"At least we're going the right way," Tim said.
"Good for you," Grant said.
Tim smiled, and stumbled over vines in the mist. He got quickly to his feet. They walked on for a while. "My parents are getting a divorce," he said.
"Uh-huh," Grant said.
"My dad moved out last month. He has his own place in Mill Valley now.
"Uh-huh."
"He never carries my sister any more. He never even picks her up."
"And he says you have dinosaurs on the brain," Grant said.
Tim sighed. "Yeah."
"You miss him?" Grant said.
"Not really," Tim said. "Sometimes. She misses him more."
"Who, your mother?"
"No, Lex. My mom has a boyfriend. She knows him from work."
They walked in silence for a while, passing T/N/03 and T/N/04. "Have you met him?" Grant said.
"Yeah."
"How is he?"
"He's okay," Tim said. "He's younger than my dad, but he's bald."
"How does he treat you?"
"I don't know. Okay. I think he just tries to get on my good side. I don't know what's going to happen. Sometimes my mom says we'll have to sell the house and move. Sometimes he and my mom fight, late at night. I sit in my room and play with my computer, but I can still hear it."
"Uh-huh," Grant said.
"Are you divorced?"
"No," Grant said. "My wife died a long time ago."
"And now you're with Dr. Sattler?"
Grant smiled in the darkness. "No. She's my student."
"You mean she's still in school?"
"Graduate school, yes." Grant paused long enough to shift Lex to his other shoulder, and then they continued on, past T/N/05 and T/N/06. There was the rumble of thunder in the distance. The storm had moved to the south. There was very little sound in the forest except for the drone of cicadas and the soft croaking of tree frogs.
You have children?" Tim asked.
"No," Crant said.
"Are you going to marry Dr. Sattler?"
"No, she's marrying a nice doctor in Chicago sometime next year.
"Oh," Tim said. He seemed surprised to hear it. They walked along for a while. "Then who are you going to marry?"
"I don't think I'm going to marry anybody," Grant said.
"Me neither," Tim said.
They walked for a while. Tim said, "Are we going to walk all night?"
"I don't think I can," Grant said. "We'll have to stop, at least for a few hours." He glanced at his watch. "We're okay. We've got almost fifteen hours before we have to be back. Before the ship reaches the mainland."
"Where are we going to stop?" Tim asked, immediately.
Grant was wondering the same thing. His first thought was that thev might climb a tree, and sleep up there. But they would have to climb very high to get safely away from the animals, and Lex might fall out while she was asleep. And tree branches were hard; they wouldn't get any rest. At least, he wouldn't.
They needed someplace really safe. He thought back to the plans he had seen on the jet coming down. He remembered that there were outlying buildings for each of the different divisions. Grant didn't know what they were like, because plans for the individual buildings weren't included. And he couldn't remember exactly where they were, but he remembered they were scattered all around the park. There might be buildings somewhere nearby.
But that was a different requirement from simply crossing a barrier and getting out of the tyrannosaur paddock, Finding a building meant a search strategy of some kind. And the best strategies were-
"Tim, can you hold your sister for me? I'm going to climb a tree and have a look around."
High in the branches, he had a good view of the forest, the tops of the trees extending away to his left and right. They were surprisingly near the edge of the forest-directly ahead the trees ended before a clearing, with an electrified fence and a pale concrete moat. Beyond that, a large open field in what he assumed was the sauropod paddock. In the distance, more trees, and misty moonlight sparkling on the ocean.
Somewhere he heard the bellowing of a dinosaur, but it was far away. He put on Tim's night-vision goggles and looked again. He followed the gray curve of the moat, and then saw what he was looking for: the dark strip of a service road, leading to the flat rectangle of a roof. The roof was barely above ground level, but it was there. And it wasn't far. Maybe a quarter of a mile or so from the tree.
When he came back down, Lex was sniffling.
"What's the matter?"
"I heard an aminal."
"It won't bother us. Are you awake now? Come on."
He led her to the fence. It was twelve feet high, with a spiral of barbed wire at the top. It seemed to stretch far above them in the moonligbt. The moat was immediately on the other side.
Lex looked up at the fence doubtfully.
"Can you climb it?" Grant asked her.
She handed him her glove, and her baseball. "Sure. Easy." She started to climb. "But I bet Timmy can't."
Tim spun in fury: "You shut up."
"Timmy's afraid of heights."
"I am not."
She climbed higher. "Are so."
"Am not."
"Then come and get me."
Grant turned to Tim, pale in the darkness. The boy wasn't moving. "You okay with the fence, Tim?"
"Sure."
"Want some help?"
"Timmy's a fraidy-cat," Lex called.
"What a stupid jerk," Tim said, and he started to climb.
"It's freezing," Lex said. They were standing waist-deep in smelly water at the bottom of a deep concrete moat. They had climbed the fence without incident, except that Tim had torn his shirt on the coils of barbed wire at the top. Then they had all slid down into the moat, and now Grant was looking for a way out.
"At least I got Timmy over the fence for you," Lex said. "He really is scared most times."
"Thanks for your help," Tim said sarcastically. In the moonlight, he could see floating lumps on the surface. He moved along the moat, looking at the concrete wall on the far side. The concrete was smooth; they couldn't possibly climb it.
"Eww," Lex said, pointing to the water.
"It won't hurt you, Lex."
Grant finally found a place where the concrete had cracked and a vine grew down toward the water. He tugged on the vine, and it held his weight. "Let's go, kids." They started to climb the vine, back to the field above.
It took only a few minutes to cross the field to the embankment leading to the below-grade service road, and the maintenance building off to the right. They passed two motion sensors, and Grant noticed with some uneasiness that the sensors were still not working, nor were the lights. More than two hours had passed since the power first went out, and it was not yet restored.
Somewhere in the distance, they heard the tyrannosaur roar. "Is he around here?" Lex said.
"No," Grant said. "We're in another section of park from him." They slid down a grassy embankment and moved toward the concrete building. In the darkness it was forbidding, bunker-like.
"What is this place?" Lex said.
"It's safe," Grant said, hoping that was true.
The entrance gate was large enough to drive a truck through. It was fitted with heavy bars. Inside, they could see, the building was an open shed, with piles of grass and bales of bay stacked among equipment.
The gate was locked with a heavy padlock. As Grant was examining it, Lex slipped sideways between the bars. "Come on, you guys."
Tim followed her. "I think you can do it, Dr. Grant."
He was right; it was a tight squeeze, but Grant was able to ease his body between the bars and get into the shed. As soon as he was inside, a wave of exhaustion struck him.
"I wonder if there's anything to eat," Lex said.
"Just hay." Grant broke open a bale, and spread it around on the concrete. The hay in the center was warm. They lay down, feeling the warmth. Lex curled up beside him, and closed her eyes. Tim put his arm around her. He heard the sauropods trumpeting softly in the distance.
Neither child spoke. They were almost immediately snoring. Grant raised his arm to look at his watch, but it was too dark to see. He felt the warmth of the children against his own body.
Grant closed his eves, and slept.
Control
Muldoon and Gennaro came into the control room just as Arnold clapped his bands and said, "Got you, you little son of a bitch."
"What is it?" Gennaro said,
Arnold pointed to the screen: