The Lost World - Michael Crichton [71]
Baselton finished his eggs, and pushed the plate away. He brought out the small notebook he carried everywhere with him. “Now Lew,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about how to handle this.”
“Handle what?” Dodgson said irritably. “There’s nothing to handle, unless we can get to that island.” While he spoke, he tapped a small photograph of Richard Levine on the edge of the bar table. Turned it over. Looked at the image upside down. Then right side up.
He sighed. He looked at his watch.
“Lew,” Baselton said patiently, “getting to the island is not the important part. The important part is how we present our discovery to the world.”
Dodgson paused. “Our discovery,” he repeated. “I like that, George. That’s very good. Our discovery.”
“Well, that’s the truth, isn’t it?” Baselton said, with a bland smile. “InGen is bankrupt, its technology lost to mankind. A tragic, tragic loss, as I have said many times on television. But under the circumstances, anyone who finds it again has made a discovery. I don’t know what else you would call it. As Henri Poincaré put it—”
“Okay,” Dodgson said. “So we make a discovery. And then what? Hold a press conference?”
“Absolutely not,” Baselton said, looking horrified. “A press conference would appear extremely crass. It would open us up to all sorts of criticism. No, no. A discovery of this magnitude must be treated with decorum. It must be reported, Lew.”
“Reported?”
“In the literature: Nature, I imagine. Yes.”
Dodgson squinted. “You want to announce this in an academic publication?”
“What better way to make it legitimate?” Baselton said. “It’s entirely proper to present our findings to our scholarly peers. Of course it will start a debate—but what will that debate consist of? An academic squabble, professors sniping at professors, which will fill the science pages of the newspapers for three days, until it is pushed aside by the latest news on breast implants. And in those three days, we will have staked our claim.”
“You’ll write it?”
“Yes,” Baselton said. “And later, I think, an article in American Scholar, or perhaps Natural History. A human-interest piece, what this discovery means for the future, what it tells us about the past, all that. . . .”
Dodgson nodded. He could see that Baselton was correct, and he was reminded once again how much he needed him, and how wise he had been to add him to the team. Dodgson never thought about public reaction. And Baselton thought about nothing else.
“Well, that’s fine,” Dodgson said. “But none of it matters, unless we get to that island.” He glanced at his watch again.
He heard a door open behind him, and Dodgson’s assistant Howard King came in, pulling a heavyset Costa Rican man, with a mustache. The man had a weathered face and a sullen expression.
Dodgson turned on his stool. “Is this the guy?”
“Yes, Lew.”
“What’s his name?”
“Gandoca.”
“Señor Gandoca.” Dodgson held up the photo of Levine. “You know this man?”
Gandoca hardly glanced at the photo. He nodded. “Sí. Señor Levine.”
“That’s right. Señor fucking Levine. When was he here?”
“A few days ago. He left with Dieguito, my cousin. They are not back yet.”
“And where did they go?” Dodgson asked.
“Isla Sorna.”
“Good.” Dodgson drained his beer, pushed the bottle away. “You have a boat?” He turned to King. “Does he have a boat?”
King said, “He’s a fisherman. He has a boat.”
Gandoca nodded. “A fishing boat. Sí.”
“Good. I want to go to Isla Sorna, too.”
“Sí, señor, but today the weather—”
“I don’t care about the weather,” Dodgson said. “The weather will get better. I want to go now.”
“Perhaps later—”
“Now.”
Gandoca spread his hands. “I am very sorry, señor—”
Dodgson said, “Show him the money, Howard.”
King opened