubt I'd have survived, except the big chap's heart wasn't in it. To tell the truth, he struck me as a rather clumsy attacker of anything less than an automobile or a small apartment building." "You think he attacked halfheartedly?" "It pains me to say it," Malcolm said, "but I don't honestly feel I had his full attention. He had mine, of course. But, then, he weighs eight tons. I don't. " Gennaro turned to Harding and said, "They're going to repair the fences now. Arnold says Muldoon will need your help herding animals." "Okay," Harding said. "So long as you leave me Dr. Sattler, and ample morphine," Malcolm said. "And so long as we do not have a Malcolm Effect here." "What's a Malcolm Effect?" Gennaro said. "Modesty forbids me," Malcolm said, "from telling you the details of a phenomenon named after me." He sighed again, and closed his eyes. In a moment, he was sleeping. Ellie walked out into the hallway with Gennaro. "Don't be fooled," she said. "It's a great strain on him. When will you have a helicopter here?" "A helicopter?" "He needs surgery on that leg. Make sure they send for a helicopter, and get him off this island."
The Park The portable generator sputtered and roared to life, and the quartz floodlights glowed at the ends of their telescoping arms. Muldoon heard the soft gurgle of the jungle river a few Yards to the north. He turned back to the maintenance van and saw one of the workmen coming out with a big power saw. "No, no," he said. "Just the ropes, Carlos. We don't need to cut it." He turned back to look at the fence. They had difficulty finding the shorted section at first, because there wasn't much to see: a small protocarpus tree was leaning against the fence. It was one of several that had been planted in this region of the park, their featherv branches intended to conceal the fence from view. But this particular tree had been tied down with guy wires and turnbuckles. The wires had broken free in the storm, and the metal turnbuckles had blown against the fence and shorted it out. Of course, none of this should have happened; grounds crews were supposed to use plastic-coated wires and ceramic turnbuckles near fences. But it had happened anyway. In any case, it wasn't going to be a big job. All they had to do was pull the tree off the fence, remove the metal fittings, and mark it for the gardeners to fix in the morning. It shouldn't take more than twenty minutes. And that was just as well, because Muldoon knew the dilophosaurs always stayed close to the river. Even though the workmen were separated from the river by the fence, the dilos could spit right through it, delivering their blinding poison. Ramon, one of the workmen, came over. "Senor Muldoon," he said, "did you see the lights?" "What lights?" Muldoon said. Ramon pointed to the east, through the jungle. "I saw it as we were coming out. It is there, very faint. You see it? It looks like the lights of a car, but it is not moving." Muldoon squinted. It probably was just a maintenance light. After all, power was back on. "We'll worry about it later," he said. "Right now let's just get that tree off the fence."
Arnold was in an expansive mood. The park was almost back in order. Muldoon was repairing the fences. Hammond had gone off to supervise the transfer of the animals with Harding. Although he was tired, Arnold was feeling good; he was even in a mood to indulge the lawyer, Gennaro. "The Malcolm Effect?" Arnold said. "You worried about that?" "I'm just curious," Gennaro said. "You mean you want me to tell you why Ian Malcolm is wrong?" "Sure." Arnold lit another cigarette. "It's technical." "Try me." "Okay," Arnold said. "Chaos theory describes nonlinear systems. It's now become a very broad theory that's been used to study everything from the stock market, to rioting crowds, to brain waves during epilepsy. A very fashionable theory. Very trendy to apply it to any complex system where there might be unpredictability. Okay?" "Okay," Gennaro said. "Ian Malcolm is a mathematician specializing in chaos theory. Quite amusing and personable, but basically what he does, besides wear black, is use computers to model the behavior of complex systems. And John Hammond loves the latest scientific fad, so he asked Malcolm to model the system at Jurassic Park. Which Malcolm did. Malcolm's models are all phase-space shapes on a computer screen. Have you seen them?" "No," Gennaro said. "Well, they look like a weird twisted ship's propeller. According to Malcolm, the behavior of any system follows the surface of the propeller. You with me?" "Not exactly," Gennaro said. Arnold held his hand in the air. "Let's say I put a drop of water on the back of my hand. That drop is going to run off my hand. Maybe it'll run toward my wrist. Maybe it'll run toward my thumb, or down between my fingers. I don't know for sure where it will go, but I know it will run somewhere along the surface of my hand. It has to." "Okay," Gennaro said. "Chaos theory treats the behavior of a whole system like a drop of water moving on a complicated propeller surface. The drop may spiral down, or slip outward toward the edge. It may do many different things, depending. But it will always move along the surface of the propeller." "Okay." "Malcolm's models tend to have a ledge, or a sharp incline, where the drop of water will speed up greatly. He modestly calls this speeding-up movement the Malcolm Effect. The whole system could suddenly collapse. And that was what he said about Jurassic Park. That it had inherent instability." "Inherent instability," Gennaro said. "And what did you do when you got his report?" "We disagreed with it, and ignored it, of course," Arnold said. "Was that wise?" "It's self-evident," Arnold said. "We're dealing with living systems, after all. This is life, not computer models."
In the harsh quartz lights, the hypsilophodont's green head hung down out of the sling, the tongue dangling, the eyes dull. "Careful! Careful!" Hammond shouted, as the crane began to lift. Harding grunted and eased the head back onto the leather straps. He didn't want to impede circulation through the carotid artery. The crane hissed as it lifted the animal into the air, onto the waiting flatbed truck. The hypsy was a small dryosaur, seven feet long, weighing about five hundred pounds. She was dark green with mottled brown spots. She was breathing slowly, but she seemed all right. Harding had shot her a few moments before with the tranquilizer gun, and apparently he had guessed the correct dose. There was always a tense moment dosing these big animals. Too little and they would run off into the forest, collapsing where you couldn't get to them. Too much and they went into terminal cardiac arrest. This one had taken a single bounding leap and keeled over. Perfectly dosed. "Watch it! Easy!" Hammond was shouting to the workmen. "Mr. Hammond," Harding said. "Please." "Well, they should be careful-" "They are being careful," Harding said. He climbed up onto the back of the flatbed as the hypsy came down, and he set her into the restraining harness. Harding slipped on the cardiogram collar that monitored heartbeat, then picked up the big electronic thermometer the size of a turkey baster and slipped it into the rectum. It beeped: 96.2 degrees. "How is she?" Hammond asked fretfully. "She's fine," Harding said. "She's only dropped a degree and a half." "That's too much," Hammond said. "Too deep." "You don't want her waking up and jumping off the truck," Harding snapped. Before coming to the park, Harding had been the chief of veterinary medicine at the San Diego Zoo, and the world's leading expert on avian care. He flew all over the world, consulting with zoos in Europe, India, and Japan on the care of exotic birds. He'd had no interest when this peculiar little man showed up, offering him a position in a private game park. But when he learned what Hammond had done ... It was impossible to pass up. Harding had an academic bent, and the prospect of writing the first Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine: Diseases of Dinosauria was compelling. In the late twentieth century, veterinary medicine was scientifically advanced- the best zoos ran clinics little different from hospitals. New textbooks were merely refinements of old. For a world-class practitioner, there were no worlds left to conquer. But to be the first to care for a whole new class of animals: that was something! And Harding had never regretted his decision, He had developed considerable expertise with these animals. And he didn't want to hear from Hammond now. The hypsy snorted and twitched. She was still breathing shallowly; there was no ocular reflex yet. But it was time to get moving. "All aboard," Harding shouted. "Let's get this girl back to her paddock."
"Living systems," Arnold said, "are not like mechanical systems. Living systems are never in equilibrium. They are inherently unstable. They may seem stable, but they're not. Everything is moving and changing. In a sense, everything is on the edge of collapse." Gennaro was frowning. "But lots of things don't change; body temperature doesn't change, all kinds of other-" "Body temperature changes constantly," Arnold said. "Constantly. It changes cyclically over twenty-four hours, lowest in the morning, highest in the afternoon. It changes with mood, with disease, with exercise, with outside temperature, with food. It continuously fluctuates up and down. Tiny jiggles on a graph. Because, at any moment, some forces are pushing temperature up, and other forces are pulling it down. It is inherently unstable. And every other aspect of living systems is like that, too." "So you're saying . . ." "Malcolm's just another theoretician," Arnold said. "Sitting in his office, he made a nice mathematical model, and it never occurred to him that what he saw as defects were actually necessities. Look: when I was working on missiles, we dealt with something called 'resonant yaw.' Resonant yaw meant that, even though a missile was only slightly unstable off the pad, it was hopeless. It was inevitably going to go out of control, and it couldn't be brought back. That's a feature of mechanical systems. A little wobble can get worse until the whole system collapses. But those same little wobbles are essential to a living system. They mean the system is healthy and responsive. Malcolm never understood that." "Are you sure he didn't understand that? He seems pretty clear on the difference between living and nonliving-" "Look," Arnold said. "The proof is right here." He pointed to the screens. "In less than an hour," he said, "the park will all be back on line. The only thing I've got left to clear is the telephones. For some reason, they're still out. But everything else will be working. And that's not theoretical. That's a fact."
The needle went deep into the neck, and Harding injected the medrine into the anesthetized female dryosaur as she lay on her side on the ground. Immediately the animal began to recover, snorting and kicking her powerful hind legs. "Back, everybody," Harding said, scrambling away. "Get back." The dinosaur staggered to her feet, standing drunkenly. She shook her lizard head, stared at the people standing back in the quartz lights, and blinked. "She's drooling," Hammond said, worried. "Temporary," Harding said. "It'll stop." The dryosaur coughed, and then moved slowly across the field, away from the lights. "Why isn't she hopping?" "She will," Harding said. "It'll take her about an hour to recover fully. She's fine." He turned back to the car. "Okay, boys, let's go deal with the stego."
Muldoon watched as the last of the stakes was pounded into the ground. The lines were pulled taut, and the protocarpus tree was lifted clear. Muldoon could see the blackened, charred streaks on the silver fence where the short had occurred. At the base of the fence, several ceramic insulators had burst. They would have to be replaced. But before that could be done, Arnold would to have to shut down all the fences. "Control. This is Muldoon. We're ready to begin repair." "All right," Arnold said. "Shutting out your section now." Muldoon glanced at his watch. Somewhere in the distance, he heard soft hooting. It sounded like owls, but he knew it was the dilophosaurs. He went over to Ramon and said, "Let's finish this up. I want to get to those other sections of fence."
An hour went by. Donald Gennaro stared at the glowing map in the control room as the spots and numbers flickered and changed. "What's happening now?" Arnold worked at the console. "I'm trying to get the phones back. So we can call about Malcolm." "No, I mean out there." Arnold glanced up at the board. "It looks as if they're about done with the animals, and the two sections. just as I told you, the park is back in band. With no catastrophic Malcolm Effect. In fact, there's just that third section of fence. . . ." "Arnold." It was Muldoon's voice. "Yes?" "Have you seen this bloody fence?" "Just a minute." On one of the monitors, Gennaro saw a high angle down on a field of grass, blowing in the wind. In the distance was a low concrete roof. "That's the sauropod maintenance building," Arnold explained. "It's one of the utility structures we use for equipment, feed storage, and so on. We have them all around the park, in each of the paddocks." On the monitor, the video image panned. "We're turning the camera now to get a look at the fence. . . ." Gennaro saw a shining wall of metallic mesh in the light. One section had been trampled, knocked flat. Muldoon's Jeep and work crew were there. "Huh," Arnold said. "Looks like the rex went into the sauropod paddock." Muldoon said, "Fine dining tonight." "We'll have to get him out of there," Arnold said. "With what?" Muldoon said. "We haven't got anything to use on a rex. I'll fix this fence, but I'm not going in there until daylight." "Hammond won't like it." "We'll discuss it when I get back," Muldoon said.
"How many sauropods will the rex kill?" Hammond said, pacing around the control room. "Probably just one," Harding said. "Sauropods are big; the rex can feed off a single kill for several days." "We have to go out and get him tonight," Hammond said. Muldoon shook his head. "I'm not going in there until daylight." Hammond was rising up and down on the balls of his feet, the way he did whenever he was angry. "Are you forgetting you work for me?" "No, Mr. Hammond, I'm not forgetting. But that's a full-grown adult tyrannosaur out there. How do you plan to get him?" "We have tranquilizer guns." "We have tranquilizer guns that shoot a twenty-cc dart," Muldoon said. "Fine for an animal that weighs four or five hundred pounds. That tyrannosaur weighs eight tons. It wouldn't even feel it." "You ordered a larger weapon. . . ." "I ordered three larger weapons, Mr. Hammond, but you cut the requisition, so we got only one. And it's gone. Nedry took it when he left." "That was pretty stupid. Who let that happen?" "Nedry's not my problem, Mr. Hammond," Muldoon said. "You're saying," Hammond said, "that, as of this moment, there is no way to stop the tyrannosaur?" "That's exactly what I'm saying," Muldoon said. "That's ridiculous," Hammond said. "It's your park, Mr. Hammond. You didn't want anybody to be able to injure your precious dinosaurs. Well, now you've got a rex in with the sauropods, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it." He left the room. "Just a minute," Hammond said, hurrying after him. Gennaro stared at the screens, and listened to the shouted argument in the hallway outside, He said to Arnold, "I guess you don't have control of the park yet, after all." "Don't kid yourself," Arnold said, lighting another cigarette. "We have the park. It'll be dawn in a couple of hours. We may lose a couple of dinos before we get the rex out of there, but, believe me, we have the park."
