The Lost World (29 page)

D
odgson was awakened by a noisy chattering, like the sound of a hundred tiny birds. It seemed to be coming from all around him. Slowly, he realized that he was lying on his back, on damp sloping ground. He tried to move, but his body felt painful and heavy. Some sort of weight pressed down on his legs, his stomach, his arms. The weight on his chest made it difficult to breathe.

And he was sleepy, incredibly sleepy. He wanted nothing more in all the world than to go back to sleep. Dodgson started to drift off to unconsciousness, but something was pulling at his hand. Tugging at his fingers, one by one. As if pulling him back to consciousness. Slowly, slowly, pulling him back.

Dodgson opened his eyes.

There was a little green dinosaur standing beside his hand. It leaned over, and bit his finger in its tiny jaws, tugging at the flesh. His fingers were bleeding; ragged chunks of flesh had already been bitten away.

He pulled his hand away in surprise, and suddenly the chattering grew louder. He turned and saw that he was surrounded by these little dinosaurs; they were standing on his chest and legs as well. They were the size of chickens and they pecked at him like chickens, quick darting bites on his stomach, his thighs, his crotch -

Revolted, Dodgson jumped to his feet, scattering the lizards, which hopped away, chirping in annoyance. The little animals moved a few feet away, then stopped. They turned back, and stared at him, showing no sign of fear. On the contrary, they seemed to be waiting.

That was when he realized what they were. They were procompsognathids. Compys.

Scavengers.

Christ, he thought. They thought I was dead.

He staggered back, almost losing his balance. He felt pain and a wave of dizziness. The little animals chittered, watched his every move.

"Go on," he said, waving his hand. "Get out of here."

They did not leave. They stood there, cocking their heads to one side quizzically, and waited.

He bent his head, stared down at himself. His shirt, his trousers were torn in a hundred places. Blood dribbled from a hundred tiny wounds down his clothes. He felt a wave of dizziness and put his hands on his knees. He took a deep breath, and watched his blood drip onto the leaf-strewn ground.

Christ, he thought. He took another deep breath.

When he did not move, the animals began to inch forward. He stood up, and they backed away. But a moment later, they began to come forward again.

One came close. Dodgson kicked it viciously, sending the little body flying through the air. The animal squealed in alarm, but it landed like a cat, upright and uninjured.

The others remained where they were. Waiting.

He looked around, realized it was getting dark. He looked at his watch: 6:40. There were only a few minutes more of daylight. Beneath the jungle canopy, it was already quite dark.

He had to get to safety, and soon. He checked the compass on his watch strap, and headed south. He was pretty sure the river was to the south. He had to get back to the boat. He would be safe at the boat.

As he started walking, the compys chittered and followed after him. They stayed about five or ten feet behind, making a lot of noise as they hopped and crashed through the low foliage. There were dozens of them, he realized. As darkness descended, their eyes glowed bright green.

His body was a mass of pain. Every step hurt. His balance was not good. He was losing blood, and he was very, very sleepy. He would never make it all the way to the river. He would not make it more than another couple of hundred yards. He fell, tripping over a root. He got up slowly, dirt clinging to his blood-soaked clothes.

He looked back at the green eyes behind him, and forced himself onward. He could go a little farther, he thought. And then, directly ahead, he saw a light through the foliage. Was it the boat? He moved faster, hearing the compys behind him.

He pushed through the foliage and then saw a little shed, like a toolshed or a guardhouse, made of concrete, with a tin roof. It had a square window and light was shining through the window. He fell again, got to his knees, and crawled the rest of the way to the house. He reached the door, pulled himself up on the doorknob, and opened the door.

Inside, the shed was empty. Some pipes came up through the floor. Some time in the past, they had connected to machinery, but the machinery was gone; there were only the rust spots where it had once been bolted to the concrete floor.

In a corner of the room was an electric light. It was fitted with a timer, so that it came on at night. That was the light he had seen. Did they have electricity on this island? How? He didn't care. He staggered into the room, closed the door firmly behind him, and sank down onto the bare concrete. Through the dirty windowpanes, he saw the compys outside, banging against the glass, hopping in frustration. But he was safe for the moment.

