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“Yes,” Grant said. “I'd say they display a mixture of traits.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“Not really,” Grant said. “It's actually rather close to what paleontologists believed a long time ago.”
When the first giant bones were found in the 1820s and 1830s, scientists felt obliged to explain the bones as belonging to some oversize variant of a modern species. This was because it was believed that no species could ever become extinct, since God would not allow one of His creations to die.
Eventually it became clear that this conception of God was mistaken, and the bones belonged to extinct animals. But what kind of animals?
In 1842, Richard Owen, the leading British anatomist of the day, called them Dinosauria, meaning “terrible lizards.” Owen recognized that dinosaurs seemed to combine traits of lizards, crocodiles, and birds. In particular, dinosaur hips were bird-like, not lizard-like. And, unlike lizards, many dinosaurs seemed to stand upright. Owen imagined dinosaurs to be quick-moving, active creatures, and his view was accepted for the next forty years.
But when truly gigantic finds were unearthed-animals that had weighed a hundred tons in life-scientists began to envision the dinosaurs as stupid, slow-moving giants destined for extinction. The image of the sluggish reptile gradually predominated over the image of the quick-moving bird. In recent years, scientists like Grant had begun to swing back toward the idea of more active dinosaurs. Grant's colleagues saw him as radical in his conception of dinosaur behavior. But now he had to admit his own conception had fallen far short of the reality of these large, incredibly swift hunters.
“Actually, what I was driving at,” Malcolm said, “was this: Is it a persuasive animal to you? Is it in fact a dinosaur?”
“I'd say so, yes.”
“And the coordinated attack behavior...”
“To be expected,” Grant said. According to the fossil record, packs of velociraptors were capable of bringing down animals that weighed a thousand pounds, like Tenontosaurus, which could run as fast as a horse. Coordination would be required.
“How do they do that, without language?”
“Oh, language isn't necessary for coordinated hunting,” Ellie said. “Chimpanzees do it all the time. A group of chimps will stalk a monkey and kill it. All communication is by eyes.”
“And were the dinosaurs in fact attacking us?”
“Yes.”
“They would kill us and eat us if they could?” Malcolm said.
“I think so.”
“The reason I ask,” Malcolm said, “is that I'm told large predators such as lions and tigers are not born man-eaters. Isn't that true? These animals must learn somewhere along the way that human beings are easy to kill. Only afterward do they become man-killers.”
“Yes, I believe that's true,” Grant said.
“Well, these dinosaurs must be even more reluctant than lions and tigers. After all, they come from a time before human beings-or even large mammals-existed at all. God knows what they think when they see us. So I wonder: have they learned, somewhere along the line, that humans are easy to kill?”
The group fell silent as they walked.
“In any case,” Malcolm said, “I shall be extremely interested to see the control room now.”
Version 4.4
“Was there any problem with the group?” Hammond asked.
“No,” Henry Wu said, “there was no problem at all.”
“They accepted your explanation?”
“Why shouldn't they?” Wu said. “It's all quite straightforward, in the broad strokes. It's only the details that get sticky. And I wanted to talk about the details with you today. You can think of it as a matter of aesthetics.”
John Hammond wrinkled his nose, as if he smelled something disagreeable. “Aesthetics?” he repeated.
They were standing in the living room of Hammond's elegant bungalow, set back among palm trees in the northern sector of the park. The living room was airy and comfortable, fitted with a half-dozen video monitors showing the animals in the park. The file Wu had brought, stamped ANIMAL DEVELOPMENT: VERSION 4.4, lay on the coffee table.
Hammond was looking at him in that patient, paternal way. Wu, thirty-three years old, was acutely aware that he had worked for Hammond all his professional life. Hammond had hired him right out of graduate school.
“Of course, there are practical consequences as well,” Wu said. “I really think you should consider my recommendations for phase two. We should go to version 4.4.”
“You want to replace all the current stock of animals?” Hammond said.
“Yes, I do.”
“Why? What's wrong with them?”
“Nothing,” Wu said, “except that they're real dinosaurs.”
“That's what I asked for, Henry,” Hammond said, smiling. “And that's what you gave me.”