Dawn Grant was awakened by a loud grinding sound, followed by a mechanical clanking. He opened his eyes and saw a bale of bay rolling past him on a conveyor belt, up toward the ceiling. Two more bales followed it. Then the clanking stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and the concrete building was silent again. Grant yawned. He stretched sleepily, winced in pain, and sat up. Soft yellow light came through the side windows. It was morning: he had slept the whole night! He looked quickly at his watch: 5:00 a.m. Still almost six hours to go before the boat had to be recalled. He rolled onto his back, groaning. His head throbbed, and his body ached as if he had been beaten up. From around the corner, he heard a squeaking sound, like a rusty wheel. And then Lex giggling. Grant stood slowly, and looked at the building. Now that it was daylight, he could see it was some kind of a maintenance building, with stacks of hay and supplies. On the wall he saw a gray metal box and a stenciled sign: SAUROPOD MAINTENANCE BLDG (04). This must be the sauropod paddock, as he had thought. He opened the box and saw a telephone, but when he lifted the receiver he heard only hissing static. Apparently the phones weren't working yet. "Chew your food," Lex was saying. "Don't be a piggy, Ralph." Grant walked around the corner and found Lex by the bars, holding out handfuls of bay to an animal outside that looked like a large pink pig and was making the squeaking sounds Grant had heard. It was actually an infant triceratops, about the size of a pony. The infant didn't have horns on its head yet, just a curved bony frill behind big soft eyes. It poked its snout through the bars toward Lex, its eyes watching her as she fed it more hay. "That's better," Lex said. "There's plenty of hay, don't worry." She patted the baby on the head. "You like hay, don't you, Ralph?" Lex turned back and saw him. "This is Ralph," Lex said. "He's my friend. He likes hay." Grant took a step and stopped, wincing. "You look pretty bad," Lex said. "I feel pretty bad." "Tim, too. His nose is all swollen up." "Where is Tim?" "Peeing," she said. "You want to help me feed Ralph?" The baby triceratops looked at Grant. Hay stuck out of both sides of its mouth, dropping on the floor as it chewed. "He's a very messy eater," Lex said, "And he's very hungry." The baby finished chewing and licked its lips. It opened its mouth, waiting for more. Grant could see the slender sharp teeth, and the beaky upper jaw, like a parrot. "Okay, just a minute," Lex said, scooping up more straw from the concrete floor, "Honestly, Ralph," she said, "You'd think your mother never fed you." "Why is his name Ralph?" "Because he looks like Ralph. At school." Grant came closer and touched the skin of the neck gently. "It's okay, you can pet him," Lex said. "He likes it when you pet him, don't you, Ralph?" The skin felt dry and warm, with the pebbled texture of a football. Ralph gave a little squeak as Grant petted it. Outside the bars, its thick tail swung back and forth with pleasure. "He's pretty tame." Ralph looked from Lex to Grant as it ate, and showed no sign of fear. It reminded Grant that the dinosaurs didn't have ordinary responses to people. "Maybe I can ride him," Lex said. "Let's not." "I bet he'd let me," Lex said. "It'd be fun to ride a dinosaur." Grant looked out the bars past the animal, to the open fields of the sauropod compound. It was growing lighter every minute. He should go outside, he thought, and set off one of the motion sensors on the field above. After all, it might take the people in the control room an hour to get out here to him. And he didn't like the idea that the phones were still down. . . . He heard a deep snorting sound, like the snort of a very large horse, and suddenly the baby became agitated. It tried to pull its head back through the bars, but got caught on the edge of its frill, and it squeaked in fright. Tle snorting came again. It was closer this time. Ralph reared up on its hind legs, frantic to get out from between the bars, It wriggled its head back and forth, rubbing against the bars. "Ralph, take it easy," Lex said. "Push him out," Grant said. He reached up to Ralph's head and leaned against it, pushing the animal sideways and backward. The frill popped free and the baby fell outside the bars, losing its balance and flopping on its side. Then the baby was covered in shadow, and a huge leg came into view, thicker than a tree trunk. The foot had five curved toenails, like an elephant's. Ralph looked up and squeaked. A head came down into view: six feet long, with three long white horns, one above each of the large brown eyes and a smaller horn at the tip of the nose. It was a full-grown triceratops. The big animal peered at Lex and Grant, blinking slowly, and then turned its attention to Ralph. A tongue came out and licked the baby. Ralph squeaked and rubbed up against the big leg happily. "Is that his mom?" Lex said. "Looks like it," Grant said. "Should we feed the mom, too?" Lex said. But the big triceratops was already nudging Ralph with her snout, pushing the baby away from the bars. "Guess not." The infant turned away from the bars and walked off. From time to time, the big mother nudged her baby, guiding it away, as they both walked out into the fields. "Goodbye, Ralph," Lex said, waving. Tim came out of the shadows of the building. "Tell you what," Grant said. "I'm going up on the hill to set off the motion sensors, so they'll know to come get us. You two stay here and wait for me." "No," Lex said. "Why? Stay here. It's safe here." "You're not leaving us," she said. "Right, Timmy?" "Right," Tim said. "Okay," Grant said. They crawled through the bars, stepping outside.
It was just before dawn. The air was warm and humid, the sky soft pink and purple. A white mist clung low to the ground. Some distance away, they saw the mother triceratops and the baby moving away toward a herd of large duckbilled hadrosaurs, eating foliage from trees at the edge of the lagoon. Some of the hadrosaurs stood knee-deep in the water. They drank, lowering their flat heads, meeting their own reflections in the still water. Then they looked up again, their heads swiveling. At the water's edge, one of the babies ventured out, squeaked, and scrambled back while the adults watched indulgently. Farther South, other hadrosaurs were eating the lower vegetation. Sometimes they reared up on their hind legs, resting their forelegs on the tree trunks, so they could reach the leaves on higher branches. And in the far distance, a giant apatosaur stood above the trees, the tiny head swiveling on the long neck. The scene was so peaceful Grant found it bard to imagine any danger. "Yew!" Lex shouted, ducking. Two giant red dragonflies with six-foot wingspans bummed past them. "What was that?" "Dragonflies," he said. "The Jurassic was a time of huge insects." "Do they bite?" Lex said. "I don't think so," Grant said. Tim held out his band. One of the dragonflies lighted on it. He could feel the weight of the huge insect. "He's going to bite you," Lex warned. But the dragonfly just slowly flapped its red-veined transparent wings, and then, when Tim moved his arm, flew off again, "Which way do we go?" Lex said. "There." They started walking across the field. They reached a black box mounted on a heavy metal tripod, the first of the motion sensors. Grant stopped and waved his band in front of it back and forth, but nothing happened. If the phones didn't work, perhaps the sensors didn't work, either. "We'll try another one," he said, pointing across the field. Somewhere in the distance, they heard the roar of a large animal.
"Ah hell," Arnold said. "I just can't find it." He sipped coffee and stared bleary-eyed at the screens. He had taken all the video monitors off line. In the control room, he was searching the computer code. He was exhausted; he'd been working for twelve straight hours. He turned to Wu, who had come up from the lab. "Find what?" "The phones are still out. I can't get them back on. I think Nedry did something to the phones." Wu lifted one phone, heard hissing. "Sounds like a modem." "But it's not," Arnold said. "Because I went down into the basement and shut off all the modems. What you're hearing is just white noise that sounds like a modem transmitting." "So the phone lines are jammed?" "Basically, yes. Nedry jammed them very well. He's inserted some kind of a lockout into the program code, and now I can't find it, because I gave that restore command which erased part of the program listings. But apparently the command to shut off the phones is still resident in the computer memory." Wu shrugged. "So? Just reset: shut the system down and you'll clear memory. "I've never done it before," Arnold said. "And I'm reluctant to do it. Maybe all the systems will come back on start-up-but maybe they won't. I'm not a computer expert, and neither are you. Not really. And without an open phone line, we can't talk to anybody who is." "If the command is RAM-resident, it won't show up in the code. You can do a RAM dump and search that, but you don't know what you're searching for. I think all you can do is reset." Gennaro stormed in. "We still don't have any telephones." "Working on it." "You've been working on it since midnight. And Malcolm is worse. He needs medical attention." "It means I'll have to shut down," Arnold said. "I can't be sure everything will come back on." Gennaro said, "Look. There's a sick man over in that lodge. He needs a doctor or he'll die. You can't call for a doctor unless you have a phone. Four people have probably died already. Now, shut down and get the phones working!" Arnold hesitated. "Well?" Gennaro said. "Well, it's just . . . the safety systems don't allow the computer to be shut down, and-" "Then turn the goddamn safety systems off! Can't you get it through your head that he's going to die unless he gets help?" "Okay," Arnold said. He got up and went to the main panel. He opened the doors, and uncovered the metal swing-latches over the safety switches. He popped them off, one after another. "You asked for it," Arnold said. "And you got it." He threw the master switch. The control room was dark. All the monitors were black, The three men stood there in the dark. "How long do we have to wait?" Gennaro said. "Thirty seconds," Arnold said.
"P-U!" Lex said, as they crossed the field. "What?" Grant said. "That smell!" Lex said. "It stinks like rotten garbage." Grant hesitated. He stared across the field toward the distant trees, looking for movement. He saw nothing. There was hardly a breeze to stir the branches. It was peaceful and silent in the early morning. "I think it's your imagination," he said. "Is not-" Then he heard the honking sound. It came from the herd of duckbilled hadrosaurs behind them. First one animal, then another and another, until the whole herd had taken up the honking cry. The duckbills were agitated, twisting and turning, hurrying out of the water, circling the young ones to protect them. . . . They smell it, too, Grant thought. With a roar, the tyrannosaur burst from the trees fifty yards away, near the lagoon. It rushed out across the open field with huge strides. It ignored them, heading toward the herd of hadrosaurs. "I told you!" Lex screamed. "Nobody listens to me!" In the distance, the duckbills were honking and starting to run. Grant could feel the earth shake beneath his feet. "Come on, kids!" He grabbed Lex, lifting her bodily off the ground, and ran with Tim through the grass. He had glimpses of the tyrannosaur down by the lagoon, lunging at the hadrosaurs, which swung their big tails in defense and bonked loudly and continuously. He heard the crashing of foliage and trees, and when he looked over again, the duckbills were charging.
In the darkened control room, Arnold checked his watch. Thirty seconds. The memory should be cleared by now. He pushed the main power switch back on. Nothing happened. Arnold's stomach heaved. He pushed the switch off, then on again. Still nothing happened. He felt sweat on his brow. "What's wrong?" Gennaro said. "Oh hell," Arnold said. Then he remembered you had to turn the safety swiitches back on before you restarted the power. He flipped on the three safeties, and covered them again with the latch covers. Then he held his breath, and turned the main power switch. The room lights came on. The computer beeped. The screens hummed. "Thank God," Arnold said. He hurried to the main monitor. There were rows of labels on the screen:[picture]
Gennaro reached for the phone, but it was dead. No static hissing this time-just nothing at all. "What's this?" "Give me a second," Arnold said. "After a reset, all the system modules have to be brought on line manually." Quickly, he went back to work. "Why manually?" Gennaro said. "Will you just let me work, for Christ's sake?" Wu said, "The system is not intended to ever shut down. So, if it does shut down, it assumes that there is a problem somewhere. It requires you to start up everything manually, Otherwise, if there were a short somewhere, the system would start up, short out, start up again, short out again, in an endless cycle." Okay," Arnold said. "We're going." Gennaro picked up the phone and started to dial, when he suddenly stopped. "Jesus, look at that," he said. He pointed to one of the video monitors. But Arnold wasn't listening, He was staring at the map, where a tight cluster of dots by the lagoon had started to move in a coordinated way. Moving fast, in a kind of swirl. "What's happening?" Gennaro said. "The duckbills," Arnold said tonelessly. "They've stampeded."
The duckbills charged with surprising speed, their enormous bodies in a tight cluster, honking and roaring, the infants squealing and trying to stay out from underfoot. The herd raised a great cloud of yellow dust. Grant couldn't see the tyrannosaur. The duckbills were running right toward them. Still carrying Lex, he ran with Tim toward a rocky outcrop, with a stand of big conifers. They ran hard, feeling the ground shake beneath their feet. The sound of the approaching herd was deafening, like the sound of jets at an airport. It filled the air, and hurt their ears. Lex was shouting something, but he couldn't hear what she was saying, and as they scrambled onto the rocks, the herd closed in around them. Grant saw the immense legs of the first hadrosaurs that charged past, each animal weighing five tons, and then they were enveloped in a cloud so dense he could see nothing at all. He had the impression of huge bodies, giant limbs, bellowing cries of pain as the animals wheeled and circled. One duckbill struck a boulder and it rolled past them, out into the field beyond. In the dense cloud of dust, they could see almost nothing beyond the rocks. They clung to the boulders, listening to the screams and honks, the menacing roar of the tyrannosaur. Lex dug her fingers into Grant's shoulder. Another hadrosaur slammed its big tail against the rocks, leaving a splash of hot blood. Grant waited until the sounds of the fighting had moved off to the left, and then he pushed the kids to start climbing the largest tree. They climbed swiftly, feeling for the branches, as the animals stampeded all around them in the dust. They went up twenty feet, and then Lex clutched at Grant and refused to go farther. Tim was tired, too, and Grant thought they were high enough. Through the dust, they could see the broad backs of the animals below as they wheeled and bonked. Grant propped himself against the coarse bark of the trunk, coughed in the dust, closed his eyes, and waited.
Arnold adjusted the camera as the herd moved away. The dust slowly cleared. He saw that the hadrosaurs had scattered, and the tyrannosaur had stopped running, which could only mean it had made a kill. The tyrannosaur was now near the lagoon. Arnold looked at the video monitor and said, "Better get Muldoon to go out there and see how bad it is." "I'll get him," Gennaro said, and left the room.
