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                                   CONGO
                                     by
                              MICHAEL CRICHTON


                              For Bob Gottlieb


       Introduction

    Only prejudice, and a trick of the Mercator projection, prevents us
from recognizing the enormity of the African continent. Covering nearly
twelve million square miles, Africa is almost as large as North America and
Europe combined. It is nearly twice the size of South America. As we
mistake its dimensions, we also mistake its essential nature: the Dark
Continent is mostly hot desert and open grassy plains.

In fact, Africa is called the Dark Continent for one reason only: the vast
equatorial rain forests of its central region. This is the drainage basin
of the Congo River, and one-tenth of the continent is given over to itùa
million and a half square miles of silent, damp, dark forest, a single
uniform geographical feature nearly half the size of the continental United
States. This primeval forest has stood, unchanged and unchallenged, for
more than sixty million years.

Even today, only half a million people inhabit the Congo Basin, and they
are mostly clustered in villages along the banks of the slow muddy rivers
that flow through the jungle. The great expanse of the forest remains
inviolate, and to this day thousands of square miles are still unexplored.

This is true particularly of the northeastern corner of the Congo Basin,
where the rain forest meets the Virunga volcanoes, at the edge of the Great
Rift Valley. Lacking established trade routes or compelling features of
interest, Virunga was never seen by Western eyes until less than a hundred
years ago.

The race to make ôthe most important discovery of the 1980sö in the Congo
took place during six weeks of 1979. This book recounts the thirteen days
of the last American expedition to the Congo, in June, 1979ùbarely a
hundred years after Henry Morton Stanley first explored the Congo in
1874ù77. A comparison of the two expeditions reveals much about the
changingùand unchangingùnature of African exploration in the intervening
century.

Stanley is usually remembered as the newsman who found Livingstone in 1871,
but his real importance lay in later exploits. Moorehead calls him ôa new
kind of man in Africa. . . a businessman-explorer.. . . Stanley was not in
Africa to reform the people nor to build an empire, and he was not impelled
by any real interest in such matters as anthropology, botany or geology. To
put it bluntly, he was out to make a name for himself.ö

When Stanley set out again from Zanzibar in 1874, he was again handsomely
financed by newspapers. And when he emerged from the jungle at the

Atlantic Ocean 999 days later, having suffered incredible hardships and the
loss of more than two-thirds of his original party, both he and his
newspapers had one of the great stories of the century: Stanley had
traveled the entire length of the Congo River.

But two years later, Stanley was back in Africa under very different
circumstances. He traveled under an assumed name; he made diversionary
excursions to throw spies off his trail; the few people who knew he was in
Africa could only guess that he had in mind ôsome grand commercial scheme.ö

In fact, Stanley was financed by Leopold II of Belgium, who intended to
acquire personally a large piece of Africa. ôIt is not a question of
Belgian colonies,ö Leopold wrote Stanley. ôIt is a question of creating a
new State, as big as possible. . . . The King, as a private person, wishes
to possess properties in Africa. Belgium wants neither a colony nor
territories. Mr. Stanley must therefore buy lands or get them conceded to
him

This incredible plan was carried out. By 1885, one American said that
Leopold ôpossesses the Congo just as Rockefeller possesses Standard Oil.ö
The comparison was apt in more ways than one, for African exploration had
become dominated by business.

It has remained so to this day. Stanley would have approved the 1979
American expedition, which was conducted in secrecy, with an emphasis on
speed. But the differences would have astonished him. When Stanley passed
near Virunga in 1875, it had taken him almost a year to get there; the
Americans got their expedition on-site in just over a week. And Stanley,
who traveled with a small army of four hundred, would have been amazed at
an expedition of only twelveùand one of them an ape. The territories
through which the Americans moved a century later were autonomous political
states; the Congo was now Zaire, and the Congo River the Zaire River. In
fact, by 1979 the word ôCongoö technically referred only to the drainage
basin of the Zaire River, although Congo was still used in geological
circles as a matter of familiarity, and for its romantic connotations.

Despite these differences, the expeditions had remarkably similar outcomes.
Like Stanley, the Americans lost two-thirds of their party, and emerged
from the jungle as desperately as StanleyÆs men a century before. And like
Stanley, they returned with incredible tales of cannibals and pygmies,
ruined jungle civilizations, and fabulous lost treasures.



I would like to thank R. B. Travis, of Earth Resources Technology Services
in Houston, for permission to use videotaped debriefings; Dr. Karen Ross,
of ERTS, for further background on the expedition; Dr. Peter Elliot, of the
Department of Zoology, University of California at Berkeley, and the
Project Amy staff, including Amy herself; Dr. William Wens, of Kasai Mining
& Manufacturing, Zaire; Dr. Smith Jefferson, of the Department of Medical
Pathology, University of Nairobi, Kenya; and Captain Charles Munro, of
Tangier, Morocco.

I am further indebted to Mark Warwick, of Nairobi, for his initial interest
in

this project; Alan Binb, of Nairobi, for graciously offering to take me
Into the Virunga region of Zaire; Joyce Small for arranging my transport,
usually at short notice, to obscure parts of the world; and finally my
special thanks to my assistant, Judith Lovejoy, whose untiring efforts
through very difficult times were crucial to the completion of this book.



M.C.







Prologue:

The Place of Bones



DAWN CAME TO THE CONGO RAIN FOREST.

The pale sun burned away the morning chill and the clinging damp mist,
revealing a gigantic silent world. Enormous trees with trunks forty feet in
diameter rose two hundred feet overhead, where they spread their dense
leafy canopy, blotting out the sky and perpetually dripping water to the
ground below. Curtains of gray moss, and creepers and lianas, hung down in
a tangle from the trees; parasitic orchids sprouted from the trunks. At
ground level, huge ferns, gleaming with moisture, grew higher than a manÆs
chest and held the low ground fog. Here and there was a spot of color: the
red acanthema blossoms, which were deadly poison, and the blue dicindra
vine, which only opened in early morning. But the basic impression was of a
vast, oversized, gray-green worldù an alien place, inhospitable to man.

Jan Kruger put aside his rifle and stretched his stiff muscles. Dawn came
quickly at the equator; soon it was quite light, although the mist
remained. He glanced at the expedition campsite he had been guarding: eight
bright orange nylon tents, a blue mess tent, a supply tarp lashed over
boxed equipment in a vain attempt to keep them dry. He saw the other guard,
Misulu, sitting on a rock; Misulu waved sleepily. Nearby was the
transmitting equipment: a silver dish antenna, the black transmitter box,
the snaking coaxial cables running to the portable video camera mounted on
the collapsible tripod. The Americans used this equipment to transmit daily
reports by satellite to their home office in Houston.

Kruger was the bwana mukubwa, hired to take the expedition into the Congo.
He had led expeditions before: oil companies, map-survey parties,
timber-mining teams, and geological parties like this one. Companies
sending teams into the field wanted someone who knew local customs and
local dialects well enough to handle the porters and arrange the travel.
Kruger was well suited for this job; he spoke Kis¡wahili as well as Bantu
and a little Bagindi, and he had been to the Congo many times, although
never to Virunga.

Kruger could not imagine why American geologists would want to go to the
Virunga region of Zaire, in the northeast corner of the Congo rain forest.
Zaire was the richest country in black Africa, in mineralsùthe worldÆs
largest producer of cobalt and industrial diamonds, the seventh largest
producer of copper. In addition there were major deposits of gold, tin,
zinc, tungsten and uranium. But most of the minerals were found in Shaba
and Kasai, not in Virunga.

Kruger knew better than to ask why the Americans wanted to go to Virunga,
and in any case he had his answer soon enough. Once the expedition passed
Lake Kivu and entered the rain forest, the geologists began scouring rivers
and streambeds. Searching placer deposits meant that they were looking for
gold, or diamonds. It turned out to be diamonds.

But not just any diamonds. The geologists were after what they called Type
IIb diamonds. Each new sample was immediately submitted to an electrical
test. The resulting conversations were beyond Krugerùtalk of dielectric
gaps, lattice ions, resistively. But he gathered that it was the electrical
properties of the diamonds that mattered. Certainly the samples were
useless as gemstones. Kruger had examined several, and they were all blue
from impurities.

For ten days, the expedition had been tracing back placer deposits. This
was standard procedure: if you found gold or diamonds in streambeds, you
moved upstream toward the presumed erosive source of the minerals. The
expedition had moved to higher ground along the western slopes of the
Vir¡gunga volcanic chain. It was all going routinely until one day around
noon when the porters flatly refused to proceed further.

This part of Virunga, they said, was called kanyamagufa,

which meant ôthe place of bones.ö The porters insisted that any men foolish
enough to go further would have their bones broken, particularly their
skulls. They kept touching their cheekbones, and repeating that their
skulls would be crushed.

The porters were Bantu-speaking Arawanis from the nearest large town,
Kisangani. Like most town-dwelling natives, they had all sorts of
superstitions about the Congo jungle. Kruger called for the headman.

ôWhat tribes are here?ö Kruger asked, pointing to the jungle ahead.

ôNo tribes,ö the headman said.

ôNo tribes at all? Not even Bambuti?ö he asked, referring to the nearest
group of pygmies.

ôNo men come here,ö the headman said. ôThis is kan¡yamagufa.ö

ôThen what crushes the skulls?ö

ôDawa,ö the headman said ominously, using the Bantu term for magical
forces. ôStrong dawa here. Men stay away.ö

Kruger sighed. Like many white men, he was thoroughly sick of hearing about
dawa. Dawa was everywhere, in plants and rocks and storms and enemies of
all kinds. But the belief in dawa was prevalent throughout much of Africa
and strongly held in the Congo.

Kruger had been obliged to waste the rest of the day in tedious
negotiation. In the end, he doubled their wages and promised them firearms
when they returned to Kisangani, and they agreed to continue on. Kruger
considered the incident an irritating native ploy. Porters could generally
be counted on to invoke some local superstition to increase their wages,
once an expedition was deep enough into the field to be dependent on them.
He had budgeted for this eventuality and, having agreed to their demands,
he thought no more about it.

Even when they came upon several areas littered with shattered fragments of
boneùwhich the porters found frighteningùKruger was not concerned. Upon
examination, he found the bones were not human but rather the small
delicate bones of colobus monkeys, the beautiful shaggy black-and-

white creatures that lived in the trees overhead. It was true that there
were a lot of bones, and Kruger had no idea why they should be shattered,
but he had been in Africa a long time, and he had seen many inexplicable
things.

Nor was he any more impressed with the overgrown fragments of stone that
suggested a city had once stood in this area. Kruger had come upon
unexplored ruins before, too. In Zimbabwe, in Broken Hill, in Maniliwi,
there were the remains of cities and temples that no twentieth-century
scientist had ever seen and studied.

He camped the first night near the ruins.

The porters were panic-stricken, insisting that the evil forces would
attack them during the night. Their fear was caught by the American
geologists; to pacify them, Kruger had posted two guards that night,
himself and the most trustworthy porter, Misulu. Kruger thought it was all
a lot of rot, but it had seemed the politic thing to do.

And just as he expected, the night had passed quietly. Around midnight
there had been some movement in the bush, and some low wheezing sounds,
which he took to be a leopard. Big cats often had respiratory trouble,
particularly in the jungle. Otherwise it was quiet, and now it was dawn:
the night was over.

A soft beeping sound drew his attention. Misulu heard it too, and glanced
questioningly at Kruger. On the transmitting equipment, a red light
blinked. Kruger got up and crossed the campsite to the equipment. He knew
how to operate it; the Americans had insisted that he learn, as an
ôemergency procedure.ö He crouched over the black transmitter box with its
rectangular green LED.

He pressed buttons, and the screen printed TX HX, meaning a transmission
from Houston. He pressed the response code, and the screen printed CAM LO
K. That meant that Houston was asking for video camera transmission. He
glanced over at the camera on its tripod and saw that the red light on the
case had blinked on. He pressed the carrier button and the screen printed
SATLOK, which meant that a satellite transmission was being Locked in.
There would now be a six-minute delay, the time required to lock the
satellite-bounced signal.

HeÆd better go wake Driscoll, the head geologist, he thought. Driscoll
would need a few minutes before the transmission came through. Kruger found
it amusing the way the Americans always put on a fresh shirt and combed
their hair before stepping in front of the camera. Just like television
reporters.

Overhead, the colobus monkeys shrieked and screamed in the trees, shaking
the branches. Kruger glanced upward, wondering what had set them going. But
it was normal for colobus monkeys to fight in the morning.

Something struck him lightly in the chest. At first he thought it was an
insect but, glancing down at his khaki shirt, he saw a spot of red, and a
fleshy bit of red fruit rolled down his shirt to the muddy ground. The
damned monkeys were throwing berries. He bent over to pick it up. And then
he realized that it was not a piece of fruit at all. It was a human
eyeball, crushed and slippery in his fingers, pinkish white with a shred of
white optic nerve still attached at the back.

He swung his gun around and looked over to where Misulu was sitting on the
rock. Misulu was not there.

Kruger moved across the campsite. Overhead, the colobus monkeys fell
silent. He heard his boots squish in the mud as he moved past the tents of
sleeping men. And then he heard the wheezing sound again. It was an odd,
soft sound, carried on the swirling morning mist. Kruger wondered if he had
been mistaken, if it was really a leopard.

And he saw Misulu. Misulu lay on his back, in a kind of halo of blood. His
skull had been crushed from the sides, the facial bones shattered, the face
narrowed and elongated, the mouth open in an obscene yawn, the one
remaining eye wide and bulging. The other eye had exploded outward with the
force of the impact.

Kruger felt his heart pounding as he bent to examine the body. He wondered
what could have caused such an injury. And then he heard the soft wheezing
sound again, and this

time he felt quite sure it was not a leopard. Then the colobus monkeys
began their shrieking, and Kruger leapt to his feet and screamed.





                               DAY 1: HOUSTON



                                June 13,1979









1. ERTS Houston





TEN THOUSAND MILES AWAY, IN THE COLD, Windowless main data room of Earth
Resources Technology Services, Inc., of Houston, Karen Ross sat hunched
over a mug of coffee in front of a computer terminal, reviewing the latest
Landsat images from Africa. Ross was the ERTS Congo Project Supervisor, and
as she manipulated the satellite images in artificial contrast colors, blue
and purple and green, she glanced at her watch impatiently. She was waiting
for the next field transmission from Africa.

It was now 10:15 P.M. Houston time, but there was no indication of time or
place in the room. Day or night, the main data facility of ERTS remained
the same. Beneath banks of special kalon fluorescent lights, programming
crews in sweaters worked at long rows of quietly clicking computer
terminals, providing real-time inputs to the field parties that ERTS
maintained around the world. This timeless quality was understood to be
necessary for the computers, which required a constant temperature of 60
degrees, dedicated electrical lines, special color-corrected lights that
did not interfere with circuitry. It was an environment made for machines;
the needs of people were secondary.

But there was another rationale for the main facility design. ERTS wanted
programmers in Houston to identify with the field parties, and if possible
to live on their schedules. Inputting baseball games and other local events
was discouraged; there was no clock which showed Houston time, although on
the far wall eight large digital clocks recorded local time for the various
field parties.

The clock marked CONGO FIELD PARTY read 06:15 A.M. when the overhead
intercom said, ôDr. Ross, CCR bounce.ö

She left the console after punching in the digital password blocking codes.
Every ERTS terminal had a password control, like a combination lock. It was
part of an elaborate system to prevent outside sources tapping into their
enormous data bank. ERTS dealt in information, and as R. B. Travis, the
head of ERTS, was fond of saying, the easiest way to obtain information was
to steal it.

She crossed the room with long strides. Karen Ross was nearly six feet
tall, an attractive though ungainly girl. Only twenty-four years old, she
was younger than most of the programmers, but despite her youth, she had a
self-possession that most people found strikingùeven a little unsettling.
Karen Ross was a genuine mathematical prodigy.

At the age of two, while accompanying her mother to the supermarket, she
had worked out in her head whether a ten-ounce can at 19C was cheaper than
a one-pound-twelve-ounce can at 79C. At three, she startled her father by
observing that, unlike other numbers, zero meant different things in
different positions. By eight, she had mastered algebra and geometry; by
ten, she had taught herself calculus; she entered M.I.T. at thirteen and
proceeded to make a series of brilliant discoveries in abstract
mathematics, culminating in a treatise, ôTopological Prediction in
n-Space,ö which was useful for decision matrices, critical path analyses,
and multidimensional mapping. This interest had brought her to the
attention of ERTS, where she was made the youngest field supervisor in the
company.

Not everyone liked her. The years of isolation, of being the youngest
person in any room, had left her aloof and rather distant. One co-worker
described her as ôlogical to a fault.ö Her chilly demeanor had earned her
the title ôRoss Glacier,ö after the Antarctic formation.

And her youth still held her backùat least, age was Trav¡isÆs excuse when
he refused to let her lead the Congo expedition into the field, even though
she had derived all the Congo database, and by rights should have been the
onsite team leader. ôIÆm sorry,ö Travis had said, ôbut this con-

tractÆs too big, and I just canÆt let you have it.ö She had pressed,
reminding him of her successes leading teams the year before to Pahang and
Zambia. Finally he had said, ôLook, Karen, that siteÆs ten thousand miles
away, in four-plus terrain. We need more than a console hotdogger out
there.ö

She bridled under the implication that that was all she wasùa console
hotdogger, fast at the keyboard, good at playing with TravisÆs toys. She
wanted to prove herself in a four-plus field situation. And the next time
she was determined to make Travis let her go.

Ross pressed the button for the third-floor elevator, marked ôCX Access
Only.ö She caught an envious glance from one of the programmers while she
waited for the elevator to arrive. Within ERTS, status was not measured by
salary, title, the size of oneÆs office, or the other usual corporate
indicators of power. Status at ERTS was purely a matter of access to
informationùand Karen Ross was one of eight people in the company who had
access to the third floor at any time.

She stepped onto the third-floor elevator, glancing up at the scanner lens
mounted over the door. At ERTS the elevators traveled only one floor, and
all were equipped with passive scanners; it was one way that ERTS kept
track of the movements of personnel while they were in the building. She
said ôKaren Rossö for the voice monitors, and turned in a full circle for
the scanners. There was a soft electronic bleep, and the door slid open at
the third floor.

She emerged into a small square room with a ceiling video monitor, and
faced the unmarked outer door of the Communications Control Room. She
repeated ôKaren Ross,ö and inserted her electronic identicard in the slot,
resting her fingers on the metallic edge of the card so the computer could
record galvanic skin potentials. (This was a refinement instituted three
months earlier, after Travis learned that Army experiments with vocal cord
surgery had altered voice characteristics precisely enough to
false-positive Voiceident programs.) After a cycling pause, the door buzzed
open. She went inside.

With its red night lights, Communications Control was

like a soft, warm wombùan impression heightened by the cramped, almost
claustrophobic quality of the room, packed with electronic equipment. From
floor to ceiling, dozens of video monitors and LEDs flickered and glowed as
the technicians spoke in hushed tones, setting dials and twisting knobs.
The CCR was the electronic nerve center of ERTS:

all communications from field parties around the world were routed through
here. Everything in the CCR was recorded, not only incoming data but room
voice responses, so the exact conversation on the night of June 13, 1979,
is known.

One of the technicians said to her, ôWeÆll have the transponders hooked in
in a minute. You want coffee?ö

ôNo,ö Ross said.

ôYou want to be out there, right?ö

ôI earned it,ö she said. She stared at the video screens, at the
bewildering display of rotating and shifting forms as the technicians began
the litany of locking in the bird bounce, a transmission from a satellite
in orbit, 720 miles over their heads.

ôSignal key.ö

ôSignal key. Password mark.ö

ôPassword mark.ö

ôCarrier fix.ö

ôCarrier fix. WeÆre rolling.ö

She paid hardly any attention to the familiar phrases. She watched as the
screens displayed gray fields of crackling static.

ôDid we open or did they open?ö she asked.

ôWe initiated,ö a technician said. ôWe had it down on the call sheet to
check them at dawn local time. So when they didnÆt initiate, we did.ö

ôI wonder why they didnÆt initiate,ö Ross said. ôIs something wrong?ö

ôI donÆt think so. We put out the initiation trigger and they picked it up
and locked in within fifteen seconds, all the appropriate codes. Ah, here
we go.ö

At 6:22 A.M. Congo time, the transmission came through:

there was a final blur of gray static and then the screens cleared. They
were looking at a part of the camp in the

Congo, apparently a view from a tripod-mounted video camera. They saw two
tents, a low smoldering fire, the lingering wisps of a foggy dawn. There
was no sign of activity, no people.

One of the technicians laughed. ôWe caught them still sleeping. Guess they
do need you there.ö Ross was known for her insistence on formalities.

ôLock your remote,ö she said.

The technician punched in the remote override. The field camera, ten
thousand miles away, came under their control in Houston.

ôPan scan,ö she said.

At the console, the technician used a joystick. They watched as the video
images shifted to the left, and they saw more of the camp. The camp was
destroyed: tents crushed and torn, supply tarp pulled away, equipment
scattered in the mud. One tent burned brightly, sending up clouds of black
smoke. They saw several dead bodies.

ôJesus,ö one technician said.

ôBack scan,ö Ross said. ôSpot resolve to six-six.ö

On the screens, the camera panned back across the camp. They looked at the
jungle. They still saw no sign of life.

ôDown pan. Reverse sweep.ö

Onscreen, the camera panned down to show the silver dish of the portable
antenna, and the black box of the transmitter. Nearby was another body, one
of the geologists, lying on his back.

ôJesus, thatÆs Roger

ôZoom and T-lock,ö Ross said. On the tape, her voice sounds cool, almost
detached.

The camera zoomed in on the face. What they saw was grotesque, the head
crushed and leaking blood from eyes and nose, mouth gaping toward the sky.

ôWhat did that?ö

At that moment, a shadow fell across the dead face onscreen. Ross jumped
forward, grabbing the joystick and hitting the zoom control. The image
widened swiftly; they could see the outline of the shadow now. It was a
man. And he was moving.

ôSomebodyÆs there! SomebodyÆs still alive!ö

ôHeÆs limping. Looks wounded.ö

Ross stared at the shadow. It did not look to her like a limping man;
something was wrong, she couldnÆt put her finger on what it was.

ôHeÆs going to walk in front of the lens,ö she said. It was almost too much
to hope for. ôWhatÆs that audio static?ö

They were hearing an odd sound, like a hissing or a sighing.

ôItÆs not static, itÆs in the transmission.ö

ôResolve it,ö Ross said. The technicians punched buttons, altering the
audio frequencies, but the sound remained peculiar and indistinct. And then
the shadow moved, and the man stepped in front of the lens.

ôDiopter,ö Ross said, but it was too late. The face had already appeared,
very near the lens. It was too close to focus without a diopter. They saw a
blurred, dark shape, nothing more. Before they could click in the diopter,
it was gone.

ôA native?ö

ôThis region of the Congo is uninhabited,ö Ross said.

ôSomething inhabits it.ö

ôPan scan,ö Ross said. ôSee if you can get him onscreen again.ö

The camera continued to pan. She could imagine it sitting on its tripod in
the jungle, motor whirring as the lens head swung around. Then suddenly the
image tilted and fell sideways.

ôHe knocked it over.ö

ôDamn!ö

The video image crackled, shifting lines of static. It became very
difficult to see.

ôResolve it! Resolve it!ö

They had a final glimpse of a large face and a dark hand as the silver dish
antenna was smashed. The image from the Congo shrank to a spot, and was
gone.





2. Interference Signature





DURING JUNE OF 1979, EARTH RESOURCES TECHNOLOGY had field teams studying
uranium deposits in Bolivia, copper deposits in Pakistan, agricultural
field utilization in Kashmir, glacier advance in Iceland, timber resources
in Malaysia, and diamond deposits in the Congo. This was not unusual for
ERTS; they generally had between six and eight groups in the field at any
time.

Since their teams were often in hazardous or politically unstable regions,
they were vigilant in watching for the first signs of ôinterference
signatures.ö (In remote-sensing terminology, a ôsignatureö is the
characteristic appearance of an object or geological feature in a
photograph or video image.) Most interference signatures were political. In
1977, ERTS had airlifted a team out of Borneo during a local Communist
uprising, and again from Nigeria in 1978 during a military coup.
Occasionally the signatures were geological; they had pulled a team from
Guatemala in 1976 after the earthquake there.

In the opinion of R. B. Travis, called out of bed in the late hours of June
13, 1979, the videotapes from the Congo were ôthe worst interference
signature ever,ö but the problem remained mysterious. All they knew was
that the camp had been destroyed in a mere six minutesùthe time between the
signal initiation from Houston and the reception in the Congo. The rapidity
was frightening; TravisÆs first instruction to his team was to figure out
ôwhat the hell happened out there.ö

A heavyset man of forty-eight, Travis was accustomed to crises. By training
he was an engineer with a background in satellite construction for RCA and
later Rockwell; in his thirties he had shifted to management, becoming what
aerospace engineers called a ôrain dancer.ö Companies manufacturing
satellites contracted eighteen to twenty-four months in advance for a
launch rocket to put the satellite in orbitùand then hoped that the
satellite, with its half-million working parts, would be ready on the
assigned day. If it was not, the only alternative was to pray for bad
weather delaying the launch, to dance for rain.

Travis had managed to keep a sense of humor after a decade of high-tech
problems; his management philosophy was summarized by a large sign mounted
behind his desk, which read ôS.D.T.A.G.W.ö It stood for ôSome Damn Thing
Always Goes Wrong.ö

But Travis was not amused on the night of June 13. His entire expedition
had been lost, all the ERTS party killedù eight of his people, and however
many local porters were with them. The worst disaster in ERTS history,
worse even than Nigeria in æ78. Travis felt fatigued, mentally drained, as
he thought of all the phone calls ahead of him. Not the calls he would
make, but those he would receive. Would so-and-so be back in time for a
daughterÆs graduation, a sonÆs Little League playoff? Those calls would be
routed to Travis, and he would have to listen to the bright expectation in
the voices, the hopefulness, and his own careful answersùhe wasnÆt sure, he
understood the problem, he would do his best, of course, of course. . . .
The coming deception exhausted him in advance.

Because Travis couldnÆt tell anyone what had happened for at least two
weeks, perhaps a month. And then he would be making phone calls himself,
and visits to the homes, and attending the memorial services where there
would be no casket, a deadly blank space, a gap, and the inevitable
questions from families and relatives that he couldnÆt answer while they
scrutinized his face, looking for the least muscle twitch, or hesitation,
or sign.

What could he tell them?

That was his only consolationùperhaps in a few weeks, Travis could tell
them more. One thing was certain: if he were to make the dreadful calls
tonight, he could tell the

families nothing at all, for ERTS had no idea what had gone wrong. That
fact added to TravisÆs sense of exhaustion. And there were details: Morris,
the insurance auditor, came in and said, ôWhat do you want to do about the
terms?ö ERTS took Out term life insurance policies for every expedition
member, and also for local porters. African porters received U.S. $15,000
each in insurance, which seemed trivial until one recognized that African
per capita income averaged U.S. $180 per year. But Travis had always argued
that local expedition people should share risk benefitsùeven if it meant
paying widowed families a small fortune, in their terms. Even if it cost
ERTS a small fortune for the insurance.

ôHold them,ö Travis said.

ôThose policies are costing us per dayùö

ôHold them,ö Travis said.

ôFor how long?ö

ôThirty days,ö Travis said.

ôThirty more days?ö

ôThatÆs right.ö

ôBut we know the holders are dead.ö Morris could not reconcile himself to
the waste of money. His actuarial mind rebelled.

ôThatÆs right,ö Travis said. ôBut you'd better slip the portersÆ families
some cash to keep them quiet.ö

ôJesus. How much are we talking about?ö

ôFive hundred dollars each.ö

ôHow do we account that?ö

ôLegal fees,ö Travis said. ôBury it in legal, local disposition.ÆÆ

ôAnd the American team people that weÆve lost?ö

ôThey have MasterCard,ö Travis said. ôStop worrying.ö

Roberts, the British-born ERTS press liaison, came into his office. ôYou
want to open this can up?ö

ôNo,ö Travis said. ôI want to kill it.ö

ôFor how long?ö

ôThirty days.

ôBloody hell. Your own staff will leak inside thirty days,ö Roberts said.
ôI promise you.ö

ôIf they do, youÆll squash it,ö Travis said. ôI need another thirty days to
make this contract.ö

ôDo we know what happened out there?ö

ôNo,ö Travis said. ôBut we will.ö

ôHow?ö

ôFrom the tapes.ö

ôThose tapes are a mess.ö

ôSo far,ö Travis said. And he called in the specialty teams of console
hotdoggers. Travis had long since concluded that although ERTS could wake
up political advisers around the world, they were most likely to get
information in-house. ôEverything we know from the Congo field expedition,ö
he said, ôis registered on that final videotape. I want a seven-band visual
and audio salvage, starting right now. Because that tape is all we have.ö

The specialty teams went to work.





       3. Recovery





ERTS REFERRED TO THE PROCESS AS ôDATA RECOVERY,ö or sometimes as ôdata
salvage.ö The terms evoked images of deep-sea operations, and they were
oddly appropriate.

To recover or salvage data meant that coherent meaning was pulled to the
surface from the depths of massive electronic information storage. And,
like salvage from the sea, it was a slow and delicate process, where a
single false step meant the irretrievable loss of the very elements one was
trying to bring up. ERTS had whole salvage crews skilled in the art of data
recovery. One crew immediately went to work on the audio recovery, another
on the visual recovery.

But Karen Ross was already engaged in a visual recovery.

The procedures she followed were highly sophisticated, and only possible at
ERTS.

Earth Resources Technology was a relatively new company, formed in 1975 in
response to the explosive growth of information on the Earth and its
resources. The amount of material handled by ERTS was staggering: just the
Landsat imagery alone amounted to more than five hundred thousand pictures,
and sixteen new images were acquired every hour, around the clock. With the
addition of conventional and draped aerial photography, infrared
photography, and artificial aperture side-looking radar, the total
information available to ERTS exceeded two million images, with new input
on the order of thirty images an hour. All this information had to be
catalogued, stored, and made available for instantaneous retrieval. ERTS
was like a library which acquired seven hundred new books a day. It was not
surprising that the librarians worked at fever pitch around the clock.

Visitors to ERTS never seemed to realize that even with computers, such
data-handling capacity would have been impossible ten years earlier. Nor
did visitors understand the basic nature of the ERTS informationùthey
assumed that the pictures on the screens were photographic, although they
were not.

Photography was a nineteenth-century chemical system for recording
information using light-sensitive silver salts. ERTS utilized a
twentieth-century electronic system for recording information, analogous to
chemical photographs, but very different. Instead of cameras, ERTS used
multi-spectral scanners; instead of film, they used CCTsùcomputer
compatible tapes. In fact, ERTS did not bother with ôpicturesö as they were
ordinarily understood from old-fashioned photographic technology. ERTS
bought ôdata scansö which they converted to ôdata displays,ö as the need
arose.

Since the ERTS images were just electrical signals recorded on magnetic
tape, a great variety of electrical image manipulation was possible. ERTS
had 837 computer programs to alter imagery: to enhance it, to eliminate
unwanted elements, to bring out details. Ross used fourteen programs on the
Congo videotapeùparticularly on the static-filled section in which the hand
and face appeared, just before the antenna was smashed.

First she earned out what was called a ôwash cycle,ö getting rid of the
static. She identified the static lines as occurring at specific scan
positions, and having a specific gray-scale value. She instructed the
computer to cancel those lines.

The resulting image showed blank spaces where the static was removed. So
she did ôfill-in-the-blanksöùinstructing the computer to introject imagery,
according to what was around the blank spaces. In this operation the
computer made a logical guess about what was missing.

She now had a static-free image, but it was muddy and indistinct, lacking
definition. So she did a ôhigh-priced spreadöùintensifying the image by
spreading the gray-scale values. But for some reason she also got a phase
distortion that she had to cancel, and that released spiking glitches
previously suppressed, and to get rid of the glitches she had to run three
other programs.

Technical details preoccupied her for an hour, until suddenly the image
ôpopped,ö coming up bright and clean. She caught her breath as she saw it.
The screen showed a dark, brooding face with heavy brows, watchful eyes, a
flattened nose, prognathous lips.

Frozen on the video screen was the face of a male gorilla.







Travis walked toward her from across the room, shaking his head. ôWe
finished the audio recovery on that hissing noise. The computer confirms it
as human breathing, with at least four separate origins. But itÆs damned
strange. According to the analysis, the sound is coming from inhalation,
not exhalation, the way people usually make sounds.ö

ôThe computer is wrong,ö Ross said. ôItÆs not human.ö She pointed to the
screen, and the face of the gorilla.

Travis showed no surprise. ôArtifact,ö he said.

ôItÆs no artifact.ö

ôYou did fill-in-the-blanks, and you got an artifact. The tag teamÆs been
screwing around with the software at lunch again.ö The tag teamùthe young
software programmersù had a tendency to convert data to play highly
sophisticated versions of pinball games. Their games sometimes got
sub-routed into other programs.

Ross herself had complained about it. ôBut this image is real,ö she
insisted, pointing to the screen.

ôLook,ö Travis said, ôlast week Harry did fill-in-the-blanks on the
Karakorum Mountains and he got back a lunar landing game. YouÆre supposed
to land next to the McDonald's stand, all very amusing.ö He walked off.
ôYouÆd better meet the others in my office. WeÆre setting advance times to
get back in.ö

ôIÆm leading the next team.ö

Travis shook his head. ôOut of the question.ö

ôBut what about this?ö she said, pointing to the screen.

ôIÆm not buying that image,ö Travis said. ôGorillas donÆt behave that way.
ItÆs got to be an artifact.ö He glanced at his watch. ôRight now, the only
question I have is how fast we can put a team back in the Congo.ö





4. Return Expedition





TRAVIS HAD NEVER HAD ANY DOUBTS IN HIS MIND

about going back in; from the first time he saw the videotapes from the
Congo, the only question was how best to do it. He called in all the
section heads: Accounts, Diplo, Remote, Geo, Logistics, Legal. They were
all yawning and rubbing their eyes. Travis began by saying, ôI want us back
in the Congo in ninety-six hours.ö

Then he leaned back in his chair and let them tell him why it couldnÆt be
done. There were plenty of reasons.

ôWe canÆt assemble the air cargo units for shipment in less than a hundred
and sixty hours,ö Cameron, the logistics man said.

ôWe can postpone the Himalaya team, and use their units,ö Travis said.

ôBut thatÆs a mountain expedition.ö

ôYou can modify the units in nine hours,ö Travis said.

ôBut we canÆt get equipment to fly it out,ö Lewis, the transport master,
said.

ôKorean Airlines has a 747 cargo jet available at SFX. They tell me it can
be down here in nine hours.ö

ôThey have a plane just sitting there?ö Lewis said, incredulous.

ôI believe,ö Travis said, ôthat they had a last-minute cancellation from
another customer.ö

Irwin, the accountant, groaned. ôWhatÆd that cost?ö

ôWe canÆt get visas from the Zaire Embassy in Washington in time,ö Martin,
the diplomatic man, said. ôAnd there is serious doubt theyÆd issue them to
us at all. As you know, the first set of Congo visas were based on our
mineral exploration rights with the Zaire government, and our MERs are
non-exclusive. We were granted permission to go in, and so were the
Japanese, the Germans, and the Dutch, whoÆve formed a mining consortium.
The first ore-body strike takes the contract. If Zaire suspects that our
expedition is in trouble, theyÆll just cancel us out and let the
Euro-Japanese consortium try their luck. There are thirty Japanese trade
officials in Kinshasa right now, spending yen like water.ö

ôI think thatÆs right,ö Travis said. ôIf it became known that our
expedition is in trouble.ö

ôItÆll become known the minute we apply for visas.ö

ôWe wonÆt apply for them. As far as anybody knows,ö Travis said, ôwe still
have an expedition in Virunga. If we put a second small team into the field
fast enough, nobody will ever know that it wasnÆt the original team.ö

ôBut what about the specific personnel visas to cross the borders, the
manifestsùö

ôDetails,ö Travis said. ôThatÆs what liquor is for,ö referring to bribes,
which were often liquor. In many parts of the world, expedition teams went
in with crates of liquor and

boxes of those perennial favorites, transistor radios and Polaroid cameras.

ôDetails? HowÆre you going to cross the border?ö

ôWeÆll need a good man for that. Maybe Munro.ö

ôMunro? ThatÆs playing rough. The Zaire government hates Munro.ö

ôHeÆs resourceful, and he knows the area.ö

Martin, the diplomatic expert, cleared his throat and said, ôIÆm not sure I
should be here for this discussion. It looks to me as if you are proposing
to enter a sovereign state with an illegal party led by a former Congo
mercenary soldier

ôNot at all,ö Travis said. ôIÆm obliged to put a support party into the
field to assist my people already there. Happens all the time. I have no
reason to think anybody is in trouble; just a routine support party. I
havenÆt got time to go through official channels. I may not be showing the
best judgment in whom I hire, but itÆs nothing more serious than that.ö

By 11:45 P.M. on the night of June 13, the main sequencing of the next ERTS
expedition had been worked out and confirmed by the computer. A fully
loaded 747 could leave Houston at 8 P.M. the following evening, June 14;
the plane could be in Africa on June 15 to pick up Munro ôor someone like
himö; and the full team could be in place in the Congo on June 17.

In ninety-six hours.







From the main data room, Karen Ross could look through the glass walls into
TravisÆs office and see the arguments taking place. In her logical way, she
concluded that Travis had öQÆdö himself, meaning that he had drawn false
conclusions from insufficient data, and had said Q.E.D. too soon. Ross felt
there was no point in going back into the Congo until they knew what they
were up against. She remained at her console, checking the image she had
recovered.

Ross bought this imageùbut how could she make Travis buy it?

In the highly sophisticated data-processing world of ERTS, there was a
constant danger that extracted information would begin to ôfloatöùthat the
images would cut loose from reality, like a ship cut loose from its
moorings. This was true particularly when the database was put through
multiple manipulationsùwhen you were rotating 106 pixels in
computer-generated hyperspace.

So ERTS evolved other ways to check the validity of images they got back
from the computer. Ross ran two check programs against the gorilla image.
The first was called APNF, for Animation Predicted Next Frame.

It was possible to treat videotape as if it were movie film, a succession
of stills. She showed the computer several ôstillsö in succession, and then
asked it to create the Predicted Next Frame. This PNF was then checked
against the actual next frame.

She ran eight PNFs in a row, and they worked. If there was an error in the
data handling, it was at least a consistent error.

Encouraged, she next ran a ôfast and dirty three¡space.ö Here the flat
video image was assumed to have certain three-dimensional characteristics,
based on gray-scale patterns. In essence, the computer decided that the
shadow of a nose, or a mountain range, meant that the nose or mountain
range protruded above the surrounding surface. Succeeding images could be
checked against these assumptions. As the gorilla moved, the computer
verified that the flat image was, indeed, three-dimensional and coherent.

This proved beyond a doubt that the image was real.

She went to see Travis.







ôLetÆs say I buy this image,ö Travis said, frowning. ôI still donÆt see why
you should take the next expedition in.ö

Ross said, ôWhat did the other team find?ö

ôThe other team?ö Travis asked innocently.

ôYou gave that tape to another salvage team to confirm my recovery,ö Ross
said.

Travis glanced at his watch. ôThey havenÆt pulled any-

thing out yet.ö And he added, ôWe all know youÆre fast with the database.ö

Ross smiled. ôThatÆs why you need me to take the expedition in,ö she said.
ôI know the database, because I generated the database. And if you intend
to send another team in right away, before this gorilla thing is solved,
the only hope you have is for the team leader to be fast onsite with the
data. This time, you need a console hotdogger in the field. Or the next
expedition will end up like the last one. Because you still donÆt know what
happened to the last expedition.ö

Travis sat behind his desk, and stared at her for a long time. She
recognized his hesitation as a sign that he was weakening.

ôAnd I want to go outside,ö Ross said.

ôTo an outside expert?ö

ôYes. Somebody on our grant list.ö

ôRisky,ö Travis said. ôI hate to involve outside people at this point. You
know the consortium is breathing down our necks. You up the leak averages.ö

ææItÆs important,ÆÆ Ross insisted.

Travis sighed. ôOkay, if you think itÆs important.ö He sighed again. ôJust
donÆt delay yourÆteam.ö

Ross was already packing up her hard copy.







Alone, Travis frowned, turning over his decision in his mind. Even if they
ran the next Congo expedition slambam, in and out in less than fifteen
days, their fixed costs would still exceed three hundred thousand dollars.
The Board was going to screamùsending an untried, twenty-four-year-old kid,
a girl, into the field with this kind of responsibility. Especially on a
project as important as this one, where the stakes were enormous, and where
they had already fallen behind on every timeline and cost projection. And
Ross was so cold, she was likely to prove a poor field leader, alienating
the others in the team.

Yet Travis had a hunch about the Ross Glacier. His management philosophy,
tempered in his rain-dancing days, was always to give the project to
whoever had the most to gain from successùor the most to lose from failure.

He turned to face his console, mounted beside his desk. ôTravis,ö he said,
and the screen glowed.

ôPsychograph file,ö he said.

The screen showed call prompts.

ôRoss, Karen,ö Travis said.

The screen flashed THINKING A MOMENT. That was the programmed response
which meant that information was being extracted. He waited.

Then the psychograph summary printed out across the screen. Every E RI S
employee underwent three days of intensive psychological testing to
determine not only skills but potential biases. The assessment of Ross
would, he felt, be reassuring to the Board.



HIGHLY INTELLIGENT / LOGICAL / FLEXIBLE / RESOURCEFUL / DATA INTUITIVE /
THOUGHT PROCESSES SUITED TO RAPIDLY CHANGING REAL-TIME

CONTEXTS / DRIVEN TO SUCCEED AT DEFINED GOALS / CAPABLE SUSTAINED MENTAL
EFFORT /



It looked like the perfect description of the next Congo team leader. He
scanned down the screen, looking for the negatives. These were less
reassuring.



YOUTHFUL-RUTHLESS / TENUOUS HUMAN RAPPORT /

DOMINEERING / INTELLECTUALLY ARROGANT / INSENSITIVE / DRIVEN TO SUCCEED AT
ANY COST /



And there was a final ôflopoverö notation. The very concept of personality
flopover had been evolved through ERTS testing. It suggested that any
dominant personality trait could be suddenly reversed under stress
conditions: parental personalities could flop over and turn childishly
petulant, hysterical personalities could become icy calmùor logical
personalities could become illogical.

FLOPOVER MATRIX: DOMINANT (POSSIBLY UNDESIRABLE ) OBJECTIVITY MAY BE LOST
ONCE DESIRED GOAL IS PERCEIVED CLOSE AT HAND / DESIRE FOR SUCCESS MAY
PROVOKE DANGEROUSLY ILLOGICAL RESPONSES / PARENTAL FIGURES WILL BE
ESPECIALLY DENIGRATED / SUBJECT MUST BE MONITORED IN LATE

STAGE GOALùORIENTED PROCEDURES /



Travis looked at the screen, and decided that such a circumstance was
highly unlikely in the coming Congo expedition. He turned the computer off.



Karen Ross was exhilarated by her new authority. Shortly before midnight,
she called up the grant lists on her office terminal. ERTS had animal
experts in various areas whom they supported with nominal grants from a
non-profit foundation called the Earth Resources Wildlife Fund. The grant
lists were arranged taxonomically. Under ôPrimatesö she found fourteen
names, including several in Borneo, Malaysia, and Africa as well as the
United States. In the United States there was only one gorilla researcher
available, a pri¡matologist named Dr. Peter Elliot, at the University of
California at Berkeley.

The file onscreen indicated that Elliot was twenty-nine years old,
unmarried, an associate professor without tenure in the Department of
Zoology. Principal Research Interest was listed as ôPrimate Communications
(Gorilla).ö Funding was made to something called Project Amy.

She checked her watch. It was just midnight in Houston, 10 P.M. in
California. She dialed the home number on the screen.

ôHello,ö a wary male voice said.

ôDr. Peter Elliot?ö

ôYes . . .ô The voice was still cautious, hesitant. ôAre you a reporter?ö

ôNo,ö she said. ôThis is Dr. Karen Ross in Houston; IÆm associated with the
Earth Resources Wildlife Fund, which supports your research.ö

ôOh, yes . . .ô The voice remained cautious. ôYouÆre sure youÆre not a
reporter? ItÆs only fair to tell you IÆm recording this telephone call as a
potential legal document.ö

Karen Ross hesitated. The last thing she needed was some paranoid academic
recording ERTS developments. She said nothing.

ôYouÆre American?ö he said.

ôOf course.ö

Karen Ross stared at the computer screens, which flashed

VOICE IDENTIFICATION CONFIRMED: ELLIOT, PETER, 29 YEARS.

ôState your business,ö Elliot said.

ôWell, weÆre about to send an expedition into the Virunga region of the
Congo, andùö

ôReally? When are you going?ö The voice suddenly sounded excited, boyish.

ôWell, as a matter of fact weÆre leaving in two days, andùö

ôI want to go,ö Elliot said.

Ross was so surprised she hardly knew what to say. ôWell, Dr. Elliot,
thatÆs not why IÆm calling you, as a matter of factùö

ôIÆm planning to go there anyway,ö Elliot said. ôWith Amy.ö

ôWhoÆs Amy?ö

ôAmy is a gorilla,ö Peter Elliot said.







                                   DAY 2:

                               SAN FRANCISCO

                               June 14, 1979











1. Project Amy





IT IS UNFAIR TO SUGGEST, AS SOME PRIMATOLOGISTS later did, that Peter
Elliot had to ôget out of townö in June, 1979. His motives, and the
planning behind the decision to go to the Congo, are a matter of record.
Professor Elliot and his staff had decided on an African trip at least two
days before Ross called him.

But it is certainly true that Peter Elliot was under attack:

from outside groups, the press, academic colleagues, and even members of
his own department at Berkeley. Toward the end, Elliot was accused of being
a ôNazi criminalö engaged in the ôtorture of dumb  animals.ö It is no
exaggeration to say that Elliot had found himself, in the spring of 1979,
fighting for his professional life.

Yet his research had begun quietly, almost accidentally. Peter Elliot was a
twenty-three-year-old graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at
Berkeley when he first read about a year-old gorilla with amoebic dysentery
who had been brought from the Minneapolis zoo to the San Francisco School
of Veterinary Medicine for treatment. That was in 1973, in the exciting
early days of primate language research.

The idea that primates might be taught language was very old. In 1661,
Samuel Pepys saw a chimpanzee in London and wrote in his diary that it was
ôso much like a man in most things that. . . I do believe that it already
understands much English, and I am of the mind it might be taught to speak
or make signs.ö Another seventeenth-century writer went further, saying,
ôApes and Baboons. . . can speak but will not for fear they should be
imployed, and set to work.ö

Yet for the next three hundred years attempts to teach apes to talk were
notably unsuccessful. They culminated in an ambitious effort by a Florida
couple, Keith and Kathy Hayes, who for six years in the early 1950s raised
a chimpanzee named Vicki as if she were a human infant. During that time,
Vicki learned four wordsùömama,ö ôpapa,ö ôcup,ö and ôup.ö But her
pronunciation was labored and her progress slow. Her difficulties seemed to
support the growing conviction among scientists that man was the only
animal capable of language. Typical was the pronouncement of George Gaylord
Simpson: ôLanguage is. . . the most diagnostic single trait of man: all
normal men have language; no other now living organisms do.ö

This seemed so self-evident that for the next fifteen years nobody bothered
to try teaching language to an ape. Then in 1966, a Reno, Nevada, couple
named Beatrice and Allen Gardner reviewed movies of Vicki speaking. It
seemed to them that Vicki was not so much incapable of language as
incapable of speech. They noticed that while her lip movements were
awkward, her hand gestures were fluid and expressive. The obvious
conclusion was to try sign language.

In June, 1966, the Gardners began teaching American Sign Language
(Ameslan), the standardized language of the deaf, to an infant chimpanzee
named Washoe. WashoeÆs progress with ASL was rapid; by 1971, she had a
vocabulary of 160 signs, which she used in conversation. She also made up
new word combinations for things she had never seen before: when shown
watermelon for the first time, she signed it ôwater fruit.ö

The GardnersÆ work was highly controversial; it turned out that many
scientists had an investment in the idea that apes were incapable of
language. (As one researcher said, ôMy God, think of all those eminent
names attached to all those scholarly papers for all those decadesùand
everyone agreeing that only man had language. What a mess.ö)

WashoeÆs skills provoked a variety of other experiments in teaching
language. A chimpanzee named Lucy was taught to communicate through a
computer; another, Sarah, was

taught to use plastic markers on a board. Other apes were studied as well.
An orangutan named Alfred began instruction in 1971; a lowland gorilla
named Koko in 1972; and in 1973 Peter Elliot began with a mountain gorilla,
Amy.

At his first visit to the hospital to meet Amy, he found a pathetic little
creature, heavily sedated, with restraining straps on her frail black arms
and legs. He stroked her head and said gently, ôHello, Amy, IÆm Peter.ö

Amy promptly bit his hand, drawing blood.

From this inauspicious beginning emerged a singularly successful research
program. In 1973, the basic teaching technique, called molding, was well
understood. The animal was shown an object and the researcher
simultaneously molded the animalÆs hand into the correct sign, until the
association was firmly made. Subsequent testing confirmed that the animal
understood the meaning of the sign.

But if the basic methodology was accepted, the application was highly
competitive. Researchers competed over the rate of sign acquisition, or
vocabulary. (Among human beings, vocabulary was considered the best measure
of intelligence.) The rate of sign acquisition could be taken as a measure
of either the scientistÆs skill or the animalÆs intelligence.

It was by now clearly recognized that different apes had different
personalities. As one researcher commented, ôPongid studies are perhaps the
only field in which academic gossip centers on the students and not the
teachers.ö In the increasingly competitive and disputatious world of
primate research, it was said that Lucy was a drunk, that Koko was an
ill-mannered brat, that LanaÆs head was turned by her celebrity (ôshe only
works when there is an interviewer presentö), and that Nim was so stupid he
should have been named Dim.

At first glance, it may seem odd that Peter Elliot should have come under
attack, for this handsome, rather shy manùthe son of a Manin County
librarianùhad avoided controversy during his years of work with Amy.
ElliotÆs publications were modest and temperate; his progress with Amy

was well documented; he showed no interest in publicity, and was not among
those researchers who took their apes on the Carson or the Griffin show.

But ElliotÆs diffident manner concealed not only a quick intelligence, but
a fierce ambition as well. If he avoided controversy, it was only because
he didnÆt have time for itùhe had been working nights and weekends for
years, and driving his staff and Amy just as hard. He was very good at the
business of science, getting grants; at all the animal behaviorist
conferences, where others showed up in jeans and plaid lumberjack shirts,
Elliot arrived in a three-piece suit. Elliot intended to be the foremost
ape researcher, and he intended Amy to be the foremost ape.

ElliotÆs success in obtaining grants was such that in 1975, Project Amy had
an annual budget of $160,000 and a staff of eight, including a child
psychologist and a computer programmer. A staff member of the Bergren
Institute later said that ElliotÆs appeal lay in the fact that he was ôa
good investment; for example, Project Amy got fifty percent more computer
time for our money because he went on line with his time-sharing terminal
at night and on weekends, when the time was cheaper. He was very
cost-effective. And dedicated, of course: Elliot obviously cared about
nothing in life except his work with Amy. That made him a boring
conversationalist but a very good bet, from our standpoint. ItÆs hard to
decide whoÆs truly brilliant; itÆs easier to see whoÆs driven, which in the
long run may be more important. We anticipated great things from Elliot.ö







Peter ElliotÆs difficulties began on the morning of February 2, 1979. Amy
lived in a mobile home on the Berkeley campus; she spent nights there
alone, and usually provided an effusive greeting the next day. However, on
that morning the Project Amy staff found her in an uncharacteristic sullen
mood; she was irritable and bleary-eyed, behaving as if she had been
wronged in some fashion.

Elliot felt that something had upset her during the night. When asked, she
kept making signs for ôsleep box,ö a new

word pairing he did not understand. That in itself was not unusual; Amy
made up new word pairings all the time, and they were often hard to
decipher. Just a few days before, she had bewildered them by talking about
ôcrocodile milk.ö Eventually they realized that AmyÆs milk had gone sour,
and that since she disliked crocodiles (which she had only seen in picture
books), she somehow decided that sour milk was ôcrocodile milk.ö

Now she was talking about ôsleep box.ö At first they thought she might be
referring to her nestlike bed. It turned out she was using ôboxö in her
usual sense, to refer to the television set.

Everything in her trailer, including the television, was controlled on a
twenty-four-hour cycle by the computer. They ran a check to see if the
television had been turned on during the night, disturbing her sleep. Since
Amy liked to watch television, it was conceivable that she had managed to
turn it on herself. But Amy looked scornful as they examined the actual
television in the trailer. She clearly meant something else.

