Part One: " Queen's Gambit Declined "
"What burns me," Hammond said, "is that we have made this wonderful park, this fantastic park, and our very first visitors are going through it like accountants, just looking for problems. They aren't experiencing the wonder of it all."
"That's their problem," Arnold said. "We can't make them experience wonder."
--Jurassic Park.
Chapter One
Two weeks in the hot Montana desert had yielded Kari two epiphanies: one, Montana was the best and worst place to dig, and two, she really hated sunscreen. Eyeing her near-blood-red hand, a casualty of the situation, she hardly looked up when one of her paleontology students—she couldn't recall his name—approached his Irish professor eagerly for the third time in an hour.
"Doctor Wolfe?" His smile was faltering uncertainly. "I think I found something."
Normally, she would have only been too happy to go down and see what it was, but this kid's last two discoveries had been a funny rock and an ancient candy wrapper. "Again?"
He—Stoppard, she thought his name was—had the decency to look mildly embaressed. "For real this time, Doctor."
Kari unwillingly hauled herself to her feet, like a mother who was sick of looking after her children. "Well, let's see it, then."
"It's not a wrapper," Stoppard assured her, leading the way through the hot copper sand towards where he'd been digging. Around them, the multi-colored backs of the other paleontology students worked patiently; most of them had found something, even a minute something, by now. Stoppard was one of the last two discover something, even in the area that Kari had chosen specifically for its richness in smaller fossils.
She couldn't resist a grin at his reassurance. "I'm delighted to 'ear that."
His 'find' was a rock that stuck out of the butterscotch rockface that surrounded the dig, like bad acne, and Kari was quick to jump up onto Stoppard's ledge to examine it. "It's certainly not a wrapper, lad," she chuckled to herself, running her slender, long fingers over the visible edges, occaisionally scratching a bit; then, she grinned again.
"Aye, yeh've got somethin'. I can't tell ye what. Be careful when ye go to sand it down."
Stoppard laughed excitedly. "Yes, doctor. Thank you, doctor."
"Aye, aye," Kari remarked boredly, dismissing herself from his position and going back to her own, the chair under the blue-white awning. She was grateful for his enthusiasm, however, which a lot of the students didn't seem to have, particularily not when they'd seen her for the first time. Kari Wolfe was a lanky, fair-skinned woman of medium height with deathly pale blue eyes and shoulder-length black hair. She had the look of a person who was constantly torn between exhaustion and boredom, mostly due to her insomnia. Her students, with mostly affection, had taken to calling her Long John Silver in private because of the slight limp on her right leg.
She didn't mind too much. At least they weren't cursing their newest teacher for being a brainless idiot, which was what she'd expected they'd do.
However, she did mind the white-haired man who had taken over her chair, his own blue eyes twinkling as she came closer to the awning. He looked like something out of an old, dusty book, an illustration to a story that children groaned at when they had to read.
"John," she said tersely, "what have I told ye about showing up unannounced?"
He chuckled merrily. "That you would flog me and bury me in your dig?"
Kari nodded, raising an eyebrow. "Aye. I … wasn't aware that you were well enough to travel."
"Does that mean you won't flog me?" John Hammond asked her, scottish brogue uncharacteristically light.
"I'm still debating it," Kari drawled, leaning against the inside of one of the awning's legs. "So what brings ye to Montana?"
"I was visiting an old friend and decided to see another while I was at it." He smiled, gesturing at her students. "You really don't mind, do you? Come now. A break from your work?"
"Not really." Kari smiled back at her previous employer, unable to help it; John Hammond had that affect on people. "Alan Grant did, though."
"Who said I went to see Doctor Grant?" he asked, looking taken aback.
She grinned. "Grant did, he called me yesterday."
"So you've been leading me on, you knew I was well to travel." Hammond sighed. "Was this a surprise at all? I still remember the 'surprise' birthday party where you could hear us all breathing in the dark of your office."
"No, it's a surprise," she assured him, scrutinizing his appearance. "I see yeh've managed to mostly beat the cancer."
"It will take more than a tumor to bring me down, my girl."
"O' course. I suspect the tumor wasn't sarcastic enough—sarcasm always flustered ye," she replied, smirking a little.
"Yes," he chortled, "and so here we are, talking about sarcastic tumors."
Kari looked out on her students, suddenly remembering that she was still a professor of Montana University. "Yes, here we are."
"What did Grant say to you?" Hammond asked, his tone changing from light to pessimistic, from joy to longsuffering.
