Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park #1)

Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park #1) Page 24

    "What kind    of a distraction?"

    "Go to the fence. . . ."

    "Yes? And do what?"

    Malcolm grinned weakly. "Stick . . . your hands through."

    "Oh Christ," Muldoon said, turning away.

    "Wait a minute," Wu said. "He's right. There are only two raptors here. Which means there are at least four more out there. We could go out and provide a distraction."

    "And then what?"  

    "And then Grant would be free to go to the maintenance building and turn on the generator."

    "And then go back to the control room and start up the system?"

    "Exactly."

    "No time," Muldoon said. "No time."

    "But if we can lure the raptors down here," Wu said, "maybe even get them away from that skylight. It might work. Worth a try."

    "Bait," Muldoon said.

    "Exactly."

    "Who's going to be the bait? I'm no good. My ankle's shot."

    "I'll do it," Wu said.

    "No," Muldoon said. "You're the only one who knows what to do about the computer. You need to talk Grant through the start-up."

    "Then I'll do it," Harding said.

    "No," Ellie said. "Malcolm needs you. I'll do it."

    "Hell, I don't think so," Muldoon said. "You'd have raptors all around you, raptors on the roof. . . . "

    But she was already bending over, lacing her running shoes. "Just don't tell Grant," she said. "It'll make him nervous."

    The lobby was quiet, chilly fog drifting past them. The radio had been silent for several minutes. Tim said, "Why aren't they talking to us?"

    "I'm hungry," Lex said.

    "They're trying to plan," Grant said.

    The radio crackled. "Grant, are you-nry Wu speaking. Are you there?"

    "I'm here," Grant said.

    "Listen," Wu said. "Can you see to the rear of the visitor building from where you are?"

    Grant looked through the rear glass doors, to the palm trees and the fog.

    "Yes," Grant said.

    Wu said, "There's a path straight through the palm trees to the maintenance building. That's where the power equipment and generators are. I believe you saw the maintenance building yesterday?"

    "Yes," Grant said. Though he was momentarily puzzled. Was it yesterday that he had looked into the building? It seemed like years ago.

    "Now, listen," Wu said. "We think we can get all the raptors down here by the lodge, but we aren't sure. So be careful. Give us five minutes."

    "Okay," Grant said.

    "You can leave the kids in the cafeteria, and they should be all right. Take the radio with you when you go."

    "Okay."

    "Turn it off before you leave, so it doesn't make any noise outside. And call me when you get to the maintenance building."

    "Okay."

    Grant turned the radio off. Lex crawled back. "Are we going to the cafeteria?" she said.

     "Yes," Grant said. They got up, and started walking through the blowing mist in the lobby.

    "I want a hamburger," Lex said.

    "I don't think there's any electricity to cook with."

    "Then ice cream."

    "Tim, you'll have to stay with her and help her."

    "I will."

    "I've got to leave for a while," Grant said.

    "I know."

    They moved to the cafeteria entrance. On opening the door, Grant saw square dining-room tables and chairs, swinging stainless-steel doors beyond. Nearby, a cash register and a rack with gum and candy.

    "Okay, kids. I want you to stay here no matter what. Got it?"

    "Leave us the radio," Lex said.

    "I can't. I need it. Just stay here. I'll only be gone about five minutes. Okay?"

    "Okay."

    Grant closed the door. The cafeteria became completely dark. Lex clutched his hand, "Turn on the lights," she said.

    "I can't," Tim said. "There's no electricity." But he pulled down his night-vistion goggles.

    "That's fine for you. What about me?"

    "Just hold my hand. We'll get some food." He led her forward. In phosphorescent green he saw the tables and chairs. To the right, the glowing green cash register, and the rack with gum and candy. He grabbed a handful of candy bars.

    "I told you," Lex said. "I want ice cream, not candy."

    "Take these anyway."

    "Ice cream, Tim."

    "Okay, okay."

    Tim stuffed the candy bars in his pocket, and led Lex deeper into the dining room. She tugged on his band. "I can't see spit," she said.

    "Just walk with me. Hold my hand."

    "Then slow down."

    Beyond the tables and chairs was a pair of swinging doors with little round windows in them. They probably led to the kitchen. He pushed one door open and it held wide.

