Dodgson awoke, aching and stiff, on the floor of the concrete utility shed. He got to his feet, and looked out the window. He saw streaks of red in a pale-blue sky. He opened the door to the utility shed, and went outside.
He was very thirsty, and his body was sore. He started walking beneath the canopy of trees. The jungle around him was silent in the early morning. He needed water. More than anything, he needed water. Somewhere off to his left, he heard the soft gurgle of a stream. He headed toward it, moving more quickly.
Through the trees, he could see the sky growing lighter. He knew that Malcolm and his party were still here. They must have some plan to get off the island. If they could get off, he could too.
He came over a low rise, and looked down at a gully and a flowing stream. It looked clear. He hurried down toward it, wondering if it was polluted. He decided he didn’t care. Just before he reached the stream, he tripped over a vine and fell, swearing.
He got to his feet, and looked back. Then he saw it wasn’t a vine he had tripped over.
It was the strap of a green backpack.
Dodgson tugged at the strap, and the whole backpack slid out of the foliage. The pack had been torn apart, and it was crusty with dried blood. As he pulled it, the contents clattered out among the ferns. Flies were buzzing everywhere. But he saw a camera, a metal case for food, and a plastic water bottle. He searched quickly through the surrounding ferns. But he didn’t find much else, except some soggy candy bars.
Dodgson drank the water, and then realized he was very hungry. He popped open the metal case, hoping for some decent food. But the case didn’t contain food. It was filled with foam packing.
And in the center of the packing was a radio.
He flicked it on. The battery light glowed strongly. He flicked from one channel to another, hearing static.
Then a man’s voice. “Sarah? This is Thorne. Sarah?”
After a moment, a woman’s voice: “Doc. Did you hear me? I said, I’m at the car.”
Dodgson listened, and smiled.
So there was a car.
In the store, Thorne held the radio close to his cheek. “Okay,” he said. “Sarah? Listen carefully. Get in the car, and do exactly what I tell you.”
“Okay fine,” she said. “But tell me first. Is Levine there?”
“He’s here.”
The radio clicked. She said, “Ask him if there’s any danger from a green dinosaur that’s about four feet tall and has a domed forehead.”
Levine nodded. “Tell her yes. They’re called pachycephalosaurs.”
“He says yes,” Thorne said. “They’re pachycephalo-somethings, and you should be careful. Why?”
“Because there’s about fifty of them, all around the car.”
Explorer
The Explorer was sitting in the middle of a shady section of the road, with overhanging trees above. The car had stopped just beyond a depression, where there had no doubt been a large puddle the night before. Now the puddle had become a mudhole, thanks to the dozen or so animals that sat in it, splashed in it, drank from it, and rolled at its edges. These were the green dome-headed dinosaurs that she had been watching for the last few minutes, trying to decide what to do. Because not only were they near the mudhole, they were also located in front of the car, and around the sides of the car.
She had watched the pachycephalosaurs with uneasiness. Harding had spent a lot of time on the ground with wild animals, but usually animals she knew well. From long experience, she knew how closely she could approach, and under what circumstances. If this were a herd of wildebeest, she would walk right in without hesitation. If it were a herd of American buffalo, she would be cautious, but she’d still go in. And if it were a herd of African buffalo, she wouldn’t go anywhere near them.
She pushed the microphone against her cheek and said, “How much time left?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Then I better get in there,” she said. “Any ideas?”
There was a pause. The radio crackled.
“Levine says nobody knows anything about these animals, Sarah.”
“Great.”
“Levine says a complete skeleton has never been recovered. So nobody has even a guess about their behavior, except that they’re probably aggressive.”
“Great,” she said.
She was looking at the situation of the car, and the overhanging trees. It was a shady area, peaceful and quiet in the early-morning light.
The radio crackled. “Levine says you might try walking slowly in, and see if the herd lets you through. But no quick movements, no sudden gestures.”
She stared at the animals and thought: They have those domed heads for a reason.
“No thanks,” she said. “I’m going to try something else.”
“What?”
