Lex She was curled up inside a big one-meter drainage pipe that ran under the road. She had her baseball glove in her mouth and she was rocking back and forth, banging her head repeatedly against the back of the pipe. It was dark in there, but he could see her clearly with his goggles. She seemed unhurt, and he felt a great burst of relief. "Lex, it"s me. Tim." She didn"t answer. She continued to bang her head on the pipe. "Come on out." She shook her head no. He could see she was badly frightened. "Lex," he said, "if you come out, I"ll let you wear these night goggles." She just shook her head. "Look what I have," he said, holding up his band. She stared uncomprehendingly. It was probably too dark for her to see. "It"s your ball, Lex. I found your ball." "So what." He tried another approach. "It must be uncomfortable in there. Cold, too. Wouldn"t you like to come out?" She resumed banging her head against the pipe. "Why not?" "There"s aminals out there." That threw him for a moment. She hadn"t said "aminals" for years. "The aminals are gone," he said. "There"s a big one. A Tyrannosaurus rex." "He"s gone." "Where did he go?" "I don"t know, but he"s not around here now," Tim said, hoping it was true. Lex didn"t move. He heard her hanging again. Tim sat down in the gra.s.s outside the pipe, where she could see him. The ground was wet where he sat. He hugged his knees and waited. He couldn"t think of anything else to do. "I"m just going to sit here," he said. "And rest." "Is Daddy out there?" "No," he said, feeling strange. "He"s back at home, Lex." "Is Mommy?" "No, Lex." "Are there any grownups out there?" Lex said. "Not yet. But I"m sure they"ll come soon. They"re probably on their way right now." Then he heard her moving inside the pipe, and she came out. Shivering with cold, and with dried blood on her forehead, but otherwise all right. She looked around in surprise and said, "Where"s Dr. Grant?" "I don"t know." "Well, he was here before." "He was? When?" "Before," Lex said. "I saw him when I was in the pipe." "Where"d he go?" "How am I supposed to know?" Lex said, wrinkling her nose. She began to shout: "h.e.l.looo. h.e.l.l-oooo! Dr. Grant? Dr. Grant!" Tim was uneasy at the noise she was making-it might bring back the tyrannosaur-but a moment later he heard an answering shout. It was coming from the right, over toward the Land Cruiser that Tim had left a few minutes before. With his goggles, Tim saw with relief that Dr. Grant was walking toward them, He had a big tear in his shirt at the shoulder, but otherwise he looked okay. "Thank G.o.d," he said. "I"ve been looking for you."
Shivering, Ed Regis got to his feet, and wiped the cold mud off his face and hands. He had spent a very had half hour, wedged among big boulders on the slope of a hill below the road. He knew it wasn"t much of a hiding place, but he was panicked and he wasn"t thinking clearly. He had lain in this muddy cold place and he had tried to get hold of himself, but he kept seeing that dinosaur in his mind. That dinosaur coming toward him. Toward the car. Ed Regis didn"t remember exactly what had happened after that. He remembered that Lex had said something but he hadn"t stopped, he couldn"t stop, he had just kept running and running. Beyond the road he had lost his footing and tumbled down the hill and come to rest by some boulders, and it had seemed to him that he could crawl in among the boulders, and hide, there was enough room, so that was what he had done. Gasping and terrified, thinking of nothing except to get away from the tyrannosaur. And, finally, when he was wedged in there like a rat between the boulders, he had calmed down a little, and he had been overcome with horror and shame because he"d abandoned those kids, he had just run away, he had just saved himself. He knew he should go back up to the road, he should try to rescue them, because he had always imagined himself as brave and cool under pressure, but whenever he tried to get control of himself, to make himself go back up there-somehow he just couldn"t. He started to feel panicky, and he had trouble breathing, and he didn"t move. He told himself it was hopeless, anyway. If the kids were still up there on the road they could never survive, and certainly there was nothing Ed Regis could do for them, and he might as well stay where he was. No one was going to know what had happened except him. And there was nothing he could do. Nothing he could have done. And so Regis had remained among the boulders for half an hour, fighting off panic, carefully not thinking about whether the kids had died, or about what Hammond would have to say when he found out. What finally made him move was the peculiar sensation he noticed in his mouth. The side of his mouth felt funny, kind of numb and tingling, and he wondered if he had hurt it during the fall. Regis touched his face and felt swollen flesh on the side of his mouth. It was funny, but it didn"t hurt at all. Then he realized the swollen flesh was a leech growing fat as it sucked his lips. It was practically in his mouth. Shivering with nausea, Regis pulled the leech away, feeling it tear from the flesh of his lips, feeling the gush of warm blood in his mouth. He spat, and flung it with disgust into the forest. He saw another leech on his forearm, and pulled it off, leaving a dark b.l.o.o.d.y streak behind. Jesus, he was probably covered with them. That fall down the hillside. These jungle hills were full of leeches. So were the dark rocky crevices. What did the workmen say? The leeches crawled up your underwear. They liked dark warm places. They liked to crawl right up your- "h.e.l.looo!" He stopped. It was a voice, carried by the wind. "h.e.l.loo! Dr. Grant!" Jesus, that was the little girl. Ed Regis listened to the tone of her voice. She didn"t sound frightened, or in pain. She was just calling in her insistent way. And it slowly dawned on him that something else must have happened, that the tyrannosaur must have gone away-or at least hadn"t attacked-and that the other people might still be alive. Grant and Malcolm. Everybody might be alive. An the realization made him pull himself together in an instant, the way you got sober in an instant when the cops pulled you over, and he felt better, because now he knew what he had to do. And as he crawled out from the boulders he was already formulating the next step, already figuring out what he would say, how to handle things from this point. Regis wiped the cold mud off his face and hands, the evidence that he had been hiding. He wasn"t embarra.s.sed that he had been hiding, but now he had to take charge. He scrambled back up toward the road, but when he emerged from the foliage he had a moment of disorientation. He didn"t see the cars at all. He was somehow at the bottom of the hill. The Land Cruisers must be at the top. He started walking up the hill, back toward the Land Cruisers. It was very quiet. His feet splashed in the muddy puddles. He couldn"t bear the little girl any more. Why had she stopped calling? As he walked, he began to think that maybe something had happened to her. In that case, he shouldn"t walk back there. Maybe the tyrannosaur was still hanging around. Here he was, already at the bottom of the hill. That much closer to home. And it was so quiet. Spooky, it was so quiet. Ed Regis turned around, and started walking back toward the camp.
