“What about it?”
“Power is off.”
She didn’t know what he was talking about. Of course the power was off. Then she remembered: he had turned it off earlier. When the tyrannosaurs were approaching. The light had bothered them before, maybe it would bother them again.
“You want me to turn the power on?”
His head nodded fractionally. “Yes. Turn it on.”
“How, Ian?” She looked around in the darkness.
“There’s a panel.”
“Where?”
He didn’t answer her. She reached out, shook his shoulder. “Ian: where is the panel?”
He pointed downward.
She looked down, saw the loose wires from the panel. “I can’t. It’s broken.”
“Up . . .”
She could hardly hear him. Vaguely, she remembered that there was another control panel just inside the second trailer. If she could get in, she might be able to turn the power on. “Okay, Ian,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
She moved on, going higher. The floor of the trailer was now thirty feet below her. The tyrannosaurs roared, and kicked again. She swung in space. She moved on.
She intended to go through the accordion passage into the second trailer, but as she came closer to the top, she saw that it was not possible. In the harsh flare of lightning, she saw the accordion passage was twisted tightly shut.
She was trapped in the first trailer.
She heard the tyrannosaurs bellowing, and slamming the second trailer above. “Ian!”
She looked down. He wasn’t moving.
Hanging there, she realized with a sick feeling that she was defeated. Another kick, another two kicks, and it would be all over. They would fall. There was nothing they could do. There was no time left. She was hanging suspended in blackness, the power was out, and there was nothing—
Or was there? She heard an electrical hum, not far away in the darkness. Was there a panel up here, at this end of the trailer? Did they design it to have panels at both ends?
Hanging near the top of the trailer, her shoulders and forearms burning with strain, she looked around for a second power panel. She was up near the far end. If there was a panel, it should be nearby. But where? In the glare of lightning, she looked over one shoulder, then the other.
She saw no panel.
Her arms ached.
“Ian, please . . .”
No panel.
It wasn’t possible. She kept hearing that hum. There had to be a panel. She just wasn’t seeing it. There had to be a panel. She swung left and right, and lightning flashed again, casting crazy shadows, and then at last she saw it.
It was just six inches above her head. It was upside down, but she could see all the buttons and switches. They were dark now. If she could just figure out which was which—
The hell with it.
She released her right hand, and hanging from her left, pressed every button on the panel she could touch. Immediately, the trailer began to light up, every interior light coming on.
She kept pressing the buttons, one after another. Some shorted out; there were sparks and smoke.
She kept pressing more.
Suddenly the side monitor came on, just inches from her face, a streaky video blur. Then it came into focus. Although she was looking at it sideways, she could see the tyrannosaurs up on the clearing, standing over the second trailer, their forearms touching it, their powerful legs kicking and pushing at it. She pressed more buttons. The final one had a silver protective cover; she flipped the cover open, and pressed that button, too.
On the monitor she saw the tyrannosaurs disappear in a sudden flaring burst of incandescent sparks, and she heard them roar in rage. And then the video monitor went off, and there was a crackling explosion of sparks all around Harding, stinging her face and hands, and then everything in the trailer went off, and it was dark again.
There was silence for a long moment.
Then, inexorably, the pounding began again.
Thorne
The windshield wipers flicked back and forth. Thorne took the curves fast, despite the driving rain. He glanced at his watch. Two minutes gone, perhaps three.
Perhaps more. He wasn’t sure.
The road was a muddy track, slippery and dangerous. He splashed through deep puddles, holding his breath each time. The car had been waterproofed back in his shop, but you were never sure about these things. Each puddle was another test. So far, so good.
Three minutes gone.
At least three.
The road curved, opened out, and in a flash of lightning he saw a deep puddle ahead. He accelerated through it, the car kicking up plumes of water on both side windows. And then he was through it, still going. Still going! As he headed up a hill, he saw the dashboard needles swing wildly, and he heard the sizzle that he knew meant a fatal electrical short. There was an explosion under the hood, and acrid smoke poured out from the radiator, and the car stopped dead.
