Free The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly Page A

in the earth here that saved these animals from the meteor strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Two kilometres of solid nickel insulated them from the impact and since the dragons were buried so deep and their hibernation skills so advanced, they were able to keep hibernating through the thousand-year winter that followed the meteor impact. Our zoo is built on top of the second-largest nickel deposit in these parts; the largest is over at Crater Lake about fifteen kilometres to the northwest.’
    Wolfe said, ‘It’s a pity you couldn’t build your zoo around Crater Lake. Now that would have been a sight.’
    ‘Indeed,’ Hu said. ‘In any case, in November 1979, miners in a nickel mine near here broke through to a most unusual underground passageway. It was unusual because it was not natural; it had been dug out of the nickel—which is no mean feat given how hard nickel is—and then refilled with soil that had settled into it over the centuries. We dug out that soil to discover that the tunnel led to a cavern two kilometres underground, a cavern that was filled with eggs, eighty-eight of them to be precise, large leathery eggs that were bigger than any egg ever seen on this planet.
    ‘Now, for over two thousand years, this area has fostered dragon myths and legends, usually involving a lone dragon tormenting the locals for a short period. We believe those legends related to this nest: that every now and then, a lone juvenile dragon would leave the nest to test the atmosphere and see if it was suitable for the rest of the clan to resurface.’
    Wolfe said, ‘November 1979. That was when the Iranian hostage crisis was going on.’
    ‘Correct,’ Hu said. ‘While it was a most unpleasant event for America, it was quite fortuitous for us, for it occupied the world’s attention for well over the next year, allowing our experts to examine the cavern in absolute secrecy. Deputy Director Zhang can provide the technical history of what happened next.’
    Hu stepped aside and Zhang took over smoothly: ‘We brought in reptile experts to examine the eggs. They determined that they were not fossils but rather living ova containing animals in deep hibernation. X-rays and ultrasound scans revealed that the eggs contained lizard-like foetuses curled into tight balls.
    ‘We closed the nickel mine and dispatched all the workers. We then lined the walls of the cavern with cameras and sensors of every kind—temperature, humidity, sound, ultrasound—so that we might learn all we could about this astonishing discovery.
    ‘But we did not seal the cavern. Instead we sealed the land above it. We built a massive steel dome—it still stands over the Nesting Centre to the west of this valley, the oldest structure here at the Great Zoo. And then we waited. Waited and waited.
    ‘And then in July 1981 one of the eggs hatched.
    ‘A dragon emerged, covered in birth matter. It was a baby prince, a red-bellied black, and the size of a dog. The whole event was filmed. It is amazing footage. The prince ate two of its brethren, consuming the albumen and vitellus of those eggs, giving it strength, and then it went to the tunnel leading to the surface. It emerged inside our steel dome, sniffed the air, tested the water . . . and then it went back down to its cavern and began awakening the other eggs.
    ‘When the other eggs began to hatch, we had already prepared our facility up on the surface. When they emerged, we caught them one by one.’
    ‘But you didn’t tell anyone?’ Wolfe said.
    ‘This was the greatest zoological discovery in history ,’ Zhang said. ‘We wanted to make sure of what we had. We wanted to make sure the dragons would survive. If we showed the world a single specimen and it died, we would become an international laughing stock.’
    Hu stepped forward and interjected: ‘It was also felt by some senior Party officials that this discovery could be the making of modern China, so it was decided that