Finally, he turned to the motorcycle. It, too, was electric; Thorne rolled it to the rear of the Explorer, lifted it onto brackets, hooked the power cord into the same system that ran the vehicle, and recharged the battery. He stepped back. "That does it."
In the hot, quiet clearing, Eddie stared toward the high circular rim of the crater, rising in the distance above the dense jungle. The bare rock shimmered in the morning heat, the walls forbidding and harsh. He had a sense of desolation, of entrapment. "Why would anyone ever come here?" he said.
Malcolm, leaning on his cane, smiled. "To get away from it all, Eddie. Don't you ever want to get away from it all?"
"Not if I can help it," Eddie said. "Me, I always like a Pizza Hut nearby, you know what I mean?"
"Well, you're a ways from one now."
Thorne returned to the back panel of the trailer, and pulled out a pair of heavy rifles. Beneath the barrel of each hung two aluminum canisters, side by side. He handed one rifle to Eddie, showed the other to Malcolm. "You ever seen these?"
"Read about them," Malcolm said. "This is the Swedish thing?"
"Right. Lindstradt air gun. Most expensive rifle in the world. Rugged, simple, accurate, and reliable. Fires a subsonic Fluger impact delivery dart, containing whatever compound you want." Thorne cracked open the cartridge bank, revealing a row of plastic containers filled with straw-colored liquid. Each cartridge was tipped with a three-inch needle. "We've loaded the enhanced venom of Conus purpurascens, the South Sea cone shell. It's the most powerful neurotoxin in the world. Acts within a two-thousandth of a second. It's faster than the nerve-conduction velocity. The animal's down before it feels the prick of the dart."
"Lethal?"
Thorne nodded. "No screwing around here. Just remember, you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot with this, because you'll be dead before you realize that you've pulled the trigger."
Malcolm nodded. "Is there an antidote?"
"No. But what's the point? There'd be no time to administer it if there was."
"That makes things simple," Malcolm said, taking the gun.
"Just thought you ought to know," Thorne said. "Eddie? Let's get going."
The Stream
Eddie climbed into the Explorer. Thorne and Malcolm climbed into the cab of the trailer. A moment later, the radio clicked. Eddie said, "You putting up the database, Doc?"
"Right now," Thorne said.
He plugged the optical disk into the dashboard slot. On the small monitor facing him, he saw the island appear, but it was largely obscured behind patches of cloud. "What good is that?" Malcolm said.
"Just wait," Thorne said. "It's a system. It's going to sum data."
"Data from what?"
"Radar." In a moment, a satellite radar image overlaid the photograph. The radar could penetrate the clouds. Thorne pressed a button, and the computer traced the edges, enhancing details, highlighting the faint spidery track of the road system.
"Pretty slick," Malcolm said. But to Thorne, he seemed tense.
"I've got it," Eddie said, on the radio.
Malcolm said, "He can see the same thing?"
"Yes. On his dashboard."
"But I don't have the CPS," Eddie said, anxiously. "Isn't it working?"
"You guys," Thorne said. "Give it a minute. It's reading the optical. Waystations are coming up."
There was a cone-shaped Global Positioning Sensor mounted in the roof of the trailer. Taking radio data from orbiting navigation satellites thousands of miles overhead, the GPS could calculate the position of the vehicles within a few yards. In a moment, a flashing red X appeared on the map of the island.
"Okay," Eddie said, on the radio. "I got it. Looks like a road leading out of the clearing to the north. That where we're going?"
"I'd say so," Thorne said. According to the map, the road twisted several miles across the interior of the island, before finally reaching a place where all the roads seemed to meet. There was the suggestion of buildings there, but it was hard to be sure.
"Okay, Doc. Here we go."
Eddie drove past him, and took the lead. Thorne stepped on the accelerator, and the trailer hummed forward, following the Explorer.
Beside him, Malcolm was silent, fiddling with a small notebook computer on his lap. He never looked out the window.
In a few moments, they had left the clearing behind, and were moving through dense jungle. Thorne's panel lights flashed: the vehicle switched to its batteries. There wasn't enough sunlight coming through the trees to power the trailer any more. They drove on.
"How you doing, Doc?" Eddie said. "You holding charge?"
"Just fine, Eddie."
"He sounds nervous," Malcolm said.
"Just worried about the equipment."
"The hell," Eddie said. "I'm worried about me."
Although the road was overgrown and in poor condition they made good progress. After about ten minutes, they came to a small stream, with muddy banks. The Explorer started across it, then stopped. Eddie got out, stepping over rocks in the water, walking back.
"What is it?"
"I saw something, Doc."
