MICHAEL CRICHTON

For an instant he thought he had hit the ground, and then he realized that hewas still descending through the air, but more slowly. He opened his eyes andstared at pale blue sky.He looked down, and was shocked to see that he was still thousands of feetfrom the earth. Obviously he had only been falling a few seconds from theairplane above him— Looking up, he could not see the plane. Directly overheadwas a giant rectangular shape, with brilliant red, white, and blue stripes: theparafoil. Finding it easier to look up than down, he studied the parafoil intently.The leading edge was curved and puffy; the rear edge thin, fluttering in thebreeze. The parafoil looked very much like an airplane wing, with cords runningdown to his body.He took a deep breath and looked down. He was still very high over thelandscape. There was some comfort in the slowness with which he wasdescending. It was really rather peaceful.And then he noticed he wasn’t moving down; he was moving sideways. Hecould see the other parafoils below, Kahega and his men and Ross; he tried tocount them, and thought there were six, but he had difficulty concentrating. Heappeared to be moving laterally away from them.He tugged on the lines in his left hand, and he felt his body twist as the parafoilmoved, taking him to the left.Not bad, he thought.He pulled harder on the left cords, ignoring the fact that this seemed to makehim move faster. He tried to stay near the rectangles descending beneath him.He heard the scream of the wind in his ears. He looked up, hoping to see Munro,but all he could see was the stripes of his own parafoil.He looked back down, and was astonished to find that the ground was a greatdeal closer. In fact, it seemed to be rushing up to him at brutal speed. Hewondered where he had got the idea that he was drifting gently downward. Therewas nothing gentle about his descent at all. He saw the first of the parafoilscrumple gently as Kahega touched ground, then the second, and the third.It wouldn’t be long before he landed. He was approaching the level of thetrees, but his lateral movement was very fast. He realized that his left hand wasrigidly pulling on the cords. He released his grip, and his lateral movementceased. He drifted forward.Two more parafoils crumpled on impact. He looked back to see Kahega andhis men, already down, gathering up the cloth. They were all right; that wasencouraging.119