“I know,” Wu said. “But you see...” He paused. How could he explain this to Hammond? Hammond hardly ever visited the island. And it was a peculiar situation that Wu was trying to convey. “Right now, as we stand here, almost no one in the world has ever seen an actual dinosaur. Nobody knows what they're really like.”
“Yes...”
“The dinosaurs we have now are real,” Wu said, pointing to the screens around the room, “but in certain ways they are unsatisfactory, Unconvincing. I could make them better.”
“Better in what way?”
“For one thing, they move too fast,” Henry Wu said. “People aren't accustomed to seeing large animals that are so quick. I'm afraid visitors will think the dinosaurs look speeded up, like film running too fast.”
“But, Henry, these are real dinosaurs. You said so yourself.”
“I know,” Wu said. “But we could easily breed slower, more domesticated dinosaurs.”
“Domesticated dinosaurs?” Hammond snorted. “Nobody wants domesticated dinosaurs, Henry. They want the real thing.”
“But that's my point,” Wu said. “I don't think they do. They want to see their expectation, which is quite different.”
Hammond was frowning.
“You said yourself, John, this park is entertainment,” Wu said. “And entertainment has nothing to do with reality. Entertainment is antithetical to reality.”
Hammond sighed. “Now, Henry, are we going to have another one of those abstract discussions? You know I like to keep it simple. The dinosaurs we have now are real, and-”
“Well, not exactly,” Wu said. He paced the living room, pointed to the monitors. “I don't think we should kid ourselves. We haven't re-created the past here. The past is gone. It can never be re-created. What we've done is reconstruct the past-or at least a version of the past. And I'm saying we can make a better version.”
“Better than real?”
“Why not?” Wu said. “After all, these animals are already modified. We've inserted genes to make them patentable, and to make them lysine dependent. And we've done everything we can to promote growth, and accelerate development into adulthood.”
Hammond shrugged. “That was inevitable. We didn't want to wait. We have investors to consider.”
“Of course. But I'm 'ust saying, why stop there? Why not push ahead to make exactly the kind of dinosaur that we'd like to see? One that is more acceptable to visitors, and one that is easier for us to handle? A slower, more docile version for our park?”
Hammond frowned. “But then the dinosaurs wouldn't be real.”
“But they're not real now,” Wu said. “That's what I'm trying to tell you. There isn't any reality here.” He shrugged helplessly. He could see he wasn't getting through. Hammond had never been interested in technical details, and the essence of the argument was technical. How could he explain to Hammond about the reality of DNA dropouts, the patches, the gaps in the sequence that Wu had been obliged to fill in, making the best guesses he could, but still, making guesses, The DNA of the dinosaurs was like old photographs that had been retouched, basically the same as the original but in some places repaired and clarified, and as a result-
“Now, Henry,” Hammond said, putting his arm around Wu's shoulder. “If you don't mind my saying so, I think you're getting cold feet. You've been working very hard for a long time, and you've done a hell of a job-a hell of a job-and it's finally time to reveal to some people what you've done. It's natural to be a little nervous. To have some doubts. But I am convinced, Henry, that the world will be entirely satisfied. Entirely satisfied.”
As he spoke, Hammond steered him toward the door.
“But, John,” Wu said. “Remember back in '87, when we started to build the containment devices? We didn't have any full-grown adults yet, so we had to predict what we'd need- We ordered big taser shockers, cars with cattle prods mounted on them, guns that blow out electric nets. All built specially to our specifications. We've got a whole array of devices now and they're all too slow. We've got to make some adjustments. You know that Muldoon wants military equipment: TOW missiles and laser-guided devices?”
“Let's leave Muldoon out of this,” Hammond said. “I'm not worried. It's just a zoo, Henry.”
The phone rang, and Hammond went to answer it. Wu tried to think of another way to press his case. But the fact was that, after five long years, Jurassic Park was nearing completion, and John Hammond lust wasn't listening to him any more.
There had been a time when Hammond listened to Wu very attentively. Especially when he had first recruited him, back in the days when Henry Wu was a twenty-eight-year-old graduate student getting his doctorate at Stanford in Norman Atherton's tab.
