Jurassic Park

  “Hypsilophodonts are not especially bright animals,” the voice explained. “They have roughly the intelligence of a domestic cow.”

  The heads were dull green, with a mottling of dark browns and blacks that extended down the slender necks. Judging from the size of the heads, Tim guessed their bodies were four feet long, about as large as deer.

  Some of the hypsilophodonts were chewing, the jaws working. One reached up and scratched its head, with a five-fingered hand. The gesture gave the creature a pensive, thoughtful quality.

  “If you see them scratching, that is because they have skin problems. The veterinary scientists here at Jurassic Park think it may be a fungus, or an allergy. But they’re not sure yet. After all, these are the first dinosaurs in history ever to be studied alive.”

  The electric motor of the car started, and there was a grinding of gears. At the unexpected sound, the herd of hypsilophodonts suddenly leapt into the air and bounded above the grass like kangaroos, showing their full bodies with massive hind limbs and long tails in the afternoon sunlight. In a few leaps, they were gone.

  “Now that we’ve had a look at these fascinating herbivores, we will go on to some dinosaurs that are a little larger. Quite a bit larger, in fact.”

  The Land Cruisers continued onward, moving south through Jurassic Park.

  CONTROL

  “Gears are grinding,” John Arnold said, in the darkened control room. “Have maintenance check the electric clutches on vehicles BB4 and BB5 when they come back.”

  “Yes, Mr. Arnold,” replied the voice on the intercom.

  “A minor detail,” Hammond said, walking in the room. Looking out, he could see the two Land Cruisers moving south through the park. Muldoon stood in the corner, silently watching.

  Arnold pushed his chair back from the central console at the control panel. “There are no minor details, Mr. Hammond,” he said, and he lit another cigarette. Nervous at most times, Arnold was especially edgy now. He was only too aware that this was the first time visitors had actually toured the park. In fact, Arnold’s team didn’t often go into the park. Harding, the vet, sometimes did. The animal handlers went to the individual feeding houses. But otherwise they watched the park from the control room. And now, with visitors out there, he worried about a hundred details.

  John Arnold was a systems engineer who had worked on the Polaris submarine missile in the late 1960s, until he had his first child and the prospect of making weapons became too distasteful. Meanwhile, Disney had started to create amusement park rides of great technological sophistication, and they employed a lot of aerospace people. Arnold helped build Disney World in Orlando, and had gone on to implement major parks at Magic Mountain in California, Old Country in Virginia, and Astroworld in Houston.

  His continuous employment at parks had eventually given him a somewhat skewed view of reality. Arnold contended, only half jokingly, that the entire world was increasingly described by the metaphor of the theme park. “Paris is a theme park,” he once announced, after a vacation, “although it’s too expensive, and the park employees are unpleasant and sullen.”

  For the past two years, Arnold’s job had been to get Jurassic Park up and running. As an engineer, he was accustomed to long time schedules—he often referred to “the September opening,” by which he meant September of the following year—and as the September opening approached, he was unhappy with the progress that had been made. He knew from experience that it sometimes took years to work the bugs out of a single park ride—let alone get a whole park running properly.

  “You’re just a worrier,” Hammond said.

  “I don’t think so,” Arnold said. “You’ve got to realize that, from an engineering standpoint, Jurassic Park is by far the most ambitious theme park in history. Visitors will never think about it, but I do.”

  He ticked the points off on his fingers.

  “First, Jurassic Park has all the problems of any amusement park—ride maintenance, queue control, transportation, food handling, living accommodations, trash disposal, security.

  “Second, we have all the problems of a major zoo—care of the animals; health and welfare; feeding and cleanliness; protection from insects, pests, allergies, and illnesses; maintenance of barriers; and all the rest.

  “And, finally, we have the unprecedented problems of caring for a population of animals that no one has ever tried to maintain before.”

  “Oh, it’s not as bad as all that,” Hammond said.

