“I couldn’t just leave him,” Eddie said. “And I figured we can fix his leg. . . .”
“But Eddie,” Malcolm said, shaking his head.
“So I shot him full of morphine from the first-aid kit, and brought him back. You see? The oxygen mask almost fits him.”
“Eddie,” Malcolm said, “this was the wrong thing to do.”
“Why? He’s okay. We just fix him and take him back.”
“But you’re interfering with the system,” Malcolm said.
The radio clicked. “This is extremely unwise,” Levine said, over the radio. “Extremely.”
“Thank you, Richard,” Thorne said.
“I am entirely opposed to bringing any animal back to the trailer.”
“Too late to worry about that now,” Sarah Harding said. She had moved forward alongside the baby, and began strapping cardiac leads to the animal’s chest; they heard the thump of the heartbeat. It was very fast, over a hundred and fifty beats a minute. “How much morphine did you give him?”
“Gee,” Eddie said. “I just . . . you know. The whole syringe.”
“What is that? Ten cc’s?”
“I think. Maybe twenty.”
Malcolm looked at Harding. “How long before it wears off?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “I’ve sedated lions and jackals in the field, when I tagged them. With those animals, there’s a rough correlation between dose and body weight. But with young animals, it’s unpredictable. Maybe a few minutes, maybe a few hours. And I don’t know a thing about baby tyrannosaurs. Basically, it’s a function of metabolism, and this one seems to be rapid, bird-like. The heart’s pumping very fast. All I can say is, let’s get him out of here as quickly as possible.”
Harding picked up the small ultrasound transducer and held it to the baby’s leg. She looked over her shoulder at the monitor. Kelly and Arby were blocking the view. “Please, give us a little room here,” she said, and they moved away. “We don’t have much time. Please.”
As they moved away, Sarah saw the green-and-white outlines of the leg and its bones. Surprisingly like a large bird, she thought. A vulture or a stork. She moved the transducer. “Okay . . . there’s the metatarsals . . . and there’s the tibia and fibula, the two bones of the lower leg. . . .”
Arby said, “Why are the bones different shades like that?” The legs had some dense white sections within paler-green outlines.
“Because it’s an infant,” Harding said. “His legs are still mostly cartilage, with very little calcified bone. I’d guess this baby probably can’t walk yet—at least, not very well. There. Look at the patella. . . . You can see the blood supply to the joint capsule. . . .”
“How come you know all this anatomy?” Kelly said.
“I have to. I spend a lot of time looking through the scat of predators,” she said. “Examining pieces of bones that are left behind, and figuring out which animals have been eaten. To do that, you have to know comparative anatomy very well.” She moved the transducer along the baby’s leg. “And my father was a vet.”
Malcolm looked up sharply. “Your father was a vet?”
“Yes. At the San Diego Zoo. He was a bird specialist. But I don’t see . . . Can you magnify this?”
Arby flicked a switch. The image doubled in size.
“Ah. Okay. All right. There it is. You see it?”
“No.”
“It’s mid-fibula. See it? A thin black line. That’s a fracture, just above the epiphysis.”
“That little black line there?” Arby said.
“That little black line means death for this infant,” Sarah said. “The fibula won’t heal straight, so the ankle joint can’t pivot when he stands on his hind feet. The baby won’t be able to run, and probably can’t even walk. It’ll be crippled, and a predator will pick it off before it gets more than a few weeks old.”
Eddie said, “But we can set it.”
“Okay,” Sarah said. “What were you going to use for a cast?”
“Diesterase,” Eddie said. “I brought a kilo of it, in hundred-cc tubes. I packed lots, for glue. The stuff’s polymer resin, it solidifies hard as steel.”
“Great,” Harding said. “That’ll kill him, too.”
“It will?”
“He’s growing, Eddie. In a few weeks he’ll be much larger. We need something that’s rigid, but biodegradable,” she said. “Something that will wear off, or break off, in three to five weeks, when his leg’s healed. What have you got?”
Eddie frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Well, we haven’t got much time,” Harding said.