    Ellie Sattler stepped outside the front door to the lodge, and felt the chilly mist on her face and legs. Her heart was thumping, even though she knew she was completely safe behind the fence. Directly ahead, she saw the heavy bars in the fog.

    But she couldn't see much beyond the fence. Another twenty yards before the landscape turned milky white. And she didn't see any raptors at all. In fact, the gardens and trees were almost eerily silent. "Hey!" she shouted into the fog, tentatively.

    Muldoon leaned against the door frame. "I doubt that'll do it," he said. "You've got to make a noise. " He hobbled out carrying a steel rod from the construction inside. He banged the rod against the bars like a dinner gong. "Come and get it! Dinner is served!"

    "Very amusing," Ellie said. She glanced nervously toward the roof. She saw no raptors.

    "They don't understand English." Muldoon grinned. "But I imagine they get the general idea. . . ."

    She was still nervous, and found his humor annoying. She looked toward the visitor building, cloaked in the fog. Muldoon resumed banging on the bars. At the limit of her vision, almost lost in the fog, she saw a ghostly pale animal. A raptor.

    "First customer," Muldoon said.

    The raptor disappeared, a white shadow and then came back, but it did not approach any closer, and it seemed strangely incurious about the noise coming from the lodge. She was starting to worry. Unless she could attract the raptors to the lodge, Grant would be in danger.

    "You're making too much noise," Ellie said.

    'Bloody hell," Muldoon said.

    "Well, you are."

    "I know these animals-"

    "You're drunk," she said. "Let me handle it."

    "And how will you do that?"

    She didn't answer him. She went to the gate. "They say the raptors are intelligent."

    "They are. At least as intelligent as chimps."

    "They have good hearing?"

    "Yes, excellent."

    "Maybe they'll know this sound," she said, and opened the gate. The metal hinges, rusted from the constant mist, creaked loudly. She closed it again, opened it with another creak.

    She left it open.

    "I wouldn't do that," Muldoon said. "You're going to do that, let me get the launcher."

    "Get the launcher."

    He sighed, remembering. "Gennaro has the shells."

    "Well, then," she said. "Keep an eye out." And she went through the gate, stepping outside the bars. Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely feel her feet on the dirt. She moved away from the fence, and it disappeared frighteningly fast in the fog. Soon it was lost behind her.

    Just as she expected, Muldoon began shouting to her in drunken agitation. "God damn it, girl, don't you do that," he bellowed.

    "Don't call me 'girl,"' she shouted back.

    "I'll call you any damn thing I want," Muldoon shouted.

    She wasn't listening. She was turning slowly, her body tense, watching from all sides. She was at least twenty yards from the fence now, and she could see the mist drifting like a light rain past the foliage. She stayed away from the foliage. She moved through a world of shades of gray. The muscles in her legs and shoulders ached from the tension. Her eyes strained to see.

    "Do you hear me, damn it?" Muldoon bellowed.

    How good are these animals? she wondered. Good enough to cut off my retreat? There wasn't much distance back to the fence, not really-

    They attacked.

    There was no sound.

    The first animal charged from the foliage at the base of a tree to the left. It sprang forward and she turned to run. The second attacked from the other side, clearly intending to catch her as she ran, and it leapt into the air, claws raised to attack, and she darted like a broken field runner, and the animal crashed down in the dirt. Now she was running flat out, not daring to look back, her breaths coming in deep gasps, seeing the bars of the fence emerge from the haze, seeing Muldoon throw the gate wide, seeing him reaching for her, shouting to her, grabbing her arm and pulling her through so hard she was yanked off her feet and fell to the ground. And she turned in time to see first one, then two-then tbree-animals hit the fence and snarl.

    "Good work," Muldoon shouted. He was taunting the animals now, snarling back, and it drove them wild. They flung themselves at the fence, leaping forward, and one of them nearly made it over the top. "Christ, that was close! These bastards can jump!"

    She got to her feet, looking at the scrapes and bruises, the blood running down her leg. All she could think was: three animals here. And two on the roof. That meant one was still missing, somewhere.

    "Come on, help me," Muldoon said. "Let's keep 'em interested!"