Atherton's death had thrown the lab into confusion as well as mourning; no one knew what would happen to the funding or the doctoral programs. There was a lot of uncertainty; people worried about their careers.
Two weeks after the funeral, John Hammond came to see Wu. Everyone in the lab knew that Atherton had had some association with Hammond, although the details were never clear. But Hammond had approached Wu with a directness Wu never forgot.
“Norman always said you're the best geneticist in his lab,” he said. “What are your plans now?”
“I don't know. Research.”
“You want a university appointment?”
“Yes.”
“That's a mistake,” Hammond said briskly. “At least, if you respect your talent.”
Wu had blinked. “Why?”
“Because, let's face facts,” Hammond said. “Universities are no longer the intellectual centers of the country. The very idea is preposterous. Universities are the backwater. Don't look so surprised. I'm not saying anything you don't know. Since World War II, all the really important discoveries have come out of private laboratories. The laser, the transistor the polio vaccine, the microchip, the hologram, the personal computer, magnetic resonance imaging, CAT scans-the list goes on and on. Universities simply aren't where it's happening any more. And they haven't been for forty years. If you want to do something important in computers or genetics, you don't go to a university. Dear me, no.”
Wu found he was speechless.
“Good heavens,” Hammond said, “what must you go through to start a new project? How many grant applications, how many forms, how many approvals? The steering committee? The department chairman? The university resources committee? How do you get more work space if you need I. t? More assistants if you need them? How long does all that take? A brilliant man can't squander precious time with forms and committees. Life is too short, and DNA too long. You want to make your mark. If you want to get something done, stay out of universities.”
In those days, Wu desperately wanted to make his mark. John Hammond had his full attention.
“I'm talking about work, ” Hammond continued. “Real accomplishment. What does a scientist need to work? He needs time, and he needs money. I'm talking about giving you a five-year commitment, and ten million dollars a year in funding. Fifty million dollars, and no one tells you how to spend it. You decide. Everyone else just gets out of your way.”
It sounded too good to be true. Wu was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “In return for what?”
“For taking a crack at the impossible,” Hammond said. “For trying something that probably can't be done.”
“What does it involve?”
“I can't give you details, but the general area involves cloning reptiles.”
“I don't think that's impossible,” Wu said. “Reptiles are easier than mammals. Cloning's probably only ten, fifteen years off. Assuming some fundamental advances.”
“I've got five years,” Hammond said. “And a lot of money, for somebody who wants to take a crack at it now.”
“Is my work publishable?”
“Eventually.”
“Not immediately?”
“But eventually publishable?” Wu asked, sticking on this point.
Hammond had laughed. “Don't worry. If you succeed, the whole world will know about what you've done, I promise you.”
And now it seemed the whole world would indeed know, Wu thought. After five years of extraordinary effort, they were just a year away from opening the park to the public. Of course, those years hadn't gone exactly as Hammond had promised. Wu had had some people telling him what to do, and many times fearsome pressures were placed on him. And the work itself had shifted-it wasn't even reptilian cloning, once they began to understand that dinosaurs were so similar to birds. It was avian cloning, a very different proposition. Much more difficult. And for the last two years, Wu had been primarily an administrator, supervising teams of researchers and banks of computer-operated gene sequencers. Administration wasn't the kind of work he relished. It wasn't what he had bargained for.
Still, he had succeeded. He had done what nobody really believed could be done, at least in so short a time. And Henry Wu thought that he should have some rights, some say in what happened, by virtue of his expertise and his efforts. Instead, he found his influence waning with each passing day. The dinosaurs existed. The procedures for obtaining them were worked out to the point of being routine. The technologies were mature. And John Hammond didn't need Henry Wu any more.
“That should be fine,” Hammond said, speaking into the phone. He listened for a while, and smiled at Wu. “Fine. Yes. Fine.” He hung up. “Where were we, Henry?”
“We were talking about phase two,” Wu said.
“Oh yes. We've gone over some of this before, Henry-”
“I know, but you don't realize-”
“Excuse me, Henry,” Hammond said, with an edge of impatience in his voice. “I do realize. And I must tell you frankly, Henry. I see no reason to improve upon reality. Every change we've made in the genome has been forced on us by law or necessity. We may make other changes in the future, to resist disease, or for other reasons. But I don't think we should improve upon reality just because we think it's better that way. We have real dinosaurs out there now. That's what people want to see. And that's what they should see. That's our obligation, Henry. That's honest, Henry.”