Four minutes.
He sat in the car, hearing the rain pound on the metal roof. He turned the ignition key. Nothing happened.
Dead.
Rain poured in sheets down the windshield. He sat back in his seat, sighed, and stared at the road ahead. The radio crackled on the seat beside him. “Doc? Are you almost there?”
Thorne stared at the road, trying to guess where he was. He estimated that he must still be more than a mile from the trailer in the clearing, maybe more. Too far to try it on foot. He swore, and pounded the seat.
“No, Eddie. I shorted.”
“You what?”
“Eddie, the car’s dead. I’m—”
Thorne broke off.
He noticed something.
From around the curve ahead, he saw a faint, flashing red glow. Thorne squinted, trying to be sure. Yes, his eyes were not playing tricks on him. It was there, all right: a flashing red glow.
Eddie said: “Doc? You there?”
Thorne didn’t answer; he grabbed the radio and the Lindstradt rifle, jumped out of the car, and ducking his head against the rain, began to run up the hill toward the junction of the ridge road. Coming around a curve, he saw the red Jeep, standing in the middle of the ridge road, its taillights flashing. One of the lights was broken, glaring white.
He ran forward, trying to see inside. In a flash of lightning he could see there was no driver. The driver’s door was not even closed; the side was deeply dented. Thorne climbed inside, reaching down with his hand for the steering wheel. . . . Yes, the keys were there! He turned the ignition. The motor rumbled to life.
He shoved the Jeep in gear, backed it around, and headed up the ridge toward the clearing. It was only another few curves before he saw the green roof of the laboratory and turned left, his headlights swinging across the grassy clearing, and shining onto the dinosaurs pushing the trailer.
Confronted by these new lights, the tyrannosaurs turned in unison, and bellowed at Thorne’s Jeep. They abandoned the trailer, and charged. Thorne threw the Jeep into reverse and was backing away frantically before he realized the animals were not coming toward him.
Instead, they were running diagonally across the clearing, toward a tree near Thorne. Beneath the tree they paused, their heads turned upward. Thorne doused his lights, and waited. Now he saw the animals only intermittently, in the flashes of lightning. In one crackling burst, he saw them take down the baby from the tree. Then he saw them nuzzling the baby. Obviously his sudden arrival had made them anxious about the infant.
The next time lightning flashed, the tyrannosaurs were gone. The clearing was empty. Were they really gone? Or were they just hiding? He rolled down the window, stuck his head out in the rain. That was when he heard an odd, low, continuous squealing sound. It sounded like the extended cry of an animal, but it was too steady, too continuous. As he listened, he realized it was something else. It was metal.
Thorne turned on his lights again, and drove forward slowly. The tyrannosaurs we
re gone. In the pale beam of the headlamps, he saw the second trailer.
With a continuous metallic squeal, it was still sliding slowly across the wet grass, toward the edge of the cliff.
“What is he doing now?” Kelly yelled, over the rain.
“He’s driving,” Levine said, looking through goggles. From the high hide, they could see Thorne’s headlamps cross the clearing. “He’s driving to the trailer. And he’s . . .”
“He’s what?” Kelly said. “What is he doing now?”
“He’s driving around and around a tree,” Levine said. “A big tree by the clearing.”
“Why?”
“He must be running the cable around the tree,” Eddie said. “That’s the only possible reason.”
There was a moment of silence.
“What’s he doing now?” Arby said.
“He’s gotten out of the Jeep. Now he’s running toward the trailer.”
Thorne was down on his hands and knees in the mud, holding the big hook of the Jeep winch in his hands. The trailer was sliding away from him, but he managed to crawl beneath it, and get the hook around the rear axle. He pulled his fingers clear just as the hook slammed tight against the brake cover, and he rolled his body away. Newly restrained, the trailer jumped sideways in the grass, the tires slamming down where his body had been moments before.
