Michael Crichton - Jurassic Park

Walking back toward the control room, Malcolm said, "I have one more question, Dr. Wu. How many different species have you made so far?"

"I'm not exactly sure," Wu said. "I believe the number at the moment is fifteen. Fifteen species. Do you know, Ed?"

"Yes, it's fifteen," Ed Regis said, nodding.

"You don't know for sure?" Malcolm said, affecting astonishment.

Wu smiled. "I stopped counting," he said, "after the first dozen. And you have to realize that sometimes we think we have an animal correctly made-from the standpoint of the DNA, which is our basic work-and the animal grows for six months and then something untoward happens. And we realize there is some error. A releaser gene isn't operating. A hormone not being released. Or some other problem in the developmental sequence. So we have to go back to the drawing board with that animal, so to speak." He smiled. "At one time, I thought I had more than twenty species, But now, only fifteen."

"And is one of the fifteen species a-" Malcolm turned to Grant. "What was the name?"

"Procompsognathus, " Grant said.

"You have made some procompsognathuses, or whatever they're called?" Malcolm asked.

"Oh yes," Wu said immediately. "Compys are very distinctive animals. And, we made an unusually large number of them."

"Why is that?"

"Well, we want Jurassic Park to be as real an environment as possible-as authentic as possible-and the procompsognathids are actual scavengers from the Jurassic period. Rather like jackals. So we wanted to have the compys around to clean up."

"You mean to dispose of carcasses?"

"Yes, if there were any. But with only two hundred and thirty-odd animals in our total population, we don't have many carcasses," Wu said. "That wasn't the primary objective. Actually, we wanted the compys for another kind of waste management entirely."

"Which was?"

"Well," Wu said, "we have some very big herbivores on this island. We have specifically tried not to breed the biggest sauropods, but even so, we've got several animals in excess of thirty tons walking around out there, and many others in the five- to ten-ton area. That gives us two problems. One is feeding them, and in fact we must import food to the island every two weeks. There is no way an island this small can support these animals for any time.

"But the other problem is waste. I don't know if you've ever seen elephant droppings," Wu said, "but they are substantial. Each spoor is roughly the size of a soccer ball. Imagine the droppings of a brontosaur, ten times as large. Now imagine the droppings of a herd of such animals, as we keep here. And the largest animals do not digest their food terribly well, so that they excrete a great deal. And in the sixty million years since dinosaurs disappeared, apparently the bacteria that specialize in breaking down their feces disappeared, too. At least, the sauropod feces don't decompose readily."

"That's a problem," Malcolm said.

"I assure you it is," Wu said, not smiling. "We had a hell of a time trying to solve it. You probably know that in Africa there is a specific insect, the dung beetle, which eats elephant feces. Many other large species have associated creatures that have evolved to eat their excrement. Well, it turns out that compys will eat the feces of large herbivores and redigest it. And the droppings of compys are readily broken down by contemporary bacteria. So, given enough compys, our problem was solved."

"How many compys did you make?"

"I've forgotten exactly, but I think the target population was fifty animals. And we attained that, or very nearly so. In three batches. We did a batch every six months until we had the number."

"Fifty animals," Malcolm said, "is a lot to keep track of."

"The control room is built to do exactly that. They'll show you how it's done."

"I'm sure," Malcolm said. "But if one of these compys were to escape from the island, to get away.

"They can't get away."

"I know that, but just supposing one did…"

"You mean like the animal that was found on the beach?" Wu said, raising his eyebrows. "The one that bit the American girl?"

"Yes, for example."

"I don't know what the explanation for that animal is," Wu said. "But I know it can't possibly be one of ours, for two reasons. First, the control procedures: our animals are counted by computer every few minutes. If one were missing, we'd know at once."

"And the second reason?"

"The mainland is more than a hundred miles away. It takes almost a day to get there by boat. And in the outside world our animals will die within twelve hours," Wu said.

"How do you know?"

"Because I've made sure that's precisely what will occur," Wu said, finally showing a trace of irritation. "Look, we're not fools. We understand these are prehistoric animals. They are part of a vanished ecology-a complex web of life that became extinct millions of years ago. They might have no predators in the contemporary world, no checks on their growth. We don't want them to survive in the wild. So I've made them lysine dependent. I inserted a gene that makes a single faulty enzyme in protein metabolism. As a result, the animals cannot manufacture the amino acid lysine. They must ingest it from the outside. Unless they get a rich dietary source of exogenous lysine-supplied by us, in tablet form-they'll go into a coma within twelve hours and expire. These animals are genetically engineered to be unable to survive in the real world. They can only live here in Jurassic Park. They are not free at all. They are essentially our prisoners."

"Here's the control room," Ed Regis said. "Now that you know how the animals are made, you'll want to see the control room for the park itself, before we go out on the-"

He stopped. Through the thick glass window, the room was dark. The monitors were off, except for three that displayed spinning numbers and the image of a large boat.

"What's going on?" Ed Regis said. "Oh hell, they're docking."

"Docking?"

"Every two weeks, the supply boat comes in from the mainland. One of the things this island doesn't have is a good harbor, or even a good dock. It's a little hairy to get the ship in, when the seas are rough. Could be a few minutes." He rapped on the window, but the men inside paid no attention. "I guess we have to wait, then."

Ellie turned to Dr. Wu. "You mentioned before that sometimes you make an animal and it seems to be fine but, as it grows, it shows itself to be flawed…"

"Yes," Wu said. "I don't think there's any way around that. We can duplicate the DNA, but there is a lot of timing in development, and we don't know if everything is working unless we actually see an animal develop correctly."

Grant said, "How do you know if it's developing correctly? No one has ever seen these animals before."

Wu smiled. "I have often thought about that. I suppose it is a bit of a paradox. Eventually, I hope, paleontologists such as yourself will compare our animals with the fossil record to verify the developmental sequence."

Ellie said, "But the animal we just saw, the velociraptor-you said it was a mongoliensis?"

"From the location of the amber," Wu said. "It it is from China."

"Interesting," Grant said. "I was just digging up an infant antirrhopus. Are there any full-grown raptors here?"

"Yes," Ed Regis said without hesitation. "Eight adult females. The females are the real hunters. They're pack hunters, you know."

"Will we see them on the tour?"

"No," Wu said, looking suddenly uncomfortable. And there was an awkward pause. Wu looked at Regis.

"Not for a while," Regis said cheerfully. "The velociraptors haven't been integrated into the park setting just yet. We keep them in a holding pen,"

"Can I see them there?" Grant said.