Alan Grant ran his hands over her limbs, squeezing the arms and legs briefly. She didn"t seem to have any pain. It was amazing: aside from a cut on her head, she was fine. "I told you I was," she said. "Well, I had to check." The boy was not quite so fortunate. Tim"s nose was swollen and painful; Grant suspected it was broken. His right shoulder was badly bruised and swollen. But his legs seemed to be all right. Both kids could walk. That was the important thing. Grant himself was all right except for a claw abrasion down his right chest, where the tyrannosaur had kicked him. It burned with every breath, but it didn"t seem to be serious, and it didn"t limit his movement. He wondered if he had been knocked unconscious, because he had only dim recollections of events immediately preceding the moment he had sat up, groaning, in the woods ten yards from the Land Cruiser. At first his chest had been bleeding, so he had stuck leaves on the wound, and after a while it clotted. Then he had started walking around, looking for Malcolm and the kids. Grant couldn"t believe he was still alive, and as scattered images began to come back to him, he tried to make sense of them. The tyrannosaur should have killed them all easily. Why hadn"t it? "I"m hungry," Lex said. "Me, too," Grant said. "We"ve got to get ourselves back to civilization. And we"ve got to tell them about the ship." "We"re the only ones who know?" Tim said. "Yes. We"ve got to get back and tell them." "Then let"s walk down the road toward the hotel," Tim said, pointing down the hill. "That way we"ll meet them when they come for us." Grant considered that. And he kept thinking about one thing: the dark shape that had crossed between the Land Cruisers even before the attack started. What animal had that been? He could think of only one possibility-the little tyrannosaur. "I don"t think so, Tim. The road has high fences on both sides," Grant said. "If one of the tyrannosaurs is farther down on the road, we"ll he trapped." "Then should we wait here?" Tim said. "Yes," Grant said. "Let"s just wait here until someone comes." "I"m hungry," Lex said. "I hope it won"t be very long," Grant said. "I don"t want to stay here," Lex said. Then, from the bottom of the hill, they heard the sound of a man coughing. "Stay here," Grant said. He ran forward, to look down the hill. "Stay here," Tim said, and he ran forward after him. Lex followed her brother. "Don"t leave me, don"t leave me here, you guys-" Grant clapped his band over her mouth. She struggled to protest. He shook his head, and pointed over the hill, for her to look.
At the bottom of the hill, Grant saw Ed Regis, standing rigid, unmoving. The forest around them had become deadly silent. The steady background drone of cicadas and frogs had ceased abruptly. There was only the faint rustle of leaves, and the whine of the wind, Lex started to speak, but Grant pulled her against the trunk of the nearest tree, ducking down among the heavy gnarled roots at the base. Tim came in right after them. Grant put his hands to his lips, signaling them to be quiet, and then he slowly looked around the tree. The road below was dark, and as the branches of the big trees moved in the wind, the moonlight filtering through made a dappled, shifting pattern. Ed Regis was gone. It took Grant a moment to locate him. The publicist was pressed up against the trunk of a big tree, hugging it. Regis wasn"t moving at all. The forest remained silent. Lex tugged impatiently at Grant"s shirt; she wanted to know what was happening. Then, from somewhere very near, they heard a soft snorting exhalation, hardly louder than the wind. Lex heard it, too, because she stopped struggling. The sound floated toward them again, soft as a sigh. Grant thought it was almost like the breathing of a horse. Grant looked at Regis, and saw the moving shadows cast by the moonlight on the trunk of the tree. And then Grant realized there was another shadow, superimposed on the others, but not moving: a strong curved neck, and a square head. The exhalation came again. Tim leaned forward cautiously, to look. Lex did, too. They heard a crack as a branch broke, and into the path stepped a tyrannosaur. It was the juvenile: about eight feet tall, and it moved with the clumsy gait of a young animal, almost like a puppy. The juvenile tyrannosaur shuffled down the path, stopping with every step to sniff the air before moving on. It pa.s.sed the tree where Regis was hiding, and gave no indication that it had seen him. Grant saw Regis"s body relax slightly. Regis turned his head, trying to watch the tyrannosaur on the far side of the tree. The tyrannosaur was now out of view down the road. Regis started to relax, releasing his grip on the tree. But the jungle remained silent. Regis remained close to the tree trunk for another half a minute. Then the sounds of the forest returned: the first tentative croak of a tree frog, the buzz of one cicada, and then the full chorus. Regis stepped away from the tree, shaking his shoulders, releasing the tension. He walked into the middle of the road, looking in the direction of the departed tyrannosaur. The attack came from the left. The juvenile roared as it swung its head forward, knocking Regis flat to the ground. He yelled and scrambled to his feet, but the tyrannosaur pounced, and it must have pinned him with its hind leg, because suddenly Regis wasn"t moving, he was sitting up in the path shouting at the dinosaur and waving his hands at it, as if he could scare it off. The young dinosaur seemed perplexed by the sounds and movement coming from its tiny prey. The juvenile bent its head over, sniffing curiously, and Regis pounded on the snout with his fists. "Get away! Back off! Go on, back off!" Regis was shouting at the top of his lungs, and the dinosaur backed away, allowing Regis to get to his feet. Regis was shouting "Yeah! You heard me! Back off! Get away!" as he moved away from the dinosaur. The juvenile continued to stare curiously at the odd, noisy little animal before it, but when Regis had gone a few paces, it lunged and knocked him down again. It"s playing with him, Grant thought. "Hey!" Regis shouted as he fell, but the juvenile did not pursue him, allowing him to get to his feet. He jumped to his feet, and continued backing away. "You stupid-back! Back! You heard me-back!" he shouted like a lion tamer. The juvenile roared, but it did not attack, and Regis now edged toward the trees and high foliage to the right. In another few steps he would be in hiding. "Back! You! Back!" Regis shouted, and then, at the last moment the juvenile pounced, and knocked Regis flat on his back. "Cut that out", Regis yelled, and the juvenile ducked his head, and Regis began to scream. No words, just a high-pitched scream. The scream cut off abruptly, and when the juvenile lifted his head, Grant saw ragged flesh in his jaws. "Oh no," Lex said, softly. Beside her, Tim had turned away, suddenly nauseated. His night-vision goggles slipped from his forehead and landed on the ground with a metallic clink. The juvenile"s head snapped up, and it looked toward the top of the hill. Tim picked up his goggles as Grant grabbed both the children"s hands and began to run.
Control In the night, the compys scurried along the side of the road. Harding"s Jeep followed a short distance behind. Ellie pointed farther up the road. "Is that a light?" "Could be," Harding said. "Looks almost like headlights." The radio suddenly b.u.mmed and crackled. They heard John Arnold say, "-you there?" "Ah, there he is," Harding said. "Finally." He pressed the b.u.t.ton. "Yes, John, we"re here. We"re near the river, following the compys. It"s quite interesting." More crackling. Then: "-eed your car-" "What"d he say?" Gennaro said. "Something about a car," Ellie said. At Grant"s dig in Montana, Ellie was the one who operated the radiophone. After years of experience, she had become skilled at picking up garbled transmissions. "I think he said he needs your car." Harding pressed the b.u.t.ton. "John? Are you there? We can"t read you very well. John?" There was a flash of lightning, followed by a long sizzle of radio static, then Arnold"s tense voice, "-where are-ou-" "We"re one mile north of the hypsy paddock. Near the river, following some compys." "No-d.a.m.n well-get back here-ow!" "Sounds like he"s got a problem," Ellie said, frowning. There was no mistaking the tension in the voice. "Maybe we should go back." Harding shrugged. "John"s frequently got a problem. You know how engineers are. They want everything to go by the book." He pressed the b.u.t.ton on the radio. "John? Say again, please. . . ." More crackling. More static. The loud crash of lightning. Then: "-Muldoo-need your car-ow-" Gennaro frowned. "Is he saying Muldoon needs our car?" "That"s what it sounded like," Ellie said. "Well, that doesn"t make any sense," Harding said. "-other-stuck-Muldoon wants-car-" "I get it," Ellie said. "The other cars are stuck on the road in the storm, and Muldoon wants to go get them." Harding shrugged. "Why doesn"t Muldoon take the other car?" He pushed the radio b.u.t.ton. "John? Tell Muldoon to take the other car. It"s in the garage." The radio crackled. "-not-listen-crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds-car-" Harding pressed the radio b.u.t.ton. "I said, it"s in the garage, John. The car is in the garage." More static. "-edry has-ssing-one-" "I"m afraid this isn"t getting us anywhere," Harding said. "All right, John. We"re coming in now." He turned the radio off, and turned the car around. "I just wish I understood what the urgency is." Harding put the Jeep in gear, and they rumbled down the road in the darkness. It was another ten minutes before they saw the welcoming lights of the Safari Lodge. And as Harding pulled to a stop in front of the visitor center, they saw Muldoon coming toward them. He was shouting, and waving his arms.
