MICHAEL CRICHTON

Japanese consortium or she would have failed and the Zaire Virunga mineralexploration rights would be lost forever.The race was already under way, and Karen Ross did not intend to lose it.She punched Houston coordinates, including her own sender designation, andwaited while the scrambler interlocked. From now on, there would be a signaldelay of five seconds at both ends, because both she and Houston would besending in coded burst transmissions to elude passive listeners.The screen glowed: TRAVIS.She typed back: R OS S. She picked up the telephone receiver.“It’s a bitch,” Travis said, although it was not Travis’s voice, but a computergeneratedflat audio signal, without expression.“Tell me,” Ross said.“The consortium’s rolling,” Travis’s surrogate voice said. “Details,” Ross said,and waited for the five-second delay. She could imagine Travis in the CCR inHouston, hearing her own computer-generated voice. That flat voice required achange in speech patterns; what was ordinarily conveyed by phrasing andemphasis had to be made explicit.“They know you’re on your way,” Travis’s voice whined. “They are pushingtheir own schedule. The Germans are behind it—your friend Richter. I’marranging a feeding in a matter of minutes. That’s the good news.”“And the bad news?”“The Congo has gone to hell in the last ten hours,” Travis said. “We have anasty GPU.”“Print,” she said.On the screen, she saw printed GEOPOLITICAL UPDATE, followed by adense paragraph. It read:ZAIRE EMBASSY WASHINGTON STATES EASTERN BORDERS VIARWANDA CLOSED / NO EXPLANATION / PRESUMPTION 101 AMIN TROOPSFLEEING TANZANIANINVASION UGANDA INTO EASTERN ZAIRE / CONSEQUENT DISRUPTION /BUT FACTS DIFFER / LOCAL TRIBES {KIGANI} ON RAMPAGE / REPORTEDATROCITIES AND CANNIBALISM ETC / FOREST—DWELLING PYGMIESUNRELIABLE / KILLING ALL VISITORS CONGO RAIN FOREST / ZAIRE66