Kelly scrambled off the roof, and headed down.
Thorne threw open the door as Levine jumped into the car. “They got the kid,” Levine said, pointing along the trail.
Kelly was still coming down, shouting, “Wait!”
Thorne said, “Get back up there. Sarah’s coming! We’ll get Arby!”
“But – ”
“We can’t lose them!” Thorne grinned the engine, and started to drive down the game trail, chasing the raptors.
In the trailer, Ian Malcolm listened to the voices shouting over the radio. He heard the panic, the confusion.
Black noise, he thought. Everything going to hell at once.
A hundred thousand things interacting.
He sighed, and closed his eyes.
Thorne drove fast. The jungle was dense around them. The trail ahead began to narrow, the big palms edging closer, slapping the car. He said, “Can we make it?”
“It’s wide enough,” Levine said. “I walked it earlier today. Paras use this trail.”
“How could this happen?” Thorne said. “The cage was attached to the scaffolding.”
“I don’t know,” Levine said. “It broke off.”
“How? How?”
“I didn’t see. A lot happened.”
“And Eddie?” Thorne said grimly.
“It was fast,” Levine said.
The Jeep plunged through the jungle, bouncing hard as it followed the game trail; they banged their heads on the cloth roof. Thorne drove recklessly. Up ahead, the raptors were moving fast; he could hardly see the last of the animals, sprinting in the darkness up ahead.
“They wouldn’t listen to me!” Kelly shouted, as Sarah pulled up on the motorcycle.
“About what?”
“The raptor took the key! Arby’s locked in the cage and the raptor took the key!”
“Where?” Sarah said.
“There!” she said, pointing across the plain. In the moonlight they could just see the dark shape of the fleeing raptor. “We need the key!”
Get on,” Sarah said, unshouldering her rifle. Kelly climbed behind her on the bike. Sarah thrust the gun into her hands. “Can you shoot?”
“No. I mean, I never – ”
“Can you drive a bike?”
“No, I – ”
“Then you have to shoot,” Sarah said. “Now, look: trigger’s here. Okay? Safety’s here. Twist it like this. Okay? It’ll be a rough ride, so don’t release it until we get close.”
“Close to what?”
But Sarah didn’t hear her. She grinned the engine, and the bike accelerated, heading out into the plain, chasing the fleeing raptor. Kelly put one arm around Sarah, and tried to hold on.
The Jeep bounced along the jungle trail, splashing through muddy pools. “I don’t remember it this rough,” Levine said, clutching the armhold. “Maybe you should slow down – ”
“Hell no,” Thorne said. “If we lose sight of him, it’s over. We don’t know where the raptor nest is. And in this jungle, at night…Ah, hell.”
Up ahead, the raptors were leaving the trail, running off into the underbrush. The cage was gone. Thorne could not see the terrain very well, but it looked like a sheer hill, going almost straight down.
” You can’t do it,” Levine said. “It’s too steep.”
“I have to do it, ” Thorne said.
“Don’t be crazy,” Levine said. “Face facts. We’ve lost the kid, Doe. It’s too bad, but we’ve lost him.”
Thorne glared at Levine. “He didn’t give up on you,” he said. “And we’re not giving up on him.”
Thorne spun the wheel and drove the Jeep over the edge. The car nosed down sickeningly, gained speed, and began a steep descent.
“Shit!” Levine yelled. “You’ll kill us all”
“Hang on!”
Bouncing, they plunged downward into darkness.
SIXTH CONFIGURATION
“Order collapses in simultaneous regions. Survival is
now unlikely for individuals and groups.”
IAN MALCOLM
Chase
The motorcycle raced forward across the grassy plain. Kelly clutched Sarah with one hand, and held the rifle with the other; the rifle was heavy; her arm was getting tired. The motorcycle jolted over the terrain. The wind blew her hair around her face.
“Hold on!” Sarah shouted.
The moon broke through the clouds, and the grass before them w as silver in the moonlight. The raptor was forty yards ahead of them, the animal just within range of their headlamp. They were gaining steadily. Kelly saw no other animals on the plain, except for the apatosaur herd in the far distance.