Thorne and Malcolm got out of the trailer, and stood on the banks of the stream. They heard the distant cries of what sounded like birds. Malcolm looked up, frowning.
"Birds?" Thorne said.
Malcolm shook his head, no.
Eddie bent over, and plucked a strip of cloth out of the mud. It was dark-green Gore-Tex, with a strip of leather sewn along one edge. "That's from one of our expedition packs," he said.
"The one we made for Levine?"
"Yes, Doc."
"You put a sensor in the pack?" Thorne asked. They usually sewed location sensors inside their expedition packs.
"Yes."
"May I see that?" Malcolm asked. He took the strip of cloth and held it up to the light. He fingered the torn edge thoughtfully
Thorne uncapped a small receiver from his belt. It looked like an oversized pager. He stared at the liquid-crystal readout. "I'm not getting any signal...."
Eddie stared at the muddy bank. He bent over again. "Here's another piece of cloth. And another, Seems like the pack was ripped into shreds, Doc."
Another bird cry floated toward them, distant, unworldly. Malcolm stared off in the distance, trying to locate its source. And then he heard Eddie say, "Uh-oh. We have company."
There were a half-dozen bright-green lizard-like animals, standing in a group near the trailer. They were about the size of chickens, and they chirped animatedly. They stood upright on their hind legs, balancing with their tails straight out. When they walked, their heads bobbed up and down in nervous little jerks, exactly like a chicken. And they made a distinctive squeaking sound, very reminiscent of a bird. Yet they looked like lizards with long tails. They had quizzical, alert faces, and they cocked their heads when they looked at the men.
Eddie said, "What is this, a salamander convention?"
The green lizards stood, watched. Several more appeared, from beneath the trailer, and from the foliage nearby. Soon there were a dozen lizards, watching and chattering.
"Compys," Malcolm said. "Procompsognathus triassicus, is the actual name."
"You mean these are - "
"Yes. They're dinosaurs."
Eddie frowned, stared. "I didn't know they came so small," he said finally.
"Dinosaurs were mostly small," Malcolm said. "People always think they were huge, but the average dinosaur was the size of a sheep, or a small pony."
Eddie said, "They look like chickens."
"Yes. Very bird-like."
"Is there any danger?" Thorne said.
"Not really," Malcolm said. "They're small scavengers, like jackals.
They feed on dead animals. But I wouldn't get close. Their bite is mildly poisonous."
"I'm not getting close," Eddie said. "They give me the creeps. It's like they're not scared."
Malcolm had noticed that, too. "I imagine it's because there haven't been any human beings on this island. These animals don't have any reason to fear man."
"Well, let's give them a reason," Eddie said. He picked up a rock.
"Hey!" Malcolm said. "Don't do that! The whole idea is - "
But Eddie had already thrown the rock. It landed near a cluster of compys, and the lizards ducked away. But the others hardly moved. A few of them hopped up and down, showing agitation. But the group stayed where they were. They just chittered, and cocked their heads.
"Weird," Eddie said. He sniffed the air. "You notice that smell?"
"Yes," Malcolm said. "They have a distinctive odor."
"Rotten, is more like it," Eddie said. "They smell rotten. Like something dead. And you ask me, it's not natural, animals that don't show fear like that. What if they have rabies or something?"
"They don't," Malcolm said.
"How do you know?"
"Because only mammals carry rabies." But even as he said it, he wondered if that was right. Warm-blooded animals carried rabies. Were the compys warm-blooded? He wasn't sure.
There was a rustling sound from above. Malcolm looked up at the canopy Of trees overhead. He saw movement in the high foliage, as unseen small animals jumped from branch to branch. He heard squeaks and chirps, distinctly animal sounds.
"Those aren't birds, up there," Thorne said. "Monkeys?"
"Maybe," Malcolm said. "I doubt it."
Eddie shivered. "I say we get out of here,"
He returned to the stream, and climbed into the Explorer. Malcolm walked cautiously with Thorne back to the trailer entrance. The compys parted around them, but still did not run away. They stood all around their legs, chattering excitedly. Malcolm and Thorne climbed into the trailer and closed the doors, being careful not to shut them on the little creatures.
Thorne sat behind the wheel, and turned on the motor. Ahead, they saw that Eddie was already driving the Explorer through the stream, and heading up the sloping ridge on the far side.
"The, uh, procomso-whatevers, Eddie said, over the radio. "They're real, aren't they?"
"Oh yes, Malcolm said softly. "They're real."