The metal cable from the winch was pulled taut. The whole underbelly of the trailer creaked in protest.
But it held.
Thorne crawled out from beneath the trailer, and squinted at it in the rain. He looked carefully at the wheels of the Jeep, to see if they were moving at all. No. With the cable wrapped around the tree, the counterbalancing weight of the Jeep was enough to hold the second trailer on the rim of the cliff.
He went back to the Jeep, climbed inside, and set the brake. He heard Eddie saying, “Doc. Doc.”
“I’m here, Eddie.”
“You manage to stop it?”
“Yeah. It’s not moving any more.”
The radio crackled. “That’s great. But listen. Doc. You know that connector is just five-mil mesh over stainless rod. It was never intended to—”
“I know, Eddie. I’m working on it.” Thorne climbed out of the car again. He ran quickly through the rain toward the trailer.
He opened the side door, and went inside. The interior was inky black. He could see nothing at all. Everything was overturned. His feet crunched on glass. All the windows were shattered. He held the radio in his hand. “Eddie!”
“Yes, Doc.”
“I need rope.” He knew that Eddie had all sorts of supplies squirreled away.
“Doc . . .”
“Just tell me.”
“It’s in the other trailer, Doc.”
Thorne crashed against a table in the darkness. “Great.”
“There might be some nylon line in the utility locker,” Eddie said. “But I don’t know how much.” He didn’t sound hopeful. Thorne pushed his way down the trailer, came to the wall cabinets. They were jammed shut. He tugged at them in the darkness, then turned away. The utility locker was just beyond. Maybe there would be rope there. And right now, he needed rope.
Trailer
Sarah Harding, still hanging by her arms from the top of the trailer, stared up at the twisted accordion connector, leading to the second trailer. The pounding from the dinosaurs had stopped, and the other trailer was no longer moving. But now she felt water, dripping cold onto her face. And she knew what that meant.
The accordion connector was beginning to leak.
She looked up, and saw a tear had begun to open in the mesh fabric, revealing the twisted coils of steel that formed the connector. The tear was small now, but it would rapidly widen. And as the mesh broke, the steel would begin to uncoil, to lengthen, and finally snap.
They had only minutes before the hanging trailer broke free and fell to the ground below.
She climbed back down to Malcolm, bracing herself to stand beside him. “Ian.”
“I know,” he said, shaking his head.
“Ian, we have to get out of here.” She grabbed him under his armpits, and pulled him upright. “And you’re coming with me.”
He shook his head, defeated. She had seen that gesture before in her life, that futile shake, giving up. She hated to see it. Harding never gave up. Not ever.
Malcolm grunted. “I can’t. . . .”
“You have to,” she said.
“Sarah . . .”
“I don’t want to hear it, Ian. There’s nothing to talk about. Now let’s go.” She was pulling him, and he groaned, but he straightened his body. She pulled hard, and got him up off the table. Lightning flashed, and he seemed to find some energy. He managed to stand on the edge of the seat, facing the table. He was unsteady, but standing. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to get out of here. . . . Is there any rope?”
He nodded, weakly.
“Where?”
He pointed straight down, toward the nose of the trailer, now hanging in space. “Down there. Under the dash.”
“Come on.”
She leaned out into space, and spread her legs so she was braced against the floor opposite her. She was standing like a rock climber in a chimney. Twenty feet below her to the dashboard.
“Okay, Ian. Let’s go.”
Malcolm said, “I can’t do it, Sarah. Seriously.”
“Then lean on me. I’ll carry you.”
“But—”
“Now, damn it!”
Malcolm hoisted himself up, grasped a wall fitting, his arm trembling. He was dragging his right leg. Then she felt his weight on her, sudden and heavy, almost knocking her free. His arms locked around her neck, choking her. She gasped, reached back with both arms, grabbed his thighs, and lifted him while he adjusted his arms better around her neck. Finally she could breathe.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Here we go.”