Finally they determined that by ôsleep boxö she meant ôsleep pictures.ö
When asked about these sleep pictures, Amy signed that they were ôbad
picturesö and ôold pictures,ö and that they ômake Amy cry.ö

She was dreaming.

The fact that Amy was the first primate to report dreams caused tremendous
excitement among ElliotÆs staff. But the excitement was short-lived.
Although Amy continued to dream on succeeding nights, she refused to
discuss her dreams; in fact, she seemed to blame the researchers for this
new and confusing intrusion into her mental life. Worse, her waking
behavior deteriorated alarmingly.

Her word acquisition rate fell from 2.7 words a week to 0.8 words a week,
her spontaneous word formation rate from 1.9 to 0.3. Monitored attention
span was halved. Mood swings increased; erratic and unmotivated behavior
became commonplace; temper tantrums occurred daily. Amy was four and a half
feet tall, and weighed 130 pounds. She was an immensely strong animal. The
staff began to wonder if they could control her.

Her refusal to talk about her dreams frustrated them. They tried a variety
of investigative approaches; they showed her pictures from books and
magazines; they ran the ceiling-mounted video monitors around the clock, in
case she signed something significant while alone (like young children, Amy
often ôtalked to herselfö); they even administered a battery of
neurological tests, including an EEG.

Finally they hit on finger painting.

This was immediately successful. Amy was enthusiastic about finger
painting, and after they mixed cayenne pepper with the pigments, she
stopped licking her fingers. She drew images swiftly and repetitively, and
she seemed to become somewhat more relaxed, more her old self.

David Bergman, the child psychologist, noted that ôwhat Amy actually draws
is a cluster of apparently related images:

inverted crescent shapes, or semicircles, which are always associated with
an area of vertical green streaks. Amy says the green streaks represent
æforest,Æ and she calls the semi-circles æbad housesÆ or æold houses.Æ In
addition she often draws black circles, which she calls æholes.Æ

Bergman cautioned against the obvious conclusion that she was drawing old
buildings in the jungle. ôWatching her make drawings one after another,
again and again, convinces me of the obsessive and private nature of the
imagery. Amy is troubled by these pictures, and she is trying to get them
out, to banish them to paper.ö

In fact, the nature of the imagery remained mysterious to the Project Amy
staff. By late April, 1979, they had concluded that her dreams could be
explained in four ways. In order of seriousness, they were:

1.     The dreams are an attempt to rationalize events in her daily life.
This was the usual explanation of (human) dreams, but the staff doubted
that it applied in AmyÆs case.

2.     The dreams are a transitional adolescent manifestation.

At seven years of age, Amy was a gorilla teenager, and for nearly a year
she had shown many typical teenage traits, including rages and sulks,
fussiness about her appearance, a new interest in the opposite sex.

3.     The dreams are a species-specific phenomenon. It was possible that
all gorillas had disturbing dreams, and that in the wild the resultant
stresses were handled in some fashion by the behavior of the group.
Although gorillas had been studied in the wild for the past twenty years,
there was no evidence for this.

4.     The dreams are the first sign of incipient dementia. This was the
most feared possibility. To train an ape effectively, one had to begin with
an infant; as the years progressed, researchers waited to see if their
animal would grow up to be bright or stupid, recalcitrant or pliable,
healthy or sickly. The health of apes was a constant worry; many programs
collapsed after years of effort and expense when the apes died of physical
or mental illness. Timothy, an Atlanta chimp, became psychotic in 1976 and
committed suicide by copro¡phagia, choking to death on his own feces.
Maurice, a Chicago orang, became intensely neurotic, developing phobias
that halted work in 1977. For better or worse, the very intelligence that
made apes worthwhile subjects for study also made them as unstable as human
beings.

But the Project Amy staff was unable to make further progress. In May,
1979, they made what turned out to be a momentous decision: they decided to
publish AmyÆs drawings, and submitted her images to the Journal of
Behavioral Sciences.













2. Breakthrough



ôDREAM BEHAVIOR IN A MOUNTAIN GORILLAö WAS

never published. The paper was routinely forwarded to three scientists on
the editorial board for review, and one copy somehow (it is still unclear
just how) fell into the hands of the Primate Preservation Agency, a New
York group formed in 1975 to prevent the ôunwarranted and illegitimate
exploitation of intelligent primates in unnecessary laboratory research.ö *

On June 3, the PPA began picketing the Zoology Department at Berkeley, and
calling for the ôreleaseö of Amy. Most of the demonstrators were women, and
several young children were present; videotapes of an eight-year-old boy
holding a placard with AmyÆs photograph and shouting ôFree Amy! Free Amy!ö
appeared on local television news.

In a tactical error, the Project Amy staff elected to ignore the protests
except for a brief press release stating that the PPA was ômisinformed.ö
The release went out under the Berkeley Information Office letterhead.

On June 5, the PPA released comments on Professor Elliot's work from other
primatologists around the country. (Many later denied the comments or
claimed they were misquoted.) Dr. Wayne Turman, of the University of
Oklahoma at Norman, was quoted as saying that ElliotÆs work was ôfanciful
and unethical.ö Dr. Felicity Hammond, of the Yerkes Primate Research Center
in Atlanta, said that ôneither Elliot nor his research is of the first
rank.ö Dr. Richard Aronson at the University of Chicago called the research
ôclearly fascist in nature.ö

None of these scientists had read ElliotÆs paper before commenting; but the
damage, particularly from Aronson, was incalculable. On June 8, Eleanor
Vries, the spokesperson for the PPA, referred to the ôcriminal research of
Dr. Elliot and his Nazi staffö; she claimed ElliotÆs research caused Amy to
have nightmares, and that Amy was being subjected to torture, drugs, and
electroshock treatments.

Belatedly, on June 10, the Project Amy staff prepared a lengthy press
release, explaining their position in detail and



*The Following account of Elliot's persecution draws heavily on J. A.
Peebles, ôInfringement of Academic Freedom by Press Innuendo and Hearsay:
The Experience of Dr. Peter Elliot,ö in the Journal of Academic Law and
Psychiatry 52. no. 12 (1979): 19ù38.

referring to the unpublished paper. But the University Information Office
was now ôtoo busyö to issue the release.

On June 11, the Berkeley faculty scheduled a meeting to consider ôissues of
ethical conductö within the university. Eleanor Vries announced that the
PPA had hired the noted San Francisco attorney Melvin Bell ôto free Amy
from sub¡jugation.ö BellÆs office was not available for comment.

On the same day, the Project Amy staff had a sudden, unexpected
breakthrough in their understanding of AmyÆs dreams.







Through all the publicity and commotion, the group had continued to work
daily with Amy, and her continued distressùand flaring temper tantrumsùwas
a constant reminder that they had not solved the initial problem. They
persisted in their search for clues, although when the break finally came,
it happened almost by accident.

Sarah Johnson, a research assistant, was checking prehistoric
archaeological sites in the Congo, on the unlikely chance that Amy might
have seen such a site (ôold buildings in the jungleö) in her infancy,
before she was brought to the Minneapolis zoo. Johnson quickly discovered
the pertinent facts about the Congo: the region had not been explored by
Western observers until a hundred years ago; in recent times, hostile
tribes and civil war had made scientific inquiry hazardous; and finally,
the moist jungle environment did not lend itself to artifact preservation.

This meant remarkably little was known about Congolese prehistory, and
Johnson completed her research in a few hours. But she was reluctant to
return so quickly from her assignment, so she stayed on, looking at other
books in the anthropology libraryùethnographies, histories, early accounts.
The earliest visitors to the interior of the Congo were Arab slave traders
and Portuguese merchants, and several had written accounts of their
travels. Because Johnson could read neither Arabic nor Portuguese, she just
looked at the plates.

And then she saw a picture that, she said, ôsent a chill up my spine.ö

It was a Portuguese engraving originally dated 1642 and reprinted in an
1842 volume. The ink was yellowing on frayed brittle paper, but clearly
visible was a ruined city in the jungle, overgrown with creeper vines and
giant ferns. The doors and windows were constructed with semicircular
arches, exactly as Amy had drawn them.







ôIt was,ö Elliot said later, ôthe kind of opportunity that comes to a
researcher once in his lifetimeùif heÆs lucky. Of course we knew nothing
about the picture; the caption was written in flowing script and included a
word that looked like æZinj,Æ and the date 1642. We immediately hired
translators skilled in archaic Arabic and seventeenth-century Portuguese,
but that wasnÆt the point. The point was we had a chance to verify a major
theoretical question. AmyÆs pictures seemed to be a clear case of specific
genetic memory.ö

Genetic memory was first proposed by Marais in 1911, and it has been
vigorously debated ever since. In its simplest form, the theory proposed
that the mechanism of genetic inheritance, which governed the transmission
of all physical traits, was not limited to physical traits alone. Behavior
was clearly genetically determined in lower animals, which were born with
complex behavior that did not have to be learned. But higher animals had
more flexible behavior, dependent on learning and memory. The question was
whether higher animals, particularly apes and men, had any part of their
psychic apparatus fixed from birth by their genes.

Now, Elliot felt, with Amy they had evidence for such a memory. Amy had
been taken from Africa when she was only seven months old. Unless she had
seen this ruined city in her infancy, her dreams represented a specific
genetic memory which could be verified by a trip to Africa. By the evening
of June 11, the Project Amy staff was agreed. If they could arrange itùand
pay for itùthey would take Amy back to Africa.

On June 12, the team waited for the translators to complete work on the
source material. Checked translations were expected to be ready within two
days. But a trip to Africa for Amy and two staff members would cost at
least thirty thousand dollars, a substantial fraction of their total annual
operating budget. And transporting a gorilla halfway around the world
involved a bewildering tangle of customs regulations and bureaucratic red
tape.

Clearly, they needed expert help, but they were not sure where to turn. And
then, on June 13, a Dr. Karen Ross from one of their granting institutions,
the Earth Resources Wildlife Fund, called from Houston to say that she was
leading an expedition into the Congo in two daysÆ time. And although she
showed no interest in taking Peter Elliot or Amy with her, she conveyedùat
least over the telephoneùa confident familiarity with the way expeditions
were assembled and managed in far-off places around the world.

When she asked if she could come to San Francisco to meet with Dr. Elliot,
Dr. Elliot replied that he would be delighted to meet with her, at her
convenience.













3. Legal Issues.



PETER ELLIOT REMEMBERED JUNE 14, 1979, AS A day of sudden reverses. He
began at 8 A.M. in the San Francisco law firm of Sutherland, Morton &
OÆConnell, because of the threatened custody suit from the PPAùa suit which
became all the more important now that he was planning to take Amy out of
the country.

He met with John Morton in the firmÆs wood-paneled library overlooking
Grant Street. Morton took notes on a yellow legal pad. ôI think youÆre all
right,ö Morton began, ôbut let me get a few facts. Amy is a gorilla?ö

ôYes, a female mountain gorilla.ö

ôAge?ö

ôSheÆs seven now.ö

ôSo sheÆs still a child?ö

Elliot explained that gorillas matured in six to eight years, so that Amy
was late adolescent, the equivalent of a sixteen-year-old human female.

Morton scratched notes on a pad. ôCould we say sheÆs still a minor?ö

ôDo we want to say that?ö

ôI think so.ö

ôYes, sheÆs still a minor,ö Elliot said.

ôWhere did she come from? I mean originally.ö

ôA woman tourist named Swenson found her in Africa, in a village called
Bagimindi. AmyÆs mother had been killed by the natives for food. Mrs.
Swenson bought her as an infant.ö

ôSo she was not bred in captivity,ö Morton said, writing on his pad.

ôNo. Mrs. Swenson brought her back to the States and donated her to the
Minneapolis zoo.ö

ôShe relinquished her interest in Amy?ö

ôI assume so,ö Elliot said. ôWeÆve been trying to reach Mrs. Swenson to ask
about AmyÆs early life, but sheÆs out of the country. Apparently she
travels constantly; sheÆs in Borneo. Anyway, when Amy was sent to San
Francisco, I called the Minneapolis zoo to ask if I could keep her for
study. The zoo said yes, for three years.ö

ôDid you pay any money?ö

ææNo.

ôWas there a written contract?ö

ôNo, I just called the zoo director.ö

Morton nodded. ôOral agreement. . .ô he said, writing. ôAnd when the three
years were up?ö

ôThat was the spring of 1976. 1 asked the zoo for an extension of six
years, and they gave it to me.ö

ôAgain orally?ö

ôYes. I called on the phone.ö

ôNo correspondence?ö

ôNo. They didnÆt seem very interested when I called. To tell you the truth,
I think they had forgotten about Amy. The zoo has four gorillas, anyway.ö

Morton frowned. ôIsnÆt a gorilla a pretty expensive animal? I mean, if you
wanted to buy one for a pet or for the circus.ö

ôGorillas are on the endangered list; you canÆt buy them as pets. But yes,
theyÆd be pretty expensive.ö

ôHow expensive?ö

ôWell, thereÆs no established market value, but it would be twenty or
thirty thousand dollars.ö

ôAnd all during these years, you have been teaching her language?ö

ôYes,ö Peter said. ôAmerican Sign Language. She has a vocabulary of six
hundred and twenty words now.ö

ôIs that a lot?ö

ôMore than any known primate.ö

Morton nodded, making notes. ôYou work with her every day in ongoing
research?ö

ôYes.ö

ôGood,ö Morton said. ôThatÆs been very important in the animal custody
cases so far.ö

For more than a hundred years, there had been organized movements in
Western countries to stop animal experimentation. They were led by the
anti-vivisectionists, the RSPCA, the ASPCA. Originally these organizations
were a kind of lunatic fringe of animal lovers, intent on stopping all
animal research.

Over the years, scientists had evolved a standard defense acceptable to the
courts. Researchers claimed that their experiments had the goal of
bettering the health and welfare of mankind, a higher priority than animal
welfare. They pointed out that no one objected to animals being used as
beasts of burden or for agricultural workùa life of drudgery to which
animals had been subjected for thousands of years. Using animals in
scientific experiments simply extended the idea that animals were the
servants of human enterprises.

In addition, animals were literally brutes. They had no self-awareness, no
recognition of their existence in nature. This meant, in the words of
philosopher George H. Mead, that ôanimals have no rights. We are at liberty
to cut off their lives; there is no wrong committed when an animalÆs life
is taken away. He has not lost anything

Many people were troubled by these views, but attempts to establish
guidelines quickly ran into logical problems. The most obvious concerned
the perceptions of animals further down the phylogenetic scale. Few
researchers operated on dogs, cats, and other mammals without anesthesia,
but what about annelid worms, crayfish, leeches, and squid? Ignoring these
creatures was a form of ôtaxonomic discrimination.ö Yet if these animals
deserved consideration, shouldnÆt it also be illegal to throw a live
lobster into a pot of boiling water?

The question of what constituted cruelty to animals was confused by the
animal societies themselves. In some countries, they fought the
extermination of rats; and in 1968 there was the bizarre Australian
pharmaceutical case. * In the face of these ironies, the courts hesitated
to interfere with animal experimentation. As a practical matter,
researchers were free to do as they wished. The volume of animal research
was extraordinary: during the 1970s, sixty-four million animals were killed
in experiments in the United States each year.

But attitudes had slowly changed. Language studies with dolphins and apes
made it clear that these animals were not only intelligent but self-aware;
they recognized themselves in mirrors and photographs. In 1974, scientists
themselves formed the International Primate Protection League to monitor
research involving monkeys and apes. In March, 1978, the Indian government
banned the export of rhesus monkeys to research laboratories around the
world. And there were court cases which concluded that in some instances
animals did, indeed, have rights.

The old view was analogous to slavery: the animal was the property of its
owner, who could do whatever he wished. But now ownership became secondary.
In February, 1977,



*A new pharmaceutical factory was built in Western Australia. In this
factory all the pills came out on a conveyor bell; a person had to watch
the belt, and press buttons to sort the pills into separate bins by size
and color. A Skinnenan animal behaviorist pointed out that it would be
simple to teach pigeons to watch the pills and peck colored keys to do the
sorting process. Incredulous factory managers agreed to a test; the pigeons
indeed performed reliably, and were duly placed on the assembly line. Then
the RSPCA stepped in and put a stop to it on the grounds that it
represented cruelty to animals; the job was turned over to a human
operator. for whom it did not, apparently, represent cruelty.





there was a case involving a dolphin named Mary, released by a lab
technician into the open ocean. The University of Hawaii prosecuted the
technician, charging loss-of a valuable research animal. Two trials
resulted in hung juries; the case was dropped.

In November, 1978, there was a custody case involving a chimpanzee named
Arthur, who was fluent in sign language. His owner, Johns Hopkins
University, decided to sell him and close the program. His trainer, William
Levine, went to court and obtained custody on the grounds that Arthur knew
language and thus was no longer a chimpanzee.

ôOne of the pertinent facts,ö Morton said, ôwas that when Arthur was
confronted by other chimpanzees, he referred to them as æblack things.Æ And
when Arthur was twice asked to sort photographs of people and photographs
of chimps, he sorted them correctly except that both times he put his own
picture in the stack with the people. He obviously did not consider himself
a chimpanzee, and the court ruled that he should remain with his trainer,
since any separation would cause him severe psychic distress.ö

ôAmy cries when I leave her,ö Elliot said.

ôWhen you conduct experiments, do you obtain her permission?ö

ôAlways.ö Elliot smiled. Morton obviously had no sense of day-to-day life
with Amy. It was essential to obtain her permission for any course of
action, even a ride in a car. She was a powerful animal, and she could be
willful and stubborn.

ôDo you keep a record of her acquiescence?ö

ôVideotapes.ö

ôDoes she understand the experiments you propose?ö He shrugged. ôShe says
she does.ö

ôYou follow a system of rewards and punishments?ö ôAll animal behaviorists
do.ö

Morton frowned. ôWhat forms do her punishments take?ö

ôWell, when sheÆs a bad girl I make her stand in the corner facing the
wall. Or else I send her to bed early without her peanut-butter-and-jelly
snack.ö

ôWhat about torture and shock treatments?ö

"Ridiculous.ö

ôYou never physically punish the animal?ö

ôSheÆs a pretty damn big animal. Usually I worry that sheÆll get mad and
punish me.ö

Morton smiled and stood. ôYouÆre going to be all right,ö he said. ôAny
court will rule that Amy is your ward and that you must decide any ultimate
disposition in her case.ö He hesitated. ôI know this sounds strange, but
could you put Amy on the stand?ö

ôI guess so,ö Elliot said. ôDo you think it will come to that?ö

ôNot in this case,ö Morton said, ôbut sooner or later it will. You watch:
within ten years, there will be a custody case involving a language-using
primate, and the ape will be in the witness-box.ö

Elliot shook his hand, and said as he was leaving, ôBy the way, would I
have any problem taking her out of the country?ö

ôIf there is a custody case, you could have trouble taking her across state
lines,ö Morton said. ôAre you planning to take her out of the country?ö

ôYes.ö

ôThen my advice is to do it fast, and donÆt tell anyone,ö Morton said.







Elliot entered his office on the third floor of the Zoology Department
building shortly after nine. His secretary, Carolyn, said: ôA Dr. Ross
called from that Wildlife Fund in Houston; sheÆs on her way to San
Francisco. A Mr. Mori¡kawa called three times, says itÆs important. The
Project Amy staff meeting is set for ten oÆclock. And Windy is in your
office.ö

ôReally?ö

James Weldon was a senior professor in the Department, a weak, blustery
man. ôWindyö Weldon was usually portrayed in departmental cartoons as
holding a wet finger in the air: he was a master at knowing which way the
wind was blowing. For the past several days, he had avoided Peter Elliot
and his staff.

Elliot went into his office.

ôWell, Peter my boy,ö Weldon said, reaching out to give his version of a
hearty handshake. ôYouÆre in early.ö

Elliot was instantly wary. ôI thought IÆd beat the crowds,ö he said. The
picketers did not show up until ten oÆclock, sometimes later, depending on
when they had arranged to meet the TV news crews. That was how it worked
these days:

protest by appointment.

ôTheyÆre not coming anymore.ö Weldon smiled.

He handed Elliot the late city edition of the Chronicle, a front-page story
circled in black pen. Eleanor Vries had resigned her position as regional
director of the PPA, pleading overwork and personal pressures; a statement
from the PPA in New York indicated that they had seriously misconstrued the
nature and content of ElliotÆs research.

ôMeaning what?ö Elliot asked.

ôBelliÆs office reviewed your paper and VriesÆs public statements about
torture, and decided that the PPA was exposed to a major libel suit,ö
Weldon said. ôThe New York office is terrified. TheyÆll be making overtures
to you later today. Personally, I hope youÆll be understanding.ö

Elliot dropped into his chair. "What about the faculty meeting next week?ö

ôOh, thatÆs essential,ö Weldon said. ôThereÆs no question that the faculty
will want to discuss unethical conductùon the part of the media, and issue
a strong statement in your support. IÆm drawing up a statement now, to come
from my office.ö

The irony of this was not lost on Elliot. ôYou sure you want to go out on a
limb?ö he asked,

ôIÆm behind you one thousand percent, I hope you know that,ö Weldon said.
Weldon was restless, pacing around the office, staring at the walls, which
were covered with AmyÆs finger paintings. Windy had something further on
his mind. ôSheÆs still making these same pictures?ö he asked, finally.

ôYes,ö Elliot said.

ôAnd you still have no idea what they mean?ö

Elliot paused; at best it was premature to tell Weldon what they thought
the pictures meant. ôNo idea,ö he said.

ôAre you sure?ö Weldon asked, frowning. ôI think somebody knows what they
mean.ö

ôWhy is that?ö

ôSomething very strange has happened,ö Weldon said. ôSomeone has offered to
buy Amy.ö

ôTo buy her? What are you talking about, to buy her?ö

ôA lawyer in Los Angeles called my office yesterday and offered to buy her
for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.ö

ôIt must be some rich do-gooder,ö Elliot said, ôtrying to save Amy from
torture.ö

ôI donÆt think so,ö Weldon said. ôFor one thing, the otter came from Japan.
Someone named MorikawaùheÆs in electronics in Tokyo. I found that out when
the lawyer called back this morning, to increase his offer to two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars.ö

ôTwo hundred and fifty thousand dollars?ö Elliot said. ôFor Amy?ö Of course
it was out of the question. He would never sell her. But why would anyone
offer so much money?

Weldon had an answer. ôThis kind of money, a quarter of a million dollars,
can only be coming from private enterprise. Industry. Clearly, Morikawa has
read about your work and found a use for speaking primates in an industrial
context.ö Windy stared at the ceiling, a sure sign he was about to wax
eloquent. ôI think a new field might be opening up here, the training of
primates for industrial applications in the real world.ö

Peter Elliot swore. He was not teaching Amy language in order to put a hard
hat on her head and a lunch pail in her hand, and he said so.

ôYouÆre not thinking it through,ö Weldon said. ôWhat if we are on the verge
of a new field of applied behavior for the great apes? Think what it means.
Not only funding to the Department, and an opportunity for applied
research. Most important, there would be a reason to keep these animals
alive. You know that the great apes are becoming extinct.

The chimps in Africa are greatly reduced in number. The orangs of Borneo
are losing their natural habitat to the timber cutters and will be extinct
in ten years. The gorilla is down to three thousand in the central African
forests. These animals will all disappear in our lifetimeùunless there is a
reason to keep them alive, as a species. You may provide that reason, Peter
my boy. Think about it.ö







Elliot did think about it, and he discussed it at the Project Amy staff
meeting at ten oÆclock. They considered possible industrial applications
for apes, and possible advantages to employers, such as the lack of unions
and fringe benefits. In the late twentieth century, these were major
considerations. (In 1978, for each new automobile that rolled off the
Detroit assembly lines, the cost of worker health benefits exceeded the
cost of all the steel used to build the car.)

But they concluded that a vision of ôindustrialized apesö

was wildly fanciful. An ape like Amy was not a cheap and stupid version of
a human worker. Quite the opposite: Amy was a highly intelligent and
complex creature out of her element in the modern industrial world. She
demanded a great deal of supervision; she was whimsical and unreliable; and
her health was always at risk. It simply didnÆt make sense to use her in
industry. If Morikawa had visions of apes wielding soldering irons on a
microelectronic assembly line, building TVs and hi-fl sets, he was sorely
misinformed.

The only note of caution came from Bergman, the child psychologist. ôA
quarter of a million is a lot of money,ö he said, ôand Mr. Morikawa is
probably no fool. He must have learned about Amy through her drawings,
which imply she is neurotic and difficult. If heÆs interested in her, IÆd
bet itÆs because of her drawings. But I canÆt imagine why those drawings
should be worth a quarter of a million dollars.ö

Neither could anyone else, and the discussion turned to the drawings
themselves, and the newly translated texts. Sarah Johnson, in charge of
research, started out with the flat comment ôI have bad news about the
Congo.ö*

For most of recorded history, she explained, nothing was



*Johnson's principal reference was the definitive work by A. J. Parkinson.
The Congo Delta in Myth and History (London; Peters. 1904).





known about the Congo. The ancient Egyptians on the upper Nile knew only
that their river originated far to the south, in a region they called the
Land of Trees. This was a mysterious place with forests so dense they were
as dark as night in the middle of the day. Strange creatures inhabited this
perpetual gloom, including little men with tails, and animals half black
and half white.

For nearly four thousand years afterward, nothing more substantial was
learned about the interior of Africa. The Arabs came to East Africa in the
seventh century A.D., in search of gold, ivory, spices, and slaves. But the
Arabs were merchant seamen and did not venture inland. They called the
interior Zinjùthe Land of the Blacksùa region of fable and fantasy. There
were stories of vast forests and tiny men with tails; stories of mountains
that spewed fire and turned the sky black; stories of native villages
overwhelmed by monkeys, which would have congress with the women; stories
of great giants with hairy bodies and flat noses; stories of creatures half
leopard, half man; stories of native markets where the fattened carcasses
of men were butchered and sold as a delicacy.

Such stories were sufficiently forbidding to keep the Arabs on the coast,
despite other stories equally alluring: mountains of shimmering gold,
riverbeds gleaming with diamonds, animals that spoke the language of men,
great jungle civilizations of unimaginable splendor. In particular, one
story was repeated again and again in early accounts: the story of the Lost
City of Zinj.

According to legend, a city known to the Hebrews of So¡lomonic times had
been a source of inconceivable wealth in diamonds. The caravan route to the
city had been jealously guarded, passed from father to son, as a sacred
trust for generation after generation. But the diamond mines were exhausted
and the city itself now lay in crumbling ruins, somewhere in the dark heart
of Africa. The arduous caravan routes were long since swallowed up by
jungle, and the last trader who remembered the way had carried his secret
with him to the grave many hundreds of years before.

This mysterious and alluring place the Arabs called the Lost City of Zinj.
* Yet despite its enduring fame, Johnson could find few detailed
descriptions of the city. In 1187 Ibn Baratu, an Arab in Mombasa, recorded
that ôthe natives of the region tell. . . of a lost city far inland, called
Zinj. There the inhabitants, who are black, once lived in wealth and
luxury, and even the slaves decorated themselves with jewels and especially
blue diamonds, for a great store of diamonds is there.ö

In 1292, a Persian named Mohammed Zaid stated that ôa large [the size]
diamond of a manÆs clenched fist . . was exhibited on the streets of
Zanzibar, and all said it had come from the interior, where the ruins of a
city called Zinj may be found, and it is here that such diamonds may be
found in profusion, scattered upon the ground and also in rivers

In 1334, another Arab, Ibn Mohammed, stated that ôour number made
arrangements to seek out the city of Zinj, but quitted our quest upon
learning that the city was long since abandoned, and much ruined. It is
said that the aspect of the city is wondrous strange, for doors and windows
are built in the curve of a half-moon, and the residences are now overtaken
by a violent race of hairy men who speak in whispers no known language

Then the Portuguese, those indefatigable explorers, arrived. By 1544, they
were venturing inland from the west coast up the mighty Congo River, but
they soon encountered all the obstacles that would prevent exploration of
central Africa for hundreds of years to come. The Congo was not navigable
beyond the first set of rapids, two hundred miles inland (at what was once
LΘopoldville, and is now Kin¡shasa). The natives were hostile and
cannibalistic. And the hot steaming jungle was the source of
diseaseùmalaria, sleeping sickness, bilharzia, blackwater feverùwhich
decimated foreign intruders.

The Portuguese never managed to penetrate the central



*The fabled city of Zinj formed the basis for H. Rider HaggardÆs popular
novel King SolomonÆs Mines, first published in 1885. Haggard, a gifted
linguist, had served on the staff of the Governor of Natal in 1875. and he
presumably heard of Zinj from the neighboring Zulus at that time.



Congo. Neither did the English, under Captain Brenner, in 1644; his entire
party was lost. The Congo would remain for two hundred years as a blank
spot on the civilized maps of the world.

But the early explorers repeated the legends of the interior, including the
story of Zinj. A Portuguese artist, Juan Diego de Valdez, drew a widely
acclaimed picture of the Lost City of Zinj in 1642. ôBut,ö Sarah Johnson
said, ôhe also drew pictures of men with tails, and monkeys having carnal
knowledge of native women.ö

Somebody groaned.

ôApparently Valdez was crippled,ö she continued. ôHe lived all his life in
the town of Settibal, drinking with sailors and drawing pictures based on
his conversations.ö

Africa was not thoroughly explored until the midù nineteenth century, by
Burton and Speke, Baker and Living-stone, and especially Stanley. No trace
of the Lost City of Zinj was found by any of them. Nor had any trace of the
apocryphal city been found in the hundred years since.

The gloom that descended over the Project Amy staff meeting was profound.
ôI told you it was bad news,ö Sarah Johnson said.

ôYou mean,ö Peter Elliot said, ôthat this picture is based on a
description, and we donÆt know whether the city actually exists or not.ö

ôIÆm afraid so,ö Sarah Johnson said. ôThere is no proof that the city in
the picture exists at all. ItÆs just a story.ö













              4. Resolution



PETER ELLIOTÆS UNQUESTIONED RELIANCE ON twentieth-century hard dataùfacts,
figures, graphsùleft him unprepared for the possibility that the 1642
engraving, in all its detail, was merely the fanciful speculation of an
uninhibited artist. The news came as a shock.

Their plans to take Amy to the Congo suddenly appeared childishly na∩ve;
the resemblance of her sketchy, schematic drawings to the 1642 Valdez
engraving was obviously coincidental. How could they ever have imagined
that a Lost City of Zinj was anything but the stuff of ancient fable? In
the seventeenth-century world of widening horizons and new wonders, the
idea of such a city would have seemed perfectly reasonable, even
compelling. But in the computerized twentieth century, the Lost City of
Zinj was as unlikely as Cam¡elot or Xanadu. They had been fools ever to
take it seriously. ôThe lost city doesnÆt exist,ö he said.

ôOh, it exists, all right,ö she said. ôThereÆs no doubt about that.ö

Elliot glanced up quickly, and then he saw that Sarah Johnson had not
answered him. A tall gangly girl in her early twenties stood at the back of
the room. She might have been considered beautiful except for her cold,
aloof demeanor. This girl was dressed in a severe, businesslike suit, and
she carried a briefcase, which she now set on the table, popping the
latches.

ôIÆm Dr. Ross,ö she announced, ôfrom the Wildlife Fund, and IÆd like your
opinion of these pictures.ö

She passed around a series of photographs, which were viewed by the staff
with an assortment of whistles and sighs. At the head of the table, Elliot
waited impatiently until the photographs came down to him.

They were grainy black-and-white images with horizontal scanning line
streaks, photographed off a video screen. But the image was unmistakable: a
ruined city in the jungle, with curious inverted crescent-shaped doors and
windows.





5. Amy





ôBY SATELLITE?ö ELLIOT REPEATED, HEARING THE tension in his voice.

ôThatÆs right, the pictures were transmitted by satellite from Africa two
days ago.ö

ôThen you know the location of this ruin?ö

ôOf course.ö

ôAnd your expedition leaves in a matter of hours?ö

ôSix hours and twenty-three minutes, to be exact,ö Ross said, glancing at
her digital watch,

Elliot adjourned the meeting, and talked privately with Ross for more than
an hour. Elliot later claimed that Ross had ôdeceivedö him about the
purpose of the expedition and the hazards they would face. But Elliot was
eager to go, and probably not inclined to be too fussy about the reasons
behind RossÆs coming expedition, or the dangers involved. As a skilled
grantsman, he had long ago grown comfortable with situations where other
peoplesÆ money and his own motivations did not exactly coincide. This was
the cynical side of academic life: how much pure research had been funded
because it might cure cancer? A researcher promised anything to get his
money.

Apparently it never occurred to Elliot that Ross might be using him as
coldly as he was using her. From the start Ross was never entirely
truthful; she had been instructed by Travis to explain the ERTS Congo
mission ôwith a little data dropout.ö Data dropout was second nature to
her; everyone at ERTS had learned to say no more than was necessary. Elliot
treated her as if she were an ordinary funding agency, and that was a
serious mistake.

In the final analysis, Ross and Elliot misjudged each other, for each
presented a deceptive appearance, and in the same way. Elliot appeared so
shy and retiring that one Berkeley faculty member had commented, ôItÆs no
wonder heÆs devoted his life to apes; he canÆt work up the nerve to talk to
people.ö But Elliot had been a tough middle linebacker in college, and his
diffident academic demeanor concealed a head-crunching ambitious drive.

Similarly, Karen Ross, despite her youthful cheerleader beauty and soft,
seductive Texas accent, possessed great intelligence and a deep inner
toughness. (She had matured early, and a high-school teacher had once
appraised her as ôthe very flower of virile Texas womanhood.ö) Ross felt
responsible for the previous ERTS expedition, and she was determined to
rectify past errors. It was at least possible that Elliot and Amy could
help her when she got onsite; that was reason enough to take them with her.
Beyond that, Ross was concerned about the consortium, which was obviously
seeking Elliot, since Morikawa was calling. If she took Elliot and Amy with
her, she removed a possible advantage to the consortiumùagain, reason
enough to take them with her. Finally, she needed a cover in case her
expedition was stopped at one of the bordersùand a primatologist and an ape
provided a perfect cover.

But in the end Karen Ross wanted only the Congo diamondsùand she was
prepared to say anything, do anything, sacrifice anything to get them.

In photographs taken at San Francisco airport, Elliot and Ross appeared as
two smiling, youthful academics, embarking on a lark of an expedition to
Africa. But in fact, their motivations were different, and grimly held.
Elliot was reluctant to tell her how theoretical and academic his goals
wereùand Ross was reluctant to admit how pragmatic were hers.

In any case, by midday on June 14, Karen Ross found herself riding with
Peter Elliot in his battered Fiat sedan along Hallowell Road, going past
the University athletic field. She had some misgivings: they were going to
meet Amy.

Elliot unlocked the door with its red sign DO NOT DISTURB ANIMAL
EXPERIMENTATION IN PROGRESS. Behind the door, Amy was grunting and
scratching impatiently. Elliot paused.

ôWhen you meet her,ö he said, ôremember that she is a gorilla and not a
human being. Gorillas have their own etiquette. DonÆt speak loudly or make
any sudden movements until she gets used to you. If you smile, donÆt show
your teeth, because bared teeth are a threat. And keep your eyes downcast,
because direct stares from strangers are considered hostile. DonÆt stand
too close to me or touch me, be-cause sheÆs very jealous. If you talk to
her, donÆt lie. Even though she uses sign language, she understands most
human speech, and we usually just talk to her. She can tell when youÆre
lying and she doesnÆt like it.ö

ôShe doesnÆt like it?ö

ôShe dismisses you, wonÆt talk to you, and gets bitchy.ö

ôAnything else?ö

ôNo, it should be okay.ö He smiled reassuringly. ôWe have this traditional
greeting, even though sheÆs getting a little big for it.ö He opened the
door, braced himself, and said, ôGood morning, Amy.ö

A huge black shape came leaping out through the open door into his arms.
Elliot staggered back under the impact. Ross was astonished by the size of
the animal. She had been imagining something smaller and cuter. Amy was as
large as an adult human female.

Amy kissed Elliot on the cheek with her large lips, her black head seeming
enormous alongside his. Her breath steamed his glasses. Ross smelled a
sweetish odor, and watched as he gently unwrapped her long arms from around
his shoulders. ôAmy happy this morning?ö he asked.

AmyÆs fingers moved quickly near her cheek, as if she were brushing away
flies.

ôYes, I was late today,ö Elliot said.

She moved her fingers again, and Ross realized that Amy was signing. The
speed was surprising; she had expected something much slower and more
deliberate. She noticed that AmyÆs eyes never left ElliotÆs face. She was
extraordinarily attentive, focusing on him with total animal watchfulness.
She seethed to absorb everything, his posture, his expression, his tone of
voice, as well as his words.

ôI had to work,ö Elliot said. She sighed again quickly, like human gestures
of dismissal. ôYes, thatÆs right, people work.ö He led Amy back into the
trailer, and motioned for Karen Ross to follow. Inside the trailer, he
said, ôAmy, this is Dr. Ross. Say hello to Dr. Ross.ö

Amy looked at Karen Ross suspiciously.

ôHello, Amy,ö Karen Ross said, smiling at the floor. She felt a little
foolish behaving this way, but Amy was large enough to frighten her.

Amy stared at Karen Ross for a moment, then walked away, across the trailer
to her easel. She had been finger-painting, and now resumed this activity,
ignoring them.

ôWhatÆs that mean?ö Ross said. She distinctly felt she was being snubbed.

ôWeÆll see,ö Elliot said.

After a few moments, Amy ambled back, walking on her knuckles. She went
directly to Karen Ross, sniffed her crotch, and examined her minutely. She
seemed particularly interested in RossÆs leather purse, which had a shiny
brass clasp. Ross said later that ôit was just like any cocktail party in
Houston. I was being checked out by another woman. I had the feeling that
any minute she was going to ask-me where I bought my clothes.ö

That was not the outcome, however. Amy reached up and deliberately streaked
globs of green finger paint on RossÆs skirt.

ôI donÆt think this is going too well,ö Karen Ross said.







Elliot had watched the progress of this first meeting with more
apprehension than he was willing to admit. Introducing new humans to Amy
was often difficult, particularly if They were women.

Over the years, Elliot had come to recognize many distinctly ôfeminineö
traits in Amy. She could be coy, she responded to flattery, she was
preoccupied with her appearance, loved makeup, and was very fussy about the
color of the sweaters she wore in the winter. She preferred men to women,
and she was openly jealous of ElliotÆs girl friends. He rarely brought them
around to meet her, but sometimes in the morning she would sniff him for
perfume, and she always commented if he had not changed his clothing
overnight.

This situation might have been amusing if not for the fact that Amy made
occasional unprovoked attacks on strange women. And an attack by Amy was
never amusing.

Amy returned to the easel and signed, No like woman no like Amy no like go
away away.

ôCome on, Amy, be a good gorilla,ö Peter said.

ôWhat did she say?ö Ross asked, going to the sink to wash the finger paint
from her dress. Peter noticed that she did not squeal and shriek as many
visitors did when they received an unfriendly greeting from Amy.

ôShe said she likes your dress,ö he said.

Amy shot him a look, as she always did whenever Elliot mistranslated her.
Amy not lie. Peter not lie.

ôBe nice, Amy,ö he said. ôKaren is a nice human per-son.ö

Amy grunted, and returned to her work, painting rapidly.

ôWhat happens now?ö Karen Ross said.

ôGive her time.ö He smiled reassuringly. ôShe needs time to adjust.ö

He did not bother to explain that it was much worse with chimpanzees.
Chimps threw feces at strangers, and even at workers they knew well; they
sometimes attacked to establish dominance. Chimpanzees had a strong need to
determine who was in charge. Fortunately, gorillas were much less formal in
their dominance hierarchies, and less violent.

At that moment, Amy ripped the paper from the easel and shredded it
noisily, flinging the pieces around the room.

ôIs this part of the adjustment?ö Karen Ross asked. She seemed more amused
than frightened.

ôAmy, cut it out,ö Peter said, allowing his tone to convey irritation.
ôAmy. .

Amy sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by the paper. She tore it
angrily and signed, This woman. This woman. It was classic displacement
behavior. Whenever gorillas did not feel comfortable with direct
aggression, they did something symbolic. In symbolic terms, she was now
tearing Karen Ross apart.

And she was getting worked up, beginning what the Project Amy staff called
ôsequencing.ö Just as human beings first became red-faced, and then tensed
their bodies, and then shouted and threw things before they finally
resorted to direct physical aggression, so gorillas passed through a
stereotyped behavioral sequence on the way to physical aggression. Tearing
up paper, or grass, would be followed by lateral crablike movements and
grunts. Then she would slap the ground, making as much noise as possible.

And then Amy would charge, if he didnÆt interrupt the sequence.

ôAmy,ö he said sternly. ôKaren button woman.ö

Amy stopped shredding. In her world, ôbuttonö was the acknowledged term for
a person of high status.

Amy was extremely sensitive to individual moods and behavior, and she had
no difficulty observing the staff and deciding who was superior to whom.
But among strangers, Amy as a gorilla was utterly impervious to formal
human status cues; the principal indicatorsùclothing, bearing, and
speechùhad no meaning to her.

As a young animal, she had inexplicably attacked policemen. After several
biting episodes and threatened lawsuits,

they finally learned that Amy found police uniforms with their shiny
buttons clown like and ridiculous; she assumed that anyone so foolishly
dressed must be of inferior status and safe to attack. After they had
taught her the concept of ôbutton,ö she treated anyone in uniform with
deference.

Amy now stared at ôbuttonö Ross with new respect. Surrounded by the torn
paper, she seemed suddenly embarrassed, as if she had made a social error.
Without being told, she went and stood in the corner, facing the wall.

ôWhatÆs that about?ö Ross said.

ôShe knows sheÆs been bad.ö

ôYou make her stand in the corner, like a child? She didnÆt mean any harm.ö
Before Elliot could warn against it, she went over to Amy. Amy stared
steadfastly at the corner.

Ross unshouldered her purse and set it on the floor within AmyÆs reach.
Nothing happened for a moment. Then Amy took the purse, looked at Karen,
then looked at Peter.

Peter said, ôSheÆll wreck whateverÆs inside.ö

ôThatÆs all right.ö

Amy immediately opened the brass clasp, and dumped the contents on the
floor. She began sifting through, signing, Lipstick lipstick, Amy like Amy
want lipstick want.

ôShe wants lipstick.ö

Ross bent over and found it for her. Amy removed the cap and smeared a red
circle on KarenÆs face. She then smiled and grunted happily, and crossed
the room to her mirror, which was mounted on the floor. She applied
lipstick.

ôI think weÆre doing better,ö Karen Ross said.

Across the room, Amy squatted by the mirror, happily making a mess of her
face. She grinned at her smart image, then applied lipstick to her teeth.
It seemed a good time to ask her the question. ôAmy want take trip?ö Peter
said.

Amy loved trips, and regarded them as special treats. After an especially
good day, Elliot often took her for a ride to a nearby drive-in, where she
would have an orange drink, sucking it through the straw and enjoying the
commotion she caused among the other people there. Lipstick and an offer of
a trip was almost too much pleasure for one morning. She signed, Car trip?

ôNo, not in the car. A long trip. Many days.ö

Leave house?

ôYes, leave house. Many days.ö

This made her suspicious. The only times she had left the house for many
days had been during hospitalizations for pneumonia and urinary-tract
infections; they had not been pleasant trips. She signed, Where go trip?

ôTo the jungle, Amy.ö

There was a long pause. At first he thought she had not understood, but she
knew the word for jungle, and she should be able to put it all together.
Amy signed thoughtfully to herself, repetitively as she always did when she
was mulling things over: Jungle trip trip jungle go trip jungle go. She set
aside her lipstick. She stared at the bits of paper on the floor, and then
she began to pick them up and put them in the wastebasket.

ôWhat does that mean?ö Karen Ross asked.

ôThat means Amy wants to take a trip,ö Peter Elliot said.













       6. Departure



THE HINGED NOSE OF THE BOEING 747 CARGO JET lay open like a jaw, exposing
the cavernous, brightly lit interior. The plane had been flown up from
Houston to San Francisco that afternoon; it was now nine oÆclock at night,
and puzzled workers were loading on the large aluminum travel cage, boxes
of vitamin pills, a portable potty, and cartons of toys. One workman pulled
out a Mickey Mouse drinking cup and stared at it, shaking his head.

Outside on the concrete, Elliot stood with Amy, who covered her ears
against the whine of the jet engines. She signed to Peter, Birds noisy.

ôWe fly bird, Amy,ö he said.

Amy had never flown before, and had never seen an airplane at close hand.
We go car, she decided, looking at the plane.

ôWe canÆt go by car. We fly.ö Fly where fly? Amy signed.

ôFly jungle.ö

This seemed to perplex her, but he did not want to explain further. Like
all gorillas, Amy had an aversion to water, refusing to cross even small
streams. He knew she would be distressed to hear that they would be flying
over large bodies of water. Changing the subject, he suggested they board
the plane and look around. As they climbed the sloping ramp up the nose,
Amy signed, Where button woman?

He had not seen Ross. for the last five hours, and was surprised to
discover that she was already on board, talking on a telephone mounted on a
wall of the cargo hold, one hand cupped over her free ear to block the
noise. Elliot overheard her say, ôWell, Irving seems to think itÆs enough.

Yes, we have four nine-oh-seven units and we are prepared to match and
absorb. Two micro HUDs, thatÆs all. . . Yes, why not?ö She finished the
call, turned to Elliot and Amy.

ôEverything okay?ö he asked.

ôFine. IÆll show you around.ö She led him deeper into the cargo hold, with
Amy at his side. Elliot glanced back and saw the chauffeur coming up the
ramp with a series of numbered metal boxes marked INTEC, INC. followed by
serial numbers.

ôThis,ö Karen Ross said, ôis the main cargo hold.ö It was filled with
four-wheel-drive trucks, Land Cruisers, amphibious vehicles, inflatable
boats, and racks of clothing, equipment, foodùall tagged with computer
codes, all loaded in modules. Ross explained that ERTS could outfit
expeditions to any geographical and climatic condition in a matter of
hours. She kept emphasizing the speed possible with computer assembly.

ôWhy the rush?ö Elliot asked.

ôItÆs business,ö Karen Ross said. ôFour years ago, there were no companies
like ERTS. Now there are nine around the world, and what they all sell is
competitive advantage, meaning speed. Back in the sixties, a companyùsay,
an oil companyùmight spend months or years investigating a possible site.
But thatÆs no longer competitive; business decisions are made in weeks or
days. The pace of everything has speeded up. WeÆre already looking to the
nineteen-eighties, where weÆll provide answers in hours. Right now the
average ERTS contract runs a little under three weeks, or five hundred
hours. But by 1990 there will be æclose of businessÆ dataùan executive can
call us in the morning for information anywhere in the world, and have a
complete report transmitted by computer to his desk before close of
business that evening, say ten to twelve hours.ö

As they continued the tour, Elliot noticed that although the trucks and
vehicles caught the eye first, much of the aircraft storage space was given
over to aluminum modules marked ôC3I.ö

ôThatÆs right,ö Ross said. ôCommand-Control Communications and
Intelligence. TheyÆre micronic components, the most expensive budget item
we carry. When we started outfitting expeditions, twelve percent of the
cost went to electronics. Now itÆs up to thirty-one percent, and climbing
every year. ItÆs field communications, remote sensing, defense, and soon.ö

She led them to the rear of the plane, where there was a modular living
area, nicely furnished, with a large computer console, and bunks for
sleeping.

Amy signed, Nice house.

ææYes, it is nice.ÆÆ

They were introduced to Jensen, a young bearded geologist, and to Irving,
who announced that he was the ôtriple B.ö The two men were running some
kind of probability study on the computer but they paused to shake hands
with Amy, who regarded them gravely, and then turned her attention to the
screen. Amy was captivated by the colorful screen images and bright LEDs,
and kept trying to punch the keys herself. She signed, Amy play box.

ôNot now, Amy,ö Elliot said, and swatted her hands away.

Jensen asked, ôIs she always this way?ö

ôIÆm afraid so,ö Elliot- said. ôShe likes computers. SheÆs worked around
them ever since she was very young, and she thinks of them as her private
property.ö And then he added, ôWhatÆs a triple E?ö

ôExpedition electronic expert,ö Irving said cheerfully. He was a short man
with an impish quick smile. ôDoing the best I can. We picked up some stuff
from Intec, thatÆs about all. God knows what the Japanese and the Germans
will throw at us.ö

ôOh, damn, there she goes,ö Jensen said, laughing as Amy pushed the
keyboard.

Elliot said, ôAmy, no!ö

ôItÆs just a game. Probably not interesting to apes,ö Jensen said. And he
added, ôShe canÆt hurt anything.ö

Amy signed, Amy good gorilla, and pushed the keys on the computer again.
She appeared relaxed, and Elliot was grateful for the distraction the
computer provided. He was always amused by the sight of AmyÆs heavy dark
form before a computer console. She would touch her lower lip thoughtfully
before pushing the keys, in what seemed a parody of human behavior.

Ross, practical as always, brought them back to mundane matters. ôWill Amy
sleep on one of the bunks?ö

Elliot shook his head. ôNo. Gorillas expect to make a fresh bed each night.
Give her some blankets, and sheÆll twist them into a nest on the floor and
sleep there.ö

Ross nodded. ôWhat about her vitamins and medications? Will she swallow
pills?ö

ôOrdinarily you have to bribe her, or hide the pills in a piece of banana.
She tends to gulp banana, without chewing it

ôWithout chewing.ö Ross nodded as if that were important. ôWe have a
standard issue,ö she said. ôIÆll see that she gets them.ö

ôShe takes the same vitamins that people do, except that sheÆll need lots
of ascorbic acid.ö

ôWe issue three thousand units a day. ThatÆs enough? Good. And sheÆll
tolerate anti-malarials? We have to start them right away.ö

ôGenerally speaking,ö Elliot said, ôshe has the same reaction to medication
as people.ö

Ross nodded. ôWill the cabin pressurization bother her? ItÆs set at five
thousand feet.ö

Elliot shook his head. ôSheÆs a mountain gorilla, and they live at five
thousand to nine thousand feet, so sheÆs actually altitude-adapted. But
sheÆs acclimated to a moist climate and she dehydrates quickly; weÆll have
to keep forcing fluids on her.ö

ôCan she use the head?ö

ôThe seatÆs probably too high for her,ö Elliot said, ôbut I brought her
potty.ö

ôSheÆll use her potty?ö

ôSure.ö

ôI have a new collar for her; will she wear it?ö

ôIf you give it to her as a gift.ö

As they reviewed other details of AmyÆs requirements, Elliot realized that
something had happened during the last  few hours, almost without his
knowing it: AmyÆs unpredictable, dream-driven neurotic behavior had fallen
away. It was as if the earlier behavior was irrelevant; now that she was
going on a trip, she was no longer moody and introspective, her interests
were outgoing; she was once again a youthful female gorilla. He found
himself wondering whether her dreams, her depressionùfinger paintings,
everythingùwere a result of her confined laboratory environment for so many
years. At first the laboratory had been agreeable, like a crib for young
children. But perhaps in later years it pinched. Perhaps, he thought, Amy
just needed a little excitement.

Excitement was in the air: as he talked with Ross, Elliot felt something
remarkable was about to happen. This expedition with Amy was the first
example of an event primate researchers had predicted for yearsùthe Pearl
thesis.

Frederick Pearl was a theoretical animal behaviorist. At a meeting of the
American Ethnological Society in New York in 1972, he had said, ôNow that
primates have learned sign language, it is only a matter of time until
someone takes an animal into the field to assist the study of wild animals
of the same species. We can imagine language-skilled primates acting as
interpreters or perhaps even as ambassadors for mankind, in contact with
wild creatures.ö

PearlÆs thesis attracted considerable attention, and funding from the U.S.
Air Force, which had supported linguistic research since the l960s.
According to one story, the Air Force had a secret project called CONTOUR,
involving possible contact with alien life forms. The official military
position was that UFOs were of natural originùbut the military was covering
its bets. Should alien contact occur, linguistic fundamentals were
obviously critically important. And taking primates into the field was seen
as an example of contact with ôalien intelligenceö; hence the Air Force
funding.

Pearl predicted that fieldwork would be undertaken before 1976, but in fact
no one had yet done it. The reason was that on closer examination, no one
could figure out quite what the advantages wereùmost language-using
primates were as baffled by wild primates as human beings were. Some, like
the chimpanzee Arthur, denied any association with their own kind,
referring to them as ôblack things.ö (Amy, who had been taken to the zoo to
view other gorillas, recognized them but was haughty, calling them ôstupid
gorillasö once she found that when she signed to them, they did not reply.)

Such observations led another researcher, John Bates, to say in 1977 that
ôwe are producing an educated animal elite which demonstrates the same
snobbish aloofness that a Ph.D. shows toward a truck driver. . . . It is
highly unlikely that the generation of language-using primates will be
skillful ambassadors in the field. They are simply too disdainful.ö

But the truth was that no one really knew what would happen when a primate
was taken into the field. Because no one had done it: Amy would be the
first.

