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"He likes me," Lex said "His name is Clarence"
"Clarence?"
"Yes," Lex said
Muldoon was holding the leather collar with the sh-pitched beeping in the headset "Is it a proble the collar on the animal?"
Lex was still petting the raptor, reaching through the cage "I het he&039;ll let me put it on him," she said
"I wouldn&039;t try," Muldoon said "They&039;re unpredictable"
"I het he&039;ll let me," she said
So Muldoon gave Lex the collar, and she held it out so the raptor could smell it Then she slowly slipped it around the anireen when Lex buckled it and closed the Velcro cover over the buckle Then the aniain
"I&039;ll be damned," Muldoon said
"It&039;s a chameleon," Lex said
"The other raptors couldn&039;t do that," Muldoon said, frowning "This wild ani to Grant, "if they&039;re all born females, how do they breed? You never explained that bit about the frog DNA"
"It&039;s not frog DNA," Grant said "It&039;s amphibian DNA But the phenos Especially West African frogs, if I remember"
"What phenomenon is that?"
"Gender transition," Grant said "Actually, it&039;s just plain changing sex" Grant explained that a number of plants and ani life-orchids, sos that had been observed to lay eggs were able to change, over a period ofstance ofwhistle of onads of males, and eventually they successfully mated with females
"You&039;re kidding," Gennaro said "And what makes it happen?"
"Apparently the change is stimulated by an environment in which all the animals are of the same sex In that situation, soe sex from female to male"
"And you think that&039;s what happened to the dinosaurs?"
"Until we have a better explanation, yes," Grant said "I think that&039;s what happened Now, shall we find this nest?"
They piled into the Jeep, and Lex lifted the raptor froe The aniave it a final pat on the head, and released it
The animal wouldn&039;t leave
"Go on, shoo!" Lex said "Go home!"
The raptor turned, and ran off into the foliage
Grant held the receiver and wore the headphones Muldoon drove The car bounced along thesouth Gennaro turned to Grant and said, "What is it like, this nest?"
"Nobody knows," Grant said
"But I thought you&039;d dug the up fossil dinosaur nests," Grant said "But all fossils are distorted by the weight of millennia We&039;ve made some hypotheses, some suppositions, but nobody really knohat the nests were like"
Grant listened to the beeps, and signaled Muldoon to head farther west It looked more and more as if Ellie had been correct: the nest was in the southern volcanic fields
Grant shook his head "Notbehavior is clear," he said He found hi about the ators Even their nesting behavior wasn&039;t well understood Actually, the Aator was better studied than uarded the nest, and only until the ti lying beside the fe bubbles on her checks and providing her with other signs ofher to receptivity, causing her finally to lift her tail and allow him, as he lay beside her, to insert his penis By the time the feone And although the feh mud nest ferociously, her attention sees by the tie froan its life entirely on its own, and for that reason its belly was stuffed with egg yolk for nourishment in its early days
"So the adult alligators don&039;t protect the young?"
"Not as we iical parents both abandon the offspring But there is a kind of group protection Young alligators have a very distinctive distress cry, and it brings any adult who hears it-parent or not-to their assistance with a full-fledged, violent attack Not a threat display A full-on attack"
"Oh" Gennaro fell silent
"But that&039;s in all respects a distinctly reptile pattern," Grant continued "For exas cool The nests are always located in the shade A teator egg, so the s to keep them cool"
"And dinos aren&039;t reptiles," Muldoon said laconically
"Exactly The dinosaur nesting pattern could be much more closely related to that of any of a variety of birds-"
"So you actuallyannoyed "You don&039;t knohat the nest is like?"
"No," Grant said "I don&039;t"
"Well," Gennaro said "So much for the danored him Already he could s steam of the volcanic fields
The ground was hot, Gennaro thought, as he walked forward It was actually hot And here and there , sulfurous steah pluh hell
He looked at Grant, walking along with the headset on, listening to the beeps Grant in his cowboy boots and his jeans and his Hawaiian shirt, apparently very cool Gennaro didn&039;t feel cool He was frightened to be in this stinking, hellish place, with the velociraptors somewhere around He didn&039;t understand how Grant could be so calm about it
Or the wo calmly around
"Doesn&039;t this bother you?" Gennaro said "I mean, worry you?"
"We&039;ve got to do it," Grant said He didn&039;t say anything else
They all walked forward, arenades that he had clipped to his belt He turned to Ellie "Why isn&039;t he worried about it?"