The Park A faint crackling sound, like a fire in a fireplace. Something warm and wet tickled Grant's ankle. He opened his eyes and saw an enormous beige head. The head tapered to a flat mouth shaped like the bill of a duck. The eyes, protruding above the flat duckbill, were gentle and soft like a cow's. The duck mouth opened and chewed branches on the limb where Grant was sitting. He saw large flat teeth in the check. The warm lips touched his ankle again as the animal chewed. A duckbilled hadrosaur. He was astonished to see it up close. Not that he was afraid; all the species of duckbilled dinosaurs were herbivorous, and this one acted exactly like a cow. Even though it was huge, its manner was so calm and peaceful Grant didn't feel threatened. He stayed where he was on the branch, careful not to move, and watched as it ate. The reason Grant was astonished was that he had a proprietary feeling about this animal: it was probably a maiasaur, from the late Cretaceous in Montana. With John Horner, Grant had been the first to describe the species. Maiasaurs had an upcurved lip, which gave them the appearance of smiling. The name meant "good mother lizard"; maiasaurs were thought to protect their eggs until the babies were born and could take care of themselves. Grant heard an insistent chirping, and the big head swung down. He moved just enough to see the baby hadrosaur scampering around the feet of the adult. The baby was dark beige with black spots. The adult bent her head low to the ground and waited, unmoving, while the baby stood up on its hind legs, resting its front legs on the mother's jaw, and ate the branches that protruded from the side of the mother's mouth. The mother waited patiently until the baby had finished eating, and dropped back down to all fours again. Then the big head came back up toward Grant. The hadrosaur continued to eat just a few feet from him. Grant looked at the two elongated airholes on top of the flat upper bill. Apparently the dinosaur couldn't smell Grant. And even though the left eye was looking right at him, for some reason the hadrosaur didn't react to him. He remembered how the tyrannosaur had failed to see him, the previous night. Grant decided on an experiment. He coughed. Instantly the hadrosaur froze, the big head suddenly still, the jaws no longer chewing. Only the eye moved, looking for the source of the sound. Then, after a moment, when there seemed to be no danger, the animal resumed chewing. Amazing, Grant thought. Sitting in his arms, Lex opened her eyes and said, "Hey, what's that?" The hadrosaur trumpeted in alarm, a loud resonant bonk that so startled Lex that she nearly fell out of the tree. The hadrosaur pulled its head away from the branch and trumpeted again. "Don't make her mad," Tim said, from the branch above. The baby chirped and scurried beneath the mother's legs as the hadrosaur stepped away from the tree. The mother cocked her head and peered inquisitively at the branch where Grant and Lex were sitting. With its upturned smiling lips, the dinosaur had a comical appearance. "Is it dumb?" Lex said. "No," Grant said. "You just surprised her." "Well," Lex said, "is she going to let us get down, or what?" The hadrosaur had backed ten feet away from the tree. She bonked again. Grant had the impression she was trying to frighten them away. But the dinosaur didn't really seem to know what to do. She acted confused and uneasy. They waited in silence, and after a minute the hadrosaur approached the branch again, jaws moving in anticipation. She was clearly going to resume eating. "Forget it," Lex said. "I'm not staying here." She started to climb down the branches. At her movement, the hadrosaur trumpeted in fresh alarm. Grant was amazed. He thought, It really can't see us when we don't move. And after a minute it literally forgets that we're here. This was just like the tyrannosaur-another classic example of an amphibian visual cortex. Studies of frogs had shown that amphibians only saw moving things, like insects. If something didn't move, they literally didn't see it. The same thing seemed to be true of dinosaurs. In any case, the maiasaur now seemed to find these strange creatures climbing down the tree too upsetting. With a final honk, she nudged her baby, and lumbered slowly away. She paused once, and looked back at them, then continued on. They reached the ground. Lex shook herself off. Both children were covered in a layer of fine dust. All around them, the grass had been flattened. There were streaks of blood, and a sour smell. Grant looked at his watch. "We better get going, kids," he said. "Not me," Lex said. "I'm not walking out there any more." "We have to." "Why?" "Because," Grant said, "we have to tell them about the boat. Since they can't seem to see us on the motion sensors, we have to go all the way back ourselves. It's the only way." "Why can't we take the raft?" Tim said. "What raft?" Tim pointed to the low concrete maintenance building with the bars, where they had spent the night. It was twenty yards away, across the field. "I saw a raft back there," he said. Grant immediately understood the advantages. It was now seven o'clock in the morning. They had at least eight miles to go. If they could take a raft along the river, they would make much faster progress than going overland. "Let's do it," Grant said.
Arnold punched the visual search mode and watched as the monitors began to scan throughout the park, the images changing every two seconds. It was tiring to watch, but it was the fastest way to find Nedry's Jeep, and Muldoon had been adamant about that. He had gone out with Gennaro to look at the stampede, but now that it was daylight, he wanted the car found. He wanted the weapons. His intercom clicked. "Mr. Arnold, may I have a word with you, please?" It was Hammond. He sounded like the voice of God. "You want to come here, Mr. Hammond?" "No, Mr. Arnold," Hammond said. "Come to me. I'm in the genetics lab with Dr. Wu. We'll be waiting for you." Arnold sighed, and stepped away from the screens.
Grant stumbled deep in the gloomy recesses of the building. He pushed past five-gallon containers of herbicide, tree-pruning equipment, spare tires for a Jeep, coils of cyclone fencing, hundred-pound fertilizer bags, stacks of brown ceramic insulators, empty motor-oil cans, work lights and cables. "I don't see any raft." "Keep going." Bags of cement, lengths of copper pipe, green mesb . . . and two plastic oars bung on clips on the concrete wall. "Okay," he said, "but where's the raft?" "It must be here somewhere," Tim said. "You never saw a raft?" "No, I just assumed it was here." Poking among the junk, Grant found no raft. But he did find a set of plans, rolled up and speckled with mold from humidity, stuck back in a metal cabinet on the wall. He spread the plans on the floor, brushing away a big spider. He looked at them for a long time. "I'm hungry. . . ." "Just a minute." They were detailed topographical charts for the main area of the island, where they now were. According to this, the lagoon narrowed into the river they had seen earlier, which twisted northward . . . right through the aviary . . . and on to within a half-mile of the visitor lodge. He flipped back through the pages. How to get to the lagoon? According to the plans, there should be a door at the back of the building they were in. Grant looked up, and saw it, recessed back in the concrete wall. The door was wide enough for a car. Opening it, he saw a paved road running straight down toward the lagoon. The road was dug below ground level, so it couldn't be seen from above. It must be another service road. And it led to a dock at the edge of the lagoon. And clearly stenciled on the dock was RAFT STORAGE. "Hey," Tim said, "look at this." He held out a metal case to Grant. Opening it, Grant found a compressed-air pistol and a cloth belt that held darts. There were six darts in all, each as thick as his finger. Labeled MORO-709. "Good Work, Tim." He slung the belt around his shoulder, and stuck the gun in his trousers. "Is it a tranquilizer gun?" "I'd say so." "What about the boat?" Lex said. "I think it's on the dock," Grant said. They started down the road. Grant carried the oars on his shoulder. "I hope it's a big raft," Lex said, "because I can't swim." "Don't worry," he said. "Maybe we can catch some fish," she said. They walked down the road with the sloping embankment rising up on both sides of them. They heard a deep rhythmic snorting sound, but Grant could not see where it was coming from. "Are you sure there's a raft down here?" Lex said, wrinkling her nose. "Probably," Grant said. The rhythmic snorting became louder as they walked, but they also heard a steady droning, buzzing sound. When they reached the end of the road, at the edge of the small concrete dock, Grant froze in shock. The tyrannosaur was right there. It was sitting upright in the shade of a tree, its hind legs stretched out in front. Its eyes were open but it was not moving, except for its head, which lifted and fell gently with each snorting sound. The buzzing came from the clouds of flies that surrounded it, crawling over its face and slack jaws, its bloody fangs, and the red haunch of a killed hadrosaur that lay on its side behind the tyrannosaur. The tyrannosaur was only twenty yards away. Grant felt sure it must have seen him, but the big animal did not respond. It just sat there. It took him a moment to realize: the tyrannosaur was asleep. Sitting up, but asleep. He signaled to Tim and Lex to stay where they were. Grant walked slowly forward onto the dock, in full view of the tyrannosaur. The big animal continued to sleep, snoring softly. Near the end of the dock, a wooden shed was painted green to blend with the foliage. Grant quietly unlatched the door and looked inside. He saw a half-dozen orange life vests hanging on the wall, several rolls of wire-mesh fencing, some coils of rope, and twob ig rubber cubes sitting on the floor. The cubes were strapped tight with flat rubber belts. Rafts. He looked back at Lex. She mouthed: No boat He nodded, Yes. The tyrannosaur raised its forelimb to swipe at the flies buzzing around its snout. But otherwise it did not move. Grant pulled one of the cubes out onto the dock. It was surprisingly heavy. He freed the straps, found the inflation cylinder. With a loud hiss, the rubber began to expand, and then with a hiss-whap! it popped fully open on the dock. The sound was fearfully loud in their ears. Grant turned, stared up at the dinosaur. The tyrannosaur grunted, and snorted. It began to move. Grant braced himself to run, but the animal shifted its ponderous bulk and then it settled back against the tree trunk and gave a long, growling belch. Lex looked disgusted, waving her hand in front of her face. Grant was soaked in sweat from the tension. He dragged the rubber raft across the dock. It flopped into the water with a loud splash. The dinosaur continued to sleep. Grant tied the boat up to the dock, and returned to the shed to take out two life preservers. He put these in the boat, and then waved for the kids to come out onto the dock. Pale with fear, Lex waved back, No. He gestured: Yes. The tyrannosaur continued to sleep. Grant stabbed in the air with an emphatic finger. Lex came silently, and he gestured for her to get into the raft; then Tim got in, and they both put on their life vests. Grant got in and pushed off. The raft drifted silently out into the lagoon. Grant picked up his paddles and fitted them into the oarlocks. They moved farther from the dock. Lex sat back, and sighed loudly with relief. Then she looked stricken, and put her band over her mouth. Her body shook, with muffled sounds: she was suppressing a cough. She always coughed at the wrong times! "Lex," Tim whispered fiercely, looking back toward the shore. She shook her head miserably, and pointed to her throat. He knew what she meant: a tickle in her throat. What she needed was a drink of water. Grant was rowing, and Tim leaned over the side of the raft and scooped his hand in the lagoon, holding his cupped hand toward her. Lex coughed loudly, explosively. In Tim's ears, the sound echoed across the water like a gunshot. The tyrannosaur yawned lazily, and scratched behind its ear with its hind foot, just like a dog. It yawned again. It was groggy after its big meal, and it woke up slowly. On the boat, Lex was making little gargling sounds. "Lex, shut up!" Tim said. "I can't help it," she whispered, and then she coughed again. Grant rowed hard, moving the raft powerfully into the center of the lagoon. On the shore, the tyrannosaur stumbled to its feet. "I couldn't help it, Timmy!" Lex shrieked miserably. "I couldn't help it!" "Shhhh!" Grant was rowing as fast as he could. "Anyway, it doesn't matter," she said. "We're far enough away. He can't swim. "Of course he can swim, you little idiot!" Tim shouted at her. On the shore, the tyrannosaur stepped off the dock and plunged into the water. It moved strongly into the lagoon after them. "Well, how should I know?" she said. "Everybody knows tyrannosaurs can swim! It's in all the books! Anyway, all reptiles can swim!" "Snakes can't." "Of course snakes can. You idiot!" "Settle down," Grant said. "Hold on to something!" Grant was watching the tyrannosaur, noticing how the animal swam. The tyrannosaur was now chest-deep in the water, but it could hold its big head high above the surface. Then Grant realized the animal wasn't swimming, it was walking, because moments later only the very top of the head-the eyes and nostrils-protruded above the surface. By then it looked like a crocodile, and it swam like a crocodile, swinging its big tail back and forth, so the water churned behind it. Behind the head, Grant saw the hump of the back, and the ridges along the length of tail, as it occasionally broke the surface. Exactly like a crocodile, he thought unhappily. The biggest crocodile in the world. "I'm sorry, Dr. Grant!" Lex wailed. "I didn't mean it!" Grant glanced over his shoulder. The lagoon was no more than a hundred yards wide here, and they had almost reached the center. If he continued, the water would become shallow again. The tyrannosaur would be able to walk again, and he would move faster in shallow water. Grant swung the boat around, and began to row north. "What are you doing?" The tyrannosaur was now just a few yards away. Grant could hear its sharp snorting breaths as it came closer. Grant looked at the paddles in his hands, but they were light plastic-not weapons at all. The tyrannosaur threw its head back and opened its jaws wide, showing rows of curved teeth, and then in a great muscular spasm lunged forward to the raft, just missing the rubber gunwale, the huge skull slapping down, the raft rocking away on the crest of the splash. The tyrannosaur sank below the surface, leaving gurgling bubbles. The lagoon was still. Lex gripped the gunwale handles and looked back. "Did he drown?" "No," Grant said. He saw bubbles-then a faint ripple along the surface-coming toward the boat- "Hang on!" he shouted, as the head bucked up beneath the rubber, bending the boat and lifting it into the air, spinning them crazily before it splashed down again. "Do something!" Alexis screamed. "Do something!" Grant pulled the air pistol out of his belt. It looked pitifully small in his hands, but there was the chance that, if he shot the animal in a sensitive spot, in the eye or the nose- The tyrannosaur surfaced beside the boat, opened its jaws, and roared. Grant aimed, and fired. The dart flashed in the light, and smacked into the cheek. The tyrannosaur shook its head, and roared again. And suddenly they heard an answering roar, floating across the water toward them. Looking back, Grant saw the juvenile T-rex on the shore, crouched over the killed sauropod, claiming the kill as its own. The juvenile slashed at the carcass, then raised its head high and bellowed. The big tyrannosaur saw it, too, and the response was immediate-it turned back to protect its kill, swimming strongly toward the shore. "He's going away!" Lex squealed, clapping her hands. "He's going away! Naah-naah-na-na-naah! Stupid dinosaur!" From the shore, the juvenile roared defiantly. Enraged, the big tyrannosaur burst from the lagoon at full speed, water streaming from its enormous body as it raced up the hill past the dock. The juvenile ducked its head and fled, its jaws still filled with ragged flesh. The big tyrannosaur chased it, racing past the dead sauropod, disappearing over the hill. They heard its final threatening bellow, and then the raft moved to the north, around a bend in the lagoon, to the river. Exhausted from rowing, Grant collapsed back, his chest heaving. He couldn't catch his breath. He lay gasping in the raft. "Are you okay, Dr. Grant?" Lex asked. "From now on, will you just do what I tell you?" 'Oh-kay, " she sighed, as if he had just made the most unreasonable demand in the world. She trailed her arm in the water for a while. "You stopped rowing," she said. "I'm tired," Grant said. "Then how come we're still moving?" Grant sat up. She was right. The raft drifted steadily north. "There must be a current." The current was carrying them north, toward the hotel. He looked at his watch and was astonished to see it was fifteen minutes past seven. Only fifteen minutes had passed since he had last looked at his watch. It seemed like two hours. Grant lay back against the rubber gunwales, closed his eyes, and slept.
FIFTH ITERATION.
[picture]
"Flaws in the system will now become severe."
IAN MALCOM.