At eleven oÆclock, the ERTS cargo plane taxied down the runway at San
Francisco International, lifted ponderously into the air, and headed east
through the darkness toward

Africa.





                               DAY 3: TANGIER



                                June 15,1979











1. Ground Truth



PETER ELLIOT HAD KNOWN AMY SINCE INFANCY. He prided himself on his ability
to predict her responses, although he had only known her in a laboratory
setting. Now, as she was faced with new situations, her behavior surprised
him.

Elliot had anticipated Amy would be terrified of the takeoff, and had
prepared a syringe with Thoralen tranquilizer. But sedation proved
unnecessary. Amy watched Jensen and Levine buckle their seat belts, and she
immediately buckled herself in, too; she seemed to regard the procedure as
an amusing, if simpleminded, game. And although her eyes widened when she
heard the full mar of the engines, the human beings around her did not seem
disturbed, and Amy imitated their bored indifference, raising her eyebrows
and sighing at the tedium of it all.

Once airborne, however, Amy looked out the window and immediately panicked.
She released her seat belt and scurried back and forth across the passenger
compartment, moving from window to window, knocking people aside in
whimpering terror while she signed, Where ground ground where ground?
Outside, the ground was black and indistinct. Where ground? Elliot shot her
with Thoralen and then began grooming her, sitting her down and plucking at
her hair.

In the wild, primates devoted several hours each day to grooming one
another, removing ticks and lice. Grooming behavior was important in
ordering the groupÆs social dominance structureùthere was a pattern by
which animals groomed each other, and with what frequency. And, like back
rubs for people, grooming seemed to have a soothing, calming effect. Within
minutes, Amy had relaxed enough to notice that the others were drinking,
and she promptly demanded a ôgreen drop drinköùher term for a martini with
an oliveùand a cigarette. She was allowed this on special occasions such as
departmental parties, and Elliot now gave her a drink and a cigarette.

But the excitement proved too much for her: an hour later, she was quietly
looking out the window and signing Nice picture to herself when she
vomited. She apologized abjectly, Amy sorry Amy mess Amy Amy sorry.

ôItÆs all right, Amy,ö Elliot assured her, stroking the back of her head.
Soon afterward, signing Amy sleep now, she twisted the blankets into a nest
on the floor and went to sleep, snoring loudly through her broad nostrils.
Lying next to her, Elliot thought, how do other gorillas get to sleep with
this racket?







Elliot had his own reaction to the journey. When he had first met Karen
Ross, he assumed she was an academic like himself. But this enormous
airplane filled with computerized equipment, the acronymic complexity of
the entire operation suggested that Earth Resources Technology had powerful
resources behind it, perhaps even a military association.

Karen Ross laughed. ôWeÆre much too organized to be military.ö She then
told him the background of the ERTS interest in Virunga. Like the Project
Amy staff, Karen Ross had also stumbled upon the legend of the Lost City of
Zinj. But she had drawn very different conclusions from the story.

During the last three hundred years, there had been several attempts to
reach the lost city. In 1692, John Marley, an English adventurer, led an
expedition of two hundred into the Congo; it was never heard from again. In
1744, a Dutch expedition went in; in 1804, another British party led by a
Scottish aristocrat, Sir James Taggert, approached Virunga from the north,
getting as far as the Rawana bend of the Ubangi River. He sent an advance
party farther south, but it never returned.

In 1872, Stanley passed near the Virunga region but did not enter it; in
1899, a German expedition went in, losing more than half its party. A
privately financed Italian expedition disappeared entirely in 1911. There
had been no more recent searches for the Lost City of Zinj.

ôSo no one has ever found it,ö Elliot said.

Ross shook her head. ôI think several expeditions found the city,ö she
said. ôBut nobody ever got back out again.ö







Such an outcome was not necessarily mysterious. The early days of African
exploration were incredibly hazardous. Even carefully managed expeditions
lost half of their party or more. Those who did not succumb to malaria,
sleeping sickness, and blackwater fever faced rivers teeming with
crocodiles and hippos, jungles with leopards and suspicious, cannibalistic
natives. And, for all its luxuriant growth, the rain forest provided little
edible food; a number of expeditions had starved to death.

ôI began,ö Ross said to Elliot, ôwith the idea that the city existed, after
all. Assuming it existed, where would I find it?ö

The Lost City of Zinj was associated with diamond mines, and diamonds were
found with volcanoes. This led Ross to look along the Great Rift Valleyùan
enormous geological fault thirty miles wide, which sliced vertically up the
eastern third of the continent for a distance of fifteen hundred miles. The
Rift Valley was so huge that its existence was not recognized until the
1890s, when a geologist named Gregory noticed that the cliff walls thirty
miles apart were composed of the same rocks. In modern terms the Great Rift
was actually an abortive attempt to form an ocean, for the eastern third of
the continent had begun splitting off from the rest of the African land
mass two hundred million years ago; for some reason, it had stopped before
the break was complete.

On a map the Great Rift depression was marked by two features: a series of
thin vertical lakesùMalawi, Tanganyika, Kivu, Mobutuùand a series of
volcanoes, including the only active volcanoes in Africa at Virunga. Three
volcanoes in the Virunga chain were active: Mukenko, Mubuti, and
Kanagarawi. They rose 11,000ù 15,000 feet above the Rift Valley to the
east, and the Congo Basin to the west. Thus Virunga seemed a good place to
look for diamonds. Her next step was to investigate the ground truth.

ôWhatÆs ground truth?ö Peter asked.

ôAt ERTS, we deal mostly in remote sensing,ö she explained. ôSatellite
photographs, aerial run-bys, radar side scans. We carry millions of remote
images, but thereÆs no substitute for ground truth, the experience of a
team actually on the site, finding out whatÆs there. I started with the
preliminary expedition we sent in looking for gold. They found diamonds as
well.ö She punched buttons on the console, and the screen images changed,
glowing with dozens of flashing pinpoints of light.

ôThis shows the placer deposit locations in streambeds near Virunga. You
see the deposits form concentric semicircles leading back to the volcanoes.
The obvious conclusion is that diamonds were eroded from the slopes of the
Virunga volcanoes, and washed down the streams to their present locations.ö

ôSo you sent in a party to look for the source?ö

ôYes.ö She pointed to the screen. ôBut donÆt be deceived by what you see
here. This satellite image covers fifty thousand square kilometers of
jungle. Most of it has never been seen by white men. ItÆs hard terrain,
with visibility limited to a few meters in any direction. An expedition
could search that area for years, passing within two hundred meters of the
city and failing to see it. So I needed to narrow the search sector. I
decided to see if I could find the city.ö

ôFind the city? From satellite pictures?ö

ôYes,ö she said. ôAnd I found it.ö







The rain forests of the world had traditionally frustrated remote-sensing
technology. The great jungle trees spread an impenetrable canopy of
vegetation, concealing whatever lay beneath. In aerial or satellite
pictures, the Congo rain forest appeared as a vast, undulating carpet of
featureless and monotonous green. Even large features, rivers fifty or a
hundred feet wide, were hidden beneath this leafy canopy, invisible from
the air.

So it seemed unlikely she would find any evidence for a lost city in aerial
photographs. But Ross had a different idea: she would utilize the very
vegetation that obscured her vision of the ground. -

The study of vegetation was common in temperate regions, where the foliage
underwent seasonal changes. But the equatorial rain forest was unchanging:
winter or summer, the foliage remained the same. Ross turned her attention
to another aspect, the differences in vegetation albedo.

Albedo was technically defined as the ratio of electromagnetic energy
reflected by a surface to the amount of energy incident upon it. In terms
of the visible spectrum, it was a measure of how ôshinyö a surface was. A
river had a high albedo, since water reflected most of the sunlight
striking it. Vegetation absorbed light, and therefore had a low albedo.
Starting in 1977, ERTS developed computer programs which measured albedo
precisely, making very fine distinctions.

Ross asked herself the question: If there was a lost city, what signature
might appear in the vegetation? There was an obvious answer: late secondary
jungle.

The untouched or virgin rain forest was called primary jungle. Primary
jungle was what most people thought of when they thought of rain forests:
huge hardwood trees, mahogany and teak and ebony, and underneath a lower
layer of ferns and palms, clinging to the ground. Primary jungle was dark
and forbidding, but actually easy to move through. However, if the primary
jungle was cleared by man and later abandoned, an entirely different
secondary growth took over. The dominant plants were softwoods and
fast-growing trees, bamboo and thorny tearing vines, which formed a dense
and impenetrable barrier.

But Ross was not concerned about any aspect of the jungle except its
albedo. Because the secondary plants were different, secondary jungle had a
different albedo from primary jungle. And it could be graded by age: unlike
the hardwood trees of primary jungle, which lived hundreds of years, the
softwoods of secondary jungle lived only twenty years or so. Thus as time
went on, the secondary jungle was replaced by another form of secondary
jungle, and later by still another form.

By checking regions where late secondary jungle was generally foundùsuch as
the banks of large rivers, where innumerable human settlements had been
cleared and abandonedùRoss confirmed that the ERTS computers could, indeed,
measure the necessary small differences in reflectivity.

She then instructed the ERTS scanners to search for albedo differences of
.03 or less, with a unit signature size of a hundred meters or less, across
the fifty thousand square kilometers of rain forest on the western slopes
of the Virunga volcanoes. This job would occupy a team of fifty human
aerial photographic analysts for thirty-one years. The computer scanned
129,000 satellite and aerial photographs in under nine hours.

And found her city.

In May, 1979, Ross had a computer image showing a very old secondary jungle
pattern laid out in a geometric, gridlike form. The pattern was located 2
degrees north of the equator, longitude 3 degrees, on the western slopes of
the active volcano Mukenko. The computer estimated the age of the secondary
jungle at five hundred to eight hundred years.

ôSo you sent an expedition in?ö Elliot said.

Ross nodded. ôThree weeks ago, led by a South African named Kruger. The
expedition confirmed the placer diamond deposits, went on to search for the
origin, and found the ruins of the city.,,

ôAnd then what happened?ö Elliot asked.







He ran the videotape a second time.

Onscreen he saw black-and-white images of the camp, destroyed, smoldering.
Several dead bodies with crushed skulls were visible. As they watched, a
shadow moved over the dead bodies, and the camera zoomed back to show the
outline of the lumbering shadow. Elliot agreed that it looked like the
shadow of a gorilla, but he insisted, ôGorillas couldnÆt do this. Gorillas
are peaceful, vegetarian animals.ö

They watched as the tape ran to the end. And then they reviewed her final
computer-reconstituted image, which clearly showed the head of a male
gorilla.

ôThatÆs ground truth,ö Ross said.

Elliot was not so sure. He reran the last three seconds of videotape a
final time, staring at the gorilla head. The image was fleeting, leaving a
ghostly trail, but something was wrong with it. He couldnÆt quite identify
what. Certainly this was atypical gorilla behavior, but there was something
else. -

He pushed the freeze-frame button and stared at the frozen image. The face
and the fur were both gray: unquestionably gray.

ôCan we increase contrast?ö he asked Ross. ôThis image is washed out.ö

ôI donÆt know,ö Ross said, touching the controls. ôI think this is a pretty
good image.ö She was unable to darken it.

ôItÆs very gray,ö he said. ôGorillas are much darker.ö

ôWell, this contrast range is correct for video.ö

Elliot was sure this creature was too light to be a mountain gorilla.
Either they were seeing a new race of animal, or a new species. A new
species of great ape, gray in color, aggressive in behavior, discovered in
the eastern Congo.

He had come on this expedition to verify AmyÆs dreamsùa fascinating
psychological insightùbut now the stakes were suddenly much higher.

Ross said, ôYou donÆt think this is a gorilla?ö

ôThere are ways to test it,ö he said. He stared at the screen, frowning, as
the plane flew onward in the night.













2. B-8 Problems



ôYOU WANT ME TO WHATÆ?ö TOM SEAMANS SAID, cradling the phone in his
shoulder and rolling over to look at his bedside clock. It was 3 A.M.

ôGo to the zoo,ö Elliot repeated. His voice sounded garbled, as if coming
from under water.

ôPeter, where are you calling from?ö

ôWeÆre somewhere over the Atlantic now,ö Elliot said. ôOn our way to
Africa.ö

ôIs everything all right?ö

ôEverything is fine,ö Elliot said. ôBut I want you to go to the zoo first
thing in the morning.ö

ôAnd do what?ö

ôVideotape the gorillas. Try to get them in movement. ThatÆs very important
for the discriminant function, that they be moving.ö

ôIÆd better write this down,ö Seamans said. Seamans handled the computer
programming for the Project Amy staff, and he was accustomed to unusual
requests, but not in the middle of the night. ôWhat discriminant function?ö

ôWhile youÆre at it, run any films we have in the library of gorillasùany
gorillas, wild or in zoos or whatever. The more specimens the better, so
long as theyÆre moving. And for a baseline, youÆd better use chimps.
Anything we have on chimps. Transfer it to tape and put it through the
function.ö

ôWhat function?ö Seamans yawned.

ôThe function youÆre going to write,ö Elliot said. ôI want a multiple
variable discriminant function based on total im¡ageryùö

ôYou mean a pattern-recognition function?ö Seamans had written
pattern-recognition functions for AmyÆs language use, enabling them to
monitor her signing around the clock. Sea-mans was proud of that program;
in its own way, it was highly inventive.

ôHowever you structure it,ö Elliot said. ôI just want a function thatÆll
discriminate gorillas from other primates like chimps. A
species-differentiating function.ö

ôAre you kidding?ö Seamans said. ôThatÆs a B-8 problem.ö In the developing
field of pattern-recognition computer programs, so-called B-8 problems were
the most difficult; whole teams of researchers had devoted years to trying
to teach computers the difference between ôBö and ô8Æ æùprecisely because
the difference was so obvious. But what was obvious to the human eye was
not obvious to the computer scanner. The scanner had to be told, and the
specific instructions turned out to be far more difficult than anyone
anticipated, particularly for handwritten characters.

Now Elliot wanted a program that would distinguish between similar visual
images of gorillas and chimps. Seamans could not help asking, ôWhy? ItÆs
pretty obvious. A gorilla is a gorilla, and a chimp is a chimp.ö

ôJust do it,ö Elliot said.

ôCan I use size?ö On the basis of size alone, gorillas and chimps could be
accurately distinguished. But visual functions could not determine size
unless the distance from the recording instrument to the subject image was
known, as well as the focal length of the recording lens.

ôNo, you canÆt use size,ö Elliot said. ôElement morphology only.ö

Seamans sighed. ôThanks a lot. What resolution?ö

ôI need ninety-five-percent confidence limits on species assignment, to be
based on less than three seconds of black-and-white scan imagery.ö

Seamans frowned. Obviously, Elliot had three seconds of videotape imagery
of some animal and he was not sure whether it was a gorilla or not. Elliot
had seen enough gorillas over the years to know the difference: gorillas
and chimps were utterly different animals in size, appearance, movement,
and behavior. They were as different as intelligent oceanic mammalsùsay,
porpoises and whales. In making such discriminations, the human eye was far
superior to any computer program that could be devised. Yet Elliot
apparently did not trust his eye. What was he thinking of?

ôIÆll try,ö Seamans said, ôbut itÆs going to take a while. You donÆt write
that kind of program overnight.ö

ôI need it overnight, Tom,ö Elliot said. ôIÆll call you back in twenty-four
hours.ö





3. Inside the Coffin



IN ONE CORNER OF THE 747 LIVING MODULE WAS A sound-baffled fiberglass
booth, with a hinged hood and a small CRT screen; it was called ôthe
coffinö because of the claustrophobic feeling that came from working inside
it. As the airplane crossed the mid-Atlantic, Ross stepped inside the
coffin. She had a last look at Elliot and Amyùboth asleep, both snoring
loudlyùand Jensen and Irving playing ôsubmarine chaseö on the computer
console, as she lowered the hood.

Ross was tired, but she did not expect to get much sleep for the next two
weeks, which was as long as she thought the expedition would last. Within
fourteen daysù336 hoursù RossÆs team would either have beaten the
Euro-Japanese consortium or she would have failed and the Zaire Virunga
mineral exploration 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, and
waited while the scrambler interlocked. From now on, there would be a
signal delay of five seconds at both ends, because both she and Houston
would be sending in coded burst transmissions to elude passive listeners.

The screen glowed: TRAVIS.

She typed back: R OS S. She picked up the telephone receiver.

ôItÆs a bitch,ö Travis said, although it was not TravisÆs voice, but a
computer-generated flat audio signal, without expression.

ôTell me,ö Ross said.

ôThe consortiumÆs rolling,ö TravisÆs surrogate voice said. ôDetails,ö Ross
said, and waited for the five-second delay. She could imagine Travis in the
CCR in Houston, hearing her own computer-generated voice. That flat voice
required a change in speech patterns; what was ordinarily conveyed by
phrasing and emphasis had to be made explicit.

ôThey know youÆre on your way,ö TravisÆs voice whined. ôThey are pushing
their own schedule. The Germans are behind itùyour friend Richter. IÆm
arranging a feeding in a matter of minutes. ThatÆs the good news.ö

ôAnd the bad news?ö

ôThe Congo has gone to hell in the last ten hours,ö Travis said. ôWe have a
nasty GPU.ö

ôPrint,ö she said.

On the screen, she saw printed GEOPOLITICAL UPDATE, followed by a dense
paragraph. It read:



ZAIRE EMBASSY WASHINGTON STATES EASTERN BORDERS VIA RWANDA CLOSED / NO
EXPLANATION / PRESUMPTION 101 AMIN TROOPS FLEEING TANZANIAN

INVASION UGANDA INTO EASTERN ZAIRE / CONSEQUENT DISRUPTION / BUT FACTS
DIFFER / LOCAL TRIBES {KIGANI} ON RAMPAGE / REPORTED ATROCITIES AND
CANNIBALISM ETC / FORESTùDWELLING PYGMIES UNRELIABLE / KILLING ALL VISITORS
CONGO RAIN FOREST / ZAIRE GOVERNMENT DIS¡PATCHED GENERAL MUGURU (AKA
BUTCHER OF STANù LEYVILLE) / PUT DOWN KIGANI REBELLION æAT ALL COSTSÆ /
SITUATION HIGHLY UNSTABLE / ONLY LEGAL ENTRY INTO ZAIRE NOW WEST THROUGH
KINSHASA / YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN / ACQUISITION WHITE HUNTER

MUNRO NOW PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE WHATEVER COST / KEEP HIM FROM CONSORTIUM
WILL PAY ANYTHING / YOUR SITUATION EXTREME DANGER / MUST HAVE MUNRO TO
SURVIVE /



She stared at the screen. It was the worst possible news. She said, ôHave
you got a time course?ö





EUROùJAPANESE CONSORTIUM NOW COMPRISES MORIKAWA (JAPAN) / GERLICH (GERMANY)
/ VOORSTER (AMSTERDAM) / UNFORTUNATELY HAVE RESOLVED

DIFFERENCES NOW IN COMPLETE ACCORD / MONITORING US CANNOT ANTICIPATE SECURE
TRANSMISSIONS ANYTIME HENCEFORTH / ANTICIPATE ELECTRONIC

COUNTERMEASURES AND WARFARE TACTICS IN PURSUIT OF TWOùB GOAL / THEY WILL
ENTER CONGO (RELIABLE SOURCE) WITHIN 48 HOURS NOW SEEKING MUNRO /



ôWhen will they reach Tangier?ö she asked.

ôIn six hours. You?ö

ôSeven hours. And Munro?ö

ôWe donÆt know about Munro,ö Travis said. ôCan you booby him?ö

ôAbsolutely,ö Ross said. ôIÆll arrange the booby now. If Munro doesnÆt see
things our way, I promise you itÆll be seventy-two hours before heÆs
allowed out of the country.ö

ôWhatÆve you got?ö Travis asked.

ôCzech submachine guns. Found on the premises, with his prints on them,
carefully applied. That should do it.ö

ôThat should do it,ö Travis agreed. ôWhat about your passengers?ö He was
referring to Elliot and Amy.

ôTheyÆre fine,ö Ross said. ôThey know nothing.ö

ôKeep it that way,ö Travis said, and hung up.





4. Feeding Time



ôITÆS FEEDING TIME,ö TRAVIS CALLED CHEERFULLY. ôWhoÆs at the trough?ö

ôWeÆve got five tap dancers on Beta dataline,ö Rogers said. Rogers was the
electronic surveillance expert, the bug catcher.

ôAnybody we know?ö

ôKnow them all,ö Rogers said, slightly annoyed. ôBeta line is our main
cross-trunk line in-house, so whoever wants to tap in to our system will
naturally plug in there. You get more bits and pieces that way. Of course
we arenÆt using Beta anymore except for routine uncoded garbageùtaxes and
payroll, that stuff.ö

ôWe have to arrange a feed,ö Travis said. A feed meant putting false data
out over a tapped line, to be picked up. It was a delicate operation. ôYou
have the consortium on the line?ö

ôSure. What do you want to feed them?ö

ôCoordinates for the lost city,ö Travis said.

Rogers nodded, mopping his brow. He was a portly man who sweated profusely.
ôHow good do you want it?ö

ôDamned good,ö Travis said. ôYou wonÆt fool the Japanese with static.ö

ôYou donÆt want to give them the actual co-ords?ö

ôGod, no. But I want them reasonably close. Say, within two hundred
kilometers.ö

ôCan do,ö Rogers said.

ôCoded?ö Travis said.

æOf course. ô

ôYou have a code they can break in twelve to fifteen hours?ö

Rogers nodded. ôWeÆve got a dilly. Looks like hell, but then when you work
it, it pops out. Got an internal weakness in concealed lettering frequency.
At the other end, looks like we made a mistake, but itÆs very breakable.ö

ôIt canÆt be too easy,ö Travis warned.

ôOh, no, theyÆll earn their yen. TheyÆll never suspect a feed. We ran it
past the army and they came back all smiles, teaching us a lesson. Never
knew it was a setup.ö

ôOkay,ö Travis said, ôput the data out, and letÆs feed them. I want
something that'll give them a sense of confidence for the next forty-eight
hours or moreùuntil they figure out that weÆve screwed them.ö

ôDelighted,ö Rogers said, and he moved off to Beta terminal.

Travis sighed. The feeding would soon begin, and he hoped it would protect
his team in the fieldùlong enough for them to get to the diamonds first.













5. Dangerous Signatures



THE SOFT MURMUR OF VOICES WOKE HIM.

ôHow unequivocal is that signature?ö

ôPretty damn unequivocal. HereÆs the pissup, nine days ago, and itÆs not
even epicentered.ö

ôThatÆs cloud cover?ö

ôNo, thatÆs not cloud cover, itÆs too black. ThatÆs ejecta from the
signature.ö

ôHell.ö

Elliot opened his eyes to see dawn breaking as a thin red line against
blue-black through the windows of the passenger compartment. His watch read
5:11ùfive in the morning, San Francisco time. He had slept only two hours
since calling Seamans. He yawned and glanced down at Amy, curled up in her
nest of blankets on the floor. Amy snored loudly. The other bunks were
unoccupied.

He heard soft voices again, and looked toward the computer console. Jensen
and Irving were staring at a screen and talking quietly. ôDangerous
signature. We got a computer projection on that?ö

ôComing. ItÆll take a while. I asked for a five-year run-back, as well as
the other pissups.ö

Elliot climbed out of his cot and looked at the screen. ôWhatÆs pissups?ö
he said.

ôPSOPs are prior significant orbital passes by the satellite,ö Jensen
explained. ôTheyÆre called pissups because we usually ask for them when
weÆre already pissing upwind. WeÆve been looking at this volcanic signature
here,ö Jensen said, pointing to the screen. ôItÆs not too promising.ö

ôWhat volcanic signature?ö Elliot asked.

They showed him the billowing plumes of smokeùdark green in artificial
computer-generated colorsùwhich belched from the mouth of Mukenko, one of
the active volcanoes of the Virunga range. ôMukenko erupts on the average
of once every three years,ö Irving said. ôThe last eruption was March,
1977, but it looks like itÆs gearing up for another full eruption in the
next week or so. WeÆre waiting now for the probability assessment.ö

ôDoes Ross know about this?ö

They shrugged. ôShe knows, but she doesnÆt seem worried. She got an urgent
GPUùgeopolitical updateùfrom Houston about two hours ago, and she went
directly into the cargo bay. HavenÆt seen her since.ö

Elliot went into the dimly lit cargo bay of the jet. The cargo bay was not
insulated and it was chilly: the trucks had a thin frost on metal and
glass, and his breath hissed from his mouth. He found Karen Ross working at
a table under low pools of light. Her back was turned to him, but when he
approached, she dropped what she was doing and turned to face him.

ôI thought you were asleep,ö she said.

ôI got restless. WhatÆs going on?ö

ôJust checking supplies. This is our advanced technology unit,ö she said,
lifting up a small backpack. ôWeÆve developed a miniaturized package for
field parties; twenty pounds of equipment contains everything a man needs
for two weeks:

food, water, clothing, everything.ö

ôEven water?ö Elliot asked.

Water was heavy: seven-tenths of human body weight was water, and most of
the weight of food was water; that was why dehydrated food was so light.
But water was far more critical to human life than food. Men could survive
for weeks without food, but they would die in a matter of hours without
water. And water was heavy.

Ross smiled. ôThe average man consumes four to six liters a day, which is
eight to thirteen pounds of weight. On a two-week expedition to a desert
region, weÆd have to provide two hundred pounds of water for each man. But
we have a NASA water-recycling unit which purifies all excretions,
including urine. It weighs six ounces. ThatÆs how we do it.ö

Seeing his expression, she said, ôItÆs not bad at all. Our purified water
is cleaner than what you get from the tap.,Æ

ôIÆll take your word for it.ö Elliot picked up a pair of strange-looking
sunglasses. They were very dark and thick, and there was a peculiar lens
mounted over the forehead bridge.

ôHolographic night goggles,ö Ross said. ôEmploying thin-film diffraction
optics.ö She then pointed out a vibration-free camera lens with optical
systems that compensated for movement, strobe infrared lights, and
miniature survey lasers no larger than a pencil eraser. There was also a
series of small tripods with rapid-geared motors mounted on the top, and
brackets to hold something, but she did not explain these devices beyond
saying they were ôdefensive units.ö

Elliot drifted toward the far table, where he found six submachine guns set
out under the lights. He picked one up; it was heavy, and gleaming with
grease. Clips of ammunition lay stacked nearby. Elliot did not notice the
lettering on the stock; the machine guns were Russian AK-47s manufactured
under license in Czechoslovakia.

He glanced at Ross.

ôJust precautions,ö Ross said. ôWe carry them on every expedition. It
doesnÆt mean anything.ö

Elliot shook his head. ôTell me about your GPU from Houston,ö he said.

ôIÆm not worried about it,ö she said.

ôI am,ö Elliot said.



As Ross explained it, the GPU was just a technical report. The Zaire
government had closed its eastern borders during the previous twenty-four
hours; no tourist or commercial traffic could enter the country from Rwanda
or Uganda; everyone now had to enter the country from the west, through
Kinshasa.

No official reason was given for closing the eastern border, although
sources in Washington speculated that Idi AminÆs troops, fleeing across the
Zaire border from the Tanzanian invasion of Uganda, might be causing ôlocal
difficulties.ö In central Africa, local difficulties usually meant
cannibalism and other atrocities.

ôDo you believe that?ö Elliot asked. ôCannibalism and atrocities?ö

ôNo,ö Ross said. ôItÆs all a lie. ItÆs the Dutch and the Germans and the
Japaneseùprobably your friend Morikawa. The Euro-Japanese electronics
consortium knows that ERTS is close to discovering important diamond
reserves in Vi¡runga. They want to slow us down as much as they can.
TheyÆve got the fix in somewhere, probably in Kinshasa, and closed the
eastern borders. ItÆs nothing more than that.ö

ôIf thereÆs no danger, why the machine guns?ö

ôJust precautions,ö she said again. ôWeÆll never use machine guns on this
trip, believe me. Now why donÆt you get some sleep? WeÆll be landing in
Tangier soon.ö

ôTangier?ö

ôCaptain Munro is there.ö





6. Munro



THE NAME OF ôCAPTAINö CHARLES MUNRO WAS not to be found on the list of the
expedition leaders employed by any of the usual field parties. There were
several reasons for this, foremost among them his distinctly unsavory
reputation.

Munro had been raised in the wild Northern Frontier Province of Kenya, the
illegitimate son of a Scottish farmer and his handsome Indian housekeeper.
MunroÆs father had the bad luck to be killed by Mau Mau guerillas in 1956.
* Soon afterward, MunroÆs mother died of tuberculosis, and Munro made his
way to Nairobi where in the late 1950s he worked as a white hunter, leading
parties of tourists into the bush. It was during this time that Munro
awarded himself the title of ôCaptain,ö although he had never served in the
military.

Apparently, Captain Munro found humoring tourists uncongenial; by 1960, he
was reported running guns from Uganda into the newly independent Congo.
After Moise Tshombe went into exile in 1963, MunroÆs activities became
politically embarrassing, and ultimately forced him to disappear from East
Africa in late 1963.

He appeared again in 1964, as one of General MobutuÆs white mercenaries in
the Congo, under the leadership of Colonel ôMad Mikeö Hoare. Hoare assessed
Munro as a ôhard, lethal customer who knew the jungle and was highly
effective, when we could get him away from the ladies.ö

*Although more than nineteen thousand people were killed in the Mau Mau
uprisings. only thirty-seven whites were killed during seven years of
terrorism. Each dead white was properly regarded more as a victim of
circumstance than of emerging black politics.



Following the capture of Stanleyville in Operation Dragon Rouge, MunroÆs
name was associated with the mercenary atrocities at a village called
Avakabi. Munro again disappeared for several years.

In 1968, he re-emerged in Tangier, where he lived splendidly and was
something of a local character. The source of MunroÆ.s obviously
substantial income was unclear, but he was said to have supplied Communist
Sudanese rebels with East German light arms in 1971, to have assisted the
royalist Ethiopians in their rebellion in 1974ù1975, and to have assisted
the French paratroopers who dropped into ZaireÆs Shaba province in 1978.

His mixed activities made Munro a special case in Africa in the 1970s;
although he was persona non grata in a half-dozen African states, he
traveled freely throughout the continent, using various passports. It was a
transparent ruse: every border official recognized him on sight, but these
officials were equally afraid to let him enter the country or to deny him
entry.

Foreign mining and exploration companies, sensitive to local feeling, were
reluctant to hire Munro as an expedition leader for their parties. It was
also true that Munro was by far the most expensive of the bush guides.
Nevertheless, he had a reputation for getting tough, difficult jobs done.
Under an assumed name, he had taken two German tin-mining parties into the
Cameroons in 1974; and he had led one previous ERTS expedition into Angola
during the height of the armed conflict in 1977. He quit another ERTS field
group headed for Zambia the following year after Houston refused to meet
his price: Houston had canceled the expedition.

In short, Munro was acknowledged as the best man for dangerous travel. That
was why the ERTS jet stopped in Tangier.







At the Tangier airport, the ERTS cargo jet and its contents were bonded,
but all ongoing personnel except Amy passed through customs, carrying their
personal belongings. Jensen and Irving were pulled aside for searches;
trace quantities of heroin were discovered in their hand baggage.

This bizarre event occurred through a series of remarkable coincidences, In
1977, United States customs agents began to employ neutron backscatter
devices, as well as chemical vapor detectors, or sniffers. Both were
hand-held electronic devices manufactured under contract by Morikawa
Elec¡tronics in Tokyo. In 1978, questions arose about the accuracy of these
devices; Morikawa suggested that they be tested at other ports of entry
around the world, including Singapore, Bangkok, Delhi, Munich, and Tangier.

Thus Morikawa Electronics knew the capabilities of the detectors at Tangier
airport, and they also knew that a variety of substances, including ground
poppy seeds and shredded turnip, would produce a false-positive
registration on airport sensors. And the ôfalse-positive netö required
forty-eight hours to untangle. (It was later shown that both men had
somehow acquired traces of turnip on their briefcases.)

Both Irving and Jensen vigorously denied any knowledge of illicit material,
and appealed to the local U.S. consular office. But the case could not be
resolved for several days; Ross telephoned Travis in Houston, who
determined it was a ôDutch herring.ö There was nothing to be done except to
carry on, and continue with the expedition as best they could.

ôThey think this will stop us,ö Travis said, ôbut it wonÆt.ö

ôWhoÆs going to do the geology?ö Ross asked.

ôYou are,ö Travis said.

ôAnd the electronics?ö

ôYouÆre the certified genius,ö Travis said. ôJust make sure you have Munro.
HeÆs the key to everything.ö







The song of the muezzin floated over the pastel jumble of houses in the
Tangier Casbah at twilight, calling the faithful to evening prayer. In the
old days, the muezzin himself appeared in the minarets of the mosque, but
now a recording played over loudspeakers: a mechanized call to the Muslim
ritual of obeisance.

Karen Ross sat on the terrace of Captain MunroÆs house overlooking the
Casbah and waited for her audience with the man himself. Beside her, Peter
Elliot sat in a chair and snored noisily, exhausted from the long flight.

They had been waiting nearly three hours, and she was worried. MunroÆs
house was of Moorish design, and open to the outdoors. From the interior
she could hear voices, faintly carried by the breeze, speaking some
Oriental language.

One of the graceful Moroccan servant girls that Munro seemed to have in
infinite supply came onto the terrace carrying a telephone. She bowed
formally. Ross saw that the girl had violet eyes; she was exquisitely
beautiful, and could not have been more than sixteen. In careful English
the girl said, ôThis is your telephone to Houston. The bidding will now
begin.ö

Karen nudged Peter, who awoke groggily. ôThe bidding will now begin,ö she
said.







Peter Elliot was surprised from the moment of his first entrance into
MunroÆs house. He had anticipated a tough military setting and was amazed
to see delicate carved Mo¡roccan arches and soft gurgling fountains with
sunlight sparkling on them.

Then he saw the Japanese and, Germans in the next room, staring at him and
at Ross. The glances were distinctly unfriendly, but Ross stood and said,
ôExcuse me a moment,ö and she went forward and embraced a young blond
German man warmly. They kissed, chattered happily, and in general appeared
to be intimate friends.

Elliot did not like this development, but he was reassured to see that the
Japaneseùidentically dressed in black suitsù were equally displeased.
Noticing this, Elliot smiled benignly, to convey a sense of approval for
the reunion.

But when Ross returned, he demanded, ôWho was that?ö

ôThatÆs Richter,ö she said. ôThe most brilliant topologist in Western
Europe; his field is n-space extrapolation. His workÆs extremely elegant.ö
She smiled. ôAlmost as elegant as mine.ö

ôBut he works for the consortium?ö

ôNaturally. HeÆs German.ö

ôAnd youÆre talking with him?ö

ôI was delighted for the opportunity,ö she said. ôKarl has a fatal
limitation. He can only deal with pre-existing data. He takes what he is
given, and does cartwheels with it in n-¡space. But he cannot imagine
anything new at all. I had a

professor at M.I.T. who was the same way. Tied to facts, a

hostage to reality.ö She shook her head.

ôDid he ask about Amy?ö

ôOf course.ö

ôAnd what did you tell him?ö

ôI told him she was sick and probably dying.ö

ôAnd he believed that?ö

ôWeÆll see. ThereÆs Munroö

Captain Munro appeared in the next room, wearing khakis, smoking a cigar.
He was a tall, rugged-looking man with a mustache, and soft dark watchful
eyes that missed nothing. He talked with the Japanese and Germans, who were
evidently unhappy with what he was saying. Moments later, Munro entered
their room, smiling broadly.

ôSo youÆre going to the Congo, Dr. Ross.ö

ôWe are, Captain Munro,ö she said.

Munro smiled. ôIt seems as though everyone is going.ö There followed a
rapid exchange which Elliot found incomprehensible. Karen Ross said, ôFifty
thousand U.S. in Swiss francs against point oh two of first-year adjusted
extraction returns.ö

Munro shook his head. ôA hundred in Swiss francs and point oh six of
first-year return on the primary deposits, crude-grade accounting, no
discounting.

ôA hundred in U.S. dollars against point oh one of the first-year return on
all deposits, with full discounting from point of origin.ö

ôPoint of origin? In the middle of the bloody Congo? I would want three
years from point of origin: what if youÆre shut down?ö

ôYou want a piece, you gamble. MobutuÆs clever.ö

ôMobutuÆs barely in control, and I am still alive because I am no gambler,ö
Munro said. ôA hundred against point oh four of first year on primary with
front-load discount only. Or IÆll take point oh two of yours.ö

ôIf youÆre no gambler, IÆll give you a straight buy-out for two hundred.ö

Munro shook his head. ôYouÆve paid more than that for your MER in
Kinshasa.ö

ôPrices for everything are inflated in Kinshasa, including mineral
exploration rights. And the current exploration limit, the computer CEL, is
running well under a thousand.ö

ôIf you say so.ö He smiled, and headed buck into the other room, where the
Japanese and Germans were waiting for his return.

Ross said quickly, ôThatÆs not for them to know.ö

ôOh, IÆm sure they know it anyway,ö Munro said, and walked into the other
room.

ôBastard,ö she whispered to his back. She talked in low tones on the
telephone. ôHeÆll never accept that. . . . No, no, he wonÆt go for it. . .
they want him bad. . .ö

Elliot said, ôYouÆre bidding very high for his services.ö

ôHeÆs the best,ö Ross said, and continued whispering into the telephone. In
the next mom, Munro was shaking his head sadly, turning down an offer.
Elliot noticed that Richter was very red in the face.

Munro came back to Karen Ross. ôWhat was your projected CEL?ö

ôUnder a thousand.ö

ôSo you say. Yet you know thereÆs an ore intercept.ö

ôI donÆt know thereÆs an ore intercept.ö

ôThen youÆre foolish to spend all this money to go to the Congo,ö Munro
said. ôArenÆt you?ö

Karen Ross made no reply. She stared at the ornate ceiling of the room.

ôVirungaÆs not exactly a garden spot these days,ö Munro continued. ôThe
Kigani are on the rampage, and theyÆre cannibals. Pygmies arenÆt friendly
anymore either. Likely to find an arrow in your back for your troubles.
Volcanoes always threatening to blow. Tsetse flies. Bad water. Corrupt
officials. Not a place to go without a very good reason, hmm? Perhaps you
should put off your trip until things settle down.ö

Those were precisely Peter ElliotÆs sentiments, and he said

so.

ôWise man,ö Munro said, with a broad smile that annoyed Karen Ross.

ôEvidently,ö Karen Ross said, ôwe will never come to terms.ö

ôThat seems clear.ö Munro nodded.

Elliot understood that negotiations were broken off. He got up to shake
MunroÆs hand and leaveùbut before he could do that, Munro walked into the
next room and conferred with the Japanese and Germans.

ôThings are looking up,ö Ross said.

ôWhy?ö Elliot said. ôBecause he thinks heÆs beaten you down?ö

ôNo. Because he thinks we know more than they do about the site location
and are more likely to hit an ore body and pay off.ö

In the next room, the Japanese and Germans abruptly stood, and walked to
the front door. At the door, Munro shook hands with the Germans, and bowed
elaborately to the Japanese.

ôI guess youÆre right,ö Elliot said to Ross. ôHeÆs sending them away.ö

But Ross was frowning, her face grim. ôThey canÆt do this,ö she said. ôThey
canÆt just quit this way.ö

Elliot was confused again. ôI thought you wanted them to quit.ö

ôDamn,ö Ross said. ôWeÆve been screwed.ö She whispered into the telephone,
talking to Houston.

Elliot didnÆt understand it at all. And his confusion was not resolved when
Munro locked the door behind the last of the departing men, then came back
to Elliot and Ross to say that supper was served.







They ate Moroccan-style, sitting on the floor and eating with their
fingers. The first course was a pigeon pie, and it was followed by some
sort of stew.

ôSo you sent the Japanese off?ö Ross said. ôTold them no?ö

ôOh, no,ö Munro said. ôThat would be impolite. I told

them I would think about it. And I will.ö

ôThen why did they leave?ö

Munro shrugged. ôNot my doing, I assure you. I think they heard something
on the telephone which changed their whole plan.ö

Karen Ross glanced at her watch, making a note of the time. ôVery good
stew,ö she said. She was doing her best to be agreeable.

ôGlad you like it. ItÆs tajin. Camel meat.ö

Karen Ross coughed. Peter Elliot noticed that his own appetite had
diminished. Munro turned to him. ôSo you have the gorilla, Professor
Elliot?ö

ôHow did you know that?ö

ôThe Japanese told me. The Japanese are fascinated by your gorilla. CanÆt
figure the point of it, drives them mad. A young man with a gorilla, arid a
young woman who is searching forùö

ôIndustrial-grade diamonds,ö Karen Ross said.

ôAh, industrial-grade diamonds.ö He turned to Elliot. ôI enjoy a frank
conversation. Diamonds, fascinating.ö His manner suggested that he had been
told nothing of importance.

Ross said, ôYouÆve got to take us in, Munro.ö

ôWorldÆs full of industrial-grade diamonds,ö Munro said. ôYou can find them
in Africa, India, Russia, Brazil, Canada, even in AmericaùArkansas, New
York, Kentuckyù everywhere you look. But youÆre going to the Congo.ö

The obvious question hung in the air.

ôWe are looking for Type Jib boron-coated blue diamonds,ö Karen Ross said,
ôwhich have semi conducting properties important to microelectronics
applications.ö

Munro stroked his mustache. ôBlue diamonds,ö he said, nodding. ôIt makes
sense.ö

Ross said that of course it made sense.

ôYou canÆt dope them?ö Munro asked.

ôNo. ItÆs been tried. There was a commercial boron-doping process, but it
was too unreliable. The Americans had one and so did the Japanese. Everyone
gave it up as hopeless

ôSo youÆve got to find a natural source.ö

ôThatÆs right. I want to get there as soon as possible,ö Ross said, staring
at him, her voice flat.

ôIÆm sure you do,ö Munro said. ôNothing but business for our Dr. Ross, eh?ö
He crossed the room and, leaning against one of the arches, looked out on
the dark Tangier night. ôIÆm not surprised at all,ö he said. ôAs a matter
ofùö

At the first blast of machine-gun fire, Munro dived for cover, the
glassware on the table splattered, one of the girls screamed, and Elliot
and Ross threw themselves to the marble floor as the bullets whined around
them, chipping the plaster overhead, raining plaster dust down upon them.
The blast lasted thirty seconds or so, and it was followed by complete
silence.

When it was over, they got up hesitantly, staring at one another.

ôThe consortium plays for keeps.ö Munro grinned. ôJust my sort of people.ö

Ross brushed plaster dust off her clothes. She turned to Munro. ôFive point
two against the first two hundred, no deductions, in Swiss francs,
adjusted.ö

ôFive point seven, and you have me.ö

ôFive point seven. Done.ö

Munro shook hands with them, then announced that he would need a few
minutes to pack his things before leaving for Nairobi.

ôJust like that?ö Ross asked. She seemed suddenly concerned, glancing again
at her watch.

ôWhatÆs your problem?ö Munro asked.

ôCzech AK-47s,ö she said. ôIn your warehouse.ö

Munro showed no surprise. ôBetter get them out,ö he said. ôThe consortium
undoubtedly has something similar in the works, and weÆve got a lot to do
in the next few hours.ö As he spoke, they heard the police Kiaxons
approaching from a distance. Munro said, ôWeÆll take the back stair.ö

An hour later, they were airborne, heading toward Nai¡robi.









                               DAY 4: NAIROBI



                                June 16,1979











1. Timeline



IT WAS FARTHER ACROSS AFRICA FROM TANGIER TO Nairobi than it was across the
Atlantic Ocean from New York to Londonù3,600 miles, an eight-hour flight.
Ross spent the time at the computer console, working out what she called
ôhyperspace probability lines.ö

The screen showed a computer-generated map of Africa, with streaking
multicolored lines across it. ôThese are all timelines,ö Ross said. ôWe can
weight them for duration and delay factors.ö Beneath the screen was a
total-elapsed-time clock, which kept shifting numbers.

ôWhatÆs that mean?ö Elliot asked.

ôThe computerÆs picking the fastest route. You see itÆs just identified a
timeline that will get us on-site in six days eighteen hours and fiftyùone
minutes. Now itÆs trying to beat that time.ö

Elliot had to smile. The idea of a computer predicting to the minute when
they would reach their Congo location seemed ludicrous to him. But Ross was
totally serious.

As they watched, the computer clock shifted to 5 days 22 hours 24 minutes.

ôBetter,ö Ross said, nodding. ôBut still not very good.ö She pressed
another key and the lines shifted, stretching like rubber bands over the
African continent. ôThis is the consortium route,ö she said, ôbased on our
assumptions about the expedition. TheyÆre going in bigùthirty or more
people, a full-scale undertaking. And they donÆt know the exact location of
the city; at least, we donÆt think they know. But they have a substantial
start on us, at least twelve hours, since their aircraft is already forming
up in Nairobi.ö

The clock registered total elapsed time: 5 days 09 hours 19 minutes. Then
she pressed a button marked DATE and it shifted to 06 21 790814. ôAccording
to this, the consortium will reach the Congo site a little after eight
oÆclock in the morning on June 21.ö

The computer clicked quietly; the lines continued to stretch and pull, and
the clock read a new date: 06 21 79 1224.

ôWell,ö she said, ôthatÆs where we are now. Given maximum favorable
movements for us and them, the consortium will beat us to the site by
slightly more than four hours, five days from now.ö

Munro walked past, eating a sandwich. ôBetter lock another path,ö he said.
ôOr go radical.ö

ôI hesitate to go radical with the ape.ö

Munro shrugged. ôHave to do something, with a timeline like that.ö

Elliot listened to them with a vague sense of unreality: they were
discussing a difference of hours, five days in the future. ôBut surely,ö
Elliot said, ôover the next few days, with all the arrangements at Nairobi,
and then getting into the jungleùyou canÆt put too much faith in those
figures.ö

ôThis isnÆt like the old days of African exploration,ö Ross said, ôwhere
parties disappeared into the wilds for months. At most, the computer is off
by minutesùsay, roughly half an hour in the total five-day projection.ö She
shook her head. ôNo. We have a problem here, and weÆve got to do something
about it. The stakes are too great.ö

ôYou mean the diamonds.ö

She nodded, and pointed to the bottom of the screen, where the words BLUE
CONTRACT appeared. He asked her what the Blue Contract was.

ôOne hell of a lot of money,ö Ross said. And she added, ôI think.ö For in
truth she did not really know.

Each new contract at ERTS was given a code name. Only Travis and the
computer knew the name of the company buying the contract; everyone else at
ERTS, from computer programmers to field personnel, knew the projects only
by their color-code names: Red Contract, Yellow Contract, White Contract.
This was a business protection for the firms involved. But the ERTS
mathematicians could not resist a lively guessing game about contract
sources, which was the staple of daily conversation in the company canteen.

The Blue Contract had come to ERTS in December, 1978. It called for ERTS to
locate a natural source of industrial-grade diamonds in a friendly or
neutralist country. The diamonds were to be Type IIb, ônitrogen-poorö
crystals. No dimensions were specified, so crystal size did not matter; nor
were recoverable quantities specified: the contractor would take what he
could get. And, most unusual, there was no UECL.

Nearly all contracts arrived with a unit extraction cost limit. It was not
enough to find a mineral source; the minerals had to be extractable at a
specified unit cost. This unit cost in turn reflected the richness of the
ore body, its remoteness, the availability of local labor, political
conditions, the possible need to build airfields, roads, hospitals, mines,
or refineries.

For a contract to come in without a UECL meant only one thing: somebody
wanted blue diamonds so badly he didnÆt care what they cost.

Within forty-eight hours, the ERTS canteen had explained the Blue Contract.
It turned out that Type JIb diamonds were blue from trace quantities of the
element boron, which rendered them worthless as gemstones but altered their
electronic properties, making them semiconductors with a resistively on the
order of 100 ohms centimeters. They also had light-transmissive properties.

Someone then found a brief article in Electronic News for November 17,
1978: ôMcPhee Doping Dropped.ö It explained that the Waltham,
Massachusetts, firm of Silec, Inc., had abandoned the experimental McPhee
technique to dope diamonds artificially with a monolayer boron coating. The
McPhee process had been abandoned as too expensive and too unreliable to
produce ôdesirable semi conducting properties.ö The article concluded that
ôother firms have underestimated problems in boron monolayer doping;
Morikawa (Tokyo) abandoned the Nagaura process in September of this year.ö
Working backward, the ERTS canteen fitted additional pieces of the puzzle
into place.

Back in 1971, Intec, the Santa Clara microelectronics firm, had first
predicted that diamond semiconductors would be important to a future
generation of ôsuper conductingö computers in the 1980s.

The first generation of electronic computers, ENIAC and UNIVAC, built in
the wartime secrecy of the 1940s, employed vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes had
an average life span of twenty hours, but with thousands of glowing hot
tubes in a single machine, some computers shut down every seven to twelve
minutes. Vacuum-tube technology imposed a limit on the size and power of
planned second-generation computers.

But the second generation never used vacuum tubes. In 1947, the invention
of the transistorùa thumbnail-sized sandwich of solid material which
performed all the functions of a vacuum tubeùushered in an era of ôsolid
stateö electronic devices which drew little power, generated little heat,
and were smaller and more reliable than the tubes they replaced. Silicon
technology provided the basis for three generations of increasingly
compact, reliable, and cheap computers over the next twenty years.

But by the 1970s, computer designers began to confront the inherent
limitations of silicon technology. Although cir¡cuits had been shrunk to
microscopic dimensions, computation speed was still dependent on circuit
length. To miniaturize circuits still more, where distances were already on
the order of millionths of an inch, brought back an old problem: heat.
Smaller circuits would literally melt from the heat produced. What was
needed was some method to eliminate heat and reduce resistance at the same
time.

It had been known since the 1950s that many metals when cooled to extremely
low temperatures became ôsuper¡conducting,ö permitting the unimpeded flow
of electrons through them. In 1977, IBM announced it was designing an
ultra-high-speed computer the size of a grapefruit, chilled with liquid
nitrogen. The superconducting computer required a radically new technology,
and a new range of low temperature construction materials.

Doped diamonds would be used extensively throughout.

Several days later, the ERTS canteen came up with an alternative
explanation. According to the new theory, the 1970s had been a decade of
unprecedented growth in computers. Although the first computer
manufacturers in the 1940s had predicted that four computers would do the
computing work of the entire world for the foreseeable future, experts
anticipated that by 1990 there would actually be one billion computersùmost
of them linked by communications networks to other computers. Such networks
didnÆt exist, and might even be theoretically impossible. (A 1975 study by
the Hanover Institute concluded there was insufficient metal in the earthÆs
crust to construct the necessary computer transmission lines.)

According to Harvey Rumbaugh, the 1980s would be characterized by a
critical shortage of computer data transmission systems: ôJust as the
fossil fuel shortage took the industrialized world by surprise in the
1970s, so will the data transmission shortage take the world by surprise in
the next ten years. People were denied movement in the 1970s; but they will
be denied information in the 1980s, and it remains to be seen which
shortage will prove more frustrating.ö

Laser light represented the only hope for handling these massive data
requirements, since laser channels carried twenty thousand times the
information of an ordinary metal coaxial trunk line. Laser transmission
demanded whole new technologiesùincluding thin-spun fiber optics, and doped
semiconducting diamonds, which Rumbaugh predicted would be ômore valuable
than oilö in the coming years.

Even further, Rumbaugh anticipated that within ten years electricity itself
would become obsolete. Future computers would utilize only light circuits,
and interface with light transmission data systems. The reason was speed.
ôLight,ö Rumbaugh said, ômoves at the speed of light. Electricity doesnÆt.
We are living in the final years of microelectronic technology.ö

Certainly microelectronics did not look like a moribund technology. In
1979, microelectronics was a major industry throughout the industrialized
world, accounting for eighty billion dollars annually in the United States
alone; six of the top twenty corporations in the Fortune 500 were deeply
involved in microelectronics. These companies had a history of
extraordinary competition and advance, over a period of less than thirty
years.

In 1958, a manufacturer could fit 10 electronic components onto a single
silicon chip. By 1970, it was possible to fit 100 units onto a chip of the
same sizeùa tenfold increase in slightly more than a decade.

But by 1972, it was possible to fit 1,000 units on a chip, and by 1974,
10,000 units. It was expected that by 1980, there would be one million
units on a single chip the size of a thumbnail, but, using electronic photo
projection, this goal was actually realized in 1978. By the spring of 1979,
the new goal was ten million unitsùor, even better, one billion unitsù on a
single silicon chip by 1980. But nobody expected to wait past June or July
of 1979 for this development.

