Jurassic Park

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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?"