The Lost World Read online

  It was sobering to realize that the most accurate perception of dinosaurs had also been the first. Back in the 1840s, when Richard Owen first described giant bones in England, he named them Dinosauria: terrible lizards. That was still the most accurate description of these creatures, Malcolm thought. They were indeed like lizards, and they were terrible.

  But since Owen, the “scientific” view of dinosaurs had undergone many changes. Because the Victorians believed in the inevitability of progress, they insisted that the dinosaurs must necessarily be inferior—why else would they be extinct? So the Victorians made them fat, lethargic, and dumb—big dopes from the past. This perception was elaborated, so that by the early twentieth century, dinosaurs had become so weak that they could not support their own weight. Apatosaurs had to stand belly-deep in water or they would crush their own legs. The whole conception of the ancient world was suffused with these ideas of weak, stupid, slow animals.

  That view didn’t change until the 1960s, when a few renegade scientists, led by John Ostrom, began to imagine quick, agile, hot-blooded dinosaurs. Because these scientists had the temerity to question dogma, they were brutally criticized for years, even though it now seemed their ideas were correct.

  But in the last decade, a growing interest in social behavior had led to still another view. Dinosaurs were now seen as caring creatures, living in groups, raising their little babies. They were good animals, even cute animals. The big sweeties had nothing to do with their terrible fate, which was visited on them by Alvarez’s meteor. And that new sappy view produced people like Tim, who were reluctant to look at the other side of the coin, the other face of life. Of course, some dinosaurs had been social and cooperative. But others had been hunters—and killers of unparalleled viciousness. For Malcolm, the truest picture of life in the past incorporated the interplay of all aspects of life, the good and the bad, the strong and the weak. It was no good pretending anything else.

  Scaring little kids, indeed! Malcolm snorted irritably, as he walked down the hall.

  In truth, Malcolm was bothered by what Elizabeth Gelman had told him about the tissue fragment, and especially the tag. That tag meant trouble, Malcolm was sure of it.

  But he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  He turned the corner, past the display of Clovis points, arrowheads made by early man in America. Up ahead, he saw his office. Beverly, his assistant, was standing behind her desk, tidying papers, getting ready to go home. She handed him his faxes and said, “I’ve left word for Dr. Levine at his office, but he hasn’t called back. They don’t seem to know where he is.”

  “For a change,” Malcolm said, sighing. It was so difficult working with Levine; he was so erratic, you never knew what to expect. Malcolm had been the one to post bail when Levine was arrested in his Ferrari. He riffled through the faxes: conference dates, requests for reprints . . . nothing interesting. “Okay. Thanks, Beverly.”

  “Oh. And the photographers came. They finished about an hour ago.”

  “What photographers?” he said.

  “From Chaos Quarterly. To photograph your office.”

  “What are you talking about?” Malcolm said.

  “They came to photograph your office,” she said. “For a series about workplaces of famous mathematicians. They had a letter from you, saying it was—”

  “I never sent any letter,” Malcolm said. “And I’ve never heard of Chaos Quarterly.”

  He went into his office and looked around. Beverly hurried in after him, her face worried.

  “Is it okay? Is everything here?”

  “Yes,” he said, scanning quickly. “It seems to be fine.” He was opening the drawers to his desk, one after another. Nothing appeared to be missing.

  “That’s a relief,” Beverly said, “because—”

  He turned, and looked at the far side of the room.

  The map.

  Malcolm had a large map of the world, with pins stuck in it for all the sightings of what Levine kept calling “aberrant forms.” By the most liberal count—Levine’s count—there had now been twelve in all, from Rangiroa in the west, to Baja California and Ecuador in the east. Few of them were verified. But now there was a tissue sample that confirmed one specimen, and that made all the rest more likely.

  “Did they photograph this map?”

  “Yes, they photographed everything. Does it matter?”