Such advances within an industry are unprecedented. Comparison to older
manufacturing technologies makes this clear. Detroit was content to make
trivial product design changes at three-year intervals, but the electronics
industry routinely expected order of magnitude advances in the same time.
(To keep pace, Detroit would have had to increase automobile gas mileage
from 8 miles per gallon in 1970 to 80,000,000 miles per gallon in 1979.
Instead, Detroit went from 8 to 16 miles per gallon during that time,
further evidence of the coming demise of the automotive industry as the
center of the American economy.)







In such a competitive market, everyone worried about foreign powers,
particularly Japan, which since 1973 had maintained a Japanese Cultural
Exchange in San Joseùwhich some considered a cover organization for
well-financed industrial espionage.

The Blue Contract could only be understood in the light of an industry
making major advances every few months. Travis had said that the Blue
Contract was ôthe biggest thing weÆll see in the next ten years. Whoever
finds those diamonds has a jump on the technology for at least five years.
Five years. Do you know what that means?ö

Ross knew what it meant. In an industry where competitive edges were
measured in months, companies had made fortunes by beating competitors by a
matter of weeks with some new techniques or device; Syntel in California
had been the first to make a 256K memory chip while everyone else was still
making 16K chips and dreaming of 64K chips. Syntel kept their advantage for
only sixteen weeks, but realized a profit of more than a hundred and thirty
million dollars.

ôAnd weÆre talking about five years,ö Travis said. ôThatÆs an advantage
measured in billions of dollars, maybe tens of billions of dollars. If we
can get to those diamonds.ö







These were the reasons for the extraordinary pressure Ross felt as she
continued to work with the computer. At the age of twenty-four, she was
team leader in a high-technology race involving a half-dozen nations around
the globe, all secretly pitting their business and industrial resources
against one another.

The stakes made any conventional race seem ludicrous. Travis told her
before she left, ôDonÆt be afraid when the pressure makes you crazy. You
have billions of dollars riding on your shoulders. Just do the best you
can.ö

Doing the best she could, she managed to reduce the expedition timeline by
another three hours and thirty-seven minutesùbut they were still slightly
behind the consortium projection. Not too far to make up the time,
especially with MunroÆs cold-blooded shortcuts, but nevertheless behindù
which could mean total disaster in a winner-take-all race.

And then she received bad news.

The screen printed PIGGYBACK SLURP / ALL BETS OFF.

ôHell,ö Ross said. She felt suddenly tired. Because if there really had
been a piggyback slurp, their chances of winning the race were
vanishingùbefore any of them had even set foot in the rain forests of
central Africa.





2. Piggyback Slurp



                          TRAVIS FELT LIKE A FOOL.

He stared at the hard copy from Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt,
Maryland.



ERTS WHY ARE YOU SENDING US ALL THIS MUKENKO DATA WE DONÆT REALLY CARE
THANKS ANYWAY.





That had arrived an hour ago from GSFC/Maryland, but it was already too
late by more than five hours.

ôDamn!ö Travis said, staring at the telex.

The first indication to Travis that anything was wrong was when the
Japanese and Germans broke off negotiations with Munro in Tangier. One
minute they had been willing to pay anything; the next minute they could
hardly wait to leave. The break-off had come abruptly, discontinuously; it
implied the sudden introduction of new data into the consortium computer
files.

New data from where?

There could be only one explanationùand now it was confirmed in the GSFC
telex from Greenbelt.



ERTS WHY ARE YOU SENDING ALL THIS MUKENKO DATA





There was a simple answer to that: ERTS wasnæt sending any data. At least,
not willingly. ERTS and GSFC had an arrangement to exchange data
updatesùTravis had made that deal in 1978 to obtain cheaper satellite
imagery from orbiting Landsats. Satellite imagery was his companyÆs single
greatest expense. In return for a look at derived ERTS data, GSFC agreed to
supply satellite CCTs at 30 percent below gross rate.

It seemed like a good deal at the time, and the coded locks were specified
in the agreement.

But now the potential drawbacks loomed large before Travis; his worst fears
were confirmed. Once you put a line over two thousand miles from Houston to
Greenbelt, you begged for a piggyback data slurp. Somewhere between Texas
and Maryland someone had inserted a terminal linkupùprobably in the carrier
telephone linesùand had begun to slurp out data on a piggyback terminal.
This was the form of industrial espionage they most feared.

A piggyback-slurp terminal tapped in between two legitimate terminals,
monitoring the back and forth transmissions. After a time, the piggyback
operator knew enough to begin making transmissions on line, slurping out
data from both ends, pretending to be GSFC to Houston, and Houston to GSFC.
The piggyback terminal could continue to function until one or both
legitimate terminals realized that they were being slurped.

Now the question was: how much data had been slurped out in the last
seventy-two hours?

He had called for twenty-four-hour scanner checks, and the readings were
disheartening. It looked as though the ERTS computer had yielded up not
only original database elements, but also data-transformation historiesùthe
sequence of operations performed on the data by ERTS over the last four
weeks.

If that was true, it meant that the Euro-Japanese consortium piggyback knew
what transformations ERTS had carried out on the Mukenko dataùand therefore
they knew where the lost city was located, with pinpoint accuracy. They now
knew the location of the city as precisely as Ross did.

Timelines had to be adjusted, unfavorably to the ERTS team. And the updated
computer projections were unequivocalùRoss or no Ross, the likelihood of
the ERTS team reaching the site ahead of the Japanese and Germans was flow
almost nil.

From TravisÆs viewpoint, the entire ERTS expedition was mow a futile
exercise, and a waste of time. There was no hope of success. The only
unfactorable element was the gorilla Amy, and TravisÆs instincts told him
that a gorilla named Amy would not prove decisive in the discovery of
mineral deposits in the northeastern Congo.

It was hopeless.

Should he recall the ERTS team? He stared at the console by his desk. ôCall
cost-time,ö he said.

The computer blinked COSTùTIME AVAILABLE.

ôCongo Field Survey,ö he said.

The screen printed out numbers for the Congo Field Survey: expenditures by
the hour, accumulated costs, committed future costs, cutoff points, future
branch-point deletions. . . . The project was now just outside Nairobi, and
was running at an accumulated cost of slightly over

$189,000.

Cancellation would cost $227,455.

ôFactor BF,ö he said.

The screen changed. B F. He now saw a series of probabilities. ôFactor BFö
was bona fortuna, good luckùthe imponderable in all expeditions, especially
remote, dangerous expeditions.

THINKING A MOMENT, the computer flashed.

Travis waited. He knew that the computer would require several seconds to
perform the computations to assign weights to random factors that might
influence the expedition, still five or more days from the target site.

His beeper buzzed. Rogers, the tap dancer, said, ôWeÆve traced the
piggyback slurp. ItÆs in Norman, Oklahoma, nominally at the North Central
Insurance Corporation of America. NCIC is fifty-one percent owned by a
Hawaiian holding company, Halekuli, Inc., which is in turn owned by
mainland Japanese interests. What do you want?ö

ôI want a very bad fire,ö Travis said.

ôGot you,ö Rogers said. He hung up the phone.

The screen flashed ASSESSED FACTOR B F and a probability: .449. He was
surprised: that figure meant that ERTS had an almost even chance of
attaining the target site befure the consortium. Travis didnÆt question the
mathematics; .449 was good enough.

The ERTS expedition would continue to the Congo, at least for the time
being. And in the meantime he would do whatever he could to slow down the
consortium. Off the top of his head, Travis could think of one or two ideas
to accomplish that.













3. Additional Data





THE JET WAS MOVING SOUTH OVER LAKE RUDOLPH in northern Kenya when Tom
Seamans called Elliot.

Seamails had finished his computer analysis to discriminate gorillas from
other apes, principally chimpanzees. He had then obtained from Houston a
videotape of three seconds of a garbled video transmission which seemed to
show a gorilla smashing a dish antenna and staring into a camera.

ôWell?ö Elliot said, looking at the computer screen. The data flashed up:



DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION GORILLA/CHIMP

FUN CT IONAL GROUPINGS DISTRIBUTED AS:

GORILLA:   .9934

CHIMP:       .1132

TEST VIDEOTAPE (HOUSTON): .3349





ôHell,ö Elliot said. At those figures, the study was equivocal, useless.

ôSorry about that,ö Seamans said over the phone. ôBut part of the trouble
comes from the test material itself. We had to factor in the computer
derivation of that image. The image has been cleaned up, and that means
itÆs been regularized; the critical stuff has been lost. IÆd like to work
with the original digitized matrix. Can you get me that?ö

Karen Ross was nodding yes. ôSure,ö Elliot said.

ôIÆll go another round with it,ö Seamans said. ôBut if you want my gut
opinion, it is never going to turn out. The fact is that gorillas show a
considerable individual variation in facial structure, just as people do.
If we increase our sample base, weÆre going to get more variation, and a
larger population interval. I think youÆre stuck. You can never prove itÆs
not a gorillaùbut for my money, itÆs not.ö

ôMeaning what?ö Elliot asked.

ôItÆs something new,ö Seamans said. ôIÆm telling you, if this was really a
gorilla, it would have showed up .89 or .94, somewhere in there, on this
function. But the image comes out at .39. ThatÆs just not good enough. ItÆs
not a gorilla, Peter.ö

ôThen what is it?ö

ôItÆs a transitional form. I ran a function to measure where the variation
was. You know what was the major differential? Skin color. Even in
black-and-white, itÆs not dark enough to be a gorilla, Peter. This is a
whole new animal, I promise you.ö

Elliot looked at Ross. ôWhat does this do to your timeline?ö

ôFor the moment, nothing,ö she said. ôOther elements are more critical, and
this is unfactorable.ö

The pilot clicked on the intercom. ôWe are beginning our descent into
Nairobi,ö he said.





4. Nairobi





FIVE MILES OUTSIDE NAIROBI, ONE CAN FIND WILD game of the East African
savannah. And within the memory of many Nairobi residents the game could be
found closer stillùgazelles, buffalo, and giraffe wandering around
backyards, and the occasional leopard slipping into oneÆs bedroom. In those
days, the city still retained the character of a wild colonial station; in
its heyday, Nairobi was a fast-living place indeed: ôAre you married or do
you live in Kenya?ö went the standard question. The men were hard-drinking
and rough, the women beautiful and loose, and the pattern of life no more
predictable than the fox hunts that ranged over the rugged countryside each
weekend.

But modern Nairobi is almostÆ unrecognizable from the time of those
freewheeling colonial days. The few remaining Victorian buildings lie
stranded in a modem city of half a million, with traffic jams, stoplights,
skyscrapers, supermarkets, same-day dry cleaners, French restaurants, and
air pollution.

The ERTS cargo plane landed at Nairobi International Airport at dawn on the
morning of June 16, and Munro contacted porters and assistants for the
expedition. They intended to leave Nairobi within two hoursùuntil Travis
called from Houston to inform them that Peterson, one of the geologists on
the first Congo expedition, had somehow made it back to Nairobi.

Ross was excited by the news. ôWhere is he now?ö she asked.

ôAt the morgue,ö Travis said.









Elliot winced as he came close: the body on the stainless steel table was a
blond man his own age. The manÆs arms had been crushed; the skin was
swollen, a ghastly purple color. He glanced at Ross. She seemed perfectly
cool, not blinking or turning away. The pathologist stepped on a foot
petal, activating a microphone overhead. ôWould you state your name,
please.ö

ôKaren Ellen Ross.ö

ôYour nationality and passport number?ö

ôAmerican, F 1413649.ö

ôCan you identify the man before you, Miss Ross?ö

ôYes,ö she said. ôHe is James Robert Peterson.ö

ôWhat is your relation to the deceased James Robert Peterson?ö

ôI worked with him,ö she said dully. She seemed to be examining a
geological specimen, scrutinizing it unemotionally. Her face showed no
reaction.

The pathologist faced the microphone. ôIdentity confirmed as James Robert
Peterson, male Caucasian, twenty-nine years old, nationality American. ô He
turned back to Ross. ôWhen was the last time you saw Mr. Peterson?ö

ôIn May of this year. He was leaving for the Congo.ö

ôYou have not seen him in the last month?ö

ôNo,ö she said. ôWhat happened?ö

The pathologist touched the puffy purple injuries on his arms. His
fingertips sank in, leaving indentations like teeth in the flesh. ôDamned
strange story,ö the pathologist said.

The previous day, June 15, Peterson had been flown to Nairobi airport
aboard a small charter cargo plane, in end-stage terminal shock. He died
several hours later without regaining consciousness. ôExtraordinary he made
it at all. Apparently the aircraft made an unscheduled stop for a
mechanical problem at Garona field, a dirt track in Zaire. And then this
fellow comes stumbling out of the woods, collapsing at their feet.ö The
pathologist pointed out that the bones had been shattered in both arms. The
injuries, he explained, were not new; they had occurred at least four days
earlier, perhaps more. ôHe must have been in incredible pain.ö

Elliot said, ôWhat could cause that injury?ö

The pathologist had never seen anything like it. ôSuperficially, it
resembles mechanical trauma, a crush injury from an automobile or truck. We
see a good deal of those here; but mechanical crush injuries are never
bilateral, as they are in this case.ö

ôSo it wasnÆt a mechanical injury?ö Karen Ross asked.

ôDonÆt know what it was. ItÆs unique in my experience,ö the pathologist
said briskly. ôWe also found traces of blood under his nails, and a few
strands of gray hair. WeÆre running a test now.ö

Across the room, another pathologist looked up from his microscope. ôThe
hair is definitely not human. Cross section doesnÆt match. Some kind of
animal hair, close to human.ö

ôThe cross section?ö Ross said.

ôBest index we have of hair origin,ö the pathologist said. ôFor instance,
human pubic hair is more elliptical in cross section than other body hair,
or facial hair. ItÆs quite characteristicùadmissible in court. But
especially in this laboratory, we come across a great deal of animal hair,
and weÆre expert in that as well.ö

A large stainless-steel analyzer began pinging. ôBloodÆs coming through,ö
the pathologist said.

On a video screen they saw twin patterns of pastel-colored streaks. ôThis
is the electrophoresis pattern,ö the pathologist explained. ôTo check serum
proteins. ThatÆs ordinary human blood on the left. On the right we have the
blood sample from under the nails. You can see itÆs definitely not human
blood.ö

ôNot human blood?ö Ross said, glancing at Elliot.

ôItÆs close to human blood,ö the pathologist said, staring at the pattern.
ôBut itÆs not human. Could be a domestic or farm animalùa pig, perhaps. Or
else a primate. Monkeys and apes are very close serologically to human
beings. WeÆll have a computer analysis in a minute.ö

On the screen, the computer printed ALPHA AND BETA SERUM GLOBULINS MATCH:
GORILLA BLOOD.

The pathologist said, ôThereÆs your answer to what he had under his nails.
Gorilla blood.ö













5. Examination





ôSHE WONÆT HURT YOU,ö ELLIOT TOLD THE frightened orderly. They were in the
passenger compartment of the 747 cargo jet. ôSee, sheÆs smiling at you.ö

Amy was indeed giving her most winning smile, being careful not to expose
her teeth. But the orderly from the private clinic in Nairobi was not
familiar with these fine points of gorilla etiquette. His hands shook as he
held the syringe.

Nairobi was the last opportunity for Amy to receive a thorough checkup. Her
large, powerful body belied a constitutional fragility, as her
heavy-browed, glowering face belied a meek, rather tender nature. In San
Francisco, the Project Amy staff subjected her to a thorough medical
regimenù urine samples every other day, stool samples checked weekly for
occult blood, complete blood studies monthly, and a trip to the dentist
every three months for removal of the black tartar that accumulated from
her vegetarian diet.

Amy took it all in stride, but the terrified orderly did not know that. He
approached her holding the syringe in front of him like a weapon. ôYou sure
he wonÆt bite?ö

Amy, trying to be helpful, signed, Amy promise no bite. She was signing
slowly, deliberately, as she always did when confronted by someone who did
not know her language.

ôShe promises not to bite you,ö Elliot said.

ôSo you say,ö the orderly said. Elliot did not bother to explain that he
hadnÆt said it; she had.

After the blood samples were drawn, the orderly relaxed a little. Packing
up, he said, ôCertainly is an ugly brute.ö

ôYouÆve hurt her feelings,ö Elliot said.

And, indeed, Amy was signing vigorously, What ugly? ôNothing, Amy,ö Elliot
said. ôHeÆs just never seen a gorilla before.ö

The orderly said, ôI beg your pardon?ö

ôYouÆve hurt her feelings. YouÆd better apologize.ö

The orderly snapped his medical case shut. He stared at Elliot and then at
Amy. ôApologize to him?ö

ôHer,ö Elliot said. ôYes. How would you like to be told youÆre ugly?ö

Elliot felt strongly about this. Over the years, he had come to feel
acutely the prejudices that human beings showed toward apes, considering
chimpanzees to be cute children, or¡angs to be wise old men, and gorillas
to be hulking, dangerous brutes. They were wrong in every case.

Each of these animals was unique, and did not fit the human stereotypes at
all. Chimps, for example, were much more callous than gorillas ever were.
Because chimps were extroverts, an angry chimp was far more dangerous than
an angry gorilla; at the zoo, Elliot would watch in amazement as human
mothers pushed their children closer to look at the chimps, but recoiled
protectively at the sight of the gorillas. These mothers obviously did not
know that wild chimpanzees caught and ate human infantsùsomething gorillas
never did.

Elliot had witnessed repeatedly the human prejudice against gorillas, and
had come to recognize its effect on Amy. Amy could not help the fact that
she was huge and black and heavy-browed and squash-faced. Behind the face
people considered so repulsive was an intelligent and sensitive
consciousness, sympathetic to the people around her, It pained her when
people ran away, or screamed in fear, or made cruel remarks.

The orderly frowned. ôYou mean that he understands English?ö

ôYes, she does.ö The gender change was something else

Elliot didnÆt like. People who were afraid of Amy always assumed she was
male.

The orderly shook his head. ôI donÆt believe it.ö

ôAmy, show the man to the door.ö

Amy lumbered over to the door and opened it for the orderly, whose eyes
widened as he left. Amy closed the door behind him.

Silly human man, Amy signed.

ôNever mind,ö Elliot said. ôCome, Peter tickle Amy.ö And for the next
fifteen minutes, he tickled her as she rolled on the floor and grunted in
deep satisfaction. Elliot never noticed the door open behind him, never
noticed the shadow falling across the floor, until it was too late and he
turned his head to look up and saw the dark cylinder swing down, and his
head erupted with blinding white pain and everything went black.













       6. Kidnapped





HE AWOKE TO A PIERCING ELECTRONIC SHRIEK.

ôDonÆt move, sir,ö a voice said.

Elliot opened his eyes and stared into a bright light shining down on him.
He was still lying on his back in the aircraft; someone was bent over him.

ôLook to the right. . . now to the left. . . . Can you flex your fingers?ö

He followed the instructions. The light was taken away and he saw a black
man in a white suit crouched beside him. The man touched ElliotÆs head; his
fingers came away red with blood. ôNothing to be alarmed about,ö the man
said; ôitÆs quite superficial.ö He looked off. ôHow long would you estimate
he was unconscious?ö

ôCouple of minutes, no more,ö Munro said.

The high-pitched squeal came again. He saw Ross moving around the passenger
section, wearing a shoulder pack, and holding a wand in front of her. There
was another squeal. ôDamn,ö she said, and plucked something from the
molding around the window. ôThatÆs five. They really did a job.ö

Munro looked down at Elliot. ôHow do you feel?ö he asked.

ôHe should be put under observation for twenty-four hours,ö the black man
said. ôJust as a precaution.ö

ôTwenty-four hours!ö Ross said, moving around the compartment.

Elliot said, ôWhere is she?ö

ôThey took her,ö Munro said. ôThey opened the rear door, inflated the
pneumatic slide, and were gone before anyone realized what happened. We
found this next to you.ö

Munro gave him a small glass vial with Japanese markings. The sides of the
vial were scratched and scored; at one end was a rubber plunger, at the
other end a broken needle.

Elliot sat up.

ôEasy there,ö the doctor said.

ôI feel fine,ö Elliot said, although his head was throbbing. He turned the
vial over in his hand. ôThere was frost on it when you found it?ö

Munro nodded. ôVery cold.ö

ôCO2,ö Elliot said. It was a dart from a gas gun. He shook his head. ôThey
broke the needle off in her.ö He could imagine AmyÆs screams of outrage.
She was unaccustomed to anything but the tenderest treatment. Perhaps that
was one of the shortcomings of his work with her; he had not prepared her
well enough for the real world. He sniffed the vial, smelled a pungent
odor. ôLobaxin. Fast-acting soporific, onset within fifteen seconds. ItÆs
what theyÆd use.ö Elliot was angry. Lobaxin was not often used on animals
because it caused liver damage. And they had broken the needleù He got to
his feet and leaned on Munro, who put his arm

around him. The doctor protested.

ôIÆm fine,ö Elliot said.

Across the room, there was another squeal, this one loud and prolonged.
Ross was moving her wand over the medicine cabinet, past the bottles of
pills and supplies. The sound seemed to embarrass her; quickly she moved
away, shutting the cabinet.

She crossed the passenger compartment, and a squeal was heard again. Ross
removed a small black device from the underside of one seat. ôLook at this.
They must have brought an extra person just to plant the bugs. ItÆll take
hours to sterilize the plane. We canÆt wait~ö

She went immediately to the computer console and began typing.

Elliot said, ôWhere are they now? The consortium?ö

ôThe main party left from Kubala airport outside Nairobi six hours ago,ö
Munro said.

ôThen they didnÆt take Amy with them.ö

ôOf course they didnÆt take her,ö Ross said, sounding annoyed. ôTheyÆve got
no use for her.ö

ôHave they killed her?ö Elliot asked.

ôMaybe,ö Munro said quietly.

ôOh, Jesus . .

ôBut I doubt it,ö Munro continued. ôThey donÆt want any publicity, and
AmyÆs famousùas famous in some circles as an ambassador or a head of state.
SheÆs a talking gorilla, and there arenÆt many of those. SheÆs been on
television news, sheÆs had her picture in the newspapers. . . . TheyÆd kill
you before they killed her.ö

ôJust so they donÆt kill her,ö Elliot said.

ôThey wonÆt,ö Ross said, with finality. ôThe consortium isnÆt interested in
Amy. They donÆt even know why we brought her. TheyÆre just trying to blow
our timelineùbut they wonÆt succeed.ö

Something in her tone suggested that she planned to leave Amy behind. The
idea appalled Elliot. ôWeÆve got to get her back,ö he said. ôAmy is my
responsibility, I canÆt possibly abandon her hereùö

ôSeventy-two minutes,ö Ross said, pointing to the screen. ôWe have exactly
one hour and twelve minutes before we blow the timeline.ö She turned to
Munro. ôAnd we have to switch over to the second contingency.ö

ôFine,ö Munro said. ôIÆll get the men working on it.ö

ôIn a new plane,ö Ross said. ôWe canÆt take this one, itÆs contaminated.ö
She was punching in call letters to the computer console, her fingers
clicking on the keys. ôWeÆll take it straight to point M,ö Ross said.
ôOkay?ö

ôAbsolutely,ö Munro said.

Elliot said, ôI wonÆt leave Amy. If youÆre going to leave her behind,
youÆll have to leave me as wellùö Elliot stopped.

Printed on the screen was the message FORGET GORILLA PROCEED TO NEXT
CHECKPOINT URGENT APE NOT SIGNIFICANT TIMELINE OUTCOME COMPUTER
VERIFICATION REPEAT PROCEED WITHOUT AMY.

ôYou canÆt leave her behind,ö Elliot said. ôIÆll stay behind, too.ö

ôLet me tell you something,ö Ross said. ôI never believed that Amy was
important to this expeditionùor you either. From the very beginning she was
just a diversion. When I came to San Francisco, I was followed. You and Amy
provided a diversion. You threw the consortium into a spin. It was worth
it. Now itÆs not worth it. WeÆll leave you both behind if we have to. I
couldnÆt care less.ö













7. Bugs





ôWELL, GODDAMN IT,ö ELLIOT BEGAN, ôDO YOU mean to tell me that. . .ö

ôThatÆs right,ö Ross said coldly. ôYouÆre expendable.ö But even as she
spoke, she grabbed his arm firmly and led him out of the airplane while she
held her finger to her lips.

Elliot realized that she intended to pacify him in private, Amy was his
responsibility, and to hell with all the diamonds and international
intrigue. Outside on the concrete runway he repeated stubbornly, ôIÆm not
leaving without Amy.ö

ôNeither am I.ö Ross walked quickly across the runway toward a police
helicopter.

Elliot hurried to catch up. ôWhat?ö

ôDonÆt you understand anything?ö Ross said. ôThat airplane's not clean.
ItÆs full of bugs, and the consortiumÆs listening in. I made that speech
for their benefit.ö

ôBut who was following you in San Francisco?ö

ôNobody. TheyÆre going to spend hours trying to figure out who was.ö

ôAmy and I werenÆt just a diversion?ö

ôNot at all,ö she said. ôLook: we donÆt know what happened to the last ERTS
Congo team, but no matter what you or Travis or anyone else says, I think
gorillas were involved. And I think that Amy will help us when we get
there.ö

ôAs an ambassador?ö

ôWe need information,ö Ross said. ôAnd she knows more about gorillas than
we do.ö

ôBut can you find her in an hour and ten minutes?ö

ôHell, no,ö Ross said, checking her watch. ôThis wonÆt take more than
twenty minutes.ö







ôLower! Lower!ö

Ross was shouting into her radio headset as she sat alongside the police
helicopter pilot. The helicopter was circling the tower of Government
House, turning and moving north, toward the Hilton.

ôThis is not acceptable, madam,ö the pilot said politely. ôWe fly below
airspace limitations.ö

ôYouÆre too damn high!ö Ross said. She was looking at a box on her knees,
with four compass-point digital readouts. She flicked switches quickly,
while the radio crackled with angry complaints from Nairobi tower.

ôEast now, due east,ö she instructed, and the helicopter tilted and moved
east, toward the poor outskirts of the city.

In the back, Elliot felt his stomach twist with each banking turn on the
helicopter. His head pounded and he felt awful, but he had insisted on
coming. He was the only person knowledgeable enough to minister to Amy if
she was in medical trouble.

Now, sitting alongside the pilot, Ross said, ôGet a reading,ö and she
pointed to the northeast. The helicopter thumped over crude shacks, junked
automobile lots, dirt roads. ôSlower now, slower. .

The readouts glowed, the numbers shifting. Elliot saw them all go to zero,
simultaneously.

ôDown!ö Ross shouted, and the helicopter descended in the center of a vast
garbage dump.

The pilot remained with the helicopter; his final words were disquieting.
ôWhere thereÆs garbage, thereÆs rats,ö he said.

ôRats donÆt bother me,ö Ross said, climbing out with her box in her hand.

ôWhere thereÆs rats, thereÆs cobras,ö the pilot said.

ôOh,ö Ross said.

She crossed the dump with Elliot. There was a stiff breeze; papers and
debris ruffled at their feet. ElliotÆs head ached, and the odors arising
from the dump nauseated him.

ôNot far now,ö Ross said, watching the box. She was excited, glancing at
her watch.

ôHere?ö

She bent over and picked through the trash, her hand making circles,
digging deeper in frustration, elbow-deep in the trash.

Finally she came up with a necklaceùa necklace she had given Amy when they
first boarded the airplane in San Francisco. She turned it over, examining
the plastic name tag on it, which Elliot noticed was unusually thick. There
were fresh scratches on the back.

ôHell,ö Ross said. ôSixteen minutes shot.ö And she hurried back to the
waiting helicopter.

Elliot fell into step beside her. ôBut how can you find her if they got rid
of her necklace bug?ö

ôNobody,ö Ross said, ôplants only one bug. This was just a decoy, they were
supposed to find it.ö She pointed to the scratches on the back. ôBut
theyÆre clever, they reset the frequencies.ö

ôMaybe they got rid of the second bug, too,ö Elliot said.

ôThey didnÆt,ö Ross said. The helicopter lifted off, a thundering whirr of
blades, and the paper and trash of the dump swirled in circles beneath
them. She pressed her mouthpiece to her lips and said to the pilot, ôTake
me to the largest scrap metal source in Nairobi.ö







Within nine minutes, they had picked up another very weak signal, located
within an automobile junkyard. The helicopter landed in the street outside,
drawing dozens of shouting children. Ross went with Elliot into the
junkyard, moving past the rusting hulks of cars and trucks.

ôYouÆre sure sheÆs here?ö Elliot said.

ôNo question. They have to surround her with metal, itÆs the only thing
they can do.ö

ôWhy?ö

ôShielding.ö She picked her way around the broken cars, pausing frequently
to refer to her electronic box.

Then Elliot heard a grunt.

It came from inside an ancient rust-red Mercedes bus. Elliot climbed
through the shattered doors, the rubber gaskets crumbling in his hands,
into the interior. He found Amy on her back, tied with adhesive tape. She
was groggy, but complained loudly when he tore the tape off her hair.

He located the broken needle in her right chest and plucked it out with
forceps, Amy shrieked, then hugged him. He heard the far-off whine of a
police siren.

ôItÆs all right, Amy, itÆs all right,ö he said. He set her down and
examined her more carefully. She seemed to be okay.

And then he said, ôWhereÆs the second bug?ö

Ross grinned. ôShe swallowed it.ö

Now that Amy was safe, Elliot felt a wave of anger. ôYou made her swallow
it? An electronic bug? DonÆt you realize that she is a very delicate animal
and her health is extremely precariousùö

ôDonÆt get worked up,ö Ross said. ôRemember the vitamins I gave you? You
swallowed one, too.ö She glanced at her watch. ôThirty-two minutes,ö she
said. ôNot bad at all. We have forty minutes before we have to leave
Nairobi.ö













8. Present Point



MUNRO SAT IN THE 747, PUNCHING KEYS ON THE computer. He watched as the
lines crisscrossed over the maps, ticking out datalines, timelines,
information lock coordinates.

The computer ran through possible expedition routines quickly, testing a
new one every ten seconds. After each data fit, outcomes were printedùcost,
logistical difficulties, supply problems, total elapsed times from Houston,
from Present Point (Nairobi), where they were now.

Looking for a solution.

It wasnÆt like the old days, Munro thought. Even five years ago,
expeditions were still run on guesswork and luck. But now every expedition
employed real-time computer planning; Munro had long since been forced to
learn BASIC and TW/GESHUND and other major interactive languages. Nobody
did it by the seat of the pants anymore. The business had changed.

Munro had decided to join the ERTS expedition precisely because of those
changes. Certainly he hadnÆt joined because of Karen Ross, who was stubborn
and inexperienced. But ERTS had the most elaborate working database, and
the most sophisticated planning programs. In the long run, he expected
those programs to make the crucial difference. And he liked a smaller team;
once the consortium was in the field, their working party of thirty was
going to prove unwieldy.

But he had to find a faster timeline to get them in. Munro pressed the
buttons, watching the data flash up. He set trajectories, intersections,
junctions. Then, with a practiced eye, he began to eliminate alternatives.
He closed out pathways, shut down airfields, eliminated truck routes,
avoided river crossings.

The computer kept coming back with reduced times, but from Present Point
(Nairobi) the total elapsed times were always too long. The best projection
beat the consortium by thirty-seven minutesùwhich was nothing to rely on.
He frowned, and smoked a cigar. Perhaps if he crossed the Liko River at
Mugana.

He punched the buttons.

It didnÆt help. Crossing the Liko was slower. He tried trek¡king through
the Goroba Valley, even though it was probably too hazardous to execute.



PROPOSED ROUTING EXCESSIVELY HAZARDOUS





ôGreat minds think alike,ö Munro said, smoking his cigar. But it started
him wondering: were there other, unorthodox approaches they had overlooked?
And then he had an idea.

The others wouldnÆt like it, but it might work. .

Munro called the logistics equipment list. Yes, they were equipped for it.
He punched in the routing, smiling as he saw the line streak straight
across Africa, within a few miles of their destination. He called for
outcomes.



PROPOSED ROUTING UNACCEPTABLE.





He pressed the override button, got the data outcomes anyway. It was just
as he thoughtùthey could beat the consortium by a full forty hours. Nearly
two full days!

The computer went back to the previous statement:



PROPOSED ROUTING UNACCEPTABLE / ALTITUDE FACTORS / HAZARDS TO PERSONNEL
EXCESSIVE / PROBABILITY SUCCESS UNDER LIMITS /



Munro didnÆt think that was true. He thought they could pull it off,
especially if the weather was good. The altitude wouldnÆt be a problem, and
the ground although rough would be reasonably yielding.

In fact, the more Munro thought about it, the more certain he was that it
would work.













       9. Departure



THE LITTLE FOKKER S-144 PROP PLANE WAS PULLED up alongside the giant 747
cargo jet, like an infant nursing at its motherÆs breast. Two cargo ramps
were in constant motion as men transferred equipment from the larger plane
to the smaller one. Returning to the airfield, Ross explained to hot that
they would be taking the smaller plane, since the 747 had to be debugged,
and since it was ôtoo largeö for their needs now.

ôBut the jet must be faster,ö Elliot said.

ôNot necessarily,ö Ross said, but she did not explain further.

In any case, things were now happening very fast, and Elliot had other
concerns. He helped Amy aboard the Fok¡ker, and checked her thoroughly. She
seemed to be bruised all over her bodyùat least she complained that
everything hurt when he touched herùbut she had no broken bones, and she
was in good spirits.

Several black men were loading equipment into the airplane, laughing and
slapping each other on the back, having a fine time. Amy was intrigued with
the men, demanding to know What joke ? But they ignored her, concentrating
on the work at hand. And she was still groggy from her medication. Soon she
fell asleep.

Ross supervised the loading, and Elliot moved toward the rear of the plane,
where she was talking with a jolly black man, whom she introduced as
Kahega.

ôAh,ö Kahega said, shaking ElliotÆs hand. ôDr. Elliot. Dr. Ross and Dr.
Elliot, two doctors, very excellent.ö

Elliot was not sure why it was excellent.

Kahega laughed infectiously. ôVery good cover,ö he announced. ôNot like the
old days with Captain Munro. Now two doctorsùa medical mission, yes? Very
excellent. Where are the æmedical suppliesÆ?ö He cocked an eyebrow.

ôWe have no medical supplies.ö Ross sighed.

ôOh, very excellent, Doctor, I like your manner,ö Kahega said. ôYou are
American, yes? We take what, M-16s? Very good rifle, M-16. I prefer it
myself.ö

ôKahega thinks we are running guns,ö Ross said. ôHe just canÆt believe we
arenÆt.ö

Kahega was laughing. ôYou are with Captain Munro!ö he said, as if this
explained everything. And then he went off to see about the other workmen.

ôYou sure we arenÆt running guns?ö Elliot asked when they were alone.

ôWeÆre after something more valuable than guns,ö Ross said. She was
repacking the equipment, working quickly. Elliot asked if he could help,
but she shook her head. ôIÆve got to do this myself. We have to get it down
to forty pounds per person.ö

ôForty pounds? For everything?ö

ôThatÆs what the computer projection allows. MunroÆs brought in Kahega and
seven other Kikuya assistants. With the three of us, that makes eleven
people all together, plus Amyùshe gets her full forty pounds. But it means
a total of four hundred eighty pounds.ö Ross continued to weigh packs and
parcels of food.

The news gave Elliot serious misgivings. The expedition was taking yet
another turn, into still greater danger. His immediate desire to back out
was checked by his memory of the video screen, and the gray gorilla like
creature that he suspected was a new, unknown animal. That was a discovery
worth risk. He stared out the window at the porters. ôTheyÆre Kikuyu?ö

ôYes,ö she said. ôTheyÆre good porters, even if they never shut up. Kikuyu
tribesmen love to talk. TheyÆre all brothers, by the way, so be careful
what you say. I just hope Munro didnÆt have to tell them too much.ö

ôThe Kikuyu?ö

ôNo, the NCNA.ö

ôThe NCNA,ö Elliot repeated.

ôThe Chinese. The Chinese are very interested in computers and electronic
technology,ö Ross said. ôMunro must be telling them something in exchange
for the advice theyÆre giving him.ö She gestured to the window, and Elliot
looked out. Sure enough, Munro stood under the shadow of the 747 wing,
talking with four Chinese men.

ôHere,ö Ross said, ôstow these in that corner.ö She pointed to three large
Styrofoam cartons marked AMERICAN SPORT DIVERS, LAKE ELSINORE, CALIF.

ôWe doing underwater work?ö Elliot asked, puzzled.

But Ross wasnÆt paying attention. ôI just wish I knew what he was telling
them,ö she said. But as it turned out, Ross neednÆt have worried, for Munro
paid the Chinese in something more valuable to them than electronics
information.

The Fokker lifted off from the Nairobi runway at 14:24 hours, three minutes
ahead of their new timeline schedule.







During the sixteen hours following AmyÆs recovery, the ERTS expedition
traveled 560 miles across the borders of four countriesùKenya, Tanzania,
Rwanda, and Zaireùas they went from Nairobi to the Barawana Forest, at the
edge of the Congo rain forest. The logistics of this complex move would
have been impossible without the assistance of an outside ally. Munro said
that he ôhad friends in low places,ö and in this case he had turned to the
Chinese Secret Service, in Tanzania.

The Chinese had been active in Africa since the early 1960s, when their spy
networks attempted to influence the course of the Congolese civil war
because China wanted access to the CongoÆs rich supplies of uranium. Field
operatives were run out of the Bank of China or, more commonly, the New
China News Agency. Munro had dealt with a number of NCNA ôwar
correspondentsö when he was running arms from 1963 to 1968, and he had
never lost his contacts.

The Chinese financial commitment to Africa was considerable. In the late
1960s, more than half of ChinaÆs two billion dollars in foreign aid went to
African nations. An equal sum was spent secretly; in 1973, Mao Tse-tung
complained publicly about the money he had wasted trying to overthrow the
Zaire government of President Mobutu.

The Chinese mission in Africa was meant to counter the Russian influence,
but since World War lithe Chinese bore no great love for the Japanese, and
MunroÆs desire to beat the Euro-Japanese consortium fell on sympathetic
ears. To celebrate the alliance, Munro had brought three grease-stained
cardboard cartons from Hong Kong.

The two chief Chinese operatives in Africa, Li TÆao and Liu Shu-wen, were
both from Hunan province. They found their African posting tedious because
of the bland African food, and gratefully accepted MunroÆs gift of a case
of tree ears fungus, a case of hot bean sauce, and a case of chili paste
with garlic. The fact that these spices came from neutral Hong Kong, and
were not the inferior condiments produced in Taiwan, was a subtle point; in
any case, the gift struck exactly the proper note for an informal exchange.

NCNA operatives assisted Munro with paperwork, some difficult-to-obtain
equipment, and information. The Chinese possessed excellent maps, and
remarkably detailed information about conditions along the northeast Zaire
borderù since they were assisting the Tanzanian troops invading Uganda. The
Chinese had told him that the jungle rivers were flooding, and had advised
him to procure a balloon for crossings. But Munro did not bother to take
their advice; indeed, he seemed to have some plan to reach his destination
without crossing any rivers at all. Although how, the Chinese could not
imagine.







At 10 P.M. on June 16, the Fokker stopped to refuel at Rawamagena airport,
outside Kigali in Rwanda. The local traffic control officer boarded the
plane with a clipboard and forms, asking their next destination. Munro said
that it was Rawamagena airport, meaning that the aircraft would make a
loop, then return.

Elliot frowned. ôBut weÆre going to land somewhere in theùö

ôSh-h-h,ö Ross said, shaking her head. ôLeave it alone.ö

Certainly the traffic officer seemed content with this flight plan; once
the pilot signed the clipboard, he departed. Ross explained that flight
controllers in Rwanda were accustomed to aircraft that did not file full
plans. ôHe just wants to know when the plane will be back at his field. The
rest is none of his business.ö

Rawamagena airport was sleepy; they had to wait two hours for petrol to be
brought, yet the normally impatient Ross waited quietly. And Munro dozed,
equally indifferent to the delay.

ôWhat about the timeline?ö Elliot asked.

ôNo problem,ö she said. ôWe canÆt leave for three hours anyway. We need the
light over Mukenko.ö

ôThatÆs where the airfield is?ö Elliot asked.

ôIf you call it an airfield,ö Munro said, and he pulled his safari hat down
over his eyes and went back to sleep.

This worried Elliot until Ross explained to him that most outlying African
airfields were just dirt strips cut into the bush. The pilots couldnÆt land
at night, or in the foggy morning, because there were often animals on the
field, or encamped nomads, or another plane that had put down and was
unable to take off again. ôWe need the light,ö she explained. ôThatÆs why
weÆre waiting. DonÆt worry: itÆs all factored in.ö

Elliot accepted her explanation, and went back to check on Amy. Ross
sighed. ôDonÆt you think weÆd better tell him?ö she asked.

ôWhy?ö Munro said, not lifting his hat.

ôMaybe thereÆs a problem with Amy.ö

ôIÆll take care of Amy,ö Munro said.

ôItÆs going to upset Elliot when he finds out,ö Ross said.

ôOf course itÆs going to upset him,ö Munro said. ôBut thereÆs no point
upsetting him until we have to. After all, whatÆs this jump worth to us?ö

ôForty hours, at least. ItÆs dangerous, but itÆll give us a whole new
timeline. We could still beat them.ö

ôWell, thereÆs your answer,ö Munro said. ôNow keep your mouth shut, and get
some rest.ö









                               DAY 5: MORUTI



                                June 17,1979















1. Zaire





FIVE HOURS OUT OF RAWAMAGENA, THE LANDSCAPE changed. Once past Goma, near
the Zaire border, they found themselves flying over the easternmost fingers
of the Congo rain forest. Elliot stared out the window, fascinated.

Here and there in the pale morning light, a few fragile wisps of fog clung
like cotton to the canopy of trees. And occasionally they passed the dark
snaking curve of a muddy river, or the straight deep red gash of a road.
But for the most part they looked down upon an unbroken expanse of dense
forest, extending away into the distance as far as the eye could see.

The view was boring, and simultaneously frighteningùit was frightening to
be confronted by what Stanley had called ôthe indifferent immensity of the
natural world.ö As one sat in the air-conditioned comfort of an airplane
seat, it was impossible not to recognize that this vast, monotonous forest
was a giant creation of nature, utterly dwarfing in scale the greatest
cities or other creations of mankind. Each individual green puff of a tree
had a trunk forty feet in diameter, soaring two hundred feet into the air;
a space the size of a Gothic cathedral was concealed beneath its billowing
foliage. And Elliot knew that the forest extended to the west for nearly
two thousand miles, until it finally stopped at the Atlantic Ocean, on the
west coast of Zaire.

Elliot had been anticipating AmyÆs reaction to this first view of the
jungle, her natural environment. She looked out the window with a fixed
stare. She signed Here jungle with the same emotional neutrality that she
named color cards, or objects spread out on her trailer floor in San
Francisco. She was identifying the jungle, giving a name to what she saw,
but he sensed no deeper recognition.

Elliot said to her, ôAmy like jungle?ö

Jungle here, she signed. Jungle is.

He persisted, probing for the emotional context that he was sure must be
there. Amy like jungle?

Jungle here. Jungle is. Jungle place here Amy see jungle here.

He tried another approach. ôAmy live jungle here?ö

No. Expressionless.

ôWhere Amy live?ö

Amy live Amy house. Referring to her trailer in San Francisco.

Elliot watched her loosen her seat belt, cup her chin on her hand as she
stared lazily out the window. She signed, Amy want cigarette.

She had noticed Munro smoking.

ôLater, Amy,ö Elliot said.







At seven in the morning, they flew over the shimmering metal roofs of the
tin and tantalum mining complex at Mas¡isi. Munro, Kahega, and the other
porters went to the back of the plane, where they worked on the equipment,
chattering excitedly in Swahili.

Amy, seeing them go, signed, They worried.

ôWorried about what, Amy?ö

They worried men worry they worried problems. After a while, Elliot moved
to the rear of the plane to find MunroÆs men half buried under great heaps
of straw, stuffing equipment into oblong torpedo-shaped muslin containers,
then packing straw around the supplies. Elliot pointed to the muslin
torpedoes. ôWhat are these?ö

ôTheyÆre called Crosslin containers,ö Munro said. ôVery reliable.ö

ôIÆve never seen equipment packed this way,ö Elliot said, watching the men
work. ôThey seem to be protecting our supplies very carefully.ö

ôThatÆs the idea,ö Munro said. And he moved up the aircraft to the cockpit,
to confer with the pilot.

Amy signed, Nosehair man lie Peter. ôNosehair manö was her term for Munro,
but Elliot ignored her. He turned to Kahega. ôHow far to the airfield?ö

Kahega glanced up. ôAirfield?ö

ôAt Mukenko.ö

Kahega paused, thinking it over. ôTwo hours,ö he said. And then he giggled.
He said something in Swahili and all his brothers laughed, too.

ôWhatÆs funny?ö Elliot said.

ôOh, Doctor,ö Kahega said, slapping him on the back. ôYou are humorous by
your nature.ö

The airplane banked, making a slow wide circle in the air. Kahega and his
brothers peered out the windows, and Elliot joined them. He saw only
unbroken jungleùand then a column of green jeeps, moving down a muddy track
far below. It looked like a military formation. He heard the word ôMuguruö
repeated several times.

ôWhatÆs the matter?ö Elliot said. ôIs this Muguru?ö

Kahega shook his head vigorously. ôNo hell. This damn pilot, I warn Captain
Munro, this damn pilot lost.ö

ôLost?ö Elliot repeated. Even the word was chilling.

Kahega laughed. ôCaptain Munro set him right, give him dickens.ö

The airplane now flew east, away from the jungle toward a wooded highland
area, rolling hills and stands of deciduous trees. KahegaÆs brothers
chattered excitedly, and laughed and slapped one another; they seemed to be
having a fine time.

Then Ross came back, moving quickly down the aisle, her face tense. She
unpacked cardboard boxes, withdrawing several basketball-sized spheres of
tightly wrapped metal foil.

The foil reminded him of Christmas-tree tinsel. ôWhatÆs that for?ö Elliot
asked.

And then he heard the first explosion, and the Fokker shuddered in the air.







Running to the window, he saw a straight thin white vapor trail terminating
in a black smoke cloud off to their right. The Fokker was banking, tilting
toward the jungle. As he watched, a second trail streaked up toward them
from the green forest below.

It was a missile, he realized. A guided missile.

ôRoss!ö Munro shouted.

ôReady!ö Ross shouted back.

There was a bursting red explosion, and his view through the windows was
obscured by dense smoke, The airplane shook with the blast, but continued
the turn. Elliot couldnÆt believe it: someone was shooting missiles at
them.

ôRadar!ö Munro shouted. ôNot optical! Radar!ö

Ross gathered up the silver basketballs in her arms and moved back down the
aisle. Kahega was opening the rear door, the wind whipping through the
compartment.

ôWhat the hellÆs happening?ö Elliot said.

ôDonÆt worry,ö Ross said over her shoulder. ôWeÆll make up the time.ö There
was a loud whoosh, followed by a third explosion. With the airplane still
banked steeply, Ross tore the wrappings from the basketballs and threw them
out into the open sky.

Engines roaring, the Fokker swung eight miles to the south and climbed to
twelve thousand feet, then circled the forest in a holding pattern. With
each revolution, Elliot could see the foil strips hanging in the air like a
glinting metallic cloud. Two more rockets exploded within the cloud. Even
from a distance, the noise and the shock waves disturbed Amy; she was
rocking back and forth in her seat, grunting softly.

ôThatÆs chaff,ö Ross explained, sitting in front of her portable computer
console, pushing keys. ôIt confuses radar weapons systems. Those
radar-guided SAMs read us as somewhere in the cloud.ö

Elliot heard her words slowly, as if in a dream. It made no sense to him.
ôBut whoÆs shooting at us?ö

ôProbably the FZA,ö Munro said. ôForces Zairoises Ar¡moisesùthe Zaire
army.ö

ôThe Zaire army? Why?ö

ôItÆs a mistake,ö Ross said, still punching buttons, not looking up.

ôA mistake? TheyÆre shooting surface-to-air missiles at us and itÆs a
mistake? DonÆt you think youÆd better call them and tell them itÆs a
mistake?ö

ôCanÆt,ö Ross said.

ôWhy not?ö

ôBecause,ö Munro said, ôwe didnÆt want to file a flight plan in Rawamagena.
That means we are technically in violation of Zaire airspace.ö

ôJesus Christ,ö Elliot said.

Ross said nothing. She continued to work at the computer console, trying to
get the static to resolve on the screen, pressing one key after another.

ôWhen I agreed to join this expedition,ö Elliot said, beginning to shout,
ôI didnÆt expect to get into a shooting war.ö

ôNeither did I,ö Ross said. ôIt looks as if we both got more than we
bargained for.ö

Before Elliot could reply, Munro put an arm around his shoulder and took
him aside. ôItÆs going to be all right,ö he told Elliot. ôTheyÆre outdated
sixties SAMs and most of them are blowing up because the solid propellantÆs
cracked with age. WeÆre in no danger. Just look after Amy, she needs your
help now. Let me work with Ross.ö







Ross was under intense pressure. With the airplane circling eight miles
from the chaff cloud, she had to make a decision quickly. But she had just
been dealt a devastatingù and wholly unexpectedùsetback.

The Euro-Japanese consortium had been ahead of them from the very start, by
approximately eighteen hours and twenty minutes. On the ground in Nairobi,
Munro had worked out a plan with Ross which would erase that difference and
put the ERTS expedition on-site forty hours ahead of the consortium team.
This planùwhich for obvious reasons she had not told Elliotùcalled for them
to parachute onto the barren southern slopes of Mount Mukenko.

From Mukenko, Munro estimated it was thirty-six hours to the ruined city;
Ross expected to jump at two oÆclock that afternoon. Depending on cloud
cover over Mukenko and the specific drop zone, they might reach the city as
early as noon on June 19.

The plan was extremely hazardous. They would be jumping untrained personnel
into a wilderness area, more than three daysÆ walk from the nearest large
town. If anyone suffered a serious injury, the chances of survival were
slight. There was also a question about the equipment: at altitudes of
8,000ù10,000 feet on the volcanic slopes, air resistance was reduced, and
the Crosslin packets might not provide enough protection.

Initially Ross had rejected MunroÆs plan as too risky, but he convinced her
it was feasible. He pointed out that the parafoils were equipped with
automated altimeter-release devices; that the upper volcanic scree was as
yielding as a sandy beach; that the Crosslin containers could be
over-packed; and that he could carry Amy down himself.

Ross had double-checked outcome probabilities from the Houston computer,
and the results were unequivocal. The probability of a successful jump was
.7980, meaning there was one chance in five that someone would be badly
hurt. However, given a successful jump, the probability of expedition
success was .9934, making it virtually certain they would beat the
consortium to the site.

No alternate plan scored so high. She had looked at the data and said, ôI
guess we jump.ö

ôI think we do,ö Munro had said.

The jump solved many problems, for the geopolitical updates were
increasingly unfavorable. The Kigani were now in full rebellion; the
pygmies were unstable; the Zaire army had sent armored units into the
eastern border area to put down the Kiganiùand African field armies were
notoriously trigger-happy. By jumping onto Mukenko, they expected to bypass
all these hazards.

But that was before the Zaire army SAMs began exploding all around them.
They were still eighty miles south of the intended drop zone, circling over
Kigani territory, wasting time and fuel. It looked as if their daring plan,
so carefully worked out and confirmed by computer, was suddenly irrelevant.

And to add to her difficulties, she could not confer with Houston; the
computer refused to link up by satellite. She spent fifteen minutes working
with the portable unit, boosting power and switching scrambler codes, until
she finally realized that her transmission was being electronically jammed.

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







ôEasy now,ö Munro said quietly, lifting her hand away from the keyboard.
ôOne thing at a time, no point in getting upset.ö 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.

ôBut this,ö Ross said, ôis obviously a non-military aircraft, how can they
do it?ö

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

ôAnd the jamming? Those bastards havenÆt got the capability to jam us.
WeÆre being jammed between our transmitter and our satellite transponder.
To do that requires another satellite somewhere, andùö She broke off,
frowning.

ôYou didnÆt expect the consortium to Sit by idly,ö Munro said. ôThe
question is, can you fix it? Have you got countermeasures?ö

ôSure, IÆve got countermeasures,ö Ross said. ôI can encode a burst bounce,
I can transmit optically on an IR carrier, I can link a ground-base
cableùbut thereÆs nothing I can put together in the next few minutes, and
we need information now. Our plan is shot.ö

ôOne thing at a time,ö 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 MunroÆs judgment, the ERTS expedition was already finishedùthey 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, ôWe can still make up the lost time.ö

ôMake it up? How?ö

Munro said the first thing that came to mind: ôWeÆll take the Ragora north.
Very fast river, no problem.ö

ôThe RagoraÆs too dangerous.ö

ôWeÆll have to see,ö 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. ôShall I tell the others?ö he asked finally.