"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Arnold, you son of a b.i.t.c.h! G.o.d d.a.m.n it, get this park back on track! Now! Get my grandkids back here! Now!" John Hammond stood in the control room, screaming and stamping his little feet. He had been carrying on this way for the last two minutes, while Henry Wu stood in the corner, looking stunned. "Well, Mr. Hammond," Arnold said, "Muldoon"s on his way out right now, to do exactly that." Arnold turned away, and lit another cigarette. Hammond was like every other management guy Arnold had ever seen. Whether it was Disney or the Navy, management guys always behaved the same. They never understood the technical issues; and they thought that screaming was the way to make things happen. And maybe it was, if you were shouting at your secretaries to get you a limousine. But screaming didn"t make any difference at all to the problems that Arnold now faced. The computer didn"t care if it was screamed at. The power network didn"t care if it was screamed at. Technical systems were completely indifferent to all this explosive human emotion. If anything, screaming was counterproductive, because Arnold now faced the virtual certainty that Nedry wasn"t coming back, which meant that Arnold himself had to go into the computer code and try and figure out what had gone wrong. It was going to be a painstaking job, he"d need to be calm and careful. "Why don"t you go downstairs to the cafeteria," Arnold said, "and get a cup of coffee? We"ll call you when we have more news." "I don"t want a Malcolm Effect here," Hammond said. "Don"t worry about a Malcolm Effect," Arnold said. "Will you let me go to work?" "G.o.d d.a.m.n you," Hammond said. "I"ll call you, sir, when I have news from Muldoon," Arnold said. He pushed b.u.t.tons on his console, and saw the familiar control screens change.
*/Jura.s.sic Park Main Modules/ */*/ Call Libs Include: biostat.sys Include: sysrom.vst Include: net.sys Include: pwr.mdl */ */Initialize SetMain [42]2002/9A{total CoreSysop %4 [vig. 7*tty]} if ValidMeter(mH) (**mH).MeterViS return Term Call 909 c.lev {void MeterVis $303} Random(3#*MaxFid)on SetSystem(!Dn) set shp_val.obi to lim(Val{d}SumValif SetMeter(mH) (**mH).ValdidMeter(Vdd) returnon SetSystem(!Telcom) set mxcpl.obj to lim(Val{pdl}NextVal
Arnold was no longer operating the computer. He had now gone behind the scenes to look at the code-the line-by-line instructions that told the computer how to behave. Arnold was unhappily aware that the complete Jura.s.sic Park program contained more than half a million lines of code, most of it undoc.u.mented, without explanation. Wu came forward. "What are you doing, John?" "Checking the code." "By inspection? That"ll take forever." "Tell me," Arnold said. "Tell me."
The Road Muldoon took the curve very fast, the Jeep sliding on the mud. Sitting beside him, Gennaro clenched his fists. They were racing along the cliff road, high above the river, now hidden below them in darkness. Muldoon accelerated forward. His face was tense. "How much farther?" Gennaro said. "Two, maybe three miles." Ellie and Harding were back at the visitor center. Gennaro had offered to accompany Muldoon. The car swerved. "It"s been an hour," Muldoon said. "An hour, with no word from the other cars." "But they have radios," Gennaro said. "We haven"t been able to raise them," Muldoon said. Gennaro frowned. "If I was sitting in a car for an hour in the rain, I"d sure try to use the radio to call for somebody." "So would I," Muldoon said. Gennaro shook his head. "You really think something could have happened to them?" "Chances are," Muldoon said, "that they"re perfectly fine, but I"ll he happier when I finally see them. Should be any minute now." The road curved, and then ran up a hill. At the base of the hill Gennaro saw something white, lying among the ferns by the side of the road. "Hold it," Gennaro said, and Muldoon braked. Gennaro jumped out and ran forward in the headlights of the Jeep to see what it was. It looked like a piece of clothing, but there was- Gennaro stopped. Even from six feet away, he could see clearly what it was. He walked forward more slowly. Muldoon leaned out of the car and said, "What is it?" "It"s a leg," Gennaro said. The flesh of the leg was pale blue-wbite, terminating in a ragged b.l.o.o.d.y stump where the knee had been. Below the calf he saw a white sock, and a brown slip-on shoe. It was the kind of sboe Ed Regis had been wearing. By then Muldoon was out of the car, running past him to crouch over the leg. "Jesus." He lifted the leg out of the foliage, raising it into the light of the headlamps, and blood from the stump gushed down over his band. Gennaro was still three feet away. He quickly bent over, put his hands on his knees, squeezed his eyes shut, and breathed deeply, trying not to be sick. "Gennaro." Muldoon"s voice was sharp. "What?" "Move. You"re blocking the light." Gennaro took a breath, and moved. When he opened his eyes he saw Muldoon peering critically at the stump. "Torn at the joint line," Muldoon said, "Didn"t bite it-twisted and ripped it. Just ripped his leg off." Muldoon stood up, holding the severed leg upside down so the remaining blood dripped onto the ferns. His b.l.o.o.d.y hand smudged the white sock as fie gripped the ankle. Gennaro felt sick again. "No question what happened," Muldoon was saying. "The T-rex got him." Muldoon looked up the hill, then back to Gennaro. "You all right? Can you go on?" "Yes," Gennaro said. "I can go on." Muldoon was walking back toward the Jeep, carrying the leg. "I guess we better bring this along," he said. "Doesn"t seem right to leave it here. Christ, it"s going to make a mess of the car. See if there"s anything in the back, will you? A tarp or newspaper . . ." Gennaro opened the back door and rummaged around in the s.p.a.ce behind the rear seat. He felt grateful to think about something else for a moment. The problem of how to wrap the severed leg expanded to fill his mind, crowding out all other thoughts. He found a canvas bag with a tool kit, a wheel rim, a cardboard box, and- "Two tarps," he said. They were neatly folded plastic. "Give me one," Muldoon said, still standing outside the car. Muldoon wrapped the leg and pa.s.sed the now shapeless bundle to Gennaro. Holding it in his hand, Gennaro was surprised at how heavy it felt. "Just put it in the back," Muldoon said. "If there"s a way to wedge it, you know, so it doesn"t roll around . . ." "Okay." Gennaro put the bundle in the back, and Muldoon got behind the wheel. He accelerated, the wheels spinning in the mud, then digging in. The Jeep rushed up the hill, and for a moment at the top the headlights still pointed upward into the foliage, and then they swung down, and Gennaro could see the road before them. "Jesus," Muldoon said. Gennaro saw a single Land Cruiser, lying on its side in the center of the road. He couldn"t see the second Land Cruiser at all. "Where"s the other car?" Muldoon looked around briefly, pointed to the left. "There." The second Land Cruiser was twenty feet away, crumpled at the foot of a tree. "What"s it doing there?" "The T-rex threw it." "Threw it?" Gennaro said. Muldoon"s face was grim. "Let"s get this over with," he said, climbing out of the Jeep. They hurried forward to the second Land Cruiser. Their flashlights swung back and forth in the night. As they came closer, Gennaro saw how battered the car was. He was careful to let Muldoon look inside first. "I wouldn"t worry," Muldoon said. "It"s very unlikely we"ll find anyone." "No?" "No," he said. He explained that, during his years in Africa, he had visited the scenes of a half-dozen animal attacks on humans in the bush. One leopard attack: the leopard had torn open a tent in the night and taken a three-year-old child. Then one buffalo attack in Amboseli; two lion attacks; one croc attack in the north, near Meru. In every case, there was surprisingly little evidence left behind. Inexperienced people imagined horrific proofs of an animal attack-torn limbs left behind in the tent, trails of dripping blood leading away into the bush, bloodstained clothing not far from the campsite. But the truth was, there was usually nothing at all, particularly if the victim was small, an infant or a young child. The person just seemed to disappear, as if he had walked out into the bush and never come back. A predator could kill a child just by shaking it, snapping the neck. Usually there wasn"t any blood. And most of the time you never found any other remains of the victims. Sometimes a b.u.t.ton from a shirt, or a sliver of rubber from a shoe. But most of the time, nothing. Predators took children-they preferred children-and they left nothing behind. So Muldoon thought it highly unlikely that they would ever find any remains of the children. But as he looked in now, he had a surprise. "I"ll be d.a.m.ned," he said.