Eddie said, “Doc? This is like one of your famous test questions. How to make a dinosaur cast with only Q-tips and superglue.”
“I know,” Thorne said. The irony of the situation was not lost on him. He had given problems such as these to his engineering students for three decades. Now he was faced with one himself.
Eddie said, “Maybe we could degrade the resin—mix it with something like table sugar.”
Thorne shook his head. “Hydroxy groups in the sucrose will make the resin friable. It’ll harden okay, but it’ll shatter like glass as soon as the animal moves.”
“What if we mix it with cloth that’s been soaked in sugar?”
“You mean, to get bacteria to decay the cloth?”
“Yeah.”
“And then the cast breaks?”
“Yeah.”
Thorne shrugged. “That might work, “ he said. “But without testing, we can’t know how long the cast will last. Might be a few days, it might be a few months.”
“That’s too long,” Sarah said. “This animal is growing rapidly. If growth is constricted, it’ll end up being crippled by the cast.”
“What we need,” Eddie said, “is an organic resin that will form a decaying binder. Like a gum of some kind.”
“Chewing gum?” Arby said. “Because I have plenty of—”
“No, I was thinking of a different kind of gum. Chemically speaking, the diesterase resin—”
“We’ll never solve it chemically,” Thorne said. “We don’t have the supplies.”
“What else can we do? There’s no choice but—”
“What if you make something that’s different in different directions?” Arby said. “Strong one way and weak in another?”
“You can’t,” Eddie said. “It’s a homogeneous resin. It’s all the same stuff, goopy glue that turns rock-hard when it dries, and—”
“No, wait a minute,” Thorne said, turning to the boy. “What do you mean, Arby?”
“Well,” Arby said, “Sarah said the leg is growing. That means it’s going to grow longer, which doesn’t matter for a cast, and wider, which does, because it’ll start to squeeze the leg. But if you made it weak in the diameter—”
“He’s right,” Thorne said. “We can solve it structurally.”
“How?” Eddie said.
“Just build in a split-line. Maybe using aluminum foil. We have some for cooking.”
“That’d be much too weak,” Eddie said.
“Not if we coat it with a layer of resin.” Thorne turned to Sarah. “What we can do is make a cast that is very strong for vertical stresses, but weak for lateral stresses. It’s a simple engineering problem. The baby can walk around on its cuff, and everything is fine, as long as the stresses are vertical. But when its leg grows, it will pop the split-line open, and the cuff will fall away.”
“Yes,” Arby said, nodding.
“Is that hard to do?” she said.
“No. It should be pretty easy. You just build a cuff of aluminum foil, and coat it with resin.”
Eddie said, “And what’ll hold the cuff together while you coat it?”
“How about chewing gum?” Arby said.
“You got it,” Thorne said, smiling.
At that moment, the baby rex stirred, its legs twitching. It raised its head, the oxygen mask dropping away, and gave a low, weak squeak.
“Quickly,” Sarah said, grabbing the head. “More morphine.”
Malcolm had a syringe ready. He jabbed it into the animal’s neck.
“Just five cc’s now,” Sarah said.
“What’s wrong with more? Keep him out longer?”
“He’s in shock from the injury, Ian. You can kill him with too much morphine. You’ll put him into respiratory arrest. His adrenal glands are probably stressed, too.”
“If he even has adrenals,” Malcolm said. “Does a Tyrannosaurus rex have hormones at all? The truth is, we don’t know anything about these animals.”
The radio clicked, and Levine said, “Speak for yourself, Ian. In point of fact, I suspect we will find that dinosaurs have hormones. There are compelling reasons to imagine they do. As long as you have gone to the misguided trouble of taking the baby, you might draw some tubes of blood. Meanwhile, Doc, could you pick up the phone?”
Malcolm sighed. “That guy,” he said, “is starting to get on my nerves.”
Thorne moved down the trailer to the communications module near the front. Levine’s request was odd; there was a perfectly good system of microphones throughout the trailer. But Levine knew that; he had designed the system himself.
Thorne picked up the phone. “Yes?”
