Michael Crichton - The Lost World

"Okay," Dodgson said. "So we make a discovery. And then what? Hold a press conference?"

"Absolutely not," Baselton said, looking horrified. "A press conference would appear extremely crass. It would open us up to all sorts of criticism. No, no. A discovery of this magnitude must be treated with decorum. It must be reported, Lew."

"Reported?"

"In the literature: Nature, I imagine. Yes."

Dodgson squinted. "You want to announce this in an academic publication?"

"What better way to make it legitimate?" Baselton said. "It's entirely proper to present our findings to our scholarly peers. Of course it will start a debate - but what will that debate consist of? An academic squabble, professors sniping at professors, which will fill the science pages of the newspapers for three days, until it is pushed aside by the latest news on breast implants. And in those three days, we will have staked our claim."

"You'll write it?"

"Yes," Baselton said. "And later, I think, an article in American Scholar, or perhaps Natural History. A human-interest piece, what this discovery means for the future, what it tells us about the past, all that…"

Dodgson nodded. He could see that Baselton was correct, and he was reminded once again how much he needed him, and how wise he had been to add him to the team. Dodgson never thought about public reaction. And Baselton thought about nothing else.

"Well, that's fine," Dodgson said. "But none of it matters, unless we get to that island." He glanced at his watch again.

He heard a door open behind him, and Dodgson's assistant Howard King came in, pulling a heavyset Costa Rican man, with a mustache. The man had a weathered face and a sullen expression.

Dodgson turned on his stool. "Is this the guy?"

"Yes, Lew."

"What's his name?"

"Gandoca."

"Senor Gandoca." Dodgson held up the photo of Levine. "You know this man?"

Gandoca hardly glanced at the photo. He nodded. "Si. Senor Levine."

"That's right. Senor flicking Levine. When was he here?"

"A few days ago. He left with Dieguito, my cousin. They are not back yet."

"And where did they go?" Dodgson asked.

"Isla Sorna."

"Good." Dodgson drained his beer, pushed the bottle away. "You have a boat?" He turned to King. "Does he have a boat?"

King said, "He's a fisherman. He has a boat."

Gandoca nodded. "A fishing boat. Si."

"Good. I want to go to Isla Sorna, too."

"Si, senor, but today the weather - "

"I don't care about the weather," Dodgson said. "The weather will get better. I want to go now."

"Perhaps later - "

"Now."

Gandoca spread his hands. "I am very sorry, senor - "

Dodgson said, "Show him the money, Howard."

King opened a briefcase. It was filled with five thousand colon notes. Gatidoca looked, picked up one of the bills, inspected it. He put it back carefully, shifted on his feet a little.

Dodgson said, "I want to go now."

"Si, senor," Gandoca said. "We leave when you are ready."

"That's more like it," Dodgson said. "How long to get to the island?"

"Perhaps two hours, senor."

"Fine," Dodgson said. "That'll be fine."

"Here we go!"

There was a click as Levine connected the flexible cable to the Explorer's power winch, and flicked it on. The cable turned slowly in the sunlight.

They had all moved down onto the broad grassy plain at the base of the cliff. The midday sun was high overhead, glaring off the rocky rim of the island. Below, the valley shimmered in midday heat.

There was a herd of hypsilophodons a short distance away; the green gazelle-like animals raised their heads occasionally above the grass to look toward them, every time they heard the clink of metal, as Eddie and the kids laid out the aluminum strut assembly which had been the subject of so much speculation back in California. That assembly now looked like a jumble of thin struts - an oversized version of pickup sticks - lying in the grass of the plain.

"Now we will see," Levine said, rubbing his hands together.

As the motor turned, the aluminum struts began to move, and slowly lifted into the air. The emerging structure appeared spidery and delicate, but Thorne knew that the cross-bracing would give it surprising strength. Struts unfolding, the structure rose ten feet, then fifteen feet, and finally it stopped. The little house at the top was now just beneath the lowest branches of the nearby trees, which almost concealed it from view. But the scaffolding itself gleamed bright and shiny in the sun.

"Is that it?" Arby said.

"That's it, yes." Thorne walked around the four sides, slipping in the locking pins, to hold it upright.

"But it's much too shiny," Levine said. "We should have made it matte black."

Thorne said, "Eddie, we need to hide this."

"Want to spray it, Doc? I think I brought some black paint."

Levine shook his head. "No, then it'll smell. How about those palms?

"Sure, we can do that." Eddie walked to a stand of nearby palms, and began to hack away big fronds with his machete.

Kelly stared up at the aluminum strut assembly. "It's great," she said. "But what is it?"

"It's a high hide," Levine said. "Come on." And he began to climb the scaffolding.

The structure at the top was a little house, its roof supported by aluminum bars spaced four feet apart. The floor of the house was also made of aluminum bars, but these were closer together, about six inches apart. Their feet threatened to slip through, so Levine took the first of the bundles of fronds that Eddie Carr was raising on a rope, and used them to make a more complete floor. The remaining fronds he tied to the outside of the house, concealing its structure.

Arby and Kelly stared out at the animals. From their vantage point, they could look across the whole valley. There was a distant herd of apatosaurs, on the other side of the river. A cluster of triceratops browsed to the north. Nearer the water, some duck-billed dinosaurs with long crests rising above their heads moved forward to drink. A low, trumpeting cry from the duckbills floated across the valley toward them: a deep, unearthly sound. A moment later, there was an answering cry, from the forest at the opposite side of the valley.

"What was that?" Kelly said.

"Parasaurolophus," Levine said. "It's trumpeting through its nuchal crest. Low-frequency sound carries a long distance."

To, the south, there was a herd of dark-green animals, with large curved protruding foreheads, and a rim of small knobby horns. They looked a little like buffalo. "What do you call those?" Kelly said.

"Good question," Levine said. "They are either Gravitholus albertae, or more likely Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis. But it's difficult to say for sure, because a full skeleton for these animals has never been recovered. Their foreheads are very thick bone, so we've found many domed cranial fragments. But this is the first time I've ever seen the whole animal."

"And those heads? What are they for?" Arby said.

"Nobody knows," Levine said. "Everyone has assumed they're used for butting, for intraspecies fighting among males. Competition for females, that sort of thing."

Malcolm climbed up into the hide. "Yes, butting heads, he said sourly. "Just as you see them now."

"All right," Levine said, "so they're not butting heads at the moment. Perhaps their breeding season is concluded."

"Or perhaps they don't do it at all," Malcolm said, staring at the green animals. "They look pretty peaceful to me."

"Yes," Levine said," but of course that doesn't mean a thing. African buffalo appear peaceful most of the time too - in fact, they usually just stand motonless. Yet they're unpredictable and dangerous animals. We have to presume those domes exist for a reason - even if we're not seeing it now."