Page 7 (1/2)

So up to the helicopter A man with a baseball cap and red hair He threw open the door and said cheerfully, "Hi, I&039;is Welcome to Isla Nublar, everybody And watch your step, please"

A narrow path wound down the hill The air was chilly and damp As they moved lower, the mist around them thinned, and Grant could see the landscape better It looked, he thought, rather like the Pacific Northwest, the Olympic Peninsula

"That&039;s right," Regis said "Priy is deciduous rain forest Rather different froetation on the mainland, which is more classical rain forest But this is a microclimate that only occurs at elevation, on the slopes of the northern hills The majority of the island is tropical"

Down below, they could see the white roofs of large buildings, nestled a Grant was surprised: the construction was elaborate They moved lower, out of the mist, and now he could see the full extent of the island, stretching away to the south As Regis had said, it was mostly covered in tropical forest

To the south, rising above the palle trunk with no leaves at all, just a big curving stump Then the stump moved, and twisted around to face the new arrivals Grant realized that he was not seeing a tree at all

He was looking at the graceful, curving neck of an enor fifty feet into the air

He was looking at a dinosaur

Welcome

"My God," Ellie said softly They were all staring at the animal above the trees "My God"

Her first thought was that the dinosaur was extraordinarily beautiful Books portrayed the-necked aninity, about itsor dull in its behavior The sauropod peered alertly at the sound, rather like an elephant A e, and then a third, and a fourth

"My God," Ellie said again

Gennaro was speechless He had known all along what to expect-he had known about it for years-but he had somehow never believed it would happen, and now, he was shocked into silence The awesoy, which he had forht sales pitch-the power suddenly beca! They were enor as a house! And so many of them! Actual damned dinosaurs! Just as real as you could want

Gennaro thought: We are going to make a fortune on this place A fortune

He hoped to God the island was safe

Grant stood on the path on the side of the hill, with theabove the pal away too steeply He had trouble getting his breath Because he was looking at so he had never expected to see in his life Yet he was seeing it

The animals in the mist were perfect apatosaurs, medium-size sauropods His stunned mind made academic associations: North American herbivores, late Jurassic horizon Commonly called "brontosaurs" First discovered by E D Cope in Montana in 1876 Specimens associated with Morrison formation strata in Colorado, Utah, and Oklahoma Recently Berman and McIntosh had reclassified it a diplodocus based on skull appearance, Traditionally, Brontosaurus was thought to spend most of its tie bulk Although this aniabove the pally active an to laugh

"What is it?" Ha?"

Grant just shook his head, and continued to laugh He couldn&039;t tell them that as funny was that he had seen the aniun to accept it-and to use his observations to answer long-standing questions in the field

He was still laughing as he saw a fifth and a sixth neck crane up above the palm trees The sauropods watched the people arrive They reiraffes-they had the saaze

"I take it they&039;re not animatronic," Malcolm said "They&039;re very lifelike"

"Yes, they certainly are," Hammond said "Well, they should be, shouldn&039;t they?"

Froain First one animal made it, and then the others joined in

"That&039;s their call," Ed Regis said "Welco us to the island"

Grant stood and listened for a moment, entranced

"You probably want to knohat happens next," Ha down the path "We&039;ve scheduled a complete tour of the facilities for you, and a trip to see the dinosaurs in the park later this afternoon I&039;ll be joining you for dinner, and will answer any reo with Mr Regis"

The group followed Ed Regis toward the nearest buildings Over the path, a crude band-painted sign read: "Welcome to Jurassic Park"

THIRD ITERATION

[picture]

"Details ee more clearly as the fractal curve is redrawn"

IAN MALCOM

Jurassic Park

Theytoward theEverywhere, extensive and elaborate planting e a neorld, a prehistoric tropical world, and leaving the normal world behind

Ellie said to Grant, "They look pretty good"

"Yes," Grant said "I want to see them up close I want to lift up their toe pads and inspect their claws and feel their skin and open their laws and have a look at their teeth Until then I don&039;t know for sure But yes, they look good "

"I suppose it changes your field a bit," Malcolm said

Grant shook his head "It changes everything," he said

For 150 years, ever since the discovery of gigantic animal bones in Europe, the study of dinosaurs had been an exercise in scientific deduction Paleontology was essentially detective work, searching for clues in the fossil bones and the trackways of the long-vanished giants The best paleontologists were the ones who could make the most clever deductions

And all the great disputes of paleontology were carried out in this fashion-including the bitter debate, in which Grant was a key figure, about whether dinosaurs arm-blooded

