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Ti toward the kitchen Was it following their scent? All the books said dinosaurs had a poor sense of smell, but this one seemed to do just fine Anyhat did books know? Here was the real thing
Co toward him
He ducked back into the kitchen
"Is so out there?" Lex said
Tim didn&039;t answer He pushed her under a table in the corner, behind a large waste bin He leaned close to her and whispered fiercely: "Stay here!" And then he ran for the refrigerator
He grabbed a handful of cold steaks and hurried back to the door He quietly placed the first of the steaks on the floor, then moved back a few steps, and put down the second
Through his goggles, he saw Lex peeping around the bin He waved her back He placed the third steak, and the fourth,deeper into the kitchen
The hissing was louder, and then the clawed hand gripped the door, and the big head peered cautiously around
The velociraptor paused at the entrance to the kitchen
Tim stood in a half-crouch at the back of the roo of the steel worktable But he had not had time to conceal himself; his head and shoulders still protruded over the tabletop He was in clear view of the velociraptor
Slowly, Ti beneath the tableThe velociraptor jerked its head around, looking directly at Tim
Tiht, Don&039;t move
The velociraptor stood motionless in the doorway
Sniffing
It&039;s darker here, Ti him cautious
But now he could sles he saw the dinosaur silently yawn, throwing back its long snout, exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth The velociraptor stared forward again, jerking its head fro eyes swiveled in the bony sockets
Ti Somehoorse to be confronted by an animal like this in a kitchen, instead of the open forest The size, the quickbreath
Up close, it was aanie and powerful, but it wasn&039;t especially smart The velociraptor was ent; Ti eyes almost as much as the sharp teeth
The velociraptor sniffed It stepped forward- directly toward Lex! It must smell her, somehow! Tim&039;s heart thumped
The velociraptor stopped It bent over slowly
He&039;s found the steak
Tim wanted to bend down, to look below the table, but he didn&039;t dareto the crunching sound The dinosaur was eating it Bones and all
The raptor raised its slender head, and looked around It sniffed It saw the second steak It moved quickly forward It bent down
Silence
The raptor didn&039;t eat it
The head cas burned from the crouch, but he didn&039;t move
Why hadn&039;t the anih his mind-it didn&039;t like the taste of beef, it didn&039;t like the coldness, it didn&039;t like the fact that the meat wasn&039;t alive, it smelled a trap, it smelled Lex, it smelled Tim, it saw Tim-
The velociraptor moved very quickly now It found the third steak, dipped its head, looked up again, and moved on
Tim held his breath The dinosaur was now just a few feet from him, Tim could see the small twitches in the muscles of the flanks He could see the crusted blood on the claws of the hand He could see the fine pattern of striations within the spotted pattern, and the folds of skin in the neck below the jaw
The velociraptor sniffed It jerked its head, and looked right at Tiid, tense He watched as the reptile eyethe room Another sniff
He&039;s got ht
Then the head jerked back to look forward, and the aniht, Lex please don&039;t move please don&039;t move whatever you do please don&039;t
The velociraptor sniffed the steak, and moved on It was now at the open door to the freezer Ti the floor toward the aniain, silently The dinosaur hesitated Too cold, Tio in there, it&039;s too cold, he won&039;t go in he won&039;t go in he won&039;t go in
The dinosaur went in
The head disappeared, then the body, then the stiff tail
Tiainst the stainless-steel door of the locker, sla it shut It slammed on the tip of the tail! The door wouldn&039;t shut! The velociraptor roared, a terrifying loud sound Inadvertently, Tione! He slammed the door shut and heard it click! Closed!
"Lex! Lex!" he was screaainst the door, felt it thu the steel He knew there was a flat steel knob inside, and if the raptor hit that, it would knock the door open They had to get the door locked "Lex!"
Lex was by his side "What do you want!"
Ti it shut "There&039;s a pin! A little pin! Get the pin!"
The velociraptor roared like a lion, the sound ainst the door
"I can&039;t see anything!" Lex shouted
The pin was dangling beneath the door handle, swinging on a little ht there!"
"I can&039;t see it!" she screales
"Feel for it!"
He saw her little hand reaching up, touching his, groping for the pin, and with her so close to hihtened she was, her breath in little panicky gasps as she felt for the pin, and the velociraptor slaainst the door and it opened-God, it opened-but the animal hadn&039;t expected that and had already turned back for another try and Tiain Lex scrambled back, reached up in the darkness
"I have it!" Lex cried, clutching the pin in her hand, and she pushed it through the hole It slid out again
"From the top, put it in from the top!"
She held it again, lifting it on the chain, swinging it over the handle, and down Into the hole
Locked
The velociraptor roared Tim and Lex stepped back froain With each ies creaked, but they held Tim didn&039;t think the animal could possibly open the door
The raptor was locked in
He gave a long sigh "Let&039;s go," he said
He took her hand, and they ran
"You should have seen them," Gennaro said, as Grant led hi "There must have been two dozen of theet away fro there, waiting like buzzards But they ran ahen you caers," Grant said "They won&039;t attack anything that&039;s s that are dead, or al"
They were going up the ladder now, back toward the entrance door
"What happened to the raptor that attacked you?" Grant said
"I don&039;t know," Gennaro said
"Did it leave?"
