Arby said, “What is it? What happened?”
“I can’t tell,” Levine said. It was hard to see anything in this downpour. Moments before, they had watched in horror as the two tyrannosaurs pushed the trailer toward the cliff. The large animals had done it with ease: Levine guessed the tyrannosaurs had a combined mass of twenty tons, and the trailer only weighed about two tons. Once they had turned it over, it slid easily over the wet grass as they pushed it with their underbellies, and kicked it with their powerful leg muscles.
“Why are they doing that?” Thorne said to Levine, standing beside him.
“I suspect, he said, that we have changed the perceived territory.”
“How’s that again?”
“You have to remember what we’re dealing with,” Levine said. “Tyrannosaurs may show complex behavior, but most of it is instinctual. It’s unthinking behavior, wired in. And territoriality is part of that instinct. The tyrannosaurs mark territory, they defend territory. It’s not thinking behavior – they don’t have very large brains – but they do it from instinct. All instinctive behavior has triggers, releasers for the behavior. And I’m afraid that, by moving the baby, we redefined their territory to include the clearing where the baby was found. So now they’re going to defend their territory, by driving out the trailers.”
Then lightning flashed, and they all saw it in the same horrifying moment. The first trailer had gone over the cliff. It was hanging upside down in space, still connected by the accordion connector to the second trailer in the clearing above.
That connector won’t hold!” Eddie shouted. “Not long!”
In the glare of lightning, they saw the tyrannosaurs up in the clearing. Methodically, they were now pushing the second trailer toward the cliff.
Thorne turned to Eddie. “I’m going!” he said.
“I’ll come with you!” Eddie said.
“No! Stay with the kids!”
“But you need – ”
“Stay with the kids! We can’t leave them alone!”
“But Levine can – ”
“No, you stay!” Thorne said. He was already climbing down the scaffolding, slippery in drenching rain, toward the Explorer below. He saw Kelly and Arby looking down at him. He jumped in the car, clicked on the ignition. He was already thinking of the distance to the clearing. It was three miles, maybe more. Even driving fast, it would take him seven or eight minutes to get there.
And by then it would be too late. He’d never make it in time.
But he had to try.
Sarah Harding heard a rhythmic creaking, and opened her eyes.
Everything was dark- she was disoriented. Then lightning flashed and she stared straight down toward the valley, five hundred feet below. The view swung gently, back and forth.
She was looking through the windshield of the trailer, hanging down the side of the cliff. They were not falling any more. But they were hanging precariously in space.
She herself was lying across the driver’s seat, which had broken free of its mounting, and shattered a control panel in the wall; loose wires hung out, panel indicators flickered.
She was having trouble seeing, from the blood in her left eye. She pulled out the tail of her shirt, and ripped two strips of cloth. She folded one to make a compress, and pressed it against the gash on her forehead. Then she tied the second strip around her head, to hold the compress down. The pain was intense for a moment; she gritted her teeth until it faded.
From somewhere above her, she felt a thumping vibration. She turned and looked straight up. She saw the whole length of the trailer, suspended vertically. Malcolm was ten feet above her, bent over a lab table, not moving.
“Ian,” she said.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t move.
The trailer shuddered again, creaking under a dull impact. And then Harding realized what was happening. The first trailer was dangling straight down the cliff face, swinging freely in space. But it was still connected to the second trailer, up on the clearing. The first trailer now hung from the accordion connector. And the tyrannosaurs, up above, were now pushing the second trailer off the cliff.
“Ian,” she said. “Ian.”