The Lost World (34 page)

T
he 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.

They came closer to the raptor. The animal ran swiftly, its tall stiff, barely visible above the grass. Sarah angled the bike to the right, as they came alongside the raptor. They moved steadily closer. She leaned back, her month close to Kelly's ear.

"Get ready!" she shouted.

"What do I do?"

They were running parallel to the raptor, back by its tail. Sarah accelerated, passing the legs, moving toward the head.

"The neck!" she shouted. "Shoot it in the neck!"

"Where?"

"Anywhere! The neck!"

Kelly fumbled with the gun. "Now?"

"No! Wait! Wait!"

The raptor panicked as the motorcycle approached. It increased its speed.

Kelly was trying to find the safety. The gun was bouncing. Everything was bouncing. Her fingers touched the safety, slid off. She reached again. She was going to have to use two hands, and that meant letting go of Sarah -

"Get ready!" Sarah shouted.

"But I can't - "

"Now! Do it! Now!"

Sarah swerved the bike, coming alongside the raptor. They were now just three feet away. Kelly could smell the animal. It turned its head and snapped at them. Kelly fired. The gun bricked in her hands; she grabbed Sarah again. The raptor kept running.

"What happened?"

"You missed!"

Kelly shook her head. "Never mind!" Sarah shouted. "You can do it! I'll get closer!"

She angled the bike toward the raptor again, moving closer. But this time was different: as they came alongside, the raptor abruptly charged them, butting at them with its head. Sarah howled and twisted the bike away, widening the gap. "Smart bastards, aren't they!" she shouted. "No second chances!"

The raptor chased them for a moment, then suddenly turned, changing direction, racing away across the plains.

"It's going for the river!" Kelly shouted.

Sarah gunned the engine. The bike shot forward. "How deep?"

Kelly didn't answer.

"How deep!"

"I don't know!" Kelly shouted. She was trying to remember how the raptors looked when they crossed the river. She seemed to remember they were swimming. That meant it must be at least -

"More than three feet?" Sarah said.

"Yes!"

"No good!"

They were now ten yards behind the raptor, and losing ground. The animal had entered an area marked with thick Benettitalean cycads. The rough trunks scratched at them. The terrain was uneven; the bike botinced and jolted over the bumps. "Can't see!" Sarah shouted. "Hold on!" She angled left, moving away from the raptor, heading for the river. The animal was disappearing in the grass.

"What're you doing?" Kelly shouted.

"We have to cut him off!"

Shrieking, a flock of startled birds rose up in front of them. Sarah drove through flapping wings, and Kelly ducked her head. The rifle thunked in her hand.

"Careful!" Sarah shouted.

"What happened?"

"It went off!"

"How many shots do I have?"

"Two more! Make 'em good!"

The river was up ahead, shimmering in the moonlight. They burst out of the grass and came onto the muddy bank. Sarah turned, the motorcycle swerved, slipped, and the bike shot away. Kelly fell, hitting the cold mud, Sarah landing hard on top of her. Immediately Sarah jumped up, running for the bike, shouting, "Come on!"

Dazed, Kelly followed her. The rifle in her hands was thick with mud. She wondered if it would still work. Sarah was already on the bike, gunning the engine, waving her forward. Kelly jumped on, and Sarah headed up the riverbank.

The raptor was twenty yards ahead of them. Approaching the water. "It's getting away!"

Thorne's Jeep crashed down the hillside, out of control. Palms slapped against the windshield; they could see nothing at all, but they felt the steepness of the incline. The Jeep fished sideways. Levine yelled.

Thorne gripped the steering wheel, tried to turn the car back. He touched the brake; the Jeep straightened and continued down the hill. There was a gap in the palms - he saw a field of black boulders looming directly ahead. The raptors were scrambling over the boulders. But maybe if he went left -

"No!" Levine shouted. "No!"

"Hang on!" Thorne yelled, and he twisted the wheel. The car lost traction and slid downward. They hit the first of the boulders, shattering a headlight. The car swung up at an angle, crashed down again. Thorne thought that had finished the transmission but somehow the car was still going, angling down the hillside, moving off to the left. The second headlight smashed on a tree branch. They continued down in darkness, through another layer of palms, and then abruptly they banged down on level ground.

