Jurassic Park: A Novel (23 page)

It was Wu’s deepest perception that the park was fundamentally sound, as he believed his paleo-DNA was fundamentally sound. Whatever problems might arise in the DNA were essentially point-problems in the code, causing a specific problem in the phenotype: an enzyme that didn’t switch on, or a protein that didn’t fold. Whatever the difficulty, it was always solved with a relatively minor adjustment in the next version.

Similarly, he knew that Jurassic Park’s problems were not fundamental problems. They were not control problems. Nothing as basic, or as serious, as the possibility of an animal escaping. Wu found it offensive to think that anyone would believe him capable of contributing to a system where such a thing could happen.

“It’s that Malcolm,” Hammond said darkly. “He’s behind it all. He was against us from the start, you know. He’s got his theory that complex systems can’t be controlled and nature can’t be imitated. I don’t know what his problem is. Hell, we’re just making a zoo here. World’s full of ’em, and they all work fine. But he’s going to prove his theory or die trying. I just hope he doesn’t panic Gennaro into trying to shut the park down.”

Wu said, “Can he do that?”

“No,” Hammond said. “But he can try. He can try and frighten the Japanese investors, and get them to withdraw funds. Or he can make a stink with the San José government. He can make trouble.”

Arnold stubbed out his cigarette. “Let’s wait and see what happens,” he said. “We believe in the park. Let’s see how it plays out.”

Muldoon got off the elevator, nodded to the ground-floor guard, and went downstairs to the basement. He flicked on the lights. The basement was filled with two dozen Land Cruisers, arranged in neat rows. These were the electric cars that would eventually form an endless loop, touring the park, returning to the visitor center.

In the corner was a Jeep with a red stripe, one of two gasoline-powered vehicles—Harding, the vet, had taken the other that morning—which could go anywhere in the park, even among the animals.
The Jeeps were painted with a diagonal red stripe because for some reason it discouraged the triceratops from charging the car.

Muldoon moved past the Jeep, toward the back. The steel door to the armaments room was unmarked. He unlocked it with his key, and swung the heavy door wide. Gun racks lined the interior. He pulled out a Randler Shoulder Launcher and a case of canisters. He tucked two gray rockets under his other arm.

After locking the door behind him, he put the gun into the back seat of the Jeep. As he left the garage, he heard the distant rumble of thunder.

“Looks like rain,” Ed Regis said, glancing up at the sky.

The Land Cruisers had stopped again, near the sauropod swamp. A large herd of apatosaurs was grazing at the edge of the lagoon, eating the leaves of the upper branches of the palm trees. In the same area were several duckbilled hadrosaurs, which in comparison looked much smaller.

Of course, Tim knew the hadrosaurs weren’t really small. It was only that the apatosaurs were so much larger. Their tiny heads reached fifty feet into the air, extending out on their long necks.

“The big animals you see are commonly called
Brontosaurus
,” the recording said, “but they are actually
Apatosaurus
. They weigh more than thirty tons. That means a single animal is as big as a whole herd of modern elephants. And you may notice that their preferred area, alongside the lagoon, is not swampy. Despite what the books say, brontosaurs avoid swamps. They prefer dry land.”

“
Brontosaurus
is the biggest dinosaur, Lex,” Ed Regis said. Tim didn’t bother to contradict him. Actually,
Brachiosaurus
was three times as large. And some people thought
Ultrasaurus
and
Seismosaurus
were even larger than
Brachiosaurus. Seismosaurus
might have weighed a hundred tons!

Alongside the apatosaurs, the smaller hadrosaurs stood on their hind legs to get at foliage. They moved gracefully for such large creatures. Several infant hadrosaurs scampered around the adults, eating the leaves that dropped from the mouths of the larger animals.

“The dinosaurs of Jurassic Park don’t breed,” the recording said. “The young animals you see were introduced a few months ago, already hatched. But the adults nurture them anyway.”

There was the rolling growl of thunder. The sky was darker, lower, and menacing.

“Yeah, looks like rain, all right,” Ed Regis said.

The car started forward, and Tim looked back at the hadrosaurs. Suddenly, off to one side, he saw a pale yellow animal moving quickly. There were brownish stripes on its back. He recognized it instantly. “Hey!” he shouted. “Stop the car!”