ôYes,ö Ross said. In the distance, they heard another rocket explosion.
ôLetÆs get out of here.ö

Munro moved swiftly to the rear of the Fokker and said to Kahega, ôPrepare
the men.ö

ôYes, boss,ö Kahega said. A bottle of whiskey was passed around, and each
of the men took a long swallow.

Elliot said, ôWhat the hell is this?ö

ôThe men are getting prepared,ö Munro said.

ôPrepared for what?ö Elliot asked.

At that moment, Ross came back, looking grim. ôFrom here on, weÆll continue
on foot,ö she said.

Elliot looked out the window. ôWhereÆs the airfield?ö

ôThere is no airfield,ö Ross said.

ôWhat do you mean?ö

ôI mean there is no airfield.ö

ôIs the plane going to put down in the fields?ö Elliot asked.

ôNo,ö Ross said. ôThe plane is not going to put down at all.ö

ôThen how do we get down?ö Elliot asked, but even as he asked the question,
his stomach sank, because he knew the answer.

ôAmy will be fine,ö Munro said cheerfully, cinching Elliot's straps tightly
around his chest. ôI gave her a shot of your Thoralen tranquilizer, and
sheÆll be quite calm. No problem at all, IÆll keep a good grip on her.ö

ôKeep a good grip on her?ö Elliot asked.

ôSheÆs too small to fit a harness,ö Munro said. ôIÆll have to carry her
down.ö Amy snored loudly, and drooled on MunroÆs shoulder. He set Amy on
the floor; she lay limply on her back, still snoring.

ôNow, then,ö Munro said. ôYour parafoil opens automatically. YouÆll find
you have lines in both hands, left and right. Pull left to go left, right
to go right, andùö

ôWhat happens to her?ö Elliot asked, pointing to Amy.

ôIÆll take her. Pay attention now. If anything goes wrong, your reserve
chute is here, on your chest.ö He tapped a cloth bundle with a small black
digital box, which read 4757. ôThatÆs 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 thingÆs automatic.ö

Elliot was chilled, drenched in sweat. ôWhat about landing?ö

ôNothing to it,ö Munro grinned. ôYouÆll land automatically too. Stay loose
and relax, take the shock in the legs. Equivalent of jumping off a ten-foot
ledge. YouÆve done it a thousand times.ö

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

ôKaren, youÆre not going to go along withùö

She jumped, disappearing into the sunlight. Munro said, ôYouÆre next.ö

ôIÆve never jumped before,ö Elliot said.

ôThatÆs the best way. You wonÆt be frightened.ö

ôBut I am frightened.ö

ôI can help you with that,ö 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 ElliotÆs benefit. ôIf a man has to do something
dangerous,ö he said later, æit helps to be angry. ItÆs for his own
protection, really. Better he should hate someone than fall apart. I wanted
Elliot to hate me all the way down.ö

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 lifeùthe eternal realities of the
Congo, which had existed for centuries before them. ôThose were the facts
of life,ö Munro said, ôbut I didnÆt 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.ö







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 coldùhe 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 didnÆt 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 heÆd 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.

He was going to throw up.

Bile dribbled from his mouth, but since he was falling head downward, the
liquid ran up his chin to his neck and then inside his shirt. It was
freezing cold. His shivering was becoming uncontrollable.

He snapped upright with a bone-twisting jolt.

For an instant he thought he had hit the ground, and then he realized that
he was still descending through the air, but more slowly. He opened his
eyes and stared at pale blue sky.

He looked down, and was shocked to see that he was still thousands of feet
from the earth. Obviously he had only been falling a few seconds from the
airplane above himù Looking up, he could not see the plane. Directly
overhead was a giant rectangular shape, with brilliant red, white, and blue
stripes: the parafoil. 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 the breeze. The parafoil looked very much like an
airplane wing, with cords running down to his body.

He took a deep breath and looked down. He was still very high over the
landscape. There was some comfort in the slowness with which he was
descending. It was really rather peaceful.

And then he noticed he wasnÆt moving down; he was moving sideways. He could
see the other parafoils below, Kahega and his men and Ross; he tried to
count them, and thought there were six, but he had difficulty
concentrating. He appeared to be moving laterally away from them.

He tugged on the lines in his left hand, and he felt his body twist as the
parafoil moved, taking him to the left.

Not bad, he thought.

He pulled harder on the left cords, ignoring the fact that this seemed to
make him 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 great
deal closer. In fact, it seemed to be rushing up to him at brutal speed. He
wondered where he had got the idea that he was drifting gently downward.
There was nothing gentle about his descent at all. He saw the first of the
parafoils crumple gently as Kahega touched ground, then the second, and the
third.

It wouldnÆt be long before he landed. He was approaching the level of the
trees, but his lateral movement was very fast. He realized that his left
hand was rigidly pulling on the cords. He released his grip, and his
lateral movement ceased. He drifted forward.

Two more parafoils crumpled on impact. He looked back to see Kahega and his
men, already down, gathering up the cloth. They were all right; that was
encouraging.

He was sliding right into a dense clump of trees. He pulled his cords and
twisted to the right, his whole body tilting. He was moving very fast now.
The trees could not be avoided. He was going to smash into them. The
branches seemed to reach up like fingers, grasping for him.

He closed his eyes, and felt the branches scratching at his face and body
as he crashed down, knowing that any second he was going to hit, that he
was going to hit the ground and rollù He never hit.

Everything became silent. He felt himself bobbing up and down. He opened
his eyes and saw that he was swinging four feet above the ground. His
parafoil had caught in the trees.

He fumbled with his harness buckles, and fell out onto the earth. As he
picked himself up, Kahega and Ross came running over to ask if he was all
right.

ôIÆm fine,ö Elliot said, and indeed he felt extraordinarily fine, more
alive than he could ever remember feeling. The next instant he fell over on
rubber legs and promptly threw up.

Kahega laughed. ôWelcome to the Congo,ö he said.

Elliot wiped his chin and said, ôWhere is Amy?ö

A moment later Munro landed, with a bleeding ear where Amy had bitten him
in terror. But Amy was not the worse for the experience, and came running
on her knuckles over to Elliot, making sure that he was all right, and then
signing, Amy fly no like.







ôLook out!ö

The first of the torpedo-shaped Crosslin packets smashed down, exploding
like a bomb when it hit the ground, spraying equipment and straw in all
directions.

ôThereÆs the second one!ö

Elliot dived for safety. The second bomb hit just a few yards away; he was
pelted with foil containers of food and rice. Overhead, he heard the drone
of the circling Fokker airplane. He got to his feet in time to see the
final two Cross¡lin containers crash down, and KahegaÆs men running for
safety, with Ross shouting, ôCareful, those have the lasers!ö

It was like being in the middle of a blitz, but as swiftly as it had begun
it was over. The Fokker above them flew off, and the sky was silent; the
men began repacking the equipment and burying the parafoils, while Munro
barked instructions in Swahili.

Twenty minutes later, they were moving single-file through the forest,
starting a two-hundred-mile trek that would lead them into the unexplored
eastern reaches of the Congo, to a fabulous reward.

If they could reach it in time.











2. Kigani





ONCE PAST THE INITIAL SHOCK OF HIS JUMP, ELLIOT enjoyed the walk through
the Barawana Forest. Monkeys chattered in the trees, and birds called in
the cool air; the Kikuyu porters were strung out behind them, smoking
cigarettes and joking with one another iii an exotic tongue. Elliot found
all his emotions agreeableùthe sense of freedom from a crass civilization;
the sense of adventure, of unexpected events that might occur at any future
moment; and finally the sense of romance, of a quest for the poignant past
while omnipresent danger kept sensation at a peak of intense feeling. It
was in this heightened mood that he listened to the forest animals around
him, viewed the play of sunlight and shadow, felt the springy ground
beneath his boots, and looked over at Karen Ross, whom he found beautiful
and graceful in an utterly unexpected way.

Karen Ross did not look back at him.

As she walked, she twisted knobs on one of her black electronic boxes,
trying to establish a signal. A second electronic box hung from a shoulder
strap, and since she did not turn to look at him, he had time to notice
that there was already a dark stain of sweat at her shoulder, and æanother
running down the back of her shirt. Her dark blonde hair was damp, clinging
unattractively to the back of her head. And he noticed that her trousers
were wrinkled, streaked with dirt from the fall. She still did not look
back.

ôEnjoy the forest,ö Munro advised him. ôThis is the last time youÆll feel
cool and dry for quite a while.ö

Elliot agreed that the forest was pleasant.

ôYes, very pleasant.ö Munro nodded, with an odd expression on his face.

The Barawana Forest was not virginal. From time to time, they passed
cleared fields and other signs of human habitation, although they never saw
farmers. When Elliot mentioned that fact, Munro just shook his head. As
they moved deeper into the forest Munro turned self-absorbed, unwilling to
talk. Yet he showed an interest in the fauna, frequently pausing to listen
intently to bird cries before signaling the expedition to continue on.

During these pauses, Elliot would look back down the line of porters with
loads balanced on their heads, and feel acutely his kinship with
Livingstone and Stanley and the other explorers who had ventured through
Africa a century before. And in this, his romantic associations were
accurate. Central African life was little changed since Stanley explored
the Congo in the 1870s, and neither was the basic nature of expeditions to
that region. Serious exploration was still carried out on foot; porters
were still necessary; expenses were still dauntingùand so were the dangers.







By midday, ElliotÆs boots had begun to hurt his feet, and he found that he
was exceedingly tired. Apparently the porters were tired too, because they
had fallen silent, no longer smoking cigarettes and shouting jokes to one
another up and down the line. The expedition proceeded in silence until
Elliot asked Munro if they were going to stop for lunch.

ôNo,ö Munro said.

ôGood,ö Karen Ross said, glancing at her watch.

Shortly after one oÆclock, they heard the thumping of helicopters. The
reaction of Munro and the porters was immediateùthey dived under a stand of
large trees and waited, looking upwards. Moments later, two large green
helicopters passed overhead; Elliot clearly read white stenciling: ôFZA.ö

Munro squinted at the departing craft. They were American-made Hueys; he
had not been able to see the armament. ôItÆs the army,ö he said. ôTheyÆre
looking for Ki¡gani.ö

An hour later, they arrived at a clearing where manioc was being grown. A
crude wooden farmhouse stood in the center, with pale smoke issuing from a
chimney and laundry on a wash line flapping in the gentle breeze. But they
saw no inhabitants.

The expedition had circled around previous farm clearings, but this time
Munro raised his hand to call for a halt. The porters dropped their loads
and sat in the grass, not speaking.

The atmosphere was tense, although Elliot could not understand why. Munro
squatted with Kahega at the edge of the clearing, watching the farmhouse
and the surrounding fields. After twenty minutes, when there was still no
sign of movement, Ross, who was crouched near Munro, became impatient. ôI
donÆt see why we areùö

Munro clapped his hand over her mouth. He pointed to the clearing, and
mouthed one word: Kigani.

RossÆs eyes went wide. Munro took his hand away.

They all stared at the farmhouse. Still there was no sign of life. Ross
made a circular movement with her arm, suggesting that they circle around
the clearing and move on. Munro shook his head, and pointed to the ground,
indicating that she should sit. Munro looked questioningly at Elliot, and
pointed to Amy, who foraged in the tall grass off to one side. He seemed to
be concerned that Amy would make noise. Elliot signed to Amy to be quiet,
but it was not necessary. Amy had sensed the general tension, and glanced
warily from time to time toward the farmhouse.

Nothing happened for several more minutes; they listened to the buzz of the
cicadas in the hot midday sun, and they waited. They watched the laundry
flutter in the breeze.

Then the thin wisp of blue smoke from the chimney stopped.

Munro and Kahega exchanged glances. Kahega slipped back to where the
porters sat, opened one load, and brought out a machine gun. He covered the
safety with his hand, muffling the click as he released it. It was
incredibly quiet in the clearing. Kahega resumed his place next to Munro
and handed him the gun. Munro checked the safety, then set the gun on the
ground. They waited several minutes more. Elliot looked at Ross but she was
not looking at him.

There was a soft creak as the farmhouse door opened. Munro picked up the
machine gun.

No one came out. They all stared at the open door, waiting. And then
finally the Kigani stepped into the sunlight.

Elliot counted twelve tall muscular men armed with bows and arrows, and
carrying long pangas in their hands. Their legs and chests were streaked
with white, and their faces were solid white, which gave their heads a
menacing, skull like appearance. As the Kigani moved off through the tall
manioc, only their white heads were visible, looking around tensely.

Even after they were gone, Munro remained watching the silent clearing for
another ten minutes. Finally he stood and sighed. When he spoke, his voice
seemed incredibly loud. ôThose were Kigani,ö Munro said.

ôWhat were they doing?ö Ross said.

ôEating,ö Munro said. ôThey killed the family in that house, and then ate
them. Most farmers have left, because the Kigani are on the rampage.ö

He signaled Kahega to get the men moving again, and they set off, skirting
around the clearing. Elliot kept looking at the farmhouse, wondering what
he would see if he went inside. MunroÆs statement had been so casual; They
killed the family. . . and then ate them.

ôI suppose,ö Ross said, looking over her shoulder, ôthat we should consider
ourselves lucky. WeÆre probably among the last people in the world to see
these things.ö

Munro shook his head. ôI doubt it,ö he said. ôOld habits die hard.ö







During the Congolese civil war in the 1960s, reports of widespread
cannibalism and other atrocities shocked the Western world. But in fact
cannibalism had always been openly practiced in central Africa.

In 1897, Sidney Hinde wrote that ônearly all the tribes in the Congo Basin
either are, or have been, cannibals; and among some of them the practice is
on the increase.ö Hinde was impressed by the undisguised nature of
Congolese cannibalism: ôThe captains of steamers have often assured me that
whenever they try to buy goats from the natives, slaves are demanded in
exchange; the natives often come aboard with tusks of ivory with the
intention of buying a slave, complaining that meat is now scarce in their
neighborhood.ö

In the Congo, cannibalism was not associated with ritual or religion or
war; it was a simple dietary preference. The Reverend Holman Bentley, who
spent twenty years in the region, quoted a native as saying, ôYou white men
consider pork to be the tastiest of meat, but pork is not to be compared
with human flesh.ö Bentley felt that the natives ôcould not understand the
objections raised to the practice. æYou eat fowls and goats, and we eat
men; why not? What is the difference?Æ

This frank altitude astonished observers, and led to bizarre customs. In
1910, Herbert Ward wrote of markets where slaves were sold ôpiecemeal
whilst still alive, incredible as it may appear, captives are led from
place to place in order that individuals may have the opportunity of
indicating, by external marks on the body, the portion they desire to
acquire. The distinguishing marks are generally made by means of coloured
clay or strips of grass tied in a peculiar fashion. The astounding stoicism
of the victims, who thus witness the bargaining for their limbs piecemeal,
is only equaled by the callousness with which they walk forward to meet
their fate.ö

Such reports cannot be dismissed as late-Victorian hysteria, for all
observers found the cannibals likable and sympathetic. Ward wrote that ôthe
cannibals are not schemers and they are not mean. In direct opposition to
all natural conjectures, they are among the best types of men.ö Bentley
described them as ômerry, manly fellows, very friendly in conversation and
quite demonstrative in their affection.ö

Under Belgian colonial administration, cannibalism became much rarerùby the
1950s, there were even a few graveyards to be foundùbut no one seriously
thought it had been eradicated. In 1956, H. C. Engert wrote, ôCannibalism
is far from being dead in Africa. . . . I myself once lived in a cannibal
village for a time, and found some The natives. . . were pleasant enough
people. It was just an old custom which dies hard.ö







Munro considered the 1979 Kigani uprising a political insurrection. The
tribesmen were rebelling against the demand by the Zaire government that
the Kigani change from hunting to farming, as if that were a simple matter.
The Kigani were a poor and backward people; their knowledge of hygiene was
rudimentary, their diet lacked proteins and vitamins, and they were prey to
malaria, hookworm, bilharzia, and African sleeping sickness. One child in
four died at birth, and few Kigani adults lived past the age of
twenty-five. The hardships of their life required explanation, supplied by
Angawa, or sorcerers. The Kigani believed that most deaths were
supernatural: either the victim was under a sorcererÆs spell, had broken
some taboo, or was killed by vengeful spirits from the dead. Hunting also
had a supernatural aspect: game was strongly influenced by the spirit
world. In fact, the Kigani considered the supernatural world far more real
than the day-to-day world, which they felt to be a ôwaking dream,ö and they
attempted to control the supernatural through magical spells and potions,
provided by the Angawa. They also carried out ritual body alterations, such
as painting the face and hands white, to render an individual more powerful
in battle. The Kigani believed that magic also resided in the bodies of
their adversaries, and so to overcome spells cast by other Angawa they ate
the bodies of their enemies. The magical power invested in the enemy thus
became their own, frustrating enemy sorcerers.

These beliefs were very old, and the Kigani had long since settled on a
pattern of response to threat, which was to eat other human beings. In
1890, they went on the rampage in the north, following the first visits by
foreigners bearing firearms, which had frightened off the game. During the
civil war in 1961, starving, they attacked and ate other tribes.

ôAnd why are they eating people now?ö Elliot asked Munro.

ôThey want their right to hunt,ö Munro said. ôDespite the Kinshasa
bureaucrats.ö







In the early afternoon, the expedition mounted a hill from which they could
overlook the valleys behind them to the south. In the distance they saw
great billowing clouds of smoke and licking flames; there were the muffled
explosions of air-to-ground rockets, and the helicopters wheeling like
mechanical vultures over a kill.

ôThose are Kigani villages,ö Munro said, looking back, shaking his head.
ôThey havenÆt a prayer, especially since the men in those helicopters and
the troops on the ground are all from the Abawe tribe, the traditional
enemy of the Kigani.ö

The twentieth-century world did not accommodate man-eating beliefs; indeed,
the government in Kinshasa, two thousand miles away, had already decided to
ôexpunge the embarrassmentö of cannibals within its borders. In June, the
Zaire government dispatched five thousand armed troops, six rocket-armed
American UH-2 helicopters, and ten armored personnel carriers to put down
the Kigani rebellion. The military leader in charge, General Ngo Muguru,
had no illusions about his directive. Muguru knew that Kinshasa wanted him
to eliminate the Kigani as a tribe. And he intended to do exactly that.







During the rest of the day, they heard distant explosions of mortar and
rockets. It was impossible not to contrast the modernity of this equipment
with the bows and arrows of the Kigani they had seen. Ross said it was sad,
but Munro replied that it was inevitable.

ôThe purpose of life,ö Munro said, ôis to stay alive. Watch any animal in
natureùall it tries to do is stay alive, it doesnÆt care about beliefs or
philosophy. Whenever any animal's behavior puts it out of touch with the
realities of its existence, it becomes extinct. The Kigani havenÆt seen
that times have changed and their beliefs donÆt work. And theyÆre going to
be extinct.ö

ôMaybe there is a higher truth than merely staying alive,ö Ross said.

ôThere isnÆt,ö Munro said.

They saw several other parties of Kigani, usually from a distance of many
miles. At the end of the day, after they had crossed the swaying wooden
bridge over the Moruti Gorge, Munro announced that they were now beyond the
Kigani territory and, at least for the time being, safe.









3. Moruti Camp







IN A HIGH CLEARING ABOVE MORUTI, THE ôPLACE of soft winds,ö Munro shouted
Swahili instructions and KahegaÆs porters began to unpack their loads.
Karen Ross looked at her watch. ôAre we stopping?ö

ôYes,ö Munro said.

ôBut itÆs only five oÆclock. ThereÆs still two hours of light left.ö

ôWe stop here,ö Munro said. Moruti was located at 1,500 feet; another two
hoursÆ walking would put them down in the rain forest below. ôItÆs much
cooler and more pleasant here.ö

Ross said that she did not care about pleasantness.

ôYou will,ö Munro said.

To make the best time, Munro intended to keep out of the rain forest
wherever possible. Progress in the jungle was slow and uncomfortable; they
would have more than enough experience with mud and leeches and fevers.

Kahega called to him in Swahili; Munro turned to Ross and said, ôKahega
wants to know how to pitch the tents.ö

Kahega was holding a crumpled silver ball of fabric in his outstretched
hand; the other porters were just as confused, rummaging through their
loads, looking for familiar tent poles or stakes, finding none.

The ERTS camp had been designed under contract by a NASA team in 1977,
based on the recognition that wilderness expedition equipment was
fundamentally unchanged since the eighteenth century. ôDesigns for modern
exploration are long overdue,ö ERTS said, and asked for state-of¡ the-an
improvements in lightness, comfort, and efficiency of expedition gear. NASA
had redesigned everything, from clothing and boots to tents and cooking
gear, food and menus, first-aid kits, and communications systems for ERTS
wilderness parties.

The redesigned tents were typical of theÆ NASA approach. NASA had
determined that tent weight consisted chiefly of the structural supports.
In addition, single-ply tents were poorly insulated. If tents could be
properly insulated, clothing and sleeping-bag weight could be reduced, as
could the daily caloric requirements of expedition members. Since air was
an excellent insulator, the obvious solution was an unsupported, pneumatic
tent: NASA designed one that weighed six ounces.

Using a little hissing foot pump, Ross inflated the first tent. It was made
from double-layer silvered Mylar, and looked like a gleaming ribbed Quonset
hut. The porters clapped their hands with delight; Munro shook his head,
amused; Kahega produced a small silver unit, the size of a shoebox. ôAnd
this, Doctor? What is this?ö

ôWe wonÆt need that tonight. ThatÆs an air conditioner,ö Ross said.

ôNever go anywhere without one,ö Munro said, still amused.

Ross glared at him. ôStudies show,ö she said, ôthat the single greatest
factor limiting work efficiency is ambient temperature, with sleep
deprivation as the second factor.ö

ôReally.ö

Munro laughed and looked to Elliot, but Elliot was studiously examining the
view of the rain forest in the evening sun. Amy came up and tugged at his
sleeve.

Woman and nosehair man fight, she signed.

Amy had liked Munro from the beginning, and the feeling was mutual. Instead
of patting her on the head and treating her like a child, as most people
did, Munro instinctively treated her like a female. Then, too, he had been
around enough gorillas to have a feeling for their behavior. Although he
didnÆt know ASL, when Amy raised her arms, he understood that she wanted to
be tickled, and would oblige her for a few moments, while she rolled
grunting with pleasure on the ground.

But Amy was always distressed by conflict, and she was frowning now.
ôTheyÆre just talking,ö Elliot assured her.

She signed, Amy want eat.

ôIn a minute.ö Turning back, he saw Ross setting up the transmitting
equipment; this would be a daily ritual during the rest of the expedition,
and one which never failed to fascinate Amy. Altogether, the equipment to
send a transmission ten thousand miles by satellite weighed six pounds, and
the electronic countermeasures, or ECM devices, weighed an additional three
pounds.

First, Ross popped open the collapsed umbrella of the silver dish antenna,
five feet in diameter. (Amy particularly liked this; as each day
progressed, she would ask Ross when she would ôopen metal flower.ö) Then
Ross attached the transmitter box, plugging in the krylon-cadmium fuel
cells. Next she linked the anti-jamming modules, and finally she hooked up
the miniaturized computer terminal with its tiny keyboard and three-inch
video screen.

This miniature equipment was highly sophisticated. RossÆs computer had a
189K memory and all circuitry was redundant; housings were hermetically
sealed and shockproof; even the keyboard was impedance-operated, so there
were no moving parts to get gummed up, or admit water or dust.

And it was incredibly rugged. Ross remembered their ôfield tests.ö In the
ERTS parking lot, technicians would throw new equipment against the wall,
kick it across the concrete, and leave it in a bucket of muddy water
overnight. Anything found working the next day was certified as
field-worthy.

Now, in the sunset at Moruti, she punched in code coordinates to lock the
transmission to Houston, checked signal strength, and waited the six
minutes until the transponders matched up. But the little screen continued
to show only gray static, with intermittent pulses of color. That meant
someone was jamming them with a ôsymphony.ö

In ERTS slang, the simplest level of electronic jamming was called ôtuba.ö
Like a kid next door practicing his tuba, this jamming was merely annoying;
it occurred within limited frequencies, and was often random or accidental,
but transmissions could generally pass through it. At the next level was
ôstring quartet,ö where multiple frequencies were jammed in an orderly
fashion; next was ôbig band,ö where the electronic music covered a wider
frequency range; and finally ôsymphony,ö where virtually the full
transmission range was blocked.

Ross was now getting hit by a ôsymphony.ö To break through demanded
coordination with Houstonùwhich she was unable to arrangeùbut ERTS had
several prearranged routines. She tried them one after another and finally
broke the jamming with a technique called interstitial coding.
(Interstitial coding utilized the fact that even dense music had periods of
silence, or interstices, lasting microseconds. It was possible to monitor
the jamming signals, identify regularities in the interstices, and then
transmit in bursts during the silences.)

Ross was gratified to see the little screen glow in a multicolored imageùa
map of their position in the Congo. She punched in the field position lock,
and a light blinked on the screen. Words appeared in ôshortline,ö the
compressed language devised for small-screen imagery. F I L D TME-POSITN
CHEK; PLS CONFRM LOCL TME 18:04 H 6/17/79. She confirmed that it was indeed
just after 6 P.M. at their location. Immediately, overlaid lines produced a
scrambled pattern as their Field TimeùPosition was measured against the
computer simulation run in Houston before their departure.

Ross was prepared for bad news. According to her mental calculations, they
had fallen some seventy-odd hours behind their projected timeline, and some
twenty-odd hours behind the consortium.

Their original plan had called for them to jump onto the slopes of Mukenko
at 2 P.M. on June 17, arriving at Zinj approximately thirty-six hours
later, around midday of June 19. This would have put them onsite nearly two
days before the consortium.

However, the SAM attack forced them to jump eighty miles south of their
intended drop zone. The jungle terrain before them was varied, and they
could expect to pick up time rafting on rivers, but it would still take a
minimum of three days to go eighty miles.

That meant that they could no longer expect to beat the consortium to the
site. Instead of arriving forty-eight hours ahead, they would be lucky if
they arrived only twenty-four hours too late.

To her surprise, the screen blinked: FILD TMEùPOSITN CHEK : ù09 : 04 H WEL
DUN. They were only nine hours off their simulation timeline.

ôWhat does that mean?ö Munro asked, looking at the screen.

There was only one possible conclusion. ôSomething has slowed the
consortium,ö Ross said.

On the screen they read EURO/NIP0N C0NSRTIM LEGL TRUBL GOMA AIRPRT ZAIR
THEIR AIRCRFT FOUND RA¡DIOACTIVE TUF LUK FOR THEM.

ôTravis has been working back in Houston,ö Ross said. She could imagine
what it must have cost ERTS to put in the fix at the rural airport in Goma.
ôBut it means we can still do it, if we can make up the nine hours.ö

ôWe can do it,ö Munro said.







In the light of the setting equatorial sun, Moruti camp gleamed like a
cluster of dazzling jewelsùa silver dish antenna, and five silver-domed
tents, all reflecting the fiery sun. Peter Elliot sat on the hilltop with
Amy and stared at the rain forest spread out below them. As night fell, the
first hazy strands of mist appeared; and as the darkness deepened and water
vapor condensed in the cooling air, the forest became shrouded in dense,
darkening fog.













                                DAY 6: LIKO

                               June 18, 1979









1. Rain Forest







THE NEXT MORNING THEY ENTERED THE HUMID perpetual gloom of the Congo rain
forest.

Munro noted the return of old feelings of oppression and claustrophobia,
tinged with a strange, overpowering lassitude. As a Congo mercenary in the
1960s, he had avoided the jungle wherever possible. Most military
engagements had occurred in open spacesùin the Belgian colonial towns,
along riverbanks, beside the red dirt roads. Nobody wanted to fight in the
jungle; the mercenaries hated it, and the superstitious Sambas feared it.
When the mercenaries advanced, the rebels often fled into the bush, but
they never went very far, and MunroÆs troops never pursued them. They just
waited for them to come out again.

Even in. the 1960s the jungle remained terra incognita, -an unknown land
with the power to hold the technology of mechanized warfare beyond its
periphery. And with good reason, Munro thought. Men just did not belong
there. He was not pleased to be back.

Elliot, never having been in a rain forest, was fascinated. The jungle was
different -from the way he had imagined it to be. He was totally unprepared
for the scaleùthe gigantic trees soaring over his head, the trunks as broad
as a house, the thick snaking moss-covered roots. To move in the vast space
beneath these trees was like being in a very dark cathedral: the sun was
completely blocked, and he could not get an exposure reading on his camera.

He had also expected the jungle to be much denser than it was. Their party
moved through it freely; in a surprising way it seemed barren and
silentùthere were occasional birdcalls and cries from monkeys, but
otherwise a profound stillness settled over them. And it was oddly
monotonous: although he saw every shade of green in the foliage and the
clinging creeper vines, there were few flowers or blooms. Even the
occasional orchids seemed pale and muted.

He had expected rotting decay at every turn, but that was not true either.
The ground underfoot was often firm, and the air had a neutral smell. But
it was incredibly hot, and it seemed as though everything was wetùthe
leaves, the ground, the trunks of the trees, the oppressively still air
itself, trapped under the overhanging trees.

Elliot would have agreed with StanleyÆs description from a century before:
ôOverhead the wide-spreading branches absolutely shut out the daylight. .
We marched in a feeble twilight. . . The dew dropped and pattered on us
incessantly. . . Our clothes were heavily saturated with it.

Perspiration exuded from every pore, for the atmosphere was stifling. . . .
What a forbidding aspect had the Dark Unknown which confronted us!ö

Because Elliot had looked forward to his first experience of the equatorial
African rain forest, he was surprised at how quickly he felt oppressedùand
how soon he entertained thoughts of leaving again. Yet the tropical rain
forests had spawned most new life forms, including man. The jungle was not
one uniform environment but many different microenvironments, arranged
vertically like a layer cake. Each microenvironment supported a bewildering
profusion of plant and animal life, but there were typically few members of
each species. The tropical jungle supported four times as many species of
animal life as a comparable temperate forest. As he walked through the
forest, Elliot found himself thinking of it as an enormous hot, dark womb,
a place where new species were nourished in unchanging conditions until
they were ready to migrate out to the harsher and more variable temperate
zones. That was the way it had been for millions of years.







AmyÆs behavior immediately changed as she entered the vast humid darkness
of her original home. In retrospect, Elliot believed he could have
predicted her reaction, had he Thought it through clearly.

Amy no longer kept up with the group.

She insisted on foraging along the trail, pausing to sit and chew tender
shoots and grasses. She could not be budged or hurried, and ignored
ElliotÆs requests that she stay with them. She ate lazily, a pleasant,
rather vacant expression on her face. In shafts of sunlight, she would lie
on her back, and belch, and sigh contentedly.

ôWhat the hell is this all about?ö Ross asked, annoyed. They were not
making good time.

ôSheÆs become a gorilla again,ö Elliot said. ôGorillas are vegetarians, and
they spend nearly all day eating; theyÆre large animals, and they need a
lot of food.ö Amy had immediately reverted to these traits.

ôWell, canÆt you make her keep up with us?ö

ôIÆm trying. She wonÆt pay attention to me.ö And he knew whyùAmy was
finally back in a world where Peter Elliot was irrelevant, where she
herself could find food and security and shelter, and everything else that
she wanted.

ôSchoolÆs out,ö Munro said, summarizing the situation. But he had a
solution. ôLeave her,ö he said crisply, and he led the party onward. He
took Elliot firmly by the elbow. ôDonÆt look back,ö he said. ôJust walk on.
Ignore her.ö

They continued for several minutes in silence. Elliot said, ôShe may not
follow us.ö ôCome, come, Professor,ö Munro said. ôI thought you knew about
gorillas.ö

ôI do,ö Elliot said.

ôThen you know there are none in this part of the rain forest.ö

Elliot nodded; he had seen no nests or spoor. ôBut she has everything she
needs here.ö

ôNot everything,ö Munro said. ôNot without other gorillas around.ö

Like all higher primates, gorillas were social animals. They lived in a
group, and they were not comfortableùor safeùin isolation. In fact, most
primatologists assumed that there was a need for social contact as strongly
perceived as hunger, thirst, or fatigue.

ôWeÆre her troop,ö Munro said. ôShe wonÆt let us get far.ö

Several minutes later, Amy came crashing through the underbrush fifty yards
ahead. She watched the group, and glared at Peter.

ôNow come here, Amy,ö Munro said, ôand IÆll tickle you.ö Amy bounded up and
lay on her back in front of him. Munro tickled her.

ôYou see, Professor? Nothing to it.ö

Amy never strayed far from the group again.







If Elliot had an uncomfortable sense of the rain forest as the natural
domain of his own animal, Karen Ross viewed it in terms of earth
resourcesùin which it was poor. She was not fooled by the luxuriant,
oversized vegetation, which she knew represented an extraordinarily
efficient ecosystem built in virtually barren soil.*

The developing nations of the world did not understand this fact; once
cleared, the jungle soil yielded disappointing crops. Yet the rain forests
were being cleared at the incredible rate of fifty acres a minute, day and
night. The rain forests of the world had circled the equator in a green
belt for at least sixty million yearsùbut man would have cleared them
within twenty years.

This widespread destruction had caused some alarm Ross did not share. She
doubted that the world climate would change or the atmospheric oxygen be
reduced. Ross was not an alarmist, and not impressed by the calculations of
those who were. The only reason she felt uneasy was that the forest was so
little understood. A clearing rate of fifty acres a minute meant that plant
and animal species were becoming extinct at the incredible rate of one
species per hour. Life forms that had evolved for millions of years were
being wiped out



* The rain forest ecosystem is an energy utilization complex far more
efficient than any energy conversion system developed by man. See C. F.
Higgins et at., Energy Resources and Ecosystem Utilization (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J. Prentice Hall, 1977). pp. 232ù255.





every few minutes, and no one could predict the consequences of this
stupendous rate of destruction. The extinction of species was proceeding
much faster than anybody recognized, and the publicized lists of
ôendangeredö species told only a fraction of the story; the disaster
extended all the way down the animal phyla to insects, worms, and mosses.

The reality was that entire ecosystems were being destroyed by man without
a care or a backward glance. And these ecosystems were for the most part
mysterious, poorly understood. Karen Ross felt herself plunged into a world
entirely different from the exploitable world of mineral resources; this
was an environment in which plant life reigned supreme. It was no wonder,
she thought, that the Egyptians called this the Land of Trees. The rain
forest provided a hothouse environment for plant life, an environment in
which gigantic plants were much superior toùand much favored overùmammals,
including the insignificant human mammals who were now picking their way
through its perpetual darkness.







The Kikuyu porters had an immediate reaction to the forest: they began to
laugh and joke and make as much noise as possible. Ross said to Kahega,
ôThey certainly are jolly.ö

ôOh, no,ö Kahega said. ôThey are warning.ö

ôWarning?ö

Kahega explained that the men made noise to warn off the buffalo and
leopards. And the tembo, he added, pointing to the trail.

ôIs this a tembo trail?ö she asked.

Kahega nodded.

ôThe tembo live nearby?ö

Kahega laughed. ôI hope no,ö Kahega said. ôTembo. Elephant.ö

ôSo this is a game trail. Will we see elephants?ö

ôMaybe yes, maybe no,ö Kahega said. ôI hope no. They are very big,
elephants.ö

There was no arguing with his logic. Ross said, ôThey tell me these are
your brothers,ö nodding down the line of porters.

ôYes, they are my brothers.ö

"Ah."

ôBut you mean that my brothers, we have the same mother?ö

ôYes, you have the same mother.ö

ôNo,ö Kahega said.

Ross was confused. æYou are not real brothers?ö

ôYes, we are real brothers. But we do not have the same mother.ö

ôThen why are you brothers?ö

ôBecause we live in the same village.ö

ôWith your father and mother?ö

Kahega looked shocked. ôNo,ö he said emphatically. ôNot the same village.ö

ôA different village, then?ö

ôYes, of courseùwe are Kikuyu.ö

Ross was perplexed. Kahega laughed.







Kahega offered to carry the electronic equipment that Ross had slung over
her shoulder, but she declined. Ross was obliged to try and link up with
Houston at intervals throughout the day, and at noon she found a clear
window, probably because the consortium jamming operator took a break for
lunch. She managed to link through and register another Field
TimeùPosition.

The console read:      FILD TMEùPOSITN CHEKù10:03 H

They had lost nearly an hour since the previous check the night before.
ôWeÆve got to go fester,ö she told Munro.

ôPerhaps youÆd prefer to jog,ö Munro said. ôVery good exercise.ö And then,
because he decided he was being too hard on her, he added, ôA lot can
happen between here and Virunga.ö

They heard the distant growl of thunder and minutes later were drenched in
a torrential rain, the drops so dense and heavy that they actually hurt.
The rain fell solidly for the next hour, then stopped as abruptly as it had
begun. They were all soaked and miserable, and when Munro called a halt for
food, Ross did not protest.

Amy promptly went off into the forest to forage; the porters cooked curried
meat gravy on rice; Munro, Ross, and

Elliot burned leeches off their legs with cigarettes. The leeches were
swollen with blood. ôI didnÆt even notice them,ö Ross said.

ôRain makes æem worse,ö Munro said. Then he looked up sharply, glancing at
the jungle.

ôSomething wrong?ö

ôNo, nothing,ö Munro said, and he went into an explanation of why leeches
had to be burned off; if they were pulled off, a part of the head remained
lodged in the flesh and caused an infection.

Kahega brought them food, and Munro said in a low voice, ôAre the men all
right?ö

ôYes,ö Kahega said. ôThe men are all right. They will not be afraid.ö

ôAfraid of what?ö Elliot said.

ôKeep eating. Just be natural,ö Munro said.

Elliot looked nervously around the little clearing.

ôEat!ö Munro whispered. ôDonÆt insult them. YouÆre not supposed to know
theyÆre here.ö

The group ate in silence for several minutes. And then the nearby brush
rustled and a pygmy stepped out.













2. The Dancers of God







HE WAS A LIGHT-SKINNED MAN ABOUT FOUR AND A half feet tall, barrel-chested,
wearing only a loincloth, with a bow and arrow over his shoulder. He looked
around the expedition, apparently trying to determine who was the leader.

Munro stood, and said something quickly in a language that was not Swahili.
The pygmy replied. Munro gave him one of the cigarettes they had been using
to burn off the leeches. The pygmy did not want it lit; instead he dropped
it into a small leather pouch attached to his quiver. A brief conversation
followed. The pygmy pointed off into the jungle several times.

ôHe says a white man is dead in their village,ö Munro said. He picked up
his pack, which contained the first-aid kit. ôIÆll have to hurry.ö

Ross said, ôWe canÆt afford the time.ö

Munro frowned at her.

ôWell, the manÆs dead anyway.ö

ôHeÆs not completely dead,ö Munro said. ôHeÆs not dead-for-ever.ö

The pygmy nodded vigorously. Munro explained that pygmies graded illness in
several stages. First a person was hot, then he was with fever, then ill,
then dead, then completely deadùand finally dead-for-ever.

From the bush, three more pygmies appeared. Munro nodded. ôKnew he wasnÆt
alone,ö he said. ôThese chaps never are alone. Hate to travel alone. The
others were watching us; if weÆd made a wrong move, weÆd get an arrow for
our trouble. See those brown tips? Poison.ö

Yet the pygmies appeared relaxed nowùat least until Amy came crashing back
through the underbrush. Then there were shouts and swiftly drawn bows; Amy
was terrified and ran to Peter, jumping up on him and clutching his
chestùand making him thoroughly muddy.

The pygmies engaged in a lively discussion among themselves, trying to
decide what AmyÆs arrival meant. Several questions were asked of Munro.
Finally, Elliot set Amy back down on the ground and said to Munro, ôWhat
did you tell them?ö

ôThey wanted to know if the gorilla was yours, and I said yes. They wanted
to know if the gorilla was female, and I said yes. They wanted to know if
you had relations with the gorilla; I said no. They said that was good,
that you should

not become too attached to the gorilla, because that would cause you pain.ö

ôWhy pain?ö

ôThey said when the gorilla grows up, she will either run away into the
forest and break your heart or kill you.ö







Ross still opposed making a detour to the pygmy village, which was several
miles away on the banks of the Liko River. ôWeÆre behind on our timeline,ö
she said, ôand slipping further behind every minute.ö

For the first and last time during the expedition, Munro lost his temper.
ôListen, Doctor,ö he said, ôthis isnÆt downtown Houston, this is the middle
of the goddamn Congo and itÆs no place to be injured. We have medicines.
That man may need it. You donÆt leave him behind. You just donÆt.ö

ôIf we go to that village,ö Ross said, ôwe blow the rest of the day. It
puts us nine or ten hours further back. Right now we can still make it.
With another delay, we wonÆt have a chance.ö

One of the pygmies began talking quickly to Munro. He nodded, glancing
several times at Ross. Then he turned to the others.

ôHe says that the sick white man has some writing on his shirt pocket. HeÆs
going to draw the writing for us.ö

Ross glanced at her watch and sighed.

The pygmy picked up a stick and drew large characters in the muddy earth at
their feet. He drew carefully, frowning in concentration as he reproduced
the alien symbols: E R T S.

ôOh, God,ö Ross said softly.







The pygmies did not walk through the forest: they ran at a brisk trot,
slipping through the forest vines and branches, dodging rain puddles and
gnarled tree roots with deceptive ease. Occasionally they glanced over
their shoulders and giggled at the difficulties of the three white people
who followed.

For Elliot, it was a difficult paceùa succession of roots to stumble over,
tree limbs to strike his head on, thorny vines to tear at his flesh. He was
gasping for breath, trying to keep up with the little men who padded
effortlessly ahead of him. Ross was doing no better than he, and even
Munro, although surprisingly agile, showed signs of fatigue.

Finally they came to a small stream and a sunlit clearing.

The pygmies paused on the rocks, squatting and turning their

faces up to the sun. The white people collapsed, panting and gasping. The
pygmies seemed to find this hilarious, their laughter good-natured.

The pygmies were the earliest human inhabitants of the Congo rain forest.
Their small size, distinctive manner, and deft agility had made them famous
centuries before. More than four thousand years ago, an Egyptian commander
named Herkouf entered the great forest west of the Mountains of the Moon;
there he found a race of tiny men who sang and danced to their god.
Herkoufs amazing report had the ring of fact, and Herodotus and later
Aristotle insisted that these stories of the tiny men were true, and not
fabulous. The Dancers of God inevitably acquired mythical trappings as the
centuries passed.

As late as the seventeenth century, Europeans remained unsure whether tiny
men with tails who had the power to fly through the trees, make themselves
invisible, and kill elephants actually existed. That skeletons of
chimpanzees were sometimes mistaken for pygmy skeletons added to the
confusion. Colin Turnbull notes that many elements of the fable are
actually true: the pounded-bark loincloths hang down and look like tails;
the pygmies can blend into the forest and become virtually invisible; and
they have always hunted and killed elephants.

The pygmies were laughing now as they got to their feet and padded off
again. Sighing, the white people struggled up and lumbered after them. They
ran for another half hour, never pausing or hesitating, and then Elliot
smelled smoke and they came into a clearing beside a stream where the
village was located.

He saw ten low rounded huts no more than four feet high, arranged in a
semicircle. The villagers were all outside in the afternoon light, the
women cleaning mushrooms and berries picked during the day, or cooking
grubs and turtles on crackling fires; children tottered around, bothering
the men who sat before their houses and smoked tobacco while the women
worked.

At MunroÆs signal, they waited at the edge of the camp until they were
noticed, and then they were led in. Their arrival provoked great interest;
the children giggled and pointed; the men wanted tobacco from Munro and
Elliot; the women touched RossÆs blonde hair, and argued about it. A little
girl crawled between RossÆs legs, peering up her trousers. Munro explained
that the women were uncertain whether Ross painted her hair, and the girl
had taken it upon herself to settle the question of artifice.

ôTell them itÆs natural,ö Ross said, blushing.

Munro spoke briefly to the women. ôI told them it was the color of your
fatherÆs hair,ö he told Ross. ôBut IÆm not sure they believe it.ö He gave
Elliot cigarettes to pass out, one to each man; they were received with
broad smiles and odd girlish giggles.

Preliminaries concluded, they were taken to a newly constructed house at
the far end of the village where the dead white man was said to be. They
found a filthy, bearded man of thirty, sitting cross-legged in the small
doorway, staring outward. After a moment Elliot realized the man was
catatonicùhe was not moving at all.

ôOh, my God,ö Ross said. ôItÆs Bob Driscoll.ö

ôYou know him?ö Munro said.

ôHe was a geologist on the first Congo expedition.ö She leaned close to
him, waved her hand in front of his face. ôBobby, itÆs me, Karen. Bobby,
what happened to you?ö

Driscoll did not respond, did not even blink. He continued to stare
forward.

One of the pygmies offered an explanation to Munro. ôHe came into their
camp four days ago,ö Munro said. ôHe was wild and they had to restrain him.
They thought he had black¡water fever, so they made a house for him and
gave him some medicines, and he was not wild anymore. Now he lets them feed
him, but he never speaks. They think perhaps he was captured by General
MuguruÆs men and tortured, or else he is aguduùa mute.ö

Ross moved back in horror.

ôI donÆt see what we can do for him,ö Munro said. ôNot in his condition.
Physically heÆs okay but...ö He shook his head.

ôIÆll give Houston the location,ö Ross said, ôand theyÆll send help from
Kinshasa.ö

During all this, Driscoll never moved. Elliot leaned forward to look at his
eyes, and as he approached, Driscoll wrinkled his nose. His body tensed. He
broke into a high-pitched wailùöAh-ah-ah-ahöùlike a man about to scream.

Appalled, Elliot backed off, and Driscoll relaxed, falling silent again.
ôWhat the hell was that all about?ö

One of the pygmies whispered to Munro. ôHe says,ö Munro said, ôthat you
smell like gorilla.ö













            3. Ragora







Two HOURS LATER, THEY WERE REUNITED WITH Kahega and the others, led by a
pygmy guide across the rain forest south of Gabutu. They were all sullen,
uncommunicativeùand suffering from dysentery.

The pygmies had insisted they stay for an early dinner, and Munro felt they
had no choice but to accept. The meal was mostly a slender wild potato
called kitsombe, which looked like a shriveled asparagus; forest onions,
called otsa; and modoke, wild manioc leaves, along with several kinds of
mushrooms. There were also small quantities of sour, tough turtle meat and
occasional grasshoppers, caterpillars, worms, frogs, and snails.

This diet actually contained twice as much protein by weight as beefsteak,
but it did not sit well on unaccustomed stomachs. Nor was the news around
the campfire likely to improve their spirits.

According to the pygmies, General MuguruÆs men had established a supply
camp up at the Makran escarpment, which was where Munro was headed. It
seemed wise to avoid the troops. Munro explained there was no Swahili word
for chivalry or sportsmanship, and the same was true of the Con¡golese
variant, Lingala. ôIn this part of the world, itÆs kill or be killed. WeÆd
best stay away.ö

Their only alternate mute took them west, to the Ragora River. Munro
frowned at his map, and Ross frowned at her computer console.

ôWhatÆs wrong with the Ragora River?ö Elliot asked.

ôMaybe nothing,ö Munro said. ôDepends on how hard itÆs mined lately.ö

Ross glanced at her watch. ôWeÆre now twelve hours behind,ö she said. ôThe
only thing we can do is continue straight through the night on the river.ö

ôIÆd do that anyway,ö Munro said.

Ross had never heard of an expedition guide leading a party through a
wilderness area at night. ôYou would? Why?ö

ôBecause,ö Munro said, ôthe obstacles on the lower river will be much
easier at night.ö

ôWhat obstacles?ö

ôWeÆll discuss them when we come to them,ö Munro said.







A mile before they reached the Ragora, they heard the distant mar of
powerful water. Amy was immediately anxious, signing What water? again and
again. Elliot tried to reassure her, but he was not inclined to do much;
Amy was going to have to put up with the river, despite her fears.

But when they got to the Ragora they found that the sound came from
tumbling cataracts somewhere upstream; directly before them, the river was
fifty feet wide and a placid muddy brown.

ôDoesnÆt look too bad,ö Elliot said.

ôNo,ö Munro said, ôit doesnÆt.ö

But Munro understood about the Congo. The fourth largest river in the world
(after the Nile, the Amazon, and the Yangize) was unique in many ways. It
twisted like a giant snake across the face of Africa, twice crossing the
equatorù the first time going north, toward Kisangani, and later going
south, at Mbandaka. This fact was so remarkable that even a hundred years
ago geographers did not believe it was true.

Because the Congo flowed both north and south of the equator, there was
always a rainy season somewhere along its path; the river was not subject
to the seasonal fluctuations that characterized rivers such as the Nile.
The Congo poured a steady 1,500,000 cubic feet of water every second into
the Atlantic Ocean, a flow greater than any river except the Amazon.

But this tortuous course also made the Congo the least navigable of the
great rivers. Serious disruptions began with the rapids of Stanley Pool,
three hundred miles from the Atlantic. Two thousand miles inland, at
Kisangani, where the river was still -a mile wide, the Wagenia Cataract
blocked all navigation. And as one moved farther upriver along the fan of
tributaries, the impediments became even more pronounced, for above
Kisangani the tributaries were descending rapidly into the low jungle from
their sourcesùthe highland savannahs to the south, and the 16,000-foot
snowcapped Ruwenzori Mountains to the east.

The tributaries cut a series of gorges, the most striking of which was the
Portes dÆEnferùthe Gates of Hellùat Kon¡golo. Here the placid Lualαba River
funneled through a gorge half a mile deep and a hundred yards wide.

The Ragora was a minor tributary of the Lualaba, which it joined near
Kisangani. The tribes along the river referred to it as baratawani, ôthe
deceitful road,ö for the Ragora was notoriously changeable. Its principal
feature was the Ragora Gorge, a limestone cut two hundred feet deep and in
places only ten feet wide. Depending on recent rainfall, the Ragora Gorge
was either a pleasant scenic spectacle or a boiling whitewater nightmare.

At Abutu, they were still fifteen miles upriver from the gorge, and
conditions on the river told them nothing about conditions within the
gorge. Munro knew all that, but he did not feel it necessary to explain it
to Elliot, particularly since at the moment Elliot was fully occupied with
Amy.







Amy had watched with growing uneasiness as KahegaÆs men inflated the two
Zodiac rafts. She tugged ElliotÆs sleeve and demanded to know What
balloons?

ôTheyÆre boats, Amy,ö he said, although he sensed she had already figured
that out, and was being euphemistic. ôBoatö was a word she had learned with
difficulty; since she disliked water, she had no interest in anything
intended to ride upon it.

Why boat? she asked.

ôWe ride boat now,ö Elliot said.

Indeed, KahegaÆs men were pushing the boats to the edge of the water, and
loading the equipment on, lashing it to the rubber stanchions at the
gunwales. -

Who ride? she asked.

ôWe all ride,ö Elliot said.

Amy watched a moment longer. Unfortunately, everyone was nervous, Munro
barking orders, the men working hastily. As she had often shown, Amy was
sensitive to the moods of those around her. Elliot always remembered how
she had insisted that something was wrong with Sarah Johnson for days
before Sarah finally told the Project Amy staff that she had split up with
her husband. Now Elliot was certain that Amy sensed their apprehension.
Cross water in boat? she asked.

ôNo, Amy,ö he said. ôNot cross. Ride boat.ö

No, Amy signed, stiffening her back, tightening her shoulders.

ôAmy,ö he said, ôwe canÆt leave you here.ö

She had a solution for that. Other people go. Peter stay Amy.

ôIÆm sorry, Amy,ö he said. ôI have to go. You have to go.ö

No, she signed. Amy no go.

ôYes, Amy.ö He went to his pack and got his syringe and a bottle of
Thoralen.

With her body stiff and angry, she tapped the underside of her chin with a
clenched fist.

ôWatch your language, Amy,ö he warned her.

Ross came over with orange life vests for him and Amy.

ôSomething wrong?ö

ôSheÆs swearing,ö Elliot said. ôBetter leave us alone.ö Ross took one look
at AmyÆs tense, rigid body, and left hurriedly.

Amy signed PeterÆs name, then tapped the underside of her chin again. This
was the Ameslan sign politely translated in scholarly reports as ôdirty,ö
although it was most often employed by apes when they needed to go to the
potty. Primate investigators were under no illusions about what the animals
really meant. Amy was saying, Peter shiny.

Nearly all language-skilled primates swore, and they employed a variety of
words for swearing. Sometimes the pejorative seemed to be chosen at random,
ônutö or ôbirdö

or ôwash.ö But at least eight primates in different laboratories had
independently settled on the clenched-fist sign to signify extreme
displeasure. The only reason this remarkable coincidence hadnÆt been
written up was that no investigator was willing to try and explain it. It
seemed to prove that apes, like people, found bodily excretions suitable
terms to express denigration and anger.

Peter shitty. she signed again.

ôAmy.. .ô He doubled the Thoralen dose he was drawing into the syringe.

Peter shiny boat shiny people shiny.

