The Lost World

"It really is, " Malcolm said.

Kelly looked at Arby and said, "Arb. Those’re the text labels that go with a map."

"Yeah, I think so. Pretty neat, huh?" He pushed a button, sending the image to the printer.

Malcolm peered at the listing some more, then turned his attention back to the satellite maps, looking closely at each one with the magnifying glass. His nose was just inches from the photographs.

"Arb," Kelly said, "don’t just sit there. Come on! Recover the map! That’s what we need!"

"I don’t know if I can," Arby said. "It’s a proprietary thirty-two-bit format….I mean, it’s a big job."

"Stop whining, Arb. Just do it."

"Never mind," Malcolm said. He stepped away from the satellite images pinned on the wall. "It’s not important."

"It’s not?" Arby said, a little wounded.

"No, Arby. You can stop. Because, from what you’ve already discovered, I am quite certain we can identify the island, right now."

James

Ed James yawned, and pushed the earpiece tighter into his ear. He wanted to make sure he got all this. He shifted in the driver’s seat of his gray Taurus, trying to get comfortable, trying to stay awake. The small tape recorder was spinning in his lap, next to his notepad, and the crumpled papers from two Big Macs. James looked across the street at Levine’s apartment building. The lights were on in the third-floor apartment.

And the bug he had placed there last week was working fine. Through his earpiece, he heard one of the kids say, "How?"

And then the crippled guy, Malcolm, said, "The essence of verification is multiple lines of reasoning that converge at a single point."

"Meaning what?" the kid said.

Malcolm said, "Just look at the Landsat pictures."

On his notepad, James wrote LANDSAT.

"We already looked at those," the girl said.

James felt foolish not to have realized earlier that these two kids were working for Levine. He remembered them well, they were in the class Levine taught. There was a short black kid and a gawky white girl. Just kids: maybe eleven or twelve. He should have realized.

Not that it mattered now, he thought. He was getting the information anyway. James reached across the dashboard and plucked out the last two French fries, and ate them, even though they were cold.

"Okay," he heard Malcolm say. "It’s this island here. This is the island Levine went to."

The girl said doubtfully, "You think so? This is…Isla Sorna."

James wrote ISLA SORNA.

"That’s our island," Malcolm said. "Why? Three independent reasons. First, it’s privately owned, so it hasn’t been thoroughly searched by the Costa Rican government. Second, privately owned by whom? By the Germans, who leased rights to mineral excavations, back in the twenties."

"All the German books."

"Exactly. Third, from Arby’s list – and from another independent source – it is clear that there is volcanic gas located at Site B. So, which islands have volcanic gas? Take the magnifying glass and look for yourself. Turns out, only one island does,"

"You mean this here?" the girl said. "Right. That’s volcanic smoke."

"How do you know?"

"Spectrographic analysis. See this spike here? That’s elementary sulfur in the cloud cover. There aren’t really any sources for sulfur except volcanic sources."

"What’s this other spike?" the girl said.

"Methane," Malcolm said. "Apparently there is – a fairly large source of methane gas."

"Is that also volcanic?" Thorne said.

"It might be. Methane is released from volcanic activity, but most commonly during active eruptions. The other possibility is, it might be organic.

"Organic? Meaning what?"

"Large herbivores, and – "

Then there was something that James couldn’t hear, and the kid said, "Do you want me to finish this recovery, or not?" He sounded annoyed.

"No," Thorne said. "Never mind now, Arby. We know what we have to do. Let’s go, kids!"

James looked up at the apartment and saw the lights being turned off. A few minutes later, Thorne and the kids appeared at the front entrance, on the street level. They got in a Jeep, and drove off. Malcolm went to his own car, climbed in awkwardly, and drove away in the opposite direction.

James considered following Malcolm, but he had something else to do now. He turned on the car ignition, picked up the phone, and dialed.

Field Systems

Half an hour later, when they got back to Thorne’s Office, Kelly stared, stunned. Most of the workers were gone, and the shed had been cleaned up. The two trailers and the Explorer stood side by side, freshly painted dark green, and ready to go.

They’re finished!"

"I told you they would be," Thorne said. He turned to his chief foreman, Eddie Carr, a stocky young man in his twenties. "Eddie, where are we?"

"Just wrapping up, Doc," Eddie said. "Paint’s still wet in a few places, but it should be dry by morning."

"We can’t wait until morning. We’re moving out now."

"We are?"

Arby and Kelly exchanged glances. This was news to them, too.

Thorne said, "I’ll need you to drive one of these, Eddie. We’ve got to be at the airport by midnight."

"But I thought we were field testing.

"No time for that. We’re going right to the location." The front door buzzed. "That’ll be Malcolm, probably. He pushed the button to unlock the door.

"You’re not going to field test?" Eddie said, with a worried look. "I think you better shake them down, Doc. We made some pretty complex modifications here, and – "