  “Yes, it is. You’re just not here to see it,” Arnold said. “The tyrannosaurs drink the lagoon water and sometimes get sick; we aren’t sure why. The triceratops females kill each other in fights for dominance and have to be separated into groups smaller than six. We don’t know why. The stegosaurs frequently get blisters on their tongues and diarrhea, for reasons no one yet understands, even though we’ve lost two. Hypsilophodonts get skin rashes. And the velociraptors—”

  “Let’s not start on the velociraptors,” Hammond said. “I’m sick of hearing about the velociraptors. How they’re the most vicious creatures anyone has ever seen.”

  “They are,” Muldoon said, in a low voice. “They should all be destroyed.”

  “You wanted to fit them with radio collars,” Hammond said. “And I agreed.”

  “Yes. And they promptly chewed the collars off. But even if the raptors never get free,” Arnold said, “I think we have to accept that Jurassic Park is inherently hazardous.”

  “Oh balls,” Hammond said. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  “We now have fifteen species of extinct animals, and most of them are dangerous,” Arnold said. “We’ve been forced to delay the Jungle River Ride because of the dilophosaurs; and the Pteratops Lodge in the aviary, because the pterodactyls are so unpredictable. These aren’t engineering delays, Mr. Hammond. They’re problems with control of the animals.”

  “You’ve had plenty of engineering delays,” Hammond said. “Don’t blame it on the animals.”

  “Yes, we have. In fact, it’s all we could do to get the main attraction, Park Drive, working correctly, to get the CD-ROMs inside the cars to be controlled by the motion sensors. It’s taken weeks of adjustment to get that working properly—and now the electric gearshifts on the cars are acting up! The gearshifts!”

  “Let’s keep it in perspective,” Hammond said. “You get the engineering correct and the animals will fall into place. After all, they’re trainable.”

  From the beginning, this had been one of the core beliefs of the planners. The animals, however exotic, would fundamentally behave like animals in zoos anywhere. They would learn the regularities of their care, and they would respond.

  “Meanwhile, how’s the computer?” Hammond said. He glanced at Dennis Nedry, who was working at a terminal in the corner of the room. “This damn computer has always been a headache.”

  “We’re getting there,” Nedry said.

  “If you had done it right in the first place,” Hammond began, but Arnold put a restraining hand on his arm. Arnold knew there was no point in antagonizing Nedry while he was working.

  “It’s a large system,” Arnold said. “There are bound to be glitches.”

  In fact, the bug list now ran to more than 130 items, and included many odd aspects. For example:

  The animal-feeding program reset itself every twelve hours, not every twenty-four hours, and would not record feedings on Sundays. As a result, the staff could not accurately measure how much the animals were eating.

  The security system, which controlled all the security-card-operated doors, cut out whenever main power was lost, and did not come back on with auxiliary power. The security program only ran with main power.

  The physical conservation program, intended to dim lights after 10:00 p.m., only worked on alternate days of the week.

  The automated fecal analysis (called Auto Poop), designed to check for parasites in the animal stools, invariably recorded all specimens as having the parasite Phagos
tomum venulosum, although none did. The program then automatically dispensed medication into the animals’ food. If the handlers dumped the medicine out of the hoppers to prevent its being dispensed, an alarm sounded which could not be turned off.

  And so it went, page after page of errors.

  When he had arrived, Dennis Nedry had been under the impression that he could make all the fixes himself over the weekend. He had paled when he saw the full listing. Now he was calling his office in Cambridge, telling his staff programmers they were going to have to cancel their weekend plans and work overtime until Monday. And he had told John Arnold that he would need to use every telephone link between Isla Nublar and the mainland just to transfer program data back and forth to his programmers.

  While Nedry worked, Arnold punched up a new window in his own monitor. It allowed him to see what Nedry was doing at the corner console. Not that he didn’t trust Nedry. But Arnold just liked to know what was going on.

  He looked at the graphics display on his right-hand console, which showed the progress of the electric Land Cruisers. They were following the river, just north of the aviary, and the ornithischian paddock.

