Ellie shrugged."Goes with the job."
Although many fields of science, such as physics and chemistry, had become federally funded, paleontology remained strongly dependent on private patrons. Quite apart from his own curiosity about the island in Costa Rica, Grant understood that, if John Hammond asked for his help, he would give it. That was how patronage worked-how it had always worked.
The little jet landed and rolled quickly toward them. Ellie shouldered her bag. The iet came to a stop and a stewardess in a blue uniform opened the door.
Inside, he was surprised at how cramped it was, despite the luxurious appointments. Grant had to hunch over as he went to shake Hammond's hand.
"Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler," Hammond said. "It's good of you to join us. Allow me to introduce my associate, Donald Gennaro."
Gennaro was a stocky, muscular man in his mid-thirties wearing an Armani suit and wire-frame glasses. Grant disliked him on sight. He shook hands quickly. When Ellie shook hands, Gennaro said in surprise, "You're a woman."
"These things happen," she said, and Grant thought: She doesn't like him, either-
Hammond turned to Gennaro. "You know, of course, what Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler do. They are paleontologists. They dig up dinosaurs." And then he began to laugh, as if he found the idea very funny.
"Take your seats, please," the stewardess said, closing the door. Immediately the plane began to move.
"You'll have to excuse us," Hammond said, "but we are in a bit of a rush. Donald thinks it's important we get right down there."
The pilot announced four hours' flying time to Dallas, where they would refuel, and then go on to Costa Rica, arriving the following morning.
"And how long will we be in Costa Rica?" Grant asked.
"Well, that really depends," Gennaro said. "We have a few things to clear up."
"Take my word for it," Hammond said, turning to Grant. "We'll be down there no more than forty-eight hours."
Grant buckled his seat belt. "This island of yours that we're going to-I haven't heard anything about it before. Is it some kind of secret?"
"In a way," Hammond said. "We have been very, very careful about making sure nobody knows about it, until the day we finally open that island to a surprised and delighted public."
Target of Opportunity
The Biosyn Corporation of Cupertino, California, had never called an emergency meeting of its board of directors. The ten directors now sitting in the conference room were irritable and impatient. It was 8:00 p.m. They had been talking among themselves for the last ten minutes, but slowly had fallen silent. Shuffling papers. Looking pointedly at their watches.
"What are we waiting for?" one asked.
"One more," Lewis Dodgson said. "We need one more." He glanced at his watch. Ron Meyer's office had said he was coming up on the six o'clock plane from San Diego. He should be here by now, even allowing for traffic from the airport.
"You need a quorum?" another director asked.
"Yes," Dodgson said. "We do."
That shut them up for a moment. A quorum meant that they were going to be asked to make an important decision. And God knows they were, although Dodgson would have preferred not to call a meeting at all. But Steingarten, the head of Biosyn, was adamant. "You'll have to get their agreement for this one, Lew," he had said.
Depending on who you talked to, Lewis Dodgson was famous as the most aggressive geneticist of his generation, or the most reckless. Thirty-four, balding, hawk-faced, and intense, he had been dismissed by Johns Hopkins as a graduate student, for planning gene therapy on human patients without obtaining the proper FDA protocols. Hired by Biosyn, he had conducted the controversial rabies vaccine test in Chile. Now he was the head of product development at Biosyn, which supposedly consisted of "reverse engineering": taking a competitor's product, tearing it apart, learning how it worked, and then making your own version. In practice, it involved industrial espionage, much of it directed toward the InGen corporation.
In the 1980s, a few genetic engineering companies began to ask, "What is the biological equivalent of a Sony Walkman?" These companies weren't interested in pharmaceuticals or health; they were interested in entertainment, sports, leisure activities, cosmetics, and pets. The perceived demand for "consumer biologicals" in the 1990s was high. InGen and Biosyn were both at work in this field.
