"Hey," Tim said, "look at this." He held out a metal case to Grant.
Opening it, Grant found a compressed-air pistol and a cloth belt that held darts. There were six darts in all, each as thick as his finger. Labeled MORO-709.
"Good Work, Tim." He slung the belt around his shoulder, and stuck the gun in his trousers.
"Is it a tranquilizer gun?"
"I'd say so."
"What about the boat?" Lex said.
"I think it's on the dock," Grant said. They started down the road. Grant carried the oars on his shoulder. "I hope it's a big raft," Lex said, "because I can't swim."
"Don't worry," he said.
"Maybe we can catch some fish," she said.
They walked down the road with the sloping embankment rising up on both sides of them. They heard a deep rhythmic snorting sound, but Grant could not see where it was coming from.
"Are you sure there's a raft down here?" Lex said, wrinkling her nose.
"Probably," Grant said.
The rhythmic snorting became louder as they walked, but they also heard a steady droning, buzzing sound. When they reached the end of the road, at the edge of the small concrete dock, Grant froze in shock.
The tyrannosaur was right there.
It was sitting upright in the shade of a tree, its hind legs stretched out in front. Its eyes were open but it was not moving, except for its head, which lifted and fell gently with each snorting sound. The buzzing came from the clouds of flies that surrounded it, crawling over its face and slack jaws, its bloody fangs, and the red haunch of a killed hadrosaur that lay on its side behind the tyrannosaur.
The tyrannosaur was only twenty yards away. Grant felt sure it must have seen him, but the big animal did not respond. It just sat there. It took him a moment to realize: the tyrannosaur was asleep. Sitting up, but asleep.
He signaled to Tim and Lex to stay where they were. Grant walked slowly forward onto the dock, in full view of the tyrannosaur. The big animal continued to sleep, snoring softly.
Near the end of the dock, a wooden shed was painted green to blend with the foliage. Grant quietly unlatched the door and looked inside. He saw a half-dozen orange life vests hanging on the wall, several rolls of wire-mesh fencing, some coils of rope, and twob ig rubber cubes sitting on the floor. The cubes were strapped tight with flat rubber belts.
Rafts.
He looked back at Lex.
She mouthed: No boat
He nodded, Yes.
The tyrannosaur raised its forelimb to swipe at the flies buzzing around its snout. But otherwise it did not move. Grant pulled one of the cubes out onto the dock. It was surprisingly heavy. He freed the straps, found the inflation cylinder. With a loud hiss, the rubber began to expand, and then with a hiss-whap! it popped fully open on the dock. The sound was fearfully loud in their ears.
Grant turned, stared up at the dinosaur.
The tyrannosaur grunted, and snorted. It began to move. Grant braced himself to run, but the animal shifted its ponderous bulk and then it settled back against the tree trunk and gave a long, growling belch.
Lex looked disgusted, waving her hand in front of her face.
Grant was soaked in sweat from the tension. He dragged the rubber raft across the dock. It flopped into the water with a loud splash.
The dinosaur continued to sleep.
Grant tied the boat up to the dock, and returned to the shed to take out two life preservers. He put these in the boat, and then waved for the kids to come out onto the dock.
Pale with fear, Lex waved back, No.
He gestured: Yes.
The tyrannosaur continued to sleep.
Grant stabbed in the air with an emphatic finger. Lex came silently, and he gestured for her to get into the raft; then Tim got in, and they both put on their life vests. Grant got in and pushed off. The raft drifted silently out into the lagoon. Grant picked up his paddles and fitted them into the oarlocks. They moved farther from the dock.
Lex sat back, and sighed loudly with relief. Then she looked stricken, and put her band over her mouth. Her body shook, with muffled sounds: she was suppressing a cough.
She always coughed at the wrong times!
"Lex," Tim whispered fiercely, looking back toward the shore.
She shook her head miserably, and pointed to her throat. He knew what she meant: a tickle in her throat. What she needed was a drink of water. Grant was rowing, and Tim leaned over the side of the raft and scooped his hand in the lagoon, holding his cupped hand toward her.
Lex coughed loudly, explosively. In Tim's ears, the sound echoed across the water like a gunshot.
The tyrannosaur yawned lazily, and scratched behind its ear with its hind foot, just like a dog. It yawned again. It was groggy after its big meal, and it woke up slowly.
On the boat, Lex was making little gargling sounds.
"Lex, shut up!" Tim said.
"I can't help it," she whispered, and then she coughed again. Grant rowed hard, moving the raft powerfully into the center of the lagoon.
On the shore, the tyrannosaur stumbled to its feet.
"I couldn't help it, Timmy!" Lex shrieked miserably. "I couldn't help it!"
"Shhhh!"
Grant was rowing as fast as he could.
"Anyway, it doesn't matter," she said. "We're far enough away. He can't swim.
"Of course he can swim, you little idiot!" Tim shouted at her. On the shore, the tyrannosaur stepped off the dock and plunged into the water. It moved strongly into the lagoon after them.
"Well, how should I know?" she said.
"Everybody knows tyrannosaurs can swim! It's in all the books! Anyway, all reptiles can swim!"
"Snakes can't."
"Of course snakes can. You idiot!"
"Settle down," Grant said. "Hold on to something!" Grant was watching the tyrannosaur, noticing how the animal swam. The tyrannosaur was now chest-deep in the water, but it could hold its big head high above the surface. Then Grant realized the animal wasn't swimming, it was walking, because moments later only the very top of the head-the eyes and nostrils-protruded above the surface. By then it looked like a crocodile, and it swam like a crocodile, swinging its big tail back and forth, so the water churned behind it. Behind the head, Grant saw the hump of the back, and the ridges along the length of tail, as it occasionally broke the surface.