Search Gennaro sat in the Jeep and listened to the buzzing of the flies, and stared at the distant palm trees wavering in the heat. He was astonished by what looked like a battleground: the grass was trampled flat for a hundred yards in every direction. One big palm tree was uprooted from the ground. There were great washes of blood in the grass, and on the rocky outcropping to their right. Sitting beside him, Muldoon said, "No doubt about it. Rexy's been among the hadrosaurs." He took another drink of whiskey, and capped the bottle. "Damn lot of flies," he said. They waited, and watched. Gennaro drummed his fingers on the dashboard. "What are we waiting for?" Muldoon didn't answer immediately. "The rex is out there somewhere," he said, squinting at the landscape in the morning sun. "And we don't have any weapons worth a damn." "We're in a Jeep." "Oh, he can outrun the Jeep, Mr. Gennaro," Muldoon said, shaking his head. "Once we leave this road and go onto open terrain, the best we can do in a four-wheel drive is thirty, forty miles an hour. He'll run us right down. No problem for him." Muldoon sighed. "But I don't see much moving out there now. You ready to live dangerously?" "Sure," Gennaro said. Muldoon started the engine, and at the sudden sound, two small othnielians leapt up from the matted grass directly ahead. Muldoon put the car in gear. He drove in a wide circle around the trampled site, and then moved inward, driving in decreasing concentric circles until he finally came to the place in the field where the little othnielians had been. Then he got out and walked forward in the grass, away from the Jeep. He stopped as a dense cloud of flies lifted into the air. "What is it?" Gennaro called. "Bring the radio," Muldoon said. Gennaro climbed out of the Jeep and hurried forward. Even from a distance he could smell the sour-sweet odor of early decay. He saw a dark shape in the grass, crusted with blood, legs askew. "Young hadrosaur," Muldoon said, staring down at the carcass. "The whole herd stampeded, and the young one got separated, and the T-rex brought it down." "How do you know?" Gennaro said. The flesh was ragged from many bites. "You can tell from the excreta," Muldoon said. "See those chalky white bits there in the grass? That's hadro spoor. Uric acid makes it white. But you look there"-he pointed to a large mound, rising knee-high in the grass-"that's tyrannosaur spoor." "How do you know the tyrannosaur didn't come later?" "The bite pattern," Muldoon said. "See those little ones there?" He pointed along the belly. "Those are from the othys. Those bites haven't bled. They're postmortem, from scavengers. Othys did that. But the hadro was brought down by a bite on the neck-you see the big slash there, above the shoulder blades-and that's the T-rex, no question." Gennaro bent over the carcass, staring at the awkward, trampled limbs with a sense of unreality. Beside him, Muldoon flicked on his radio. "Control. " "Yes," John Arnold said, over the radio. "We got another hadro dead. Juvenile." Muldoon bent down among the flies and checked the skin on the sole of the right foot. A number was tattooed there, "Specimen is number HD/09." The radio crackled. "I've got something for you," Arnold said. "Oh? What's that?" "I found Nedry."
The Jeep burst through the line of palm trees along the east road and came out into a narrower service road, leading toward the jungle river. It was hot in this area of the park, the jungle close and fetid around them. Muldoon was fiddling with the computer monitor in the Jeep, which now showed a map of the resort with overlaid grid lines. "They found him up on remote video," he said. "Sector 1104 is just ahead." Farther up the road, Gennaro saw a concrete barrier, and the Jeep parked alongside it. "He must have taken the wrong turnoff," Muldoon said. "The little bastard." "What'd he take?" Gennaro asked. "Wu says fifteen embryos. Know what that's worth?" Gennaro shook his head. "Somewhere between two and ten million," Muldoon said. He shook his head. "Big stakes." As they came closer, Gennaro saw the body lying beside the car. The body was indistinct and green-but then green shapes scattered away, as the Jeep pulled to a stop. "Compys," Muldoon said. "The compys found him," A dozen procompsognathids, delicate little predators no larger than ducks, stood at the edge of the jungle, chittering excitedly as the men climbed out of the car. Dennis Nedry lay on his back, the chubby boyish face now red and bloated. Flies buzzed around the gaping mouth and thick tongue. His body was mangled-the intestines torn open, one leg chewed through. Gennaro turned away quickly, to look at the little compys, which squatted on their hind legs a short distance away and watched the men curiously. The little dinosaurs had five-fingered hands, he noticed. They wiped their faces and chins, giving them an eerily human quality which- "I'll be damned," Muldoon said. "Wasn't the compys." "What?" Muldoon was shaking his head. "See these blotches? On his shirt and his face? Smell that sweet smell like old, dried vomit?" Gennaro rolled his eyes. He smelled it. "That's dilo saliva," Muldoon said. "Spit from the dilophosaurs. You see the damage on the corneas, all that redness. In the eyes it's painful but not fatal. You've got about two hours to wash it out with the antivenin; we keep it all around the park, just in case. Not that it mattered to this bastard. They blinded him, then ripped him down the middle. Not a nice way to go. Maybe there's justice in the world after all." The procompsognatbids squeaked and hopped up and down as Gennaro opened the back door and took out gray metal tubing and a stainless-steel case. "It's all still there," he said. He handed two dark cylinders to Gennaro. "What're these?" Gennaro said. "Just what they look like," Muldoon said. "Rockets." As Gennaro backed away, he said, "Watch it-you don't want to step in something." Gennaro stepped carefully over Nedry's body. Muldoon carried the tubing to the other Jeep, and placed it in the back. He climbed behind the wheel. "Let's go." "What about him?" Gennaro said, pointing to the body. "What about him?" Muldoon said. "We've got things to do." He put the car in gear. Looking back, Gennaro saw the compys resume their feeding. One jumped up and squatted on Nedry's open mouth as it nibbled the flesh of his nose.
The jungle river became narrower. The banks closed in on both sides until the trees and foliage overhanging the banks met high above to block out the sun. Tim heard the cry of birds, and saw small chirping dinosaurs leaping among the branches. But mostly it was silent, the air hot and still beneath the canopy of trees. Grant looked at his watch. It was eight o'clock. They drifted along peacefully, among dappled patches of light. If anything, they seemed to be moving faster than before. Awake now, Grant lay on his back and stared up at the branches overhead. In the how, he saw her reaching up. "Hey, wbat're you doing?" he said. "You think we can eat these berries?" She pointed to the trees. Some of the overhanging branches were close enough to touch. Tim saw clusters of bright red berries on the branches. "No," Grant said. "Why? Those little dinosaurs are eating them." She pointed to small dinosaurs, scampering in the branches. "No, Lex." She sighed, dissatisfied with his authority. "I wish Daddy was here," she said. "Daddy always knows what to do." "What're you talking about?" Tim said. "He never knows what to do." "Yes, he does," she sighed. Lex stared at the trees as they slid past, their big roots twisting toward the water's edge. "Just because you're not his favorite . . ." Tim turned away, said nothing. "But don't worry, Daddy likes you, too. Even if you're into computers and not sports." "Dad's a real sports nut," Tim explained to Grant. Grant nodded. Up in the branches, small pale yellow dinosaurs, barely two feet tall, hopped from tree to tree. They had beaky heads, like parrots. "You know what they call those?" Tim said. "Microceratops." "Big deal," Lex said. "I thought you might be interested." "Only very young boys," she said, "are interested in dinosaurs." "Says who?" "Daddy." Tim started to yell, but Grant raised his band. "Kids," he said, "shut up." "Why?" Lex said, "I can do what I want, if I-" Then she fell silent, because she heard it, too. It was a bloodcurdling shriek, from somewhere downriver.
Well, where the hell is the damn rex?" Muldoon said, talking into the radio. "Because we don't see him here." They were back at the sauropod compound, looking out at the trampled grass where the hadrosaurs had stampeded. The tyrannosaur was nowhere to be found. "Checking now," Arnold said, and clicked off. Muldoon turned to Gennaro. "Checking now," he repeated sarcastically. "Why the hell didn't he check before? Why didn't he keep track of him?" "I don't know," Gennaro said. "He's not showing up," Arnold said, a moment later. "What do you mean, he's not showing up?" "He's not on the monitors. Motion sensors aren't finding him." "Hell," Muldoon said. "So much for the motion sensors. You see Grant and the kids?" "Motion sensors aren't finding them, either." "Well, what are we supposed to do now?" Muldoon said. "Wait," Arnold said.
"Look! Look!" Directly ahead, the big dome of the aviary rose above them. Grant had seen it only from a distance; now he realized it was enormous-a quarter of a mile in diameter or more. The pattern of geodesic struts shone dully through the light mist, and his first thought was that the glass must weigh a ton. Then, as they came closer, he saw there wasn't any glass-just struts. A thin mesh hung inside the elements. "It isn't finished," Lex said. "I think it's meant to be open like that," Grant said. "Then all the birds can fly out." "Not if they're big birds," Grant said. The river carried them beneath the edge of the dome. They stared upward. Now they were inside the dome, still drifting down the river. But 'thin minutes the dome was so high above them that it was hardly visible in the mist. Grant said, "I seem to remember there's a second lodge here." Moments later, he saw the roof of a building over the tops of the trees to the north. "You want to stop?" Tim said. "Maybe there's a phone. Or motion sensors." Grant steered toward the shore. "We need to try to contact the control room. It's getting late." They clambered out, slipping on the muddy bank, and Grant hauled the raft out of the water. Then he tied the rope to a tree and they set off, through a dense forest of palm trees.
Aviary "I just don't understand," John Arnold said, speaking into the phone. "I don't see the rex, and I don't see Grant and the kids anywhere, either." He sat in front of the consoles and gulped another cup of coffee. All around him, the control room was strewn with paper plates and half-eaten sandwiches. Arnold was exhausted. It was 8:00 a.m. on Saturday. In the fourteen hours since Nedry destroyed the computer that ran Jurassic Park, Arnold had patiently pulled systems back on line, one after another. "All the park systems are back, and functioning correctly. The phones are working. I've called for a doctor for you." On the other end of the line, Malcolm coughed. Arnold was talking to him in his room at the lodge. "But you're having trouble with the motion sensors?" "Well, I'm not finding what I am looking for." "Like the rex?" "He's not reading at all now. He started north about twenty minutes ago, following along the edge of the lagoon, and then I lost him. I don't know why, unless he's gone to sleep again." "And you can't find Grant and the kids?" "No." "I think it's quite simple," Malcolm said. "The motion sensors cover an inadequate area." "Inadequate?" Arnold bristled. "They cover ninety-two-" "Ninety-two percent of the land area, I remember," Malcolm said. "But if you put the remaining areas up on the board, I think you'll find that the eight percent is topologically unified, meaning that those areas are contiguous. In essence, an animal can move freely anywhere in the park and escape detection, by following a maintenance road or the jungle river or the beaches or whatever." "Even if that were so," Arnold said, "the animals are too stupid to know that." "It's not clear how stupid the animals are," Malcolm said. "You think that's what Grant and the kids are doing?" Arnold said. "Definitely not," Malcolm said, coughing again. "Grant's no fool. He clearly wants to be detected by you. He and the kids are probably waving at every motion sensor in sight. But maybe they have other problems we don't know about. Or maybe they're on the river." "I can't imagine they'd be on the river. The banks are very narrow. It's impossible to walk along there." "Would the river bring them all the way back here?" "Yes, but it's not the safest way to go, because it passes through the aviary. . . ." "Why wasn't the aviary on the tour?" Malcolm said. "We've had problems setting it up. Originally the park was intended to have a treetop lodge built high above the ground, where visitors could observe the pterodactyls at flight level. We've got four dactyls in the aviary now-actually, they're cearadactyls, which are big fish-eating dactyls." "What about them?" "Well, while we finished the lodge, we put the dactyls in the aviary to acclimate them. But that was a big mistake. It turns out our fish-hunters are territorial." "Territorial?" "Fiercely territorial," Arnold said. "They fight among themselves for territory-and they'll attack any other animal that comes into the area they've marked out." "Attack?" "It's impressive," Arnold said. "The dactyls glide to the top of the aviary, fold up their wings, and dive. A thirty-pound animal will strike a man on the ground like a ton of bricks. They were knocking the workmen unconscious, cutting them up pretty badly." "That doesn't injure the dactyls?" "Not so far." "So, if those kids are in the aviary . . ." "They're not," Arnold said. "At least, I hope they're not."
"Is that the lodge?" Lex said. "What a dump." Beneath the aviary dome, Pteratops Lodge was built high above the ground, on big wooden pylons, in the middle of a stand of fir trees. But the building was unfinished and unpainted; the windows were boarded up. The trees and the lodge were splattered with broad white streaks. "I guess they didn't finish it, for some reason," Grant said, hiding his disappointment. He glanced at his watch. "Come on, let's go back to the boat." The sun came out as they walked along, making the morning more cheerful. Grant looked at the latticework shadows on the ground from the dome above, He noticed that the ground and the foliage were spattered with broad streaks of the same white chalky substance that had been on the building. And there was a distinctive, sour odor in the morning air. "Stinks here," Lex said. "What's all the white stuff?" "Looks like reptile droppings. Probably from the birds." "How come they didn't finish the lodge?" "I don't know." They entered a clearing of low grass, dotted with wild flowers. They heard a long, low whistle. Then an answering whistle, from across the forest. "What's that?" "I don't know." Then Grant saw the dark shadow of a cloud on the grassy field ahead. The shadow was moving fast. In moments, it had swept over them. He looked up and saw an enormous dark shape gliding above them, blotting out the sun. "Yew!" Lex said. "Is it a pterodactyl?" "Yes," Tim said. Grant didn't answer. He was entranced by the sight of the huge flying creature. In the sky above, the pterodactyl gave a low whistle and wheeled gracefully, turning back toward them. "How come they're not on the tour?" Tim said. Grant was wondering the same thing. The flying dinosaurs were so beautiful, so graceful as they moved through the air. As Grant watched, he saw a second pterodactyl appear in the sky, and a third, and a fourth. "Maybe because they didn't finish the lodge," Lex said. Grant was thinking these weren't ordinary pterodactyls. They were too large. They must cearadactyls, big flying reptiles from the early Cretaceous. When they were high, these looked like small airplanes. When they came lower, he could see the animals had fifteen-foot wingspans, furry bodies, and heads like crocodiles. They ate fish, he remembered. South America and Mexico. Lex shaded her eyes and looked up at the sky. "Can they hurt us?" "I don't think so. They eat fish." One of the dactyls spiraled down, a flashing dark shadow that whooshed past them with a rush of warm air and a lingering sour odor. "Wow!" Lex said. "They're really big." And then she said, "Are you sure they can't hurt us?" "Pretty sure." A second dactyl swooped down, moving faster than the first. It came from behind, streaked over their heads. Grant had a glimpse of its toothy beak and the furry body. It looked like a huge bat, he thought. But Grant was impressed with the frail appearance of the animals. Their huge wingspans-the delicate pink membranes stretched across them-so thin they were translucent-everything reinforced the delicacy of the dactyls. "Ow!" Lex shouted, grabbing her hair. "He bit me!" "He what?" Grant said. "He bit me! He bit me!" When she took her band away, he saw blood on her fingers. Up in the sky, two more dactyls folded their wings, collapsing into small dark shapes that plummeted toward the ground. They made a kind of scream as they hurtled downward. "Come on!" Grant said, grabbing their hands. They ran across the meadow, bearing the approaching scream, and he flung himself on the ground at the last moment, pulling the kids down with him, as the two dactyls whistled and squeaked past them, flapping their wings. Grant felt claws tear the shirt along his back. Then he was up, pulling Lex back onto her feet, and running with Tim a few feet forward while overhead two more birds wheeled and dove toward them, screaming. At the last moment, he pushed the kids to the ground, and the big shadows flapped past. "Uck," Lex said, disgusted. He saw that she was streaked with white droppings from the birds. Grant scrambled to his feet. "Come on!" He was about to run when Lex shrieked in terror. He turned back and saw that one of the dactyls had grabbed her by the shoulders with its hind claws. The animal's huge leathery wings, translucent in the sunlight, flapped broadly on both sides of her. The dactyl was trying to take off, but Lex was too heavy, and while it struggled it repeatedly jabbed at her head with its long pointed jaw. Lex was screaming, waving her arms wildly. Grant did the only thing he could think to do. He ran forward and jumped up, throwing himself against the body of the dactyl. He knocked it onto its back on the ground, and fell on top of the furry body. The animal screamed and snapped; Grant ducked his head away from the jaws and pushed back, as the giant wings beat around his body. It was like being in a tent In a windstorm. He couldn't see; he couldn't hear; there was nothing but the flapping and shrieking and the leathery membranes. The clawed legs scratched frantically at his chest. Lex was screaming. Grant pushed away from the dactyl and it squeaked and gibbered as it flapped its wings and struggled to turn over, to right itself. Finally it pulled in its wings like a bat and rolled over, lifted itself up on its little wing claws, and began to walk that way. He paused, astonished. It could walk on its wings! Lederer's speculation was right! But then the other dactyls were diving down at them and Grant was dizzy, off balance, and in horror he saw Lex run away, her arms over her head . . . Tim shouting at the top of his lungs. . . . The first of them swooped down and she threw something and suddenly the dactyl whistled and climbed. The other dactyls immediately climbed and chased the first into the sky. The fourth dactyl flapped awkwardly into the air to join the others. Grant looked upward, squinting to see what had happened. The three dactyls chased the first, screaming angrily. They were alone in the field. "What happened?" Grant said. "They got my glove," Lex said. "My Darryl Strawberry special." They started walking again. Tim put his arm around her shoulders. "Are you all right?" "Of course, stupid," she said, shaking him off. She looked upward. "I hope they choke and die," she said. "Yeah," Tim said. "Me, too-" Up ahead, they saw the boat on the shore. Grant looked at his watch. It was eight-thirty. He now had two and a half hours to get back.