  Malcolm looked at the map, trying to see it with fresh eyes. To see what an outsider would make of it. He and Levine had spent hours in front of this map, considering the possibility of a “lost world,” trying to decide where it might be. They had narrowed it down to five islands in a chain, off the coast of Costa Rica. Levine was convinced that it was one of those islands, and Malcolm was beginning to think he was right. But those islands weren’t highlighted on the map. . . .

  Beverly said, “They were a very nice group. Very polite. Foreign—Swiss, I think.”

  Malcolm nodded, and sighed. The hell with it, he thought. It was bound to get out sooner or later.

  “It’s all right, Beverly.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, it’s fine. Have a good evening.”

  “Good night, Dr. Malcolm.”

  Alone in his office, he dialed Levine. The phone rang, and then the answering machine beeped. Levine was still not home.

  “Richard, are you there? If you are, pick up, it’s important.”

  He waited, nothing happened.

  “Richard, it’s Ian. Listen, we have a problem. The map is no longer secure. And I’ve had that sample analyzed, Richard, and I think it tells us the location of Site B, if my—”

  There was a click as the phone lifted. He heard the sound of breathing.

  “Richard?” he said.

  “No,” said the voice, “this is Thorne. And I think you better get over here right away.”

  The Five Deaths

  “I knew it,” Malcolm said, coming into Levine’s apartment, and glancing quickly around. “I knew he would do something like this. You know how impetuous he is. I said to him, don’t go until we have all the information. But I should have known. Of course, he went.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Ego,” Malcolm said, shaking his head. “Richard has to be first. Has to figure it out first, has to get there first. I’m very concerned, he could ruin everything. This impulsive behavior: you realize it’s a storm in the brain, neurons on the edge of chaos. Obsession is just a variety of addiction. But what scientist ever had self-control? They instruct them in school: it’s bad form to be balanced. They forget Neils Bohr was not only a great physicist but an Olympic athlete. These days they all try to be nerds. It’s the professional style.”

  Thorne looked at Malcolm thoughtfully. He thought he detected a competitive edge. He said, “Do you know which island he went to?”

  “No. I do not.” Malcolm was stalking around the apartment, taking things in. “The last time we talked, we had narrowed it down to five islands, all in the south. But we hadn’t decided which one.”

  Thorne pointed to the wallboard, the satellite images. “These islands here?”

  “Yes,” Malcolm said, looking briefly. “They’re strung out in an arc, all about ten miles offshore from the bay of Puerto Cortés. Supposedly they’re all uninhabited. Local people call them the Five Deaths.”

  “Why?” Kelly said.

  “Some old Indian story,” Malcolm said. “Something about a brave warrior captured by a king who offered him his choice of deaths. Burning, drowning, crushing, hanging, decapitation. The warrior said he would take them all, and he went from island to island, experiencing the various challenges. Sort of a New World version of the labors of Hercules—”

  “So that’s what it is!” Kelly said, and ran out of the room.

  Malcolm looked blank.

  He turned to Thorne, who shrugged.

  Kelly returned, carrying the German children’s book in her hand. She gave it to Malcolm.

>   “Yes,” he said. “Die Fünf Todesarten. The Five Ways of Death. Interesting that it is in German. . . .”

  “He has lots of German books,” Kelly said.

  “Does he? That bastard. He never told me.”

  “That means something?” Kelly said.

  “Yes, it means a lot. Hand me that magnifying glass, would you?”

  Kelly gave him a magnifying glass from the desk. “What does it mean?”

  “The Five Deaths are ancient volcanic islands,” he said. “Which means that they are geologically very rich. Back in the twenties, the Germans wanted to mine them.” He peered at the images, squinting. “Ah. Yes, these are the islands, no question. Matanceros, Muerte, Tacaño, Sorna, Pena . . . All names of death and destruction . . . All right. I think we may be close. Do we have any satellite pictures with spectrographic analyses of the cloud cover?”