He would have to go on, of course. He would somehow have to get off this fucking island. But not now, he thought.

Later.

He'd worry about everything later.

Dodgson laid his cheek on the damp concrete floor, and slept.

S
arah Harding laced the aluminum-foil cuff around the baby's injured leg. The baby was still unconscious, breathing easily, not moving. Its body was relaxed. The oxygen hissed softly.

She finished shaping the aluminum foil into a cuff six inches long. Using a small brush, she began to paint resin over it, to make a cast.

"How many raptors are there?" she said. "I couldn't tell for sure, when I saw them. I thought nine."

"I think there's more," Malcolm said "I think eleven or twelve in all."

"Twelve?" she said, glancing up at him. "On this little island?"

"Yes."

The resin had a sharp odor, like glue. She brushed it evenly on the aluminum. "You know what I'm thinking," she said.

"Yes," he said. "There are too many."

"Far too many, Ian." She worked steadily. "It doesn't make sense. In Africa, active predators like lions are very spread out. There's one lion for every ten square kilometers. Sometimes every fifteen kilometers. That's all the ecology can support. On an island like this, you should have no more than five raptors. Hold this."

"Uh-huh. But don't forget, the prey here is huge…Some of those animals are twenty, thirty tons."

"I'm not convinced that's a factor," Sarah said, "but for the sake of argument, let's say it is. I'll double the estimate, and give you ten raptors for the island. But you tell me there are twelve. And there are other major predators, as well. Like the rexes…"

"Yes. There are."

"That's too many, she said, shaking her head.

"The animals are pretty dense here," Malcolm said.

"Not dense enough," she said. "In general, predator studies - whether tigers in India, or lions in Africa - all seem to show that you can support one predator for every two hundred prey animals. That means to support twenty-five predators here, you need at least five thousand prey on this island. Do you have anything like that?"

"No."

"How many animals in total do you think are here?"

He shrugged. "A couple of hundred. Maybe five hundred at most."

"So you're off by an order of magnitude, Ian. Hold this, and I'll get the lamp."

She swung the heat lamp over the baby, to harden the resin. She adjusted the oxygen mask over the baby's snout.

"The island can't support all those predators," she said. "And yet they're here."

He said, "What could explain it?"

She shook her head. "There has to be a food source that we don't know about."

"You mean, an artificial source?" he said. "I don't think there is one."

"No," she said. "Artificial food sources make animals tame. And these animals aren't tame. The only other possibility I can think of is that there's a differential death rate among prey. If they grow very fast, or die young, then that might represent a larger food supply than expected."

Malcolm said, "I've noticed, the largest animals seem small. It's as if they don't seem to reach maturity. Maybe they're being killed off early."

"Maybe," she said. "But if there's a differential death rate large enough to support this population, you should see evidence of carcasses, and lots of skeletons of dead animals. Have you seen that?"

Malcolm shook his head. "No. In fact, now that you mention it, I haven't seen any skeletons at all."

"Me neither." She pushed the light away. "There's something funny about this island, Ian."

"I know," Malcolm said.

"You do?"

"Yes," he said. "I've suspected it from the beginning."

Thunder rumbled. From the high hide, the plain below them was dark and silent, except for the distant snarling of the raptors. "Maybe we should go back," Eddie said anxiously.

"Why?" Levine said. Levine had switched to his night-vision glasses, pleased with himself that he had thought to bring them. Through the goggles, the world was shades of pale green. He clearly saw the raptors at the kill site, the tall grass trampled and bloody all around. The carcass was long since finished, though they could still hear the cracking of bones as the animals gnawed on them.

"I just think," Eddie said, "that now that it's night, we'd be safer in the trailer."

"Why?" Levine said.

"Well, it's reinforced, it's strong, and very safe. It has everything that we need. I just think we should be there. I mean, you're not planning on staying out here all night, are you?"

"No," Levine said. "What do you think I am, a fanatic?" Eddie grunted.

"But let's stay for a while longer," Levine said.