Exactly like a crocodile, he thought unhappily. The biggest crocodile in the world.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Grant!" Lex wailed. "I didn't mean it!"
Grant glanced over his shoulder. The lagoon was no more than a hundred yards wide here, and they had almost reached the center. If he continued, the water would become shallow again. The tyrannosaur would be able to walk again, and he would move faster in shallow water. Grant swung the boat around, and began to row north.
"What are you doing?"
The tyrannosaur was now just a few yards away. Grant could hear its sharp snorting breaths as it came closer. Grant looked at the paddles in his hands, but they were light plastic-not weapons at all.
The tyrannosaur threw its head back and opened its jaws wide, showing rows of curved teeth, and then in a great muscular spasm lunged forward to the raft, just missing the rubber gunwale, the huge skull slapping down, the raft rocking away on the crest of the splash.
The tyrannosaur sank below the surface, leaving gurgling bubbles. The lagoon was still. Lex gripped the gunwale handles and looked back.
"Did he drown?"
"No," Grant said. He saw bubbles-then a faint ripple along the surface-coming toward the boat-
"Hang on!" he shouted, as the head bucked up beneath the rubber, bending the boat and lifting it into the air, spinning them crazily before it splashed down again.
"Do something!" Alexis screamed. "Do something!"
Grant pulled the air pistol out of his belt. It looked pitifully small in his hands, but there was the chance that, if he shot the animal in a sensitive spot, in the eye or the nose-
The tyrannosaur surfaced beside the boat, opened its jaws, and roared. Grant aimed, and fired. The dart flashed in the light, and smacked into the cheek. The tyrannosaur shook its head, and roared again.
And suddenly they heard an answering roar, floating across the water toward them.
Looking back, Grant saw the juvenile T-rex on the shore, crouched over the killed sauropod, claiming the kill as its own. The juvenile slashed at the carcass, then raised its head high and bellowed. The big tyrannosaur saw it, too, and the response was immediate-it turned back to protect its kill, swimming strongly toward the shore.
"He's going away!" Lex squealed, clapping her hands. "He's going away! Naah-naah-na-na-naah! Stupid dinosaur!"
From the shore, the juvenile roared defiantly. Enraged, the big tyrannosaur burst from the lagoon at full speed, water streaming from its enormous body as it raced up the hill past the dock. The juvenile ducked its head and fled, its jaws still filled with ragged flesh.
The big tyrannosaur chased it, racing past the dead sauropod, disappearing over the hill. They heard its final threatening bellow, and then the raft moved to the north, around a bend in the lagoon, to the river.
Exhausted from rowing, Grant collapsed back, his chest heaving. He couldn't catch his breath. He lay gasping in the raft.
"Are you okay, Dr. Grant?" Lex asked.
"From now on, will you just do what I tell you?"
'Oh-kay, " she sighed, as if he had just made the most unreasonable demand in the world. She trailed her arm in the water for a while. "You stopped rowing," she said.
"I'm tired," Grant said.
"Then how come we're still moving?"
Grant sat up. She was right. The raft drifted steadily north. "There must be a current." The current was carrying them north, toward the hotel. He looked at his watch and was astonished to see it was fifteen minutes past seven. Only fifteen minutes had passed since he had last looked at his watch. It seemed like two hours.
Grant lay back against the rubber gunwales, closed his eyes, and slept.
FIFTH ITERATION
[picture]
"Flaws in the system will now become severe."
IAN MALCOM
Search
Gennaro sat in the Jeep and listened to the buzzing of the flies, and stared at the distant palm trees wavering in the heat. He was astonished by what looked like a battleground: the grass was trampled flat for a hundred yards in every direction. One big palm tree was uprooted from the ground. There were great washes of blood in the grass, and on the rocky outcropping to their right.
Sitting beside him, Muldoon said, "No doubt about it. Rexy's been among the hadrosaurs." He took another drink of whiskey, and capped the bottle. "Damn lot of flies," he said.
They waited, and watched.
Gennaro drummed his fingers on the dashboard. "What are we waiting for?"
Muldoon didn't answer immediately. "The rex is out there somewhere," he said, squinting at the landscape in the morning sun. "And we don't have any weapons worth a damn."
"We're in a Jeep."
"Oh, he can outrun the Jeep, Mr. Gennaro," Muldoon said, shaking his head. "Once we leave this road and go onto open terrain, the best we can do in a four-wheel drive is thirty, forty miles an hour. He'll run us right down. No problem for him." Muldoon sighed. "But I don't see much moving out there now. You ready to live dangerously?"
"Sure," Gennaro said.
Muldoon started the engine, and at the sudden sound, two small othnielians leapt up from the matted grass directly ahead. Muldoon put the car in gear. He drove in a wide circle around the trampled site, and then moved inward, driving in decreasing concentric circles until he finally came to the place in the field where the little othnielians had been. Then he got out and walked forward in the grass, away from the Jeep. He stopped as a dense cloud of flies lifted into the air.
"What is it?" Gennaro called.
"Bring the radio," Muldoon said.
Gennaro climbed out of the Jeep and hurried forward. Even from a distance he could smell the sour-sweet odor of early decay. He saw a dark shape in the grass, crusted with blood, legs askew.
"Young hadrosaur," Muldoon said, staring down at the carcass. "The whole herd stampeded, and the young one got separated, and the T-rex brought it down."
"How do you know?" Gennaro said. The flesh was ragged from many bites.
"You can tell from the excreta," Muldoon said. "See those chalky white bits there in the grass? That's hadro spoor. Uric acid makes it white. But you look there"-he pointed to a large mound, rising knee-high in the grass-"that's tyrannosaur spoor."