  Arby said, “Is that going to help you find Site B?”

  “What?” Malcolm spun around. “What do you know about Site B?”

  Arby was sitting at the computer, still working. “Nothing. Just that Dr. Levine was looking for Site B. And it was the name in the files.”

  “What files?”

  “I’ve recovered some InGen files from this computer. And, searching through old records, I found references to Site B. . . . But they’re pretty confusing. Like this one.” He leaned back, to let Malcolm look at the screen.

  Malcolm frowned. “Curious, but not very helpful. It doesn’t tell us which island—or even if it’s on an island at all. What else have you got?”

  “Well . . .” Arby flicked keys. “Let’s see. There’s this.”

  Malcolm said, “Okay, so it’s an island. And Site B has a network—but a network of what? Computers?”

  Arby said, “I don’t know. Maybe a radio network.”

  “For what purpose?” Malcolm said. “What would a radio network be used for? This isn’t very helpful.”

  Arby shrugged. He took it as a challenge. He began typing furiously again. Then said, “Wait! . . . Here’s another one . . . if I can just format it. . . . There! Got it!”

  He moved away from the screen, so the others could see.

  Malcolm looked and said, “Very good. Very good!”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Malcolm said, scanning the listing. “Can you print this out?”

  “Sure.” Arby was beaming. “Is it really good?”

  “It really is,” Malcolm said.

  Kelly looked at Arby and said, “Arb. Those’re the text labels that go with a map.”

  “Yeah, I think so. Pretty neat, huh?” He pushed a button, sending the image to the printer.

  Malcolm peered at the listing some more, then turned his attention back to the satellite maps, looking closely at each one with the magnifying glass. His nose was just inches from the photographs.

  “Arb,” Kelly said, “don’t just sit there. Come on! Recover the map! That’s what we need!”

  “I don’t know if I can,” Arby said. “It’s a proprietary thirty-two-bit format. . . . I mean, it’s a big job.”

  “Stop whining, Arb. Just do it.”

  “Never mind,” Malcolm said. He stepped away from the satellite images pinned on the wall. “It’s not important.”

  “It’s not?” Arby said, a little wounded.

  “No, Arby. You can stop. Because, from what you’ve already discovered, I am quite certain we can identify the island, right now.”

  James

  Ed James yawned, and pushed the earpiece tighter into his ear. He wanted to make sure he got all this. He shifted in the driver’s seat of his gray Taurus, trying to get comfortable, trying to stay awake. The small tape recorder was spinning in his lap, next to his notepad, and the crumpled papers from two Big Macs. James looked across the street at Levine’s apartment building. The lights were on in the third-floor apartment.

  And the bug he had placed there last week was working fine. Through his earpiece, he heard one of the kids say, “How?”

  And then the crippled guy, Malcolm, said, “The essence of verification is multiple lines of reasoning that converge at a single point.”

  “Meaning what?” the kid said.

  Malcolm said, “Just look at the Landsat pictures.”

  On his notepad, James wrote LANDSAT.

  “We already looked at those,” the girl said.

  James felt foolish not to have realized earlier that these two kids were working for Levine. He remembered them well, they were in the class Levine taught. There was a short black kid and a gawky white girl. Just kids: maybe eleven or twelve. He should have realized.

  Not that it mattered now, he thought. He was getting the information anyway. James reached across the dashboard and plucked out the last two French fries, and ate them, even though they were cold.

  “Okay,” he heard Malcolm say. “It’s this island here. This is the island Levine went to.”

  The girl said doubtfully, “You think so? This is . . . Isla Sorna.”

  James wrote ISLA SORNA.

  “That’s our island,” Malcolm said. “Why? Three independent reasons. First, it’s privately owned, so it hasn’t been thoroughly searched by the Costa Rican government. Second, privately owned by whom? By the Germans, who leased rights to mineral excavations, back in the twenties.”

  “All the German books!”