“Doc,” Levine said, “I’ll get right to the point. Bringing the baby to the trailer was a mistake. It’s asking for trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“We don’t know, is the point. And I don’t want to alarm anybody. But why don’t you bring the kids out to the high hide for a while? And why don’t you and Eddie come, too?”
“You’re telling me to get the hell out of here. You really think it’s necessary?”
“In a word,” Levine said, “yes. I do.”
As the morphine was injected into the baby, he gave a sighing wheeze, and collapsed back onto the steel pan. Sarah adjusted the oxygen mask around his face. She glanced back at the monitor, checking the heart rate, but once again Arby and Kelly were blocking her view. “Kids, please.”
Thorne stepped forward, clapped his hands. “Okay, kids! Field trip! Let’s get moving.”
Arby said, “Now? But we want to watch the baby—”
“No, no,” Thorne said. “Dr. Malcolm and Dr. Harding need room to work. This is the time for a field trip to the high hide. We can watch the dinosaurs for the rest of the afternoon.”
“But Doc—”
“Don’t argue. We’re just in the way here, and we’re going,” Thorne said. “Eddie, you come, too. Leave these two lovebirds to do their work.”
In a few moments, they left. The trailer door slammed shut behind them. Sarah Harding heard the soft whirr of the Explorer as it drove away. Bent over the baby, adjusting the oxygen mask, she said, “Lovebirds?”
Malcolm shrugged. “Levine . . .”
“Was this Levine’s idea? Clearing everybody out?”
“Probably.”
“Does he know something we don’t?”
Malcolm laughed. “I’m sure he thinks he does.”
“Well, let’s start the cast,” she said. “I want to get it done quickly, and take this baby home again.”
The High Hide
The sun had disappeared behind low-hanging clouds by the time they reached the high hide. The entire valley was bathed in a soft reddish glow as Eddie parked the Explorer beneath the aluminum scaffolding, and they all climbed up to the little shelter above. Levine was there, binoculars to his eyes. He did not seem glad to see them. “Stop moving around so much,” he said irritably.
From the shelter, they had a magnificent view over the valley. Somewhere in the north, thunder rumbled. The air was cooling, and felt electric.
“Is there going to be a storm?” Kelly asked.
“Looks like it,” Thorne said.
Arby glanced doubtfully at the metal roof of the shelter. “How long are we staying out here?”
“For a while,” Thorne said. “This is our only day here. The helicopters are taking us away tomorrow morning. I thought you kids deserved a chance to see the dinosaurs in the field one more time.”
Arby squinted at him. “What’s the real reason?”
“I know,” Kelly said, in a worldly tone.
“Yeah? What?”
“Dr. Malcolm wants to be alone with Sarah, stupid.”
“Why?”
“They’re old friends,” Kelly said.
“So? We were just going to watch.”
“No,” Kelly said. “I mean, they’re old friends.”
“I know what you’re talking about,” Arby said. “I’m not stupid, you know.”
“Knock it off,” Levine said, staring through the binoculars. “You’re missing the interesting stuff.”
“What’s that?”
“Those triceratops, down at the river. Something’s bothering them.”
The triceratops herd had been drinking peacefully from the river, but now they were beginning to make noise. For such huge animals, their vocalizations were incongruously high-pitched: they sounded more like yelping dogs.
Arby turned to look. “There’s something in the trees,” he said, “across the river.” There was some hint of dark movement, beneath the trees.
The triceratops herd shifted, and began backing toward each other until they formed a sort of rosette, with their curved horns facing outward, against the unseen menace. The solitary baby was in the center, yelping in fear. One of the animals, presumably its mother, turned and nuzzled it. Afterward, the baby was silent.
“I see them,” Kelly said, staring at the trees. “They’re raptors. Over there.”
The triceratops herd faced the raptors, the adults barking as they swung their sharp horns up and down. They created a kind of barrier of moving spikes. There was an unmistakable sense of coordination, of group defense against predators.
Levine was smiling happily. “There’s never been any evidence for this,” he said, suddenly cheerful. “In fact, most paleontologists don’t believe it happens.”