The Road
Thorne was uneasy. He was beginning to understand how Eddie felt. He had built these vehicles, and he had an uncomfortable sense of isolation, of being in this faraway place with untested equipment. The road continued steeply upward through dark jungle for the next fifteen minutes. Inside the trailer, it grew uncomfortably warm. Sitting beside him, Malcolm said, "Air conditioning?"
"I don't want to drain the battery." "Mind if I open the window?"
"If you think it's all right," Thorne said.
Malcolm shrugged. "Why not?" He pushed the button, and the power window rolled down. Warm air blew into the car. He glanced back at Thorne. "Nervous, Doc?"
"Sure," Thorne said. "Damned right I am." Even with the window open, he felt sweat running down his chest as he drove.
Over the radio, Eddie was saying, "I'm telling you, we should have tested first, Doc. Should have done it by the book. You don't come to a place with poisonous chickens if you're not sure your vehicles will hold up."
"The cars are fine," Thorne said. "How's your levels?"
"High normal, Eddie said. "Just great. Of course, we've only gone five miles. It's nine in the morning, Doc."
The road swung right, then left, following a series of switchbacks as the terrain became steeper. Hauling the big trailers, Thorne had to concentrate on his driving; it was a relief to focus his attention.
Ahead of them, the Explorer turned left, going higher up the road. "I don't see any more animals," Eddie said. He sounded relieved.
Finally the road flattened out as it turned, following the crest of the ridge. According to the GPS display, they were now heading north west, toward the interior of the island. But the jungle still hemmed them in on all sides; they could not see much beyond the dense walls of foliage.
They came to a Y intersection in the road, and Eddie pulled over to the side. Thorne saw that in the crook of the Y was a faded wooden sign, with arrows pointing in both directions. To the left, the sign said "To Swamp." To the right was another arrow, and the words, "To Site B."
Eddie said, "Guys? Which way?"
"Go to Site B," Malcolm said.
"You got it," The Explorer started down the right fork, Thorne followed. Off to the right, sulfurous yellow steam issued from the ground, bleaching the nearby foliage white. The smell was strong.
"Volcanic," Thorne said to Malcolm, "just as you predicted." Driving past, they glimpsed a bubbling pool in the earth, crusted thick yellow around the edges.
"Yeah," Eddie said, "but that's active. In fact, I'd say that - holy shit!" Eddie's brake lights flashed on, and his car slammed to a stop.
Thorne had to swerve, scraping jungle ferns on the side of the trailer, to miss him. He pulled up alongside the Explorer, and glared at Eddie. "Eddie, for Pete's sake, will you - "
But Eddie wasn't listening.
He was staring straight forward, his mouth wide open.
Thorne turned to look.
Directly ahead, the trees along the road had been beaten down, creating a gap in the foliage. They could see all the way from the ridge road across the entire island to the west. But Thorne hardly registered the panoramic view. Because all he saw was a large animal, the size of a hippopotamus, ambling across the road. Except it wasn't a hippopotamus. This animal was pale brown, its skin covered with large plate-like scales. Around its head, it had a curving bony crest, and rising from this crest were two blunted horns. A third horn protruded above its snout.
Over the radio, he heard Eddie breathing in shallow gasps. "You know what that is?"
"That's a triceratops," Malcolm said. "A young one, by the looks of it."
"Must be," Eddie said. Ahead of them, a much larger animal now crossed the road. It was easily twice the size of the first, and its horns were long, curving, and sharp. "Because that's his mom."
A third triceratops appeared, then a fourth. There was a whole herd of creatures, ambling slowly across the road. They paid no attention to the vehicles as they crossed, passed through the gap, and descended down the hill, disappearing from view.
Only then were the men able to see through the gap itself. Thorne had a view across a vast marshy plain, with a broad river coursing through the center. On either side of the river, animals grazed. There was a herd of perhaps twenty medium-sized, dark-green dinosaurs to the south, their large heads intermittently poking up above the grass along the river. Nearby, Thorne saw eight duck-billed dinosaurs with large tube-like crests rising above their heads; they drank and lifted their heads, honking mournfully. Directly ahead, he saw a ]one stegosaurus, with its curved back and its vertical rows of plates. The triceratops herd moved slowly past the stegosaur, which paid no attention to them. And to the west, rising above a clump of trees, they saw a dozen long, graceful necks of apatosaurs, their bodies hidden by the foliage that they lazily ate. It was a tranquil scene -but it was a scene from another world.
"Doc?" Eddie said. "What is this place?"
Site B
Sitting in the cars, they stared out over the plain. They watched the dinosaurs move slowly through the deep grass. They beard the soft cry of the duckbills. The separate herds moved peacefully beside the river.
Eddie said, "So what are we saying, this is a place that got bypassed by evolution? One of those places where time stands still?"
