MICHAEL CRICHTON

“One thing at a time,” Munro repeated quietly. He saw the tension in herfeatures, and he knew she was not thinking clearly. He also knew he could notdo her thinking for her; he had to get her calm again.In Munro’s judgment, the ERTS expedition was already finished—they couldnot possibly beat the consortium to the Congo site. But he had no intention ofquitting; he had led expeditions long enough to know that anything could happen,so he said, “We can still make up the lost time.”“Make it up? How?”Munro said the first thing that came to mind: “We’ll take the Ragora north. Veryfast river, no problem.”“The Ragora’s too dangerous.”“We’ll have to see,” Munro said, although he knew that she was right. TheRagora was much too dangerous, particularly in June. Yet he kept his voicecalm, soothing, reassuring. “Shall I tell the others?” he asked finally.“Yes,” Ross said. In the distance, they heard another rocket explosion. “Let’sget out of here.”Munro moved swiftly to the rear of the Fokker and said to Kahega, “Preparethe men.”“Yes, boss,” Kahega said. A bottle of whiskey was passed around, and each ofthe men took a long swallow.Elliot said, “What the hell is this?”“The men are getting prepared,” Munro said.“Prepared for what?” Elliot asked.At that moment, Ross came back, looking grim. “From here on, we’ll continueon foot,” she said.Elliot looked out the window. “Where’s the airfield?”“There is no airfield,” Ross said.“What do you mean?”“I mean there is no airfield.”“Is the plane going to put down in the fields?” Elliot asked.“No,” Ross said. “The plane is not going to put down at all.”“Then how do we get down?” Elliot asked, but even as he asked the question,his stomach sank, because he knew the answer.116