Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park #1)

Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park #1) Page 21

    "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."