“Don’t believe what happens?” Arby said.
“This kind of group defensive behavior. Especially with trikes—they look a bit like rhinos, so they’ve been assumed to be solitary, like rhinos. But now we will see. . . . Ah. Yes.”
From beneath the trees, a single velociraptor hopped out into view. It moved quickly on its hind legs, balancing with a stiff tail.
The triceratops herd barked noisily at the appearance of the raptor. The other raptors remained hidden beneath the trees. The solitary velociraptor in full view moved in a slow semicircle around the herd, entering the water on the far side. It crossed, swimming easily, and came out on the other bank. It was now about fifty yards upstream from the barking triceratops herd, which wheeled to present a united front. All their attention was focused on the single velociraptor.
Slowly, other raptors began to slink out of their hiding place. They moved low, bodies hidden in the tall grass.
“Jeez,” Arby said. “They’re hunting.”
“In a pack,” Levine said, nodding. He picked up a bit of candy bar wrapper from the floor of the shelter, and dropped it, watching it flutter off in the wind. “The main pack is downwind, so the trikes can’t smell them.” He raised the binoculars to his eyes again. “I think,” he said, “that we’re about to see a kill.”
They watched as the raptors closed in around the herd. And then suddenly, lightning cracked on the island rim, brilliantly lighting the valley floor. One of the stalking raptors stood up in surprise. Its head was briefly visible above the grass.
Immediately, the triceratops herd wheeled again, regrouping to face the new menace. All the raptors stopped, as if to reconsider their plan.
“What happened?” Arby said. “Why are they stopping?”
“They’re in trouble.”
“Why?”
“Look at them. The main pack is still across the river. They’re too far away to mount an attack.”
“You mean they’re giving up? Already?”
“Looks like it,” Levine said.
One by one, the raptors in the grass raised their heads, making their positions known. As each new predator appeared, the triceratops barked loudly. The raptors seemed to know the situation was hopeless. They slunk away, moving back toward the trees. Seeing them retreat, the triceratops barked even louder.
And then the single raptor by the water’s edge charged. It moved incredibly fast—astonishingly fast—streaking like a cheetah across the fifty yards that separated it from the herd. The adult triceratops had no time to re-form. The baby was exposed. It squealed in fright as it saw the approaching animal.
The velociraptor leapt into the air, raising both its hind legs. Lightning cracked again, and in the brilliant light they saw the twin curved claws high in the air. At the last moment, the nearest adult turned, swiveling its big horned head with the wide bony crest, and it knocked the raptor a glancing blow, sending the animal sprawling on the muddy bank. Immediately the adult triceratops charged forward, its head high. When it reached the raptor it stopped abruptly and swung its big head down, lowering its horns toward the fallen animal. But the raptor was quick; hissing, it leapt to its feet, and the triceratops’ horns slashed harmlessly into the mud. The raptor spun sideways, and kicked the adult on the snout, drawing blood with its big curved claw. The adult bellowed, but by then two other adults were charging forward, while the others remained behind with the baby. The raptor scrambled away, back into the grass.
“Wow,” Arby said. “That was something!”
The Herd
King gave a long sigh of relief as he came to the Y-fork in the road, and drove the red Jeep left, coming onto a wide dirt road. He recognized it at once: this was the ridge road that led back to the boat. As he looked off to his left, he could see down across the east valley. The boat was still there! All right! He gave a shout and accelerated sharply, relief flooding through him. On the deck, he could see the Spanish fishermen, staring up at the sky. Despite the threatening storm, they didn’t seem to be preparing to leave. Probably they were waiting for Dodgson.
Well, he thought, that was fine. King would be there in a few minutes. After working his way through dense jungle, he could finally see exactly where he was. The ridge road was high, following the crest of one of the volcanic spines. There was almost no foliage up here, and as the road twisted and turned, he had views across the entire island. To the east, he could look down into the ravine, and the boat at the shore. To the west, he could look straight across at the laboratory, and Malcolm’s twin trailers parked near the far edge of the clearing.
The Lost World Page 27
