Free The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly Page B

it should be kept secret until we could show it off to the world. It was thus determined that a zoo would be built on top of our discovery. And so it was. This zoo has been a project nearly forty years in the making.’
    Hamish gave a low whistle. ‘Now that’s what I call patience.’
    ‘In any event,’ Zhang went on, ‘as the world warmed, more dragons hatched and our Nesting Centre began to overflow, so we built a second “Birthing Centre” beside it. And we fashioned this valley to suit our needs—it required twenty thousand workers, working over twenty years, and through sheer force of Chinese resolve, we bent the landscape to our will.’
    ‘You bent the landscape to your will?’ Aaron Perry asked. ‘What do you mean by that? Are you saying this valley isn’t natural?’
    Hu decided to answer that one. He gestured toward the towering mountain ahead of them. ‘Oh, no, this valley is not natural at all. Our glorious central peak—Dragon Mountain—is natural, as are a few sections of the wall encircling this valley. But otherwise, this land only became a valley when our army of workers connected some rocky mounts by building the wall out of introduced limestone and concrete, turning it into a crater.’
    Hu saw his guests turn and reappraise the colossal wall of the valley, now aware that it was not a naturally occurring landform. ‘The wall containing our main entrance building, for instance, is entirely artificial. All the lakes, waterfalls and other waterways in this zoo are entirely our creation. The smaller peaks are artificial, as are most of the cliffs—they were designed from the outset to accommodate the dragons.’
    Hamish whistled again. ‘You have got to be kidding me . . .’
    Zhang said, ‘Throughout the whole time the crater was being constructed, not one of the ordinary workers saw a single dragon. They thought they were building the world’s greatest zoo, which in a sense they were. They just didn’t know what the animals would be.
    ‘And all the while, we studied these creatures, watched them grow, watched them feed, observed their habits, even trained some of them, as you have seen.’
    The cable car continued its slow glide over the megavalley, moving toward the central mountain. Dragons soared around it.
    Hu said, ‘Thank you, Deputy Director.’ He turned to the group of visitors. ‘Now. Do you have any questions?’
    The questions came rushing at him:
    ‘How did you build this place for twenty years without anyone in the world finding out?’ Perry asked.
    ‘How many dragons do you have here?’ Seymour Wolfe asked.
    Hamish asked, ‘What do they eat? How do they interact? Do they fight each other?’
    Ambassador Syme asked, ‘Apart from salt water, do they fear anything else?’
    Hu held up his hands, laughing. ‘Okay! Okay! These are all very good questions and I will take them in turn.’
    Still smiling, he noticed that CJ was standing silently off to the side, staring out at a king dragon gliding in a slow circle. She had not asked a question, let alone an excited one. In fact, at his call for questions, she had actually turned away to look out at the view.
    Hu frowned. ‘Dr Cameron? What about you? Do you have any questions about our dragons?’
    CJ didn’t turn when she spoke. She kept staring at the flying leviathan outside.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have one. But I’m not going to ask it now.’
    Hu frowned, confused—and even a little offended—but he regathered himself and turned to the others.
    ‘Ah, look, we’re arriving at Dragon Mountain,’ he said.
    The cable car had indeed arrived at the tunnel that bored into the mighty central mountain. The great peak loomed above them.
    ‘Let us go inside and I shall answer all of your questions over lunch.’
    The cable car disappeared inside the mountain.

I nside the mountain, the cable car stopped at a station cut into the very heart of the peak.
    The station’s walls were natural rock, gunmetal grey in