ôAmy, cut it out.ö He stiffened his own body and hunched over, imitating a
gorillaÆs angry posture; that often made her back off, but this time it had
no effect.

Peter no like Amy. Now she was sulking, turned away from him, signing to
nobody.

ôDonÆt be ridiculous,ö Elliot said, approaching her with the syringe held
ready. ôPeter like Amy.ö

She backed away and would not let him come close to her. In the end he was
forced to load the CO2 gun and shoot a dart into her chest. He had only
done this three or four times in all their years together. She plucked out
the dart with a sad expression. Peter no like Amy.

ôSorry,ö Peter Elliot said, and ran forward to catch her as her eyes rolled
back and she collapsed into his arms.







Amy lay on her back in the second boat at ElliotÆs feet, breathing
shallowly. Ahead, Elliot saw Munro standing in the first boat, leading the
way as the Zodiacs slid silently downstream.

Munro had divided the expedition into two rafts of six each; Munro went in
the first, and Elliot, Ross, and Amy went in the second, under KahegaÆs
command. As Munro put it, the second boat would ôlearn from our
misfortunes.ö

But for the first two hours on the Ragora, there were no misfortunes. It
was an extraordinarily peaceful experience to sit in the front of the boat
and watch the jungle on both sides of the river glide past them in
timeless, hypnotic silence. It was idyllic, and very hot; Ross began to
trail her hand over the side in the muddy water, until Kahega put a stop to
it.

ôWhere there is water, there is always mambo,ö he said. Kahega pointed to
the muddy æbanks, where crocodiles basked in the sunshine, indifferent to
their approach. Occasionally one of the huge reptiles yawned, lifting
jagged jaws into the air, but for the most part they seemed sluggish,
hardly noticing the boats.

Elliot was secretly disappointed. He had grown up on the jungle movies
where the crocodiles slithered menacingly into the water at the first
approach of boats. ôArenÆt they going to bother us?ö he asked.

ôToo hot,ö Kahega said. ôMambo sleepy except at cool times, eat morning and
night, not now. In daytime, Kikuyu say mambo have joined army,
one-two-three-four.ö And he laughed.

It took some explaining before it was clear that KahegaÆs tribesmen had
noticed that during the day the crocodiles did pushups, periodically
lifting their heavy bodies off the ground on their stubby legs in a
movement that reminded Kahega of army calisthenics.

ôWhat is Munro so worried about?ö Elliot asked. ôThe crocodiles?ö

ôNo,ö Kahega said.

ôThe Ragora Gorge?ö

ôNo,ö Kahega said.

ôThen what?ö

ôAfter the gorge,ö Kahega said.

Now the Ragora twisted, and they came around a bend, and they heard the
growing roar of the water. Elliot felt the boat gathering speed, the water
rippling along the rubber gunwales. Kahega shouted, ôHold fast, Doctors!ö

And they were into the gorge.







Afterward, Elliot had only fragmented, kaleidoscopic impressions: the
churning muddy water that boiled white in the sunlight; the erratic
wrenching of his own boat, and the way MunroÆs boat up ahead seemed to reel
and upend, yet miraculously remain upright.

They were moving so fast it was hard to focus on the passing blur of craggy
red canyon walls, bare rock except for sparse green clinging scrub; the hot
humid air and the shockingly cold muddy water that smashed over them,
drenching them time and again; the pure white surge of water boiling around
the black protruding rocks, like the bald heads of drowned men.

Everything was happening too fast.

Ahead, MunroÆs boat was often lost from sight for minutes at a time,
concealed by giant standing waves of leaping, roaring muddy water. The roar
echoed off the rock walls, reverberating, becoming a constant feature of
their world; in the depths of the gorge, where the afternoon sun did not
reach the narrow strip of dark water, the boats moved through a rushing,
churning inferno, careening off rocky walls, spinning end around end, while
the boatmen shouted and cursed and fended off the rock walls with paddles.

Amy lay on her back, lashed to the side of the boat, and Elliot was in
constant fear that she would drown from the muddy waves that crashed over
the gunwales. Not that Ross was doing much better; she kept repeating ôOh
my God oh my God oh my Godö over and over, in a low monotone, as the water
smashed down on them in successive waves, soaking them to the skin.

Other indignities were forced upon them by nature. Even in the boiling,
pounding heart of the gorge, black clouds of mosquitoes hung in the air,
stinging them again and again. Somehow it did not seem possible that there
could be mosquitoes in the midst of the roaring chaos of the Ragora Gorge,
but they were there. The boats moved with gut-wrenching fury through the
standing waves, and in the growing darkness the passengers baled out the
boats and slapped at the mosquitoes with equal intensity.

And then suddenly the river broadened, the muddy water slowed, and the
walls of the canyon moved apart. The river became peaceful again. Elliot
slumped back in the boat, exhausted, feeling the fading sun on his face and
the water moving beneath the inflated rubber of the boat.

ôWe made it,ö he said.

ôSo far,ö Kahega said. ôBut we Kikuyu say no one escapes from life alive.
No relaxing now, Doctors!ö

ôSomehow,ö Ross said wearily, ôI believe him.ö







They drifted gently downstream for another hour, and the rock walls receded
farther away on each side, until finally they were in fiat African rain
forest once more. It was as if the Ragora Gorge had never existed; the
river was wide and sluggish gold in the descending sun.

Elliot stripped off his soaking shirt and changed it for a pullover, for
the evening air was chilly. Amy snored at his feet, covered with a towel so
she would not get too cold. Ross checked her transmitting equipment, making
sure it was all right. When she was finished, the sun had set and it was
rapidly growing dart. Kahega broke out a shotgun and inserted yellow stubby
shells.

ôWhatÆs that for?ö Elliot said.

ôKiboko, ôKahega said. ôI do not know the word in English.ö He shouted,
ôMzee! Nini maana kiboko?"

In the lead boat, Munro glanced back. ôHippopotamus,ö he said.

ôHippo,ö Kahega said.

ôAre they dangerous?ö Elliot asked.

ôAt night, we hope no,ö Kahega said. ôBut me, I think yes."







The twentieth century had been a period of intensive wildlife study, which
overturned many tong-standing conceptions about animals. It was now
recognized that the gentle, soft-eyed deer actually lived in a ruthless,
nasty society, while the supposedly vicious wolf was devoted to family and
offspring in exemplary fashion. And the African lionùthe proud king of
beastsùwas relegated to the status of slinking scavenger, while the loathed
hyena assumed new dignity. (For decades, observers had come upon a dawn
kill to find lions feeding on the carcass, while the scavenging hyenas
circled at the periphery, awaiting their chance. Only after scientists
began night tracking the animals did a new interpretation emerge: hyenas
actually made the kill, only to be driven off by opportunistic and lazy
lions; hence the traditional dawn scene. This coincided with the discovery
that lions were in many ways erratic and mean, while the hyenas had a
finely developed social structureùyet another instance of longstanding
human prejudice toward the natural world of animals.)

But the hippopotamus remained a poorly understood animal. HerodotusÆs
æriver horseö was the largest African mammal after the elephant, but its
habit of lying in the water  with just eyes and nostrils protruding made it
difficult to study. Hippos were organized around a male. A mature male had
a harem of several females and their offspring, a group of eight to
fourteen animals altogether.

Despite their obese, rather humorous appearance, hippos were capable of
unusual violence. The bull hippopotamus was a formidable creature, fourteen
feet long and weighing nearly ten thousand pounds. Charging, he moved with
extraordinary speed for such a large animal, and his four stubby blunted
tusks were actually razor sharp on the sides. A hippo attacked by slashing,
moving his cavernous mouth from side to side, rather than biting. And,
unlike most animals, a fight between bulls often resulted in the death of
one animal from deep slashing wounds. There was nothing symbolic about a
hippopotamus fight.

The animal was dangerous to man, as well. In river areas where herds were
found, half of native deaths were attributed to hippos; elephants and
predatory cats accounted for the remainder. The hippopotamus was
vegetarian, and at night the animals came onto the land, where they ate
enormous quantities of grass to sustain their great bulk. A hippo separated
from the water was especially dangerous; anyone finding himself between a
landed hippo and the river he was rushing to return to did not generally
survive the experience.

But the hippo was essential to AfricaÆs river ecology. His fecal matter,
produced in prodigious quantities, fertilized the river grasses, which in
turn allowed river fish and other creatures to live. Without the
hippopotamus African rivers would be sterile, and where they had been
driven away, the rivers died.

This much was known, and one thing more. The hippopotamus was fiercely
territorial. Without exception, the male defended his river against any
intruder. And as had been recorded on many occasions, intruders included
other hippos, crocodiles, and passing boats. And the people in them.







                               DAY 7: MUKENKO



                               June 19, 1979









       1. Kiboko





MUNROÆS INTENTION IN CONTINUING THROUGH the night was two-fold. First, he
hoped to make up precious time, for. all the computer projections assumed
that they would stop each night. But it took no effort to ride the river in
the moonlight; most of the party could sleep, and they would advance
themselves another fifty or sixty miles by dawn.

But more important, he hoped to avoid the Ragora hippos, which could easily
destroy their flimsy rubber boats. During the day, the hippos were found in
pools beside the riverbanks, and the bulls would certainly attack any
passing boat. At night, when the animals went ashore to forage, the
expedition could slip down the river and avoid a confrontation entirely.

It was a clever plan, but it ran into trouble for an unexpected
reasonùtheir progress on the Ragora was too rapid. It was only nine oÆclock
at night when they reached the first hippo areas, too early for the animals
to be eating. The hippos would attack the boatsùbut they would attack in
the dark.







The river twisted and turned in a series of curves. At each curve there was
a still pool, which Kahega pointed out as the kind of quiet water that
hippos liked to inhabit. And he pointed to the grass on the banks, cut
short as if the banks had been mown.

ôSoon now,ö Kahega said.

They heard a low grunting, ôRaw-huh-huh-huh.ö It sounded like an old man
trying to clear his throat of phlegm. Munro tensed in the lead boat. They
drifted around another curve, carried smoothly in the flow of current. The
two boats were now about ten yards apart. Munro held his loaded shotgun
ready.

The sound came again, this time in a chorus: ôHaw-huh¡-huh-huh.ö

Kahega plunged his paddle into the water. It struck bottom quickly. He
pulled it out; only three feet of it was wet. ôNot deep,ö he said, shaking
his head.

ôIs that bad?ö Ross said.

ôYes, I think it is bad.ö

They came around the next bend, and Elliot saw a half-dozen partially
submerged black rocks near the shore, gleaming in the moonlight. Then one
of the ôrocksö crashed upward and he saw an enormous creature lift entirely
out of the shallow water so that he could see the four stubby legs, and the
hippo churned forward toward MunroÆs boat.

Munro fired a low magnesium flare as the animal charged; in the harsh white
light Elliot saw a gigantic mouth, four huge glistening blunted teeth, the
head lifted upward as the animal roared. And then the hippo was engulfed in
a cloud of pale yellow gas. The gas drifted back, and stung their eyes.

ôHeÆs using tear gas,ö Ross said.

MunroÆs boat had already moved on. With a roar of pain the male hippo had
plunged 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 sharp
shadows, glaring off the water.

ôPerhaps heÆs given up,ö Elliot said. They could not see the hippo
anywhere. They drifted in silence.

And suddenly the front of the boat bucked up, and the hippo roared and Ross
screamed. Kahega toppled backward, discharging his gun into the air. The
boat slapped down with a wrenching crash and a spray of water over the
sides, and Elliot scrambled to his feet to check Amy and found himself
staring into a huge pink cavernous mouth and hot breath. The mouth came
down with a lateral slash on the side of the rubber boat, and the air began
to hiss and sizzle in the water.

The mouth opened again, and the hippo grunted, but by then Kahega had got
to his feet and flied a stinging cloud of gas. The hippo backed off and
splashed down, rocking the boat and propelling them onward, down the river.
The whole right side of the boat was collapsing swiftly as the air leaked
out of the huge cuts in the rubber. Elliot tried to pull them shut with his
hands; the hissing continued unabated. They would sink within a minute.

Behind them, the bull hippo charged, racing down the shallow river like a
powerboat, churning water in a wake from both sides of his body, bellowing
in anger.

ôHold on, bold on!ö Kahega shouted, and fired again. The hippo disappeared
behind a cloud of gas, and the boat drifted around another curve. When the
gas cleared the animal was gone. The magnesium flare sputtered into the
water and they were plunged into darkness again. Elliot grabbed Amy as the
boat sank, and they found themselves standing knee-deep in the muddy water.

They managed to beach the Zodiac on the dark riverbank. In the lead boat,
Munro paddled over, surveyed the damage, and announced that they would
inflate another boat and go on. He called for a rest, and they all lay in
the moonlight on the riverÆs edge swatting mosquitoes away.







Their reverie was interrupted by the screaming whine of ground-to-air
rockets, blossoming explosions in the sky overhead. With each explosion,
the riverbank glowed bright red, casting long shadows, then fading black
once more.

ôMuguruÆs men firing from the ground,ö Munro said, reaching for his field
glasses.

ôWhatÆre they shooting at?ö Elliot said, staring up into the sky.

ôBeats me,ö Munro said.

Amy touched MunroÆs arm, and signed, Bird come. But they heard no sound of
an aircraft, only the bursting of rockets in the sky.

Munro said, ôYou think she hears something?ö

ôHer hearing is very acute.ö

And then they heard the drone of a distant aircraft, approaching from the
south. As it came into view, they saw it twist, maneuvering among the
brilliant yellow-red explosions that burst in the moonlight and glinted off
the metal body of the aircraft.

ôThose poor bastards are trying to make time,ö Munro said, scanning the
plane through field glasses. ôThatÆs a C-130 transport with Japanese
markings on the tail. Supply plane for the consortium base campùif it makes
it through.ö

As they watched, the transport twisted left and right, running a zigzag
course through the bursting fireballs of exploding missiles.

ôBreaking a snakeÆs back,ö Munro said. ôThe crew must be terrified; they
didnÆt buy into this.ö

Elliot felt a sudden sympathy for the crew; he imagined them staring out
the windows as the fireballs exploded with brilliant light, illuminating
the interior of the plane. Were they chattering in Japanese? Wishing they
had never come?

A moment later, the aircraft droned onward to the north, out of sight, a
final missile with a red-hot tail chasing after it, but it was gone over
the jungle trees, and he listened to the distant explosion of the missile.

ôProbably got through,ö Munro said, standing. ôWeÆd

better move on.ö And he shouted in Swahili for Kahega to put the men on the
river once more.













2. Mukenko







ELLIOT SHIVERED, ZIPPED HIS PARKA TIGHTER, AND waited for the hailstorm to
stop. They were huddled beneath a stand of evergreen trees above 8,000 feet
on the alpine slopes of Mount Mukenko. It was ten oÆclock in the morning,
and the air temperature was 38 degrees. Five hours before, they had left
the river behind and begun their pre-dawn climb in 100-degree steaming
jungle.

Alongside him, Amy watched the golf ball-sized white pellets bounce on the
grass and slap the branches of the tree over their heads. She had never
seen hail before.

She signed, What name?

ôHail,ö he told her.

Peter make stop.

ôI wish I could, Amy.ö

She watched the hail for a moment, then signed, Amy want go home.

She had begun talking about going home the night before. Although the
Thoralen had worn off, she remained depressed and withdrawn. Elliot had
offered her some food to cheer her up. She signed that she wanted milk.
When he told her they -had none (which she knew. perfectly well), she
signed that she wanted a banana. Kahega had produced a bunch of small,
slightly sour jungle bananas. Amy had eaten them without objection on
previous days. but she now threw them into the water contemptuously,
signing she wanted ôreal bananas.ö

When Elliot told her that they had no real bananas, she signed, Amy want go
home.

ôWe canÆt go home now, Amy.ö

Amy good gorilla Peter take Amy home.

She had only known him as the person in charge, the final arbiter of her
daily life in the experimental setting of Project Amy. He could think of no
way to make clear to her that he was no longer in charge, and æthat he was
not punishing her by keeping her here.

In fact, they were all discouraged. Each of the expedition members had
looked forward to escaping the oppressive heat of the rain forest, but now
that they were climbing Mukenko, their enthusiasm had quickly faded.
ôChrist,ö Ross said. ôFrom hippos to hail.ö

As if on cue, the hail stopped. ôAll right,ö Munro said, ôletÆs get
moving.ö









Mukenko had never been climbed until 1933. In 1908, a German party under
von Ranke ran into storms and had to descend; a Belgian team in 1913
reached 10,000 feet but could not find a route to the summit; and another
German team was forced to quit in 1919 when two team members fell and died,
about 12,000 feet. Nevertheless Mukenko was classified as a fairly easy
(non-technical) climb by most mountaineers, who generally devoted a day to
the ascent; after 1943, a new route up the southeast was found which was
frustratingly slow but not dangerous, and it was this mute that most
climbers followed.

Above 9,000 feet, the pine forest disappeared and they crossed weak grassy
fields cloaked in chilly mist; the air was thinner, and they called
frequently for a rest. Munro had no patience with the complaints of his
charges. ôWhat did you expect?ö he demanded. ôItÆs a mountain. Mountains
are high.ö He was especially merciless with Ross, who seemed the most
easily fatigued. ôWhat about your timetable?ö he would ask her. ôWeÆre not
even to the difficult part. ItÆs not even interesting until eleven thousand
feet. You quit now and weÆll never make it to the summit before nightfall,
and that means we lose a full day.ö

ôI donÆt care,ö Ross said finally, dropping to the ground, gasping for
breath.

ôJust like a woman,ö Munro said scornfully, and smiled when Ross glared at
him. Munro humiliated them, chided them, encouraged themùand somehow kept
them moving.

Above 10,000 feet, the grass disappeared and there was only mossy ground
cover; they came upon the solitary peculiar fat-leafed lobelia trees,
emerging suddenly from the cold gray mist. There was no real cover between
10,000 feet and the summit, which was why Munro pushed them; he did not
want to get caught in a storm on the barren upper slopes.

The sun broke out at 11,000 feet, and they stopped to position the second
of the directional lasers for the ERTS laser-fix system. Ross had already
set the first laser several miles to the south that morning, and it had
taken thirty minutes.

The second laser was more critical, since it had to be matched to the
first. Despite the electronic jamming, the transmitting equipment had to be
connected with Houston, in order that the little laserùit was the size of a
pencil eraser, mounted on a tiny steel tripodùcould be accurately aimed.
The two lasers on the volcano were positioned so that their beams crossed
many miles away, above the jungle. And if RossÆs calculations were correct,
that intersection point was directly over the city of Zinj.









Elliot wondered if they were inadvertently assisting the consortium, but
Ross said no. ôOnly at night,ö she said, ôwhen they arenÆt moving. During
the day, they wonÆt be able to lock on our beaconsùthatÆs the beauty of the
system.ö

Soon they smelled sulfurous volcanic fumes drifting down from the summit,
now 1,500 feet above them. Up here there was no. vegetation at all, only
bare hard rock and scattered patches of snow tinged yellow from the sulfur.
The sky was clear dark blue, and they had spectacular views of the south
Virunga rangeùthe great cone of Nyiragongo, rising steeply from the deep
green of the Congo forests, and, beyond that, Mukenko, shrouded in fog.

The last thousand feet were the most difficult, particularly for Amy, who
had to pick her way barefoot among the sharp lava rocks. Above 12,000 feet,
the ground was loose volcanic scree. They reached the summit at five in the
afternoon, and gazed over the eight-mile-wide lava lake and smoking crater
of the volcano. Elliot was disappointed in the landscape of black rock and
gray steam clouds. ôWait until night,ö Munro said.

That night the lava glowed in a network of hot red through the broken dark
crust; hissing red steam slowly lost its color as it rose into the sky. On
the crater rim, their little tents reflected the red glow of the lava. lb
the west scattered clouds were silver in the moonlight, and beneath them
the Congo Jungle stretched away for miles. They could see the straight
green laser beams, intersecting over the black forest. With any luck they
would reach that intersection tomorrow.

Ross connected her transmitting equipment to make the nightly report to
Houston. After the regular six-minute delay, the signal linked directly
through to Houston, without interstitial encoding or other evasive
techniques.

ôHell,ö Munro said.

ôBut what does it mean?ö Elliot asked.

ôIt means,ö Munro said gloomily. ôthe consortium has stopped jamming us.ö

ôIsnÆt that good?ö

ôNo,ö Ross said. ôItÆs bad. They must already be on the site, and theyÆve
found the diamonds.ö She shook her head, and adjusted the video screen:



HUSTN CONFRMS CONSRTUM ONSITE ZINJ PROBABILITY 1.000. TAK NO FURTHR RSKS.
SITUTN HOPELSS.



ôI canÆt believe it,ö Ross said. ôItÆs all over.ö

Elliot sighed. ôMy feet hurt,ö he said.

ôIÆm tired,ö Munro said.

ôThe hell with it,ö Ross said.

Utterly exhausted, they all went to bed.







                             DAY 8: KANYAMAGUFA



                               June 20, 1979











  1. Descent







EVERYONE SLEPT LATE ON THE MORNING OF JUNE 20. They had a leisurely
breakfast, taking the time to cook a hot meal. They relaxed in the sun, and
played with Amy, who was delighted by this unexpected attention. It was
past ten oÆclock before they started down Mukenko to the jungle.

Because the western slopes of Mukenko are sheer and impassible, they
descended inside the smoking volcanic crater to a depth of half a mile.
Munro led the way, carrying a porterÆs load on his head; Asari, the
strongest porter, had to carry Amy, because the rocks were much too hot for
her bare feet.

Amy was terrified, and regarded the human persons trekking single-file down
the steep inner cone to be mad. Elliot was not sure she was wrong: the heat
was intense; as they approached the lava lake, the acrid fumes made eyes
water and nostrils burn; they heard the lava pop and crackle beneath the
heavy black crust.

Then they reached the formation called Naragemaùthe DevilÆs Eye. It was a
natural arch 150 feet high, and so smooth it appeared polished on the
inside. Through this arch a fresh breeze blew, and they saw the green
jungle below. They paused to rest in the arch, and Ross examined the smooth
inner surface. It was part of a lava tube formed in some earlier eruption;
the main body of the tube had been blown away, leaving just the slender
arch.

ôThey call it the DevilÆs Eye,ö Munro said, ôbecause from below, during an
eruption, it glows like a red eye.ö

From the DevilÆs Eye they descended rapidly through an alpine zone, and
from there across the unworldly jagged terrain of a recent lava flow. Here
they encountered black craters of scorched earth, some as deep as five or
six feet. Mun¡roÆs first thought was that the Zaire army had used this
field for mortar practice. But on closer examination, they saw a scorched
pattern etched into the rock, extending like tentacles outward from the
craters. Munro had never seen anything like it; Ross immediately set up her
antenna, hooked in the computer, and got in touch with Houston. She seemed
very excited.

The party rested while she reviewed the data on the little screen; Munro
said, ôWhat are you asking them?ö

ôThe date of the last Mukenko eruption, and the local weather. It was in
MarchùDo you know somebody named Seamans?ö

ôYes,ö Elliot said. "Tom Seamans is the computer programmer for Project
Amy. Why?ö

ôThereÆs a message for you,ö she said, pointing to the screen.

Elliot came around to look: SEMNS MESG FOR ELYT STNDBY.

ôWhatÆs the message?ö Elliot asked.

ôPush the transmit button,ö she said.

He pushed the button and the message flashed: REVUWD ORGNL TAPE HUSTNNUN

ôI donÆt understand,ö Elliot said. Ross explained that the ôMö meant that
there was more message, and he had to press the transmit button again. He
pushed the button several times before he got the message, which in its
entirety read:

REVUWO ORGNL TAPE HUSTN NU FINDNG RE AURL SIGNL INFOùCOMPUTR ANLYSS COMPLTE
THNK ITS LNGWGE.

Elliot found he could read the compressed shortline language by speaking it
aloud: ôReviewed original tape Houston, new finding regarding aural signal
information, computer analysis complete think itÆs language.ö He frowned.
ôLanguage?ö

Ross said, ôDidnÆt you ask him to review HoustonÆs original tape material
from the Congo?ö

ôYes, but that was for visual identification of the animal on the screen. I
never said anything to him about aural information.ö Elliot shook his head.
ôI wish I could talk to him.ö

ôYou can,ö Ross said. ôIf you donÆt mind waking him up.ö She pushed the
interlock button, and fifteen minutes later Elliot typed, Hello Tom How Are
You? The screen printed HLO TOM HOURU.

ôWe donÆt usually waste satellite time with that kind of thing,ö Ross said.

The screen printed SLEPY WHRERU.

He typed, Virunga. VIRNGA.

ôTravis is going to scream when he sees this transcript,ö Ross said. ôDo
you realize what the transmission costs are?ö

But Ross neednÆt have worried; the conversation soon became technical:

RECVD MESG AURL INFO PLS XPLN.

AXIDENTL DISKVRY VRY XCITNG-DISCRIMNT FUNXN COMPT ANLSS 99 CONFDNCE LIMTS
TAPD AURL INFO {BRETHNG SOUNS} DEMNSTRTS CHRCTRISTX SPECH.

SPSFY CHRCTRISTX.

REPETNG ELMNTS-ARBTRARY PATRN-STRXRAL RLATNSHPS-PROBLY THRFOR SPOKN LNGWGE.

KN U TRNSLTE?

NOT SOFR.

WHT RESN?

COMPUTR HAS INSFSNT INFO IN AURL MESG-WNT NOR DATA-ST WORKNG-MAYB NOR
TOMORO-FINGRS X.

RLY THNK GORILA LNGWGE?

YES IF GORILA.

ôIÆll be damned,ö Elliot said. He ended the satellite transmission, but the
final message from Seamans remained on the screen, glowing bright green:

YES IF GORILA.









2. The Hairy Men







WITHIN TWO HOURS OF RECEIVING THIS unexpected news, the expedition had its
first contact with gorillas.

They were by now back in the darkness of the equatorial rain forest. They
proceeded directly toward the site, following the overhead laser beams.
They could not see these beams directly, but Ross had brought a weird
optical track guide, a cadmium photocell filtered to record the specific
laser wavelength emission. Periodically during the day, she inflated a
small helium balloon, attached the track guide with a wire, and released
it. Lifted by the helium, the guide rose into the sky above the trees.
There it rotated, sighted one of the laser lines, and transmitted
coordinates down the wire to the computer. They followed the track of
diminishing laser intensity from a single beam, and waited for the ôblip
reading,ö the doubled intensity value that would signal the intersection of
two beams above them.

This was a slow job and their patience was wearing thin when, toward
midday, they came upon the characteristic three-lobed feces of gorilla, and
they saw several nests made of eucalyptus leaves on the ground and in the
trees.

Fifteen minutes later, the air was shattered by a deafening roar.
ôGorilla,ö Munro announced. ôThat was a male telling somebody off.ö

Amy signed, Gorillas say go away.

ôWe have to continue, Amy,ö he said.

Gorilla no want human people come.

ôHuman people wonÆt harm gorillas,ö Elliot assured her. But Amy just looked
blank at this, and shook her head, as if Elliot had missed the point.

Days later he realized that he had indeed missed the point.

Amy was not telling him that the gorillas were afraid of being harmed by
people. She was saying that the gorillas were afraid that the people would
be harmed, by gorillas.









They had progressed halfway across a small jungle clearing when the large
silverback male reared above the foliage and bellowed at them.

Elliot was leading the group, because Munro had gone back to help one of
the porters with his pack. He saw six animals at the edge of the clearing,
dark black shapes against the green, watching the human intruders. Several
of the females cocked their heads and compressed their lips in a kind of
disapproval. The dominant male roared again.

He was a large male with silver hair down his back. His massive head stood
mote than six feet above the ground, and his barrel chest indicated that he
weighed more than four hundred pounds. Seeing him, Elliot understood why
the first explorers to the Congo had believed gorillas to be ôhairy men,ö
for this magnificent creature looked like, a gigantic man, both in size and
shape.

At ElliotÆs back Ross whispered, ôWhat do we do?ö

ôStay behind me,ö Elliot said, ôand donÆt move.ö

The silverback male dropped to all fours briefly, and began a soft ho-ho-ho
sound, which grew more intense as he leapt to his feet again, grabbing
handfuls of grass as he did so. He threw the grass in the air, and then
beat his chest with flat palms, making a hollow thumping sound.

ôOh, no,ö Ross said.

The chest-beating lasted five seconds, and then the male dropped to all
fours again. He ran sideways across the grass, slapping the foliage and
making as much noise as possible, to frighten the intruders off. Finally he
began the ho-ho-ho sound once more.

The male stared at Elliot, expecting that this display would send him
running. When it did not, the male leapt to his feet, Pounded his chest,
and roared with even greater fury.

And then he charged.

With a howling scream he came crashing forward at frightening speed,
directly toward Elliot. Elliot heard Ross gasp behind him. He wanted to
turn and run, his every bodily instinct screamed that he should run, but he
forced himself to stand absolutely stillùand to look down at the ground.

Staring at his feet while he listened to the gorilla crashing through the
tall grass toward him, he had the sudden sensation that all his abstract
book knowledge was wrong, that everything that scientists around the world
thought about gorillas was wrong. He had a mental image of the huge head
and the deep chest and the long arms swinging wide as the powerful animal
rushed toward an easy kill, a stationary target foolish enough to believe
all the academic misinformation sanctified by print.

The gorilla (who must have been quite close) made a snorting noise, and
Elliot could see his heavy shadow on. the grass near his feet. But he did
not look up until the shadow moved away.

When Elliot raised his head, he saw the male gorilla retreating backward,
toward the far edge of the clearing. There the male turned, and scratched
his head in a puzzled way, as if wondering why his terrifying: display had
not driven off the intruders. He slapped the ground a final time, and then
he and the rest of the troop melted away into the tall grass. It was silent
in the clearing until Ross collapsed into ElliotÆs arms.

ôWell,ö Munro said as he came up, ôit seems you know a thing or two about
gorillas after all.ö Munro patted RossÆs arm. ôItÆs all right. They donÆt
do anything unless you run away. Then they bite you on the ass. ThatÆs the
mark for cowardice in these regionsùbecause it means you ran away.ö

Ross was sobbing quietly, and Elliot discovered that his own knees were
shaky; he went to sit down. It had all happened so fast that it was a few
moments before he realized that these gorillas had behaved in exactly the
textbook manner, which included not making any verbalizations even remotely
like speech.









3. The Consortium









AN HOUR LATER THEY FOUND THE WRECKAGE OF the C-130 transport. The largest
airplane in the world appeared in correct scale as it lay half buried in
the jungle, the gigantic nose crushed against equally gigantic trees, the
enormous tail section twisted toward the ground, the massive wings buckled
casting shadows on the jungle floor.

Through the shattered cockpit windshield, they saw the body of the pilot,
covered with black flies. The flies buzzed and thumped against the glass as
they peered in. Moving aft, they tried to look into the fuselage windows,
but even on crumpled landing gear the body of the plane stood too high
above the jungle floor.

Kahega managed to climb an overturned tree, and from there moved onto one
wing and looked into the interior. ôNo people,ö he said.

ôSupplies?ö

ôYes, many supplies. Boxes and containers.ö Munro left the others, walking
beneath the crushed tail section to examine the far side of the plane. The
port wing, concealed from their view, was blackened and shattered, the
engines gone. That explained why the plane crashedùthe last FZA missile had
found its target, blowing away most of the port wing. Yet the wreck
remained oddly mysterious to Munro; something about its appearance was
wrong. He looked along the length of the fuselage, from the crushed nose,
down the line of windows, past the stump of wing, past the rear exit
doors....

ôIÆll be damned,ö Munro said softly.

He hurried back to the others, who were sitting on one of the tires, in the
shadow of the starboard wing The tire was so enormous that Ross could sit
on it and swing her feet in the air without touching the ground.

ôWell,ö Ross said, with barely concealed satisfaction.

ôThey didnÆt get their damn supplies.ö

ôNo,ö Munro said. ôAnd we saw this plane the night before last, which means
itÆs been down at least thirty-six hours.ö

Munro waited for Ross to figure it out.

ôThirty-six hours?ö

ôThatÆs right. Thirty-six hours.ö

ôAnd they never came back to get their supplies

ôThey didnÆt even try to get them,ö Munro said. ôLook at the main cargo
doors, fore and aftùno one has tried to open them. I wonder why they never
came back?ö









In a section of dense jungle, the ground underfoot

crunched and crackled. Pushing aside the palm fronds, they saw a carpeting
of shattered white bones.

ôKanyamagufa," Munro said. The place of bones. He glanced quickly at the
porters to see what their reaction was, but they showed only puzzlement, no
fear. They were East African Kikuyu and they had none of the superstitions
of the tribes that bordered the rain forest.

Amy lifted her feet from the sharp bleached fragments. She signed, Ground
hurt.

Elliot signed, What place this?

We come bad place.

What bad place?

Amy had no reply.

ôThese are bones!ö Ross said, staring down at the ground.

ôThatÆs right,ö Munro said quickly, ôbut theyÆre not human bones. Are they,
Elliot?ö

Elliot was also looking at the ground. He saw bleached skeletal remains
from several species, although he could not immediately identify any of
them.

ôElliot? Not human?ö

ôThey donÆt look human,ö Elliot agreed, staring at the ground. The first
thing he noticed was that the majority of the bones came from distinctly
small animalsùbirds, monkeys, and tiny forest rodents. Other small pieces
were actually fragments from larger animals, but how large was hard to say.
Perhaps large monkeysùbut there werenÆt any large monkeys in the rain
forest.

Chimpanzees? There were no chimps in this part of the Congo. Perhaps they
might be gorillas: he saw one fragment from a cranium with heavy frontal
sinuses, and he saw the beginning of the characteristic sagittal crest.

ôElliot?ö Munro said, his voice tense, insistent. ôNonhuman?ö

ôDefinitely non-human,ö Elliot said, staring. What could shatter a gorilla
skull? It must have happened after death, he decided. A gorilla had died
and after many years the bleached skeleton had been crushed in some
fashion. Certainly it could not have happened during life.

ôNot human,ö Munro said, looking at the ground. ôHell of a lot of bones,
but nothing human.ö As he walked past Elliot, he gave him a look. Keep your
mouth shut. ôKahega and his men know that you are expert in these matters,ö

Munro said, looking at him steadily.

What had Munro seen? Certainly he had been around enough death to know a
human skeleton when he saw one. ElliotÆs glance fell on a curved bone. It
looked a bit like a turkey wishbone, only much larger and broader, and
white with age. He picked it up. It was a fragment of the zygomatic arch
from a human skull. A cheekbone, from beneath the eye.

He turned the fragment in his hands. He looked back at the jungle floor,
and the creepers that spread reaching tentacles over the white carpet of
bones. He saw many very fragile bones,, some so thin they were
translucentùbones that he assumed had come from small animals.

Now he was not sure.

A question from graduate school returned to him. What seven bones compose
the orbit of the human eye? Elliot tried to remember. The zygoma, the
nasal, the inferior orbital, the sphenoidùthat was fourùthe ethmoid,
fiveùsomething must come from beneath, from the mouthùthe palatine, sixùone
more to goùhe couldnÆt think of the last bone. Zygoma, nasal, inferior
orbital, sphenoid, ethmoid, palatine. . . delicate bones, translucent
bones, small bones.

Human bones.

ôAt least these arenÆt human bones,ö Ross said.

ôNo,ö Elliot agreed. He glanced at Amy.

Amy signed, People die here.

ôWhat did she say?ö

ôShe said people donÆt benefit from the air here.ö

ôLetÆs push on,ö Munro said.









Munro led him a little distance ahead of the others. ôWell done,ö he said.
ôHave to be careful about the Kikuyu. DonÆt want to panic them. WhatÆd your
monkey say?ö

ôShe said people died there.ö

ôThatÆs more than the others know,ö Munro said, nodding grimly. ôAlthough
they suspect.ö

Behind them, the party walked single-file, nobody talking.

ôWhat the hell happened back there?ö Elliot said.

ôLots of bones,ö Munro said. ôLeopard, colobus, forest rat, maybe a bush
baby, human. .

ôAnd gorilla,ö Elliot said.

ôYes,ö Munro said. ôI saw that, too. Gorilla.ö He shook his head. ôWhat can
kill a gorilla, Professor?ö

Elliot had no answer.









The consortium camp lay in ruins, the tents shredded and shattered, the
dead bodies covered with dense black clouds of flies. In the humid air, the
stench was overpowering, the buzzing of the flies an angry monotonous
sound. Everybody except Munro hung back at the edge of the camp.

ôNo choice,ö he said. ôWeÆve got to know what happened to theseùö He went
inside the camp itself, stepping over the flattened fence.

As Munro moved inside, the perimeter defenses were set off, emitting a
screaming high-frequency signal. Outside the fence, the others cupped their
hands over their ears and Amy snorted her displeasure.

Bad noise.

Munro glanced back at them. ôDoesnÆt bother me,ö he said. ôThatÆs what you
get for staying outside.ö Munro went to one dead body, turning it over with
his foot. Then he bent down, swatting away the cloud of buzzing flies, and
carefully examined the head.

Ross glanced over at Elliot. He seemed to be in shock, the typical
scientist, immobilized by disaster. At his side, Amy covered her ears and
winced. But Ross was not immobilized; she took a deep breath and crossed
the perimeter. ôI have to know what defenses they installed.ö

ôPine,ö Elliot said. He felt detached, light-headed, as if he might faint;
the sight and the smells made him dizzy. He saw Ross pick her way across
the compound, then lift up a black box with an odd baffled cone. She traced
a wire back toward the center of the camp. Soon afterward the
high-frequency signal ceased; she had turned it off at the source.

Amy signed, Better now.

With one hand, Ross rummaged through the electronics equipment in the
center of the units in the camp, while with the other she held her nose
against the stench.

Kahega said, ôIÆll see if they have guns, Doctor,ö and he, too, moved into
the camp. Hesitantly, the other porters followed him.

Alone, Elliot remained with Amy. She impassively surveyed the destruction,
although she reached up and took his hand. He signed, Amy what happened
this place?

Amy signed, Things come.

What things?

Bad things.

What things?

Bad things come things come bad.

What things?

Bad things.

Obviously he would get nowhere with this line of questioning. He told her
to remain outside the camp, and went in himself, moving among the bodies
and the buzzing flies.

Ross said, ôAnybody find the leader?ö

Across the camp, Munro said, ôMenard.ö

ôOut of Kinshasa?ö

Munro nodded. ôYeah.ö

ôWhoÆs Menard?ö Elliot asked.

ôHeÆs got a good reputation, knows the Congo.ö Ross picked her way through
the debris. ôBut he wasnÆt good enough.ö A moment later she paused.

Elliot went over to her. She stared at a body lying face down on the
ground.

ôDonÆt turn it over,ö she said. ôItÆs Richter.ö Elliot did not understand
how she could be sure. The body was covered with black flies. He bent over.

ôDonÆt touch him!ö

ôOkay,ö Elliot said.

ôKahega,ö Munro shouted, raising a green plastic twenty-liter can. The can
sloshed with liquid in his hand. ôLetÆs get this done.ö

Kahega and his men moved swiftly, splashing kerosene over the tents and
dead bodies. Elliot smelled the sharp odor.

Ross, crouched under a torn nylon supply tent, shouted, ôGive me a minute!ö

ôTake all the time you want,ö Munro said. He turned to Elliot, who was
watching Amy outside the camp.

Amy was signing to herself: People bad. No believe people bad things come.

ôShe seems very calm about it,ö Munro said.

ôNot really,ö Elliot said. ôI think she knows what took place here.ö

ôI æhope sheÆll tell us,ö Munro said. ôBecause all these men died in the
same way. Their skulls were crushed.ö









The flames from the consortium camp licked upward into the air, and the
black smoke bellowed as the expedition moved onward through the jungle.
Ross was silent, lost in thought. Elliot said, ôWhat did you find?ö

ôNothing good,ö she said. ôThey had a perfectly adequate peripheral system,
quite similar to our ADPùanimal defense perimeter. Those cones I found are
audio-sensing units, and when they pick up a signal, they emit an
ultrahigh-frequency signal that is very painful to auditory systems.
DoesnÆt work for reptiles, but itÆs damn effective on mammalian systems.
Send-a wolf or a leopard running for the hills.ö

ôBut it didnÆt work here,ö Elliot said.

ôNo,ö Ross said. ôAnd it didnÆt bother Amy very much.ö Elliot said, ôWhat
does it do to human auditory systems?ö

ôYou felt it. ItÆs annoying, but thatÆs all.ö She glanced at Elliot. ôBut
there arenÆt any human beings in this part of the Congo. Except us.ö

Munro asked, ôCan we make a better perimeter defense?ö

ôDamn right we can,ö Ross said. ôIÆll give you the next generation
perimeterùitÆll stop anything except elephants and rhinos.ö But she didnÆt
sound convinced.

Late in the afternoon, they came upon the remains of the first ERTS Congo
camp. They nearly missed it, for during the intervening eight days the
jungle vines and creepers had already begun to grow back over it,
obliterating all traces. There was not much leftùa few shreds of orange
nylon, a dented aluminum cooking pan, the crushed tripod, and the broken
video camera, its green circuit boards scattered across the ground. They
found no bodies, and since the light was fading they pressed on.

Amy was distinctly agitated, She signed, No go.

Peter Elliot paid no attention.

Bad place old place no go.

ôWe go, Amy,ö he said.

Fifteen minutes later they came to a break in the overhanging trees.
Looking up, they saw the dark cone of Mu¡kenko rising above the forest, and
the faint crossed green beams of the lasers glinting in the humid air. And
directly beneath the beams were the moss-covered stone blocks, half
concealed in jungle foliage, of the Lost City of Zinj.

Elliot turned to look at Amy.

Amy was gone.







  4. WEIRD









HE COULD NOT BELIEVE IT.

At first he thought she was just punishing him, running off to make him
sorry for shooting the dart at her on the river. He explained to Munro and
Ross that she was capable of such things, and they spent the next half hour
wandering through the jungle, calling her name. But there was no response,
just the eternal silence of the rain forest. The half hour became an hour,
then almost two hours.

Elliot was panic-stricken.

When she still did not emerge from the foliage, another possibility had to
be considered. ôMaybe she ran off with the last group of gorillas,ö Munro
said.

ôImpossible,ö Elliot said.

ôSheÆs seven, sheÆs near maturity.ö Munro shrugged.

ôShe is a gorilla.ö               -

ôImpossible,ö Elliot insisted.

But he knew what Munro was saying. Inevitably, people who raised apes found
at a certain point they could no longer keep them. With maturity the
animals became too large, too powerful, too much their own species to be
controllable. It was no longer possible to put them in diapers and pretend
they were cute humanlike creatures. Their genes coded inevitable
differences that ultimately became impossible to overlook.

ôGorilla troops arenÆt closed,ö Munro reminded him. ôThey accept strangers,
particularly female strangers.ö

ôShe wouldnÆt do that,ö Elliot insisted. ôShe couldnÆt.ö

Amy had been raised from infancy among human beings. She was much more
familiar with the Westernized world of freeways and drive-ins than she was
with the jungle. If Elliot drove his car past her favorite drive-in, she
was quick to tap his shoulder and point out his error. What did she know of
the jungle? It was as alien to her as it was to Elliot himself. And not
only thatù ôWeÆd better make camp,ö Ross said, glancing at her watch.
ôSheÆll come backùif she wants to. After all,ö she said, ôwe didnÆt leave
her. She left us.ö









They had brought a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne but nobody was in a
mood to celebrate. Elliot was remorseful over the loss of Amy; the others
were horrified by what they had seen of the earlier camp; with night
rapidly falling, there was much to do to setup the ERTS system known as
WEIRD (Wilderness Environmental Intruder Response Defenses).

The exotic WEIRD technology recognized the fact that perimeter defenses
were traditional throughout the history of Congo exploration. More than a
century before, Stanley observed that ôno camp is to be considered complete
until it is fenced around by bush or trees.ö In the years since there was
little reason to alter the essential nature of that instruction.

But defensive technology had changed, and the WEIRD system incorporated all
the latest innovations.

Kahega and his men inflated the silvered Mylar tents, arranging them close
together. Ross directed the placement of the tubular infrared night lights
on telescoping tripods. These were positioned shining outward around the
camp.

Next the perimeter fence was installed. This was a lightweight metalloid
mesh, more like cloth than wire. Attached to stakes, it completely enclosed
the campsite, and when hooked to the transformer carried 10,000 volts of
electrical current. To reduce drain on the fuel cells, the current was
pulsed at four cycles a second, creating a throbbing, intermittent hum.

Dinner on the night of June 20 was rice with rehydrated Creole shrimp
sauce. The shrimps did not rehydrate well, remaining little
cardboard-tasting chunks in the mix, but nobody complained about this
failure of twentieth-century technology as they glanced around them at the
deepening jungle darkness.

Munro positioned the sentries. They would stand -four-hour watches; Munro
announced that he, Kahega, and Elliot would take the first watch.







With night goggles in place, the sentries looked like mysterious
grasshoppers peering out at the jungle. The night goggles intensified
ambient light and overlaid this on the preexisting imagery, rimming it in
ghostly green. Elliot found the goggles heavy, and the electronic view
through them difficult to adjust to. He pulled them off after several
minutes, and was astonished to see that the jungle was inky black around
him. He put them back on hastily.

The night passed quietly, without incident.









                                DAY 9: ZINJ



                               June 21, 1979

















1. Tiger Tail







THEIR ENTRANCE INTO THE LOST CITY OF ZINJ ON the morning of June 21 was
accomplished with none of the mystery and romance of nineteenth-century
accounts of similar journeys. These twentieth-century explorers sweated and
grunted under a burdensome load of technical equipmentù optical range
finders, data-lock compasses, RF directionals with attached transmitters,
and microwave transpondersùall deemed essential to the modem high-speed
evaluation of a ruined archaeological site.

They were only interested in diamonds. Schliemann had been only interested
in gold when he excavated Troy, and he had devoted three years to it. Ross
expected to find her diamonds in three days.

According to the ERTS computer simulation the best way to do this was to
draw up a ground plan of the city. With a plan in hand, it would be
relatively simple to deduce mine locations from the arrangement of urban
structures.

They expected a usable plan of the city within six hours. Using RF
transponders, they had only to stand in each of the four corners of a
building, pressing the radio beeper at each corner. Back in camp, two
widely spaced receivers recorded their signals so that their computer could
plot them in two dimensions. But the ruins were extensive, covering more
than three square kilometers. A radio survey would separate them widely in
dense foliageùand, considering what had happened to the previous
expedition, this seemed unwise.

Their alternative was what ERTS called the non-systematic Survey, or ôthe
tiger-tail approach.ö (It was a joke at ERTS that one way to find a tiger
was to keep walking until you stepped on its tail.) They moved through the
ruined buildings, avoiding slithering snakes and giant spiders that
scurried into dark recesses. The spiders were the size of a manÆs hand, and
to RossÆs astonishment made a loud clicking noise.

They noticed that the stonework was of excellent quality, although the
limestone in many places was pitted and crumbling. And everywhere they saw
the half-moon curve of doors and windows, which seemed to be a cultural
design motif.

But aside from that curved shape, they found almost nothing distinctive
about the rooms they passed through. In general, the rooms were rectangular
and roughly the same size; the walls were bare, lacking decoration. After
so many intervening centuries they found no artifacts at allùalthough
Elliot finally came upon a pair of disc-shaped stone paddles, which they
presumed had been used to grind spices or grain.

The bland, characterless quality of the city grew more disturbing as they
continued; it was also inconvenient, since they had no way to refer to one
place or another; they began assigning arbitrary names to different
buildings. When Karen Ross found a series of cubby holes carved into the
wall of one room, she announced that this must be a post office, and from
then on it was referred to as ôthe post office.ö

They came upon a row of small rooms with postholes for wooden bars. Munro
thought these were cells of a jail, but the cells were extremely small.
Ross said that perhaps the people were small, or perhaps the cells were
intentionally small for punishment. Elliot thought perhaps they were cages
for a zoo. But in that case, why were all the cages of the same size? And
Munro pointed out there was no provision for viewing the animals; he
repeated his conviction that it was a jail, and the rooms became known as
ôthe jail.ö

Near to. the jail they found an open court they called ôthe gymnasium.ö It
was apparently an athletic field or training ground. There were four tall
stone stakes with a crumbling stone ring at the top; evidently these had
been used for some kind of game like tetherball. In a corner of the court
stood a horizontal overhead bar, like a jungle gym, no more than five feet
off the ground. The low bar led Elliot to conclude that this was a
playground for children. Ross repeated her belief that the people were
small. Munro wondered if the gymnasium was a training area for soldiers.

As they continued their search, they were all aware that their reactions
simply mirrored their preoccupations. The city was so neutral, so
uninformative, that it became a kind of Rorschach for them. What they
needed was objective information about the people who had built the city,
and their life.









It was there all along, although they were slow to realize it. In many
rooms, one wall or another was overgrown with black-green mold. Munro
noticed that this mold did not grow in relation to light from a window, or
air currents, or any other factor they could identify. In some rooms, the
mold grew thickly halfway down a wall, only to stop in a sharp horizontal
line, as if cut by a knife.

ôDamn strange,ö Munro said, peering at the mold, rubbing his finger against
it. His finger came away with traces of blue paint.

That was how they discovered the elaborate bas-reliefs, once painted, that
appeared throughout the city. However, the overgrowth of mold on the
irregular carved surface and the pitting of the limestone made any
interpretation of the images impossible.

At lunch, Munro mentioned that it was too bad they hadnÆt brought along a
group of art historians to recover the bas-relief images. ôWith all their
lights and machines, they could see whatÆs there in no time,ö he said.

The most recent examination techniques for artwork, as devised by Degusto
and others, employed infrared light and image intensification, and the
Congo expedition had the necessary equipment to contrive such a method on
the spot. At least it was worth a try. After lunch they returned to the
ruins, lugging in the video camera, one of the infrared night lights, and
the tiny computer display screen.

After an hour of fiddling they had worked out a system. By shining infrared
light on the walls and recording the image with the video cameraùand then
feeding that image via Satellite through the digitizing computer programs
in Houston, and returning it back to their portable display unitùthey were
able to reconstitute the pictures on the walls.

Seeing the bas-reliefs in this way reminded Peter Elliot of the night
goggles. If you looked directly at the walls, you saw nothing but dark moss
and lichen and pitted stone. But if you looked at the little computer
screen, you saw the original painted scenes, vibrant and lifelike. It was,
he remembered, ôvery peculiar. There we were in the middle of the jungle,
but we could only examine our environment indirectly, with the machines. We
used goggles to see at night, arid video to see during the day. We were
using machines to see what we could not see otherwise, and we were totally
dependent on them.ö

He also found it odd that the information recorded by the video camera had
to travel more than twenty thousand miles before returning to the display
screen, only a few feet away. It was, he said later, the ôworldÆs longest
spinal cord,ö and it produced an odd effect. Even at the speed of light,
the transmission required a tenth of a second, and since there was a short
processing time in the Houston computer, the images did not appear on the
screen instantaneously, but arrived about half a second late. The delay was
just barely noticeable. The scenes they saw provided them with their first
insight into the city and its inhabitants.







The people of Zinj were relatively tall blacks, with round beads and
muscular bodies; in appearance they resembled the Bantu-speaking people who
had first entered the Congo from the highland savannahs to the north, two
thousand years ago. They were depicted here as lively and energetic:
despite the climate, they favored elaborately decorated, colorful long
robes; their attitudes and gestures were expansive; in all ways they
contrasted sharply with the bland and crumbling structures, now all that
remained of their civilization.

The first decoded frescoes showed marketplace scenes: sellers squatted on
the ground beside beautiful woven baskets containing round objects, while
buyers stood and bargained with them. At first they thought the round
objects were fruit, but Ross decided they were stones.

ôThose are uncut diamonds in a surrounding matrix,ö she said, staring at
the screen. ôTheyÆre selling diamonds.ö









The frescoes led them to consider what had happened to the inhabitants of
the city of Zinj, for the city was clearly abandoned, not destroyedùthere
was no sign of war or invaders, no evidence of any cataclysm or natural
disaster.

Ross, voicing her deepest fears, suspected the diamond mines had given out,
turning this city into a ghost town like so many other mining settlements
in history. Elliot thought that a plague or disease had overcome the
inhabitants. Munro said he thought the gorillas were responsible.

ôDonÆt laugh,ö he said. ôThis is a volcanic area. Eruptions, earthquakes,
drought, fires on the savannahùthe animals go berserk, and donÆt behave in
the ordinary way at all.ö

ôNature on the rampage?ö Elliot asked, shaking his head. ôThere are
volcanic eruptions here every few years, and we know this city existed for
centuries. It canÆt be that.ö

ôMaybe there was a palace revolution, a coup.ö

ôWhat would that matter to gorillas?ö Elliot laughed.

ôIt happens,ö Munro said. ôIn Africa, the animals always get strange when
thereÆs a war on, you know.ö He then told them stories of baboons attacking
farmhouses in South Africa and buses in Ethiopia.