  “If you look to your left,” said the voice, “you will see the dome of the Jurassic Park aviary, which is not yet finished for visitors.” Tim saw sunlight glinting off aluminum struts in the distance. “And directly below is our Mesozoic jungle river—where, if you are lucky, you just may catch a glimpse of a very rare carnivore. Keep your eyes peeled, everyone!”

  Inside the Land Cruiser, the screens showed a bird-like head topped with a flaming red crest. But everyone in Tim’s car was looking out the windows. The car was driving along a high ridge, overlooking a fast-moving river below. The river was almost enclosed by dense foliage on both sides.

  “There they are now,” said the voice. “The animals you see are called dilophosaurs.”

  Despite what the recording said, Tim saw only one. The dilophosaur crouched on its hind legs by the river, drinking. It was built on the basic carnivore pattern, with a heavy tail, strong hind limbs, and a long neck. Its ten-foot-tall body was spotted yellow and black, like a leopard.

  But it was the head that held Tim’s attention. Two broad curving crests ran along the top of the head from the eyes to the nose. The crests met in the center, making a V shape above the dinosaur’s head. The crests had red and black stripes, reminiscent of a parrot or toucan. The animal gave a soft hooting cry, like an owl.

  “They’re pretty,” Lex said.

  “Dilophosaurus,” the tape said, “is one of the earliest carnivorous dinosaurs. Scientists thought their jaw muscles were too weak to kill prey, and imagined they were primarily scavengers. But now we know they are poisonous.”

  “Hey.” Tim grinned. “All right.”

  Again the distinctive hooting call of the dilophosaur drifted across the afternoon air toward them.

  Lex shifted uneasily in her seat. “Are they really poisonous, Mr. Regis?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ed Regis said.

  “But are they?”

  “Well, yes, Lex.”

  “Along with such living reptiles as Gila monsters and rattlesnakes, Dilophosaurus secretes a hematotoxin from glands in its mouth. Unconsciousness follows within minutes of a bite. The dinosaur will then finish the victim off at its leisure—making Dilophosaurus a beautiful but deadly addition to the animals you see here at Jurassic Park.”

  The Land Cruiser turned a corner, leaving the river behind. Tim looked back, hoping for a last glimpse of the dilophosaur. This was amazing! Poisonous dinosaurs! He wished he could stop the car, but everything was automatic. He bet Dr. Grant wanted to stop the car, too.

  “If you look on the bluff to the right, you’ll see Les Gigantes, the site of our superb three-star dining room. Chef Alain Richard hails from the world-famous Le Beaumanière in France. Make your reservations by dialing four from your hotel rooms.”

  Tim looked up on the bluff, and saw nothing.

  “Not for a while, though,” Ed Regis said. “The restaurant won’t even start construction until November.”

  “Continuing on our prehistoric safari, we come next to the herbivores of the ornithischian group. If you look to your right, you can probably see them now.”

  Tim saw two animals, standing motionless in the shade of a large tree. Triceratops: the size and gray color of an elephant, with the truculent stance of a rhino. The horns above each eye curved five feet into the air, looking almost like inverted elephant tusks. A third, rhino-like horn was located near the nose. And they had the beaky snout of a rhino.

  “Unlike other dinosaurs,” the voice said, “Triceratops serratus can’t see well. They’re nearsighted, like the rhinos of today, and they tend to be surprised by moving objects. They’d charge our car if they were close enough to see it! But relax, folks—we’re safe enough here.

  “Triceratops have a fan-shaped crest behind their heads. It’s made of solid bone, and it’s very strong. These animals weigh about seven tons each. Despite their appearance, they are actually quite docile. They know their handlers, and they’ll allow themselves to be petted. They particularly like to be scratched in the hindquarters.”

  “Why don’t they move?” Lex said. She rolled down her window. “Hey! Stupid dinosaur! Move!”

  “Don’t bother the animals, Lex,” Ed Regis said.

  “Why? It’s stupid. They just sit there like a picture in a book,” Lex said.

  The voice was saying, “—easygoing monsters from a bygone world stand in sharp contrast to what we will see next. The most famous predator in the history of the world: the mighty tyrant lizard, known as Tyrannosaurus rex.”