And, smiling, Hammond opened the door for him to leave.
Control
Grant looked at all the computer monitors in the darkened control room, feeling irritable. Grant didn't like computers. He knew that this made him old-fashioned, dated as a researcher, but he didn't care. Some of the kids who worked for him had a real feeling for computers, an intuition. Grant never felt that. He found computers to be alien, mystifying machines. Even the fundamental distinction between an operating system and an application left him confused and disheartened, literally lost in a foreign geography he didn't begin to comprehend. But he noticed that Gennaro was perfectly comfortable, and Malcolm seemed to be in his element, making little sniffing sounds, like a bloodhound on a trail.
“You want to know about control mechanisms?” John Arnold said, turning in his chair in the control room. The head engineer was a thin, tense, chain-smoking man of forty-five. He squinted at the others in the room. “We have unbelievable control mechanisms,” Arnold said, and lit another cigarette.
“For example,” Gennaro said.
“For example, animal tracking.” Arnold pressed a button on his console, and the vertical glass map lit up with a pattern of jagged blue lines. “That's our juvenile T-rex. The little rex. All his movements within the park over the last twenty-four hours.” Arnold pressed the button again. “Previous twenty-four.” And again. “Previous twenty-four.”
The lines on the map became densely overlaid, a child's scribble. But the scribble was localized in a single area, near the southeast side of the lagoon.
“You get a sense of his home range over time,” Arnold said. "He's young, so he stays close to the water. And he stays away from the big adult rex. You put up the big rex and the little rex, and you'll see their paths never cross.
“Where is the big rex right now?” Gennaro asked.
Arnold pushed another button. The map cleared, and a single glowing spot with a code number appeared in the fields northwest of the lagoon. “He's right there.”
“And the little rex?”
“Hell, I'll show you every animal in the park,” Arnold said. The map began to light up like a Christmas tree, dozens of spots of light, each tagged with a code number. “That's two hundred thirty-eight animals as of this minute.”
“How accurate?”
“Within five feet.” Arnold puffed on the cigarette. “Let's put it this way: you drive out in a vehicle and you will find the animals right there, exactly as they're shown on the map.”
“How often is this updated?”
“Every thirty seconds.”
“Pretty impressive,” Gennaro said. “How's it done?”
“We have motion sensors all around the park,” Arnold said. “Most of 'em hard-wired, some radio-telemetered. Of course, motion sensors won't usually tell you the species, but we get image recognition direct off the video. Even when we're not watching the video monitors, the computer is. And checking where everybody is.”
“Does the computer ever make a mistake?”
“Only with the babies. It mixes those up sometimes, because they're such small images. But we don't sweat that. The babies almost always stay close to herds of adults. Also you have the category tally.”
“What's that?”
“Once every fifteen minutes, the computer tallies the animals in all categories,” Arnold said. “Like this.”
Total Animals 238____________________________________
Species Expected Found Ver
Tyrannosaurs 2 2 4.1
Maiasaurs 21 21 3.3
Stegosaurs 4 4 3.9
Triceratops 8 8 3.1
Procompsognathids 49 49 3.9
Othnielia 16 16 3.1
Velociraptors 8 8 3.0
Apatosaurs 17 17 3.1
Hadrosaurs 11 11 3.1
Dilophosaurs 7 7 4.3
Pterosaurs 6 6 4.3
Hypsilophodontids 33 33 2.9
Euoplocepbalids 16 16 4.0
Styracosaurs 18 18 3.9
Callovosaurs 22 22 4.1
Total 238 238
“What you see here,” Arnold said, “is an entirely separate counting procedure. It isn't based on the tracking data. It's a fresh look. The whole idea is that the computer can't make a mistake, because it compares two different ways of gathering the data. If an animal were missing, we'd know it within five minutes.”
“I see,” Malcolm said. “And has that ever actually been tested?”