Elliot was unimpressed. These ideas of nature mirroring the affairs of man
were very oldùat least as old as Aesop, and about as scientific. ôThe
natural world is indifferent to man,ö he said.

ôOh, no question,ö Munro said, ôbut there isnÆt much natural world left.ö

Elliot was reluctant to agree with Munro, but. in fact a well-known
academic thesis argued just that. In 1955, the French anthropologist
Maurice Cavalle published a controversial paper entitled ôThe Death of
Nature.ö In it he said:









One million years ago the earth was characterized by a pervasive wilderness
which we may call ônature.ö In the midst of this wild nature stood small
enclaves of human habitation. Whether caves with artificial fire to keep
men warm, or later cities with dwellings and artificial fields of
cultivation, these enclaves were distinctly unnatural. In the succeeding
millennia, the area of untouched nature surrounding artificial human
enclaves progressively declined, although for centuries the trend remained
invisible.

Even 300 years ago in France or England, the great cities of man were
isolated by hectares of wilderness in which untamed beasts roamed, as they
had for thousands of years before. And yet the expansion of man continued
inexorably.

One hundred years ago, in the last days of the great European explorers,
nature had so radically diminished that it was a novelty: it is for this
reason that African explorations captured the imagination of
nineteenth-century man. lb enter a truly natural world was exotic, beyond
the experience of most mankind, who lived from birth to death in entirely
man-made circumstances.

In the twentieth century the balance has shifted so far that for all
practical purposes one may say that nature has disappeared. Wild plants are
preserved in hothouses, wild animals in zoos and game parks: artificial
settings created by man as a souvenir of the once-prevalent natural world.
But an animal in a zoo or a game park does not live its natural life, any
more than a man in a city lives a natural life.

Today we are surrounded by man and his creations. Man is inescapable,
everywhere on the globe, and nature is a fantasy, a dream of the past, long
gone.









Ross called Elliot away from his dinner. ôItÆs for you,ö she said, pointing
to the computer next to the antenna. ôThat friend of yours again.ö

Munro grinned, ôEven in the jungle, the phone never stops ringing.ö

Elliot went over to look at the screen: COMPUTR LNGWAGE ANALYSS NG REQUIR
MOR INPUT KN PROVIDE?

WHT INPUT? Elliot typed back.

NOR AURL INPUT-TRNSMIT RECORDNGS.

Elliot typed back, Yes lf Occurs. YES IF OCRS.

RCORD FREQNCY 22ù50,000 CYCLSùCRITICL

Elliot typed back, Understood. UNDRSTOD.

There was a pause, then the screen printed:    HOWS AMY?

Elliot hesitated. FINE.

STAF SNOS LOV came the reply, and the transmission was momentarily
interrupted.

HOLD TRSNMSN.

There was a long pause.

INCREDIBL NWZ, Seamans printed. HAV FOUND MRS SWENSN













2. Swensn NWZ





FOR A MOMENT ELLIOT DID NOT RECOGNIZE THE name. Swensn? Who was Swensn? A
transmission error? And then he realized: Mrs. Swenson! AmyÆs discoverer,
the woman who had brought her from Africa and had donated her to the
Minneapolis zoo. The woman who had been in Borneo all these weeks. IF WE
HAD ONLY KNON AMY MOTHR NOT KILD BY NATIVS.

Elliot waited impatiently for the next message from Seamans.

Elliot stared at the message. He had always been told that AmyÆs mother had
been killed by natives in a village called Bagimindi. The mother had been
killed for food, and Amy was orphaned. . .

WHT MEANS?

MOTHR ALREDY DED NOT EATN.

The natives hadnÆt killed AmyÆs moth& She was already dead?

XPLN.

SWENSN HAS PICTR CAN TRAMSMT?

Hastily, Elliot typed, his fingers fumbling at the keyboard.

TRANSMT.

There was a pause that seemed interminable, and then the video screen
received the transmission, scanning it from top to bottom. Long before the
picture filled the screen, Elliot realized what it showed.

A crude snapshot of a gorilla corpse with a crushed skull. The animal lay
on its back in a packed-earth clearing, presumably in a native village.

In that moment Elliot felt as if the puzzle that preoccupied him, that had
caused so much anguish for so many months, was explained. If only they had
been able to reach her before...

The glowing electronic image faded to black.

Elliot was confronted by a rush of sudden questions. Crushed skulls
occurred in the remoteùand supposedly uninhabitedùregion of the Congo,
kanyamagufa, the place of bones. But Bagimindi was a trading village on the
Lubula River, more than a hundred miles away. How had Amy and her dead
mother reached Bagimindi?

Ross said, ôGot a problem?ö

ôI donÆt understand the sequence. I need to askùö

ôBefore you do,ö she said, ôreview the transmission. ItÆs all in memory.ö
She pressed a button marked REPEAT.

The earlier transmitted conversation was repeated on the screen. As Elliot
watched SeamanÆs answers, one line struck him: MOTHR ALREDY DED NOT EATN.

Why wasnÆt the mother eaten? Gorilla meat was an acceptableùindeed a
prizedùfood in this part of the Congo basin. He typed in a question:



WHY MOTHR NOT EATN.

MOTHR / INFNT FWND BY NATIV ARMY PATRL DOWN FRM SUDAN CARRIED CRPSE / INFNT
5 DAYS TO BAG-MINDI VILLAG FOR SALE TOURISTS. SWENSN THERE.



Five days! Quickly, Elliot typed the important question:

WHER FWNO?

The answer came back: UNKNWN AREA CONGO.

SPECFY.

NO DETALS. A short pause, then: THERS MOR PICTRS.



SND, he typed back.

The screen went blank, and then filled once more, from top to bottom. Now
he saw a closer view of the female gor¡illaÆs crushed skull. And alongside
the huge skull, a small black creature lying on the ground, hands and feet
clenched, mouth open in a frozen scream.

Amy.









Ross repeated the transmission several times, finishing on the image of Amy
as an infantùsmall, black, screaming.

ôNo wonder sheÆs been having nightmares,ö Ross said. ôShe probably saw her
mother killed.ö

Elliot said, ôWell, at least we can be sure it wasnÆt gorillas. They donÆt
kill each other.ö

ôRight now,ö Ross said, ôwe canÆt be sure of anything at all.,,









The night of June 21 was so quiet that by ten oÆclock they switched off the
infrared night lights to save power. Almost at once they became aware of
movement in the foliage outside the compound. Munro and Kahega swung their
guns around. The rustling increased, and they heard an odd sighing sound, a
sort of wheeze.

Elliot heard it too, and felt a chill: it was the same wheezing that had
been recorded on the tapes from the first Congo expedition. He turned on
the tape recorder, and swung the microphone around. They were all tense,
alert, waiting.

But for the next hour nothing further happened. The foliage moved all
around them, but they saw nothing. Then shortly before midnight the
electrified perimeter fence erupted in sparks. Munro swung his gun around
and fired; Ross hit the switch for the night lights and the camp was bathed
in deep red.

ôDid you see it?ö Munro said. ôDid you see what it was?ö

They shook their heads. Nobody had seen anything. Elliot checked his tapes;
he had only the harsh rattle of gunfire, and the sounds of sparks. No
breathing.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully.









                               DAY 10: ZINJ



                               June 22, 1979









1. Return





THE MORNING OF JUNE 22 WAS FOGGY AND GRAY. Peter Elliot awoke at 6 A.M. to
find the camp already up and active. Munro was stalking around the
perimeter of the camp, his clothing soaked to the chest by the wet foliage.
He greeted Elliot with a look of triumph, and pointed to the ground.

There, on the ground, were fresh footprints. They were deep and short,
rather triangular-shaped, and there was a wide space between the big toe
and the other four toesùas wide as the space between a human thumb and
fingers.

ôDefinitely not human,ö Elliot said, bending to look closely.

Munro said nothing.

ôSome kind of primate.ö

Munro said nothing.

ôIt canÆt be a gorilla,ö Elliot finished, straightening. His video
communications from the night before had hardened his belief that gorillas
were not involved. Gorillas did not kill other gorillas as AmyÆs mother had
been killed. ôIt canÆt be a gorilla,ö he repeated.

ôItÆs a gorilla, all right,ö Munro said. ôHave a look at this.ö He pointed
to another area of the soft earth. There were four indentations in a row.
ôThose are the knuckles, when they walk on their hands.ö

ôBut gorillas,ö Elliot said, ôare shy animals that sleep at night and avoid
contact with men.ö

ôTell the one that made this print.ö

ôItÆs small for a gorilla,ö Elliot said. He examined the fence nearby,
where the electrical short had occurred the night before. Bits of gray fur
clung to the fence. ôAnd gorillas donÆt have gray fur.ö

ôMales do,ö Munro said. ôSilverbacks.ö

ôYes, but the silverback coloring is whiter than this. This fur is
distinctly gray.ö He hesitated. ôMaybe itÆs a kakun¡dakari.ö

Munro looked disgusted.

The kakunidakari was a disputed primate in the Congo. Like the yeti of the
Himalayas and bigfoot of North America, he had been sighted but never
captured. There were endless native stories of a six-foot-tall hairy ape
that walked on his hind legs and otherwise behaved in a manlike fashion.

Many respected scientists believed the kakundakari existed; perhaps they
remembered the authorities who had once denied the existence of the
gorilla.

In 1774, Lord Monboddo wrote of the gorilla that ôthis wonderful and
frightful production of nature walks upright like man; is from 7 to 9 feet
high. . . and amazingly strong; covered with longish hair, jet black over
the body, but longer on the head; the face more like the human than the
Chim¡penza, but the complexion black; and has no tail.ö

Forty years later, Bowditch described an African ape ôgenerally five feet
high, and four across the shoulders; its paw was said to be even more
disproportionate than its breadth, and one blow of it to be fetal.ö But it
was not until 1847 that Thomas Savage, an African missionary, and Jeffries
Wyman, a Boston anatomist, published a paper describing ôa second species
in Africa . . . not recognized by naturalists,ö which they proposed to call
Troglodytes gorilla. Their announcement caused enormous excitement in the
scientific world, and a rush in London, Paris, and Boston to procure
skeletons; by 1855, there was no longer any doubtù a second, very large ape
existed in Africa.

Even in the twentieth century, new animal species were discovered in the
rain forest: the blue pig in 1944, and the red-breasted grouse in 1961. It
was perfectly possible that a rare, reclusive primate might exist in the
jungle depths. But there was still no hard evidence for the kakundakari.

ôThis print is from a gorilla,ö Munro insisted. ôOr rather a group of
gorillas. TheyÆre all around the perimeter fence. TheyÆve been scouting our
camp.ö

ôScouting our camp,ö Elliot repeated, shaking his head.

ôThatÆs right,ö Munro said. ôJust look at the bloody prints.ö

Elliot felt his patience growing short. He said something about
white-hunter campfire tales, to which Munro said something unflattering
about people who knew everything from books.

At that point, the colobus monkeys in the trees overhead began to shriek
and shake the branches.









They found MalawiÆs body just outside the compound. The porter had been
going to the stream to get water when he had been killed; the collapsible
buckets lay on the ground nearby. The bones of his skull had been crushed;
the purple, swelling face was distorted, the mouth open.

The group was repelled by the manner of death; Ross turned away, nauseated;
the porters huddled with Kahega, who tried to reassure them; Munro bent to
examine the injury. ôYou notice these flattened areas of compression, as if
the head was squeezed between something

Munro then called for the stone paddles that Elliot had found in the city
the day before. He glanced back at Kahega.

Kahega stood at his most erect and said, ôWe go home now, boss.ö

ôThatÆs not possible,ö Munro said.

ôWe go home. We must go home, one of our brothers is dead, we must make
ceremony for his wife and his children, boss.ö

ôKahega. .

ôBoss, we must go now.ö

ôKahega, we will talk.ö Munro straightened, put his arm over Kahega and led
him some distance away, across the clearing. They talked in low voices for
several minutes.

ôItÆs awful,ö Ross said. She seemed genuinely affected with human feeling
and instinctively Elliot turned to comfort her, but she continued, ôThe
whole expedition is falling apart. Ifs awful. We have to hold it together
somehow, or weÆll never find the diamonds.ö

ôIs that all you care about?ö

ôWell, they do have insurance. . .

ôFor ChristÆs sake,ö Elliot said.

ôYouÆre just upset because youÆve lost your damned monkey,ö Ross said. ôNow
get hold of yourself. TheyÆre watching us.ö

The Kikuyu were indeed watching Ross and Elliot, trying to sense the drift
of sentiment. But they all knew that the real negotiations were between
Munro and Kahega, standing off to one side. Several minutes later Kahega
returned, wiping his eyes. He spoke quickly to his remaining brothers, and
they nodded. He turned back to Munro.

ôWe stay, boss.ö

ôGood,ö Munro said, immediately resuming his former imperious tone. ôBring
the paddles.ö

When they were brought, Munro placed the paddles to either side of MalawiÆs
head. They fitted the semicircular indentations on the head perfectly.

Munro then said something quickly to Kahega in Swahili, and Kahega said
something to his brothers, and they nodded. Only then did Munro take the
next horrible step. He raised his arms wide, and then swung the paddles
back hard against the already crushed skull. The dull sound was sickening;
droplets of blood spattered over his shirt, but he did not further damage
the skull.

ôA man hasnÆt the strength to do this,ö Munro said flatly. He looked up at
Peter Elliot. ôCare to try?ö

Elliot shook his head.

Munro stood. ôJudging by the way he fell, Malawi was standing when it
happened.ö Munro faced Elliot, looking him in the eye. ôLarge animal, the
size of a man. Large, strong animal. A gorilla.ö

Elliot had no reply.









There is no doubt that Peter Elliot felt a personal threat in these
developments, although not a threat to his safety. ôI simply couldnÆt
accept it,ö he said later. ôI knew my field, and I simply couldnÆt accept
the idea of some unknown, radically violent behavior displayed by gorillas
in the wild. And in any case, it didnÆt make sense. Gorillas making stone
paddles that they used to crush human skulls? It was impossible.ö

After examining the body, Elliot went to the stream to wash the blood from
his hands. Once alone, away from the others, he found himself staring into
the clear running water and considering the possibility that he might be
wrong. Certainly primate researchers had a long history of misjudging their
subjects.

Elliot himself had helped eradicate one of the most famous
misconceptionsùthe brutish stupidity of the gorilla. In their first
descriptions, Savage and Wyman had written, ôThis animal exhibits a degree
of intelligence inferior to that of the Chimpanzee; this might be expected
from its wider departure from the organization of the human subject.ö Later
observers saw the gorilla as ôsavage, morose, and brutal.ö But now there
was abundant evidence from field and laboratory studies that the gorilla
was in many ways brighter than the chimpanzee.

Then, too, there were the famous stories of chimpanzees kidnapping and
eating human infants. For decades, primate researchers had dismissed such
native tales as ôwild and superstitious fantasy.ö But there was no longer
any doubt that chimpanzees occasionally kidnappedùand ateùhuman infants;
when Jane Goodall studied Gombe chimpanzees, she locked away her own infant
to prevent his being taken and killed by the chimps.

Chimpanzees hunted a variety of animals, according to a complicated ritual.
And field studies by Dian Fossey suggested that gorillas also hunted from
time to time, killing small game and monkeys, wheneverù He heard a rustling
in the bushes across the stream, and an enormous silverback male gorilla
reared up in chest-high foliage. Peter was startled, although as soon as he
got over his fright he realized that he was safe. Gorillas never crossed
open water, even a small stream. Or was that a misconception, too?

The male stared at him across the water. There seemed to be no threat in
his gaze, just a kind of watchful curiosity. Elliot smelled the musty odor
of the gorilla, and he heard the breath hiss through his flattened
nostrils. He was wondering what he should do when suddenly the gorilla
crashed noisily away through the underbrush, and was gone.

This encounter perplexed him, and he stood, wiping the sweat from his face.
Then he realized that there was still movement in the foliage across the
stream. After a moment, another gorilla rose up, this one smaller: a
female, he thought, though he couldnÆt be sure. The new gorilla gazed at
him as implacably as the first. Then the hand moved.

Peter come give tickle.

ôAmy!ö he shouted, and a moment later he had splashed across the stream,
and she had leapt into his arms, hugging him and delivering sloppy wet
kisses and grunting happily.









AmyÆs unexpected return to camp nearly got her shot by the jumpy Kikuyu
porters. Only by blocking her body with his own did Elliot prevent gunfire.
Twenty minutes later, however, everyone had adjusted to her presenceùand
Amy promptly began making demands.

She was unhappy to learn that they had not acquired milk or cookies in her
absence, but when Munro produced the bottle of warm Dom Perignon, she
agreed to accept champagne instead.

They all sat around her, drinking champagne from tin cups. Elliot was glad
for the mitigating presence of the others, for now that Amy was sitting
there, safely restored to him, calmly sipping her champagne and signing
Tickle drink Amy like, he found himself overcome with anger toward her.

Munro grinned at Elliot as he gave him his champagne. ôCalmly, Professor,
calmly. SheÆs just a child.ö

ôThe hell she is,ö Elliot said. He conducted the subsequent conversation
entirely in sign language, not speaking.

Amy, he signed. Why Amy leave?

She buried her nose in her cup, singing Tickle drink good drink.

Amy, he signed. Amy tell Peter why leave.

Peter not like Amy.

Peter like Amy.

Peter hurt Amy Peter fly ouch pin Amy no like Peter no like Amy Amy sad
sad.

In a detached corner of his mind, he thought he would have to remember that
ôouch pinö had now been extended to the Thoralen dart. Her generalization
pleased him, but he signed sternly, Peter like Amy. Amy know Peter like
Amy. Amy tell Peter whyù Peter no tickle Amy Peter not nice Amy Peter not
nice human person Peter like woman no like Amy Peter not like Amy Amy sad
Amy sad.

This increasingly rapid signing was itself an indication that she was
upset. Where Amy go?

Amy go gorillas good gorillas. Amy like.

Curiosity overcame his anger. Had she joined a troop of wild gorillas for
several days? If so, it was an event of major importance, a crucial moment
in modern primate historyù a language-skilled primate had joined a wild
troop and had come back again. He wanted to know more.

Gorillas nice to Amy?

With a smug look: Yes.

Amy tell Peter.

She stared off into the distance, not answering.

To catch her attention Elliot snapped his fingers. She turned to him
slowly, her expression bored.

Amy tell Peter, Amy stay gorillas?

Yes.

In her indifference was the clear recognition that Elliot was desperate to
learn what she knew. Amy was always very astute at recognizing when she had
the upper handùand she had it now.

Amy tell Peter, he signed as calmly as he could.

Good gorillas like Amy Amy good gorilla.

That told him nothing at all. She was composing phrases by rote: another
way of ignoring him.

Amy.

She glanced at him.

Amy tell Peter. Amy come see gorillas?

Yes.

Gorillas do what?

Gorillas sniff Amy.

All gorillas?

Big gorillas white back gorillas sniff Amy baby sniff Amy all gorillas
sniff gorillas like Amy.

So silverback males had sniffed her, then infants, then all the members of
the troop. That much was clearùremarkably clear, he thought, making a
mental note of her extended syntax. Afterward had she been accepted in the
troop? He signed, What happen Amy then?

Gorillas give food.

What food?

No name Amy food give food.

Apparently they had shown her food. Or had they actually fed her? Such a
thing had never been reported in the wild, but then no one had ever
witnessed the introduction of a new animal into a troop. She was a female,
and nearly of productive age.

What gorillas give food?

All give food Amy take food Amy like.

Apparently it was not males, or males exclusively. But what had caused her
acceptance? Granted that gorilla troops were not as closed to outsiders as
monkey troopsùwhat actually had happened?

Amy stay with gorillas?

Gorillas like Amy.

Yes. What Amy do?

Amy sleep Amy eat Amy live gorillas gorillas good gorillas Amy like.

So she had joined in the life of the troop, living the daily existence. Had
she been totally accepted?

Amy like gorillas?

Gorillas dumb.

Why dumb?

Gorillas no talk.

No talk sign talk?

Gorillas no talk.

Evidently she had experienced frustration with the gorillas because they
did not know her sign language. (Language using primates were commonly
frustrated and annoyed when thrown among animals who did not understand the
signs.)

Gorillas nice to Amy?

Gorillas like Amy Amy like gorillas like Amy like gorillas.

Why Amy come back?

Want milk cookies.

ôAmy,ö he said, ôyou know we donÆt have any damn milk or cookies.ö His
sudden verbalization startled the others. They looked questioningly at Amy.

For a long time she did not answer. Amy like Peter. Amy sad want Peter.

He felt like crying.

Peter good human person.

Blinking his eyes he signed, Peter tickle Amy. She jumped into his arms.









Later, he questioned her in more detail. But it was a painstakingly slow
process, chiefly because of AmyÆs difficulty in handling concepts of time.

Amy distinguished past, present, and futureùshe remembered previous events,
and anticipated future promisesùbut the Project Amy staff had never
succeeded in teaching her exact differentiations. She did not, for example,
distinguish yesterday from the day before. Whether this reflected a failing
in teaching methods or an innate feature of AmyÆs conceptual world was an
open question. (There was evidence for a conceptual difference. Amy was
particularly perplexed by spatial metaphors for time, such as ôthatÆs
behind usö or ôthatÆs coming up.ö Her trainers conceived of the past as
behind them and the future ahead. But AmyÆs behavior seemed to indicate
that she conceived of the past as in front of herùbecause she could see
itùand the future behind herù because it was still invisible. Whenever she
was impatient for the promised arrival of a friend, she repeatedly looked
over her shoulder, even if she was facing the door.)

In any case, the time problem was a difficulty in talking to her now, and
Elliot phrased his questions carefully. He asked, ôAmy, what happened at
night? With the gorillas?ö

She gave him the look she always gave him when she thought a question was
obvious. Amy sleep night.

ôAnd the other gorillas?ö Gorillas sleep night.

ôAll the gorillas?ö She disdained to answer.

ôAmy,ö he said, ôgorillas come to our camp at night.ö Come this place?

ôYes, this place. Gorillas come at night.ö

She thought that over. No. Munro said, ôWhat did she say?ö

Elliot said, ôShe said æNo.Æ Yes, Amy, they come.ö

She was silent a moment, and then she signed, Things come.

Munro again asked what she had said.

ôShe said, æThings come.Æ ô Elliot translated the rest of her responses for
them.

Ross asked, ôWhat things, Amy?ö

Bad things.

Munro said, ôWere they gorillas, Amy?ö

Not gorillas. Bad things. Many bad things come forest come. Breath talk.
Come night come.

Munro said, ôWhere are they now, Amy?ö

Amy looked around at the jungle. Here. This bad old place things come.

Ross said, ôWhat things, Amy? Are they animals?ö Elliot told them that Amy
could not abstract the category ôanimals.ö ôShe thinks people are animals,ö
he explained. ôAre the bad things people, Amy? Are they human persons?ö

No.

Munro said, ôMonkeys?ö

No. Bad things. not sleep night.

Munro said, ôIs she reliable?ö

What means?

ôYes,ö Elliot said. ôPerfectly.ö

ôShe knows what gorillas are?ö

Amy good gorilla, she signed.

ôYes, you are,ö Elliot said. ôSheÆs saying sheÆs a good gorilla.ö

Munro frowned. ôSo she knows what gorillas are, but she says these things
are not gorillas?ö

ôThatÆs what she says.ö













2. Missing Elements





ELLIOT GOT ROSS TO SET UP THE VIDEO CAMERA AT the outskirts of the city,
facing the campsite. With the videotape running he led Amy to the edge of
the camp to look at the ruined buildings. Elliot wanted to confront Amy
with the lost city, the reality behind her dreamsùand he wanted a record of
her responses to that moment. What happened was totally unexpected.

Amy had no reaction at all.

Her face remained impassive, her body relaxed. She did not sign. If
anything she gave the impression of boredom, of suffering through another
of ElliotÆs enthusiasms that she did not share. Elliot watched her
carefully. She wasnÆt displacing; she wasnÆt repressing; she wasnÆt doing
anything. She stared at the city with equanimity.

ôAmy know this place?ö

Yes.

ôAmy tell Peter what place.ö Bad place old place.

ôSleep pictures?ö This bad place.

ôWhy is it bad, Amy?ö

Bad place old place.

ôYes, but why, Amy?ö Amy fear.

She showed no somatic indication of fear. Squatting on the ground alongside
him she gazed forward, perfectly calm.

ôWhy Amy fear?ö

Amy want eat.

ôWhy Amy fear?ö

She would not answer, in the way that she did not deign to answer him
whenever she was completely bored; he could not provoke her to discuss her
dreams further. She was as closed on the subject as she had been in San
Francisco. When he asked her to accompany them into the ruins, she calmly
refused to do so. On the other hand, she did not seem distressed that
Elliot was going into the city, and she cheerfully waved goodbye before
going to demand more food from Kahega.

Only after the expedition was concluded and Elliot had returned to Berkeley
did he find the explanation to this perplexing eventùin FreudÆs
Interpretation of Dreams, first published in 1887.









It may happen on rare occasions that a patient may be confronted by the
reality behind his dreams. Whether a physical edifice, a person, or a
situation that has the tenor of deep familiarity, the subjective response
of the dreamer is uniformly the same. The emotive content held in the
dreamùwhether frightening, pleasurable, or mysteriousù is drained away upon
sight of the reality. . . . We may be certain that the apparent boredom of
the subject does not prove the dream-content is false. Boredom may be most
strongly felt when the dream-content is real. The subject recognizes on
some deep level his inability to alter the conditions that he feels, and so
finds himself overcome by fatigue, boredom, and indifference, to conceal
from him his fundamental helplessness in the face of a genuine problem
which must be rectified.



Months later, Elliot would conclude that AmyÆs bland reaction only
indicated the depth of her feeling, and that FreudÆs analysis was correct;
it protected her from a situation that had to be changed, but that Amy felt
powerless to alter, especially considering whatever infantile memories
remained from the traumatic death of her mother.

Yet at the time, Elliot felt disappointment with AmyÆs neutrality. Of all
the possible reactions he had imagined when he first set out for the Congo,
boredom was the least expected, and he utterly failed to grasp its
significanceùthat the city of Zinj was so fraught with danger that Amy felt
obliged in her own mind to push it aside, and to ignore it.









Elliot, Munro, and Ross spent a hot, difficult morning hacking their way
through the dense bamboo and the clinging, tearing vines of secondary
jungle growth to reach new buildings in the heart of the city. By midday,
their efforts were rewarded as they entered structures unlike any they had
seen before. These buildings were impressively engineered, enclosing vast
cavernous spaces descending three and four stories beneath the ground.

Ross was delighted by the underground constructions, for it proved to her
that the Zinj people had evolved the technology to dig into the earth, as
was necessary fur diamond mines. Munro expressed a similar view: ôThese
people,ö he said, ôcould do anything with earthworks.ö

Despite their enthusiasm, they found nothing of interest in the depths of
the city. They ascended to higher levels later in the day, coming upon a
building so filled with reliefs that they termed it ôthe gallery.ö With the
video camera hooked to the satellite linkup, they examined the pictures in
the gallery.

These showed aspects of ordinary city life. There were domestic scenes of
women cooking around fires, children playing a ball game with sticks,
scribes squatting on the ground as they kept records on clay tablets. A
whole wall of hunting scenes, the men in brief loincloths, armed with
spears. And finally scenes of mining, men carrying baskets of stones from
tunnels in the earth.

in this rich panorama, they noticed certain missing elements. The people of
Zinj had dogs, used for hunting, and a variety of civet cat, kept as
household petsùyet it had apparently never occurred to them to use animals
as beasts of burden. All manual labor was done by human slaves. And they
apparently never discovered the wheel for there were no carts or rolling
vehicles. Everything was carried by hand in baskets.

Munro looked at the pictures for a long time and finally said, ôSomething
else is missing.ö

They were looking at a scene from the diamond mines, the dark pits in the
ground from which men emerged carrying baskets heaped with gems.

ôOf course!ö Munro said, snapping his fingers. ôNo police!ÆÆ

Elliot suppressed a smile: he considered it only too predictable that a
character like Munro would wonder about police in this long-dead society.

But Munro insisted his observation was significant. ôLook here,ö he said.
ôThis city existed because of its diamond mines. It had no other reason for
being, out here in the jungle. Zinj was a mining civilizationùits wealth,
its trade, its daily life, everything depended upon mining. It was a
classic one-crop economyùand yet they didnÆt guard it, didnÆt regulate it,
didnÆt control it?ö

Elliot said, ôThere are other things we havenÆt seenù pictures of people
eating, for example. Perhaps it was taboo to show the guards.ö

ôPerhaps,ö Munro said, unconvinced. ôBut in every other mining complex in
the world guards are ostentatiously prominent, as proof of control. Go to
the South African diamond mines or the Bolivian emerald mines and the first
thing you are made aware of is the security. But here,ö he said, pointing
to the reliefs, ôthere are no guards.ö

Karen Ross suggested that perhaps they didnÆt need guards, perhaps the
Zinjian society was orderly and peaceful. ôAfter all, it was a long time
ago,ö she said.

ôHuman nature doesnÆt change,ö Munro insisted:

When they left the gallery, they came to an open courtyard, overgrown with
tangled vines. The courtyard had a formal quality, heightened by the
pillars of a temple-like building to one side. Their attention was
immediately drawn to the courtyard floor. Strewn across the ground were
dozens of stone paddles, of the kind Elliot had previously found.

ôIÆll be damned,ö Elliot said. They picked their way through this field of
paddles, and entered the building they came to call ôthe temple.ö

It consisted of a single large square room. The ceiling had been broken in
several places, and hazy shafts of sunlight filtered down. Directly ahead,
they saw an enormous mound of vines perhaps ten feet high, a pyramid of
vegetation. Then they recognized it was a statue.

Elliot climbed up on the statue and began stripping away the clinging
foliage. It was hard work; the creepers had dug tenaciously into the stone.
He glanced back at Munro. ôBetter?ö

ôCome and look,ö Munro said, with an odd expression on his face.

Elliot climbed down, stepped back to look. Although the statue was pitted
and discolored, he could clearly see an enormous standing gorilla, the face
fierce, the arms stretched wide. In each hand, the gorilla held stone
paddles like cymbals, ready to swing them together.

ôMy God,ö Peter Elliot said.

ôGorilla,ö Munro said with satisfaction.

Ross said, ôItÆs all clear now. These people worshiped gorillas. It was
their religion.ö

ôBut why would Amy say they werenÆt gorillas?ö

ôAsk her,ö Munro said, glancing at his watch. ôI have to get us ready for
tonight.ö







3. Attack





THEY DUG A MOAT OUTSIDE THE PERIMETER FENCE with collapsible metalloid
shovels. The work continued long after sundown; they were obliged to turn
on the red night lights while they filled the moat with water diverted from
the nearby stream. Ross considered the moat a trivial obstacleù it was only
a few inches deep and a foot wide. A man could step easily across it. In
reply, Munro stood outside the moat and said, ôAmy, come here, IÆll tickle
you.ö

With a delighted grunt, Amy came bounding toward him, but stopped abruptly
on the other side of the water. ôCome on, IÆll tickle you,ö Munro said
again, holding out his arms. ôCome on, girl.ö

Still she would not cross. She signed irritably; Munro stepped over and
lifted her across. ôGorillas hate water,ö he told Ross. ôIÆve seen them
refuse to cross a stream smaller than this.ö Amy was reaching up and
scratching under his arms, then pointing to herself. The meaning was
perfectly clear. ôWomen,ö Munro sighed, and bent over and tickled her
vigorously. Amy rolled on the ground, grunting and snuffling and smiling
broadly. When he stopped, she lay expectantly on the ground, waiting for
more.

ôThatÆs all,ö Munro said.

She signed to him.

ôSorry, I donÆt understand. No,ö he laughed, ôsigning slower doesnÆt help.ö
And then he understood what she wanted, and he carried her back across the
moat again, into the camp. She kissed him wetly on the cheek.

ôBetter watch your monkey,ö Munro said to Elliot as he sat down to dinner.
He continued in this light bantering fashion, aware of the need to loosen
everybody up; they were all nervous, crouching around the fire. But when
the dinner was finished, and Kahega was off setting out the ammunition and
checking the guns, Munro took Elliot aside and said, ôChain her in your
tent. If we start shooting tonight, IÆd hate to have her running around in
the dark. Some of the lads may not be too particular about telling one
gorilla from another. Explain to her that it may get very noisy from the
guns but she should not be frightened.ö

ôIs it going to get very noisy?ö Elliot said.

ôI imagine,ö Munro said.

He took Amy into his tent and put on the sturdy chain leash she often wore
in California. He tied one end to his cot, but it was a symbolic gesture;
Amy could move it easily if she chose to. He made her promise to stay in
the tent.

She promised. He stepped to the tent entrance, and she signed, Amy like
Peter.

ôPeter like Amy,ö he said, smiling. ôEverythingÆs going to be fine.ö







He emerged into another world.

The red night lights had been doused, but in the flickering glow of the
campfire he saw the goggle-eyed sentries in position around the compound.
With the low throbbing pulse of the electrified fence, this sight created
an unearthly atmosphere. Peter Elliot suddenly sensed the precariousness of
their positionùa handful of frightened people deep in the Congo rain
forest, more than two hundred miles from the nearest human habitation.

Waiting.

He tripped over a black cable on the ground. Then he saw a network of
cables, snaking over the compound, running to the guns of each sentry. He
noticed then that the guns had an unfamiliar shapeùthey were somehow too
slender, too insubstantial and that the black cables ran from the guns to
squat, snub-nosed mechanisms mounted on short tripods at Intervals around
the camp.

He saw Ross near the fire, setting up the tape recorder.

ôWhat the hell is all this?ö he whispered, pointing to the cables.

ôThatÆs a LATRAP. For laser-tracking projectile,ö she whispered. ôThe
LATRAP system consists of multiple LGSDs attached to sequential RFSDs.ö

She told him that the sentries held guns which were actually laser-guided
sight devices, linked to rapid-firing sensor devices on tripods. ôThey lock
onto the target,ö she said, ôand do the actual shooting once the target is
identified. ItÆs a jungle warfare system. The RFSDs have maclan-baffle
silencers so the enemy wonÆt know where the firing is coming from. Just
make sure you donÆt step in front of one, because they automatically lock
onto body heat.ö

Ross gave him the tape recorder, and went off to check the fuel cells
powering the perimeter fence. Elliot glanced at the sentries in the outer
darkness; Munro waved cheerfully to him. Elliot realized that the sentries
with their grasshopper goggles and their acronymic weapons could see him
far better than he could see them. They looked like beings from another
universe, dropped into the timeless jungle.

Waiting.

The hours passed. The jungle perimeter was silent except for the murmur of
water in the moat. Occasionally the porters called to one another softly,
making some joke in Swahili; but they never smoked because of the
heat-sensing machinery. Eleven oÆclock passed, and then midnight, and then
one oÆclock.

He heard Amy snoring in his tent, her noisy rasping audible above the throb
of the electrified fence. He glanced over at Ross sleeping on the ground,
her finger on the switch for the night lights. He looked at his watch and
yawned; nothing was going to happen tonight; Munro was wrong.

Then he heard the breathing sound.

The sentries heard it too, swinging their guns in the darkness. Elliot
pointed the recorder microphone toward the sound but it was hard to
determine its exact location. The wheezing sighs seemed to come from all
parts of the jungle at once, drifting with the night fog, soft and
pervasive.

He watched the needles wiggle on the recording gauges.

And then the needles bounced into the red, as Elliot heard a dull thud, and
the gurgle of water. Everyone heard it; the sentries clicked off their
safeties.

Elliot crept with his tape recorder toward the perimeter fence and looked
out at the moat. Foliage moved beyond the fence. The sighing grew louder.
He heard the gurgle of water and saw a dead tree trunk lying across the
moat.

That was what the slapping sound had been: abridge being placed across the
moat. In that instant Elliot realized they had vastly underestimated
whatever they were up against. He signaled to Munro to come and look, but
Munro was waving him away from the fence and pointing emphatically to the
squat tripod on the ground near his feet. Before Elliot could move, the
colobus monkeys began to shriek in the trees overheadùand the first of the
gorillas silently charged.

He had a glimpse of an enormous animal, distinctly gray in color, racing up
to him as he ducked down; a moment later, the gorillas hit the electrified
fence with a shower of spitting sparks and the odor of burning flesh.

It was the start of an eerie, silent battle.

Emerald laser beams flashed through the air; the tripod-mounted machine
guns made a soft thew-thew-thew as the bullets spit outward, the aiming
mechanisms whining as the barrels spun and fired, spun and fired again.
Every tenth bullet was a white phosphorous tracer; the air was crisscrossed
green and white over ElliotÆs head.

The gorillas attacked from all directions; six of them simultaneously hit
the fence and were repelled in a crackling burst of sparks. Still more
charged, throwing themselves on the flimsy perimeter mesh, yet the sizzle
of sparks and the shriek of the colobus monkeys was the loudest sound they
heard. And then he saw gorillas in the trees overhanging the campsite.
Munro and Kahega began firing upward, silent laser beams streaking into the
foliage. He heard the sighing sound again. Elliot turned and saw more
gorillas tearing at the fence, which had gone deadùthere were no more
sparks.

And he realized that this swift, sophisticated equipment was not holding
the gorillas backùthey needed the noise. Munro had the same thought,
because he shouted in Swahili for the men to hold their fire, and called to
Elliot, ôPull the silencers! The silencers!ö

Elliot grabbed the black barrel on the first tripod mechanism and plucked
it away, swearingùit was very hot. Immediately as he stepped away from the
tripod, a stuttering sound filled the air, and two gorillas fell heavily
from the trees, one still alive. The gorilla charged him as he pulled away
the silencer from the second tripod. The stubby barrel swung around and
blasted the gorilla at very close range; warm liquid spattered ElliotÆs
face. He pulled the silencer from the third tripod and threw himself to the
ground.

Deafening machine-gun fire and clouds of acrid cordite had an immediate
effect on the gorillas; they backed off in disorder. There was a period of
silence, although the sentries fired laser shots that set the tripod
machines scanning rapidly across the jungle landscape, whirring back and
forth, searching for a target.

Then the machines stopped hunting, and paused. The jungle around them was
still.

The gorillas were gone.







                               DAY 11: ZINJ



                               June 23, 1979













1. Gorilla Elliotensis



THE GORILLA CORPSES LAY STRETCHED ON THE ground, the bodies already
stiffening in the morning warmth. Elliot spent two hours examining the
animals, both adult males in the prime of life.

The most striking feature was the uniform gray color. The two known races
of gorilla, the mountain gorilla in Virunga, and the lowland gorilla near
the coast, both had black hair. Infants were often brown with a white tuft
of hair at the rump, but their hair darkened within the first five years.
By the age of twelve, adult males had developed the silver patch along
their back and rump; the sign of sexual maturity.

With age, gorillas turned gray in much the same way as people. Male
gorillas first developed a spot of gray above each ear, and as the years
passed more body hair turned gray. Old animals in their late twenties and
thirties sometimes turned entirely gray except for their arms, which
remained black.

But from their teeth Elliot estimated that these males were no more than
ten years old. All their pigmentation seemed lighter, eye and skin color as
well as hair. Gorilla skin was black, and eyes were dark brown. But here
the pigmentation was distinctly gray, and the eyes were light yellow brown.

As much as anything it was the eyes that set him thinking. Next Elliot
measured the bodies. The crown-heel length was 139.2 and 141.7 centimeters.
Male mountain gorillas had been recorded from 147 to 205 centimeters, with
an average height of 175 centimetersùfive feet eight inches. But these
animals stood about four feet six inches tall. They were distinctly small
for gorillas. He weighed them: 255 pounds and 347 pounds. Most mountain
gorillas weighed between 280 and 450 pounds.

Elliot recorded thirty additional skeletal measurements for later analysis
by the computer back in San Francisco. Because now he was convinced that he
was onto something. With a knife, he dissected the head of the first
animal, cutting away the gray skin to reveal the underlying muscle and
bone. His interest was the sagittal crest, the bony ridge running along the
center of the skull from the forehead to the back of the neck. The sagittal
crest was a distinctive feature of gorilla skull architecture not found in
other apes or man; it was what gave gorillas a pointy-headed look.

Elliot determined that the sagittal crest was poorly developed in these
males. In general, the cranial musculature resembled a chimpanzeeÆs far
more than a gorillaÆs. Elliot made additional measurements of the molar
cusps, the jaw, the simian shelf, and the brain case.

By midday, his conclusion was clear: this was at least a new race of
gorilla, equal to the mountain and lowland gorillaùand it was possibly a
new species of animal entirely.









ôSomething happens to the man who discovers a new species of animal,ö wrote
Lady Elizabeth Forstmann in 1879. ôAt once he forgets his family and
friends, and all those who were near and dear to him; he forgets colleagues
who supported his professional efforts; most cruelly he forgets parents and
children; in short, he abandons all who knew him prior to his insensate
lust for fame at the hands of the demon called Science.ö

Lady Forstmann understood, for her husband had just left her after
discovering the Norwegian blue-crested grouse in 1878. ôIn vain,ö she
observed, ôdoes one ask what it matters that another bird or animal is
added to the rich panoply of GodÆs creations, which already numberùby
Linnaean reckoningùin the millions. There is no response to such a
question, for the discoverer has joined the ranks of the immortals, at
least as he imagines it, and he lies beyond the

power of mere people to dissuade him from his course.ö

Certainly Peter Elliot would have denied that his own behavior resembled
that of the dissolute Scottish nobleman. Nevertheless he found he was bored
by the prospect of further exploration of Zinj; he had no interest in
diamonds, or AmyÆs dreams; he wished only to return home with a skeleton of
the new ape, which would astonish colleagues around the world. He suddenly
remembered he did not own a tuxedo, and he found himself preoccupied with
matters of nomenclature; he imagined in the future three species of African
apes:



Pan troglodytes, the chimpanzee.

Gorilla gorilla, the gorilla.

Gorilla elliotensis, a new species of gray gorilla.









Even if the species category and name were ultimately rejected, he would
have accomplished far more than most scientists studying primates could
ever hope to achieve.

Elliot was dazzled by his own prospects.









In retrospect, no one was thinking clearly that morning. When Elliot said
he wanted to transmit the recorded breathing sounds to Houston, Ross
replied it was a trivial detail that could wait. Elliot did not press her,
they both later regretted their decision.

And when they heard booming explosions like distant artillery fire that
morning, they paid no attention. Ross assumed it was General MuguruÆs men
fighting the Kigani. Munro told her that the fighting was at least fifty
miles away, too far for the sound to carry, but offered no alternative
explanation for the noise.

And because Ross skipped the morning transmission to Houston, she was not
informed of new geological changes that might have given new significance
to the explosive detonations.

They were seduced by the technology employed the night before, secure in
their sense of indomitable power. Only Munro remained immune. He had
checked their ammunition supplies with discouraging results. ôThat laser
system is splendid but it uses up bullets like thereÆs no tomorrow,ö Munro
said. ôLast night consumed half of our total ammunition.ÆÆ

ôWhat can we do?ö Elliot asked.

ôI was hoping youÆd have an answer for that,ö Munro said. ôYou examined the
bodies.ö

Elliot stated his belief that they were confronted with a new species of
primate. He summarized the anatomical findings, which supported his
beliefs.

ôThatÆs all well and good,ö Munro said. ôBut IÆm interested in how they
act, not how they look. You said it yourselfùgorillas are usually diurnal
animals, and these are nocturnal. Gorillas are usually shy and avoid men,
while these are aggressive and attack men fearlessly. Why?ö

Elliot had to admit that he didnÆt know.

ôConsidering our ammunition supplies, I think weÆd better find out,ö Munro
said.













2. The Temple





THE LOGICAL PLACE TO BEGIN WAS THE TEMPLE, with its enormous, menacing
gorilla statue. They returned that afternoon, and found behind the statue a
succession of small cubicle-like rooms. Ross thought that priests who
worshiped the cult of the gorilla lived here.

She had an elaborate explanation: ôThe gorillas in the surrounding jungle
terrorized the people of Zinj, who offered sacrifices to appease the
gorillas. The priests were a separate class, secluded from society. Look
here, at the entrance to the line of cubicles, there is this little room. A
guard stayed here to keep people away from the priests. It was a whole
system of belief.ö

Elliot was not convinced, and neither was Munro. ôEven religion is
practical,ö Munro said. ôItÆs supposed to benefit you.Æ,

ôPeople worship what they fear,ö Ross said, ôhoping to control it.ÆÆ

ôBut how could they control the gorillas?ö Munro asked. ôWhat could they
do?ö

When the answer finally came it was startling, for they had it all
backward.

They moved past the cubicles to a series of long corridors, decorated with
bas-reliefs. Using their infrared computer system, they were able to see
the reliefs, which were scenes arranged in a careful order like a picture
textbook.

The first scene showed a series of caged gorillas. A black man stood near
the cages holding a stick in his hand.

The second picture showed an African standing with two gorillas, holding
ropes around their necks.

A third showed an African instructing the gorillas in a courtyard. The
gorillas were tethered to vertical poles, each with a ring at the top.

The final picture showed the gorillas attacking a line of straw dummies,
which hung from an overhead stone support. They now knew the meaning of
what they had found in the courtyard of the gymnasium, and the jail.

ôMy God,ö Elliot said. ôThey trained them.ö

Munro nodded. ôTrained them as guards to watch over the mines. An animal
elite, ruthless and incorruptible. Not a bad idea when you think about it.ö

Ross looked at the building around her again, realizing it wasnÆt a temple
but a school. An objection occurred to her these pictures were hundreds of
years old, the trainers long gone. Yet the gorillas were still here. ôWho
teaches them now?ö

ôThey do,ö Elliot said. ôThey teach each other.ö

ôIs that possible?ö

ôPerfectly possible. Conspecific teaching occurs among Primates.ö

This had been a longstanding question among researchers. But Washoe, the
first primate in history to learn sign language, taught ASL to her
offspring. Language-skilled primates freely taught other animals in
captivity; for that matter, they would teach people, signing slowly and
repeatedly until the stupid uneducated human person got the point.

So it was possible for a primate tradition of language and behavior to be
carried on for generations. ôYou mean,ö Ross said, ôthat the people in this
city have been gone for centuries, but the gorillas they trained are still
here?ö

ôThatÆs the way it looks,ö Elliot said.

ôAnd they use stone tools?ö she asked. ôStone paddles.ö

ôYes,ö Elliot said. The idea of tool use was not as farfetched as it first
seemed. Chimpanzees were capable of elaborate tool use, of which the most
striking example was ôtermite fishing.ö Chimps would make a twig, carefully
bending it to their specifications, and then spend hours over a termite
mound, fishing with the stick to catch succulent grubs.

Human observers labeled this activity ôprimitive tool useö until they tried
it themselves. It turned out that making a satisfactory twig and catching
termites was not primitive at all; at least it proved to be beyond the
ability of people who tried to duplicate it. Human fishermen quit, with a
new respect for the chimpanzees, and a new observationùthey now noticed
that younger chimps spent days watching their elders make sticks and twirl
them in the mound. Young chimps literally learned how to do it, and the
learning process extended over a period of years.

This began to look suspiciously like culture; the apprenticeship of young
Ben Franklin, printer, was not so different from the apprenticeship of
young Chimpanzee, termite fisher. Both learned their skills over a period
of years by observing their elders; both made mistakes on the way to
ultimate success.

Yet manufactured stone tools implied a quantum jump beyond twigs and
termites. The privileged position of stone tools as the special province of
mankind might have remained sacrosanct were it not for a single
iconoclastic researcher. In 1971, the British scientist R. V. S. Wright
decided to teach an ape to make stone tools. His pupil was a five-year-old
orangutan named Abang in the Bristol zoo. Wright presented Abang with a box
containing food, bound with a rope; he showed Abang how to cut the rope
with a flint chip to get the food. Abang got the point in an hour.

Wright then showed Abang how to make a stone chip by striking a pebble
against a flint core. This was a more difficult lesson; over a period of
weeks, Abang required a total of three hours to learn to grasp the flint
core between his toes, strike a sharp chip, cut the rope, and get the food.

The point of the experiment was not that apes used stone tools, but that
the ability to make stone tools was literally within their grasp. WrightÆs
experiment was one more reason to think that human beings were not as
unique as they had previously imagined themselves to be.



ôBut why would Amy say they werenÆt gorillas?ö

ôBecause theyÆre not,ö Elliot said. ôThese animals donÆt look like gorillas
and they donÆt act like gorillas. They are physically and behaviorally
different.ö He went on to voice his suspicion that not only had these
animals been trained, they had been bredùperhaps interbred with chimpanzees
or, more strangely still, with men.

They thought he was joking. But the facts were disturbing. In 1960, the
first blood protein studies quantified the kinship between man and ape.
Biochemically manÆs nearest relative was the chimpanzee, much closer than
the gorilla. In 1964, chimpanzee kidneys were successfully transplanted
into men; blood transfusions were also possible.

But the degree of similarity was not fully known until 1975, when
biochemists compared the DNA of chimps and men. It was discovered that
chimps differed from men by only 1 percent of their DNA strands. And almost
no one wanted to acknowledge one consequence: with modern DNA hybridization
techniques and embryonic implantation, ape-ape crosses were certain, and
man-ape crosses were possible.

Of course, the fourteenth-century inhabitants of Zinj had no way to mate
DNA strands. But Elliot pointed out that they had consistently
underestimated the skills of the Zinj people, who at the very least had
managed, five hundred years ago, to carry out sophisticated animal-training
procedures only duplicated by Western scientists within the last ten years.

And as Elliot saw it, the animals the Zinjians had trained presented an
awesome problem.

ôWe have to face the realities,ö he said. ôWhen Amy was given a human IQ
test, she scored ninety-two. For all practical purposes, Amy is as smart as
a human being, and in many ways she is smarterùmore perceptive and
sensitive. She can manipulate us at least as skillfully as we can
manipulate her.

ôThese gray gorillas possess that same intelligence, yet they have been
single-mindedly bred to be the primate equivalent of Doberman
pinschersùguard animals, attack animals, trained for cunning and
viciousness. But they are much brighter and more resourceful than dogs. And
they will continue their attacks until they succeed in killing us all, as
they have killed everyone who has come here before.ö













3. Looking Through the Bars





IN 1975, THE MATHEMATICIAN S. L. BERENSKY reviewed the literature on
primate language and reached a startling conclusion. ôThere is no doubt,ö
he announced, ôthat primates are far superior in intelligence to man.ö

In BerenskyÆs mind, ôThe salient questionùwhich every human visitor to the
zoo intuitively asksùis, who is behind the bars? Who is caged, and who is
free?. . . On both sides of the bars primates can be observed making faces
at each other. It is too facile to say that man is superior because he has
made the zoo. We impose our special horror of barred captivityùa form of
punishment among our speciesùand assume that other primates feel as we do.ö

Berensky likened primates to foreign ambassadors. ôApes have for centuries
managed to get along with human beings, as ambassadors from their species.
In recent years, they have even learned to communicate with human beings
using sign language. But it is a one-sided diplomatic exchange; no human
being has attempted to live in ape society, to master their language and
customs, to eat their food, to live as they do. The apes have learned to
talk to us, but we have never learned to talk to them. Who, then, should be
judged the greater intellect?ö

Berensky added a prediction. ôThe time will come,ö he

said, ôwhen circumstances may force some human beings to communicate with a
primate society on its own terms. Only then human beings will become aware
of their complacent egotism with regard to other animals.ö









The ERTS expedition, isolated deep in the Congo rain forest, now faced just
such a problem. Confronted by a new species of gorilla-like animal, they
somehow had to deal with it on its own terms.

During the evening, Elliot transmitted the taped breath sounds to Houston,
and from there they were relayed to San Francisco. The transcript which
followed the transmission was brief:

Seamans Wrote: RECVD TRNSMISN. SHLD HELP.

IMPORTNT-NEED TRNSLATION SOON, Elliot typed back. WHN HAVE?

COMPUTR ANALYSS DIFICLTùPROBLMS XCEED MGNITUDE CSL / JSL TRNSLATN.

ôWhat does that mean?ö Ross said.

ôHeÆs saying that the translation problems exceed the problem of
translating Chinese or Japanese sign language.ö

She hadnÆt known there was a Chinese or Japanese sign language, but Elliot
explained that there were sign languages for all major languages, and each
followed its own rules. For instance, BSL, British sign language, was
totally different from ASL, American sign language, even though spoken and
written English language was virtually identical in the two countries.

Different sign languages had different grammar and syntax, and even obeyed
different sign traditions. Chinese sign language used the middle finger
pointing outward for several signs, such as TWO WEEKS FROM NOW and BROTHER,
although this configuration was insulting and unacceptable in American sign
language.

ôBut this is a spoken language,ö Ross said.

ôYes,ö Elliot said, ôbut itÆs a complicated problem. We arenÆt likely to
get it translated soon.ö

By nightfall, they had two additional pieces of information. Ross ran a
computer simulation through Houston which came back with a probability
course of three days and a standard deviation of two days to find the
diamond mines. That meant they should be prepared for five more days at the
site. Food was not a problem, but ammunition was: Munro proposed to use
tear gas.

