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"Well, Donald," Hao back to the initial concept of the resort The concept of thethe latest electronic and biological technologies I&039; about rides Everybody has rides Coney Island has rides And these days everybody has animatronic environments The haunted house, the pirate den, the est, the earthquake-everyone has those things So we set out toattractions Attractions so astonishing they would capture the iination of the entire world"

Gennaro had to smile It was almost the same speech, word for word, that he had used on the investors, so et the ultimate object of the project in Costa Rica-toout the s of the jet "Lots and lots of money

"I remember," Gennaro said

"And the secret tomoney in a park," Hammond said, "is to limit your Personnel costs The food handlers, ticket takers, cleanup crews, repair teams To make a park that runs with minimal staff That e invested in all the coy-we automated wherever we could"

"I remember"

"But the plain fact is," Haether all the anis Who ever got aon schedule? Nobody I know"

"So you&039;ve just had normal start-up delays?"

"Yes, that&039;s right," Hammond said "Normal delays"

"I heard there were accidents during construction," Gennaro said "Some workmen died"

"Yes, there were several accidents," Hammond said "And a total of three deaths Torkers died building the cliff road One other died as a result of an earth-mover accident in January But we haven&039;t had any accidents for er man&039;s arm "Donald," he said, "believeforward as planned Everything on that island is perfectly fine"

The intercom clicked The pilot said, "Seat belts, please We&039;re landing in Choteau"

Choteau

Dry plains stretched away toward distant black buttes The afternoon wind blew dust and tumbleweed across the cracked concrete Grant stood with Ellie near the Jeep and waited while the sleek Gru

"I hate to wait on the rued"Goes with the job"

Although many fields of science, such as physics and chey rely dependent on private patrons Quite apart from his own curiosity about the island in Costa Rica, Grant understood that, if John Haive it That was how patronage worked-how it had alorked

The little jet landed and rolled quickly toward the The iet came to a stop and a stewardess in a blue uniform opened the door

Inside, he was surprised at how cramped it was, despite the luxurious appointments Grant had to hunch over as he went to shake Hammond&039;s hand

"Dr Grant and Dr Sattler," Haood of you to join us Allow me to introduce my associate, Donald Gennaro"

Gennaro was a stocky,an Arht He shook hands quickly When Ellie shook hands, Gennaro said in surprise, "You&039;re a wos happen," she said, and Grant thought: She doesn&039;t like him, either-

Hammond turned to Gennaro "You know, of course, what Dr Grant and Dr Sattler do They are paleontologists They dig up dinosaurs" And then he began to laugh, as if he found the idea very funny

"Take your seats, please," the stewardess said, closing the door Ian to move

"You&039;ll have to excuse us," Hammond said, "but we are in a bit of a rush Donald thinks it&039;s iht down there"

The pilot announced four hours&039; flying tio on to Costa Rica, arriving the followinge be in Costa Rica?" Grant asked

"Well, that really depends," Gennaro said "We have a few things to clear up"

"Taketo Grant "We&039;ll be down there no ht hours"

Grant buckled his seat belt "This island of yours that we&039;re going to-I haven&039;t heard anything about it before Is it some kind of secret?"

"In a way," Ha sure nobody knows about it, until the day we finally open that island to a surprised and delighted public"

Target of Opportunity

The Biosyn Corporation of Cupertino, California, had never called an e of its board of directors The ten directors now sitting in the conference room were irritable and i themselves for the last tenpapers Looking pointedly at their watches

"What are aiting for?" one asked

"One lanced at his watch Ron Meyer&039;s office had said he was coo He should be here by now, even allowing for traffic from the airport

"You need a quorum?" another director asked

"Yes," Dodgson said "We do"

That shut the to be asked to h Dodgson would have preferred not to call a arten, the head of Biosyn, was adareement for this one, Lew," he had said

Depending on who you talked to, Lewis Dodgson was faeneration, or the , hawk-faced, and intense, he had been disene therapy on hu the proper FDA protocols Hired by Biosyn, he had conducted the controversial rabies vaccine test in Chile Noas the head of product developineering": taking a co hoorked, and thenyour own version In practice, it involved industrial espionage, much of it directed toward the InGen corporation

In the 1980s, a few genetic engineering coical equivalent of a Sony Walkman?" These companies weren&039;t interested in pharmaceuticals or health; they were interested in entertainment, sports, leisure activities, cosicals" in the 1990s was high InGen and Biosyn were both at work in this field

Biosyn had already achieved so a new, pale trout under contract to the Department of Fish and Game of the State of Idaho This trout was easier to spot in strea (At least, it eliminated complaints to the Fish and Came Department that there were no trout in the streams) The fact that the pale trout soy and tasteless, was not discussed Biosyn was still working on that, and-

The door opened and Ron Meyer entered the rooson now had his quorum He immediately stood

"Gentleet of opportunity: InGen"

Dodgson quickly reviewed the background InGen&039;s start-up in 1983, with Japanese investors The purchase of three Cray XMP supercomputers The purchase of Isla Nublar in Costa Rica The stockpiling of amber The unusual donations to zoos around the world, froical Society to the Rantbapur Wildlife Park in India

"Despite all these clues," Dodgson said, "we still had no idea where InGenThe company seemed obviously focused on animals; and they had hired researchers with an interest in the past-paleoblologists, DNA phylogeneticists, and so on

"Then, in 1987, InGen bought an obscure company called Millipore Plastic Products in Nashville, Tennessee This was an agribusiness company that had recently patented a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell This plastic could be shaped into an egg and used to grow chick e year, InGen took the entire output of this millipore plastic for its own use"

"Dr Dodgson, this is all very interesting-"

"At the saun on Isla Nublar, This involved , in the center of the island Plans for resort facilities were let out with a high degree of confidentiality, but it appears that InGen has built a private zoo of large dimensions on the island"

One of the directors leaned forward and said, "Dr Dodgson So what?"