Lex cheered as they drifted beyond the silver aviary dome. Then the banks of the river closed in on both sides, the trees meeting overhead once more. The river was narrower than ever, in some places only ten feet wide, and the current flowed very fast. Lex reached up to touch the branches as they went past. Grant sat back in the raft and listened to the gurgle of the water through the warm rubber. They were moving faster now, the branches overhead slipping by more rapidly. It was pleasant. It gave a little breeze in the hot confines of the overhanging branches. And it meant they would get back that much sooner. Grant couldn't guess how far they had come, but it must be several miles at least from the sauropod building where they had spent the night. Perhaps four or five miles. Maybe even more. That meant they might be only an hour's walk from the hotel, once they left the raft. But after the aviary, Grant was in no hurry to leave the river again. For the moment, they were making good time. "I wonder how Ralph is," Lex said. "He's probably dead or something." "I'm sure he's fine." "I wonder if he'd let me ride him." She sighed, sleepy in the sun. "That would be fun, to ride Ralph." Tim said to Grant, "Remember back at the stegosaurus? Last night?" "Yes." "How come you asked them about frog DNA?" "Because of the breeding," Grant said. "They can't explain why the dinosaurs are breeding, since they irradiate them, and since they're all females." "Right." "Well, irradiation is notoriously unreliable and probably doesn't work. I think that'll eventually be shown here. But there is still the problem of the dinosaurs' being female. How can they breed when they're all female?" "Right," Tim said. "Well, across the animal kingdom, sexual reproduction exists in extraordinary variety." "Tim's very interested in sex," Lex said. They both ignored her. "For example," Grant said, "many animals have sexual reproduction without ever having what we would call sex. The male releases a spermatophore, which contains the sperm, and the female picks it up at a later time. This kind of exchange does not require quite as much physical differentiation between male and female as we usually think exists. Male and female are more alike in some animals than they are in human beings." Tim nodded. "But what about the frogs?" Grant heard sudden shrieks from the trees above, as the microceratopsians scattered in alarm, shaking the branches. The big head of the tyrannosaur lunged through the foliage from the left, the jaws snapping at the raft. Lex howled in terror, and Grant paddled away toward the opposite bank, but the river here was only ten feet wide. The tyrannosaur was caught in the heavy growth- it butted and twisted its head, and roared. Then it pulled its head back. Through the trees that lined the riverbank, they saw the huge dark form of the tyrannosaur, moving north, looking for a gap in the trees that lined the bank. The microceratopsians had all gone to the opposite bank, where they shrieked and scampered and jumped up and down. In the raft, Grant, Tim, and Lex stared helplessly as the tyrannosaur tried to break through again, But the trees were too dense along the banks of the river. The tyrannosaur again moved downstream, ahead of the boat, and tried again, shaking the branches furiously. But again it failed. Then it moved off, heading farther downstream. "I hate him," Lex said. Grant sat back in the boat, badly shaken. If the tyrannosaur had broken through, there was nothing be could have done to save them. The river was so narrow that it was hardly wider than the raft. It was like being in a tunnel. The rubber gunwales often scraped on the mud as the boat was pulled along by the swift current. He glanced at his watch. Almost nine. The raft continued downstream. "Hey," Lex said, "listen!" He heard snarling, interspersed by a repeated hooting cry. The cries were coming from beyond a curve, farther downriver. He listened, and heard the hooting again. "What is it?" Lex said. "I don't know," Grant said. "But there's more than one of them." He paddled the boat to the opposite bank, grabbed a branch to stop the raft. The snarling was repeated. Then more hooting. "It sounds like a bunch of owls," Tim said.
Malcolm groaned. "Isn't it time for more morphine yet?" "Not yet," Ellie said. Malcolm sighed. "How much water have we got here?" "I don't know. There's plenty of running water from the tap-" "No, I mean, how much stored? Any?" Ellie shrugged. "None." "Go into the rooms on this floor," Malcolm said, "and fill the bathtubs with water." Ellie frowned. "Also," Malcolm said, "have we got any walkie-talkies? Flashlights? Matches? Sterno stoves? Things like that?" "I'll look around. You planning for an earthquake?" "Something like that," Malcolm said. "Malcolm Effect implies catastrophic changes." "But Arnold says all the systems are working perfectly." "That's when it happens," Malcolm said. Ellie said, "You don't think much of Arnold, do you?" "He's all right. He's an engineer. Wu's the same. They're both technicians. They don't have intelligence. They have what I call 'thintelligence.' They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it 'being focused.' They don't see the surround. They don't see the consequences. That's how you get an island like this. From thintelligent thinking. Because you cannot make an animal and not expect it to act alive. To be unpredictable. To escape. But they don't see that." "Don't you think it's just human nature?" Ellie said. "God, no," Malcolm said. "That's like saying scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast is human nature. It's nothing of the sort. It's uniquely Western training, and much of the rest of the world is nauseated by the thought of it." He winced in pain. "The morphine's making me philosophical." "You want some water?" "No. I'll tell you the problem with engineers and scientists. Scientists have an elaborate line of bullshit about how they are seeking to know the truth about nature. Which is true, but that's not what drives them. Nobody is driven by abstractions like 'seeking truth.' "Scientists are actually preoccupied with accomplishment. So they are focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they should do something. They conveniently define such considerations as pointless. If they don't do it, someone else will. Discovery, they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first. That's the game in science. Even pure scientific discovery is an aggressive, penetrative act. It takes big equipment, and it literally changes the world afterward. Particle accelerators sear the land, and leave radioactive byproducts. Astronauts leave trash on the moon. There is always some proof that scientists were there, making their discoveries. Discovery is always a rape of the natural world. Always. "The scientists want it that way. They have to stick their instruments in. They have to leave their mark. They can't just watch. They can't just appreciate. They can't just fit into the natural order. They have to make something unnatural happen. That is the scientist's job, and now we have whole societies that try to be scientific." He sighed, and sank back. Ellie said, "Don't you think you're overstating-" "What does one of your excavations look like a year later?"
"Pretty had," she admitted. "You don't replant, you don't restore the land after you dig?" "No." "Why not?" She shrugged. "There's no money, I guess. . . . "There's only enough money to dig, but not to repair?" "Well, we're just working in the badlands. . . ." "Just the badlands," Malcolm said, shaking his head. "Just trash. Just byproducts. Just side effects . . . I'm trying to tell you that scientists want it this way. They want byproducts and trash and scars and side effects. It's a way of reassuring themselves. It's built into the fabric of science, and it's increasingly a disaster." "Then what's the answer?" "Get rid of the thintelligent ones. Take them out of power." "But then we'd lose all the advances-" "What advances?" Malcolm said irritably. "The number of hours women devote to housework has not changed since 1930, despite all the advances. All the vacuum cleaners, washer-dryers, trash compactors, garbage disposals, wash-and-wear fabrics . . . Why does it still take as long to clean the house as it did in 1930?" Ellie said nothing. "Because there haven't been any advances," Malcolm said. "Not really. Thirty thousand years ago, when men were doing cave paintings at Lascaux, they worked twenty hours a week to provide themselves with food and shelter and clothing. The rest of the time, they could play, or sleep, or do whatever they wanted. And they lived in a natural world, with clean air, clean water, beautiful trees and sunsets. Think about it. Twenty hours a week. Thirty thousand years ago." Ellie said, "You want to turn back the clock?" "No," Malcolm said. "I want people to wake up. We've had four hundred years of modern science, and we ought to know by now what it's good for, and what it's not good for. It's time for a change." "Before we destroy the planet?" she said. He sighed, and closed his eyes. "Oh dear," he said. "That's the last thing I would worry about."
In the dark tunnel of the jungle river, Grant went hand over hand, holding branches, moving the raft cautiously forward. He still heard the sounds. And finally he saw the dinosaurs. "Aren't those the ones that are poison?" "Yes," Grant said. "Dilophosaurus." Standing on the riverbank were two dilophosaurs. The ten-foot-tall bodies were spotted yellow and black. Underneath, the bellies were bright green, like lizards. Twin red curving crests ran along the top of the head from the eyes to the nose, making a V shape above the head. The bird-like quality was reinforced by the way they moved, bending to drink from the river, then rising to snarl and hoot. Lex whispered, "Should we get out and walk?" Grant shook his head no. The dilophosaurs were smaller than the tyrannosaur, small enough to slip through the dense foliage at the banks of the river. And they seemed quick, as they snarled and hooted at each other. "But we can't get past them in the boat," Lex said. "They're poison." "We have to," Grant said. "Somehow." The dilophosaurs continued to drink and hoot. They seemed to be interacting with each other in a strangely ritualistic, repetitive way. The animal on the left would bend to drink, opening its mouth to bare long rows of sharp teeth, and then it would hoot. The animal on the right would boot in reply and bend to drink, in a mirror image of the first animal's movements. Then the sequence would be repeated, exactly the same way. Grant noticed that the animal on the right was smaller, with smaller spots on its back, and its crest was a duller red- "I'll be damned," he said. "It's a mating ritual." "Can we get past them?" Tim asked. "Not the way they are now. They're right by the edge of the water." Grant knew animals often performed such mating rituals for hours at a time. They went without food, they paid attention to nothing else. . . . He glanced at his watch. Nine-twenty. "What do we do?" Tim said. Grant sighed. "I have no idea." He sat down in the raft, and then the dilopbosaurs began to bonk and roar repeatedly, in agitation. He looked up. The animals were both facing away from the river. "What is it?" Lex said. Grant smiled, "I think we're finally getting some help." He pushed off from the bank. "I want you two kids to lie flat on the rubber. We'll go past as fast as we can. But just remember: whatever happens, don't say anything, and don't move- Okay?" The raft began to drift downstream, toward the hooting dilophosaurs. It gained speed. Lex lay at Grant's feet, staring at him with friehtened eyes. They were coming closer to the dilophosaurs, which were still turned away from the river. But he pulled out his air pistol, checked the chamber. The raft continued on, and they smelled a peculiar odor, sweet and nauseating at the same time. It smelled like dried vomit. The hooting of the dilophosaurs was louder. The raft came around a final bend and Grant caught his breath. The dilophosaurs were just a few feet away, honking at the trees beyond the river. As Grant had suspected, they were honking at the tyrannosaur. The tyrannosaur was trying to break through the foliage, and the dilos hooted and stomped their feet in the mud. The raft drifted past them. The smell was nauseating. The tyrannosaur roared, probably because it saw the raft. But in another moment . . . A thump. The raft stopped moving. They were aground, against the riverbank, just a few feet downstream from the dilophosaurs. Lex whispered, "Oh, great " There was a long slow scraping sound of the raft against the mud. Then the raft was moving again. They were going down the river. The tyrannosaur roared a final time and moved off; one dilophosaur looked surprised, then hooted. The other dilophosaur hooted in reply. The raft floated downriver.