"That ye were full of more suicidal ideas, and that yer nephew's demise hadn't phased ye," Kari sighed. "Is that why you're here, John? Because Grant refused yer mysterious offer?"
Hammond sighed, toying with his bamboo cane. "He told you about the fishermen being attacked?"
"If ye'll do me the favor, John," Kari narrowed her eyes at him, "and recall, I was thoroughly against the idea of the spinosaurs. They're vicious and nasty, not like the tyrannosaurs at all—Wu likely made a mistake with their DNA."
He watched a student brush dust away from part of a severed backbone, but his eyes were mostly distant. "Again, Kari, it wasn't in your authority. You were in charge of keeping the animals on Isla Sorna, not deciding what animals to bring out. But I suspect that you were right."
"Ye only think that because of what's going on in Costa Rica. If they were behaving themselves—" Kari faltered, for Hammond had looked back at her, his expression unfathomable. "They're yer pet dinosaurs, Hammond. Admit it. You think I should go out there and yell at a spinosaur that it won't get its treats if it continues."
"I certainly do not," he bit off tersely. "What I am proposing is that someone go down there and study their behavior. See if there's something that can be built to contain them, or behavior that can be slowly culled. You were the closest to them, Kari. I still remember the day the baby bit your leg."
Kari chuckled darkly. "Don't we all. Oh, yeah, in that case, why not?" she drawled, sarcasm dripping off of the words. "I'll go down there, swim with them, put them on Sigmund Freud's couch and see what they're thinking, and then we'll build a metal net around 'Sorna and they'll all be one happy family."
"That's not funny, Kari."
"No," she agreed, "it isn't. If I was so close to them, why did ye go to Grant first? No, don't say anything—it's because ye know my answer, isn't it? I was yer initial choice but ye know I'll never do it, so ye went to poor Grant, who's losing funding faster than some species are going extinct."
Hammond bit his lower lip for a moment, remarking, "You know me too well, my girl."
"I'm not doing it. No more suicidal ideas, John. Let the Costa Rican government deal with it."
"Kari—they'll shoot them, kill them."
She nodded, nonplussed. "Oh yes, I know, that's the human reaction to anything hostile. But they're animals 'behaving badly' in our eyes, aren't they? In mine they're only animals doing what comes naturally, but the Costa Rican government doesn't have that luxury, John; they need to keep their people safe."
"If their people would stop going in so close, this wouldn't happen!" Hammond said, looking, for the first time in a long while, defeated. She wasn't sure why he'd come all the way to her to do this, but it was slightly touching, to know that the Scottish millionaire had chosen her as his last advisor. "My people tell me there are reports of paragliders—paragliders! Going close! And no one stops this behavior, Kari, it just keeps going on and on until something bad happens! And then there's a lawsuit, of course."
"Yer lawsuit collection is getting pretty impressive by now, I'm sure." Kari shook her head. "It's in the human nature to taunt death, and then our nature again to act indignantly when it bothers to happen. Nothing can change that, John, not you or anyone else."
Hammond glared at the floor. "So that's what I do, then. Let them exterminate those animals and let the greatest discover of our age die."
"Maybe it would be better," she said. "For all of us."
He looked back up. "I can't do that."
Kari smiled, but it was faint; the light of the desert reflected in her pale eyes. "I know ye can't, John, ye just came for a sane suggestion from an insane paleontologist."
"You're a bit like my daughter, you know. I feel that way." He smiled, his own smile bright and fragile. "I've seen you graduate and go into your first few jobs, and I've seen you succeed. They're aren't enough people like you in this world."
She frowned a bit. "How do ye figure that?"
"Levelheaded, kind." Hammond stood up, sighing. "Thank you for listening, Kari. I suppose I should let you go back to being a proper teacher. Congratulations on that, by the way."
"Thanks, John. Ye take care of yerself. Okay?" Kari patted his shoulder warmly. "Ye're only recovering, it's not good to travel so much."
He laughed softly. "Now you sound like my real daughter. Yes, Kari. Thank you."
She watched him go over the sandy hill, towards where all of the cars were parked, and knew that whatever had dug into John Hammond's mind was far from over. This wouldn't be the last she'd hear from him. She recalled the begging conversation to go and document the animals of Isla Sorna, and then the huffy reply that that was all right, he'd gotten Sarah Harding anyway.
Kari went back to her teaching post, towards a student who was waving a hand to get her attention.
No, it wasn't over.