Grant gave instructions for the trench. From the computer image, they knew the skeleton lay in a relatively confined area; a ditch around a two-meter square would be sufficient. Meanwhile, Ellie lashed down the tarp that covered the side of the hill. Grant helped her pound in the final stakes.
"How did the baby die?" one of the kids asked.
"I doubt we'll know," Grant replied. "Infant mortality in the wild is high. In African parks, it runs seventy percent among some carnivores. It could have been anything - disease, separation from the group, anything. Or even attack by an adult. We know these animals hunted in packs, but we don't know anything about their social behavior in a group."
The students nodded. They had all studied animal behavior, and they knew, for example, that when a new male took over a lion pride, the first thing he did was kill all the cubs. The reason was apparently genetic: the male had evolved to disseminate his genes as widely as possible, and by killing the cubs he brought all the females into heat, so that he could impregnate them. It also prevented the females from wasting their time nurturing the offspring of another male.
Perhaps the velociraptor hunting pack was also ruled by a dominant male. They knew so little about dinosaurs, Grant thought. After 150 years of research and excavation all around the world, they still knew almost nothing about what the dinosaurs had really been like.
"We've got to go," Ellie said, "if we're going to get to Choteau by five."
Hammond
Gennaro's secretary bustled in with a new suitcase. It still had the sales tags on it. "You know, Mr. Gennaro," she said severely, "when you forget to pack it makes me think you don't really want to go on this trip."
"Maybe you're right," Gennaro said. "I'm missing my kid's birthday." Saturday was Amanda's birthday, and Elizabeth had invited twenty screaming four-year-olds to share it, as well as Cappy the Clown and a magician. His wife hadn't been happy to hear that Gennaro was going out of town. Neither was Amanda.
"Well, I did the best I could on short notice," his secretary said. "There's running shoes your size, and khaki shorts and shirts, and a shaving kit. A pair of jeans and a sweatshirt if it gets cold. The car is downstairs to take you to the airport. You have to leave now to make the flight."
She left. Gennaro walked down the hallway, tearing the sales tags off the suitcase. As he passed the all-glass conference room, Dan Ross left the table and came outside.
"Have a good trip," Ross said. "But let's be very clear about one thing. I don't know how bad this situation actually is, Donald. But if there's a problem on that island, burn it to the ground."
"Jesus, Dan… We're talking about a big investment."
"Don't hesitate. Don't think about it. Just do it. Hear me?"
Gennaro nodded. "I hear you," he said. "But Hammond- "
"Screw Hammond," Ross said.
"My boy, my boy," the familiar raspy voice said. "How have you been, my boy?"
"Very well, sir," Gennaro replied. He leaned back in the padded leather chair of the Gulfstream II jet as it flew east, toward the Rocky Mountains.
"You never call me any more," Hammond said reproachfully. "I've missed you, Donald. How is your lovely wife?"
"She's fine. Elizabeth's fine. We have a little girl now."
"Wonderful, wonderful. Children are such a delight. She'd get a kick out of our new park in Costa Rica."
Gennaro had forgotten how short Hammond was; as he sat in the chair, his feet didn't touch the carpeting-he swung his legs as he talked. There was a childlike quality to the man, even though Hammond must now be… what? Seventy-five? Seventy-six? Something like that. He looked older than Gennaro remembered, but then, Gennaro hadn't seen him for almost five years.
Hammond was flamboyant, a born showman, and back in 1983 he had had an elephant that he carried around with him in a little cage. The elephant was nine inches high and a foot long, and perfectly formed, except his tusks were stunted. Hammond took the elephant with him to fund-raising meetings. Gennaro usually carried it into the room, the cage covered with a little blanket, like a tea cozy, and Hammond would give his usual speech about the prospects for developing what he called "consumer biologicals." Then, at the dramatic moment, Hammond would whip away the blanket to reveal the elephant. And he would ask for money.
The elephant was always a rousing success; its tiny body, hardly bigger than a cat's, promised untold wonders to come from the laboratory of Norman Atherton, the Stanford geneticist who was Hammond's partner in the new venture.
But as Hammond talked about the elephant, he left a great deal unsaid. For example, Hammond was starting a genetics company, but the tiny elephant hadn't been made by any genetic procedure; Atherton had simply taken a dwarf-elephant embryo and raised it in an artificial womb with hormonal modifications. That in itself was quite an achievement, but nothing like what Hammond hinted had been done.
Also, Atherton hadn't been able to duplicate his miniature elephant, and he'd tried. For one thing, everybody who saw the elephant wanted one. Then, too, the elephant was prone to colds, particularly during winter. The sneezes coming through the little trunk filled Hammond with dread. And sometimes the elephant would get his tusks stuck between the bars of the cage and snort irritably as he tried to get free; sometimes he got infections around the tusk line. Hammond always fretted that his elephant would die before Atherton could grow a replacement.
Hammond also concealed from prospective investors the fact that the elephant's behavior had changed substantially in the process of miniaturization. The little creature might look like an elephant, but he acted like a vicious rodent, quick-moving and mean-tempered. Hammond discouraged people from petting the elephant, to avoid nipped fingers.
And although Hammond spoke confidently of seven billion dollars in annual revenues by 1993, his project was intensely speculative. Hammond had vision and enthusiasm, but there was no certainty that his plan would work at all. Particularly since Norman Atherton, the brains behind the project, bad terminal cancer-which was a final point Hammond neglected to mention.
Even so, with Gennaro's help, Hammond got his money. Between September of 1983 and November of 1985, John Alfred Hammond and his "Pachyderm Portfolio" raised $870 million in venture capital to finance his proposed corporation, International Genetic Technologies, Inc. And they could have raised more, except Hammond insisted on absolute secrecy, and he offered no return on capital for at least five years. That scared a lot of investors off. In the end, they'd had to take mostly Japanese consortia. The Japanese were the only investors who had the patience.
Sitting in the leather chair of the jet, Gennaro thought about how evasive Hammond was. The old man was now ignoring the fact that Gennaro's law firm had forced this trip on him. Instead, Hammond behaved as if they were engaged in a purely social outing. "It's too bad you didn't bring your family with you, Donald," he said.
Gennaro shrugged. "It's my daughter's birthday. Twenty kids already scheduled. The cake and the clown. You know how it is."
"Oh, I understand," Hammond said. "Kids set their hearts on things."
"Anyway, is the park ready for visitors?" Gennaro asked.
"Well, not officially," Hammond said. "But the hotel is built, so there is a place to stay…"
"And the animals?"
"Of course, the animals are all there. All in their spaces."
Gennaro said, "I remember in the original proposal you were hoping for a total of twelve…"
"Ob, we're far beyond that. We have two hundred and thirty-eight an'mals, Donald."
Two hundred and thirty-eight?"
The old man giggled, pleased at Gennaro's reaction. "You can't imagine it. We have herds of them."
"Two hundred and thirty-eight… How many species?"
"Fifteen different species, Donald."
"That's incredible," Gennaro said. "That's fantastic. And what about all the other things you wanted? The facilities? The computers?"
"All of it, all of it," Hammond said. "Everything on that island is state-of-the-art. You'll see for yourself, Donald. It's perfectly wonderful. That's why this… concern… is so misplaced. There's absolutely no problem with the island."
Gennaro said, "Then there should be absolutely no problem with an inspection."