"Maybe he is," she said "But he&039;s also thought about this for his whole life"
Gennaro nodded, and wondered what that would be like Whether there was anything he had waited his whole life for He decided there wasn&039;t anything
Grant squinted in the sunlight Ahead, through veils of stea at them Then it scampered away
"Was that the raptor?" Ellie said
"I think so Or another one juvenile, anyway"
She said, "Leading us on?"
"Maybe" Ellie had told him how the raptors had played at the fence to keep her attention while another climbed onto the roof If true, such behavior implied a mental capacity that was beyond nearly all forms of life on earth Classically, the ability to invent and execute plans was believed to be liorillas, and huht be able to do such a thing, too
The raptor appeared again, darting into the light, then ju them on
Gennaro frowned "How smart are they?" he said
"If you think of them as birds," Grant said, "then you have to wonder Soray parrot has as ence as a chie Now researchers are finding that parrots have the emotional developence is unquestioned Parrots can definitely reason symbolically"
"But I&039;ve never heard of anybody killed by a parrot," Gennaro grumbled
Distantly, they could bear the sound of the surf on the island shore The volcanic fields were behind them now, and they faced a field of boulders The little raptor climbed up onto one rock, and then abruptly disappeared
"Where&039;d it go?" Ellie said
Grant was listening to the earphones The beeping stopped "He&039;s gone"
They hurried forward, and found in the midst of the rocks a small bole, like a rabbit hole It was perhaps two feet in diameter As they watched, the juvenile raptor reappeared, blinking in the light Then it scampered away
"No way," Gennaro said "No way I&039; down there"
Grant said nothing He and Ellie began to plug in equipment Soon he had a small video camera attached to a hand-held monitor He tied the camera to a rope, turned it on, and lowered it down the hole
"You can&039;t see anything that way," Gennaro said
"Let it adjust," Grant said There was enough light along the upper tunnel for them to see smooth dirt walls, and then the tunnel opened out-suddenly, abruptly Over thesound Then a lower, tru from many animals
"Sounds like the nest, all right," Ellie said
"But you can&039;t see anything," Gennaro said He wiped the sweat off his forehead
"No," Grant said "But I can hear " He listened for a while longer, and then hauled the caet started" He cliht and a shock stick Grant pulled the gashis legs backward
"You can&039;t be serious about going down there," Gennaro said
Grant nodded "It doesn&039;t thrill o first, then Ellie, then you come after"
"Noait a minute," Gennaro said, in sudden alarrenades down the hole, then go down afterward? Doesn&039;t that make more sense?"
"Ellie, you got the flashlight?"
She handed the flashlight to Grant
"What about it?" Gennaro said "What do you say?"
"I&039;d like nothing better," Grant said He backed doard the hole "You ever seen anything die froas?"
"No"
"It generally causes convulsions Bad convulsions"
"Well, I&039;m sorry if it&039;s unpleasant, but-"
"Look," Grant said "We&039;re going into this nest to find out how many animals have hatched If you kill the animals first, and some of them fall on the nests in their spasms, that will ruin our ability to see as there So we can&039;t do that,"
"But-"
"You made these animals, Mr Gennaro"
"I didn&039;t"
"Your money did Your efforts did You helped create them They&039;re your creation And you can&039;t just kill them because you feel a little nervous now"
"I&039;m not a little nervous," Gennaro said "I&039;m scared shi-"
"Follow me," Grant said Ellie handed hirunted "Tight fit"
Grant exhaled, and extended his arms forward in front of hione
The bole gaped, empty and black
"What happened to him?" Gennaro said, alarmed
Ellie stepped forward and leaned close to the hole, listening at the opening She clicked the radio, said softly, "Alan?"
There was a long silence Then they heard faintly: "I&039; all right, Alan?"
Another long silence When Grant finally spoke, his voice sounded distinctly odd, almost awestruck
"Everything&039;s fine," he said
Ale, John Hammond paced back and forth in Malcolm&039;s roo the effort for his last outburst, Malcolm had slipped into a coht actually die Of course a helicopter had been sent for, but God knohen it would arrive The thought that Malcolht die in the meantime filled Hammond with anxiety and dread
And, paradoxically, Hammond found it all much worse because he disliked the mathematician so much It orse than if the man were his friend Hammond felt that Malcolm&039;s death, should it occur, would be the final rebuke, and that was more than Hammond could bear
In any case, the shastly The rotten decay of huparad" Malcol on the pillow
"Is he waking up?" Ha shook his head
"What did he say? So about paradise?"
"I didn&039;t catch it," Harding said
Haet some fresh air Finally, when he couldn&039;t stand it, he said, "Is there any proble outside?"