“Well, in a way,” Arnold said. “We've had a few animals die. An othniellan got caught in the branches of a tree and strangled. One of the stegos died of that intestinal illness that keeps bothering them. One of the hypsilophodonts fell and broke his neck. And in each case, once the animal stopped moving, the numbers stopped tallying and the computer signaled an alert.”
“Within five minutes.”
“Yes.”
Grant said, “What is the right-hand column?”
“Release version of the animals. The most recent are version 4.1 or 4.3. We're considering going to version 4.4.”
“Version numbers? You mean like software? New releases?”
“Well, yes,” Arnold said. “It is like software, in a way. As we discover the glitches in the DNA, Dr. Wu's labs have to make a new version.”
The idea of living creatures being numbered like software, being subject to updates and revisions, troubled Grant. He could not exactly say why-it was too new a thought-out he was instinctively uneasy about it. They were, after all, living creatures....
Arnold must have noticed his expression, because he said, “Look, Dr. Grant, there's no point getting starry-eyed about these animals. It's important for everyone to remember that these animals are created. Created by man. Sometimes there are bugs. So, as we discover the bugs, Dr. Wu's labs have to make a new version. And we need to keep track of what version we have out there.”
“Yes, yes, of course you do,” Malcolm said impatiently. “But, going back to the matter of counting-I take it all the counts are based on motion sensors?”
“Yes.”
“And these sensors are everywhere in the park?”
“They cover ninety-two percent of the land area,” Arnold said. “There are only a few places we can't use them. For example, we can't use them on the jungle river, because the movement of the water and the convection rising from the surface screws up the sensors. But we have them nearly everywhere else. And if the computer tracks an animal into an unsensed zone, it'll remember, and look for the animal to come out again. And if it doesn't, it gives us an alarm.”
“Now, then,” Malcolm said. “You show forty-nine procompsognatbids. Suppose I suspect that some of them aren't really the correct species. How would you show me that I'm wrong?”
“Two ways,” Arnold said. “First of all, I can track individual movements against the other presumed compys. Compys are social animals, they move in a group. We have two compy groups in the park. So the individuals should be within either group A or group B.”
“Yes, but-”
“The other way is direct visual,” he said. He punched buttons and one of the monitors began to flick rapidly through images of compys, numbered from 1 to 49.
“These pictures are...”
“Current ID images. From within the last five minutes.”
“So you can see all the animals, if you want to?”
“Yes. I can visually review all the animals whenever I want.”
“How about physical containment?” Gennaro said. “Can they get out of their enclosures?”
“Absolutely not,” Arnold said. “These are expensive animals, Mr. Gennaro. We take very good care of them. We maintain multiple barriers. First, the moats.” He pressed a button, and the board lit up with a network of orange bars. “These moats are never less than twelve feet deep, and water-filled. For bigger animals the moats may be thirty feet deep. Next, the electrified fences.” Lines of bright red glowed on the board. “We have fifty miles of twelve-foot-high fencing, including twenty-two miles around the perimeter of the island. All the park fences carry ten thousand volts. The animals quickly learn not to go near them.”
“But if one did get out?” Gennaro said.
Arnold snorted, and stubbed out his cigarette.
“Just hypothetically,” Gennaro said. “Supposing it happened?”
Muldoon cleared his throat. “We'd go out and get the animal back,” he said “We have lots of ways to do that-taser shock guns, electrified nets, tranquilizers. All nonlethal, because, as Mr. Arnold says, these are expensive animals.”
Gennaro nodded. “And if one got off the island?”
“It'd die in less than twenty-four hours,” Arnold said. “These are genetically engineered animals. They're unable to survive in the real world.”
“How about this control system itself?” Gennaro said. “Could anybody tamper with it?”
Arnold was shaking his head. “The system is hardened. The computer is independent in every way. Independent power and independent backup power. The system does not communicate with the outside, so it cannot be influenced remotely by modem. The computer system is secure.”
There was a pause. Arnold puffed his cigarette. “Hell of a system,” he said. “Hell of a goddamned system.”
“Then I guess,” Malcolm said, “your system works so well, you don't have any problems.”
