The Lost World (26 page)

D
odgson watched the lead tyrannosaur come toward him. For such big animals, they were cautious. Only one of the two parents approached them, and although it paused to roar fiercely every few paces, it seemed oddly tentative, as if it was perplexed by the fact that the men were staying there. Or perhaps it could not see them. Perhaps he and Baselton had vanished from their view.

The other parent hung back, remaining toward the other side of the nest. Bobbing and ducking its head, agitated.

Agitated but not attacking.

Of course, the roars of the approaching dinosaur were terrifying, blood-chilling. Dodgson didn't dare glance at Baselton, just a few yards away. Baselton was probably peeing in his pants right now. just so he didn't turn and run, Dodgson thought. If he ran, he was a dead man. If he stayed perfectly still, everything would be all right.

Standing stiffly, keeping his body rigid, Dodgson held the anodized box at waist level in his left hand, near his belt buckle. With his right hand, he slowly, ever so slowly, pulled up the disconnected power cord. In a few moments he would feel the end plug in his hands, and then he, would slip it back into the box.

Meanwhile, he never took his eyes off the approaching tyrannosaur He felt the ground shake beneath his feet. He heard the cries of the infant that King had stepped on. Those cries seemed to bother the parents, to arouse them.

No matter. Just a few seconds more, and he would have the plug back in the power pack. And then…

The tyrannosaur was very close now. Dodgson could smell the rotten odor of the carnivore. The animal roared, and he felt hot breath. it was standing right by Baselton. Dodgson turned his head fractionally, to watch.

Baselton stood entirely still. The tyrannosaur came close, and lowered his big head. He snorted at Baselton. He raised his head again, as if perplexed.

He really can't see him, Dodgson thought.

The tyrannosaur bellowed, a ferocious sound. Somehow Baselton stayed unmoving. The tyrannosaur bent over, bringing his huge head down again. The jaws opened and closed. Baselton stared straight forward, not blinking. With huge flaring nostrils, the tyrannosaur smelled him, a long snuffling inhalation that fluttered Baselton's trouser legs.

Then the tyrannosaur nudged Baselton tentatively with his snout. And in that moment Dodgson realized that the animal could see him after all, and then the tyrannosaur swung his head laterally, striking Baselton in the side and easily knocking him to the earth. Baselton yelled as the tyrannosaur's big foot came down, pinning him to the ground. Baselton raised his arms and shouted "You son of a bitch!" just as the head came down, jaws wide, and closed on him. The movement was gentle, almost delicate, but in the next instant the head snapped high, tearing the body, and Dodgson heard a scream and saw something small and floppy hanging from the jaws, and realized it was Baselton's arm. Baselton's hand swung freely, the metal band of his wristwatch glinting beneath the tyrannosaur's huge eye.

Baselton was screaming, a continuous undifferentiated sound, and hearing it, Dodgson broke into a dizzying sweat. Then he turned and ran, back toward the car, back toward safety, back toward anything.

He ran.

Kell and Arb turned away from the monitor at the same moment. Kelly felt sick. She couldn't watch. But through the radio they could till hear the tinny screams of the man lying on his back, while the tyrannosaur tore him apart.

"Turn it off," Kelly said.

A moment later, the sound stopped.

Kelly sighed, let her shoulders drop. "Thank you," she said.

"I didn't do anything," Arby said.

She glanced back at the screen, and quickly looked away again. The tyrannosaur was tearing at something red. She shivered.

It was silent in the trailer. Kelly heard the tick of electronic counters, and the thumping of the water pumps under the floor. Outside, there was the faint sound of wind rustling the tall grass. Kelly suddenly felt very alone, very isolated on this island.

Arby," she said, "what are we going to do?"

Arby didn't answer her.

He bolted for the bathroom.

"I knew it," Malcolm said, staring at the dashboard monitor. "I knew that would happen. They tried to steal eggs. Now look - the tyrannosaurs are leaving! Both of them!" He pushed the radio transmitter. "Arby. Kelly. Are you there?"

"We can't talk," Kelly said.

The Explorer continued down the hillside, toward the area of the tyrannosaur nest. Thorne gripped the wheel grimly as he drove. "What a damn mess."

"Kelly. Are you listening? We can't see what's happening down there. The tyrannosaurs have left the nest! Kelly? What's happening?"

Dodgson sprinted for the Jeep. The battery pack fell off his belt as he ran, but he didn't care. Up ahead in the jeep, he saw King waiting, tense and pale.

Dodgson got behind the wheel, started the engine. The tyrannosaurs roared.

"Where's Baselton?" King asked.

"Didn't make it," Dodgson said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean he fucking didn't make it!" Dodgson yelled, and slammed the car into gear. The Jeep took off, bouncing up the hill. They heard the tyrannosaurs bellowing behind them.

King was holding the egg, looking back down the road. "Maybe we should get rid of this," he said.

"Don't you fucking dare!" Dodgson said.

King was rolling down the window. "Maybe he just wants the egg back."

