“No.”
“How many animals in total do you think are here?”
He shrugged. “A couple of hundred. Maybe five hundred at most.”
“So you’re off by an order of magnitude, Ian. Hold this, and I’ll get the lamp.”
She swung the heat lamp over the baby, to harden the resin. She adjusted the oxygen mask over the baby’s snout.
“The island can’t support all those predators,” she said. “And yet they’re here.”
He said, “What could explain it?”
She shook her head. “There has to be a food source that we don’t know about.”
“You mean, an artificial source?” he said. “I don’t think there is one.”
“No,” she said. “Artificial food sources make animals tame. And these animals aren’t tame. The only other possibility I can think of is that there’s a differential death rate among prey. If they grow very fast, or die young, then that might represent a larger food supply than expected.”
Malcolm said, “I’ve noticed, the largest animals seem small. It’s as if they don’t seem to reach maturity. Maybe they’re being killed off early.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But if there’s a differential death rate large enough to support this population, you should see evidence of carcasses, and lots of skeletons of dead animals. Have you seen that?”
Malcolm shook his head. “No. In fact, now that you mention it, I haven’t seen any skeletons at all.”
“Me neither.” She pushed the light away. “There’s something funny about this island, Ian.”
“I know,” Malcolm said.
“You do?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve suspected it from the beginning.”
Thunder rumbled. From the high hide, the plain below them was dark and silent, except for the distant snarling of the raptors. “Maybe we should go back,” Eddie said anxiously.
“Why?” Levine said. Levine had switched to his night-vision glasses, pleased with himself that he had thought to bring them. Through the goggles, the world was shades of pale green. He clearly saw the raptors at the kill site, the tall grass trampled and bloody all around. The carcass was long since finished, though they could still hear the cracking of bones as the animals gnawed on them.
“I just think,” Eddie said, “that now that it’s night, we’d be safer in the trailer.”
“Why?” Levine said.
“Well, it’s reinforced, it’s strong, and very safe. It has everything that we need. I just think we should be there. I mean, you’re not planning on staying out here all night, are you?”
“No,” Levine said. “What do you think I am, a fanatic?”
Eddie grunted.
“But let’s stay for a while longer,” Levine said.
Eddie turned to Thorne. “Doc? What do you say? It’s going to start raining soon.”
“Just a little longer,” Thorne said. “And then we’ll all go back together.”
“There have been dinosaurs on this island for five years, maybe more,” Malcolm said, “but none have appeared elsewhere. Suddenly, in the last year, carcasses of dead animals are showing up on the beaches of Costa Rica, and according to reports, on islands of the Pacific as well.”
“Carried by currents?”
“Presumably. But the question is, why now? Why all of a sudden, after five years? Something has changed, but we don’t know—wait a minute.” He moved away from the table, over to the computer console. He turned toward the screen.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Arby got us into the old network,” he said, “and it still has research files from the eighties.” He moved the mouse across the screen. “We haven’t looked at them. . . .” He saw the menu come up, showing work files and research files. He began to scroll through screens of text.
“Years ago, they had trouble with some disease,” he said. “There were a lot of notes about it in the laboratory.”
“What kind of disease?”
“They didn’t know,” Malcolm said.
“In the wild, there are some very slow-acting illnesses,” she said. “May take five or ten years to show up. Caused by viruses, or prions. You know, protein fragments—like scrapie or mad-cow disease.”
“But,” Malcolm said, “those diseases only come from eating contaminated food.”
There was a silence.
“What do you suppose they fed them, back then?” she asked. “Because if I was growing baby dinosaurs, I’d wonder. What do they eat? Milk, I suppose, but—”
“Milk, yes,” Malcolm said, reading the screens. “First six weeks, goat’s milk.”
“That’s the logical choice,” she said. “Goat’s milk is what they always use in zoos, because it’s so hypoallergenic. But what about later?”
“Give me a minute here,” Malcolm said.
Harding held the baby’s leg in her hand, waiting for the resin to harden. She looked at the cast, sniffed it. It was still strong-smelling. “I hope that’s all right,” she said. “Sometimes if there’s a distinctive smell, the animals won’t allow infants to return. But maybe this will dissipate after the compound hardens. How long has it been?”
Malcolm glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes. Another ten minutes and it’ll set.”
She said, “I’d like to take this guy back to the nest.”
Thunder rumbled. They looked out the window at the black night.
“Probably too late to return him tonight,” Malcolm said. He was still typing, peering at the screen.
“So . . . what did they feed them? Okay. In the period from 1988 to 1989 . . . the herbivores got a macerated plant matter on a feeding schedule three times a day . . . and the carnivores got . . .”
He stopped.
“What’d the carnivores get?”
“Looks like a ground-up extract of animal protein. . . .”
“From what? The usual source is turkey or chicken, with some antibiotics added.”
“Sarah,” he said. “They used sheep extract.”
“No,” she said. “They wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, they did. Came from their supplier, who used ground-up sheep.”