Tyrannosaur The Jeep bounced along in the glaring sun. Muldoon was driving, with Gennaro at his side. They were in an open field, moving away from the dense line of foliage and palm trees that marked the course of the river, a hundred yards to the east. They came to a rise, and Muldoon stopped the car. "Christ, it's hot," he said, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm. He drank from the bottle of whiskey between his knees, then offered it to Gennaro. Gennaro shook his head. He stared at the landscape shimmering in the morning heat. Then he looked down at the onboard computer and video monitor mounted in the dashboard. The monitor showed views of the park from remote cameras. Still no sign of Grant and the children. Or of the tyrannosaur. The radio crackled. "Muldoon." Muldoon picked up the handset. "Yeah." "You got your onboards? I found the rex. He's in grid 442. Going to 443." "Just a minute," Muldoon said, adjusting the monitor. "Yeah. I got him now. Following the river." The animal was slinking along the foliage that lined the banks of the river, going north. "Take it easy with him. Just immobilize him." "Don't worry," Muldoon said, squinting in the sun. "I won't hurt him." "Remember," Arnold said, "the tyrannosaur's our main tourist attraction." Muldoon turned off his radio with a crackle of static. "Bloody fool," he said. "They're still talking about tourists." Muldoon started the engine. "Let's go see Rexy and give him a dose." The Jeep jolted over the terrain. "You're looking forward to this," Gennaro said. "I've wanted to put a needle in this big bastard for a while," Muldoon said. "And there he is." They came to a wrenching stop. Through the windshield, Gennaro saw the tyrannosaur directly ahead of them, moving among the palm trees along the river. Muldoon drained the whiskey bottle and threw it in the back seat. He reached back for his tubing. Gennaro looked at the video monitor, which showed their Jeep and the tyrannosaur. There must be a closed-circuit camera in the trees somewhere behind. "You want to help," Muldoon said, "you can break out those canisters by your feet." Gennaro bent over and opened a stainless-steel Halliburton case. It was padded inside with foam. Four cylinders, each the size of a quart milk bottle, were nestled in the foam. They were all labeled MORO-709. He took one out. "You snap off the tip and screw on a needle," Muldoon explained. Gennaro found a plastic package of large needles, each the diameter of his fingertip. He screwed one onto the canister. The opposite end of the canister had a circular lead weight. "That's the plunger. Compresses on impact." Muldoon sat forward with the air rifle across his knees. It was made of heavy gray tubular metal and looked to Gennaro like a bazooka or a rocket launcher. "What's MORO-709?" "Standard animal trank," Muldoon said, "Zoos around the world use it. We'll try a thousand cc's to start." Muldoon cracked open the chamber, which was large enough to insert his fist. He slipped the canister into the chamber and closed it. "That should do it," Muldoon said. "Standard elephant gets about two hundred cc's, but they're only two or three tons each. Tyrannosaurus rex is eight tons, and a lot meaner. That matters to the dose." "Why?" "Animal dose is partly body weight and partly temperament. You shoot the same dose of 709 into an elephant, a hippo, and a rhino-you'll immobilize the elephant, so it just stands there like a statue. You'll slow down the hippo, so it gets kind of sleepy but it keeps moving. And the rhino will just get fighting mad. But, on the other hand, you chase a rhino for more than five minutes in a car and he'll drop dead from adrenaline shock. Strange combination of tough and delicate." Muldoon drove slowly toward the river, moving closer to the tyrannosaur. "But those are all mammals. We know a lot about handling mammals, because zoos are built around the big mammalian attractions-lions, tigers, bears, elephants. We know a lot less about reptiles. And nobody knows anything about dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are new animals." "You consider them reptiles?" Gennaro said. "No," Muldoon said, shifting gears. "Dinosaurs don't fit existing categories." He swerved to avoid a rock. "Actually, what we find is, the dinosaurs were as variable as mammals are today. Some dinos are tame and cute, and some are mean and nasty. Some of them see well, and some of them don't. Some of them are stupid, and some of them are very, very intelligent." "Like the raptors?" Gennaro said. Muldoon nodded. "Raptors are smart, Very smart. Believe me, all the problems we have so far," he said, "are nothing compared with what we'd have if the raptors ever got out of their holding pen. Ah. I think this is as close as we can get to our Rexy." Up ahead, the tyrannosaur was poking its head through the branches, peering toward the river. Trying to get through. Then the animal moved a few yards downstream, to try again, "Wonder what he sees in there?" Gennaro said. "Hard to know," Muldoon said. "Maybe he's trying to get to the microceratopsians that scramble around in the branches. They'll run him a merry chase." Muldoon stopped the Jeep about fifty yards away from the tyrannosaur, and turned the vehicle around. He left the motor running. "Get behind the wheel," Muldoon said. "And put your seat belt on." He took another canister and booked it onto his shirt. Then he got out. Gennaro slid behind the wheel. "You done this very often before?" Muldoon belched. "Never. I'll try to get him just behind the auditory meatus. We'll see how it goes from there." He walked ten yards behind the Jeep and crouched down in the grass on one knee. He steadied the big gun against his shoulder, and flipped up the thick telescopic sight. Muldoon aimed at the tyrannosaur, which still ignored them. There was a burst of pale gas, and Gennaro saw a white streak shoot forward in the air toward the tyrannosaur. But nothing seemed to happen. Then the tyrannosaur turned slowly, curiously, to peer at them. It moved its head from side to side, as if looking at them with alternate eyes. Muldoon had taken down the launcher, and was loading the second canister. "You hit him?" Gennaro said. Muldoon shook his head. "Missed. Damn laser sights . . . See if there's a battery in the case." "A what?" Gennaro said. "A battery," Muldoon said. "It's about as big as your finger. Gray markings." Gennaro bent over to look in the steel case. He felt the vibration of the Jeep, heard the motor ticking over. He didn't see a battery. The tyrannosaur roared. To Gennaro it was a terrifying sound, rumbling from the great chest cavity of the animal, bellowing out over the landscape. He sat up sharply and reached for the steering wheel, put his hand on the gearshift. On the radio, he heard a voice say, "Muldoon. This is Arnold. Get out of there. Over." "I know what I'm doing," Muldoon said. The tyrannosaur charged. Muldoon stood his ground. Despite the creature racing toward him, he slowly and methodically raised his launcher, aimed, and fired. Once again, Gennaro saw the puff of smoke, and the white streak of the canister going toward the animal. Nothing happened. The tyrannosaur continued to charge. Now Muldoon was on his feet and running, shouting, "Go! Go!" Gennaro put the Jeep in gear and Muldoon threw himself onto the side door as the Jeep lurched forward. The tyrannosaur was closing rapidly, and Muldoon swung the door open and climbed inside. "Go, damn it! Go!" Gennaro floored it. The Jeep bounced precariously, the front end nosing so high they saw only sky through the windshield, then slamming down again toward the ground and racing forward again. Gennaro headed for a stand of trees to the left until, in the rearview mirror, he saw the tyrannosaur give a final roar and turn away. Gennaro slowed the car. "Jesus." Muldoon was shaking his head. "I could have sworn I hit him the second time." "I'd say you missed," Gennaro said. "Needle must have broken off before the plunger injected." "Admit it, you missed." "Yeah," Muldoon said. He sighed. "I missed. Battery was dead in the damned laser sights. My fault. I should have checked it, after it was out all last night. Let's go back and get more canisters." The Jeep headed north, toward the hotel. Muldoon picked up the radio. "Control." "Yes," Arnold said. "We're heading back to base."
The river was now very narrow, and flowing swiftly. The raft was going faster all the time. It was starting to feel like an amusement park ride. "Whee!" Lex yelled, holding on to the gunwale. "Faster, faster!" Grant squinted, looking forward. The river was still narrow and dark, but farther ahead he could see the trees ended, and there was bright sunlight beyond, and a distant roaring sound. The river seemed to end abruptly in a peculiar flat line. . . . The raft was going still faster, rushing forward. Grant grabbed for his paddles. "What is it?" "It's a waterfall," Grant said. The raft swept out of the overhanging darkness into brilliant morning sunlight, and raced forward on the swift current toward the lip of the waterfall. The roar was loud in their ears. Grant paddled as strongly as he could, but he only succeeded in spinning the boat in circles. It continued inexorably toward the lip. Lex leaned toward him. "I can't swim!" Grant saw that she did not have her life vest clasped, but there was nothing he could do about it; with frightening speed, they came to the edge, and the roar of the waterfall seemed to fill the world. Grant jammed his oar deep into the water, it catch and hold, right at the lip; the rubber raft shuddered in the current, but they did not go over. Grant strained against the oar and, looking over the edge, saw the sheer drop of fifty feet down to the surging pool below. And standing in the surging pool, waiting for them, was the tyrannosaur. Lex was screaming in panic, and then the boat spun, and the rear end dropped away, spilling them out into air and roaring water, and they fell sickeningly. Grant flailed his arms in the air, and the world went suddenly silent and slow.
It seemed to him he fell for long minutes; he had time to observe Lex, clutching her orange jacket, falling alongside him; he had time to observe Tim, looking down at the bottom; he had time to observe the frozen white sheet of the waterfall; he had time to observe the bubbling pool beneath him as he fell slowly, silently toward it. Then, with a stinging slap, Grant plunged into cold water, surrounded by white boiling bubbles. He tumbled and spun and glimpsed the leg of the tyrannosaur as he was swirled past it, swept down through the pool and out into the stream beyond. Grant swam for the shore, clutched warm rocks, slipped off, caught a branch, and finally pulled himself out of the main current. Gasping, he dragged himself on his belly onto the rocks, and looked at the river just in time to see the brown rubber raft tumble past him. Then he saw Tim, battling the current, and he reached out and pulled him, coughing and shivering, onto the shore beside him. Grant turned back to the waterfall, and saw the tyrannosaur plunge its head straight down into the water of the pool at his feet. The great head shook, splashing water to either side. It had something between its teeth. And then the tyrannosaur lifted its head back up. Dangling from the jaws was Lex's orange life vest.
A moment later, Lex bobbed to the surface beside the dinosaur's long tail. She lay face down in the water, her little body swept downstream by the current. Grant plunged into the water after her, was again immersed in the churning torrent. A moment later, he pulled her up onto the rocks, a heavy, lifeless weight. Her face was gray. Water poured from her mouth. Grant bent over her to give her mouth-to-mouth but she coughed. Then she vomited yellow-green liquid and coughed again. Her eyelids fluttered. "Hi," she said. She smiled weakly. "We did it." Tim started to cry. She coughed again. "Will you stop it? What're you crying for?" "Because." "We were worried about you," Grant said. Small flecks of white were drifting down the river. The tyrannosaur was tearing up the life vest. Still turned away from them, facing the waterfall. But at any minute the animal might turn and see them. . . . Come on, kids," he said. "Where are we going?" Lex said, coughing. "Come on." He was looking for a hiding place. Downstream he saw only an open grassy plain, affording no protection. Upstream was the dinosaur. Then Grant saw a dirt path by the river. It seemed to lead up toward the waterfall. And in the dirt he saw the clear imprint of a man's shoe. Leading up the path. The tyrannosaur finally turned around, growling and looking out toward the grassy plain. It seemed to have figured out that they had gotten away. It was looking for them downstream. Grant and the kids ducked among the big ferns that lined the riverbanks. Cautiously, he led them upstream. "Where are we going?" Lex said. "We're going back." "I know." They were closer to the waterfall now, the roar much louder. The rocks became slippery, the path muddy. There was a constant hanging mist. It was like moving through a cloud. The path seemed to lead right into the rushing water, but as they came closer, they saw that it actually went behind the waterfall. The tyrannosaur was still looking downstream, its back turned to them. They hurried along the path to the waterfall, and had almost moved behind the sheet of falling water when Grant saw the tyrannosaur turn. Then they were completely behind the waterfall, and Grant was unable to see out through the silver sheet. Grant looked around in surprise. There was a little recess here, hardly larger than a closet, and filled with machinery: humming pumps and big filters and pipes. Everything was wet, and cold. "Did he see us?" Lex said. She had to shout over the noise of the falling water. "Where are we? What is this place? Did he see us?" "Just a minute," Grant said. He was looking at the equipment. This was clearly park machinery. And there must be electricity to run it, so perhaps there was also a telephone for communication. He poked among the filters and pipes. "What are you doing?" Lex shouted. "Looking for a telephone." It was now nearly 10:00 a.m. They had just a little more than an hour to contact the ship before it reached the mainland. In the back of the recess he found a metal door marked MAINT 04, but it was firmly locked. Next to it was a slot for a security card. Alongside the door he saw a row of metal boxes. He opened the boxes one after another, but they contained only switches and timers. No telephone. And nothing to open the door. He almost missed the box to the left of the door. On opening it, he found a nine-button keypad, covered with spots of green mold. But it looked as if it was a way to open the door, and he had the feeling that on the other side of that door was a phone. Scratched in the metal of the box was the number 1023. He punched it in. With a hiss, the door came open. Gaping darkness beyond, concrete steps leading downward. On the back wall he saw stenciled MAINT VEHICLE 04/22 CHARGER and an arrow pointing down the stairs. Could it really mean there was a car? "Come on, kids." "Forget it," Lex said. "I'm not going in there." "Come on, Lex," Tim said. "Forget it," Lex said. "There's no lights or anything. I'm not going." "Never mind," Grant said. There wasn't time to argue. "Stay here, and I'll be right back." "Where're you going?" Lex said, suddenly alarmed. Grant stepped through the door. It gave an electronic beep, and snapped shut behind him, on a spring. Grant was plunged into total darkness. After a moment of surprise, he turned to the door and felt its damp surface. There was no knob, no latch. He turned to the walls on either side of the door, feeling for a switch, a control box, anything at all. . . . There was nothing. He was fighting panic when his fingers closed over a cold metal cylinder. He ran his hands over a swelling edge, a flat surface . . . a flashlight! He clicked it on, and the beam was surprisingly bright. He looked back at the door, but saw that it would not open. He would have to wait for the kids to unlock it. Meantime . . . He started for the steps. They were damp and slippery with mold, and he went down carefully. Partway down the stairs, he heard a sniffing and the sound of claws scratching on concrete. He took out his dart pistol, and proceeded cautiously. The steps bent around the corner, and as he shone his light, an odd reflection glinted back, and then, a moment later, he saw it: a car! It was an electric car, like a golf cart, and it faced a long tunnel that seemed to stretch away for miles. A bright red light glowed by the steering wheel of the car, so perhaps it was charged. Grant heard the sniffing again, and he wheeled and saw a pale shape rise up toward him, leaping through the air, its laws open, and without thinking Grant fired. The animal landed on him, knocking him down, and he rolled away in fright, his flashlight swinging wildly. But the animal didn't get up, and he felt foolish when he saw it. It was a velociraptor, but very young, less than a year old. It was about two feet tall, the size of a medium dog, and it lay on the ground, breathing shallowly, the dart sticking from beneath its jaw. There was probably too much anesthetic for its body weight, and Grant pulled the dart out quickly. The velociraptor looked at him with slightly glazed eyes. Grant had a clear feeling of intelligence from this creature, a kind of softness which contrasted strangely with the menace he had felt from the adults in the pen. He stroked the head of the velociraptor, hoping to calm it. He looked down at the body, which was shivering slightly as the tranquilizer took hold. And then he saw it was a male. A young juvenile, and a male. There was no question what he was seeing. This velociraptor had been bred in the wild. Excited by this development, he hurried back up the stairs to the door. With his flashlight, he scanned the flat, featureless surface of the door, and the interior walls. As he ran his hands over the door, it slowly dawned on him that he was locked inside, and unable to open it, unless the kids had the presence of mind to open it for him. He could hear them, faintly, on the other side of the door.
