"Aw, that's a shame," Eddie said.
"Look," Levine said crossly. "It's not my problem if - "
Thorne said "You spent the night in the tree?"
Yes, and in the morning the raptors had gone. So I came down and started looking around. I found the lab, or whatever it is. Clearly, they abandoned it in a hurry, leaving some animals behind. I went through the building, and discovered that there is still power - some systems are still going, all these years later. And, most important, there is a network of security cameras. That's a very lucky break. So I decided to check on those cameras, and I was hard at work when you people barged in - "
"Wait a minute," Eddie said, "We came here to rescue you."
"I don't know why," Levine said. "I certainly never asked you to."
Thorne said, "it sounded like you did, over the phone."
"That is a misunderstanding," Levine said. "I was momentarily upset, because I couldn't work the phone. You've made that phone too complicated, Doc. That's the problem. So: shall we get started?"
Levine paused. He looked at the angry faces all around him. Malcolm turned to Thorne. "A great scientist," he said, "and a great human being."
"Look," Levine said, "I don't know what your problem is. The expedition was going to come to this island sooner or later. In this instance, sooner is better. Everything has turned out quite well, and, frankly, I don't see any reason to discuss it further. This is not the time for petty bickering. We have important things to do - and I think we should get started. Because this island is an extraordinary opportunity, and it isn't going to last forever.
Dodgson
Lewis Dodgson sat hunched in a dark corner of the Chesperito Cantina in Puerto Cortes, nursing a beer. Beside him, George Baselton, the Regis Professor of Biology at Stanford, was enthusiastically devouring a plate of huevos rancheros. The egg yolks ran yellow across green salsa. It made Dodgson sick just to look at it. He turned away, but he could still hear Baselton licking his lips, noisily.
There was no one else in the bar, except for some chickens clucking around the floor. Every so often, a young boy would come to the door, throw a handful of rocks at the chickens, and run away again, giggling. A scratchy stereo played an old Elvis Presley tape through corroded speakers above the bar. Dodgson hummed "Falling in Love With You," and tried to control his temper. He had been sitting in this dump for damn near an hour.
Baselton finished his eggs, and pushed the plate away. He brought out the small notebook he carried everywhere with him. "Now Lew," he said. "I've been thinking about how to handle this."
"Handle what?" Dodgson said irritably. "There's nothing to handle, unless we can get to that island." While he spoke, he tapped a small photograph of Richard Levine on the edge of the bar table. Turned it over. Looked at the image upside down. Then right side up.
He sighed. He looked at his watch.
"Lew," Baselton said patiently, "getting to the island is not the important part. The important part is how we present our discovery to the world."
Dodgson paused. "Our discovery," he repeated. "I like that, George. That's very good. Our discovery."
"Well, that's the truth, isn't it?" Baselton said, with a bland smile. "InGen is bankrupt, its technology lost to mankind. A tragic, tragic loss, as I have said many times on television. But under the circumstances, anyone who finds it again has made a discovery. I don't know what else you would call it. As Henri Poincare put it - "
"Okay," Dodgson said. "So we make a discovery. And then what? Hold a press conference?"
"Absolutely not," Baselton said, looking horrified. "A press conference would appear extremely crass. It would open us up to all sorts of criticism. No, no. A discovery of this magnitude must be treated with decorum. It must be reported, Lew."
"Reported?"
"In the literature: Nature, I imagine. Yes."
Dodgson squinted. "You want to announce this in an academic publication?"
"What better way to make it legitimate?" Baselton said. "It's entirely proper to present our findings to our scholarly peers. Of course it will start a debate - but what will that debate consist of? An academic squabble, professors sniping at professors, which will fill the science pages of the newspapers for three days, until it is pushed aside by the latest news on breast implants. And in those three days, we will have staked our claim."
"You'll write it?"
"Yes," Baselton said. "And later, I think, an article in American Scholar, or perhaps Natural History. A human-interest piece, what this discovery means for the future, what it tells us about the past, all that…"
Dodgson nodded. He could see that Baselton was correct, and he was reminded once again how much he needed him, and how wise he had been to add him to the team. Dodgson never thought about public reaction. And Baselton thought about nothing else.