The Jeep tires rolled across soft earth.

Thorne brought the car to a stop.

Silence.

They peered out the windows, trying to see where they were. But it was so dark, it was hard to see anything. They seemed to be at the bottom of a deep gully, a canopy of trees overhead.

"Alluvial contours," Levine said. "We must be in a streambed."

As his eyes adjusted, Thorne saw he was right. The raptors were running down the center of the streambed, which was lined with big boulders on both sides, But the bed itself was sandy, and it was wide enough for the car to pass through. He followed them.

"You have any idea where we are?" Levine said, staring at the raptors.

"No," Thorne said.

The car drove forward. The streambed widened, opening out into a flat basin. The boulders disappeared; there were trees on both sides of the river. Patches of moonlight appeared here and there. It was easier to see.

But the raptors were gone. He stopped the car, rolled down the window, and listened. He could hear them hissing and growling. The sound seemed to be coming from off to the left.

Thorne put the car in gear, and left the streambed, in moving off among ferns and occasional pine trees. Levine said, "Do you suppose the boy survived that hill?"

"I don't know," Thorne said. "I can't imagine."

He drove forward slowly. They came to a break in the trees, and saw a clearing where the ferns had been tram led flat. Beyond the clearing, they saw the banks of the river, moonlight glinting on the water. Somehow they had returned to the river.

But it was the clearing itself that held their attention. Within the broad open space, they saw the huge pale skeletons of several apatosaurs. The giant rib cages, arcs of pale bone, shone in the silver light. The dark hulk of a partially eaten carcass lay on its side in the center, clouds of flies buzzing above it in the night.

"What is this place?" Thorne said. "It looks like graveyard."

"Yes," Levine said. "But it's not."

The raptors were all clustered to one side, fighting over the remains of Eddie's carcass. At the opposite side of the clearing they saw three low mud mounds; the walls were broken in many places. Within the nests they saw crushed fragments of eggshells. There was the strong stench of decay.

Levine leaned forward, staring. "This is the raptor nest," he said.

In the darkness of the trailer, Malcolm sat up, wincing. He grabbed the radio. "You found it? The nest?"

The radio crackled. Levine said, "Yes. I think so."

"Describe it," Malcolm said.

Levine spoke quietly, reporting features, estimating dimensions, to Levine, the velociraptor nest appeared slovenly, uncared for, ill-made. He was surprised, because dinosaur nests usually conveyed an unmistakable sense of order. Levine had seen it time and again, in fossil sites from Montana to Mongolia. The eggs in the nest were arranged in neat concentric circles. Often there were more than thirty eggs in a single nest, suggesting that many females cooperated to share a single mud mound. Numerous adult fossils would be found nearby, indicating that the dinosaurs cared communally for the eggs. At a few excavations, it was even possible to get a sense of the spatial arrangement, with the nests in the center, the adults moving carefully around the outside, so as not to disturb the incubating eggs. In this rigid structure, the dinosaurs were reminiscent of their descendants the birds, which also displayed precise courtship, mating, and nest-building patterns.

But the velociraptors behaved differently. There was a disorderly chaotic feeling to the scene before him: ill-formed nests; quarreling adults; very few young and juvenile animals; the eggshells crushed; the broken mounds stepped on. Around the mounds, Levine now saw scattered small bones which he presumed were the remains of newborns. He saw no living infants anywhere in the clearing. There were three juveniles, but these younger animals were forced to fend for themselves, and they already showed many scars on their bodies. The youngsters looked thin, undernourished. Poking around the periphery of the carcass, they were cautious, backing away whenever one of the adults snapped at them.

"And what about the apatosaurs?" Malcolm asked. "What about the carcasses?"

Levine counted four, all together. In various stages of decomposition.

"You have to tell Sarah," Malcolm said.

