Despite what the recording said, Tim saw only one. The dilophosaur crouched on its hind legs by the river, drinking. It was built on the basic carnivore pattern, with a heavy tail, strong hind limbs, and a long neck. Its ten-foot-tall body was spotted yellow and black, like a leopard.
But it was the head that held Tim's attention. Two broad curving crests ran along the top of the head from the eyes to the nose. The crests met in the center, making a V shape above the dinosaur's head. The crests had red and black stripes, reminiscent of a parrot or toucan. The animal gave a soft hooting cry, like an owl.
"They're pretty," Lex said.
"Dilophosaurus, " the tape said, "is one of the earliest carnivorous dinosaurs. Scientists thought their jaw muscles were too weak to kill prey, and imagined they were primarily scavengers. But now we know they are poisonous."
"Hey." Tim grinned. "All right."
Again the distinctive booting call of the dilophosaur drifted across the afternoon air toward them.
Lex shifted uneasily in her seat. "Are they really poisonous, Mr. Regis?"
"Don't worry about it," Ed Regis said.
"But are they?"
"Well, yes, Lex."
"Along with such living reptiles as Gila monsters and rattlesnakes, Dilophosaurus secretes a hematotoxin from glands in its mouth. Unconsciousness follows within minutes of a bite. The dinosaur will then finish the victim off at its leisure-making Dilophosaurus a beautiful but deadly addition to the animals you see here at Jurassic Park."
The Land Cruiser turned a corner, leaving the river behind. Tim looked back, hoping for a last glimpse of the dilophosaur. This was amazing! Poisonous dinosaurs! He wished he could stop the car, but everything was automatic. He bet Dr. Grant wanted to stop the car, too.
"If you look on the bluff to the right, you'll see Les Gigantes, the site of our superb three-star dining room. Chef Alain Richard hails from the world-famous Le Beaumanière in France. Make your reservations by dialing four from your hotel rooms."
Tim looked up on the bluff, and saw nothing.
"Not for a while, though," Ed Regis said. "The restaurant won't even start construction until November."
"Continuing on our prehistoric safari, we come next to the herbivores of the ornithischian group. If you look to your right, you can probably see them now."
Tim saw two animals, standing motionless in the shade of a large tree. Triceratops: the size and gray color of an elephant, with the truculent stance of a rhino. The horns above each eye curved five feet into the air, looking almost like inverted elephant tusks. A third, rhino-like born was located near the nose. And they had the beaky snout of a rhino.
"Unlike other dinosaurs," the voice said, "Triceratops serratus can't see well. They're nearsighted, like the rhinos of today, and they tend to be surprised by moving objects. They'd charge our car if they were close enough to see it! But relax, folks-we're safe enough here."
"Triceratops have a fan-shaped crest behind their heads. It's made of solid bone, and it's very strong. These animals weigh about seven tons each. Despite their appearance, they are actually quite docile. They know their handlers, and they'll allow themselves to be petted. They particularly like to be scratched in the hindquarters."
"Why don't they move?" Lex said. She rolled down her window. "Hey! Stupid dinosaur! Move!"
"Don't bother the animals, Lex," Ed Regis said.
"Why? It's stupid. They just sit there like a picture in a book," Lex said.
The voice was saying, "-easygoing monsters from a bygone world stand in sharp contrast to what we will see next. The most famous predator in the history of the world: the mighty tyrant lizard, known as Tyrannosaurus rex."
"Good, Tyrannosaurus rex, " Tim said.
"I hope he's better than these bozos," Lex said, turning away from the triceratops.
The Land Cruiser rumbled forward.
Big Rex
"The mighty tyrannosaurs arose late in dinosaur history. Dinosaurs ruled the earth for a hundred and twenty million years, but there were tyrannosaurs for only the last fifteen million years of that period."
The Land Cruisers had stopped at the rise of a hill. They overlooked a forested area sloping down to the edge of the lagoon. The sun was falling to the west, sinking into a misty horizon. The whole landscape of Jurassic Park was bathed in soft light, with lengthening shadows. The surface of the lagoon rippled in pink crescents. Farther south, they saw the graceful necks of the camarasaurs, standing at the water's edge, their bodies mirrored in the moving surface. It was quiet, except for the soft drone of cicadas. As they stared out at that landscape, it was possible to believe that they had really been transported millions of years back in time to a vanished world.
"It works, doesn't it?" they heard Ed Regis say, over the intercom. "I like to come here sometimes, in the evening. And just sit."
Grant was unimpressed. "Where is T-rex?"
"Good question. You often see the little one down in the lagoon. The lagoon's stocked, so we have fish in there. The little one has learned to catch the fish. Interesting how he does it. He doesn't use his hands, but he ducks his whole head under the water. Like a bird."
"The little one?"
"The little T-rex. He's a juvenile, two years old, and about a third grown now. Stands eight feet high, weighs a ton and a half. The other one's a full-grown tyrannosaur. But I don't see him at the moment."
"Maybe he's down hunting the camarasaurs," Grant said.
Regis laughed, his voice tinny over the radio. "He would if he could, believe me. Sometimes he stands by the lagoon and stares at those animals, and wiggles those little forearms of his in frustration. But the T-rex territory is completely enclosed with trenches and fences. They're disguised from view, but believe me, he can't go anywhere."
"Then where is he?"
"Hiding," Regis said. "He's a little shy."
"Shy?" Malcolm said. "Tyrannosaurus rex is shy?"
"Well, he conceals himself as a general rule. You almost never see him out in the open, especially in daylight."
"Why is that?"
"We think it's because he has sensitive skin and sunburns easily."
Malcolm began to laugh.
Grant sighed. "You're destroying a lot of illusions."
"I don't think you'll be disappointed," Regis said. "Just wait."
They heard a soft bleating sound. In the center of a field, a small cage rose up into view, lifted on hydraulics from underground. The cage bars slid down, and the goat remained tethered in the center of the field, bleating plaintively.
"Any minute now," Regis said again. They stared out the window.
"Look at them," Hammond said, watching the control room monitor. "Leaning out of the windows, so eager. They can't wait to see it. They have come for the danger."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Muldoon said. He twirled the keys on his finger and watched the Land Cruisers tensely. This was the first time that visitors had toured Jurassic Park, and Muldoon shared Arnold's apprehension.
Robert Muldoon was a big man, fifty years old, with a steel-gray mustache and deep blue eyes. Raised in Kenya, he had spent most of his life as a guide for African big-game hunters, as had his father before him. But since 1980, he had worked principally for conservation groups and zoo designers as a wildlife consultant. He had become well known; an article in the London Sunday Times had said, "What Robert Trent Jones is to golf courses, Robert Muldoon is to zoos: a designer of unsurpassed knowledge and skill."
In 1986, he had done some work for a San Francisco company that was building a private wildlife park on an island in North America. Muldoon had laid out the boundaries for different animals, defining space and habitat requirements for lions, elephants, zebras, and hippos. Identifying which animals could be kept together, and which had to be separated. At the time, it had been a fairly routine job. He had been more interested in an Indian park called TigerWorld in southern Kashmir.
Then, a year ago, he was offered a job as game warden of Jurassic Park. It coincided with a desire to leave Africa; the salary was excellent; Muldoon had taken it on for a year. He was astonished to discover the park was really a collection of genetically engineered prehistoric animals.
It was of course interesting work, but during his years in Africa, Muldoon had developed an unblinking view of animals-an unromantic view-that frequently set him at odds with the Jurassic Park management in California, particularly the little martinet standing beside him in the control room. In Muldoon's opinion, cloning dinosaurs in a laboratory was one thing. Maintaining them in the wild was quite another.
It was Muldoon's view that some dinosaurs were too dangerous to be kept in a park setting. In part, the danger existed because they still knew so little about the animals. For example, nobody even suspected the dilophosaurs were poisonous until they were observed hunting indigenous rats on the island-biting the rodents and then stepping back, to wait for them to die. And even then nobody suspected the dilophosaurs could spit until one of the handlers was almost blinded by spitting venom.
After that, Hammond had agreed to study dilophosaur venom, which was found to contain seven different toxic enzymes. It was also discovered that the dilophosaurs could spit a distance of fifty feet. Since this raised the possibility that a guest in a car might be blinded, management decided to remove the poison sacs. The vets had tried twice, on two different animals, without success, No one knew where the poison was being secreted. And no one would ever know until an autopsy was performed on a dilophosaur and management would not allow one to be killed.