Jurassic Park - Crichton Michael - Страница 25

Alexis snickered. "Daddy says Tim has dinosaurs on the brain," she said.

Tim hardly heard her. He was thinking of what he knew about Alan Grant. Alan Grant was one of the principal advocates of the theory that dinosaurs were warm-blooded. He had done lots of digging at the place called Egg Hill in Montana, which was famous because so many dinosaur eggs had been found there. Professor Grant had found most of the dinosaur eggs that had ever been discovered. He was also a good illustrator, and he drew the pictures for his own books.

"Dinosaurs on the brain?" the bearded man said. "Well, as a matter of fact, I have that same problem."

"Dad says dinosaurs are really stupid," Lex said. "He says Tim should get out in the air and play more sports,"

Tim felt embarrassed. "I thought you had to go," he said.

"In a minute," Lex said.

"I thought you were in such a rush."

"I'm the one who would know, don't you think, Timothy?" she said putting her hands on her hips, copying her mother's most irritating stance.

"Tell you what," Ed Regis said. "Why don't we all just head on over to the visitor center and we can begin our tour." Everybody started walking. Tim heard Gennaro whisper to his grandfather, "I could kill you for this," and then Tim looked up and saw that Dr Grant had fallen into step beside him.

"How old are you, Tim?"

"Eleven."

"And how long have you been interested in dinosaurs?" Grant asked.

Tim swallowed. "A while now," he said. He felt nervous to be talking to Dr. Grant. "We go to museums sometimes, when I can talk my family into it. My father."

"Your father's not especially interested?"

Tim nodded, and told Grant about his family's last trip to the Museum of Natural History. His father had looked at a skeleton and said, "That's a big one."

Tim had said, "No, Dad, that's a medium-size one, a camptosaurus."

"Oh, I don't know. Looks pretty big to me."

"It's not even full-grown, Dad."

His father squinted at the skeleton. "What is it, Jurassic?"

"Jeez. No. Cretaceous."

"Cretaceous? What's the difference between Cretaceous and Jurassic?"

"Only about a hundred million years," Tim said.

"Cretaceous is older?"

"No, Dad, Jurassic is older."

"Well," his father said, stepping back, "it looks pretty damn big to me." And he turned to Tim for agreement. Tim knew he had better agree with his father, so he just muttered something. And they went on to another exhibit-

Tim stood in front of one skeleton-Tyrannosaurus rex, the mightiest predator the earth had ever known-for a long time. Finally his father said, "What are you looking at?"

"I'm counting the vertebrae," Tim said.

"The vertebrae?"

"In the backbone."

I know what vertebrae are," his father said, annoyed. He stood there a while longer and then he said, "Why are you counting them?"

"I think they're wrong. Tyrannosaurs should only have thirty-seven vertebrae in the tall. This has more."

"You mean to tell me," his father said, "that the Museum of Natural History has a skeleton that's wrong? I can't believe that."

"It's wrong," Tim said.

His father stomped off toward a guard in the corner. "What did you do now?" his mother said to Tim.

"I didn't do anything," Tim said. "I just said the dinosaur is wrong, that's all."

And then his father came back with a funny look on his face, because of course the guard told him that the tyrannosaurus had too many vertebrae in the tail.

"How'd you know that?" his father asked.

"I read it," Tim said.

"That's pretty amazing, son," he said, and he put his hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "You know how many vertebrae belong in that tail. I've never seen anything like it. You really do have dinosaurs on the brain."

And then his father said he wanted to catch the last half of the Mets game on TV, and Lex said she did, too, so they left the museum. And Tim didn't see any other dinosaurs, which was why they had come there in the first place. But that was how things happened in his family.

How things used to happen in his family, Tim corrected himself. Now that his father was getting a divorce from his mother, things would probably be different. His father had already moved out, and even though it was weird at first, Tim liked it. He thought his mother had a boyfriend, but he couldn't be sure, and of course he would never mention it to Lex. Lex was heartbroken to be separated from her father, and in the last few weeks she had become so obnoxious that-

"Was it 5027?" Grant said.

"I'm sorry?" Tim said.

"The tyrannosaurus at the museum. Was it 5027?"

"Yes," Tim said. "How'd you know?"

Grant smiled. "They've been talking about fixing it for years. But now it may never happen."

"Why is that?"