But Levine was wondering about something else: he was wondering how these big carcasses had gotten here in the first place. They hadn't died here by accident, surely all animals would have avoided this nest. They couldn't have been lured here, and they were too large to carry. So how did they get here? Something was tickling the back of his mind, some obvious thought that he wasn't -

"They brought Arby," Malcolm said.

"Yes," Levine said. "They did."

He stared at the nest, trying to figure it out. Then Thorne nudged him. "There's the cage," he said, pointing. At the far side of the clearing lying on the ground, partially hidden behind fronds, Levine saw the glint of aluminum struts. But he couldn't see Arby.

"Way over there," Levine said.

The raptors were ignoring the cage, still fighting over Eddie's carcass. Thorne brought out a Lindstradt rifle, snapped open the cartridge pack. He saw six darts. "Not enough," he said, and snapped it shut. There were at least ten raptors in the clearing.

Levine rummaged in the back seat, found his knapsack, which had fallen to the floor. He unzipped it, came out with a small silver cylinder the size of a large soft-drink bottle. It had a skull and crossbones stenciled on it, Beneath, lettering read: CAUTION TOXIC METACHOLINE (MIVACURIAM).

"What's that?" Thorne said.

"Something they cooked up in Los Alamos," Levine said. "It's a nonlethal area neutralizer. Releases a short-acting cholinesterase aerosol. Paralyzes all life forms for up to three minutes. It'll knock all the raptors out.

"But what about the boy?" Thorne said. "You can't use that. You'll paralyze him."

Levine pointed. "If we throw the canister to the right of the cage, the gas'll blow away from him, toward the raptors."

"Or it may not," Thorne said, "And he may be badly injured."

Levine nodded. He put the cylinder back in the knapsack, then sat, facing forward, staring at the raptors. "So," Levine said. "What do we do now?"

Thorne looked over at the aluminum cage, partially blocked by ferns. Then he saw something that made him sit up: the cage moved slightly, the bars shifting in the moonlight.

"Did you see that?" Levine said.

Thorne said, "I'm going to get that kid out of there."

"But how?" Levine said.

"The old-fashioned way, " Thorne said.

He climbed out of the car.

Sarah accelerated, racing the motorcycle up the mud banks of the river. The raptor was just ahead, cutting diagonally toward them, heading for the water.

"Go!" Kelly shouted. "Go!"

The raptor saw them and changed course, angling farther ahead. It was trying to get distance on them but they were moving faster on the open banks. They came abreast of the animal, flanking it, and then Sarah left the banks, heading back onto the grassy plain. The raptor moved right, deeper into the plain. Away from the river.

"You did it!" Kelly shouted.

Sarah maintained her speed, moving slowly closer to the raptor. It seemed to have given up on the river, and now had no plan. It was just running up the plain. And they were steadily, inexorably gaining. Kelly was excited. She tried to wipe the maid off her rifle, preparing to shoot again.

"Damn!" Sarah shouted.

"What?"

"Look!"

Kelly leaned forward, stared past Sarah's shoulder. Directly ahead, she saw the herd of apatosaurs. They were only fifty yards from the first of the enormous animals, which bellowed and wheeled in sudden fear. Their bodies were green-gray in the moonlight.

The raptor streaked directly toward the herd.

"It thinks it's going to lose us!" Sarah gunned the bike, moving closer. "Get it now! Now!"

Kelly aimed and fired. The gun bucked. But the raptor kept going.

"Missed!"

Up ahead, the apatosaurs were turning, their big legs stomping the ground. Their heavy tails whipped through the air. But they were too slow to move away. The raptor raced forward, heading directly beneath the big apatosaurs.

"What do we do?" Kelly shouted.

"No choice!"' Sarah yelled. She pulled parallel to the raptor just as they passed into shadow, racing beneath the first animal. Kelly glimpsed the curve of the belly, hanging three feet above her. The legs were as thick as tree trunks, stamping and turning.

The raptor ran on, darting among the moving legs. Sarah swerved, followed. Above them, the animals roared and turned, and roared again. They were beneath another belly, then out into moonlight, then in shadow again. Now they were in the middle of the herd. It was like being in a forest of moving trees.