    Grant left the visitor center and moved quickly forward, into the mist. He found the path among the palm trees and followed it north. Up ahead, the rectangular maintenance shed emerged from the fog.

    There was no door that he could see at all. He walked on, around the corner. At the back, screened by planting, Grant saw a concrete loading dock for trucks. He scrambled up to face a vertical rolling door of corrugated steel; it was locked. He jumped down again and continued around the building. Farther ahead, to his right, Grant saw an ordinary door. It was propped open with a man's shoe.

    Grant stepped inside and squinted in the darkness. He listened, heard nothing. He picked up his radio and turned it on.

    "This is Grant," he said. "I'm inside."

    Wu looked up at the skylight. The two raptors still peered down into Malcolm's room, but they seemed distracted by the noises outside. He went to the lodge window. Outside, the three velociraptors continued to charge the fence. Ellie was running back and forth, safely behind the bars. But the raptors no longer seemed to be seriously trying to get her. Now they almost seemed to be playing, circling back from the fence, rearing up and snarling, then dropping down low, to circle again and finally charge. Their behavior had taken on the distinct quality of display, rather than serious attack.

    "Like birds," Muldoon said. "Putting on a show."

    Wu nodded. "They're intelligent. They see they can't get her. They're not really trying."

    The radio crackled. "-side."

    Wu gripped the radio. "Say again, Dr. Grant?"

    "I'm inside," Grant said.

    "Dr. Grant, you're in the maintenance building?"

    "Yes," Grant said. And he added, "Maybe you should call me Alan."

    "All right, Alan. If you're standing just inside the cast door, you see a lot of pipes and tubing." Wu closed his eyes, visualizing it, "Straight ahead is a big recessed well in the center of the building that goes two stories underground. To your left is a metal walkway with railings."

    "I see it."

    "Go along the walkway."

    "I'm going." Faintly, the radio carried the clang of his footsteps on metal.

    "After you go twenty or thirty feet, you'll see another walkway going right."

    "I see it," Grant said.

    "Follow that walkway."

    "Okay."

    "As you continue," Wu said, "you will come to a ladder on your left. Going down into the pit."

    "I see it."

    "Go down the ladder."

    There was a long pause. Wu ran his fingers through his damp hair, Muldoon frowned tensely.

    "Okay, I'm down the ladder," Grant said.

    "Good," Wu said. "Now, straight ahead of you should be two large yellow tanks that are marked 'Flammable.' "

    "They say 'In-flammable.' And then something underneath. In Spanish."

    "Those are the ones," Wu said. "Those are the two fuel tanks for the generator. One of them has been run dry, and so we have to switch over to the other. If you look at the bottom of the tanks, you'll see a white pipe coming out."

    "Four-inch PVC?"

    "Yes. PVC. Follow that pipe as it goes back."

    "Okay. I'm following it. . . Ow!"

    "What happened?"

    "Nothing. I hit my head."

    There was a pause.

    "Are you all right?"

    "Yeah, fine. Just . . . hurt my head. Stupid."

    "Keep following the pipe."

    "Okay, okay," Grant said. He sounded irritable. "Okay. The pipe goes to a big aluminum box with air vents in the sides. Says 'Honda.' It looks like the generator."

    "Yes," Wu said. "That's the generator. If you walk around to the side, you'll see a panel with two buttons."

    "I see them. Yellow and red?"

    "That's right," Wu said. "Press the yellow one first, and while you hold it down, press the red one."

    "Right."

    There was another pause. It lasted almost a minute. Wu and Muldoon looked at each other.  

    "Alan?"  

    "It didn't work," Grant said.

    "Did you hold down the yellow first and then press the red?" Wu asked.

    "Yes, I did," Grant said. He sounded annoyed. "I did exactly what you told me to do. There was a hum, and then a click, click, click, very fast, and then the hum stopped, and nothing after that."

    "Try it again."

     "I already did," Grant said. "It didn't work."

    "Okay, just a minute." Wu frowned. "It sounds like the generator is trying to fire up but it can't for some reason. Alan?"

    "I'm here."

    "Go around to the back of the generator, to where the plastic pipe runs in. "

    "Okay." A pause; then Grant said, "The pipe goes into a round black cylinder that looks like a fuel pump."

