Michael Crichton - Congo

For the first time in her memory, Karen Ross wanted to cry.

“Easy now,” Munro said quietly, lifting her hand away from the keyboard. “One thing at a time, no point in getting upset.” Ross had been pressing the keys over and over again, unaware of what she was doing.

Munro was conscious of the deteriorating situation with both Elliot and Ross. He had seen it happen on expeditions before, particularly when scientists and technical people were involved. Scientists worked all day in laboratories where conditions could be rigorously regulated and monitored. Sooner or later, scientists came to believe that the outside world was just as controllable as their laboratories. Even though they knew better, the shock of discovering that the natural world followed its own rules and was indifferent to them represented a harsh psychic blow. Munro could read the signs.

“But this,” Ross said, “is obviously a non-military aircraft, how can they do it?”

Munro stared at her. In the Congolese civil war, civilian aircraft had been routinely shot down by all sides. “These things happen,” he said.

“And the jamming? Those bastards haven’t got the capability to jam us. We’re being jammed between our transmitter and our satellite transponder. To do that requires another satellite somewhere, and-” She broke off, frowning.

“You didn’t expect the consortium to Sit by idly,” Munro said. “The question is, can you fix it? Have you got countermeasures?”

“Sure, I’ve got countermeasures,” Ross said. “I can encode a burst bounce, I can transmit optically on an IR carrier, I can link a ground-base cable-but there’s nothing I can put together in the next few minutes, and we need information now. Our plan is shot.”

“One thing at a time,” Munro repeated quietly. He saw the tension in her features, and he knew she was not thinking clearly. He also knew he could not do her thinking for her; he had to get her calm again.

In Munro’s judgment, the ERTS expedition was already finished-they could not possibly beat the consortium to the Congo site. But he had no intention of quitting; 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. Very fast river, no problem.”

“The Ragora’s too dangerous.”

“We’ll have to see,” Munro said, although he knew that she was right. The Ragora was much too dangerous, particularly in June. Yet he kept his voice calm, soothing, reassuring. “Shall I tell the others?” he asked finally.

“Yes,” Ross said. In the distance, they heard another rocket explosion. “Let’s get out of here.”

Munro moved swiftly to the rear of the Fokker and said to Kahega, “Prepare the men.”

“Yes, boss,” Kahega said. A bottle of whiskey was passed around, and each of the 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 continue on 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.

“Amy will be fine,” Munro said cheerfully, cinching Elliot's straps tightly around his chest. “I gave her a shot of your Thoralen tranquilizer, and she’ll be quite calm. No problem at all, I’ll keep a good grip on her.”

“Keep a good grip on her?” Elliot asked.

“She’s too small to fit a harness,” Munro said. “I’ll have to carry her down.” Amy snored loudly, and drooled on Munro’s shoulder. He set Amy on the floor; she lay limply on her back, still snoring.

“Now, then,” Munro said. “Your parafoil opens automatically. You’ll find you have lines in both hands, left and right. Pull left to go left, right to go right, and-”

“What happens to her?” Elliot asked, pointing to Amy.

“I’ll take her. Pay attention now. If anything goes wrong, your reserve chute is here, on your chest.” He tapped a cloth bundle with a small black digital box, which read 4757. “That’s your rate-of-fall altimeter. Automatically pops your reserve chute if you hit thirty-six hundred feet and are still falling faster than two feet per second. Nothing to worry about; whole thing’s automatic.”

Elliot was chilled, drenched in sweat. “What about landing?”

“Nothing to it,” Munro grinned. “You’ll land automatically too. Stay loose and relax, take the shock in the legs. Equivalent of jumping off a ten-foot ledge. You’ve done it a thousand times.”

Behind him Elliot saw the open door, bright sunlight glacing into the plane. The wind whipped and howled. Kahega’s men jumped in quick succession, one after another. He glanced at Ross, who was ashen, her lower lip trembling as she gripped the doorway.

“Karen, you’re not going to go along with-”

She jumped, disappearing into the sunlight. Munro said, “You’re next.”

“I’ve never jumped before,” Elliot said.

“That’s the best way. You won’t be frightened.”

“But I am frightened.”

“I can help you with that,” Munro said, and he pushed Elliot out of the plane.

Munro watched him fall away, his grin instantly gone. Munro had adopted his hearty demeanor only for Elliot’s benefit. “If a man has to do something dangerous,” he said later, ‘it helps to be angry. It’s for his own protection, really. Better he should hate someone than fall apart. I wanted Elliot to hate me all the way down.”

Munro understood the risks, The minute they left the aircraft, they also left civilization, and all the unquestioned assumptions of civilization. They were jumping not only through the air, but through time, backward into a more primitive and dangerous way of life-the eternal realities of the Congo, which had existed for centuries before them. “Those were the facts of life,” Munro said, “but I didn’t see any reason to worry the others before they jumped. My job was to get those people into the Congo, not scare them to death. There was plenty of time for that.”

Elliot fell, scared to death.

His stomach jumped into his throat, and he tasted bile; the wind screamed around his ears and tugged at his hair; and the air was so cold-he was instantly chilled and shivering. Below him the Barawana Forest lay spread across rolling hills. He felt no appreciation for the beauty before him, and in fact he closed his eyes, for he was plummeting at hideous speed toward the ground. But with his eyes shut he was more aware of the screaming wind.

Too much time had passed. Obviously the parafoil (whatever the hell that was) was not going to open. His life now depended on the parachute attached to his chest. He clutched it, a small tight bundle near his churning stomach. Then he pulled his hands away: he didn’t want to interfere with its opening. He dimly remembered that people had died that way, when they interfered with the opening of their parachute.

The screaming wind continued; his body rushed sickeningly downward. Nothing was happening. He felt the fierce wind tugging at his feet, whipping his trousers, flapping his

shirt against his arms. Nothing was happening. It had been at least three minutes since he’d jumped from the plane. He dared not open his eyes, for fear of seeing the trees rushing up close as his body crashed downward toward them in his final seconds of conscious life.