“You’re kidding,” she said.
Malcolm said, “I’m afraid so. Now, let me see if I can find out—”
A soft alarm sounded. On the wall panel above him, a red light began to flash. A moment later, the exterior lights above the trailer turned on, bathing the grassy clearing around them in bright halogen glare.
“What’s that?” Harding said.
“The sensors—something set them off.” Malcolm moved away from the computer, peered out the window. He saw nothing but tall grass, and the dark trees at the perimeter. It was silent, still.
Sarah, still intent on the baby, said, “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see anything.”
“But something triggered the sensors?”
“I guess.”
“Wind?”
“There’s no wind,” he said.
In the high hide, Kelly said, “Hey, look!”
Thorne turned. From their location in the valley, they could look north to the high cliff behind them and the two trailers above, in the grassy clearing.
The exterior lights on the trailers had come on.
Thorne unclipped the radio at his belt. “Ian? Are you there?”
A momentary crackle: “I’m here, Doc.”
“What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Malcolm said. “The perimeter lights just turned on. I think the sensor was activated. But we don’t see anything out there.”
Eddie said, “Air’s cooling off fast now. Might have been convection currents, set it off.”
Thorne said, “Ian? Everything okay?”
“Yes. Fine. Don’t worry.”
Eddie said, “I always figured we set the sensitivity too high. That’s all it is.”
Levine frowned, and said nothing.
&
nbsp; Sarah finished with the baby, and wrapped him in a blanket, and gently strapped him down to the table with cloth restraint straps. She came over and stood beside Malcolm. She looked out the window.
“What do you think?”
Malcolm shrugged. “Eddie says the system’s too sensitive.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s never been tested before.” He scanned the trees at the edge of the clearing, looking for any movement. Then he thought he heard a snorting sound, almost a growl. It seemed like it was answered from somewhere behind him. He went to look out the other side of the trailer, at the trees on the other side.
Malcolm and Harding looked out, straining to see something in the night. Malcolm held his breath, tensely. After a moment, Harding sighed. “I don’t see anything, Ian.”
“No. Me neither.”
“Must be a false alarm.”
Then he felt the vibration, a deep resonant thumping in the ground, that was carried to them through the floor of the trailer. He glanced at Sarah. Her eyes widened.
Malcolm knew what it was. The vibration came again, unmistakably this time.
Sarah stared out the window. She whispered, “Ian: I see it.”
Malcolm turned, and joined her. She was pointing out the window toward the nearest trees.
“What?”
And then he saw the big head emerge from the foliage midway up one tree. The head turned slowly from side to side, as if listening. It was an adult Tyrannosaurus rex.
“Ian,” she whispered. “Look—there are two of them.”
Over to the right, he saw a second animal step from behind the trees. It was larger, the female of the pair. The animals growled, a deep rumble in the night. They emerged slowly from the cover of the trees, stepping into the clearing. They blinked in the harsh light.
“Are those the parents?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
He glanced over at the baby. It was still unconscious, breathing steadily, the blanket rising and falling regularly.
“What are they doing here?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
The animals were still standing at the edge of the clearing, near the cover of the trees. They seemed hesitant, waiting.
“Are they looking for the baby?” she said.
“Sarah, please.”
“I’m serious.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Why? They must have tracked it here.”
The tyrannosaurs raised their heads, lifting their jaws. Then they turned their heads left and right, in slow arcs. They repeated the movement, then took a step forward, toward the trailer.
“Sarah,” he said. “We’re miles from the nest. There isn’t any way for them to track it.”
“How do you know?”
“Sarah—”
“You said yourself, we don’t know anything about these animals. We don’t know anything about their physiology, their biochemistry, their nervous systems, their behavior. And we don’t know anything about their sensory equipment, either.”
“Yes, but—”
“They’re predators, Ian. Good sense of vision, good sense of hearing and smell.”
“I assume so, yes.”
“But we don’t know what else,” Sarah said.
“What else?” Malcolm said.
“Ian. There are other sensory modalities. Snakes sense infrared. Bats have echolocation. Birds and turtles have magnetosensors—they can detect the earth’s magnetic field, which is how they migrate. Dinosaurs may have other sensory modalities that we can’t imagine.”
“Sarah, this is ridiculous.”
“Is it? Then you tell me. What are they doing out there?”
Outside, near the trees, the tyrannosaurs had become silent. They were no longer growling, but they were still moving their heads back and forth in slow arcs, turning left and right.
Malcolm frowned. “It looks like . . . they’re looking around. . . .”
“Straight into bright lights? No, Ian. They’re blinded.”
As soon as she said it, he realized she was right. But the heads were turning back and forth in that regular way. “Then what are they doing? Smelling?”
“No. Heads are high. Nostrils aren’t moving.”
“Listening?”
She nodded. “Possibly.”
“Listening to what?”
“Maybe to the baby.”
He glanced over again. “Sarah. The baby is out cold.”
