MICHAEL CRICHTON

The river twisted and turned in a series of curves. At each curve there was astill pool, which Kahega pointed out as the kind of quiet water that hippos liked toinhabit. And he pointed to the grass on the banks, cut short as if the banks hadbeen mown.“Soon now,” Kahega said.They heard a low grunting, “Raw-huh-huh-huh.” It sounded like an old mantrying to clear his throat of phlegm. Munro tensed in the lead boat. They driftedaround another curve, carried smoothly in the flow of current. The two boats werenow about ten yards apart. Munro held his loaded shotgun ready.The sound came again, this time in a chorus: “Haw-huh-huh-huh.”Kahega plunged his paddle into the water. It struck bottom quickly. He pulled itout; only three feet of it was wet. “Not deep,” he said, shaking his head.“Is that bad?” Ross said.“Yes, I think it is bad.”They came around the next bend, and Elliot saw a half-dozen partiallysubmerged black rocks near the shore, gleaming in the moonlight. Then one ofthe “rocks” crashed upward and he saw an enormous creature lift entirely out ofthe shallow water so that he could see the four stubby legs, and the hippochurned forward toward Munro’s boat.Munro fired a low magnesium flare as the animal charged; in the harsh whitelight Elliot saw a gigantic mouth, four huge glistening blunted teeth, the headlifted upward as the animal roared. And then the hippo was engulfed in a cloud ofpale yellow gas. The gas drifted back, and stung their eyes.“He’s using tear gas,” Ross said.Munro’s boat had already moved on. With a roar of pain the male hippo hadplunged down into the water and disappeared from sight. In the second boat,they blinked back tears and watched for him as they approached the pool.Overhead, the magnesium flare sizzled and descended, lengthening sharpshadows, glaring off the water.“Perhaps he’s given up,” Elliot said. They could not see the hippo anywhere.They drifted in silence.152