Eddie turned to Thorne. "Doc? What do you say? It's going to start raining soon.

"Just a little longer," Thorne said. "And then we'll all go back together."

"There have been dinosaurs on this island for five years, maybe more, " Malcolm said, "but none have appeared elsewhere. Suddenly, in the last year, carcasses of dead animals are showing up on the beaches of Costa Rica, and according to reports, on islands of the Pacific as well."

"Carried by currents?"

"Presumably. But the question is, why now? Why all of a sudden, after five years? Something has changed, but we don't know - wait a minute" He moved away from the table, over to the computer console. He turned toward the screen.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"Arby got us into the old network," he said, "and it still has research files from the eighties." He moved the mouse across the screen. "We haven't looked at them…" He saw the menu come up, showing work files and research files. He began to scroll through screens of text.

"Years ago, they had trouble with some disease," he said. "There were a lot of notes about it in the laboratory."

"What kind of disease'?"

"They didn't know," Malcolm said.

"In the wild, there are some very slow-acting illnesses," she said. "May take five or ten years to show up. Caused by viruses, or prions. You know, protein fragments-like scrapie or mad-cow disease."

"But," Malcolm said, "those diseases only come from eating contaminated food."

There was a silence.

"What do you suppose they fed them, back then?" she asked. "Because if I was growing baby dinosaurs, I'd wonder. What do they cat? Milk, I suppose, but - "

"Milk, yes," Malcolm said, reading the screens. "First six weeks, goat's milk."

"That's the logical choice," she said. "Goat's milk is what they always use in zoos, because it's so hypoallergenic. But what about later?"

Give me a minute here," Malcolm said.

Harding held the baby's leg in her hand, waiting for the resin to harden. She looked at the cast, sniffed it. It was still strong-smelling. "I hope that's all right," she said. "Sometimes if there's a distinctive smell, the animals won't allow infants to return. But maybe this will dissipate after the compound hardens. How long has it been?"

Malcolm glanced at his watch. "Ten minutes. Another ten minutes and it'll set."

She said, "I'd like to take this guy back to the nest."

Thunder rumbled. They looked out the window at the black night.

"Probably too late to return him tonight," Malcolm said. He was still typing, peering at the screen.

"So…what did they feed them? Okay. In the period from 1988 to 1989…the herbivores got a macerated plant matter on a feeding schedule three times a day…and the carnivores got…"

He stopped.

"What'd the carnivores get?"

"Looks like a ground-up extract of animal protein…"

"From what? The usual source is turkey or chicken, with some antibiotics added."

"Sarah," he said. "They used sheep extract."

"No," she said. "They wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, they did. Came from their supplier, who used ground-up sheep."

"You're kidding," she said.

Malcolm said, "I'm afraid so. Now, let me see if I can find ou - "

A soft alarm sounded. On the wall panel above him, a red light began to flash. A moment later, the exterior lights above the trailer turned on, bathing the grassy clearing around them in bright halogen glare.

"What's that?" Harding said.

"The sensors - something set them off." Malcolm moved away from the computer, peered out the window. He saw nothing but tall grass, and the dark trees at the perimeter. It was silent, still.

Sarah, still intent on the baby, said, "What happened?"

"I don't know. I don't see anything."

"But something triggered the sensors?"

"I guess."

"Wind?"

"There's no wind," he said.

In the high hide, Kelly said,"Hey, look!"

Thorne turned. From their location in the valley, they could look north to the high cliff behind them and the two trailers above, in the grassy clearing.

The exterior lights on the trailers had come on.

Thorne unclipped the radio at his belt. "Ian? Are you there?"

A momentary crackle: "I'm here, Doc."

"What's happening?"

"I don't know," Malcolm said.

"The perimeter lights just turned on. I think the sensor was activated. But we don't see anything out there."

Eddie said, "Air's cooling off fast now. Might have been convection currents, set it off."

Thorne said, "Ian? Everything okay?"

"Yes. Fine. Don't worry."

Eddie said, "I always figured we set the sensitivity too high. That's all it is.

Levine frowned, and said nothing.

