Monday, Sep. 25, 1995

In The Lost World, Michael Crichton's sequel to Jurassic Park, a group of scientists travel to a remote island to investigate reports that live dinosaurs are once again running loose. In this excerpt, mathematician Ian Malcolm (a leftover from Jurassic Park) and animal behaviorist Sarah Harding face the consequences when two tyrannosaurs drop by their trailer-laboratory to reclaim an injured baby dinosaur that the scientists have been nursing:

Malcolm watched the retreating tyrannosaurs through the shattered glass window. Beside him, Sarah said nothing. She never took her eyes off the animals.

Rain started to fall; water dripped from the shards of glass. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning cracked harshly down, illuminating the giant animals as they moved away.

At the nearest of the big trees, the adults stopped, and placed the baby on the ground.

"Why are they doing that?" Sarah said. "They should be going back to the nest."

"I don't know, maybe they're--"

"Maybe the baby is dead," she said.

But no, in the next flash of lightning they could see the baby moving. It was still alive. They could hear its high-pitched squeaking as one of the adults took the baby in its jaws, and gently placed it in a fork among the high branches of a tree.

"Oh no," Sarah said, shaking her head. "This is wrong, Ian. This is all wrong."

The female tyrannosaur remained with the baby for some moments, moving it, positioning it. Then the female turned, opened its jaws, and roared.

The male tyrannosaur roared in response.

And then both animals charged the trailer at full speed, racing across the clearing toward them.

"Oh, my God," Sarah said.

"Brace yourself, Sarah!" Malcolm shouted. "It's going to be bad!"

The impact was stunning, knocking them sideways through the air. Sarah screamed as she tumbled away. Malcolm hit his head and fell to the floor, seeing stars. Beneath him, the trailer rocked on its suspension, with a metallic scream. The tyrannosaurs roared, and slammed into it again.

He heard her shouting, "Ian! Ian!" and then the trailer crashed over onto its side. Malcolm turned away: glassware and lab equipment smashed all around him. When he looked up, everything was cockeyed. Directly above him was the broken window the tyrannosaur had smashed. Rain dripped through onto Malcolm's face. Lightning flashed, and then he saw a big head peering down at him and snarling. He heard the harsh scratching of the tyrannosaurs' claws on the metal side of the trailer, then the face disappeared. A moment later, he heard them bellowing as they pushed the trailer through the dirt.

He called "Sarah!" and he saw her, somewhere behind him, just as the world spun crazily again, and the trailer was upended with a crash. Now the trailer was lying on its roof; Malcolm started crawling along the ceiling, trying to reach Sarah. He looked up at the lab equipment locked down on the lab benches, above his head. Liquid dripped onto him from a dozen sources. Something stung his shoulder. He heard a hiss, and realized it must be acid.

Somewhere in the darkness ahead, Sarah was groaning. Lightning flashed again, and Malcolm saw her, lying crumpled near the accordion junction that connected the two trailers. That junction was twisted almost shut, which must mean that the second trailer was still upright. It was crazy. Everything was crazy.

Outside, the tyrannosaurs roared, and he heard a muffled explosion. They were biting the tires. He thought: Too bad they don't bite into the battery cable. That'd give them a real surprise.

Suddenly, the tyrannosaurs slammed into the trailer again, knocking it laterally along the clearing. As soon as it stopped, they slammed again. The trailer lurched sideways.

By then he had reached Sarah. She threw her arms around him. "Ian," she said. The whole left half of her face was dark. When the lightning flashed, he saw it was covered in blood.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said. With the back of her hand, she wiped blood out of her eye. "Can you see what it is?"

In another lightning flash, he saw the glint of a large chunk of glass, embedded near her hairline. He pulled it out, and pressed his hand against the sudden gush of blood. They were in the kitchen; he reached up toward the stove, and pulled down a dishtowel. He held it against her head, and watched the cloth darken.

"Does it hurt?"

"It's okay."

"I think it's not too bad," he said. Outside, the tyrannosaurs roared in the night.

"What are they doing?" she said. Her voice was dull.

The tyrannosaurs slammed into the trailer again. With this impact, the trailer seemed to move a lot more than before, sliding sideways--and down.

Sliding down.

"They're pushing us," he said.

"Where, Ian?"

"To the edge of the clearing." The tyrannosaurs slammed again, and the trailer moved farther. "They're pushing us over the cliff." The cliff was 500 feet of sheer rock, straight down to the valley below.

They'd never survive the fall.