In the store, Levine said, “What’d she say?”
“She said she was going to try something else.”
“Like what?” Levine said. He went to the window and looked out. The sky was growing lighter. He frowned. There was some consequence to that, he thought. Something he knew in the back of his mind, but wasn’t thinking about.
Something about daylight . . .
And territory.
Territory.
Levine looked out at the sky again, trying to put it together. What difference did it make that daylight was coming? He shook his head, gave it up for the moment. “How long to reset the breakers?”
“Just a minute or two,” Thorne said.
“Then there might still be time,” Levine said.
There was static hiss from the radio, and they heard Harding say, “Okay, I’m above the car.”
“You’re where?”
“I’m above the car,” she said. “In a tree.”
Harding climbed out on the branch, moving farther from the trunk, feeling it bend under her weight. The branch seemed supple. She was now ten feet above the car, swinging lower. Few of the animals below had looked up at her, but the herd seemed to be restless. Animals sitting in the mud got up, and began to turn and mill. She saw their tails flicking back and forth anxiously.
She moved farther out, and the branch bent lower. It was slippery from the night’s rain. She tried to gauge her position above the car. It looked pretty good, she thought.
Suddenly, one of the animals charged the trunk of the tree she was in, butting it hard. The impact was surprisingly forceful. The tree swayed, her branch swinging up and down, while she struggled to hold on.
Oh shit, she thought.
She rose up into the air, came down again, and then she lost her grip. Her hands slipped on wet leaves and wet bark, and she fell free. At the last moment, she saw that she would miss the car entirely. Then she hit the ground, landing hard in muddy earth.
Right beside the animals.
The radio crackled. “Sarah?” Thorne said.
There was no answer.
“What’s she doing now?” Levine began to pace nervously. “I wish we could see what she’s doing.”
In the corner of the room, Kelly got up, rubbing her eyes. “Why don’t you use the video?”
Thorne said, “What video?”
Kelly pointed to the cash register. “That’s a computer.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
* * *
Kelly yawned as she sat in the chair facing the cash register. It looked like a dumb terminal, which meant it probably didn’t have access to much, but it was worth a try anyway. She turned it on. Nothing happened. She flicked the power switch back and forth. Nothing.
Idly, she swung her legs, and kicked a wire beneath the table. She bent over and saw that the terminal was unplugged. So she plugged it in.
The screen glowed, and a single word appeared:
LOGIN:
To proceed further, she knew she needed a password. Arby had a password. She glanced over and saw that he was still asleep. She didn’t want to wake him up. She remembered t
hat he had written it down on a piece of paper and stuck it in his pocket. Maybe it was still in his clothes, she thought. She crossed the room, found the bundle of his wet, muddy clothes, and began going through the pockets. She found his wallet, the keys to his house, and some other stuff. Finally she found a piece of paper in his back pocket. It was damp, and streaked with mud. The ink had smeared, but she could still read his writing:
VIG/&*849/
Kelly took the paper and went back to the computer. She typed in all the characters carefully, and pressed the return key. The screen went blank, and then a new screen came up. She was surprised. It was different from the screen she had seen earlier, in the trailer.
She was in the system. But the whole thing looked different. Maybe because this wasn’t the radionet, she thought. She must be logged into the actual laboratory system. It had more graphics because the terminal was hard-wired. Maybe they even ran optical pipe out here.
Across the room, Levine said, “Kelly? How about it?”
“I’m working on it,” she said.
Cautiously, she began to type. Rows of icons appeared rapidly across the screen, one after another.
She knew she was looking at a graphic interface of some kind, but the meaning of the images wasn’t obvious to her, and there were no explanations. The people who had used this system were probably trained to know what the images meant. But Kelly didn’t know. She wanted to get into the video system, yet none of the pictures suggested anything to do with video. She moved the cursor around, wondering what to do.
She decided she’d have to guess. She picked the diamond-shaped icon on the lower left, and clicked on it.
“Uh-oh,” she said, alarmed.
Levine looked over. “Something wrong?”