  “Exactly. Third, from Arby’s list—and from another independent source—it is clear that there is volcanic gas located at Site B. So, which islands have volcanic gas? Take the magnifying glass and look for yourself. Turns out, only one island does.”

  “You mean this here?” the girl said.

  “Right. That’s volcanic smoke.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Spectrographic analysis. See this spike here? That’s elementary sulfur in the cloud cover. There aren’t really any sources for sulfur except volcanic sources.”

  “What’s this other spike?” the girl said.

  “Methane,” Malcolm said. “Apparently there is a fairly large source of methane gas.”

  “Is that also volcanic?” Thorne said.

  “It might be. Methane is released from volcanic activity, but most commonly during active eruptions. The other possibility is, it might be organic.”

  “Organic? Meaning what?”

  “Large herbivores, and—”

  Then there was something that James couldn’t hear, and the kid said, “Do you want me to finish this recovery, or not?” He sounded annoyed.

  “No,” Thorne said. “Never mind now, Arby. We know what we have to do. Let’s go, kids!”

  James looked up at the apartment and saw the lights being turned off. A few minutes later, Thorne and the kids appeared at the front entrance, on the street level. They got in a Jeep, and drove off. Malcolm went to his own car, climbed in awkwardly, and drove away in the opposite direction.

  James considered following Malcolm, but he had something else to do now. He turned on the car ignition, picked up the phone, and dialed.

  Field Systems

  Half an hour later, when they got back to Thorne’s office, Kelly stared, stunned. Most of the workers were gone, and the shed had been cleaned up. The two trailers and the Explorer stood side by side, freshly painted dark green, and ready to go.

  “They’re finished!”

  “I told you they would be,” Thorne said. He turned to his chief foreman, Eddie Carr, a stocky young man in his twenties. “Eddie, where are we?”

  “Just wrapping up, Doc,” Eddie said. “Paint’s still wet in a few places, but it should be dry by morning.”

  “We can’t wait until morning. We’re moving out now.”

  “We are?”

  Arby and Kelly exchanged glances. This was news to them, too.

  Thorne said, “I’ll need you to drive one of these, Eddie. We’ve got to be at the airport by midnight.”

  “But I thought we were field testing. . . .”

  “No time for
that. We’re going right to the location.” The front door buzzed. “That’ll be Malcolm, probably.” He pushed the button to unlock the door.

  “You’re not going to field test?” Eddie said, with a worried look. “I think you better shake them down, Doc. We made some pretty complex modifications here, and—”

  “There’s no time,” Malcolm said, coming in. “We have to go right away.” He turned to Thorne. “I’m very worried about him.”

  “Eddie!” Thorne said. “Did the exit papers come in?”

  “Oh sure, we’ve had them for the last two weeks.”

  “Well, get them, and call Jenkins, tell him to meet us at the airport, and do the details for us. I want to be off the ground in four hours.”

  “Jeez, Doc—”

  “Just do it.”

  Kelly said, “You’re going to Costa Rica?”

  “That’s right. We’ve got to get Levine. If it’s not too late.”

  “We’re coming with you,” Kelly said.

  “Right,” Arby said. “We are.”

  “Absolutely not,” Thorne said. “It’s out of the question.”

  “But we earned it!”

  “Dr. Levine talked to our parents!”

  “We already have permission!”

  “You have permission,” Thorne said severely, “to go on a field test in the woods a hundred miles from here. But we’re not doing that. We’re going someplace that might be very dangerous, and you’re not coming with us, and that’s final.”

  “But—”

  “Kids,” Thorne said. “Don’t piss me off. I’m going to go make a phone call. You get your stuff together. You’re going home.”

  And he turned and walked away.

  “Gee,” Kelly said.

  Arby stuck his tongue out at the departing Thorne and muttered, “What an asshole.”

  “Get with the program, Arby,” Thorne said, not looking back. “You two guys are going home. Period.”