"Dr. Grant!" Lex shouted, pounding the door. "Dr. Grant!" "Take it easy," Tim said. "He'll be back." "But where did he go?" "Listen, Dr. Grant knows what he's doing," Tim said. "He'll be back in a minute." "He should come back now, " Lex said. She bunched her fists on her hips, pushed her elbows wide. She stamped her foot angrily. And then, with a roar, the tyrannosaur's head burst through the waterfall toward them. Tim stared in horror as the big mouth gaped wide. Lex shrieked and threw herself on the ground. The head swung back and forth, and pulled out again. But Tim could see the shadow of the animal's head on the sheet of falling water. He pulled Lex deeper into the recess, just as the jaws burst through again, roaring, the thick tongue flicking in and out rapidly. Water sprayed in all directions from the head. Then it pulled out again. Lex huddled next to Tim, shivering. "I hate him," she said. She huddled back, but the recess was only a few feet deep, and crammed with machinery. There wasn't any place for them to hide. The head came through the water again, but slowly this time, and the jaw came to rest on the ground. The tyrannosaur snorted, flaring its nostrils, breathing the air. But the eyes were still outside the sheet of water. Tim thought: He can't see us. He knows we're in here, but he can't see through the water. The tyrannosaur sniffed. "What is he doing?" Lex said again. "Sshhbh." With a low growl, the jaws slowly opened, and the tongue snaked out. It was thick and blue-black, with a little forked indentation at the tip. It was four feet long, and easily reached back to the far wall of the recess. The tongue slid with a rasping scrape over the filter cylinders. Tim and Lex pressed back against the pipes. The tongue moved slowly to the left, then to the right, slapping wetly against the machinery. The tip curled around the pipes and valves, sensing them. Tim saw that the tongue had muscular movements, like an elephant's trunk, The tongue drew back along the right side of the recess. It dragged against Lex's legs. "Eeww," Lex said. The tongue stopped. It curled, then began to rise like a snake up the side of her body- "Don't move, " Tim whispered. . . . past her face, then up along Tim's shoulder, and finally wrapping around his head. Tim squeezed his eyes shut as the slimy muscle covered his face. It was hot and wet and it stunk like urine. Wrapped around him, the tongue began to drag him, very slowly, toward the open laws. "Timmy . . ." Tim couldn't answer; his mouth was covered by the flat black tongue. He could see, but he couldn't talk. Lex tugged at his hand. "Come on, Timmy!" The tongue dragged him toward the snorting mouth. He felt the hot panting breath on his legs. Lex was tugging at him but she was no match for the muscular power that held him. Tim let go of her and pressed the tongue with both hands, trying to shove it over his head. He couldn't move it. He dug his heels into the muddy ground but he was dragged forward anyway. Lex had wrapped her arms around his waist and was pulling backward, shouting to him, but he was powerless to do anything. He was beginning to see stars. A kind of peacefulness overcame him, a sense of peaceful inevitability as he was dragged along. Timmy?" And then suddenly the tongue relaxed, and uncoiled. Tim felt it slipping off his face. His body was covered in disgusting white foamy slime, and the tongue fell limply to the ground. The jaws slapped shut, biting down on the tongue. Dark blood gushed out, mixing with the mud. The nostrils still snorted in ragged breaths. "What's he doing?" Lex cried. And then slowly, very slowly, the head began to slide backward, out of the recess, leaving a long scrape in the mud. And finally it disappeared entirely, and they could see only the silver sheet of falling water.
Control "Okay," Arnold said, in the control room. "The rex is down." He pushed back in his chair, and grinned as he lit a final cigarette and crumpled the pack. That did it: the final step in putting the park back in order. Now all they had to do was go out and move it. "Son of a bitch," Muldoon said, looking at the monitor. "I got him after all." He turned to Gennaro. "It just took him an hour to feel it." Henry Wu frowned at the screen. "But he could drown, in that position. . . ." "He won't drown," Muldoon said. "Never seen an animal that was harder to kill." "I think we have to go out and move him," Arnold said, "We will," Muldoon said. He didn't sound enthusiastic. "That's a valuable animal." "I know it's a valuable animal," Muldoon said. Arnold turned to Gennaro. He couldn't resist a moment of triumph. "I'd point out to you," he said, "that the park is now completely back to normal. Whatever Malcolm's mathematical model said was going to happen. We are completely under control again." Gennaro pointed to the screen behind Arnold's head and said, "What's that?" Arnold turned. It was the system status box, in the upper corner of the screen. Ordinarily it was empty. Arnold was surprised to see that it was now blinking yellow: AUX PWR LOW. For a moment, he didn't understand. Why should auxiliary power be low? They were running on main power, not auxiliary power. He thought perhaps it was just a routine status check on the auxiliary power, perhaps a check on the fuel tank levels or the battery charge. . . . "Henry," Arnold said to Wu. "Look at this." Wu said, "Why are you running on auxiliary power?" "I'm not," Arnold said. "It looks like you are." "I can't be." "Print the system status log," Wu said. The log was a record of the system over the last few hours. Arnold pressed a button, and they heard the hum of a printer in the corner. Wu walked over to it. Arnold stared at the screen. The box now turned from flashing yellow to red, and the message now read: AUX PWR FAIL, Numbers began to count backward from twenty. "What the hell is going on?" Arnold said.
Cautiously, Tim moved a few yards out along the muddy path, into the sunshine. He peered around the waterfall, and saw the tyrannosaur lying on its side, floating in the pool of water below. "I hope he's dead," Lex said. Tim could see he wasn't: the dinosaur's chest was still moving, and one forearm twitched in spasms. But something was wrong with him. Then Tim saw the white canister sticking in the back of the head, by the indentation of the ear. "He's been shot with a dart," Tim said. "Good," Lex said. "He practically ate us." Tim watched the labored breathing. He felt unexpectedly distressed to see the huge animal humbled like this. He didn't want it to die. "It's not his fault," he said. "Oh sure," Lex said. "He practically ate us and it's not his fault." "He's a carnivore. He was just doing what he does." "You wouldn't say that," Lex said, "if you were in his stomach right now. Then the sound of the waterfall changed. From a deafening roar, it became softer, quieter. The thundering sheet of water thinned, became a trickle . . . And stopped. "Timmy. The waterfall stopped," Lex said. It was now just dripping like a tap that wasn't completely turned off. The pool at the base of the waterfall was still. They stood near the top, in the cave-like indentation filled with machinery, looking down. "Waterfalls aren't supposed to stop," Lex said. Tim shook his head. "It must be the power. . . . Somebody turned off the power." Behind them, all the pumps and filters were shutting down one after another, the lights blinking off, and the machinery becoming quiet. And then there was the thunk of a solenoid releasing, and the door marked MAINT 04 swung slowly open. Grant stepped out, blinking in the light, and said, "Good work, kids. You got the door open." "We didn't do anything," Lex said. "The power went out," Tim said. "Never mind that," Grant said. "Come and see what I've found."
Arnold stared in shock. One after another, the monitors went black, and then the room lights went out, plunging the control room into darkness and confusion. Everyone started yelling at once. Muldoon opened the blinds and let light in, and Wu brought over the printout. "Look at this," Wu said.
Time Event System Status [Code]05:12:44 Safety I Off Operative [AV12]05:12:45 Safety 2 Off Operative [AV12]05:12:46 Safety 3 Off Operative [AV12]05:12:51 Shutdown Command Shutdown [-AV0]05:13:48 Startup Command Shutdown [-AV0]05:13:55 Safety 1 On Shutdown [-AV0]05:13:57 Safety 2 On Shutdown [-AV0]05:13:59 Safety 3 On Shutdown [-AV0]05:14:08 Startup Command Startup - Aux Power [-AV1]05:14:18 Monitor-Main Operative - Aux Power [-AV04]05:14:19 Security-Main Operative - Aux Power [-AV05]05:14:22 Command-Main Operative - Aux Power [-AV06]05:14:24 Laboratory-Main Operative - Aux Power [-AV08]05:14:29 TeleCom-VBB Operative - Aux Power [-AV09]05:14:32 Schematic-Main Operative - Aux Power [-AV09]05:14:37 View Operative - Aux Power [-AV09]05:14:44 Control Status Chk Operative - Aux Power [-AV09]05:14:57 Warning: Fence Status [NB] Operative - Aux Power [-AV09]09:11:37 Warning: Aux Fuel (20%) Operative - Aux Power [-AVZZ]09:33:19 Warning: Aux Fuel (10%) Operative - Aux Power [-AVZ1]09:53:19 Warning: Aux Fuel (1%) Operative - Aux Power [-AVZ2]09:53:39 Warning: Aux Fuel (0%) Shutdown [-AV0]
Wu said, "You shut down at five-thbirteen this morning, and when you started back up, you started with auxiliary power." "Jesus," Arnold said. Apparently, main power had not been on since shutdown. When he powered back up, only the auxiliary power came on. Arnold was thinking that was strange, when he suddenly realized that that was normal. That was what was supposed to happen. It made perfect sense: the auxiliary generator fired up first, and it was used to turn on the main generator, because it took a heavy charge to start the main power generator. That was the way the system was designed. But Arnold had never before had occasion to turn the main power off. And when the lights and screens came back on in the control room, it never occurred to him that main power hadn't also been restored. But it hadn't, and all during the time since then, while they were looking for the rex, and doing one thing and another, the park had been running on auxilary power. And that wasn't a good idea. In fact, the implications were just beginning to hit him- "What does this line mean?" Muldoon said, pointing to the list.
05:14:57 Warning: Fence Status [NB] Operative - Aux Power [-AV09]
"It means a system status warning was sent to the monitors in the control room," Arnold said. "Concerning the fences." "Did you see that warning?" Arnold shook his head, "No. I must have been talking to you in the field. Anyway, no, I didn't see it." "What does it mean, 'Warning: Fence Status'?" "Well, I didn't know it at the time, but we were running on backup power," Arnold said. "And backup doesn't generate enough amperage to power the electrified fences, so they were automatically kept off." Muldoon scowled. "The electrified fences were off?" "Yes." "All of them? Since five this morning? For the last five hours?" "Yes. " "Including the velociraptor fences?" Arnold sighed. "Yes." "Jesus Christ," Muldoon said. "Five hours. Those animals could be out." And then, from somewhere in the distance, they heard a scream. Muldoon began to talk very fast. He went around the room, handing out the portable radios. "Mr. Arnold is going to the maintenance shed to turn on main power. Dr. Wu, stay in the control room. You're the only other one who can work the computers. Mr. Hammond, go back to the lodge. Don't argue with me. Go now. Lock the gates, and stay behind them until you hear from me. I'll help Arnold deal with the raptors. " He turned to Gennaro. "Like to live dangerously again?" "Not really," Gennaro said. He was very pale. "Fine. Then go with the others to the lodge." Muldoon turned away. "That's it, everybody. Now move. " Hammond whined, "But what are you going to do to my animals?" "That's not really the question, Mr. Hammond," Muldoon said. "The question is, what are they going to do to us?" He went through the door, and hurried down the hall toward his office. Gennaro fell into step alongside him. "Change your mind?" Muldoon growled. "You'll need help," Gennaro said. "I might." Muldoon went into the room marked ANIMAL SUPERVISOR, picked up the gray shoulder launcher, and unlocked a panel in the wall behind his desk. There were six cylinders and six canisters. "The thing about these damn dinos," Muldoon said, "is that they have distributed nervous systems. They don't die fast, even with a direct hit to the brain. And they're built solidly; thick ribs make a shot to the heart dicey, and they're difficult to cripple in the legs or hindquarters. Slow bleeders, slow to die." He was opening the cylinders one after another and dropping in the canisters. He tossed a thick webbed belt to Gennaro. "Put that on." Gennaro tightened the belt, and Muldoon passed him the shells. "About all we can hope to do is blow them apart. Unfortunately we've only got six shells here. There's eight raptors in that fenced compound. Let's go. Stay close. You have the shells." Muldoon went out and ran along the hallway, looking down over the balcony to the path leading toward the maintenance shed. Gennaro was puffing alongside him. They got to the ground floor and went out through the glass doors, and Muldoon stopped. Arnold was standing with his back to the maintenance shed. Three raptors approached him. Arnold had picked up a stick, and he was waving it at them, shouting. The raptors fanned out as they came closer, one staying in the center, the other two moving to each side. Coordinated. Smooth. Gennaro shivered. Pack behavior. Muldoon was already crouching, setting the launcher on his shoulder. "Load," he said. Gennaro slipped the shell in the back of the launcher. There was an electric sizzle. Nothing happened. "Christ, you've got it in backward," Muldoon said, tilting the barrel so the shell fell into Gennaro's hands. Gennaro loaded again. The raptors were snarling at Arnold when the animal on the left simply exploded, the upper part of the torso flying into the air, blood spattering like a burst tomato on the walls of the building. The lower torso collapsed on the ground, the legs kicking in the air, the tail flopping. "That'll wake 'em up," Muldoon said. Arnold ran for the door of the maintenance shed. The velociraptors turned, and started toward Muldoon and Gennaro. They fanned out as they came closer. In the distance, somewhere near the lodge, he heard screams. Gennaro said, "This could be a disaster." "Load," Muldoon said.
Henry Wu heard the explosions and looked toward the door of the control room. He circled around the consoles, then paused. He wanted to go out, but he knew he should stay in the room. If Arnold was able to get the power back on-if only for a minute-then Wu could restart the main generator. He had to stay in the room. He heard someone screaming. It sounded like Muldoon.
Muldoon felt a wrenching pain in his ankle, tumbled down an embankment, and hit the ground running. Looking back, he saw Gennaro running in the other direction, into the forest. The raptors were ignoring Gennaro but pursuing Muldoon. They were now less than twenty yards away. Muldoon screamed at the top of his lungs as he ran, wondering vaguely where the hell he could go. Because he knew he had perhaps ten seconds before they got him. Ten seconds. Maybe less.