"No," Dodgson said. "No!" He reached across the passenger seat, struggling with King as he drove. The trail was narrow, with deep ruts. The Jeep lurched forward.

Suddenly, one of the tyrannosaurs burst from the trees in the road ahead. The animal stood there, snarling, blocking the road.

"Oh Christ," Dodgson said, slamming on the brakes. The car slid sickeningly in the muddy track, came to a stop.

The tyrannosaur lumbered toward them, bellowing.

"Turn around!" King screamed. "Turn around!"

But Dodgson didn't turn around. He slammed the car into reverse, and started backing down the trail. He was driving fast, and the road was narrow.

"You're crazy!" King said. "You're going to kill us!"

Dodgson swung his arm, smacked King with his hand. "Shut the flick up!" he shouted. It took all his attention to maneuver the car back down the winding trail. Even going as fast as he could, he was sure the tyrannosaur would be faster. It wasn't going to work. They were in a fucking jeep with a fucking cloth top, and they were going to get killed and -

"No!" King shouted.

Behind them, Dodgson saw the second tyrannosaur, charging up the road toward them. He looked forward, saw the first tyrannosaur bearing down on them. They were trapped.

He twisted the wheel in panic and the car ran off the road, crashing backward into dense underbrush and surrounding trees, and he felt a jolting impact. Then the rear of the car dropped sickeningly, and he realized the back wheels were hanging over the edge of a hill. He gunned the engine frantically, but the wheels just spun in the air. It was hopeless. And slowly, the car sank backward, deeper into foliage so dense he could not see through it. But they were over the edge. Beside him, King was sobbing. He heard the tyrannosaurs roaring, very near now.

Dodgson flung open the car door, and jumped out into space. He lunged through the foliage, fell, hit a tree trunk, and tumbled down a steep jungle hill. Somewhere along the way he felt a sharp pain in his forehead, and saw stars for the brief moment before blackness enveloped him, and he lost consciousness.

T
hey sat in the Explorer, on top of the ridge overlooking the jungle-covered east valley. The windows were down. They listened to the bellowing of the tyrannosaurs, as the huge animals crashed through the underbrush.

"They both left the nest," Thorne said.

"Yeah. Those guys must have taken something." Malcolm sighed.

They were silent a while, listening.

They heard a soft buzzing, and then Eddie pulled up alongside them, in the motorcycle. "I thought you might need help. Are you going to go down?"

Malcolm shook his head. "No, absolutely not. It's too dangerous - we don't know where they are."

Sarah Harding said, "Why did Dodgson just stand there like that? That's not the way to act around predators. You get caught around lions, you make a lot of noise, wave your hands, throw things at them. Try to scare them off. You don't just stand there."

"He probably read the wrong research paper," Malcolm said, shaking his head. "There's been a theory going around that tyrannosaurs can only see movement. A guy named Roxton made casts of rex braincases, and concluded that tyrannosaurs had the brain of a frog."

The radio clicked. Levine said, "Roxton is an idiot. He doesn't know enough anatomy to have sex with his wife. His paper was a joke."

"What paper?" Thorne said.

The radio clicked again. "Roxton," Levine said, "believed that tyrannosaurs had a visual system like an amphibian: like a frog. A frog sees motion but doesn't see stillness. But it is quite impossible that a predator such as a tyrannosaur would have a visual system that worked that way. Quite impossible. Because the most common defense of prey animals is to freeze. A deer or something like that, it senses danger, and it freezes. A predator has to be able to see them anyway. And of course a tyrannosaur could."

Over the radio, Levine snorted with disgust. "It's just like the other idiotic theory put forth by Grant a few years back that a tyrannosaur could be confused by a driving rainstorm, because it was not adapted to wet climates. That's equally absurd. The Cretaceous wasn't particularly dry. And in any case, tyrannosaurs are North American animals they've only been found in the U.S. or Canada. Tyrannosaurs lived on the shores of the great inland sea, east of the Rocky Mountains. There are lots of thunderstorms on mountain slopes. I'm quite sure tyrannosaurs saw plenty of rain, and they evolved to deal with it."

"So is there any reason why a tyrannosaur might not attack somebody?" Malcolm said.

"Yes, Of Course. The most obvious one," Levine said.

"Which is?"

"If it wasn't hungry. If it had just eaten another animal. Anything larger than a goat would take care of its hunger for hours to come. No, no. The tyrannosaur sees fine, moving or still."

They listened to the roaring, coming up from the valley below. They saw thrashing in the underbrush, about half a mile away, to the north. More bellowing. The two rexes seemed to be answering each other.

Sarah Harding said, "What are we carrying?"

Thorne said, "Three Lindstradts. Fully loaded."

"Okay," she said. "Let's go."

The radio crackled. "I'm not there," Levine said, over the radio. "But I'd certainly advise waiting."

"The hell with waiting," Malcolm said. "Sarah's right. Let's go down there and see how bad it is."

"Your funeral," Levine said.

Arby came back to the monitor, wiping his chin. He still looked a little green. "What are they doing now?"

"Dr. Malcolm and the others are going to the nest."