She started to make her way down the vertical passageway, grabbing at whatever she could. In places there were handholds, and when there were no handholds, she clutched at drawer handles, table legs, window latches, even the carpeting on the floor, her fingers tearing the cloth. At one point, the carpet came away in a big strip, and she slipped before her legs tightened wider, and she halted her downward slide. Hanging behind her, Malcolm wheezed; his arms around her neck were trembling. He said, “You’re very strong.”
“But still feminine,” she said, grimly.
She was only ten feet from the dashboard. Then five. She found a wall grip, hung, dangling her legs. Her feet touched the steering wheel. She lowered herself down, easing Malcolm onto the dashboard. He lay back, gasping.
The trailer creaked and swayed. She fumbled under the dashboard, found a utility box, popped it open. Metal tools spilled out, clattering. And she found a rope. Half-inch nylon, easily fifty feet of it.
She got up, staring down through the windshield at the bottom of the valley hundreds of feet below. Directly to her side, she saw the driver’s door to the trailer. She twisted the handle, pushed it open. It clanged against the outer surface of the trailer, and she felt rain on her face.
She leaned out and looked up the side of the trailer. She saw smooth metal paneling, with no hand grips. But underneath the trailer, there must be axles and boxes and other things to stand on. Gripping the wet metal of the doorjamb, she bent over, trying to look at the underside of the trailer. She heard a metallic clanking, and she heard someone say, “Finally!” And a bulky shape suddenly loomed in front of her. It was Thorne, hanging on the undercarriage.
“For Christ’s sake,” Thorne said. “What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Let’s go!”
“It’s Ian,” she said. “He’s hurt.”
Typical, Kelly thought, looking at Arby in the high hide. When things got tough, he just couldn’t handle it. Too much emotion, too much tension, and he got all trembly and weird. A
rby had long since turned away from the cliff, and now was looking out the other side of the shelter, toward the river. Almost as if nothing was going on. Typical.
Kelly turned back to Levine. “What’s happening now?” she said.
“Thorne just went in,” Levine said, peering through the goggles.
“He went in? You mean, in the trailer?”
“Yes. And now . . . someone’s coming out.”
“Who?”
“I think Sarah. She’s getting everybody out.”
Kelly strained in the night, trying to see. The rain had almost stopped; there was only a light drizzle now. Across the valley, the trailer still swung free in space. She thought she could make out a figure, clinging to the undercarriage. But she couldn’t be sure.
“What’s she doing?”
“Climbing.”
“Alone?”
“Yes,” Levine said. “Alone.”
Sarah Harding came out through the door, twisting her body in the rain. She did not look down. She knew the valley was five hundred feet below her. She could feel the trailer swinging. She had the rope slung around her shoulder. She edged around, lowered her leg, and stood on a gearbox. She felt with her hand, gripped a cable. Swung around.
Thorne was inside the trailer, talking to her. “We’ll never get Malcolm up without a rope,” he said. “Can you climb it?”
Lightning flashed. She stared straight up at the underside of the trailer, glistening wet with rain. She saw the slick gleam of grease. Then blackness again.
“Sarah: can you do it?”
“Yes,” she said. She reached up, and started to climb.
In the high hide, Kelly was saying, “Where is she? What’s happening? Is she all right?”
Levine watched through the glasses. “She’s climbing,” he said.
Arby listened to their voices distantly. He was turned away, staring off at the river in the darkened plain. He waited impatiently for the next lightning flash. Waited to see if it was true, what he had seen earlier.
She did not know how, but slipping and sliding, she somehow got to the top of the cliff, and flung herself over the side. There was no time to waste; she uncoiled the rope, and crawled beneath the second trailer. She looped the rope through a metal bracket, quickly knotted it. Then she went back to the edge of the cliff, and threw the rope down.
The Lost World Page 31