Jurassic Park

When it came, the roar of the dinosaur seemed frighteningly close. Hammond spun so quickly he fell on the path, and when he looked back he thought he saw the shadow of the juvenile T-rex, moving in the foliage beside the flagstone path, moving toward him.

What was the T-rex doing here? Why was it outside the fences?

Hammond felt a flash of rage: and then he saw the Tican workman, ru

He was lying face down in a little stream.

He had panicked! What a fool! He should have gone to his bungalow! Hammond cursed himself. As he got to his feet, he felt a sharp pain in his right ankle that brought tears to his eyes. He tested it gingerly: it might be broken. He forced himself to put his full weight on it, gritting his teeth. Yes.

Almost certainly broken.

In the control room, Lex said to Tim, "I wish they had taken us with them to the nest."

"It's too dangerous for us, Lex," Tim said. "We have to stay here. Hey, listen to this one." He pressed another button, and a recorded tyra

"That's neat," Lex said. "That's better than the other one,"

"You can do it, too," Tim said. "And if you push this, you get reverb."

"Let me try," Lex said. She pushed the button. The tyra

"Sure," Tim said. "We just twist this thing here."

Lying at the bottom of the hill, Hammond heard the tyra

Jesus.

He shivered, hearing that sound. It was terrifying, a scream from some other world. He waited to see what would happen. What would the tyra

With his injured ankle, he couldn't climb the hill. He would have to wait at the bottom of the ravine. After the tyra

Then he heard an amplified voice say, "Come on, Timmy, I get to try it too. Come on. Let me make the noise."

The kids!

The tyra

"Neat one," said the little girl. "Do it again."

Those damned kids!

He should never have brought those kids. They had been nothing but trouble from the begi

He felt his heart begin to race, and felt an uneasy shortness of breath. He forced himself to relax. There was nothing wrong. Although he could not climb the hill, he could not be more than a hundred yards from his own bungalow, and the visitor center. Hammond sat down in the damp earth, listening to the sounds in the jungle around him. And then, after a while, he began to shout for help.

Malcolm's voice was no louder than a whisper. "Everything looks different… on the other side," he said.

Harding leaned close to him. "On the other side?" He thought that Malcolm was talking about dying.

"When… shifts," Malcolm said.

"Shifts?"

Malcolm didn't answer. His dry lips moved. "Paradigm," he said finally.

"Paradigm shifts?" Harding said. He knew about paradigm shifts. For the last two decades, they had been the fashionable way to talk about scientific change. "Paradigm" was just another word for a model, but as scientists used it the term meant something more, a world view. A larger way of seeing the world. Paradigm shifts were said to occur whenever science made a major change in its view of the world. Such changes were relatively rare, occurring about once a century, Darwinian evolution had forced a paradigm shift. Quantum mechanics had forced a smaller shift.

"No," Malcolm said. "Not… paradigm… beyond "Beyond paradigm?" Harding said.

"Don't care about… what… anymore.

Harding sighed. Despite all efforts, Malcolm was rapidly slipping into a terminal delirium. His fever was higher, and they were almost out of his antibiotics.

"What don't you care about?"

"Anything," Malcolm said. "Because… everything looks different… on the other side."

And he smiled.

Descent

"You're crazy," Ge

She smiled. "Probably," she said. She reached forward with her outstretched hands, and pushed backward against the sides of the hole. And suddenly she was gone.

The hole gaped black.

Ge

"Yes, you are."

"I can't do this. I can't."

"They're waiting for you," Muldoon said. "You have to."

"Christ only knows what's down there," Ge

"You have to."

Ge

"I suppose not," Muldoon said. He held up the stainless-steel prod. "Ever felt a shock stick?"

"Doesn't do much," Muldoon said. "Almost never fatal. Generally knocks you flat. Perhaps loosens your bowels. But it doesn't usually have any permanent effect. At least, not on dinos. But, then, people are much smaller."

Ge

"I think you'd better go down and count those animals," Muldoon said. "And you better hurry."

Ge

Ge

"That's it," Muldoon said.

Ge

And suddenly he was rushing forward, sliding into blackness, seeing the dirt walls disappear into darkness before him, and then the walls became narrower-much narrower-terrifyingly narrow-and he was lost in the pain of a squeezing compression that became steadily worse and worse, that crushed the air out of his lungs, and he was only dimly aware that the tu

And then suddenly the tu

And then he fell.

Voices in the darkness. Fingers touching him, reaching forward from the whispered voices. The air was cold, like a cave.

"-okay?"

"He looks okay, yes."

"He's breathing…"

"Fine."

A female hand caressing his face. It was Ellie. "Can you hear?" she whispered.

"Why is everybody whispering?" he said.

"Because." She pointed.

Ge

Dozens of eyes. All around him.

He was on a concrete ledge, a kind of embankment, about seven feet above the floor. Large steel junction boxes provided a makeshift hiding place, protecting them from the view of the two full-size velociraptors that stood directly before them, not five feet away. The animals were dark green with brownish tiger stripes. They stood upright, balancing on their stiff extended tails. They were totally silent, looking around watchfully with large dark eyes. At the feet of the adults, baby velociraptors skittered and chirped. Farther back, in the darkness, juveniles tumbled and played, giving short snarls and growls.

Ge

Two raptors!

Crouched on the ledge, he was only a foot or two above the animals head height. The raptors were edgy, their heads jerking nervously up and down. From time to time they snorted impatiently. Then they moved off, turning back toward the main group.

As his eyes adjusted, Ge

"It's a colony, Grant said, whispering. "Four or six adults. The rest juveniles and infants. At least two hatchings. One last year and one this year. These babies look about four months old. Probably hatched in April."

One of the babies, curious, scampered up on the ledge, and came toward them, squeaking. It was now only ten feet away.

"Oh Jesus," Ge