Muldoon tried to put the scene together. The front windshield of the Land Cruiser was shattered, but there wasn"t much gla.s.s nearby. He had noticed shards of gla.s.s back on the road. So the windshield must have broken back there, before the tyrannosaur picked the car up and threw it here. But the car had taken a tremendous beating. Muldoon shone his light inside. "Empty?" Gcnnaro said, tensely. "Not quite," Muldoon said. His flashlight glinted off a Crushed radio handset, and on the floor of the car he saw something else, something curved and black. The front doors were dented and jammed shut, but he climbed in through the back door and crawled over the seat to pick up the black object. "It"s a watch," he said, peering at it in the beam of his flashlight. A cheap digital watch with a molded black rubber strap. The LCD face was shattered, He thought the boy might have been wearing it, though he wasn"t sure. But it was the kind of watch a kid would have. "What is it, a watch?" Gennaro said. "Yes. And there"s a radio, but it"s broken." "Is that significant?" "Yes. And there"s something else. . . . " Muldoon sniffed. There was a sour odor inside the car. He shone the light around until he saw the vomit dripping off the side door panel. He touched it: still fresh. "One of the kids may still be alive," Muldoon said. Gennaro squinted at him. "What makes you think so?" "The watch," Muldoon said. "The watch proves it." He banded the watch to Gennaro, who held it in the glow of the flashlight, and turned it over in his hands. "Crystal is cracked," Gennaro said. "That"s right," Muldoon said. "And the band is uninjured." "Which means?" "The kid took it off," "That could have happened anytime," Gennaro said. "Anytime before the attack." "No," Muldoon said. "Those LCD crystals are tough. It takes a powerful blow to break them. The watch face was shattered during the attack." "So the kid took his watch off." "Think about it," Muldoon said. "If you were being attacked by a tyrannosaur, would you stop to take your watch off?" "Maybe it was torn off." "It"s almost impossible to tear a watch off somebody"s wrist, without tearing the band off, too. Anyway, the band is intact. No," Muldoon said. "The kid took it off himself. He looked at his watch, saw it was broken, and took it off. He had the time to do that." "When?" "It could only have been after the attack," Muldoon said. "The kid must have been in this car, after the attack. And the radio was broken, so he left it behind, too. He"s a bright kid, and he knew they weren"t useful." "If he"s so bright," Gennaro said, "where"d he go? Because I"d stay right here and wait to be picked up." "Yes," Muldoon said. "But perhaps he couldn"t stay here. May the tyrannosaur came back. Or some other animal. Anyway, something made him leave." "Then where"d he go?" Gennaro said, "Let"s see if we can determine that," Muldoon said, and he strode off toward the main road.
Gennaro watched Muldoon peering at the ground with his flashlight. His face was just inches from the mud, intent on his search. Muldoon really believed he was on to something, that at least one of the kids was still alive. Gennaro remained unimpressed. The shock of finding the severed leg had left him with a grim determination to close the park, and destroy it. No matter what Muldoon said, Gennaro suspected him of unwarranted enthusiasm, and hopefulness, and- "You notice these prints?" Muldoon asked, still looking at the ground. "What prints?" Gennaro said. "These footprints-see them, coming toward us from up the road?-and they"re adult-size prints. Some kind of rubber-sole sboe. Notice the distinctive tread pattern. Gennaro saw only mud. Puddles catching the light from the flashlights. "You can see," Muldoon continued, "the adult prints come to here, where they"re joined by other prints. Small, and medium-size . . . moving around in circles, overlapping . . . almost as if they"re standing together, talking. . . . But now here they are, they seem to be running. He pointed off. "There. Into the park." Gennaro shook his head. "You can see whatever you want in this mud." Muldoon got to his feet and stepped back. He looked down at the ground and sighed. "Say what you like, I"ll wager one of the kids survived. And maybe both. Perhaps even an adult as well, if these big prints belong to someone other than Regis, We"ve got to search the park." "Tonight?" Gennaro said. But Muldoon wasn"t listening. He had walked away, toward an embankment of soft earth, near a drainpipe for rain. He crouched again. "What was that little girl wearing?" "Christ," Gennaro said. "I don"t know." Proceeding slowly, Muldoon moved farther toward the side of the road. And then they heard a wheezing sound. It was definitely an animal sound. "Listen," Gennaro said, feeling panic, "I think we better-" "Shhh," Muldoon said. He paused, listening. "It"s just the wind," Gennaro said. They heard the wheezing again, distinctly this time. It wasn"t the wind. It was coming from the foliage directly ahead of him, by the side of the road. It didn"t sound like an animal, but Muldoon moved forward cautiously. He waggled his light and shouted, but the wheezing did not change character. Muldoon pushed aside the fronds of a palm. "What is it?" Gennaro said, "It"s Malcolm," Muldoon said.
Ian Malcolm lay on his back, his skin gray-white, mouth slackly open. His breath came in wheezing gasps. Muldoon handed the flashlight to Gennaro, and then bent to examine the body. "I can"t find the injury," he said. "Head okay, chest, arms . . ." Then Gennaro shone the light on the legs. "He put a tourniquet on." Malcolm"s belt was twisted tight over the right thigh. Gennaro moved the light down the leg. The right ankle was bent outward at an awkward angle from the leg, the trousers flattened, soaked in blood. Muldoon touched the ankle gently, and Malcolm groaned. Muldoon stepped back and tried to decide what to do next. Malcolm might have other injuries. His back might be broken. It might kill him to move him. But if they left him here, he would die of shock. It was only because he had had the presence of mind to put a tourniquet on that he hadn"t already bled to death. And probably he was doomed. They might as well move him. Gennaro helped Muldoon pick the man up, hoisting him awkwardly over their shoulders. Malcolm moaned, and breathed in ragged gasps. "Lex," he said. "Lex . . . went . . . Lex . . ." "Who"s Lex?" Muldoon said. "The little girl," Gennaro said. They carried Malcolm back to the Jeep, and wrested him into the back seat. Gennaro tightened the tourniquet around his leg. Malcolm groaned again. Muldoon slid the trouser cuff up and saw the pulpy flesh beneath, the dull white splinters of protruding bone. "We"ve got to get him back," Muldoon said. "You going to leave here without the kids?" Gennaro said. "If they went into the park, it"s twenty square miles," Muldoon said, shaking his head. "The only way we can find anything out there is with the motion sensors. If the kids are alive and moving around, the motion sensors will pick them up, and we can go right to them and bring them back. But if we don"t take Dr. Malcolm back right now, he"ll die." "Then we have to go back," Gennaro said. "Yes, I think so." They climbed into the car. Gennaro said, "Are you going to tell Hammond the kids are missing?" "No," Muldoon said. "You are."