“What is it?” Ed Regis said.

“Quick!
Stop the car!
”

“We move on now to see the last of our great prehistoric animals, the stegosaurs,” the recorded voice said.

“What’s the matter, Tim?’ ”

“I saw one! I saw one in the field out there!”

“Saw what?”

“A
raptor
! In that field!”

“The stegosaurs are a mid-Jurassic animal, evolving about a hundred and seventy million years ago,” the recording said. “Several of these remarkable herbivores live here at Jurassic Park.”

“Oh, I don’t think so, Tim,” Ed Regis said. “Not a raptor.”

“I did!
Stop the car!
”

There was a babble on the intercom, as the news was relayed to Grant and Malcolm. “Tim says he saw a raptor.”

“Where?”

“Back at the field.”

“Let’s go back and look.”

“We can’t go back,” Ed Regis said. “We can only go forward. The cars are programmed.”

“We can’t go back?” Grant said.

“No,” Regis said. “Sorry. You see, it’s kind of a ride—”

“Tim, this is Professor Malcolm,” said a voice cutting in on the intercom. “I have just one question for you about this raptor. How old would you say it was?”

“Older than the baby we saw today,” Tim said. “And younger than the big adults in the pen. The adults were six feet tall. This one was about half that size.”

“That’s fine,” Malcolm said.

“I only saw it for a second,” Tim said.

“I’m sure it wasn’t a raptor,” Ed Regis said. “It couldn’t possibly be a raptor. Must have been one of the othys. They’re always jumping their fences. We have a hell of a time with them.”

“I know I saw a raptor,” Tim said.

“I’m hungry,” Lex said. She was starting to whine.

In the control room, Arnold turned to Wu. “What do you think the kid saw?”

“I think it must have been an othy.”

Arnold nodded. “We have trouble tracking othys, because they spend so much time in the trees.” The othys were an exception to the usual minute-to-minute control they maintained over the animals. The computers were constantly losing and picking up the othys, as they went into the trees and then came down again.

“What burns me,” Hammond said, “is that we have made this wonderful park, this
fantastic
park, and our very first visitors are going through it like accountants, just looking for problems. They aren’t experiencing the wonder of it at all.”

“That’s their problem,” Arnold said. “We can’t make them experience wonder.” The intercom clicked, and Arnold heard a voice drawl, “Ah, John, this is the
Anne B
over at the dock. We haven’t finished offloading, but I’m looking at that storm pattern south of us. I’d rather not be tied up here if this chop gets any worse.”

Arnold turned to the monitor showing the cargo vessel, which was moored at the dock on the east side of the island. He pressed the radio button. “How much left to do, Jim?”

“Just the three final equipment containers. I haven’t checked the manifest, but I assume you can wait another two weeks for it. We’re not well berthed here, you know, and we are one hundred miles offshore.”

“You requesting permission to leave?”

“Yes, John.”

“I want that equipment,” Hammond said. “That’s equipment for the labs. We need it.”

“Yes,” Arnold said. “But you didn’t want to put money into a storm barrier to protect the pier. So we don’t have a good harbor. If the storm gets worse, the ship will be pounded against the dock. I’ve seen ships lost that way. Then you’ve got all the other expenses, replacement of the vessel plus salvage to clear your dock … and you can’t use your dock until you do.…”

Hammond gave a dismissing wave. “Get them out of there.”

“Permission to leave,
Anne B
,” Arnold said, into the radio.

“See you in two weeks,” the voice said.

On the video monitor, they saw the crew on the decks, casting off the lines. Arnold turned back to the main console bank. He saw the Land Cruisers moving through fields of steam.

“Where are they now?” Hammond said.

“It looks like the south fields,” Arnold said. The southern end of the island had more volcanic activity than the north. “That means they should be almost to the stegos. I’m sure they’ll stop and see what Harding is doing.”

As the Land Cruiser came to a stop, Ellie Sattler stared through the plumes of steam at the stegosaurus. It was standing quietly, not moving. A Jeep with a red stripe was parked alongside it.

“I have to admit, that’s a funny-looking animal,” Malcolm said.

The stegosaurus was twenty feet long, with a huge bulky body and vertical armor plates along its back. The tail had dangerous-looking three-foot spikes. But the neck tapered to an absurdly small head with a stupid gaze, like a very dumb horse.

