Eddie turned to Thorne. “Doc? What do you say? It’s going to start raining soon.
“Just a little longer,” Thorne said. “And then we’ll all go back together.”
“There have been dinosaurs on this island for five years, maybe more, ” Malcolm said, “but none have appeared elsewhere. Suddenly, in the last year, carcasses of dead animals are showing up on the beaches of Costa Rica, and according to reports, on islands of the Pacific as well.”
“Carried by currents?”
“Presumably. But the question is, why now? Why all of a sudden, after five years? Something has changed, but we don’t know – wait a minute” He moved away from the table, over to the computer console. He turned toward the screen.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Arby got us into the old network,” he said, “and it still has research files from the eighties.” He moved the mouse across the screen. “We haven’t looked at them….” He saw the menu come up, showing work files and research files. He began to scroll through screens of text.
“Years ago, they had trouble with some disease,” he said. “There were a lot of notes about it in the laboratory.”
“What kind of disease’?”
“They didn’t know,” Malcolm said.
“In the wild, there are some very slow-acting illnesses,” she said. “May take five or ten years to show up. Caused by viruses, or prions. You know, protein fragments-like scrapie or mad-cow disease.”
“But,” Malcolm said, “those diseases only come from eating contaminated food.”
There was a silence.
“What do you suppose they fed them, back then?” she asked. “Because if I was growing baby dinosaurs, I’d wonder. What do they cat? Milk, I suppose, but – ”
“Milk, yes,” Malcolm said, reading the screens. “First six weeks, goat’s milk.”
“That’s the logical choice,” she said. “Goat’s milk is what they always use in zoos, because it’s so hypoallergenic. But what about later?”
Give me a minute here,” Malcolm said.
Harding held the baby’s leg in her hand, waiting for the resin to harden. She looked at the cast, sniffed it. It was still strong-smelling. “I hope that’s all right,” she said. “Sometimes if there’s a distinctive smell, the animals won’t allow infants to return. But maybe this will dissipate after the compound hardens. How long has it been?”
Malcolm glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes. Another ten minutes and it’ll set.”
She said, “I’d like to take this guy back to the nest.”
Thunder rumbled. They looked out the window at the black night.
“Probably too late to return him tonight,” Malcolm said. He was still typing, peering at the screen.
“So…what did they feed them? Okay. In the period from 1988 to 1989…the herbivores got a macerated plant matter on a feeding schedule three times a day…and the carnivores got…”
He stopped.
“What’d the carnivores get?”
“Looks like a ground-up extract of animal protein….”
“From what? The usual source is turkey or chicken, with some antibiotics added.”
“Sarah,” he said. “They used sheep extract.”
“No,” she said. “They wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, they did. Came from their supplier, who used ground-up sheep.”
“You’re kidding,” she said.
Malcolm said, “I’m afraid so. Now, let me see if I can find ou – ”
A soft alarm sounded. On the wall panel above him, a red light began to flash. A moment later, the exterior lights above the trailer turned on, bathing the grassy clearing around them in bright halogen glare.
“What’s that?” Harding said.
“The sensors – something set them off.” Malcolm moved away from the computer, peered out the window. He saw nothing but tall grass, and the dark trees at the perimeter. It was silent, still.
Sarah, still intent on the baby, said, “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see anything.”
“But something triggered the sensors?”
“I guess.”
“Wind?”
“There’s no wind,” he said.
In the high hide, Kelly said,”Hey, look!”
Thorne turned. From their location in the valley, they could look north to the high cliff behind them and the two trailers above, in the grassy clearing.
The exterior lights on the trailers had come on.
Thorne unclipped the radio at his belt. “Ian? Are you there?”
A momentary crackle: “I’m here, Doc.”