Control Donald Gennaro stared at Hammond, sitting in the deserted cafeteria. The man was spooning ice cream, calmly eating it. "So Muldoon believes the children are somewhere in the park?" "He thinks so, yes." "Then I"m sure we"ll find them." "I hope so," Gennaro said. He watched the old man deliberately eating, and he felt a chill. "Oh, I am sure we"ll find them. After all, I keep telling everyone, this park is made for kids." Gennaro said, "Just so you understand that they"re missing, sir." "Missing?" he snapped. "Of course I know they"re missing. I"m not senile." He sighed, and changed tone again. "Look, Donald," Hammond said. "Let"s not get carried away. We"ve had a little breakdown from the storm or whatever, and as a result we"ve suffered a regrettable, unfortunate accident. And that"s all that"s happened. We"re dealing with it. Arnold will get the computers cleaned up. Muldoon will pick up the kids, and I have no doubt he"ll be back with them by the time we finish this ice cream. So let"s just wait and see what develops, shall we?" "Whatever you say, sir," Gennaro said.
"Why?" Henry Wu said, looking at the console screen. "Because I think Nedry did something to the code," Arnold said. "That"s why I"m checking it." "All right," Wu said. "But have you tried your options?" "Like what?" Arnold said. "I don"t know. Aren"t the safety systems still running?" Wu said. "Keychecks? All that?" "Jesus," Arnold said, snapping his fingers. "They must be. Safety systems can"t be turned off except at the main panel." "Well," Wu said, "if Keycheeks is active, you can trace what he did." "I sure as h.e.l.l can," Arnold said. He started to press b.u.t.tons. Why hadn"t he thought of it before? It was so obvious. The computer system at Jura.s.sic Park had several tiers of safety systems built into it. One of them was a keycheck program, which monitored all the keystrokes entered by operators with access to the system. It was originally installed as a debugging device, but it was retained for its security value. In a moment, all the keystrokes that Nedry had entered into the computer earlier in the day were listed in a window on the screen: 13,42,121,32,88,77,19,13,122,13,44,52,77,90,13,99,13,100,13,109,55,103 144,13,99,87,60,13,44,12,09,13,43,63,13,46,57,89,103,122,13,44,52,88,9 31,13,21,13,57,98,100,102,103,13,112,13,146,13,13,13,77,67,88,23,13,13 system nedry goto command level nedry 040/ # xy/67& mr goodbytes security keycheck off safety off sl off security whte_rbt.obj
"That"s it?" Arnold said. "He was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around here for hours, it seemed like." "Probably just killing time," Wu said. "Until he finally decided to get down to it." The initial list of numbers represented the ASCI keyboard codes for the keys Nedry had pushed at his console. Those numbers meant he was still within the standard user interface, like any ordinary user of the computer. So initially Nedry was just looking around, which you wouldn"t have expected of the programmer who had designed the system. "Maybe he was trying to see if there were changes, before he went in," Wu said. "Maybe," Arnold said. Arnold was now looking at the list of commands, which allowed him to follow Nedry"s progression through the system, line by line. "At least we can see what he did." system was Nedry"s request to leave the ordinary user interface and access the code itself. The computer asked for his name, and he replied: nedry. That name was authorized to access the code, so the computer allowed him into the system. Nedry asked to goto command level, the computer"s highest level of control. The command level required extra security, and asked Nedry for his name, access number 7 and pa.s.sword. nedry 040/# xy/67& mr goodbytes Those entries got Nedry into the command level. From there he wanted security. And since he was authorized, the computer allowed him to go there. Once at the security level, Nedry tried three variations: keycheck off safety off sl off "He"s trying to turn off the safety systems," Wu said. "He doesn"t want anybody to see what he"s about to do." "Exactly," Arnold said. "And apparently he doesn"t know it"s no longer possible to turn the systems off except by manually flipping switches on the main board." After three failed commands, the computer automatically began to worry about Nedry. But since he had gotten in with proper authorization, the computer would a.s.sume that Nedry was lost, trying to do something he couldn"t accomplish from where he was. So the computer asked him again where he wanted to be, and Nedry said: security. And he was allowed to remain there. "Finally," Wu said, "here"s the kicker." He pointed to the last of the commands Nedry had entered. Whte_rbt.obj "What the h.e.l.l is that?" Arnold said. "White rabbit? Is that supposed to be his private joke?" "It"s marked as an object," Wu said. In computer terminology, an "object" was a block of code that could be moved around and used, the way you might move a chair in a room. An object might be a set of commands to draw a picture, or to refresh the screen, or to perform a certain calculation. "Let"s see where it is in the code," Arnold said. "Maybe we can figure out what it does." He went to the program utilities and typed: FIND WHTE-RBT.OBJ The computer flashed back: OBJECT NOT FOUND IN LIBRARIES "It doesn"t exist," Arnold said. "Then search the code listing," Wu said. Arnold typed: FIND/LISTINGS: WHTE-RBT.OBJ.
The screen scrolled rapidly, the lines of code blurring as they swept past. It continued this way for almost a minute, and then abruptly stopped. "There it is," Wu said. "It"s not an object, it"s a command." The screen showed an arrow pointing to a single line of code:
curv = GetHandl {ssm.dt} tempRgn {itm.dd2}.curh = GetHandl {ssd.itli} tempRgn2 {itm.dd4}.on DrawMeter(!gN) set shp-val.obi to lim(Val{d})-Xval.if ValidMeter(mH) (**mH).MeterVis return. if Meterband](vGT) ((DrawBack(tY)) return. limitDat.4 = maxbits (%33) to {limit 04} set on.limitDat.5 = setzero, setfive, 0 {limit .2-var(szb)}.on whte-rbt.obi call link.sst {security, perimeter} set to off.Vertrange={maxrange+setlim} tempVgn(fdn-&bb+$404).Horrange={maxRange-setlim/2} tempHgn(fdn-&dd+$105).void DrawMeter send-screen.obi print.
"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," Arnold said. Wu shook his head. "It isn"t a bug in the code at all." "No," Arnold said. "It"s a trap door. The fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d put in what looked like an object call, but it"s actually a command that links the security and perimeter systems and then turns them off. Gives him complete access to every place in the park." "Then we must be able to turn them back on," Wu said. "Yeah, we must." Arnold frowned at the screen. "All we have to do is figure out the command. I"ll run an execution trace on the link," he said. "We"ll see where that gets us." Wu got up from his chair. "Meanwhile," he said, "meanwhile, that somebody went into the freezer about an hour ago. I think I better go count my embryos."