Ellie had to help Malcolm turn over as Harding jabbed the needle and injected morphine. Malcolm sighed and collapsed back. It seemed be was growing weaker by the minute. Over the radio, they heard tinny screaming, and muffled explosions coming from the visitor center. Hammond came into the room and said, "How is he?" "He's holding," Harding said. "A bit delirious." "I am nothing of the sort," Malcolm said. "I am utterly clear." They listened to the radio. "It sounds like a war out there." "The raptors got out," Hammond said. "Did they," Malcolm said, breathing shallowly. "How could that possibly happen?" "It was a system screwup. Arnold didn't realize that the auxiliary power was on, and the fences cut out." "Did they." "Go to hell, you supercilious bastard-" "If I remember," Malcolm said, "I predicted fence integrity would fail." Hammond sighed, and sat down heavily. "Damn it all," he said, shaking his head. "It must surely not have escaped your notice that at heart what we are attempting here is an extremely simple idea. My colleagues and I determined, several years ago, that it was possible to clone the DNA of an extinct animal, and to grow it. That seemed to us a wonderful idea, it was a kind of time travel-the only time travel in the world. Bring them back alive, so to speak. And since it was so exciting, and since it was possible to do it, we decided to go forward. We got this island, and we proceeded. It was all very simple." "Simple?" Malcolm said. Somehow he found the energy to sit up in the bed. "Simple? You're a bigger fool than I thought you were. And I thought you were a very substantial fool." Ellie said, "Dr. Malcolm," and tried to ease him back down. But Malcolm would have none of it. He pointed toward the radio, the shouts and the cries. "What is that, going on out there?" he said. "That's your simple idea. Simple. You create new life forms, about which you know nothing at all. Your Dr. Wu does not even know the names of the things he is creating. He cannot be bothered with such details as what the thing is called, let alone what it is. You create many of them in a very short time, you never learn anything about them, yet you expect them to do your bidding, because you made them and you therefore think you own them; you forget that they are alive, they have an intelligence of their own, and they may not do your bidding, and you forget how little you know about them, how incompetent you are to do the things that you so frivolously call simple.... Dear God . . ." He sank back, coughing. "You know what's wrong with scientific power?" Malcolm said. "It's a form of inherited wealth. And you know what assholes congenitally rich people are. It never fails." Hammond said, "What is he talking about?" Harding made a sign, indicating delirium. Malcolm cocked his eye. "I will tell you what I am talking about," he said. "Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline. "Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it. "But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young. You can make progress very fast. There is no discipline lasting many decades. There is no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature. There is only a get-rich-quick, make-a-name-for-yourself-fast philosophy. Cheat, lie, falsify-it doesn't matter. Not to you, or to your colleagues. No one will criticize you. No one has any standards. They are all trying to do the same thing: to do something big, and do it fast. "And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly. You don't even know exactly what you have done, but already you have reported it, patented it, and sold it. And the buyer will have even less discipline than you. The buyer simply purchases the power, like any commodity. The buyer doesn't even conceive that any discipline might be necessary." Hammond said, "Do you know what he is talking about?" Ellie nodded. "I haven't a clue," Hammond said. "I'll make it simple," Malcolm said. "A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits. And that is why you think that to build a place like this is simple." "It was simple," Hammond insisted. "Then why did it go wrong?"
Dizzy with tension, John Arnold threw open the door to the maintenance shed and stepped into the darkness inside. Jesus, it was black. He should have realized the lights would be out. He felt the cool air, the cavernous dimensions of the space, extending two floors below him. He had to find the catwalk. He had to be careful, or he'd break his neck. The catwalk. He groped like a blind man until he realized it was futile. Somehow he had to get light into the shed, He went back to the door and cracked it open four inches. That gave enough light. But there was no way to keep the door open. Quickly he kicked off his shoe and stuck it in the door. He went toward the catwalk, seeing it easily. He walked along the corrugated metal, hearing the difference in his feet, one loud, one soft. But at least he could see. Up ahead was the stairway leading down to the generators. Another ten yards. Darkness. The light was gone. Arnold looked back to the door, and saw the light was blocked by the body of a velociraptor. The animal bent over, and carefully sniffed the shoe.
Henry Wu paced. He ran his hands over the computer consoles. He touched the screens. He was in constant movement. He was almost frantic witb tension. He reviewed the steps he would take. He must be quick. The first screen would come up, and he would press- "Wu!" The radio hissed. He grabbed for it. "Yes. I'm here." "Got any bloody power yet?" It was Muldoon. There was something odd about his voice, something hollow. "No," Wu said. He smiled, glad to know Muldoon was alive. "I think Arnold made it to the shed," Muldoon said- "After that, I don't know." "Where are you?" Wu said. "I'm stuffed." "What?" "Stuffed in a bloody pipe," Muldoon said. "And I'm very popular at the moment."
Wedged in a pipe was more like it, Muldoon thought. There had been a stack of drainage pipes piled behind the visitor center, and he'd backed himself into the nearest one, scrambling like a poor bastard. Meter pipes, very tight fit for him, but they couldn't come in after him. At least, not after he'd shot the leg off one, when the nosy bastard came too close to the pipe. The raptor had gone howling off, and the others were now respectful. His only regret was that he hadn't waited to see the snout at the end of the tube before he'd squeezed the trigger. But he might still have his chance, because there were three or four outside, snarling and growling around him. "Yes, very popular," he said into the radio. Wu said, "Does Arnold have a radio?" "Don't think so," Muldoon said. "Just sit tight. Wait it out." He hadn't seen what the other end of the pipe was like-he'd backed in too quickly-and he couldn't see now. He was wedged tight. He could only hope that the far end wasn't open. Christ, he didn't like the thought of one of those bastards taking a bite of his hindquarters.
Arnold backed away down the catwalk. The velociraptor was barely ten feet away, stalking him, coming forward into the gloom. Arnold could hear the click of its deadly claws on the metal. But he was going slowly. He knew the animal could see well, but the grille of the catwalk, the unfamiliar mechanical odors had made it cautious. That caution was his only chance, Arnold thought. If he could get to the stairs, and then move down to the floor below . . . Because he was pretty sure velociraptors couldn't climb stairs. Certainly not narrow, steep stairs. Arnold glanced over his shoulder. The stairs were just a few feet away. Another few steps . . . He was there! Reaching back, he felt the railing, started scrambling down the almost vertical steps. His feet touched flat concrete. The raptor snarled in frustration, twenty feet above him on the catwalk. "Too bad, buddy," Arnold said. He turned away. He was now very close to the auxiliary generator. Just a few more steps and he would see it, even in this dim light. . . . There was a dull thump behind him. Arnold turned. The raptor was standing there on the concrete floor, snarling. It had jumped down. He looked quickly for a weapon, but suddenly he found he was slammed onto his back on the concrete. Something heavy was pressing on his chest, it was impossible to breathe, and he realized the animal was standing on top of him, and he felt the big claws digging into the flesh of his chest, and smelled the foul breath from the head moving above him, and he opened his mouth to scream.
Ellie held the radio in her hands, listening. Two more Tican workmen had arrived at the lodge; they seemed to know it was safe here. But there had been no others in the last few Minutes. And it sounded quieter outside. Over the radio, Muldoon said, "How long has it been?" Wu said, "Four, five minutes." "Arnold should have done it by now," Muldoon said. "If he's going to. You got any ideas?" "No," Wu said. "We heard from Gennaro?" Gennaro pressed the button. "I'm here." "Where the hell are you?" Muldoon said. "I'm going to the maintenance building," Gennaro said. "Wish me luck."
Gennaro crouched in the foliage, listening. Directly ahead he saw the planted pathway, leading toward the visitor center. Gennaro knew the maintenance shed was somewhere to the east. He heard the chirping of birds in the trees. A soft mist was blowing. One of the raptors roared, but it was some distance away. It sounded off to his right. Gennaro set out, leaving the path, plunging into the foliage. Like to live dangerously? Not really. It was true, he didn't. But Gennaro thought he had a plan, or at least a possibility that might work. If he stayed north of the main complex of buildings, he could approach the maintenance shed from the rear. All the raptors were probably around the other buildings, to the south. There was no reason for them to be in the jungle. At least, he hoped not. He moved as quietly as he could, unhappily aware he was making a lot of noise. He forced himself to slow his pace, feeling his heart pound. The foliage here was very dense; he couldn't see more than six or seven feet ahead of him. He began to worry that he'd miss the maintenance shed entirely. But then he saw the roof to his right, above the palms. He moved toward it, went around the side. He found the door, opened it, and slipped inside. It was very dark. He stumbled over something. A man's shoe. Gennaro frowned. He propped the door wide open and continued deeper into the building. He saw a catwalk directly ahead of him. Suddenly he realized he didn't know where to go. And he had left his radio behind. Damn! There might be a radio somewhere in the maintenance building. Or else he'd just look for the generator. He knew what a generator looked like. Probably it was somewhere down on the lower floor. He found a staircase leading down. It was darker below, and it was difficult to see anything. He felt his way along among the pipes, holding his bands out to keep from banging his head. He heard an animal snarl, and froze. He listened, but the sound did not come again. He moved forward cautiously. Something dripped on his shoulder, and his bare arm. It was warm, like water. He touched it in the darkness. Sticky. He smelled it. Blood. He looked up. The raptor was perched on pipes, just a few feet above his head. Blood was trickling from its claws. With an odd sense of detachment, he wondered if it was injured. And then he began to run, but the raptor jumped onto his back, pushing him to the ground. Gennaro was strong; he heaved up, knocking the raptor away, and rolled off across the concrete. When he turned back, he saw that the raptor had fallen on its side, where it lay panting. Yes, it was injured. Its leg was hurt, for some reason. Kill it Gennaro scrambled to his feet, looking for a weapon. The raptor was still panting on the concrete. He looked frantically for sometbing-anything-to use as a weapon. When he turned back, the raptor was gone. It snarled, the sound echoing in the darkness. Gennaro turned in a full circle, feeling with his outstretched hands. And then he felt a sharp pain in his right hand. Teeth. It was biting him. The raptor jerked his head, and Donald Gennaro was yanked off his feet, and he fell.
Lying in bed, soaked in sweat, Malcolm listened as the radio crackled. "Anything?" Muldoon said. "You getting anything?" "No word," Wu said. "Hell," Muldoon said, There was a pause. Malcolm sighed. "I can't wait," he said, "to hear his new plan." "What I would like," Muldoon said, "is to get everybody to the lodge and regroup. But I don't see how." "There's a Jeep in front of the visitor center," Wu said. "If I drove over to you, could you get yourself into it?" "Maybe. But you'd be abandoning the control room." "I can't do anything here anyway." "God knows that's true," Malcolm said. "A control room without electricity is not much of a control room." "All right," Muldoon said. "Let's try. This isn't looking good." Lying in his bed, Malcolm said, "No, it's not looking good. It's looking like a disaster." Wu said, "The raptors are going to follow us over there." "We're still better off," Malcolm said. "Let's go." The radio clicked off. Malcolm closed his eyes, and breathed slowly, marshaling his strength. "Just relax," Ellie said. "Just take it easy." "You know what we are really talking about here," Malcolm said. "All this attempt to control . . . We are talking about Western attitudes that are five hundred years old. They began at the time when Florence, Italy, was the most important city in the world. The basic idea of science-that there was a new way to look at reality, that it was objective, that it did not depend on your beliefs or your nationality, that it was rational-that idea was fresh and exciting back then. It offered promise and hope for the future, and it swept away the old medieval system, which was hundreds of years old. The medieval world of feudal politics and religious dogma and hateful superstitions fell before science. But, in truth, this was because the medieval world didn't really work any more. It didn't work economically, it didn't work intellectually, and it didn't fit the new world that was emerging. Malcolm coughed. "But now," he continued, "science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting not to fit the world any more. Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent. Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating. But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it cannot tell us not to build it. Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it. And our world starts to seem polluted in fundamental ways-air, and water, and land-because of ungovernable science." He sighed. "This much is obvious to everyone." There was a silence. Malcolm lay with his eyes closed, his breathing labored. No one spoke, and it seemed to Ellie that Malcolm had finally fallen asleep. Then he sat up again, abruptly. "At the same time, the great intellectual justification of science has vanished. Ever since Newton and Descartes, science has explicitly offered us the vision of total control. Science has claimed the power to eventually control everything, through its understanding of natural laws. But in the twentieth century, that claim has been shattered beyond repair. First, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle set limits on what we could know about the subatomic world. Oh well, we say. None of us lives in a subatomic world. It doesn't make any practical difference as we go through our lives. Then Godel's theorem set similar limits to mathematics, the formal language of science. Mathematicians used to think that their language had some special inherent trueness that derived from the laws of logic. Now we know that what we call 'reason' is just an arbitrary game. It's not special, in the way we thought it was. "And now chaos theory proves that unpredictability is built into our daily lives. It is as mundane as the rainstorm we cannot predict. And so the grand vision of science, hundreds of years old-the dream of total control-has died, in our century. And with it much of the justification, the rationale for science to do what it does. And for us to listen to it. Science has always said that it may not know everything now but it will know, eventually. But now we see that isn't true. It is an idle boast. As foolish, and as misguided, as the child who jumps off a building because he believes he can fly." "This is very extreme," Hammond said, shaking his head. "We are witnessing the end of the scientific era. Science, like other outmoded systems, is destroying itself. As it gains in power, it proves itself incapable of handling the power. Because things are going very fast now. Fifty years ago, everyone was gaga over the atomic bomb. That was power. No one could imagine anything more. Yet, a bare decade after the bomb, we began to have genetic power. And genetic power is far more potent than atomic power. And it will be in everyone's hands. It will be in kits for backyard gardeners. Experiments for schoolchildren. Cheap labs for terrorists and dictators, And that will force everyone to ask the same question-What should I do with my power?-which is the very question science says it cannot answer." "So what will happen?" Ellie said. Malcolm shrugged. "A change." "What kind of change?" "All major changes are like death," he said. "You can't see to the other side until you are there." And he closed his eyes. "The poor man," Hammond said, shaking his head. Malcolm sighed. "Do you have any idea," he said, "how unlikely it is that you, or any of us, will get off this island alive?"
SIXTH ITERATION.
[picture]
"System recovery may prove impossible."
IAN MALCOLMReturn Its electric motor whirring, the cart raced forward down the dark underground tunnel. Grant drove, his foot to the floor. The tunnel was featureless except for the occasional air vent above, shaded to protect against rainfall, and thus permitting little light to enter. But he noticed that there were crusty white animal droppings in many places. Obviously lots of animals had been in here. Sitting beside him in the cart, Lex shone the flashlight to the back, where the velociraptor lay. "Why is it having trouble breathing?" "Because I shot it with tranquilizer," he said. "Is it going to die?" she said. "I hope not." "Why are we taking it?" Lex said. "To prove to the people back at the center that the dinosaurs are really breeding," Grant said. "How do you know they're breeding?" "Because this one is young," Grant said. "And because it's a boy dinosaur." "Is it?" Lex said, peering along the flashlight beam. "Yes. Now shine that light forward, will you?" He held out his wrist turning the watch to her. "What does it say?" "It says . . . ten-fifteen." "Okay." Tim said, "That means we have only forty-five minutes to contact the boat." "We should be close," Grant said. "I figure we should be almost to the visitor center right now." He wasn't sure, but be sensed the tunnel was gently tilting upward, leading them back to the surface, and- "Wow!" Tim said. They burst out into daylight with shocking speed. There was a light mist blowing, partially obscuring the building that loomed directly above them. Grant saw at once that it was the visitor center. They had arrived right in front of the garage! "Yay!" Lex shouted. "We did it! Yay!" She bounced up and down in the seat as Grant parked the cart in the garage. Along one wall were stac animal cages. They put the velociraptor in one, with a dish of water. Then they started climbing the stairs to the ground-floor entrance of the visitor center. "I'm going to get a hamburger! And french fries! Chocolate milk shake! No more dinosaurs! Yay!" They came to the lobby, and they opened the door. And they fell silent.