“We've got endless problems here,” Arnold said, raising an eyebrow. "But none of the things you worry about. I gather you're worried that the animals will escape, and will get to the mainland and raise hell. We haven't got any concern about that at all. We see these animals as fragile and delicate. They've been brought back after sixty-five million years to a world that's very different from the one they left, the one they were adapted to. We have a hell of a time caring for them.
“You have to realize,” Arnold continued, “that men have been keeping mammals and reptiles in zoos for hundreds of years. So we know a lot about how to take care of an elephant or a croc. But nobody has ever tried to take care of a dinosaur before. They are new animals. And we just don't know. Diseases in our animals are the biggest concern.”
“Diseases?” Gennaro said, suddenly alarmed. “Is there any way that a visitor could get sick?”
Arnold snorted again. "You ever catch a cold from a zoo alligator, Mr. Gennaro? Zoos don't worry about that. Neither do we. What we do worry about is the animals dying from their own illnesses, or infecting other animals. But we have programs to monitor that, too. You want to see the big rex's health file? His vaccination record? His dental record? That's something-you ought to see the vets scrubbing those big fangs so he doesn't get tooth decay.
“Not just now,” Gennaro said. “What about your mechanical systems?”
“You mean the rides?” Arnold said.
Grant looked up sharply: rides?
“None of the rides are running yet,” Arnold was saying. “We have the jungle River Ride, where the boats follow tracks underwater, and we have the Aviary Lodge Ride, but none of it's operational yet. The park'll open with the basic dinosaur tour-the one that you're about to take in a few minutes. The other rides will come on line six, twelve months after that.”
“Wait a minute,” Grant said. “You're going to have rides? Like an amusement park?”
Arnold said, “This is a zoological park. We have tours of different areas, and we call them rides. That's all.”
Grant frowned. Again he felt troubled. He didn't like the idea of dinosaurs being used for an amusement park.
Malcolm continued his questions. “You can run the whole park from this control room?”
“Yes,” Arnold said. “I can run it single-handed, if I have to. We've got that much automation built in. The computer by itself can track the animals, feed them, and fill their water troughs for forty-eight hours without supervision.”
“This is the system Mr. Nedry designed?” Malcolm asked. Dennis Nedry was sitting at a terminal in the far corner of the room, eating a candy bar and typing.
“Yes, that's right,” Nedry said, not looking up from the keyboard.
“It's a hell of a system,” Arnold said proudly.
“That's right,” Nedry said absently. “Just one or two minor bugs to fix.”
“Now,” Arnold said, “I see the tour is starting, so unless you have other questions...”
“Actually, just one,” Malcolm said. “Just a research question. You showed us that you can track the procompsognathids and you can visually display them individually. Can you do any studies of them as a group? Measure them, or whatever? If I wanted to know height or weight, or...”
Arnold was punching buttons. Another screen came up.
[picture]
“We can do all of that, and very quickly,” Arnold said. “The computer takes measurement data in the course of reading the video screens, so it is translatable at once. You see here we have a normal Poisson distribution for the animal population. It shows that most of the animals cluster around an average central value, and a few are either larger or smaller than the average, at the tails of the curve.”
“You'd expect that kind of graph,” Malcolm said.
“Yes. Any healthy biological population shows this kind of distribution. Now, then,” Arnold said, lighting another cigarette, “are there any other questions?”
“No,” Malcolm said. “I've learned what I need to know.”
As they were walking out, Gennaro said, “It looks like a pretty good system to me. I don't see how any animals could get off this island,”
“Don't you?” Malcolm said. “I thought it was completely obvious.”
“Wait a minute,” Gennaro said. “You think animals have gotten out?”
“I know they have.”
Gennaro said, "But how? You saw for yourself. They can count all the animals. They can look at all the animals. They know where all the animals are at all times. How can one possibly escape?
Malcolm smiled. “It's quite obvious,” he said. “It's just a matter of your assumptions.”
“Your assumptions,” Gennaro repeated, frowning.
“Yes,” Malcolm said. “Look here. The basic event that has occurred in Jurassic Park is that the scientists and technicians have tried to make a new, complete biological world. And the scientists in the control room expect to see a natural world. As in the graph they just showed us. Even though a moment's thought reveals that nice, normal distribution is terribly worrisome on this island.”
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