Ellie was in her room, about to change out of her wet clothes, when there was a knock on the door. "Alan?" she said, but when she opened the door she saw Muldoon standing there, with a plastic-wrapped package under his arm. Muldoon was also soaking wet, and there were streaks of dirt on his clothes. "I"m sorry, but we need your help," Muldoon said briskly. "The Land Cruisers were attacked an hour ago. We brought Malcolm back, but he"s in shock. He"s got a very bad injury to his leg. He"s still unconscious, but I put him in the bed in his room. Harding is on his way over." "Harding?" she said. "What about the others?" "We haven"t found the others yet, Dr. Sattler," Muldoon said. He was speaking slowly now. "Oh, my G.o.d." "But we think that Dr. Grant and the children are still alive. We think they went into the park, Dr. Sattler." "Went into the park?" "We think so. Meanwhile, Malcolm needshelp. I"ve called Harding." "Shouldn"t you call the doctor?" "There"s no doctor on the island. Harding"s the best we have." "But surely you can call for a doctor-" she said. "No." Muldoon shook his head. "Phone lines are down. We can"t call out." He shifted the package in his arm. "What"s that?" she said. "Nothing. Just go to Malcolm"s room, and help Harding, if you will." And Muldoon was gone. She sat on her bed, shocked. Ellie Sattler was not a woman disposed to unnecessary panic, and she had known Grant to get out of dangerous situations before. Once he"d been lost in the badlands for four days when a cliff gave way beneath him and his truck fell a hundred feet into a ravine. Grant"s right leg was broken. He had no water. But he walked back on a broken leg. On the other hand, the kids . . . She shook her head, pushing the thought away. The kids were probably with Grant. And if Grant was out in the park, well . . . what better person to get them safely through Jura.s.sic Park than a dinosaur expert?
In the Park "I"m tired," Lex said. "Carry me, Dr. Grant." "You"re too big to carry," Tim said. "But I"m tired," she said. "Okay, Lex," Grant said, picking her up. "Oof, you"re heavy." It was almost 9:00 p.m. The full moon was blurred by drifting mist, and their blunted shadows led them across an open field, toward dark woods beyond. Grant was lost in thought, trying to decide where he was. Since they had originally crossed over the fence that the tyrannosaur had battered down, Grant was reasonably sure they were now somewhere in the tyrannosaur paddock. Which was a place he did not want to be. In his mind, he kept seeing the computer tracing of the tyrannosaur"s home range, the tight squiggle of lines that traced his movements within a small area. He and the kids were in that area now. But Grant also remembered that the tyrannosaurs were isolated from all the other animals, which meant they would know they had left the paddock when they crossed a barrier-a fence, or a moat, or both. He had seen no barriers, so far. The girl put her head on his shoulder, and twirled her hair in her fingers. Soon she was snoring. Tim trudged alongside Grant. "How you holding up, Tim?" "Okay," he said. "But I think we might be in the tyrannosaur area." "I"m pretty sure we are. I hope we get out soon." "You going to go into the woods?" Tim said. As they came closer, the woods seemed dark and forbidding. "Yes," Grant said. "I think we can navigate by the numbers on the motion sensors." The motion sensors were green boxes set about four feet off the ground. Some were freestanding; most were attached to trees. None of them were working, because apparently the power was still off. Each sensor box had a gla.s.s lens mounted in the center, and a painted code number beneath that. Up ahead, in the mist-streaked moonlight, Grant could see a box marked T/S/04. They entered the forest. Huge trees loomed on all sides. In the moonlight, a low mist clung to the ground, curling around the roots of the trees. It was beautiful, but it made walking treacherous. And Grant was watching the sensors. They seemed to be numbered in descending order. He pa.s.sed T/S/03, and T/S/02. Eventually they reached T/S/01. He was tired from carrying the girl, and he had hoped this would coincide with a boundary for the tyrannosaur paddock, but it was just another box in the middle of the woods. The next box after that was marked T/N/01, followed by T/N/02. Grant realized the numbers must be arranged geographically around a central point, like a compa.s.s. They were going from soutb to north, so the numbers got smaller as they approached the center, then got larger again. "At least we"re going the right way," Tim said. "Good for you," Grant said. Tim smiled, and stumbled over vines in the mist. He got quickly to his feet. They walked on for a while. "My parents are getting a divorce," he said. "Uh-huh," Grant said. "My dad moved out last month. He has his own place in Mill Valley now. "Uh-huh." "He never carries my sister any more. He never even picks her up." "And he says you have dinosaurs on the brain," Grant said. Tim sighed. "Yeah." "You miss him?" Grant said. "Not really," Tim said. "Sometimes. She misses him more." "Who, your mother?" "No, Lex. My mom has a boyfriend. She knows him from work." They walked in silence for a while, pa.s.sing T/N/03 and T/N/04. "Have you met him?" Grant said. "Yeah." "How is he?" "He"s okay," Tim said. "He"s younger than my dad, but he"s bald." "How does he treat you?" "I don"t know. Okay. I think he just tries to get on my good side. I don"t know what"s going to happen. Sometimes my mom says we"ll have to sell the house and move. Sometimes he and my mom fight, late at night. I sit in my room and play with my computer, but I can still hear it." "Uh-huh," Grant said. "Are you divorced?" "No," Grant said. "My wife died a long time ago." "And now you"re with Dr. Sattler?" Grant smiled in the darkness. "No. She"s my student." "You mean she"s still in school?" "Graduate school, yes." Grant paused long enough to shift Lex to his other shoulder, and then they continued on, past T/N/05 and T/N/06. There was the rumble of thunder in the distance. The storm had moved to the south. There was very little sound in the forest except for the drone of cicadas and the soft croaking of tree frogs. You have children?" Tim asked. "No," Crant said. "Are you going to marry Dr. Sattler?" "No, she"s marrying a nice doctor in Chicago sometime next year. "Oh," Tim said. He seemed surprised to hear it. They walked along for a while. "Then who are you going to marry?" "I don"t think I"m going to marry anybody," Grant said. "Me neither," Tim said. They walked for a while. Tim said, "Are we going to walk all night?" "I don"t think I can," Grant said. "We"ll have to stop, at least for a few hours." He glanced at his watch. "We"re okay. We"ve got almost fifteen hours before we have to be back. Before the ship reaches the mainland." "Where are we going to stop?" Tim asked, immediately. Grant was wondering the same thing. His first thought was that thev might climb a tree, and sleep up there. But they would have to climb very high to get safely away from the animals, and Lex might fall out while she was asleep. And tree branches were hard; they wouldn"t get any rest. At least, he wouldn"t. They needed someplace really safe. He thought back to the plans he had seen on the jet coming down. He remembered that there were outlying buildings for each of the different divisions. Grant didn"t know what they were like, because plans for the individual buildings weren"t included. And he couldn"t remember exactly where they were, but he remembered they were scattered all around the park. There might be buildings somewhere nearby. But that was a different requirement from simply crossing a barrier and getting out of the tyrannosaur paddock, Finding a building meant a search strategy of some kind. And the best strategies were- "Tim, can you hold your sister for me? I"m going to climb a tree and have a look around."
High in the branches, he had a good view of the forest, the tops of the trees extending away to his left and right. They were surprisingly near the edge of the forest-directly ahead the trees ended before a clearing, with an electrified fence and a pale concrete moat. Beyond that, a large open field in what he a.s.sumed was the sauropod paddock. In the distance, more trees, and misty moonlight sparkling on the ocean. Somewhere he heard the bellowing of a dinosaur, but it was far away. He put on Tim"s night-vision goggles and looked again. He followed the gray curve of the moat, and then saw what he was looking for: the dark strip of a service road, leading to the flat rectangle of a roof. The roof was barely above ground level, but it was there. And it wasn"t far. Maybe a quarter of a mile or so from the tree. When he came back down, Lex was sniffling. "What"s the matter?" "I heard an aminal." "It won"t bother us. Are you awake now? Come on." He led her to the fence. It was twelve feet high, with a spiral of barbed wire at the top. It seemed to stretch far above them in the moonligbt. The moat was immediately on the other side. Lex looked up at the fence doubtfully. "Can you climb it?" Grant asked her. She handed him her glove, and her baseball. "Sure. Easy." She started to climb. "But I bet Timmy can"t." Tim spun in fury: "You shut up." "Timmy"s afraid of heights." "I am not." She climbed higher. "Are so." "Am not." "Then come and get me." Grant turned to Tim, pale in the darkness. The boy wasn"t moving. "You okay with the fence, Tim?" "Sure." "Want some help?" "Timmy"s a fraidy-cat," Lex called. "What a stupid jerk," Tim said, and he started to climb.