Biosyn had already achieved some success, engineering a new, pale trout under contract to the Department of Fish and Game of the State of Idaho. This trout was easier to spot in streams, and was said to represent a step forward in angling. (At least, it eliminated complaints to the Fish and Came Department that there were no trout in the streams.) The fact that the pale trout sometimes died of sunburn, and that its flesh was soggy and tasteless, was not discussed. Biosyn was still working on that, and-
The door opened and Ron Meyer entered the room, slipped into a seat. Dodgson now had his quorum. He immediately stood.
"Gentlemen," he said, "we're here tonight to consider a target of opportunity: InGen."
Dodgson quickly reviewed the background. InGen's start-up in 1983, with Japanese investors. The purchase of three Cray XMP supercomputers. The purchase of Isla Nublar in Costa Rica. The stockpiling of amber. The unusual donations to zoos around the world, from the New York Zoological Society to the Rantbapur Wildlife Park in India.
"Despite all these clues," Dodgson said, "we still had no idea where InGen might be going. The company seemed obviously focused on animals; and they had hired researchers with an interest in the past-paleoblologists, DNA phylogeneticists, and so on.
"Then, in 1987, InGen bought an obscure company called Millipore Plastic Products in Nashville, Tennessee. This was an agribusiness company that had recently patented a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell. This plastic could be shaped into an egg and used to grow chick embryos. Starting the following year, InGen took the entire output of this millipore plastic for its own use."
"Dr. Dodgson, this is all very interesting-"
"At the same time," Dodgson continued, "construction was begun on Isla Nublar, This involved massive earthworks, including a shallow lake two miles long, in the center of the island. Plans for resort facilities were let out with a high degree of confidentiality, but it appears that InGen has built a private zoo of large dimensions on the island."
One of the directors leaned forward and said, "Dr. Dodgson. So what?"
"It's not an ordinary zoo," Dodgson said. "This zoo is unique in the world. It seems that InGen has done something quite extraordinary. They have managed to clone extinct animals from the past."
"What animals?"
"Animals that hatch from eggs, and that require a lot of room in a zoo."
"What animals?"
"Dinosaurs," Dodgson said. "They are cloning dinosaurs."
The consternation that followed was entirely misplaced, in Dodgson's view. The trouble with money men was that they didn't keep up: they had invested in a field, but they didn't know what was possible.
In fact, there had been discussion of cloning dinosaurs in the technical literature as far back as 1982. With each passing year, the manipulation of DNA had grown easier. Genetic material had already been extracted from Egyptian mummies, and from the hide of a quagga, a zebra-like African animal that had become extinct in the 1880s. By 1985, it seemed possible that quagga DNA might be reconstituted, and a new animal grown. If so, it would be the first creature brought back from extinction solely by reconstruction of its DNA. If that was possible, what else was also possible? The mastodon? The saber-toothed tiger? The dodo?
Or even a dinosaur?
Of course, no dinosaur DNA was known to exist anywhere in the world. But by grinding up large quantities of dinosaur bones it might be possible to extract fragments of DNA. Formerly it was thought that fossilization eliminated all DNA. Now that was recognized as untrue. If enough DNA fragments were recovered, it might be possible to clone a living animal.
Back in 1982, the technical problems had seemed daunting. But there was no theoretical barrier. It was merely difficult, expensive, and unlikely to work, Yet it was certainly possible, if anyone cared to try.
InGen had apparently decided to try.
"What they have done," Dodgson said, "is build the greatest single tourist attraction in the history of the world. As you know, zoos are extremely popular. Last year, more Americans visited zoos than all professional baseball and football games combined. And the Japanese love zoos-there are fifty zoos in Japan, and more being built. And for this zoo, InGen can charge whatever they want, Two thousand dollars a day, ten thousand dollars a day . . . And then there is the merchandising. The picture books, T-shirts, video games, caps, stuffed toys, comic books, and pets."
"Pets?"
"Of course. If InGen can make full-size dinosaurs, they can also make pygmy dinosaurs as household pets. What child won't want a little dinosaur as a pet? A little patented animal for their very own. InGen will sell millions of them. And InGen will engineer them so that these pet dinosaurs can only eat InGen pet food. . . ."
"Jesus," somebody said.
"Exactly," Dodgson said. "The zoo is the centerpiece of an enormous enterprise."