"Not at all," Malcolm said, "There's a perfectly rational explanation for what you are seeing. And we are going to - "
From the dashboard, there was a high-pitched beeping. On the GPS map, a blue grid was overlaid, with a flashing triangular point marked LEVN.
"It's him!" Eddie said. "We got the son of a bitch!"
"You're reading that?" Thorne said. "It's pretty weak...."
"It's fine - it's got enough signal strength to transmit the ID tab. That's Levine, all right. Looks like it is coming from the valley over there."
He started the Explorer, and it lurched forward up the road. "Let's go," Eddie said. "I want to get the hell out of here."
With the flick of a switch, Thorne turned on the electric Motor for the trailer, and beard the chug of the vacuum pump, the low whine of the automatic transmission. He put the trailer in gear, and followed behind.
The impenetrable jungle closed in around them again, close and hot. The trees overhead blocked nearly all the sunlight. As he drove, he heard the beeping become irregular. He glanced at the monitor, saw the flashing triangle was disappearing, then coming back again.
"Are we losing him, Eddie?" Thorne said.
"Doesn't matter if we do," Eddie said. "We've got a location on him now, and we can go right there. In fact, it should be just down this road here. Right past this guardhouse or whatever it is, dead ahead."
Thorne looked past the Explorer, and saw a concrete structure and a tilting steel road-barrier. It did indeed look like a guardhouse. It was in disrepair, and overgrown with vines. They drove on, coming onto paved road. It was clear the foliage on either side had once been cut far back, fifty feet on either side. Pretty soon they came to a second guardhouse, and a second checkpoint.
They continued on another hundred yards, the road still curving slowly along the ridge. The surrounding foliage became sparser; through gaps in the ferns Thorne could see wooden outbuildings, all painted identical green. They seemed to be utility structures, perhaps sheds for equipment. He had the sense of entering a substantial complex.
And then, suddenly, they rounded a curve, and saw the entire complex spread out below them. It was about a half-mile away.
Eddie said, "What the hell is that?"
Thorne stared, astonished. In the center of the clearing he saw the flat roof of an enormous building. It covered several acres, stretching away into the distance. It was the size of two football fields. Beyond the vast roof was a large blocky building with a metal roof, which had the functional look of a power plant, But if so, it was as big as the power plant for a small town.
At the far end of the main building, Thorne saw loading docks, and turnarounds for trucks. Over to the right, partially hidden in foliage, there were a series of small structures that looked like cottages. But from a distance it was hard to be sure.
Taken together, the whole complex had a utilitarian quality that reminded Thorne of an industrial site, or a fabrication plant. He frowned, trying to put it together.
"Do you know what this is?" Thorne said to Malcolm.
"Yes," Malcolm said, nodding slowly. "It's what I suspected for some time now."
"Yes?"
"It's a manufacturing plant," Malcolm said. "It's a kind of factory."
"But it's huge," Thorne said.
"Yes," Malcolm said. "It had to be."
Over the radio, Eddie said, "I'm still getting a reading from Levine. And guess what? It seems to be coming from that building."
They drove past the covered front entrance to the main building, beneath the sagging portico. The building was of modern design, concrete and glass, but the jungle had long ago grown up around it. Vines hung from the roof Panes of glass were broken; ferns sprouted between cracks in the concrete.
Thorne said, "Eddie? Got a reading?"
Eddie said, "Yeah. Inside. What do you want to do?"
"Set up base camp in that field over there," Thorne said, pointing a half-mile to the left, where once, it seemed, there had been an extensive lawn. It was still an open clearing in the jungle; there would be sunlight for the photovoltaics. "Then we'll have a look around."
Eddie parked his Explorer, turning it around to face back the way they had come. Thorne maneuvered the trailers alongside the car, and cut the engine. He climbed out into the still, hot morning air. Malcolm got out and stood with him. Here in the center of the island, it was completely silent, except for the buzz of insects.
Eddie came over, slapping himself. "Great place, huh? No shortage of mosquitoes. You want to go get the son of a bitch now?" Eddie unclipped a receiver from his belt, and cupped his hand over the display, trying to see it in the sunlight. "Still right over there." He pointed to the main building. "What do you say?"
"Let's go get him," Thorne said.
The three men turned, climbed into the Explorer, and, leaving the trailers behind, drove in hot sunlight toward the giant, ruined building.
Trailer
Inside the trailer, the sound of the car engine faded away, and there-was silence. The dashboard glowed, the GPS map remained visible on the monitor; the flashing X marking their position. A small window in the monitor, titled "Active Systems," indicated the battery charge, photovoltaic efficiency, and usage over the past twelve hours. The electronic readouts all glowed bright green.