As they watched, a man walked around from behind the animal. “That’s our vet, Dr. Harding,” Regis said, over the radio. “He’s anesthetized the stego, which is why it’s not moving. It’s sick.”

Grant was already getting out of the car, hurrying toward the motionless stegosaur. Ellie got out and looked back as the second Land Cruiser pulled up and the two kids jumped out. “What’s he sick with?” Tim said.

“They’re not sure,” Ellie said.

The great leathery plates along the stegosaur’s spine drooped slightly. It breathed slowly, laboriously, making a wet sound with each breath.

“Is it contagious?” Lex said.

They walked toward the tiny head of the animal, where Grant and the vet were on their knees, peering into the stegosaur’s mouth.

Lex wrinkled her nose. “This thing sure is big,” she said. “And
smelly.
”

“Yes, it is.” Ellie had already noticed the stegosaur had a peculiar odor, like rotting fish. It reminded her of something she knew, but couldn’t quite place. In any case, she had never smelled a stegosaur before. Maybe this was its characteristic odor. But she had her doubts. Most herbivores did not have a strong smell. Nor did their droppings. It was reserved for the meat-eaters to develop a real stink.

“Is that because it’s sick?” Lex asked.

“Maybe. And don’t forget the vet’s tranquilized it.”

“Ellie, have a look at this tongue,” Grant said.

The dark purple tongue drooped limply from the animal’s mouth. The vet shone a light on it so she could see the very fine silvery blisters. “Microvesicles,” Ellie said. “Interesting.”

“We’ve had a difficult time with these stegos,” the vet said. “They’re always getting sick.”

“What are the symptoms?” Ellie asked. She scratched the tongue with her fingernail. A clear liquid exuded from the broken blisters.

“Ugh,” Lex said.

“Imbalance, disorientation, labored breathing, and massive diarrhea,” Harding said. “Seems to happen about once every six weeks or so.”

“They feed continuously?”

“Oh yes,” Harding said. “Animal this size has to take in a minimum of five or six hundred pounds of plant matter daily just to keep going. They’re constant foragers.”

“Then it’s not likely to be poisoning from a plant,” Ellie said. Constant browsers would be constantly sick if they were eating a toxic plant. Not every six weeks.

“Exactly,” the vet said.

“May I?” Ellie asked. She took the flashlight from the vet. “You have pupillary effects from the tranquilizer?” she said, shining the light in the stegosaur’s eye.

“Yes. There’s a miotic effect, pupils are constricted.”

“But these pupils are dilated,” she said.

Harding looked. There was no question: the stegosaur’s pupil was dilated, and did not contract when light shone on it. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “That’s a pharmacological effect.”

“Yes.” Ellie got back on her feet and looked around. “What is the animal’s range?”

“About five square miles.”

“In this general area?” she asked. They were in an open meadow, with scattered rocky outcrops, and intermittent plumes of steam rising from the ground. It was late afternoon, and the sky was pink beneath the lowering gray clouds.

“Their range is mostly north and east of here,” Harding said. “But when they get sick, they’re usually somewhere around this particular area.”

It was an interesting puzzle, she thought. How to explain the periodicity of the poisoning? She pointed across the field. “You see those low, delicate-looking bushes?”

“West Indian lilac.” Harding nodded. “We know it’s toxic. The animals don’t eat it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. We monitor them on video, and I’ve checked droppings just to be certain. The stegos never eat the lilac bushes.”

Melia azedarach
, called chinaberry or West Indian lilac, contained a number of toxic alkaloids. The Chinese used the plant as a fish poison.

“They don’t eat it,” the vet said.

“Interesting,” Ellie said. “Because otherwise I would have said that this animal shows all the classic signs of
Melia
toxicity: stupor, blistering of the mucous membranes, and pupillary dilatation.” She set off toward the field to examine the plants more closely, her body bent over the ground. “You’re right,” she said. “Plants are healthy, no sign of being eaten. None at all.”

“And there’s the six-week interval,” the vet reminded her.

“The stegosaurs come here how often?”

“About once a week,” he said. “Stegos make a slow loop through their home-range territory, feeding as they go. They complete the loop in about a week.”