Jurassic Park: A Novel by Michael Crichton Page B

Hammond and his “Pachyderm Portfolio” raised $870 million in venture capital to finance his proposed corporation, International Genetic Technologies, Inc. And they could have raised more, except Hammond insisted on absolute secrecy, and he offered no return on capital for at least five years. That scared a lot of investors off. In the end, they’d had to take mostly Japanese consortia. The Japanese were the only investors who had the patience.
    Sitting in the leather chair of the jet, Gennaro thought about how evasive Hammond was. The old man was now ignoring the fact that Gennaro’s law firm had forced this trip on him. Instead, Hammond behaved as if they were engaged in a purely social outing. “It’s too bad you didn’t bring your family with you, Donald,” he said.
    Gennaro shrugged. “It’s my daughter’s birthday. Twenty kids already scheduled. The cake and the clown. You know how it is.”
    “Oh, I understand,” Hammond said. “Kids set their hearts on things.”
    “Anyway, is the park ready for visitors?” Gennaro asked.
    “Well, not officially,” Hammond said. “But the hotel is built, so there is a place to stay.…”
    “And the animals?”
    “Of course, the animals are all there. All in their spaces.”
    Gennaro said, “I remember in the original proposal you were hoping for a total of twelve.…”
    “Oh, we’re far beyond that. We have two hundred and thirty-eight animals, Donald.”
    “Two hundred and thirty-eight?”
    The old man giggled, pleased at Gennaro’s reaction. “You can’t imagine it. We have
herds
of them.”
    “Two hundred and thirty-eight … How many species?”
    “Fifteen different species, Donald.”
    “That’s incredible,” Gennaro said. “That’s fantastic. And what about all the other things you wanted? The facilities? The computers?”
    “All of it, all of it,” Hammond said. “Everything on that island is state-of-the-art. You’ll see for yourself, Donald. It’s perfectly wonderful. That’s why this … 
concern
 … is so misplaced. There’s absolutely no problem with the island.”
    Gennaro said, “Then there should be absolutely no problem with an inspection.”
    “And there isn’t,” Hammond said. “But it slows things down. Everything has to stop for the official visit.…”
    “You’ve had delays anyway. You’ve postponed the opening.”
    “Oh,
that.
” Hammond tugged at the red-silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his sportcoat. “It was bound to happen. Bound to happen.”
    “Why?” Gennaro asked.
    “Well, Donald,” Hammond said, “to explain that, you have to go back to the initial concept of the resort. The concept of the most advanced amusement park in the world, combining the latest electronic and biological technologies. I’m not talking about rides. Everybody has
rides.
Coney Island has
rides.
And these days everybody has animatronic environments. The haunted house, the pirate den, the wild west, the earthquake—everyone has those things. So we set out to make biological attractions.
Living
attractions. Attractionsso astonishing they would capture the imagination of the entire world.”
    Gennaro had to smile. It was almost the same speech, word for word, that he had used on the investors, so many years ago. “And we can never forget the ultimate object of the project in Costa Rica—to make money,” Hammond said, staring out the windows of the jet. “Lots and lots of money.”
    “I remember,” Gennaro said.
    “And the secret to making money in a park,” Hammond said, “is to limit your personnel costs. The food handlers, ticket takers, cleanup crews, repair teams. To make a park that runs with minimal staff. That was why we invested in all the computer technology—we automated wherever we could.”
    “I remember.…”
    “But the plain fact is,” Hammond said, “when you put together all the animals and all the computer systems, you run into snags. Who ever got a major computer system up and