MICHAEL CRICHTON

It was then the Kigani attack ended, the warriors retreating into the silent bush.Munro bent over the slumped body of the pilot and stared out at the jungle.“What happens now?” Elliot asked. “Have we won?”Munro shook his head. “They’ll wait for nightfall. Then they’ll come back to killus all.”Elliot said, “What will we do then?”Munro had been thinking about that. He saw no possibility of their leaving theaircraft for at least twenty-four hours.They needed to defend themselves at night and they needed a wider clearingaround the plane during the day. The obvious solution was to burn the waist-highbush in the immediate vicinity of the plane—if they could do that withoutexploding the residual fuel in the airplane tanks.“Look for flamethrowers,” he told Kahega, “or gas canisters.” And he began tocheck for documents that would tell him tank locations on the C-130.Ross approached him. “We’re in trouble, aren’t we.”“Yes,” Munro said. He didn’t mention the volcano.“I suppose I made a mistake.”“Well, you can atone,” Munro said, “by thinking of some way out.”“I’ll see what! can do,” she said seriously, and went aft. Fifteen minutes later,she screamed.Munro spun back into the passenger compartment, his machine gun raised tofire. But he saw that Ross had collapsed into a seat, laughing hysterically. Theothers stared at her, not sure what to do. He grabbed her shoulders and shookher: “Get a grip on yourself,” he said, but she just went on laughing.Káhega stood next to a gas cylinder marked PROPANE. “She see this, andshe ask how many more, I tell her six more, she begins to laugh.”Munro frowned. The cylinder was large, 20 cubic feet. “Kahega, what’d theycarry that propane for?”Kahega shrugged. “Too big for cooking. They need only five, ten cubic feet forcooking.”Munro said, “And there are six more like this?”“Yes, boss. Six.”255