CHAPTER 1
Alan Grant ran for his life through the jungles of Isla Sorna. The biggest super-predator of them all thundered after him. He heard the Spinosaurus aegypticus roar and looked back to see the dinosaur’s dark eyes glimmer with hunger and anticipation. The towering animal’s crocodile-like jaws snapped at empty air as the massive sail rising from its spine sliced through low-hanging vines. The ground shook and explosions of mud and muck rose with the sailback’s heavy strides.
SPINOSAURUS
The breathless scientist raced across a clearing, the bright tropical sun in his eyes. Ahead lay a high mountain wall cut in half by a narrow ravine. With renewed strength, he darted toward the divide.
Thin trees exploded and chunks of timber flew in every direction as the dinosaur burst from the jungle in pursuit of its prey. Alan raced on worriedly, scanning the ravine walls, looking for cave mouths where smaller predators might be hiding. Luckily, the walls were sheer. Nothing would leap out at him from either side of the ravine—but on the other hand, he would have no place to hide.
The footfalls behind him grew louder. The ravine was narrow, but not narrow enough to keep the predator from following.
The ground ahead dipped suddenly and Alan stumbled down a steep shelf. At the base, he found himself staring at a long flat stretch cut off at the far end by a twenty-foot-high wall of fallen boulders. Light peeked out from between the stones, and some of the gaps looked large enough for a human to squeeze between.
Rhhhh-ahhhhrrrr!
Alan risked a look back. The surprised Spino-saurus was tumbling down the sharp slide. Alan ran even faster. The Spinosaurus would need only a moment to recover its footing. Then the dinosaur would be on him!
The ground shuddered behind Alan as he lunged toward the wall of fallen stones. He spotted a decent-sized opening between the boulders and was about to climb into it when another explosive footfall rocked the ground and made the boulders shift.
The rocks smashed together, and the opening suddenly disappeared. If Alan had reached it a moment sooner and tried to climb through, he would have been crushed!
He turned to face the Spinosaurus. The dinosaur stood thirty feet away, watching Alan with what might have been delight.
Terror gripped Alan.
“All right, all right,” Alan whispered to himself. “Try and be steady here. You’ve studied this behavior before. You know what it’s doing—trying to scare you. Fear flavors the meat. Don’t give in.”
The Spinosaurus roared again and clicked its claws hungrily. Its mouth dripped with saliva.
“Right,” Alan said, spinning and leaping at the rocks, desperate to find a foothold, a handhold, some way to climb over or through the barrier.
With a final roar, the Spinosaurus charged!
Alan climbed. The boulders slid beneath him. The earth trembled with the dinosaur’s approach and the rocks slipped, sending Alan back to the ground. He spun and scrambled to his feet just in time to see the Spinosaurus’s huge head block out the world. Sharp teeth glinted and a terrible tongue wriggled as a cloud of foul-smelling breath made Alan choke and recoil.
Suddenly, chains rattled, and the dinosaur yelped in confusion. Its gaping maw was lifted up and away as the trap Alan and his team had laid for the super-predator was sprung.
“Hah,” Alan said weakly as he watched the huge nets raise the dinosaur off the ground. From the seemingly smooth walls of the ravine came metal arms with chains as thick as a man’s torso, and netting specially designed to hold the Spinosaurus.
In seconds, the raging dinosaur was secure. Alan tipped his hat to the dinosaur, who roared in frustration. Then he waited for the rest of his team to emerge from their hiding places.
Alan spent the day supervising the relocation of the captured Spinosaurus to an isolated area of Isla Sorna. As night fell, he returned to the Jurassic Park Ranger Station with Deborah
C. J. Cherryh
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