Free The Lost World by Michael Crichton Page A

This could be, oh, I don't know, a dead pelican. Something like that."
    "Uh-huh."
    "Except no pelican has a skin like that."
    "I see," Malcolm said.
    "And there s no feathers."
    "Uh-huh."
    "Now," Gelman said, "we were able to extract a minute quantity of blood from the intra-arterial spaces. Not much, but enough to conduct a microscopic examination. Here it is."
    The slide changed again. He saw a jumble of cells, mostly red cells, and an occasional misshapen white cell. It was confusing to look at.
    "This isn't my area, Elizabeth," he said.
    "Well, I'll just give you the highlights," she said. "First of all, nucleated red cells. That's characteristic of birds, not mammals. Second, rather atypical hemoglobin, differing in several base pairs from other lizards. Third, aberrant white-cell structure. We don't have enough material to make a determination, but we suspect this animal has a highly unusual immune system.
    "Whatever that means," Malcolm said, with a shrug.
    "We don't know, and the sample doesn't give us enough to find out. By the way, can you get more?"
    "I might be able to," he said.
    "Where, from Site B?"
    Malcolm looked puzzled. "Site B?"
    "Well, that's what's embossed on the tag." She changed the slide. "I must say, Ian, this tag is very interesting. Here at the zoo, we tag animals all the time, and we're familiar with all the ordinary commercial brands sold around the world. Nobody's seen this tag before. Here it is, magnified ten times. The actual object is roughly the size of your thumbnail. Uniform plastic outer surface, attaches to the animal by a Teflon coated, stainless-steel clip on the other side. It's a rather small clip, of the kind used to tag infants. The animal you saw was adult?"
    "Presumably."
    "So the tag was probably in place for a while, ever since the animal was young," Gelman said. "Which makes sense, considering the degree of weathering. You'll notice the pitting on the surface. That's very Unusual. This plastic is Duralon, the stuff they use to make football helmets. It's extremely tough, and this pitting can't have occurred through simple wear."
    "Then what?"
    "It's almost certainly a chemical reaction, such as exposure to acid, perhaps in aerosol form."
    "Like volcanic fumes?" Malcolm said.
    "That could do it, particularly in view of what else we've learned. You'll notice that the tag is rather thick - actually, it's nine millimeters across. And it's hollow."
    "Hollow?" Malcolm said, frowning.
    "Yes. It contains an inner cavity. We didn't want to open it, so we X- rayed it. Here." The slide changed. Malcolm saw a jumble of white lines and boxes, inside the tag.
    "There appears to be substantial corrosion, again perhaps from acid fumes. But there's no question what this once was. It's a radio tag, Ian. Which means that this unusual animal, this warm-blooded lizard or whatever it was, was tagged and raised by somebody from birth. And that's the part that's got people around here upset. Somebody's raising these things. Do you know how that happened?"
    "I haven't the faintest idea," Malcolm said.
    Elizabeth Gelman sighed. "You're a lying son of a bitch."
    He held out his hand. "May I have my sample back?"
    She said, "Ian. After all I've done for you."
    "The sample?"
    "I think you owe me an explanation."
    "And I promise, you'll have one. In about two weeks. I'll buy dinner."
    She tossed a silver-foil package on the table. He picked it up, and slipped it in his pocket. "Thanks, Liz." He got up to go, "I hate to run, but I've got to make a call right away."
    He started for the door, and she said, "By the way, how did it die, Ian? This animal."
    He paused. "Why do you ask?"
    "Because, when we teased up the skin cells, we found a few foreign cells under the outer epidermal layer. Cells belonging to another animal."
    "Meaning what?"
    "Well, it's the typical picture you see when two lizards fight. They rub against each other. Cells get pushed under the superficial layer."
    "Yes," he said. "There were