  “Good, Tyrannosaurus rex,” Tim said.

  “I hope he’s better than these bozos,” Lex said, turning away from the triceratops.

  The Land Cruiser rumbled forward.

  BIG REX

  “The mighty tyrannosaurs arose late in dinosaur history. Dinosaurs ruled the earth for a hundred and twenty million years, but there were tyrannosaurs for only the last fifteen million years of that period.”

  The Land Cruisers had stopped at the rise of a hill. They overlooked a forested area sloping down to the edge of the lagoon. The sun was falling to the west, sinking into a misty horizon. The whole landscape of Jurassic Park was bathed in soft light, with lengthening shadows. The surface of the lagoon rippled in pink crescents. Farther south, they saw the graceful necks of the apatosaurs, standing at the water’s edge, their bodies mirrored in the moving surface. It was quiet, except for the soft drone of cicadas. As they stared out at that landscape, it was possible to believe that they had really been transported millions of years back in time to a vanished world.

  “It works, doesn’t it?” they heard Ed Regis say, over the intercom. “I like to come here sometimes, in the evening. And just sit.”

  Grant was unimpressed. “Where is T-rex?”

  “Good question. You often see the little one down in the lagoon. The lagoon’s stocked, so we have fish in there. The little one has learned to catch the fish. Interesting how he does it. He doesn’t use his hands, but he ducks his whole head under the water. Like a bird.”

  “The little one?”

  “The little T-rex. He’s a juvenile, two years old, and about a third grown now. Stands eight feet high, weighs a ton and a half. The other one’s a full-grown tyrannosaur. But I don’t see him at the moment.”

  “Maybe he’s down hunting the apatosaurs,” Grant said.

  Regis laughed, his voice tinny over the radio. “He would if he could, believe me. Sometimes he stands by the lagoon and stares at those animals, and wiggles those little forearms of his in frustration. But the T-rex territory is completely enclosed with trenches and fences. They’re disguised from view, but believe me, he can’t go anywhere.”

  “Then where is he?”

  “Hiding,” Regis said. “He’s a little shy.”

  “Shy?” Malcolm said. “Tyrannosaurus rex is
shy?”

  “Well, he conceals himself as a general rule. You almost never see him out in the open, especially in daylight.”

  “Why is that?”

  “We think it’s because he has sensitive skin and sunburns easily.”

  Malcolm began to laugh.

  Grant sighed. “You’re destroying a lot of illusions.”

  “I don’t think you’ll be disappointed,” Regis said. “Just wait.”

  They heard a soft bleating sound. In the center of a field, a small cage rose up into view, lifted on hydraulics from underground. The cage bars slid down, and the goat remained tethered in the center of the field, bleating plaintively.

  “Any minute now,” Regis said again.

  They stared out the window.

  “Look at them,” Hammond said, watching the control room monitor. “Leaning out of the windows, so eager. They can’t wait to see it. They have come for the danger.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Muldoon said. He twirled the keys on his finger and watched the Land Cruisers tensely. This was the first time that visitors had toured Jurassic Park, and Muldoon shared Arnold’s apprehension.

  Robert Muldoon was a big man, fifty years old, with a steel-gray mustache and deep blue eyes. Raised in Kenya, he had spent most of his life as a guide for African big-game hunters, as had his father before him. But since 1980, he had worked principally for conservation groups and zoo designers as a wildlife consultant. He had become well known; an article in the London Sunday Times had said, “What Robert Trent Jones is to golf courses, Robert Muldoon is to zoos: a designer of unsurpassed knowledge and skill.”

  In 1986, he had done some work for a San Francisco company that was building a private wildlife park on an island in North America. Muldoon had laid out the boundaries for different animals, defining space and habitat requirements for lions, elephants, zebras, and hippos. Identifying which animals could be kept together, and which had to be separated. At the time, it had been a fairly routine job. He had been more interested in an Indian park called Tiger World in southern Kashmir.