Scientists had always classified dinosaurs as reptiles, cold-blooded creatures drawing the heat they needed for life from the environment A mammal could metabolize food to produce bodily warmth, but a reptile could not Eventually a handful of researchers-led chiefly by John Ostroan to suspect that the concept of sluggish, cold-blooded dinosaurs was inadequate to explain the fossil record In classic deductive fashion, they drew conclusions from several lines of evidence

First was posture: lizards and reptiles were bent-legged sprawlers, hugging the ground for wary to stand on their hind legs for ht legs, andanimals, erect posture occurred only in warested warm-bloodedness

Next they studiedthe pressure necessary to push blood up the eigbteen-foot-long neck of a brachlosaur, and concluding that it could only be accomplished by a four-chambered, hot-blooded heart

They studied trackways, fossil footprints left in mud, and concluded that dinosaurs ran as fast as a man; such activity implied warm blood They found dinosaur reinable for a reptile And the new studies of group behavior, based largely on Grant&039;s oork, suggested that dinosaurs had a co, as reptiles did not Crocodiles and turtles abandon their eggs But dinosaurs probably did not

The wared for fifteen years, before a new perception of dinosaurs as quick- aniues who did not speak to one another

But now, if dinosaurs could be cloned-why, Grant&039;s field of study was going to change instantly The paleontological study of dinosaurs was finished The whole enterprise-theschoolchildren, the university laboratories with their bone trays, the research papers, the journals-all of it was going to end

"You don&039;t seem upset," Malcolm said

Grant shook his head "It&039;s been discussed, in the field Many people i But not so soon"

"Story of our species," Malcol, but not so soon"

As they walked down the path, they could no longer see the dinosaurs, but they could hear the softly in the distance

Grant said, "My only question is, where&039;d they get the DNA?"

Grant are of serious speculation in laboratories in Berkeley, Tokyo, and London that it ht eventually be possible to clone an extinct aniet some dinosaur DNA to ith The problem was that all known dinosaurs were fossils, and the fossilization destroyed anic material Of course, if a dinosaur was frozen, or preserved in a peat bog, or ht be recoverable

But nobody had ever found a frozen orwas therefore ienetic technology was useless, It was like having a Xerox copier but nothing to copy with it

Ellie said, "You can&039;t reproduce a real dinosaur, because you can&039;t get real dinosaur DNA"

"Unless there&039;s a e haven&039;t thought of," Grant said "Like what?" she said

"I don&039;t know," Grant said

Beyond a fence, they ca pool, which spilled over into a series of waterfalls and se ferns "Isn&039;t this extraordinary?" Ed Regis said "Especially on a misty day, these plants really contribute to the prehistoric atmosphere These are authentic Jurassic ferns, of course"

Ellie paused to look more closely at the ferns Yes, it was just as he said: Serenna veriformans, a plant found abundantly in fossils more than two hundred million years old, now common only in the wetlands of Brazil and Colombia But whoever had decided to place this particular fern at poolside obviously didn&039;t know that the spores of verifor the attractive green fronds could make you sick, and if a child were to take a mouthful, he would almost certainly die-the toxin was fifty times more poisonous than oleander

People were so naive about plants, Ellie thought They just chose plants for appearance, as they would choose a picture for the wall It never occurred to the all the living functions of respiration, ingestion, excretion, reproduction-and defense

But Ellie knew that, in the earth&039;s history, plants had evolved as competitively as animals, and in some ways more fiercely The poison in Serenna veriformans was a minor example of the elaborate chemical arsenal of weapons that plants had evolved There were terpenes, which plants spread to poison the soil around them and inhibit competitors; alkaloids, which made them unpalatable to insects and predators (and children); and pherolas fir tree was attacked by beetles, it produced an anti-feedant chelas firs in distant parts of the forest It happened in response to a warning alleochemical secreted by the trees that were under attack

People who iainst a green background seriously round was busily alive Plants grew,for the sun; and they interacted continuously with a others, and feeding still others to advance their own reproduction, to spread their pollen and seeds It was a complex, dyna And which she knew most people simply didn&039;t understand

But if planting deadly ferns at poolside was any indication, then it was clear that the designers of Jurassic Park had not been as careful as they should have been

"Isn&039;t it just wonderful?" Ed Regis was saying "If you look up ahead, you&039;ll see our Safari Lodge" Ellie saw a dralass pyramids on the roof "That&039;s where you&039;ll all be staying here in Jurassic Park"

Grant&039;s suite was done in beige tones, the rattan furniture in green jungle-print motifs The room wasn&039;t quite finished; there were stacks of lumber in the closet, and pieces of electrical conduit on the floor There was a television set in the corner, with a card on top:

Channel 2: Hypsilophodont Highlands

Channel 3: Triceratops Territory

Channel 4: Sauropod Swamp

Channel 5: Carnivore Country

Channel 6: Stegosaurus South

Channel 7: Velociraptor Valley

Channel 8: Pterosaur Peak

He found the naot only static He shut it off and went into his bedroom, tossed his suitcase on the bed Directly over the bed was a large pyra under the stars Unfortunately the glass had to be protected by heavy bars, so that striped shadows fell across the bed

Grant paused He had seen the plans for the lodge, and be didn&039;t reht In fact, these bars appeared to be a rather crude addition A black steel fralass walls, and the bars welded to the frame

Puzzled, Grantroo pool

"By the way, those ferns are poison," Ellie said, walking into his roo about the rooed the plans"

"I think so, yes" She moved around the roolass is tempered, set in a steel frame The doors are steel-clad That shouldn&039;t be necessary And did you see the fence e came in?"

Grant nodded The entire lodge was enclosed within a fence, with bars of incb-thick steel The fence was gracefully landscaped and painted flat black to reseuise the thickness of the ht

"I don&039;t think the fence was in the plans, either," Ellie said "It looks to me like they&039;ve turned this place into a fortress"

Grant looked at his watch "We&039;ll be sure to ask why," he said "The tour starts in twenty minutes"

When Dinosaurs ruled the Earth

They lass with exposed black anodized girders and supports Grant found it deterh-tech

There was a small auditoriuly by the entrance to an exhibit area labeled WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH Farther on were other displays: WHAT IS A DINOSAUR? and THE MESOZOIC WORLD But the exhibits weren&039;t completed; there ires and cables all over the floor Gennaro clie and talked to Grant, Ellie, and Malcolhtly in the room

Hammond sat in the back, his hands folded across his chest

"We&039;re about to tour the facilities," Gennaro said "I&039; in the best light Before we go, I wanted to reviee are here, and what I need to decide before we leave Basically, as you all realize by now, this is an island in which genetically engineered dinosaurs have been allowed toa tourist attraction The attraction isn&039;t open to tourists yet, but it will be in a year

"Now, my question for you is a simple one Is this island safe? Is it safe for visitors, and is it safely containing the dinosaurs?"

Gennaro turned down the roohts "There are two pieces of evidence which we have to deal with First of all, there is Dr Grant&039;s identification of a previously unknown dinosaur on the Costa Rican ment It was found in July of this year, after it supposedly bit an Airl on a beach Dr Grant can tell you ment, which is in a lab in New York, to be flown here so that we can inspect it directly Meanwhile, there is a second piece of evidence

"Costa Rica has an excellentin March, there were reports of lizards biting infants in their cribs-and also, Isoundly These lizard bites were sporadically reported in coastal villages from Iser reported However, I have this graph from the Public Health Service in San Jos6 of infant mortality in the towns of the west coast earlier this year"

[picture]

"I direct your attention to two features of this graph," Gennaro said "First, infant mortality is low in the months of January and February, then spikes in March, then it&039;s low again in April But froh July, the irl was bitten The Public Health Service feels that so reported by the workers in the coastal villages The second feature is the puzzling biweekly spiking, which see phenomenon is at work"

The lights caht," Gennaro said "That&039;s the evidence I want explained Now, are there any-"

"We can save ourselves a great deal of trouble," Malcolm said "I&039;ll explain it for you now"

"You will?" Gennaro said

"Yes," Malcolotten off the island"

"Oh balls," Harowled, from the back

"And second, the graph from the Public Health Service is almost certainly unrelated to any animals that have escaped"

Grant said, "How do you know that?"

"You&039;ll notice that the graph alternates between high and low spikes," Malcolm said "That is characteristic offrom a tap If you turn on the faucet lust a little, you&039;ll get a constant drip, drip, drip But if you open it a little more, so that there&039;s a bit of turbulence in the flow, then you&039;ll get alternating large and small drops Drip dripDrip dripLike that You can try it yourself Turbulence produces alternation-it&039;s a signature And you will get an alternating graph like this for the spread of any new illness in a community,"

"But why do you say it isn&039;t caused by escaped dinosaurs?" Grant said

"Because it is a nonlinear signature," Malcolm said "You&039;d need hundreds of escaped dinosaurs to cause it And I don&039;t think hundreds of dinosaurs have escaped So I conclude that so the fluctuations you see in the graph"

Gennaro said, "But you think that dinosaurs have escaped?"