"It"s freezing," Lex said. They were standing waist-deep in smelly water at the bottom of a deep concrete moat. They had climbed the fence without incident, except that Tim had torn his shirt on the coils of barbed wire at the top. Then they had all slid down into the moat, and now Grant was looking for a way out. "At least I got Timmy over the fence for you," Lex said. "He really is scared most times." "Thanks for your help," Tim said sarcastically. In the moonlight, he could see floating lumps on the surface. He moved along the moat, looking at the concrete wall on the far side. The concrete was smooth; they couldn"t possibly climb it. "Eww," Lex said, pointing to the water. "It won"t hurt you, Lex." Grant finally found a place where the concrete had cracked and a vine grew down toward the water. He tugged on the vine, and it held his weight. "Let"s go, kids." They started to climb the vine, back to the field above. It took only a few minutes to cross the field to the embankment leading to the below-grade service road, and the maintenance building off to the right. They pa.s.sed two motion sensors, and Grant noticed with some uneasiness that the sensors were still not working, nor were the lights. More than two hours had pa.s.sed since the power first went out, and it was not yet restored. Somewhere in the distance, they heard the tyrannosaur roar. "Is he around here?" Lex said. "No," Grant said. "We"re in another section of park from him." They slid down a gra.s.sy embankment and moved toward the concrete building. In the darkness it was forbidding, bunker-like. "What is this place?" Lex said. "It"s safe," Grant said, hoping that was true. The entrance gate was large enough to drive a truck through. It was fitted with heavy bars. Inside, they could see, the building was an open shed, with piles of gra.s.s and bales of bay stacked among equipment. The gate was locked with a heavy padlock. As Grant was examining it, Lex slipped sideways between the bars. "Come on, you guys." Tim followed her. "I think you can do it, Dr. Grant." He was right; it was a tight squeeze, but Grant was able to ease his body between the bars and get into the shed. As soon as he was inside, a wave of exhaustion struck him. "I wonder if there"s anything to eat," Lex said. "Just hay." Grant broke open a bale, and spread it around on the concrete. The hay in the center was warm. They lay down, feeling the warmth. Lex curled up beside him, and closed her eyes. Tim put his arm around her. He heard the sauropods trumpeting softly in the distance. Neither child spoke. They were almost immediately snoring. Grant raised his arm to look at his watch, but it was too dark to see. He felt the warmth of the children against his own body. Grant closed his eves, and slept.
Control Muldoon and Gennaro came into the control room just as Arnold clapped his bands and said, "Got you, you little son of a b.i.t.c.h." "What is it?" Gennaro said, Arnold pointed to the screen:
Vgl = GetHandl {dat.dt} tempCall {itm.temp}Vg2 = GetHandl {dat.itl} tempCall {itm.temp}if Link(Vgl,Vg2) set Lim(Vgl,Vg2) returnif Link(Vg2,Vgl) set Lim(Vg2,Vgl) returnon whte_rbt.obj link set security (Vgl), perimeter (Vg2)limitDat.1 = maxbits (%22) to {limit .04} set onlimitDat.2 = setzero, setfive, 0 {limit .2-var(dzh)}on fini.obi call link.sst {security, perimeter} set to onon fini.obi set link.sst {security, perimeter} restoreon fini.obi delete line rf whte_rbt.obj, fini.objVgl = GetHandl {dat.dt} tempCall {itm.temp}Vg2 = GetHandl {dat.itl} tempCall {itm.temp}IimitDat.4 = maxbits (%33) to {limit .04} set onlimitDat.5 = setzero, setfive, 0 {limit .2-var(szh)} "That"s it," Arnold said, pleased. "That"s what?" Gennaro asked, staring at the screen. "I finally found the command to restore the original code. The command called "fini.ob" resets the linked parameters, namely the fence and the power. "Good," Muldoon said. "But it does something else," Arnold said. "It then erases the code lines that refer to it. It destroys all evidence it was ever there. Pretty slick." Gennaro shook his head. "I don"t know much about computers." Although he knew enough to know what it meant when a high-tech company went back to the source code. It meant big, big problems. "Well, watch this," Arnold said, and he typed in the command: FINI.OBJ The screen flickered and immediately changed.
Vg1 = GetHandl {dat.dt} tempCall {itm.temp}Vg2 = GetHandl {dat.itl} tempCall {itm.temp}if Link(Vgl,Vg2) set Lim(Vgl,Vg2) returnif Link(Vg2,Vgl) set Lim(Vg2,Vgl) returnlimitDat.1 = maxbits (%22) to {limit .04} set onlimitDat.2 = setzero, setfive, 0 {limit .2-var(dzh)}Vgl = GetHandl {dat.dt} tempCall {itm.temp}Vg2 = GetHandl {dat.itl} tempCall {itm.temp}IimitDat.4 = maxbits (%33) to {limit .04} set onlimitDat.5 = setzero, setfive, 0 {limit .2-var(szh)}
Muldoon pointed to the windows. "Look!" Outside, the big quartz lights were coming on throughout the park, They went to the windows and looked out. "Hot d.a.m.n," Arnold said, Gennaro said, "Does this mean the electrified fences are back on?" "You bet it does," Arnold said. "It"ll take a few seconds to get up to full power, because we"ve got fifty miles of fence out there, and the generator has to charge the capacitors along the way. But in half a minute we"ll be back in business," Arnold pointed to the vertical gla.s.s see-through map of the park. On the map, bright red lines were snaking out from the power station, moving throughout the park, as electricity surged through the fences. "And the motion sensors?" Gennaro said. "Yes, them, too. It"ll be a few minutes while the computer counts. But everything"s working," Arnold said. "Half past nine, and we"ve got the whole d.a.m.n thing back up and running."
Grant opened his eyes. Brilliant blue light was streaming into the building through the bars of the gate. Quartz light: the power was back on! Groggily, he looked at his watch. It was just nine-thirty. He"d been asleep only a couple of minutes. He decided he could sleep a few minutes more, and then he would go back up to the field and stand in front of the motion sensors and wave, setting them off. The control room would spot him; they"d send a car out to pick him and the kids up, he"d tell Arnold to recall the supply ship, and they"d all finish the night in their own beds back in the lodge. He would do that right away. In just a couple of minutes. He yawned, and closed his eyes again.