"It&039;s not an ordinary zoo," Dodgson said "This zoo is unique in the world It see quite extraordinary They have ed to clone extinct animals from the past"

"What animals?"

"Anis, and that require a lot of room in a zoo"

"What anison said "They are cloning dinosaurs"

The consternation that folloas entirely son&039;s view The trouble with money men was that they didn&039;t keep up: they had invested in a field, but they didn&039;t knoas possible

In fact, there had been discussion of cloning dinosaurs in the technical literature as far back as 1982 With each passing year, the rown easier Genetic yptian a, a zebra-like African animal that had becoga DNA rown If so, it would be the first creature brought back from extinction solely by reconstruction of its DNA If that was possible, what else was also possible? The er? The dodo?

Or even a dinosaur?

Of course, no dinosaur DNA was known to exist anywhere in the world But by grinding up large quantities of dinosaur bones it ht that fossilization elih DNA frag animal

Back in 1982, the technical proble But there was no theoretical barrier It was merely difficult, expensive, and unlikely to work, Yet it was certainly possible, if anyone cared to try

InGen had apparently decided to try

"What they have done," Dodgson said, "is build the greatest single tourist attraction in the history of the world As you know, zoos are extremely popular Last year, more Americans visited zoos than all professional baseball and football games combined And the Japanese love zoos-there are fifty zoos in Japan, and e whatever they want, Two thousand dollars a day, ten thousand dollars a dayAnd then there is the ames, caps, stuffed toys, comic books, and pets"

"Pets?"

"Of course If InGen can my dinosaurs as household pets What child won&039;t want a little dinosaur as a pet? A little patented animal for their very own InGen will sell ineer them so that these pet dinosaurs can only eat InGen pet food"

"Jesus," somebody said

"Exactly," Dodgson said "The zoo is the centerpiece of an enormous enterprise"

"You said these dinosaurs will be patented?"

"Yes Genetically engineered animals can now be patented The Supreme Court ruled on that in favor of Harvard in 1987 InGen will own its dinosaurs, and no one else can legally make them"

"What prevents us fro our own dinosaurs?" so, except that they have a five-year start It&039;ll be almost impossible to catch up before the end of the century"

He paused "Of course, if we could obtain exaineer theh modifications in the DNA to evade their patents"

"Can we obtain examples of their dinosaurs?"

Dodgson paused "I believe we can, yes"

So illegal about it"

"Oh no," Dodgson said quickly "Nothing illegal I&039;runtled e like that"

"Do you have a legitison?"

"I do," Dodgson said "But I&039;ency to the decision, because InGen is experiencing a small crisis, and my source will have to act within the next twenty-four hours"

A long silence descended over the roo notes, and the tape recorder on the table in front of her

"I don&039;t see the need for a forson said "Just a sense of the room, as to whether you feel I should proceed"

Slowly the heads nodded

Nobody spoke Nobody went on record They just nodded silently

"Thank you for coson said "I&039;ll take it from here"

Airport

Lewis Dodgson entered the coffee shop in the departure building of the San Francisco airport and looked around quickly His son sat down next to him and placed the briefcase on the floor between them

"You&039;re late, pal," theand laughed "What is this supposed to be, a disguise?"

"You never know," Dodgson said, suppressing his anger For six rownBut there was nothing Dodgson could do about tbat-both men knew exactly what the stakes were

Bioengineered DNA eight for weight, the le microscopic bacteriuenes for a heart-attack enzyme, streptokinase, or for "ice-ht be worth five billion dollars to the right buyer

And that fact of life had created a bizarre neorld of industrial espionage Dodgson was especially skilled at it In 1987, he convinced a disgruntled geneticist to quit Cetus for Biosyn, and take five strains of engineered bacteria with her The geneticist siernails of one hand, and walked out the door

But InGen presented a tougher challenge Dodgson wanted more than bacterial DNA; he wanted frozen euarded its embryos with the most elaborate security measures To obtain them, he needed an InGen e to steal them, and who could defeat the security Such a person was not easy to find

Dodgson had finally located a susceptible InGen eh this particular person had no access to geneticthe man monthly at Carlos and Charlie&039;s in Silicon Valley, helping hi contractors and advisers to visit the island, it was thefor-because it meant his man would have access to eet down to it," the ht,"

"You want to go over it again?" Dodgson said

"Hell no, Dr Dodgson," the man said "I want to see the dason flipped the latch on the briefcase and opened it a few inches The lanced down casually "That&039;s all of it?"

"That&039;s half of it Seven hundred fifty thousand dollars"

"Okay Fine" The son"

Dodgson quickly locked the briefcase "That&039;s for all fifteen species, you remember"

"I re to transport theson handed thecream

"That&039;s it?"

"That&039;s it"

"They e"

Dodgson shrugged "Press the top," he said

Thecream puffed into his hand "Not bad" He wiped the foae of his plate "Not bad"