Consisting of a five-storey central body that measured a little over two hundred meters in length and thirty-five meters in width, and to which were attached some extensions that contained only rooms, the Palace was perhaps not the largest hotel of the island, that title went to the Grand Nublarian, but it was no less spectacular.
At the very centre of the central body, a dome rose between two long glass-covered atriums and some eight-storey towers, which contained the most luxurious rooms and suites, protruded from the building at regular intervals. The palace was surrounded by a huge garden, densely vegetated at the foot of the facades that faced the valley with even creepers that stormed the walls, and consisting in a large lawn on the other side of the hotel. Beyond that lawn, not far from the golf course, were a few tennis courts. The basement of the palace housed a massage parlour, a spa and an indoor pool.
Although decorative elements inside and outside the palace were of Mesoamerican inspiration, its architecture seemed to be rather the result of an amalgam of Indian and neoclassical influences, unlike the other buildings of the city.
It was like if Simon Masrani had wanted in Burroughs a building that would recall him some palaces of his native India
On that matter, some people in India liked to call Isla Nublar Masrani's little Centramerican Raj, and they weren't the only ones to see in the hotel a demonstration of the billionaire's and the park designers' delusion of grandeurs.
The Palace was connected to the circumlagunar road by a bridge with balustrades decorated with apatosaur statues and which crossed a small combe, narrow upstream in the south-east and that widened as it ran towards the northwest.
On the other side of the bridge, the road described a loop that passed under the hotel's porch, circling a fountain decorated with a bronze sculpture that depicted a raptor chasing a herd of small bipedal ornithopods.
The porch, spacious and high enough for a bus to pass under it, was delimited by carved columns that looked like sauropod legs and aside from some size differences, the columns at the entrance of the courtyard beyond the western atrium and some inside the palace were similar to those.
On either side of the porch, two towers protruded from the central body.
Dearing and the keepers went to park underneath and they all got out of the vehicles to say goodbye to the boys.
"You're not coming?" Gray asked her.
"I can't," she replied. "I have to make sure that everyone leaves."
"Will you join us soon?"
She crouched and gave him a reassuring smile before hugging him.
"Yes, I promise."
She then hugged Zach and even Leon, to the latter's surprise.
"Take care of each other, boys," she told them.
Grady and Sembène then gave their intern a hug and the three boys took their bags and suitcases and headed for the big panels of the hotel's door, guarded by two J-SEC officers. They opened the door for the boys and they passed into the rotunda that acted as a lobby.
The latter was brightened by a ring of palm trees, paintings, luxury tables and chairs, and at the back, just in front of a hall before the southwestern entrance which opened on the lawn, a large Christmas tree decorated with many garlands and baubles.
Passing behind the tree, a semi-circular gallery overlooked the lobby and connected the third floor of the two atriums. Looking up, the boys saw the fresco that adorned the inside of the dome, depicting trees and some herbivorous dinosaurs.
As he saw the Christmas tree, Zach thought of his aunt and he had a lump in his heart, like if a part of him saw the farewells made as definitive and was aware that she would not join them on the mainland.
He had heard her compare herself to the captain of a ship, but the latter was sinking and he feared that she wanted to go down with it.
He really hoped to be wrong and tried to hide his troubled look from Gray.
Seeing the trio arrive, some of employees tasked with coordinating the evacuees and a J-SEC officer came to meet them, and Leon asked them if they could go on the next ship that would leave the island.
"We already have gathered the passengers who will embark on the Cimmeria, it's full sorry," one of the employees said. "You will have to wait for the Carpathia. Go wait in the western atrium."
They looked towards the tall and wide arches that opened on the atriums. They saw hundreds, if not thousands, of people gathered in them, whether on the ground floor or on the upper ones.
The officer made them cross the cordon formed by several of his colleagues at the western atrium's arch and they began to cross the crowd to try to find a spot where to wait.
Between the basins, couches, coffee tables, and potted plants that enliven the atrium, it seemed that there wasn't a single square meter of free space.
As they advanced, the boys also looked by the porches which, whether they were on ground floor or on the first one, led to break rooms, the VIP lounge, restaurants, some shops or the ballroom.
While first aiders came from time to time to provide care or try to reassure those in need, those waiting to be evacuated tried somehow to sleep a little and thus, despite the amount of people inside it, the palace was relatively quiet.
As for the officers, they seemed exhausted and some were on the edge, like that one to which a woman asked if someone could go retrieve some important personal items of hers at her accommodation in the Cartago Valley.
"You have an elephant rifle?" The officer asked curtly. "No? Move on then!"
They arrived half-way between the dome and the courtyard, passed under a footbridge that connected the two sides of the atrium at the second floor's level, and continued before turning to their right a little further in order to pass in the large restaurant-bar beyond. It had been built on two levels in a large rectangular hall that jutted out to the edge of the combe: On the upper level, were the bar was located and arranged for the most part on a mezzanine that ran along the hall's edges, describing an upside down U and overhanging the restaurant itself while one could access to the latter thanks to two wide curving stairs.
Decorated with tall bowls and long tropical plants display cases, it was organized around a fountain above which hung a bulky chandelier.
On the ceiling, pyramidal windows let them see the dense vegetation that covered the restaurant's roof while tall windows on three of the hall's sides opened on a veranda that ran along a long shallow pool and was outlined by columns that supported the bar's balcony.
Zach, Gray, and Leon went down in the restaurant, less crowded than the atrium, and settled against one of the plants display case in the centre of the room.
