Jurassic Park: A Novel by Michael Crichton

compressed to a day, then eighty million years would still be 3,652 years—older than the pyramids. The velociraptor had been dead a long time.
    “Doesn’t look very fearsome,” one of the kids said.
    “He wasn’t,” Grant said. “At least, not until he grew up.” Probably this baby had scavenged, feeding off carcasses slain by the adults, after the big animals had gorged themselves, and lay basking in the sun. Carnivores could eat as much as 25 percent of their body weight in a single meal, and it made them sleepy afterward. The babies would chitter and scramble over the indulgent, somnolent bodies of the adults, and nip little bites from the dead animal. The babies were probably cute little animals.
    But an adult velociraptor was another matter entirely. Pound for pound, a velociraptor was the most rapacious dinosaur that ever lived. Although relatively small—about two hundred pounds, the size of a leopard—velociraptors were quick, intelligent, and vicious, able to attack with sharp jaws, powerful clawed forearms, and the devastating single claw on the foot.
    Velociraptors hunted in packs, and Grant thought it must have been a sight to see a dozen of these animals racing at full speed, leaping onto the back of a much larger dinosaur, tearing at the neck and slashing at the ribs and belly.…
    “We’re running out of time,” Ellie said, bringing him back.
    Grant gave instructions for the trench. From the computer image, they knew the skeleton lay in a relatively confined area; a ditch around a two-meter square would be sufficient. Meanwhile, Ellie lashed down the tarp that covered the side of the hill. Grant helped her pound in the final stakes.
    “How did the baby die?” one of the kids asked.
    “I doubt we’ll know,” Grant replied. “Infant mortality in the wild is high. In African parks, it runs seventy percent among some carnivores. It could have been anything—disease, separation from the group, anything. Or even attack by an adult. We know these animals hunted in packs, but we don’t know anything about their social behavior in a group.”
    The students nodded. They had all studied animal behavior, and they knew, for example, that when a new male took over a lion pride, the first thing he did was kill all the cubs. The reason was apparently genetic: the male had evolved to disseminate his genes as widely as possible, and by killing the cubs he brought all the femalesinto heat, so that he could impregnate them. It also prevented the females from wasting their time nurturing the offspring of another male.
    Perhaps the velociraptor hunting pack was also ruled by a dominant male. They knew so little about dinosaurs, Grant thought. After 150 years of research and excavation all around the world, they still knew almost nothing about what the dinosaurs had really been like.
    “We’ve got to go,” Ellie said, “if we’re going to get to Choteau by five.”

HAMMOND
    Gennaro’s secretary bustled in with a new suitcase. It still had the sales tags on it. “You know, Mr. Gennaro,” she said severely, “when you forget to pack it makes me think you don’t really want to go on this trip.”
    “Maybe you’re right,” Gennaro said. “I’m missing my kid’s birthday.” Saturday was Amanda’s birthday, and Elizabeth had invited twenty screaming four-year-olds to share it, as well as Cappy the Clown and a magician. His wife hadn’t been happy to hear that Gennaro was going out of town. Neither had Amanda.
    “Well, I did the best I could on short notice,” his secretary said. “There’s running shoes your size, and khaki shorts and shirts, and a shaving kit. A pair of jeans and a sweatshirt if it gets cold. The car is downstairs to take you to the airport. You have to leave now to make the flight.”
    She left. Gennaro walked down the hallway, tearing the sales tags off the suitcase. As he passed the all-glass conference room, Dan Ross left the table and came outside.
    “Have a good