"Are you kidding?" he said, alarmed.

"Don't worry," Kelly said. "Sarah can handle it."

"You hope," Arby said.

J
ust beyond the clearing, they parked the Explorer. Eddie pulled up in the motorcycle, and leaned it against the trunk of a tree and waited while the others climbed out of the Explorer.

Sarah Harding smelled the familiar sour odor of rotting flesh and excrement that always marked a carnivore nesting site. In the afternoon heat, it was faintly nauseating. Flies buzzed in the still air. Harding took one of the rifles, slung it over her shoulder. She looked at the three men. They were all standing very still, tense, not moving. Malcolm's face was pale, particularly around the lips. It reminded her of the time that Coffmann, her old professor, had visited her in Africa. Coffmann was one of those hard-drinking Hemingway types, with lots of affairs at home, and lots of tales of his adventures with the orangs in Sumatra, the ring-tailed lemurs in Madagascar. So she took him with her to a kill site in the savannah. And he promptly passed out. He weighed more than two hundred pounds, and she had to drag him out by the collar while the lions circled and snarled at her. It had been a good lesson for her.

Now she leaned close to the three men and whispered, "If you've got any qualms about this, don't go. Just wait here. I don't want to worry about you. I can do this myself" She started off.

"Are you sure - "

"Yes. Now keep quiet." She moved directly toward the clearing. Malcolm and the others hurried to catch up with her. She pushed aside the palm fronds, and stepped out into the open. The tyrannosaurs were gone, and the mud cone was deserted. Over to the right, she saw a shoe, with a bit of torn flesh sticking out above the ragged sock. That was all there was left of Baselton.

From within the nest, she heard a plaintive, high-pitched squeal. Harding climbed up the mud bank, with Malcolm struggling to follow. She saw two infant tyrannosaurs there, mewling. Nearby were three large eggs. They saw heavy footprints all around, in the mud.

"They took one of the eggs," Malcolm said. "Damn."

"You didn't want anything to disrupt your little ecosystem?"

Malcolm smiled crookedly. "Yeah. I was hoping."

"Too bad," she said, and moved quickly around the edge of the pit.

She bent over, looking at the baby tyrannosaurs. One of the babies was cowering, its downy neck pulled into its body. But the second one behaved very differently. It did not move as they approached, but remained lying sprawled on its side, breathing shallowly, eyes glazed.

"This one's been hurt," she said.

Levine was standing in the high hide. He pressed the headset to his ear, and spoke into the microphone near his cheek. "I need a description," he said.

Thorne said, "There's two of them, roughly two feet long, weighing maybe forty pounds. About the size of small cassowary birds. Large eyes. Short snouts. Pale-brown color. And there's a ring of down around the necks."

"Can they stand?"

"Uh…if they can, not very well. They're kind of flopping around. Squeaking a lot."

"Then they're infants," Levine said, nodding. "Probably only a few days old. Never been out of the nest. I'd be very careful."

"Why is that?"

"With offspring that young," Levine said, "the parents won't leave them for long."

Harding moved closer to the injured infant. Still mewling, the baby tried to crawl toward her, dragging its body awkwardly. One leg was bent at an odd angle. "I think the left leg's hurt."

Eddie came closer, standing alongside her to see. "Is it broken?"

"Yeah, probably, but - "

"Hey!" Eddie said. The baby lunge d forward, and clamped its jaws around the ankle of his boot. He pulled his foot away, dragging the baby, which held its grip tightly. "Hey! Let go!"

Eddie lifted his leg up, shook it back and forth, but the baby refused to let go. He pulled for a moment longer, then stopped. Now the baby just lay there on the ground, breathing shallowly, jaws still locked around Eddie's boot. "Jeez," Eddie said.

"Aggressive little guy, isn't he," Sarah said. "Right from birth…"

Eddie looked down at the tiny, razor-sharp jaws. They hadn't penetrated the leather. The baby held on firmly. With the butt of his rifle, he poked the infant's head a couple of times. It had no effect at all. The baby lay on the ground, breathing shallowly. Its big eyes blinked slowly as they stared up at Eddie, but it did not release its grip.

They heard the distant roars of the parents, somewhere to the north. "Let's get out of here," Malcolm said. "We've seen what we came here to see. We've got to find where Dodgson went."

Thorne said, "I think I saw a track up the trail. They might have gone off there."

"We better have a look."

They all started back to the car.

"Wait a minute," Eddie said, looking down at his foot. "What am I going to do about the baby?"

"Shoot it," Malcolm said, over his shoulder.

"You mean kill it?"

Sarah said, "It's got a broken leg, Eddie, it's going to die anyway."

"Yeah, but - "

Thorne called, "We're going back up the trail, Eddie, and if we don't find Dodgson, we'll take the ridge road going toward the laboratory. Then down to the trailer again."

"Okay, Doc. I'm right behind you." Eddie lifted his rifle, turned it in his hands.

"Do it now," Sarah said, climbing into the Explorer. "Because you don't want to be here when Momma and Poppa get back."