In the living section, where the kitchen and beds were located, the recirculating water supply in the sink gurgled softly. Then there was a thumping sound, coming from the upper storage compartment, located near the ceiling. The thumping was repeated, and then there was silence.
After a moment, a credit card appeared through the crack of the compartment door. The card slid upward, lifting the panel latch, unhooking it. The door swung open, and a white bundle of padding fell Out, landing with a dull thud on the floor. The padding unrolled, and Arby Benton groaned, stretching his small body.
"If I don't pee, I'm going to scream," he said, and he hurried on shaky legs into the tiny bathroom.
He sighed in relief. It had been Kelly's idea for them to go, but she left it to Arby to figure out the details. And he had figured everything out perfectly, he thought - at least, almost everything. Arby had correctly anticipated it would be freezing cold in the cargo plane, and that they would have to bundle up; he'd stuffed their compartments with every blanket and sheet in the trailer. He'd anticipated they would be there at least twelve hours, and he put aside some cookies and bottles of water. In fact, he'd anticipated everything except the fact that, at the last minute, Eddie Carr would go through the trailer and latch all the storage compartments from the outside. Locking them in, so that, for the next twelve hours, he wouldn't be able to go to the bathroom. For twelve hours!
He sighed again, his body relaxing. A steady stream of urine still flowed into the basin. No wonder! Agony! And he'd still be locked in there, he thought, if he hadn't finally figured out -
Behind him, he heard muffled shouts. He flushed the toilet and went back, crouching down by the storage compartment beneath the bed. He quickly unlatched it; another padded bundle unrolled, and Kelly appeared beside him.
"Hey, Kel," he said proudly. "We made it!"
"I have to go," she said, dashing. She pulled the door shut behind her.
Arby said, "We did it! We're here!"
"Just a minute, Arb. Okay?"
For the first time, he looked out the window of the trailer. All around them was a grassy clearing, and beyond that, the ferns and high trees of the jungle. And high above the tops of the trees, he saw the curving black rock of the volcanic rim.
So this was Isla Sorna, all right.
All right!
Kelly came out of the bathroom. "Ohhh. I thought I was going to die!" She looked at him, gave him high five. "By the way, how'd you get your door unlatched?"
"Credit card," he said.
She frowned. "You have a credit card?"
"My parents gave it to me, for emergencies," he said. "And I figured this was an emergency." He tried to make a joke out of it, to treat it lightly. Arby knew Kelly was sensitive about anything to do with money. She was always making comments about his clothes and things like that. Arid how he always had money for a taxi or a Coke at Larson's Deli after school, or whatever. Once he said to her that he didn't think money was so important, and she said, "Why would you?" in a funny voice. Arid ever since then he had tried to avoid the subject.
Arby wasn't always clear about the right thing to do around people. Everyone treated him so weird, anyway. Because he was younger, of course. And because he was black. Arid because he was what the other kids called a brainer. He found himself engaged in a constant effort to be accepted, to blend in. Except he couldn't. He wasn't white, he wasn't big, he wasn't good at sports, and he wasn't dumb. Most of his classes at school were so boring Arby could hardly stay awake in them. His teachers sometimes got annoyed with him, but what could he do? School was like a video played at super-slow speed. You could glance at it once an hour and not miss anything. And when he was around the other kids, how could he be expected to show interest in TV shows like "Melrose Place," or the San Francisco 49ers, or the Shaq's new commercial. He couldn't. That stuff wasn't important.
But Arby had long ago discovered it was unpopular to say so. It was better to keep your mouth shut. Because nobody understood him, except Kelly. She seemed to know what he was talking about, most of the time.
And Dr. Levine. At least the school had an advanced-placement track, which was moderately interesting to Arby. Not very interesting, of course, but better than the other classes. And when Dr. Levine had decided to teach the class, Arby had found himself excited by school for the first time in his life. In fact -
"So this is Isla Sorna, huh?" Kelly said, looking out the window at the jungle.
"Yeah," Arby said. "I guess so."
"You know, when they stopped the car earlier," Kelly said, "could you hear what they were talking about?"
"Not really. All the padding."
"Me neither," Kelly said. "But they seemed pretty worked up about something."
"Yeah, they did."
"It sounded like they were talking about dinosaurs, Kelly said. "Did you hear anything like that?"
Arby laughed, shaking his head. "No, Kel," he said.
"Because I thought they did."
"Come on, Kel."
"I thought Thorne said 'triceratops."'
"Kel," he said. "Dinosaurs have been extinct for sixty-five million years.
"I know that..."