"I didn&039;t see I got away, I think because it was injured I think Muldoon shot it in the leg and it was bleeding while it was in here ThenI don&039;t know Maybe it went back outside Maybe it died in here I didn&039;t see"
"And maybe it&039;s still in here," Grant said
Wu stared out the lodgeat the raptors beyond the fence They still seeti It al to keep Ellie&039;s attention, in the sa to keep theirs
The behavior of the dinosaurs had always been a htly so: behavior was a second-order effect of DNA, like protein enfolding You couldn&039;t really predict behavior, and you couldn&039;t really control it, except in very crude ways, likean ani an enzyeneral, behavioral effects were si You couldn&039;t look at a DNA sequence and predict behavior It was impossible
And that had made Wu&039;s DNA work purely e, the way a randfather clock You were dealing with so constructed of ancientancient rules You couldn&039;t be certain why it worked as it did, and it had been repaired and modified many times already, by forces of evolution, over eons of time So, like the workman who makes an adjustment and then sees if the clock runs any better, Wu would make an adjustment and then see if the aniross behavior: uncontrolled butting of the electrical fences, or rubbing the skin raw on tree trunks Those were the behaviors that sent hi board
And the li about the dinosaurs in the park He was never sure, never really sure at all, whether the behavior of the ani as they really had in the past? It was an open question, ultimately unanswerable
And though Wu would never ad represented a tre animal was demonstrably effective in a fundaether correctly He had re-created an animal millions of years old, with such precision that the creature could even reproduce itself
But, still, looking at the raptors outside, he was troubled by the persistence of their behavior Raptors were intelligent, and intelligent anient animals also for came out into the hallway from Malcolm&039;s room "Where&039;s Ellie?"
"Still outside"
"Better get her in The raptors have left the skylight"
"When?" Wu said,to the door
"Just asaid
Wu threw open the front door "Ellie! Inside, now!"
She looked over at hi&039;s under control"
"Now!"
She shook her head "I knohat I&039;," she said
"Now, Ellie, damn it!"
Muldoon didn&039;t like Wu standing there with the door open, and he was about to say so, when he saw a shadow descend from above, and he realized at once what had happened Wu was yanked bodily out the door, and Muldoon heard Ellie screaot to the door and looked out and saw that Wu was lying on his back, his body already torn open by the big claw, and the raptor was jerking its head, tugging at Wu&039;s intestines even though Wu was still alive, still feebly reaching up with his hands to push the big head away, he was being eaten while he was still alive, and then Ellie stopped screa the inside of the fence, and Muldoon slammed the door shut, dizzy with horror It had happened so fast!
Harding said, "He jumped down from the roof?"
Muldoon nodded He went to theand looked out, and he saw that the three raptors outside the fence were now running away But they weren&039;t following Ellie
They were going back, toward the visitor center
Grant ca and peered forward, in the fog He could hear the snarls of the raptors, and they see past hi to the visitor center
He looked back at Gennaro
Gennaro shook his head, no
Grant leaned close and whispered in his ear "No choice We&039;ve got to turn on the computer"
Grant set out in the fog
After a moment, Gennaro followed
Ellie didn&039;t stop to think When the raptors dropped inside the fence to attack Wu, she just turned and ran, as fast as she could, toward the far end of the lodge There was a space fifteen feet wide between the fence and the lodge She ran, not hearing the ani her own breath She rounded the corner, saw a tree growing by the side of the building, and leapt, grabbing a branch, swinging up She didn&039;t feel panic She felt a kind of exhilaration as she kicked and saw her legs rise up In front of her face, and she hooked her legs over a branch farther up, tightened her gut, and pulled up quickly
She was already twelve feet off the ground, and the raptors still weren&039;t following her, and she was beginning to feel pretty good, when she saw the first animal at the base of the tree Itsfroo up fast, hand over hand, just reaching and going, and she could alain
The two raptors were cli the tree
Now she was at the level of the rooftop, she could see the gravel only four feet away, and the glass pyra up in the et inside In a single heaving effort she flung herself through the air, and landed sprawling on the gravel She scraped her face, but somehow the only sensation was exhilaration, as if it were a kind of gaame she intended to win She ran for the door that led to the stairwell Behind her, she could hear the raptors shaking the branches of the tree They were still in the tree
She reached the door, and twisted the knob The door was locked
It took a h her euphoria The door was locked She was on the roof and she couldn&039;t get down The door was locked
She pounded on the door in frustration, and then she ran for the far side of the roof, hoping to see a way down, but there was only the green outline of the swiTen, twelve feet of concrete Too much for her to jump across No other trees to climb down No stairs No fire escape
Nothing
Ellie turned back, and saw the raptors ju easily to the roof She ran to the far end of the building, hoping there ht be another door there, but there wasn&039;t
The raptors ca the glass pyrae of the pool was ten feet away
Too far
The raptors were closer, starting to ht: Isn&039;t this always the way? Soiddy, still felt exhilaration, and she soet her, she couldn&039;t believe that now her life was going to end like this It didn&039;t seem possible She was enveloped in a kind of protective cheerfulness She just didn&039;t believe it would happen