Sarah finished with the baby, and wrapped him in a blanket, and gently strapped him down to the table with cloth restraint straps. She came over and stood beside Malcolm. She looked out the window.

"What do you think?"

Malcolm shrugged. "Eddie says the system's too sensitive."

"Is it?"

"I don't know. It's never been tested before." He scanned the trees at the edge of the clearing, looking for any movement. Then he thought he heard a snorting sound, almost a growl. It seemed like it was answered from somewhere behind him. He went to look out the other side of the trailer, at the trees on the other side.

Malcolm and Harding looked out, straining to see something in the night. Malcolm held his breath, tensely. After a moment, Harding sighed. "I don't see anything, Ian."

"No. Me neither."

'Must be a false alarm."

Then he felt the vibration, a deep resonant thumping in the ground, that was carried to them through the floor of the trailer. He glanced at Sarah. Her eyes widened.

Malcolm knew what it was. The vibration came again, unmistakably this time.

Sarah stared out the window. She whispered, "Ian: I see it."

Malcolm turned, and joined her. She was pointing out the window toward the nearest trees.

"What?"

And then he saw the big head emerge from the foliage midway u one tree. The head turned slowly from side to side, as if listening. It was an adult Tyrannosaurus rex.

"Ian," she whispered. "Look - there are two of them."

Over to the right, he saw a second animal step from behind the trees. It was larger, the female of the pair. The animals growled, a deep rumble in the night. They emerged slowly from the cover of the trees, stepping into the clearing. They blinked in the harsh light.

"Are those the parents?"

"I don't know. I think so."

He glanced over at the baby. It was still unconscious, breathing steadily, the blanket rising and falling regularly.

"What are they doing here?" she said.

"I don't know."

The animals were still standing at the edge of the clearing, near the cover of the trees. They seemed hesitant, waiting.

"Are they looking for the baby?" she said.

"Sarah, please."

"I'm serious."

"That's ridiculous."

"Why? They must have tracked it here."

The tyrannosaurs raised their heads, lifting their jaws. Then they turned their heads left and right, in slow arcs. They repeated the movement, then took a step forward, toward the trailer.

"Sarah," he said. "We're miles from the nest. There isn't any way for them to track it."

"How do you know?"

"Sarah - "

"You said yourself, we don't know anything about these animals. We don't know anything about their physiology, their biochemistry, their nervous systems, their behavior. And we don't know anything about their sensory equipment, either."

"Yes, but - "

"They're predators, Ian. Good sense of vision, good sense of hearing and smell."

"I assume so, yes."

"But we don't know what else," Sarah said.

"What else?" Malcolm said.

"Ian. There are other sensory modalities. Snakes sense infrared. Bats have echolocation. Birds and turtles have magnetosensors - they can detect the earth's magnetic field, which is how they migrate. Dinosaurs may have other sensory modalities that we can't imagine."

"Sarah, this is ridiculous."

"Is it? Then you tell me. What are they doing out there?"

Outside, near the trees, the tyrannosaurs had become silent. They were no longer growling, but they were still moving their heads back and forth in slow arcs, turning left and right.

Malcolm frowned. "It looks like…they're looking around…"

"Straight into bright lights? No, Ian. They're blinded."

As soon as she said it, he realized she was right. But the heads were turning back and forth in that regular way. "Then what are they doing? Smelling?"

"No. Heads are high. Nostrils aren't moving."

"Listening?"

She nodded. "Possibly."

"Listening to what?"

"Maybe to the baby."

He glanced over again. "Sarah. The baby is out cold."

"I know."

"It isn't making any noise."

"None that we can hear." She stared at the tyrannosaurs. "But they're doing something, Ian. That behavior we're seeing has meaning. We just don't know what it is."

From the high hide, Levine stared through his night-vision glasses at the clearing. He saw the two tyrannosaurs standing at the edge of the forest. They were moving their heads in an odd, synchronized way.

They took a few hesitant steps toward the trailer, lifted their heads, turned right and left, and then seemed finally to make up their minds. The animals moved quickly, almost aggressively, across the clearing.