ELLIE

Ellen E. Sattler picked up her coat and turned off the last of the lights in the restaurant. Phipher waved at Ellie, hurriedly grabbing her own (more expensive) coat, and walking past Ellie to the door. "Night, Ellie," Phipher hummed.

"See you, Laura." Ellie walked out of the door, and locked it behind her. She sighed. A few feet in front of her was the person she least wanted to see right now. Jack Reiman was studying physics at the University of Chicago. He was known as one of the most brilliant and annoying people in science today. He was just a recent Ph.D., at 30, but his reputation traveled. He was in Montana doing some kind of field work that Ellie didn't care to know about.

"Ellen! Hi!" Reiman approached her, hand outstretched to shake hers. She shook his hand, and whispered, "Hi," moving out of his way.

"Listen, are you off work already?"

"Jack, it's ten at night." Ellie didn't really want to have this conversation. Reiman had a serious crush on her. Or something like it, because he kept asking her to go out with him. She had accepted once, and had a fairly good time, but she was tired-

"Well, I was just wondering if you had had anything to eat yet..."

"Jack, I work at a restaurant."

He tried a different approach. "Here, I'll walk you home. It's not far, and I've got nothing better to do. Did you hear about, oh, what's his name? Alan Grant! His newest discovery? Something about infants."

Ellie never missed a chance to convert non-Grant worshipers. "Alan Grant has been working specifically on infant dinosaur behavior for about five years straight now. You must be talking about the new hadrosaur nest. There are dozens of them. About six years ago, he discovered a nest of hadrosaur eggs...overnight celebrity."She shrugged.

"You know a lot about this guy," Reiman said uneasily.

"Well, he's why I came here. I wanted to be on his research team eventually. Actually, I'm working on dissertation now. But when I finish, I'd also love to do post doc there."

"Does Grant do post docs-?"

"And graduate students," Ellie finished.

"Post doc, huh?"

"Yeah. Kinda silly, but there you go."

Reiman laughed. "Childhood dream?"

Ellie looked taken aback. "No way! When I was nine, I wanted to be an actress!" Reiman laughed harder, then said softly, "You would have made a great one."

"Why do you think?" Ellie asked seriously, "because I'm a beautiful woman?" Now it was Reiman's turn to be surprised. Ellen was a very blunt woman. "Well, yeah, I guess. But you also have an excess of personality."

Ellie laughed. "I don't think I've ever heard that term before. Excess of Personality. Hah!"

Ellie could see her apartment a little ways away, and turned to Reiman. "Do you do the late night coffee thing?"

Jack Reiman smiled. "I sure do."

RAVINE

Alan Grant slowly came back into consciousness. It was dark. And cold. He saw the truck. The truck! That's right, he thought ruefully, I fell. For a full minute he didn't move, not believing this had actually happened. This had only ever happened to one of his students...a post doc. The kid hadn't survived the fall. It had to be the most dramatic thing that had ever happened on his dig. Grant groaned. His leg hurt like hell.

Still, he had to move.

Bad move, Grand decided, as his leg and body screamed in protest. He lay back down, and closed his eyes. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to sleep.

No! Grant forced his eyes open, and put all of his weight on his arms, pushing himself up. He put himself in a sitting position, and lay back, gasping for air. Next to him, he could feel, was the door to the truck. He pushed on it. It opened. Grant rotated slightly, trying to see what he had-

There was no excavation. He could see the side of the ravine perfectly, and there was no excavation. This was not the right ravine. Great, Grant thought. The excavation was new, and Grant had only been there once. But how many ravines could there be in one badland? Grant remembered. Hundreds. Damn. Well, now he was not only hurt, but he was lost.

Well, only thing to do is get moving, he thought. He forced his legs around, on the outside of the truck, out the open door. He tried to get out, balancing on a sharp rock, putting weight on his good leg.

His foot slipped, and he stumbled, landing doubled over on a rock. The wind was knocked out of him.

But he forced himself up again. He lifted himself onto the ground, looked around, then started walking.

CAR WHEELS

Terry James-Grant stared out of the little trailer window. She had expected Alan home much earlier than this. She glanced at her watch. It was already midnight. He should have been back by ten. Alan was pretty reliable.

She was so tired, though, it was hard to be worried. He was always back by now. That was what motivated her to get up from the chair looking out of the kitchen window, waiting for him, idly scribbling on her students' papers.

James was a tall, thin, stern woman of forty seven. She'd been a chain smoker since she was fourteen, and had was only trying to quit now. With little success. God knows, Terry thought, Alan wouldn't tell me to stop. Grant had never really minded her personal habits. That was the great thing about Alan. He didn't really judge people; he seemed, however corny it may sound, to see through people. Good or bad.

For example, Alan saw through the dusty, rocky regions of the badlands, and saw that it had once been a prehistoric paradise. Or something like that. James wasn't good with dinosaurs. Terry James had gotten her MA in inorganic chemistry from Tulane University, in New Orleans, where she'd grown up. James had then gone on to do graduate school and post doc in Alabama. She'd gathered a good reputation, and her first job offer had come from Montana State.

It was there that she'd met Alan Grant, then a young graduate student at Denver. She had been drawn to him immediately, to his extreme and vibrant contrast to her devil may care attitude. He was like a ball of energy, begging for a release; looking for someone to admire. Terry had become that person, as his thesis advisor and defender of his dissertation, later. Alan had gone to do post doc in Georgia, and hated it. So he took the offer to return as a professor to Denver.

When he returned, James and Grant had hit it off, this time more romantically. And after two years of continuous dating, Grant had proposed. They'd been uneventfully married for four years now.

James walked outside, and cursed. Alan had the truck. She couldn't decide if this was important enough to call the police over, and decided it wasn't. He probably just got a little lost. He'd be back before morning, surely.