"Not bad," Arnold said in the control room, staring at the glowing map. "There"s only three cutouts in the whole park. Much better than I hoped for." "Cutouts?" Gennaro said. "The fence automatically cuts out short-circuited sections," he explained. "You can see a big one here, in sector twelve, near the main road." "That"s where the rex knocked the fence down," Muldoon said. "Exactly. And another one is here in sector eleven. Near the sauropod maintenance building." "Why would that section be out?" Gennaro said. "G.o.d knows," Arnold said. "Probably storm damage or a fallen tree. We can check It on the monitor in a while. The third one is over there by the jungle river. Don"t know why that should be out, either." As Gennaro looked, the map became more complex, filling with green spots and numbers. "What"s all this?" "The animals. The motion sensors are working again, and the computer"s starting to identify the location of all the animals in the park. And anybody else, too." Gennaro stared at the map. "You mean Grant and the kids . . ." "Yes. We"ve reset our search number above four hundred. So, if they"re out there moving around," Arnold said, "the motion sensors will pick them up as additional animals." He stared at the map. "But I don"t see any additionals yet." "Why does it take so long?" Gennaro said. "You have to realize, Mr. Gennaro," Arnold said, "that there"s a lot of extraneous movement out there. Branches blowing in the wind, birds flying around, all kinds of stuff. The computer has to eliminate all the background movement. It may take-ah. Okay. Count"s finished." Gennaro said, "You don"t see the kids?" Arnold twisted in his chair, and looked back to the map. "No," he said, "at the moment, there are no additionals on the map at all. Everything out there has been accounted for as a dinosaur. They"re probably up in a tree, or somewhere else where we can"t see them. I wouldn"t worry yet. Several animals haven"t shown up, like the big rex. That"s probably because it"s sleeping somewhere and not moving. The people may be sleeping, too. We just don"t know." Muldoon shook his head. "We better get on with it," he said. "We need to repair the fences, and get the animals back into their paddocks. According to that computer, we"ve got five to herd back to the proper paddocks. I"ll take the maintenance crews out now." Arnold turned to Gennaro. "You may want to see how Dr. Malcolm is doing. Tell Dr. Harding that Muldoon will need him in about an hour to supervise the herding. And I"ll notify Mr. Hammond that we"re starting our final cleanup."
Gennaro pa.s.sed through the iron gates and went in the front door of the Safari Lodge. He saw Ellie Sattler coming down the hallway, carrying towels and a pan of steaming water. "There"s a kitchen at the other end," she said. "We"re using that to boil water for the dressings." "How is he?" Gennaro asked. "Surprisingly good," she said. Gennarro followed Ellie down to Malcolm"s room, and was startled to hear the sound of laughter. The mathematician lay on his back in the bed, with Harding adjusting an IV line. "So the other man says, "I"ll tell you frankly, I didn"t like it, Bill. I went back to toilet paper!"" Harding was laughing. "It"s not bad, is it?" Malcolm said, smiling. "Ah. Mr. Gennaro. You"ve come to see me. Now you know what happens from trying to get a leg up on the situation." Gennaro came in, tentatively. Harding said, "He"s on fairly high doses of morphine." "Not high enough, I can tell you," Malcolm said. "Christ, he"s stingy with his drugs. Did they find the others yet?" "No, not yet," Gennaro said. "But I"m glad to see you doing so well." "How else should I be doing," Malcolm said, "with a compound fracture of the leg that is likely septic and beginning to smell rather, ah, pungent? But I always say, if you can"t keep a sense of humor . . ." Gennaro smiled. "Do you remember what happened?" "Of course I remember," Malcolm said. "Do you think you could be bitten by a Tyrannosaurus rex and it would escape your mind? No indeed, I"ll tell you, you"d remember it for the rest of your life. In my case, perhaps not a terribly long time. But, still-yes, I remember." Malcolm described running from the Land Cruiser in the rain, and being chased down by the rex. "It was my own d.a.m.ned fault, he was too close, but I was panicked. In any case, he picked me up in his jaws." "How?" Gennaro said. "Torso," Malcolm said, and lifted his shirt. A broad semicircle of bruised punctures ran from his shoulder to his navel. "Lifted me up in his jaws, shook me b.l.o.o.d.y hard, and threw me down. And I was fine-terrified of course, but, still and all, fine-right up to the moment he threw me. I broke the leg in the fall. But the bite was not half bad." He sighed. "Considering." Harding said, "Most of the big carnivores don"t have strong jaws. The real power is in the neck musculature. The jaws just hold on, while they use the neck to twist and rip. But with a small creature like Dr. Malcolm, the animal would just shake him, and then toss him." "I"m afraid that"s right," Malcolm said. "I doubt I"d have survived, except the big chap"s heart wasn"t in it. To tell the truth, he struck me as a rather clumsy attacker of anything less than an automobile or a small apartment building." "You think he attacked halfheartedly?" "It pains me to say it," Malcolm said, "but I don"t honestly feel I had his full attention. He had mine, of course. But, then, he weighs eight tons. I don"t. " Gennaro turned to Harding and said, "They"re going to repair the fences now. Arnold says Muldoon will need your help herding animals." "Okay," Harding said. "So long as you leave me Dr. Sattler, and ample morphine," Malcolm said. "And so long as we do not have a Malcolm Effect here." "What"s a Malcolm Effect?" Gennaro said. "Modesty forbids me," Malcolm said, "from telling you the details of a phenomenon named after me." He sighed again, and closed his eyes. In a moment, he was sleeping. Ellie walked out into the hallway with Gennaro. "Don"t be fooled," she said. "It"s a great strain on him. When will you have a helicopter here?" "A helicopter?" "He needs surgery on that leg. Make sure they send for a helicopter, and get him off this island."
The Park The portable generator sputtered and roared to life, and the quartz floodlights glowed at the ends of their telescoping arms. Muldoon heard the soft gurgle of the jungle river a few Yards to the north. He turned back to the maintenance van and saw one of the workmen coming out with a big power saw. "No, no," he said. "Just the ropes, Carlos. We don"t need to cut it." He turned back to look at the fence. They had difficulty finding the shorted section at first, because there wasn"t much to see: a small protocarpus tree was leaning against the fence. It was one of several that had been planted in this region of the park, their featherv branches intended to conceal the fence from view. But this particular tree had been tied down with guy wires and turnbuckles. The wires had broken free in the storm, and the metal turnbuckles had blown against the fence and shorted it out. Of course, none of this should have happened; grounds crews were supposed to use plastic-coated wires and ceramic turnbuckles near fences. But it had happened anyway. In any case, it wasn"t going to be a big job. All they had to do was pull the tree off the fence, remove the metal fittings, and mark it for the gardeners to fix in the morning. It shouldn"t take more than twenty minutes. And that was just as well, because Muldoon knew the dilophosaurs always stayed close to the river. Even though the workmen were separated from the river by the fence, the dilos could spit right through it, delivering their blinding poison. Ramon, one of the workmen, came over. "Senor Muldoon," he said, "did you see the lights?" "What lights?" Muldoon said. Ramon pointed to the east, through the jungle. "I saw it as we were coming out. It is there, very faint. You see it? It looks like the lights of a car, but it is not moving." Muldoon squinted. It probably was just a maintenance light. After all, power was back on. "We"ll worry about it later," he said. "Right now let"s just get that tree off the fence."
Arnold was in an expansive mood. The park was almost back in order. Muldoon was repairing the fences. Hammond had gone off to supervise the transfer of the animals with Harding. Although he was tired, Arnold was feeling good; he was even in a mood to indulge the lawyer, Gennaro. "The Malcolm Effect?" Arnold said. "You worried about that?" "I"m just curious," Gennaro said. "You mean you want me to tell you why Ian Malcolm is wrong?" "Sure." Arnold lit another cigarette. "It"s technical." "Try me." "Okay," Arnold said. "Chaos theory describes nonlinear sy