“I know.”
“It isn’t making any noise.”
“None that we can hear.” She stared at the tyrannosaurs. “But they’re doing something, Ian. That behavior we’re seeing has meaning. We just don’t know what it is.”
* * *
From the high hide, Levine stared through his night-vision glasses at the clearing. He saw the two tyrannosaurs standing at the edge of the forest. They were moving their heads in an odd, synchronized way.
They took a few hesitant steps toward the trailer, lifted their heads, turned right and left, and then seemed finally to make up their minds. The animals moved quickly, almost aggressively, across the clearing.
Over the radio, they heard Malcolm say, “It’s the lights! The lights are drawing them.”
A moment later, the exterior lights were turned off, and the clearing went black. They all squinted in the darkness. They heard Malcolm say, “That did it.”
Thorne said to Levine, “What do you see?”
“Nothing.”
“What’re they doing?”
“They’re just standing there.”
Through the night-vision goggles, he saw that the tyrannosaurs had paused, as if confused by this change in light. Even from a distance, he could hear their growls, but they were uneasy. They swung their great heads up and down, and snapped their jaws. But they did not move closer.
Kelly said, “What is it?”
“They’re waiting,” Levine said. “At least for the moment.”
Levine had the distinct impression that the tyrannosaurs were unsettled. The trailer must represent a large and fearsome change in their environment. Perhaps they would turn away, he thought, and leave. Despite their enormous size, they were cautious, almost timid animals.
They growled again. And then he saw them move forward, toward the darkened trailer.
“Ian: what do we do?”
“Damned if I know,” Malcolm whispered.
They were crouched down side by side in the passageway, trying to stay out of sight in the windows. The tyrannosaurs moved implacably forward. They could feel each step as a distinct vibration now—two ten-ton animals, moving toward them.
“They’re coming right at us!”
“I noticed,” he said.
The first of the animals reached the trailer, coming so close that the body blocked the entire window. All Malcolm could see was powerfully muscled legs and underbelly. The head was far above them, out of view.
Then the second tyrannosaur came up on the opposite side. The two animals began to circle the trailer, growling and snorting. Heavy footsteps shook the floor beneath them. They smelled the pungent predator odor. One of the tyrannosaurs brushed against the side of the trailer and they heard a scraping sound, scaly flesh on metal.
Malcolm felt sudden panic. It was the smell that did it, the smell that he suddenly remembered, from before. He began to sweat. He glanced over at Sarah, and saw that she was intent, watching the movements of the animals. “This isn’t hunting behavior,” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” Malcolm said. “Maybe it is. They aren’t lions, you know.”
One of the tyrannosaurs bellowed in the night, a frightening, ear-splitting sound.
“Not hunting,” she said. “They’re searching, Ian.”
A moment later, the second tyrannosaur bellowed in reply. Then the big head swung down, and peered in through the window in front of them. Malcolm ducked down, flattening himself on the trailer floor,
and Sarah collapsed on top of him. Her shoe pressed on his ear.
“It’s going to be fine, Sarah.”
Outside, they heard the tyrannosaurs snorting and growling.
Malcolm whispered, “Would you mind moving?”
She edged to one side, and he eased up slowly, peering cautiously over the seat cushions. He had a glimpse of the big eye of the rex staring in at him. The eye swiveled in the socket. He saw the jaws open and close. The hot breath of the animal fogged the glass.
The tyrannosaur’s head swung away, moving back from the trailer, and for a moment Malcolm breathed more easily. But then the head swung back, and slammed with a heavy thud into the trailer, rocking it hard.
“Don’t worry, Sarah. The trailer’s very strong.”
She whispered, “I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”
From the opposite side, the other rex bellowed and struck the trailer with its snout. The suspension creaked with the impact.
The two tyrannosaurs now began an alternating, rhythmic pounding of the trailer from either side. Malcolm and Harding were thrown back and forth. Sarah tried to steady herself, but was knocked away at the next impact. The floor tilted crazily under each blow. Lab equipment flew off the tables. Glass shattered.
And then, abruptly, the pounding stopped. There was silence.
Grunting, Malcolm got up on one knee. He peered out the window, and saw the hindquarters of one of the tyrannosaurs, as it moved forward.
“What do we do?” he whispered.
The radio crackled. Thorne said, “Ian, are you there? Ian!”
“For God’s sake, turn that off,” Sarah whispered.
Malcolm reached for his belt, whispered, “We’re okay,” and clicked the radio off.
Sarah was crawling on her hands and knees forward through the trailer, into the biology lab. He followed her, and saw the big tyrannosaur peering in through the window, at the baby, strapped down. The tyrannosaur made a soft grunting sound.
Then it paused, looking in the window.
It grunted again.
“She wants her baby, Ian,” Sarah whispered.
“Well, God knows,” Malcolm said, “it’s all right with me.” They were huddled on the floor, trying to stay out of sight.
The Lost World Page 29