    "That's right," Wu said. "That's exactly what it is. It's the fuel pump. Look for a little valve at the top."

    "A valve?"

    "It should be sticking up at the top, with a little metal tab that you can turn."

    "I found it. But it's on the side, not the top."

    "Okay. Twist it open."

    "Air is coming out."

    "Good. Wait until-"

    "-now liquid is coming out. It smells like gas."

    "Okay. Close the valve." Wu turned to Muldoon, shaking his head. "Pump lost its prime. Alan?"

    "Yes."

    "Try the buttons again."

    A moment later, Wu heard the faint coughing and sputtering as the generator turned over, and then the steady chugging sound as it caught. "It's on," Grant said.

    "Good work, Alan! Good work!"

    "Now what?" Grant said. He sounded flat, dull. "The lights haven't even come on in here."

    "Go back to the control room, and I'll talk you through restoring the systems manually."

    "That's what I have to do now?"

    " Yes."

    "Okay," Grant said. "I'll call you when I get there." There was a final hiss, and silence.

    "Alan?"

    The radio was dead.

    Tim went through the swinging doors at the back of the dining room and entered the kitchen. A big stainless-steel table in the center of the room, a big stove with lots of burners to the left, and, beyond that, big walk-in refrigerators. Tim started opening the refrigerators, looking for ice cream. Smoke came out in the humid air as he opened each one.

    "How come the stove is on?" Lex said, releasing his hand.

    "It's not on."

    "They all have little blue flames."

    "Those're pilot lights."

    "What're pilot lights?" They had an electric stove at home.

    "Never mind," Tim said, opening another refrigerator. "But it means I can cook you something." In this next refrigerator, he found all kinds of stuff, cartons of milk, and piles of vegetables, and a stack of T-bone steaks, fish-but no ice cream.

    "You still want ice cream?"

    "I told you, didn't I?"

    The next refrigerator was huge. A stainless steel door, with a wide horizontal handle. He tugged on the handle, pulled it open, and saw a walk-in freezer. It was a whole room, and it was freezing cold.

    "Timmy . . ."

    "Will you wait a minute?" he said, annoyed. "I'm trying to find your ice cream.

    "Timmy . . . something's here."

    She was whispering, and for a moment the last two words didn't register. Then Tim hurried back out of the freezer, seeing the edge of the wreathed in glowing green smoke. Lex stood by the steel worktable. She was looking back to the kitchen door.

    He heard a low hissing sound, like a very large snake. The sound rose and fell softly. It was hardly audible. It might even be the wind, but he somehow knew it wasn't.

    "Timmy," she whispered, "I'm scared."

    He crept forward to the kitchen door and looked out. In the darkened dining room, he saw the orderly green rectangular pattern of the tabletops. And moving smoothly among them, silent as a ghost except for the hissing of its breath, was a velociraptor.

    In the darkness of the maintenance room, Grant felt along the pipes, moving back toward the ladder. It was difficult to make his way in the dark, and somehow he found the noise of the generator disorienting. He came to the ladder, and had started back up when he realized there was something else in the room besides generator noise.

    Grant paused, listening.

    It was a man shouting.

    It sounded like Gennaro.

    "Where are you?" Grant shouted.

    "Over here, " Gennaro said. "In the truck."

    Grant couldn't see any truck. He squinted in the darkness. He looked out of the corner of his eye. He saw green glowing shapes, moving in the darkness. Then he saw the truck, and he turned toward it.

    Tim found the silence chilling.

    The velociraptor was six feet tall, and powerfully built, although its strong legs and tail were hidden by the tables. Tim could see only the muscular upper torso, the two forearms held tightly alongside the body, the claws dangling. He could see the iridescent speckled pattern on the back. The velociraptor was alert; as it came forward, it looked from side to side, moving its head with abrupt, bird-like jerks. The head also bobbed up and down as it walked, and the long straight tail dipped, which heightened the impression of a bird.

    A gigantic, silent bird of prey.

    The dining room was dark, but apparently the raptor could see well enough to move steadily forward. From time to time, it would bend over, lowering its head below the tables. Tim heard a rapid sniffing sound. Then the head would snap up, alertly, jerking back and fortb like a bird's.