"Because of what is taking place here," Grant said, "on your grandfather's island."

Tim shook his head. He didn't understand what Grant was talking about. "My mom said it was just a resort, you know, with swimming and tennis."

"Not exactly," Grant said. "I'll explain as we walk along."

Now I'm a damned babysitter, Ed Regis thought unhappily, tapping his foot as he waited in the visitor center. That was what the old man had told him him: You watch my kids like a hawk, they're your responsibility for the weekend.

Ed Regis didn't like it at all. He felt degraded. He wasn't a damn babysitter. And, for that matter, he wasn't a damned tour guide, even for VIPs. He was the head of public relations for Jurassic Park, and he had much to prepare between now and the opening, a year away. Just to coordinate with the PR firms in San Francisco and London, and the agencies in New York and Tokyo, was a full-time job-especially since the agencies couldn't yet be told what the resort's real attraction was. The firms were all designing teaser campaigns, nothing specific, and they were unhappy. Creative people needed nurturing. They needed encouragement to do their best work. He couldn't waste his time taking scientists on tours.

But that was the trouble with a career in public relations-nobody saw you as a professional. Regis had been down here on the island off and on for the past seven months, and they were still pushing odd jobs on him. Like that episode back in January. Harding should have handled that. Harding, or Owens, the general contractor. Instead, it had fallen to Ed Regis. What did he know about taking care of some sick workman? And now he was a damn tour guide and babysitter. He turned back and counted the heads. Still one short.

Then, in the back, he saw Dr. Sattler emerge from the bathroom. "All right, folks, let's begin our tour on the second floor."

Tim went with the others, following Mr. Regis up the black suspended staircase to the second floor of the building. They passed a sign that read:

CLOSED AREA

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

BEYOND THIS POINT

Tim felt a thrill when he saw that sign. They walked down the secondfloor hallway. One wall was glass, looking out onto a balcony with palm trees in the light mist. On the other wall were stenciled doors, like offices: PARK WARDEN… GUEST SERVICES… GENERAL MANAGER…

Halfway down the corridor they came to a glass partition marked with another sign:

[picture]

Underneath were more signs:

CAUTION

Teratogenic Substances

Pregnant Women Avoid Exposure

To This Area

DANGER

Radioactive Isotopes In Use

Carcinogenic Potential

Tim grew more excited all the time. Teratogenic substances! Things that made monsters! It gave him a thrill, and he was disappointed to hear Ed Regis say, "Never mind the signs, they're just up for legal reasons. I can assure you everything is perfectly safe." He led them through the door. There was a guard on the other side. Ed Regis turned to the group.

"You may have noticed that we have a minimum of personnel on the island. We can run this resort with a total of twenty people. Of course, we'll have more when we have guests here, but at the moment there's only twenty. Here's our control room. The entire park is controlled from here."

They paused before windows and peered into a darkened room that looked like a small version of Mission Control. There was a vertical glass see-through map of the park, and facing it a bank of glowing computer consoles- Some of the screens displayed data, but most of them showed video images from around the park. There were just two people inside, standing and talking.

"The man on the left is our chief engineer, John Arnold"-Regis pointed to a thin man in a button-down short-sleeve shirt and tie, smoking a cigarette-"and next to him, our park warden, Mr. Robert Muldoon, the famous white bunter from Nairobi." Muldoon was a burly man in khaki, sunglasses dangling from his shirt pockct. He glanced out at the group, gave a brief nod, and turned back to the computer screens. "I'm sure you want to see this room," Ed Regis said, "but first, let's see how we obtain dinosaur DNA."

The sign on the door said EXTRACTIONS and, like all the doors in the laboratory building, it opened with a security card. Ed Regis slipped the card in the slot; the light blinked; and the door opened.

Inside, Tim saw a small room bathed in green light. Four technicians in lab coats were peering into double-barreled stereo microscopes, or looking at images on high resolution video screens. The room was filled with yellow stones. The stones were in glass shelves; in cardboard boxes; in large pull-out trays. Each stone was tagged and numbered in black ink.

Regis introduced Henry Wu, a slender man in his thirties. "Dr. Wu is our chief geneticist. I'll let him explain what we do here."

Henry Wu smiled. "At least I'll try," he said. "Genetics is a bit complicated. But you're probably wondering where our dinosaur DNA comes from."

"It crossed my mind," Grant said.