Meanwhile, InGen's island facility in Costa Rica had been destroyed. There were no longer any living creatures on the island. The company had hired the eminent Stanford professor George Baselton, a biologist and essayist whose frequent television appearances had made him a popular authority on scientific subjects. Baselton claimed to have visited the island, and had been tireless in denying rumors that extinct animals had ever existed there. His derisive snort, "Saber-toothed tigers, indeed!" was particularly effective.
As time passed, interest in the story waned. InGen was long since bankrupt; the principal investors in Europe and Asia had taken their losses. Although the company's physical assets, the buildings and lab equipment, would be sold piecemeal, the core technology that had been developed would, they decided, never be sold. In short, the InGen chapter was closed.
There was nothing more to say.
"So there's no truth to it," Levine said, biting into his green-corn tamale. "To tell you the truth, Dr. Malcolm, that makes me feel better."
"Why?" Malcolm said.
"Because it means that the remnants that keep turning up in Costa Rica must be real. Real dinosaurs. I've got a friend from Yale down there, a field biologist, and he says he's seen them. I believe him."
Malcolm shrugged. "I doubt," he said, "that any more animals will turn up in Costa Rica."
"It's true there haven't been any for almost a year now. But if more show up, I'm going down there. And in the interim, I am going to outfit an expedition. I've been giving a lot of thought to how it should be done. I think the special vehicles could be built and ready in a year. I've already talked to Doc Thorne about it. Then I'll assemble a team, perhaps including Dr. Harding here, or a similarly accomplished naturalist, and some graduate students…"
Malcolm listened, shaking his head.
"You think I'm wasting my time," Levine said. "I do, yes."
"But suppose - just suppose - that animals start to show up again."
"Never happen."
"But suppose they did?" Levine said. "Would you be interested in helping me? To plan an expedition?"
Malcolm finished his meal, and pushed the plate aside. He stared at Levine.
"Yes," he said finally. "If animals started showing up again, I would be interested in helping you."
"Great!" Levine said. "That's all I wanted to know."
Outside, in the bright sunlight on Guadalupe Street, Malcolm walked with Sarah toward Malcolm's battered Ford sedan. Levine climbed into a bright-red Ferrari, waved cheerfully, and roared off.
"You think it will ever happen?" Sarah Harding said. "That these, ah, animals will start showing up again?"
"No," Malcolm said, "I am quite sure they never will."
"You sound hopeful."
He shook his head, and got awkwardly in the car, swinging his bad leg tinder the steering wheel. Harding climbed in beside him. He glanced at her, and turned the key in the ignition. They drove back to the Institute.
The following day, she went back to Africa. During the next eighteen months, she had a rough sense of Levine's progress, since from time to time he called her with some question about field protocols, or vehicle tires, or the best anaesthetic to use on animals in. the wild. Sometimes she got a call from Doc Thorne, who was building the vehicles. He usually sounded harassed.
From Malcolm she heard nothing at all, although he sent her a card on her birthday. It arrived a month late. He had scrawled at the bottom, "Have a happy birthday. Be glad you're nowhere near him. He's driving me crazy."
FIRST CONFIGURATION
"In the conservative region far from the chaotic edge,
individual elements coalesce slowly, showing no clear pattern."
IAN MALCOLM
Aberrant Forms
In the fading afternoon light, the helicopter skimmed low along the coast, following the line where the dense jungle met the beach. The last of the fishing villages had flashed by beneath them ten minutes ago. Now there was only impenetrable Costa Rican jungle, mangrove swamps, and mile after mile of deserted sand. Sitting beside the pilot, Marty, Guitierrez stared out the window as the coastline swept past. There weren't even any roads in this area, at least none that Guitierrez could see.
Guitierrez was a quiet, bearded American of thirty-six, a field biologist who had lived for the last eight years in Costa Rica. He had originally come to study toucan speciation in the rain forest, but stayedon as a consultant to the Reserva Biologica de Carara, the national park in the north. He clicked the radio mike and said to the pilot, "How much farther?"
"Five minutes, Senior Guitierrez."
Guitierrez turned and said, "It won't be long now." But the tall man folded up in the back seat of the helicopter didn't answer, or even acknowledge that he had been spoken to. He merely sat, with his hand on his chin, and stared frowning out the window.
Richard Levine wore sun-faded field khakis, and an Australian slouch hat pushed low over his head. A battered pair of binoculars hung around his neck. But despite his rugged appearance, Levine conveyed an air of scholarly absorption. Behind his wire-frame spectacles, his features were sharp, his expression intense and critical as he looked out the window.
"What is this place?"
"It's called Rojas."
"So we're far south?"
"Yes. Only about fifty miles from the border with Panama."