They expected the gray gorillas to try a different approach, and they did,
attacking immediately after dark. The battle on the night of June 23 was
punctuated by the coughing explosions of canisters and the sizzling hiss of
the gas. The strategy was effective; the gorillas were driven away, and did
not return again that night.

Munro was pleased. He announced that they had enough tear gas to hold off
the gorillas for a week, perhaps more. For the moment, their problems
appeared to be solved.







                               DAY 12: ZINJ



                               June 24, 1979







1. The Offensive



SHORTLY AFTER DAWN, THEY DISCOVERED THE bodies of Mulewe and Akari near
their tent. Apparently the attack the night before had been a diversion,
allowing one gorilla to enter the compound, kill the porters, and slip out
again. Even more disturbing, they could find no clue to how the gorilla had
got through the electrified fence and back out again.

A careful search revealed a section of fence torn near the bottom. A long
stick lay on the ground nearby. The gorillas had used the stick to lift the
bottom of the fence, enabling one to crawl through. And before leaving, the
gorillas had carefully restored the fence to its original condition.

The intelligence implied by such behavior was hard to accept. ôTime and
again,ö Elliot said later, ôwe came up against our prejudices about
animals. We kept expecting the gorillas to behave in stupid, stereotyped
ways but they never did. We never treated them as flexible and responsive
adversaries, though they had already reduced our numbers by one fourth.ö

Munro had difficulty accepting the calculated hostility of the gorillas.
His experience had taught him that animals in nature were indifferent to
man. Finally he concluded that ôthese animals had been trained by men, and
I had to think of them as men. The question became what would I do if they
were men?ö

For Munro the answer was clear: take the offensive.









Amy agreed to lead them into the jungle where she said the gorillas lived.
By ten oÆclock that morning, they were moving up the hillsides north of the
city armed with machine guns. It was not long before they found gorilla
spoorù quantities of dung, and nests on the ground and in the trees. Munro
was disturbed by what he saw; some trees held twenty or thirty nests,
suggesting a large population of animals.

Ten minutes later, they came upon a group of ten gray gorillas feeding on
succulent vines: four males and three females, a juvenile, and two
scampering infants. The adults were lazy, basking in the sun, eating in
desultory fashion. Several other animals slept on their backs, snoring
loudly. They all seemed remarkably unguarded.

Munro gave a hand signal; the safeties clicked off the guns. He prepared to
fire into the group when Amy tugged at his trouser leg. He looked off and
ôhad the shock of my bloody life. Up the slope was another group, perhaps
ten or twelve animalsùand then I saw another groupùand anotherùand another
still. There must have been three hundred or more. The hillside was
crawling with gray gorillas.ö









The largest gorilla group ever sighted in the wild had been thirty-one
individuals, in Kabara in 1971, and even that sighting was disputed. Most
researchers thought it was actually two groups seen briefly together, since
the usual group size was ten to fifteen individuals. Elliot found three
hundred animals ôan awesome sight.ö But he was even more impressed by the
behavior of the animals. As they browsed and fed in the sunlight, they
behaved very much like ordinary gorillas in the wild, but there were
important differences.

ôFrom the first sighting, I never had any doubt that they had language.
Their wheezing vocalizations were striking and clearly constituted a form
of language. In addition they used sign language, although nothing like
what we knew. Their hand gestures were delivered with outstretched arms in
a graceful way, rather like Thai dancers. These hand movements seemed to
complement or add to the sighing vocalizations. Obviously the gorillas had
been taught, or had elaborated on their own, a language system far more
sophisticated than the pure sign language of laboratory apes in the
twentieth century.ö

Some abstract corner of ElliotÆs mind considered this discovery
tremendously exciting, while at the same time he shared the fear of the
others around him. Crouched behind the dense foliage they held their breath
and watched the gorillas feed on the opposite hillside. Although the
gorillas seemed peaceful, the humans watching them felt a tension
approaching panic at being so close to such great numbers of them. Finally,
at Munro's signal, they slipped back down the trail, and returned to the
camp.

The porters were digging graves for Akari and Mulewe in camp. It was a grim
reminder of their jeopardy as they discussed their alternatives. Munro said
to Elliot, ôThey donÆt seem to be aggressive during the day.ö

ôNo,ö Elliot said. ôTheir behavior looks quite typicalù if anything,. itÆs
more sluggish than that of ordinary gorillas in daytime. Probably most of
the males are sleeping during the day.ö

ôHow many animals on the hillside are males?ö Munro asked. They had already
concluded that only male animals participated in the attacks; Munro was
asking for odds.

Elliot said, ôMost studies have found that adult males constitute fifteen
percent of gorilla groupings. And most studies show that isolated
observations underestimate troop size by twenty-five percent. There are
more animals than you see at any given moment.ö

The arithmetic was disheartening. They had counted three hundred gorillas
on the hillside, which meant there were probably four hundred, of which 15
percent were males. That meant that there were sixty attacking animalsùand
only nine in their defending group.

ôHard,ö Munro said, shaking his head.

Amy had one solution. She signed, Go now.

Ross asked what she said and Elliot told her, ôShe wants to leave. I think
sheÆs right.ö

ôDonÆt be ridiculous,ö Ross said. ôWe havenÆt found the diamonds. We canÆt
leave now.ö

Go now, Amy signed again.

They looked at Munro. Somehow the group had decided that Munro would make
the decision of what to do next. ôI want the diamonds as much as anyone,ö
he said. ôBut they wonÆt be much use to us if weÆre dead. We have no
choice. We must leave if we can.ö

Ross swore, in florid Texan style.

Elliot said to Munro, ôWhat do you mean, if we can?ö

ôI mean,ö Munro said, ôthat they may not let us leave.ö













2. Departure







FOLLOWING MUNROÆS INSTRUCTIONS, THEY carried only minimal supplies of food
and ammunition. They left everything elseùthe tents, the perimeter
defenses, the communications equipment, everything, in the sunlit clearing
at midday.

Munro glanced back over his shoulder and hoped he was doing the right
thing. In the 1960s, the Congo mercenaries had had an ironic rule: ôDonÆt
leave home.ö It had multiple meanings, including the obvious one that none
of them should ever have come to the Congo in the first place. It also
meant that once established in a fortified camp or colonial town you were
unwise to step out into the surrounding jungle, whatever the provocation.
Several of MunroÆs friends had bought it in the jungle because they had
foolishly left home. The news would come to them: ôDigger bought it last
week outside Stanleyville.ö ôOutside? WhyÆd he leave home?ö

Munro was leading the expedition outside now, and home was the little
silver camp with its perimeter defense behind them. Back in that camp, they
were sitting ducks for the attacking gorillas. The mercenaries had had
something to say about that, too: ôBetter a sitting duck than a dead duck.ö

As they marched through the rain forest, Munro was painfully aware of the
single-file column strung out behind him, the least defensible formation.
He watched the jungle foliage move in as their path narrowed. He did not
remember this track being so narrow when they had come to the city. Now
they were hemmed in by close ferns and spreading palms.

The gorillas might be only a few feet away, concealed in the dense foliage,
and they wouldnÆt know it until it was too late.

They walked on.

Munro thought if they could reach the eastern slopes of Mukenko, they would
be all right. The gray gorillas were localized near the city, and would not
follow them far. One or two hours walking, and they would be beyond danger.

He checked his watch: they had been gone ten minutes.

And then he heard the sighing sound. It seemed to come from all directions.
He saw the foliage moving before him, shifting as if blown by a wind. Only
there was no wind. He heard the sighing grow louder.

The column halted at the edge of a ravine, which followed a streambed past
sloping jungle walls on both sides. It was the perfect spot for an ambush.
Along the line he heard the safeties click on the machine guns. Kahega came
up. ôCaptain, what do we do?ö

Munro watched the foliage move,, and heard the sighing. He could only guess
at the numbers concealed in the bush. Twenty? Thirty? Too many, in any
case.

Kahega pointed up the hillside to a track that ran above the ravine. ôGo up
there?ö

For a long time, Munro did not answer. Finally, he said, ôNo, not up
there.ö

ôThen where, Captain?ö

ôBack,ö Munro said. ôWe go back.ö

When they turned away from the ravine, the sighing faded and the foliage
ceased its movement. When he looked back over his shoulder for a last
glimpse, the ravine appeared an ordinary passage in the jungle, without
threat of any kind. But Munro knew the truth. They could not leave.







3. Return



ELLIOTÆS IDEA CAME IN A FLASH OF INSIGHT. ôIN the middle of the camp,ö he
later related, ôI was looking at Amy signing to Kahega. Amy was asking him
for a drink, but Kahega didnÆt know Ameslan, and he kept shrugging
helplessly. It occurred to me that the linguistic skill of the gray
gorillas was both their great advantage and their AchillesÆ heel.ö

Elliot proposed to capture a single gray gorilla, learn its language, and
use that language to establish communication with the other animals. Under
normal circumstances it would take several months to learn a new ape
language, but Elliot thought he could do it in a matter of hours.

Seamans was already at work on the gray-gorilla verbalizations; all he
needed was further input. But Elliot had decided that the gray gorillas
employed a combination of spoken sounds and sign language. And the sign
language would be easy to work out.

Back at Berkeley, Seamans had developed a computer program called APE, for
animal pattern explanation. APE was capable of observing Amy and assigning
meanings to her signs. Since the APE program utilized declassified army
software subroutines for code-breaking, it was capable of identifying new
signs, and translating these as well. Although APE was intended to work
with Amy in ASL, there was no reason why it would not work with an entirely
new language.

If they could forge satellite links from the Congo to Houston to Berkeley,
they could feed video data from a captive animal directly into the APE
program. And APE promised a speed of translation far beyond the capacity of
any human observer. (The army software was designed to break enemy codes in
minutes.)

Elliot and Ross were convinced it would work; Munro was

not. He made some disparaging comments about interrogating prisoners of
war. ôWhat do you intend to do,ö he said, ôtorture the animal?ö

ôWe will employ situational stress,ö Elliot said, ôto elicit language
usage.ö He was laying out test materials on the ground: a banana, a bowl of
water, a piece of candy, a stick, a succulent vine, stone paddles. ôWeÆll
scare the hell out of her if we have to.ö

ôHer?ö

ôOf course,ö Elliot said, loading the Thoralen dart gun. ôHer.ÆÆ













4.  Capture



HE WANTED A FEMALE WITHOUT AN INFANT. An infant would create difficulties.

Pushing through waist-high undergrowth, he found himself on the edge of a
sharp ridge and saw nine animals grouped below him: two males, five
females, and two juveniles. They were foraging through the jungle twenty
feet below. He watched the group long enough to be sure that all the
females used language, and that there were no infants Concealed in the
foliage. Then he waited for his chance.

The gorillas fed casually among the ferns, plucking up tender shoots, which
they chewed lazily. After several minutes, one female moved up from the
group to forage nearer the top of the ridge where he was crouching. She was
separated from the rest of the group by more than ten yards.

Elliot raised the dart pistol in both hands and squinted down the sight at
the female. She was perfectly positioned.

He watched, squeezed the trigger slowlyùand lost his footing on the ridge.
He fell crashing down the slope, right into the midst of the gorillas.







Elliot lay unconscious on his back, twenty feet below, but his chest was
moving, and his arm twitched; Munro felt certain that he was all right.
Munro was only concerned about the gorillas.

The gray gorillas had seen Elliot fall and now moved toward the body. Eight
or nine animals clustered around him, staring impassively, signing.

Munro slipped the safety off his gun.

Elliot groaned, touched his head, and opened his eyes. Munro saw Elliot
stiffen as he saw the gorillas, but he did not move. Three mature males
crouched very close to him, and he understood the precariousness of his
situation. Elliot lay motionless on the ground for nearly a minute. The
gorillas whispered and signed, but they did not come any closer.

Finally Elliot sat up on one elbow, which caused a burst of signing but no
direct threatening behavior.

On the hillside above, Amy tugged at MunroÆs sleeve, signing emphatically.
Munro shook his head: he did not understand; he raised his machine gun
again, and Amy bit his kneecap. The pain was excruciating. It was all Munro
could do to keep from screaming.



Elliot, lying on the ground below, tried to control his breathing. The
gorillas were very closeùclose enough for him to touch them, close enough
to smell the sweet, musty odor of their bodies. They were agitated; the
males had started grunting, a rhythmic ho-ho-ho.

He decided he had better get to his feet, slowly and methodically. He
thought that if he could put some distance between himself and the animals,
their sense of threat would be reduced. But as soon as he began to move the
grunting grew louder, and one of the males began a sideways crablike
movement, slapping the ground with his flat palms.

Immediately Elliot lay back down. The gorillas relaxed,

and he decided he had done the correct thing. The animals were confused by
this human being crashing down in their midst; they apparently did not
expect contact with men in foraging areas.

He decided to wait them out, if necessary remaining on his back for several
hours until they lost interest and moved off. He breathed slowly,
regularly, aware that he was sweating. Probably he smelled of fearùbut like
men, gorillas had a poorly developed sense of smell. They did not react-to
the odor of fear. He waited. The gorillas were sighing and signing swiftly,
trying to decide what to do. Then one male abruptly resumed his crabwise
movements, slapping the ground and staring at Elliot. Elliot did not move.
In his mind, he reviewed the stages of attack behavior: grunting, sideways
movement, slapping, tearing up grass, beating chestù Charging.

The male gorilla began tearing up grass. Elliot felt his heart pounding.
The gorilla was a huge animal, easily three hundred pounds. He reared up on
his hind legs and beat his chest with flat palms, making a hollow sound.
Elliot wondered what Munro was doing above. And then he heard a crash, and
he looked to see Amy tumbling down the hillside, breaking her fall by
grabbing at branches and ferns. She landed at ElliotÆs feet.

The gorillas could not have been more surprised. The large male ceased
beating his chest, dropped down from his upright posture, and glowered at
Amy.

Amy grunted.

The large male moved menacingly toward Peter, but he never took his eyes
off Amy. Amy watched him without response. It was a clear test of
dominance. The male moved closer and closer, without hesitation.

Amy bellowed, a deafening sound; Elliot jumped in surprise. He had only
heard her do it once or twice before in moments of extreme rage. It was
unusual for females to roar, and the other gorillas were alarmed. AmyÆs
forearms stiffened, her back went rigid, her face became tense. She stared
aggressively at the male and roared again.

The male paused, tilted his head to one side. He seemed to be thinking it
over. Finally he hacked off, rejoining the semicircle of gray apes around
ElliotÆs head.

Amy deliberately rested her hand on ElliotÆs leg, establishing possession.
A juvenile male, four or five years old, impulsively scurried forward,
baring his teeth. Amy slapped him across the face, and the juvenile whined
and scrambled back to the safety of his group.

Amy glowered at the other gorillas. And then she began signing. Go away
leave Amy go away.

The gorillas did not respond.

Peter good human person. But she seemed to be aware that the gorillas did
not understand, for she then did something remarkable: she sighed, making
the same wheezing sound that the gorillas made.

The gorillas were startled, and stared at one another.

But if Amy was speaking their language, it was without effect: they
remained where they were. And the more she sighed, the more their reaction
diminished, until finally they stared blandly at her.

She was not getting through to them.

Amy now came alongside PeterÆs head and began to groom him, plucking at his
beard and scalp. The gray gorillas signed rapidly. Then the male began his
rhythmic ho-ho-ho once more. When she saw this Amy turned to Peter and
signed, Amy hug Peter. He was surprised: Amy never volunteered

to hug Peter. Ordinarily she only wanted Peter to hug and tickle Amy.

Elliot sat up and she immediately pulled him to her chest, pressing his
face into her hair. At once the male gorilla ceased grunting. The gray
gorillas began to backpedal, as if they

had committed some error. In that moment, Elliot under-

stood: she was treating him like her infant.

This was classic primate behavior in aggressive situations. Primates
carried strong inhibitions against harming infants, and this inhibition was
invoked by adult animals

in many contexts. Male baboons often ended their fight when one male
grabbed an infant and clutched it to his chest; the sight of the small
animal inhibited further attack. Chimpanzees showed wore subtle variations
of the same thing. If juvenile chimp play turned too brutal, a male would
grab one juvenile and clutch it maternally, even though in this case both
parent and child were symbolic. Yet the posture was sufficient to evoke the
inhibition against further violence. In this case Amy was not only halting
the maleÆs attack but protecting Elliot as well, by treating him as an
infantùif the gorillas would accept a bearded six-foot-tall infant.

They did.

They disappeared hack into the foliage. Amy released Elliot from her fierce
grip. She looked at him and signed, Dumb things.

ôThank you, Amy,ö he said and kissed her.

Peter tickle Amy Amy good gorilla.

ôYou bet,ö he said, and he tickled her for the next several minutes, while
she rolled on the ground, grunting happily.









It was two oÆclock in the afternoon when they returned to camp. Ross said,
ôDid you get a gorilla?ö

ôNo,ö Elliot said.

ôWell, it doesnÆt matter,ö Ross, said, ôbecause I canÆt raise Houston.ö

Elliot was stunned: ôMore electronic jamming?ö

ôWorse than that,ö Ross said. She had spent an hour trying to establish a
satellite link with Houston, and had failed. Each time the link was broken
within seconds. Finally, after confirming that there was no fault with her
equipment, she had checked the date. ôItÆs June 24,ö she said. ôAnd we had
communications trouble with the last Congo expedition on May 28. ThatÆs
twenty-seven days ago.ö

When Elliot still didnÆt get it, Munro said, ôSheÆs telling you itÆs
solar.ö

ôThatÆs right,ö Ross said. ôThis is an ionospheric disturbance of solar
origin.ö Most disruptions of the earthÆs ionosphereùthe thin layer of
ionized molecules 50-250 miles upùwere caused by phenomena such as sunspots
on the surface of the sun. Since the sun rotated every twenty-seven days,
these disturbances often recurred a month later.

ææOkay,ö Elliot said, ôitÆs solar. How long will it last?ö

Ross shook her head. ôOrdinarily, I would say a few hours, a day at most.
But this seems to be a severe disturbance and itÆs come up very suddenly.
Five hours ago we had perfect communicationsùand now we have none at all.
Something unusual is going on. It could last a week.ö

ôNo communications for a week? No computer tie-ins, no nothing?ö

ôThatÆs right,ö Ross said evenly. ôFrom this moment on, we are entirely cut
off from the outside world.ö













       5. Isolation





THE LARGEST SOLAR FLARE OF 1979 WAS RECORDED on June 24, by the Kitt Peak
Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, and duly passed on to the Space
Environment Services Center in Boulder, Colorado. At first the SESC did not
believe the incoming data: even by the gigantic standards of solar
astronomy, this flare, designated 78/06/4l4aa, was a monster.

The cause of solar flares is unknown, but they are generally associated
with sunspots. In this case the flare appeared as an extremely bright spot
ten thousand miles in diameter, affecting not only alpha hydrogen and
ionized calcium spectral lines but also the white light spectrum from the
sun. Such a ôcontinuous spectrumö flare was extremely rare.

Nor could the SESC believe the computed consequences. Solar flares release
an enormous amount of energy; even a modest flare can double the amount of
ultraviolet radiation emitted by the entire solar surface. But flare
78/06/4l4aa was almost tripling ultraviolet emissions. Within 8.3 minutes
of its first appearances along the rotating rimùthe time it takes light to
reach the earth from the sunùthis surge of ultraviolet radiation began to
disrupt the ionosphere of the earth.

The consequence of the flare was that radio communications on a planet
ninety-three million miles away were seriously disrupted. This was
especially true for radio transmissions which utilized low signal
strengths. Commercial radio stations generating kilowatts of power were
hardly

inconvenienced, but the Congo Field Survey, transmitting signals on the
order of twenty thousand watts, was unable to establish satellite links.
And since the solar flare also ejected X-rays and atomic particles which
would not reach the earth for a full day, the radio disruption would last
at least one day, and perhaps longer. At ERTS in Houston, technicians
reported to Travis that the SESC predicted a time course of ionic
disruption of four to eight days.

ôThatÆs how it looks. RossÆll probably figure it out,ö the technician said,
ôwhen she canÆt re-establish today.ö

ôThey need that computer hookup,ö Travis said. The ERTS staff had run five
computer simulations and the outcome was always the sameùshort of
airlifting in a small army, RossÆs expedition was in serious trouble.
Survival projections were running ôpoint two four four and changeöù only
one chance in four that the Congo expedition would get out alive, assuming
the help of the computer link which was now broken.

Travis wondered if Ross and the others realized how grave their situation
was. ôAny new Band Five on Mukenko?ö Travis asked.

Band 5 on Landsat satellites recorded infrared data. On its last pass over
the Congo, Landsat had acquired significant new information on Mukenko. The
volcano had become much hotter in the nine days since the previous Landsat
pass; the temperature increase was on the order of 8 degrees.

ôNothing new,ö the technician said. ôAnd the computers donÆt project an
eruption. Four degrees of orbital change are Within sensor error on that
system, and the additional four degrees have no predictive value.ö

ôWell, thatÆs something,ö Travis said. ôBut what are they going to do about
the apes now that theyÆre cut off from the computer?ö



That was the question the Congo Field Survey had been asking themselves for
the better part of an hour. With communications disrupted the only
computers available were the computers in their own heads. And those
computers were not powerful enough.

Elliot found it strange to think that his own brain was inadequate. ôWe had
all become accustomed to the availability of computing power,ö he said
later. ôIn any decent laboratory you can get all the memory and all the
computation speed you could want, day or night. We were so used to it we
had come to take it for granted.

Of course they could have eventually worked out the ape language, but they
were up against a time factor: they didnÆt have months to puzzle it out;
they had hours. Cut off from the APE program their situation was ominous.
Munro said that they could not survive another night of frontal attack, and
they had every reason to expect an attack that night.

AmyÆs rescue of Elliot suggested their plan. Amy had shown some ability to
communicate with the gorillas; perhaps she could translate for them as
well. ôItÆs worth a try,ö Elliot insisted.

Unfortunately, Amy herself denied that this was possible. In response to
the question ôAmy talk thing talk?ö She

signed, No talk.

ôNot at all?ö Elliot said, remembering the way she had signed. ôPeter see
Amy talk thing talk.ö

No talk. Make noise.

He concluded from this that she was able to mimic the gorilla
verbalizations but had no knowledge of their meaning. It was now past two;
they had only four or five hours until nightfall.

Munro said, ôGive it up. She obviously canÆt help us.ö Munro preferred to
break camp and fight their way out in daylight. He was convinced that they
could not survive another night among the gorillas.

But something nagged at ElliotÆs mind.

After years of working with Amy, he knew she had the maddening
literal-mindedness of a child. With Amy, especially when she was feeling
uncooperative, it was necessary to be exact to elicit the appropriate
response. Now he looked at Amy and said, ôAmy talk thing talk?ö

No talk.

ôAmy understand thing talk?ö

Amy did not answer. She was chewing on vines, preoccupied.

ôAmy, listen to Peter.ö She stared at him. ôAmy understand thing talk?ö

Amy understand thing talk, she signed back. She did it so matter-of-factly
that at first he wondered if she realized what he was asking her.

ôAmy watch thing talk, Amy understand talk?ö

Amy understand.

ôAmy sure?ö

Amy sure.

ôIÆll be goddamned,ö Elliot said.

Munro was shaking his head. ôWeÆve only got a few hours

of daylight left,ö he said. ôAnd even if you do learn their language, how
are you going to talk to them?ö













6. Amy Talk Thing Talk





AT 3 P.M., ELLIOT AND AMY WERE COMPLETELY concealed in the foliage along
the hillside. The only sign of their presence was the slender cone of the
microphone that protruded through the foliage. The microphone was connected
to the videotape recorder at ElliotÆs feet, which he used to record the
sounds of the gorillas on the hills beyond.

The only difficulty was trying to determine which gorilla the directional
microphone had focused onùand which gorilla Amy had focused on, and whether
they were the same gorilla. He could never be quite sure that Amy was
translating the verbal utterances of the same animal that he was recording.
There were eight gorillas in the nearest group and Amy kept getting
distracted. One female had a six-month-old infant, and at one point, when
the baby was bitten by a bee, Amy signed, Baby mad. But Elliot was
recording a male.

Amy, he signed. Pay attention.

Amy pay attention. Amy good gorilla.

Yes, he signed. Amy good gorilla. Amy pay attention man thing.

Amy not like.

He swore silently, and erased half an hour of translations from Amy. She
had obviously been paying attention to the wrong gorilla. When he started
the tape again, he decided that this time he would record whatever Amy was
watching. He signed, What thing Amy watch?

Amy watch baby.

That wouldnÆt work, because the baby didnÆt speak. He signed, Amy watch
woman thing.

Amy like watch baby.

This dependency on Amy was like a bad dream. He was in the hands of an
animal whose thinking and behavior he barely understood; he was cut off
from the wider society of human beings and human machinery, thus increasing
his dependency on the animal; and yet he had to trust her.

After another hour, with the sunlight fading, he took Amy back down the
hillside to the camp.









Munro had planned as best he could.

First he dug a series of holes like elephant traps outside the camp; they
were deep pits lined with sharp stakes, covered with leaves and branches.

He widened the moat in several places, and cleared away dead trees and
underbrush that might be used as bridges.

He cut down the low tree branches overhanging the camp, so that if gorillas
went into the trees, they would be kept at least thirty feet above the
groundùtoo high to jump down.

He gave three of the remaining porters, Muzezi, Amburi, and Harawi,
shotguns along with a supply of tear-gas canisters.

With Ross, he boosted power on the perimeter fence to almost 200 amps. This
was the maximum the thin mesh could handle without melting; they had been
obliged to reduce the pulses from four to two per second. But the
additional current changed the fence from a deterrent to a lethal barrier.
The first animals to hit that fence would be immediately killed, although
the likelihood of shorts and a dead fence was considerably increased.

At sunset, Munro made his most difficult decision. He loaded the stubby
tripod-mounted RFSDs with half their remaining ammunition. When that was
gone, the machines would simply stop firing. From that point on, Munro was
counting on Elliot and Amy and their translation.

And Elliot did not look very happy when he came back down the hill.













7. Final Defense





ôHow LONG UNTIL YOUÆRE READY?ö MUNRO asked him.

ôCouple of hours, maybe more.ö Elliot asked Ross to help him, and Amy went
to get food from Kahega. She seemed very proud of herself, and behaved like
an important person in the group.

Ross said, ôDid it work?ö

ôWeÆll know in a minute,ö Elliot said. His first plan was to run the only
kind of internal check on Amy that he could, by verifying repetitions of
sounds. If she had consistently translated sounds in the same way, they
would have a reason for confidence.

But it was painstaking work. They had only the half-inch VTR and the small
pocket tape recorder; there were no connecting cables. They called for
silence from the others in the camp and proceeded to run the checks,
taping, retaping, listening to the whispering sounds.

At once they found that their ears simply werenÆt capable of discriminating
the soundsùeverything sounded the same. Then Ross had an idea.

ôThese sounds taped,ö she said, ôas electrical signals.ö

ôYes . .

ôWell, the linkup transmitter has a 256K memory.ö

ôBut we canÆt link up to the Houston computer.ö

ôI donÆt mean that,ö Ross said. She explained that the satellite linkup was
made by having the 256K computer on-site match an internally generated
signalùlike a video test patternùto a transmitted signal from Houston. That
was how they locked on. The machine was built that way, but they could use
the matching program for other purposes.

ôYou mean we can use it to compare these sounds?ö Elliot said.

They could, but it was incredibly slow. They had to transfer the taped
sounds to the computer memory, and rerecord it in the VTR, on another
portion of the tape bandwidth. Then they had to input that signal into the
computer memory, and run a second comparison tape on the VTR. Elliot found
that he was standing by, watching Ross shuffle tape cartridges and mini
floppy discs. Every half hour, Munro would wander over to ask how it was
coming; Ross became increasingly snappish and irritable. ôWeÆre going as
fast as we can,ö she said.

It was now eight oÆclock.

But the first results were encouraging: Amy was indeed consistent in her
translations. By nine oÆclock they had quantified matching on almost a
dozen words:





FOOD                                              .9213     .112

EAT                                                 .8844     .334

WATER                                           .9978     .004

DRINK                                            .7743     .334

{AFFIRMATION} YES                   .6654     .441

{NEGATION} NO                           .8883     .220

COME                                              .5459     .440

GO                                                   .5378     .404

SOUND COMPLEX: ?AWAY         .5444     .363

SOUND COMPLEX: ?HERE           .6344     .344

SOUND COMPLEX: ?ANGER

                       ?BAD                       .4232     .477



Ross stepped away from the computer. ôAll yours,ö she said to Elliot.



Munro paced across the compound. This was the worst time. Everyone waiting,
on edge, nerves shot. He would have joked with Kahega and the other
porters, but Ross and

-Elliot needed silence for their work. He glanced at Kahega. Kahega pointed
to the sky and rubbed his fingers together. Munro nodded.

He had felt it too, the heavy dampness in the air, the almost palpable
feeling of electrical charge. Rain was coming.

That was all they needed, he thought. During the afternoon, there had been
more booming and distant explosions, which

he had thought were far-off lightning storms. But the sound was not right;
these were sharp, single reports, more like a sonic boom than anything
else. Munro had heard them before, and he had an idea about what they
meant.

He glanced up at the dark cone of Mukenko, and the faint glow of the
DevilÆs Eye. He looked at the crossed green laser beams overhead. And he
noticed one of the beams was moving where it struck foliage in the trees
above.

At first he thought it was an illusion, that the leaf was moving and not
the beam. But after a moment he was sure: the beam itself was quivering,
shifting up and down in the night air.

Munro knew this was an ominous development, but it would have to wait until
later; at the moment, there were more pressing concerns. He looked across
the compound at Elliot and Ross bent over their equipment, talking quietly
and in general behaving as if they had all the time in the world.









Elliot actually was going as fast as he could. He had eleven reliable
vocabulary words recorded on tape. His problem now was to compose an
unequivocal message. This was not as easy as it first appeared.

For one thing, the gorilla language was not a pure verbal language. The
gorillas used sign and sound combinations to convey information. This
raised a classic problem in language structureùhow was the information
actually conveyed? (L. S. Verinski once said that if alien visitors watched
Italians speaking they would conclude that Italian was basically a gestural
sign language, with sounds added for emphasis only.) Elliot needed a simple
message that did not depend on accompanying hand signs.

But he had no idea of gorilla syntax, which could critically alter meaning
in most circumstancesùthe difference between ôme beatö and ôbeat me.ö And
even a short message could be ambiguous in another language. In English,
ôLook out!ö generally meant the opposite of its literal meaning.

Faced with these uncertainties, Elliot considered broadcasting a single
word. But none of the words on his list was suitable. His second choice was
to broadcast several short messages, in case one was inadvertently
ambiguous. He eventually decided on three messages; GO AWAY, NO COME, and
BAD HERE; two of these combinations had the virtue of being essentially
independent of word order.

By nine oÆclock, they had already isolated the specific sound components.
But they still had a complicated task ahead. What Elliot needed was a loop,
repeating the sounds over and over. The closest they would come was the
VCR, which rewound automatically to play its message again. He could hold
the six sounds in the 256K memory and play them out, but the timing was
critical. For the next hour, they frantically worked at the keyboard,
trying to bring the word combinations close enough together to soundùto
their earsù correct.

By then it was after ten.

Munro came over with his laser gun. ôYou think all this

will work?ö

Elliot shook his head. ôThereÆs no way to know.ö A dozen objections had
come to mind. They had recorded a female voice, but would the gorillas
respond to a female? Would they accept voice sounds without accompanying
hand signals? Would the message be clear? Would the spacing of the sounds
be acceptable? Would the gorillas pay attention at all?

There was no way to know. They would simply have to try. Equally uncertain
was the problem of broadcasting. Ross had made a speaker, removing the tiny
speaker from the pocket tape recorder and gluing it to an umbrella on a
collapsible tripod. This makeshift speaker produced surprisingly loud
volume, but reproduction was muffled and unconvincing.

Shortly afterward, they heard the first sighing sounds.







Munro swung the laser gun through the darkness, the red activation light
glowing on the electronic pod at the end of the barrel. Through his night
goggles he surveyed the foliage.

Once again, the sighing came from all directions; and although he heard the
jungle foliage shifting, he saw no movement close to the camp. The monkeys
overhead were silent. There was only the soft, ominous sighing. Listening
now, Munro was convinced that the sounds represented a language of some
form, andù A single gorilla appeared and Kahega fired, his laser beam

streaking arrow-straight through the night. The RFSD chattered and the
foliage snapped with bullets. The gorilla ducked silently back into a stand
of dense ferns.

Munro and the others quickly took positions along the perimeter, crouching
tensely, the infrared night lights casting their shadows on the mesh fence
and the jungle beyond.

The sighing continued for several minutes longer, and then slowly faded
away, until all was silent again.

ôWhat was that about?ö Ross said.

Munro frowned. ôTheyÆre waiting.ö

ôFor what?ö

Munro shook his head. He circled the compound, looking at the oilier
guards, trying to work it out. Many times he had anticipated the behavior
of animalsùa wounded leopard in the bush, a cornered buffaloùbut this was
different. He was forced to admit he didnÆt know what to expect. Had the
single gorilla been a scout to look at their defenses? Or had an attack
actually begun, only for some reason to be halted? Was it a maneuver
designed to fray nerves? Munro had watched parties of hunting chimpanzees
make brief threatening forays toward baboons, to raise the anxiety level of
the entire troop before the actual assault, isolating some young animal for
killing.

Then he heard the rumble of thunder. Kahega pointed to the sky, shaking his
head. That was their answer.

ôDamn,ö Munro said.

At 10:30 a torrential tropical rain poured down on them. Their fragile
speaker was immediately soaked and drooping.

The rain shorted the electrical cables and the perimeter fence went dead.
The night lights flickered, and two bulbs exploded. The ground turned to
mud; visibility was reduced to five yards. And worst of all, the rain
splattering the foliage was so noisy they had to shout to each other. The
tapes were unfinished; the loudspeaker probably would not work, and
certainly would not carry over the rain. The rain would interfere with the
lasers and prevent the dispersal of tear gas. Faces in camp were grim.

Five minutes later, the gorillas attacked.







The rain masked their approach; they seemed to burst out of nowhere,
striking the fence from three directions simultaneously. From that first
moment, Elliot realized the attack would be unlike the others. The gorillas
had learned from the earlier assaults, and now were intent on finishing the
job.

Primate attack animals, trained for cunning and viciousness: even though
that was ElliotÆs own assessment, he was astonished to see the proof in
front of him. The gorillas charged in waves, like disciplined shock troops.
Yet he found it more horrifying than an attack by human troops. lb them we
are just animals, he thought. An alien species, for which they have no
feeling. We are just pests to be eliminated.

These gorillas did not care why human beings were there, or what reasons
had brought them to the Congo. They were not killing for food, or defense,
or protection of their young.

They were killing because they were trained to kill.

The attack proceeded with stunning swiftness. Within seconds, the gorillas
had breached the perimeter and trampled the mesh fence into the mud.
Unchecked, they rushed into the compound, grunting and roaring. The driving
rain matted their hair, giving them a sleek, menacing appearance in the red
night lights. Elliot saw ten or fifteen animals inside the compound,
trampling the tents and attacking the people. Azizi was killed immediately,
his skull crushed between paddles.

Munro, Kahega, and Ross all fired laser bursts, but in the confusion and
poor visibility their effectiveness was limited. The laser beams fragmented
in the slashing rain; the tracer bullets hissed and sputtered. One of the
RFSDs went haywire, the barrel swinging in wide arcs, bullets spitting out
in all directions, while everyone dived into the mud. Several gorillas were
killed by the RFSD bursts, clutching their chests in a bizarre mimicry of
human death.

Elliot turned back to the recording equipment and Amy flung herself on him,
panicked, grunting in fear. He pushed her away and switched on the tape
replay.

By now the gorillas had overwhelmed everyone in the camp. Munro lay on his
back, a gorilla on top of him.- Ross was nowhere to be seen. Kahega had a
gorilla clinging to his chest as he rolled in the mud. Elliot was hardly
aware of the hideous scratching sounds now emanating from the loudspeaker,
and the gorillas themselves paid no attention.

Another porter, Muzezi, screamed as he stepped in front of a firing RFSD;
his frame shook with the impact. of the bullets and he fell backward to the
ground, his body smoking from the tracers. At least a dozen gorillas were
dead or lying. wounded in the mud, groaning. The haywire RFSD had run out
of ammunition; the barrel swung back and forth, the empty chamber clicking.
A. gorilla kicked it over, and it lay writhing on its side in the mud like
a living thing as the barrel continued to swing.

Elliot saw one gorilla crouched over, methodically tearing a tent apart,
shredding the silver MyLar into strips. Across the camp, another arrival
banged aluminum cook pans together, as if they were metal paddles. More
gorillas poured into the compound, ignoring the rasping broadcast sounds.

He saw a gorilla pass beneath the loudspeaker, very close, and pay no
attention at all. Elliot had the sickening realization that their plan had
failed.

They were finished; it was only a matter of time. A gorilla charged him,
bellowing in rage, swinging stone paddles wide. Terrified, Amy threw her
hands over ElliotÆs eyes. ôAmy!ö he shouted, pulling her fingers away,
expecting to feel at any moment the impact of the paddles and the instant
of blinding pain.

He saw the gorilla hearing down on him. He tensed his body. Six feet away,
the charging gorilla stopped so abruptly that he literally skidded in the
mud and fell backward. He sat there surprised, cocking his head, listening.

Then Elliot realized that the rain had nearly stopped, that there was now
only a light drizzle sifting down over the campsite. Looking across the
compound, Elliot saw another gorilla stop to listenùthen anotherùand
anotherùand another. The compound took on the quality of a frozen tableau,
as the gorillas stood silent in the mist.

They were listening to the broadcast sounds.

He held his breath, not daring to hope. The gorillas seemed uncertain,
confused by the sounds they heard. Yet Elliot sensed that at any moment
they could arrive at some group decision and resume their attack with the
same intensity as before.

That did not happen. The gorillas stepped away from the people, listening.
Munro scrambled to his feet, raising his gun from the mud. but he did not
shoot; the gorilla standing over him seemed to be in a trance, to have
forgotten all about the attack.

In the gentle rain, with the flickering night lights, the gorillas moved
away, one by one. They seemed perplexed, off balance. The rasping continued
over the loudspeaker.

The gorillas left, moving back across the trampled perimeter fence,
disappearing once more into the jungle. And then the expedition members
were alone, staring at each other, shivering in the misty rain. The
gorillas were gone.









Twenty minutes later, as they were trying to rebuild their shattered
campsite, the rain poured down again with unabated fury.







                              DAY 13: MUKENKO



                               June 25, 1979







              1. Diamonds





IN THE MORNING A FINE LAYER OF BLACK ASH covered the campsite, and in the
distance Mukenko was belching great quantities of black smoke. Amy tugged
at ElliotÆs sleeve.

Leave now, she signed insistently.

ôNo, Amy,ö he said.

Nobody in the expedition was in a mood to leave, including Elliot. Upon
arising, he found himself thinking of additional data he needed before
leaving Zinj. Elliot was no

longer satisfied with a skeleton of one of these creatures; like men, their
uniqueness went beyond the details of physical structure to their behavior.
Elliot wanted videotapes of the gray apes, and more recordings of
verbalizations. And Ross was more determined than ever to find the
diamonds, with Munro no less interested.

Leave now.

ôWhy leave now?ö he asked her.

Earth bad. Leave now.

Elliot had no experience with volcanic activity, but what he saw did not
impress him. Mukenko was more active than it had been in previous days, but
the volcano had ejected smoke and gas since their first arrival in Virunga.

He asked Munro, ôIs there any danger?ö

Munro shrugged. ôKahega thinks so, but he probably just wants an excuse to
go home.ö

Amy came running over to Munro raising her arms, slapping them down on the
earth in front of him. Munro recognized this as her desire to play; he
laughed and began to tickle Amy. She signed to him.

ôWhatÆs she saying?ö Munro asked. ôWhat are you saying, you little devil?ö

Amy grunted with pleasure, and continued to sign.

ôShe says leave now,ö Elliot translated.

Munro stopped tickling her. ôDoes she?ö he asked sharply. What exactly does
she say?ö

 Elliot was surprised at MunroÆs seriousnessùalthough Amy accepted his
interest in her communication as perfectly proper. She signed again, more
slowly, for MunroÆs benefit, her eyes on his face.

ôShe says the earth is bad.ö

ôHmm,ö Munro said. ôInteresting.ö He glanced at Amy and then at his watch.

Amy signed, Nosehair man listen Amy go home now.

ôShe says you listen to her and go home now,ö Elliot said.

Munro shrugged. ôTell her I understand.ö

Elliot translated. Amy looked unhappy, and did not sign again.

ôWhere is Ross?ö Munro asked.

ôHere,ö Ross said.

ôLetÆs get moving,ö Munro said, and they headed for the lost city. Now they
had another surpriseùAmy signed she was coming with them, and she hurried
to catch up with them.









This was their final day in the city, and all the participants in the Congo
expedition described a similar reaction: the city, which had been so
mysterious before, was somehow stripped of its mystery. On this morning,
they saw the city for what it was: a cluster of crumbling old buildings in
a hot stinking uncomfortable jungle.

They all found it tedious, except for Munro. Munro was worried.

Elliot was bored, talking about verbalizations and why he wanted tape
recordings, and whether it was possible to preserve a brain from one of the
apes to take back with them. It seemed there was some academic debate about
where language came from; people used to think language was a development
of animal cries, but now they knew that animal barks and cries were
controlled by the limbic system of the brain, and that real language came
from some other part of the brain called BrocaÆs area. . . . Munro couldnÆt
pay attention. He kept listening to the distant rumbling of Mukenko.

Munro had firsthand experience with volcanoes; he had been in the Congo in
1968, when Mbuti, another of the Vi¡runga volcanoes, erupted. When he had
heard the sharp explosions the day before, he had recognized them as
bromides, the unexplained accompaniments of coming earthquakes. Munro had
assumed that Mukenko would soon erupt, and when he had seen the flickering
laser beam the night before, he had known there was new rumbling activity
on the upper slopes of the volcano.

Munro knew that volcanoes were unpredictableùas witnessed by the fact that
this ruined city at the base of an active volcano had been untouched after
more than five hundred years. There were recent lava fields on the mountain
slopes above, and others a few miles to the south, but the city itself was
spared. This in itself was not so remarkableùthe configuration of Mukenko
was such that most eruptions occurred on the gentle south slopes. But it
did not mean that they were now in any less danger. The unpredictability of
volcanic eruptions meant that they could become life-threatening in a
matter of minutes. The danger was not from lava, which rarely flowed faster
than a man could walk; it would take hours for lava to flow down from
MukenkoÆs summit. The real danger from volcanic eruptions was ash and gas.

Just as most people killed by fires actually died from smoke inhalation,
most deaths from volcanoes were caused by asphyxiation from dust and carbon
monoxide. Volcanic gases were heavier than air, the Lost City of Zinj,
located in a valley, could be filled in minutes with a heavy, poisonous
atmosphere, should Mukenko discharge a large quantity of gas.

The question was how rapidly Mukenko was building toward a major eruptive
phase. That was why Munro was so interested in AmyÆs reactions: it was well
known that primates could anticipate geological events such as earthquakes
and eruptions. Munro was surprised that Elliot, babbling away about
freezing gorilla brains, didnÆt know about that. And he was even more
surprised that Ross, with her exten¡sive geological knowledge, did not
regard the morning ash-fall as the start of a major volcanic eruption.









Ross knew a major eruption was building. That morning, she had routinely
tried to establish contact with Houston; to her surprise, the transmission
keys immediately locked through. After the scrambler notations registered,
she began typing in field updates, but the screen went blank, and flashed:



HUSTN STAIN OVRIDE CLR BANX.



This was an emergency signal; she had never seen it before on a field
expedition. She cleared the memory banks and pushed the transmit button.
There was a burst transmission delay, then the screen printed:



COMPUTR DESIGNATN MAJR ERUPIN SIGNATR MU-KENKO ADVIS LEAV SITE NOW EXPEDN
JEPRDY DANGR REPET ALL LEAV SITE NOW.



Ross glanced across the campsite. Kahega was making breakfast; Amy squatted
by the fire, eating a roasted banana (she had got Kahega to make special
treats for her); Munro and Elliot were having coffee. Except for the black
ashfall, it was a perfectly normal morning at the camp. She looked back at
the screen.



MAJR ERUPTN SIGNATR MUKENKO ADVIS LEAV SITE NOW.



Ross glanced up at the smoking cone of Mukenko. The hell with it, she
thought. She wanted the diamonds, and she had gone too far to quit now.

The screen blinked: PLS SIGNL REPLY.

Ross turned the transmitter off.









As the morning progressed they felt several sharp jolting earth tremors,
which released clouds of dust from the crumbling buildings. The rumblings
of Mukenko became more frequent. Ross paid no attention. ôIt just means
this is elephant country,ö she said. That was an old geological adage: ôIf
youÆre looking for elephants, go to elephant country.ö Elephant country
meant a likely spot to find whatever minerals you were looking for. ôAnd if
you want diamonds,ö Ross said, shrugging, ôyou go to volcanoes.ö

The association of diamonds with volcanoes had been recognized for more
than a century, but it was still poorly understood. Most theories
postulated that diamonds, crystals of pure carbon, were formed in the
intense heat and pressure of the upper mantle one thousand miles beneath
the earthÆs surface. The diamonds remained inaccessible at this depth
except in volcanic areas where rivers of molten magma carried them to the
surface.

But this did not mean that you went to erupting volcanoes to catch diamonds
being spewed out, Most diamond mines were at the site of extinct volcanoes,
in fossilized cones called kimberlite pipes, named for the geological
formations in Kimberley, South Africa. Virunga, near the geologically
unstable Rift Valley, showed evidence of continuous volcanic activity for
more than fifty million years. They were now looking for the same fossil
volcanoes which the earlier inhabitants of Zinj had found.

Shortly before noon they found them, halfway up the hills east of the
cityùa series of excavated tunnels running into the mountain slopes of
Mukenko.









Elliot felt disappointed. ôI donÆt know what I was expecting,ö he said
later, ôbut it was just a brown-colored tunnel in the earth, with
occasional bits of dull brown rock sticking out. I couldnÆt understand why
Ross got so excited.ö Those bits of dull brown rock were diamonds; when
cleaned, they had the transparency of dirty glass.

ôThey thought I was crazy,ö Ross said, ôbecause I began jumping up and
down. But they didnÆt know what they were looking at.ö

In an ordinary kimberilte pipe, diamonds were distributed sparsely in the
rock matrix. The average mine recovered only thirty-two karatsùa fifth of
an ounceùfor every hundred tons of rock removed. When you looked down a
diamond mine-shaft, you saw no diamonds at all. But the Zinj mines were
lumpy with protruding stones. Using his machete, Munro dug out six hundred
karats. And Ross saw six or seven stones protruding from the wall, each as
large as the one Munro had removed. ôJust looking,ö she said later, ôI
could see easily four or five thousand karats. With no further digging, no
separation, nothing. Just sitting there. It was a richer mine than the
Premier in South Africa. It was unbelievable.ö

Elliot asked the question that had already formed in RossÆs own mind. ôIf
this mine is so damn rich,ö he said, ôwhy was it abandoned?ö

ôThe gorillas got out of control,ö Munro said. ôThey staged a coup.ö He was
laughing, plucking diamonds out of the rock.

Ross had considered that, as she had considered ElliotÆs earlier suggestion
that the city had been wiped out by disease. She thought a less exotic
explanation was likely. ôI think,ö she said, ôthat as far as they were
concerned, the diamond mines had dried up.ö Because as gemstones, these
crystals were very poor indeedùblue, streaked with impurities.

The people of Zinj could not have imagined that five hundred years in the
future these same worthless stones would be more scarce and desirable than
any other mineral resources on the planet.

ôWhat makes these blue diamonds so valuable?ö

ôThey are going to change the world,ö Ross said, in a soft voice. ôThey are
going to end the nuclear age.ö





2. War at the Speed of Light





IN JANUARY, 1979, TESTIFYING BEFORE THE Senate Armed Services Subcommittee,
General Franklin F. Martin of the Pentagon Advanced Research Project Agency
said, ôIn 1939, at the start of World War II, the most important country in
the world to the American military effort was the Belgian Congo.ö Martin
explained that as a kind of ôaccident of geographyö the Congo, now Zaire,
has for forty years remained vital to American interestsùand will assume
even more importance in the future. (Martin said bluntly that ôthis country
will go to war over Zaire before we go to war over any Arab oil state.ö)

During World War II, in three highly secret shipments, the Congo supplied
the United States with uranium used to build the atomic bombs exploded over
Japan. By 1960 the U.S. no longer needed uranium, but copper and cobalt
were strategically important. In the 1970s the emphasis shifted to ZaireÆs
reserves of tantalum, wolframite, germaniumù substances vital to semi
conducting electronics. And in the 1980s, ôso-called Type IIb blue diamonds
will constitute the most important military resource in the worldöùand the
presumption was that Zaire had such diamonds. In General MartinÆs view,
blue diamonds were essential because ôwe are entering a time when the brute
destructive power of a weapon will be less important than its speed and
intelligence.ö

For thirty years, military thinkers had been awed by intercontinental
ballistic missiles. But Martin said that ôICBMs are crude weapons. They do
not begin to approach the theoretical limits imposed by physical laws.
According to Einsteinian physics, nothing can happen faster than the speed
of light, 186,000 miles a second. We are now developing high-energy pulsed
lasers and particle beam weapons systems which operate at the speed of
light. In the face of such weapons, ballistic missiles traveling a mere
17,000 miles an hour are slow-moving dinosaurs from a previous era, as
inappropriate as cavalry in World War I, and as easily eliminated.ö

Speed-of-light weapons were best suited to space, and would first appear in
satellites. Martin noted that the Russians had made a ôkillö of the
American spy satellite VV/ 02 as early as 1973; in 1975, Hughes Aircraft
developed a rapid aiming and firing system which locked onto multiple
targets, firing eight high-energy pulses in less than one second. By 1978,
the Hughes team had reduced response time to fifty nanosecondsùfifty
billionths of a secondùand increased beam accuracy to five hundred missile
knockdowns in less than one minute. Such developments presaged the end of
the ICBM as a weapon.

ôWithout the gigantic missiles, miniature, high-speed computers will be
vastly more important in future conflicts than nuclear bombs, and their
speed of computation will be the single most important factor determining
the outcome of World War III. Computer speed now stands at the center of
the armament race, as megaton power once held the center twenty years ago.

ôWe will shift from electronic circuit computers to light circuit computers
simply because of speedùthe Fabry-Perot Interferometer, the optical
equivalent of a transistor, can respond in 1 picosecond (10 12 seconds), at
least 1,000 times faster than the fastest Josephson junctions.ö The new
generation of optical computers, Martin said, would be dependent on the
availability of Type IIb boron-coated diamonds.









Elliot recognized at once the most serious consequence of the
speed-of-light weaponsùthey were much too fast for human comprehension. Men
were accustomed to mechanized

warfare, but a future war would be a war of machines in a

startlingly new sense: machines would actually govern the moment-to-moment
course of a conflict which lasted only minutes from start to finish.

In 1956, in the waning years of the strategic bomber, military thinkers
imagined an all-out nuclear exchange lasting 12 hours. By 1963, ICBMs had
shrunk the time course to 3 hours. By 1974, military theorists were
predicting a war that lasted just 30 minutes, yet this ôhalf-hour warö was
vastly more complex than any earlier war in human history.

In the 1950s, if the Americans and the Russians launched all the bombers
and rockets at the same moment, there would still be no more than 10,000
weapons in the air, attacking and counterattacking. Total weapons
interaction events would peak at 15,000 in the second hour. This
represented the impressive figure of 4 weapons interactions every second
around the world.

But given diversified tactical warfare, the number of weapons and ôsystems
elementsö increased astronomically. Modern estimates imagined 400 million
computers in the field, with total weapons interactions at more than 15
billion in the first half hour of war. This meant there would be 8 million
weapons interactions every second, in a bewildering ultrafast conflict of
aircraft, missiles; tanks, and ground troops.

Such a war was only manageable by machines; human response times were
simply too slow. World War HI would not be a push-button war because as
General Martin said, ôIt takes too long for a man to push the buttonùat
least 1.8 seconds, which is an eternity in modem warfare.ö

This fact created what Martin called the ôrock problem.ö Human responses
were geologically slow, compared to a high-speed computer. ôA modern
computer performs 2,000,000 calculations in the time it takes a man to
blink. Therefore, from the point of view of computers fighting the next
war, human beings will be essentially fixed and unchanging elements, like
rocks. Human wars have never lasted long enough to take into account the
rate of geological change. In the future, computer wars will not last long
enough to take into account the rate of human change.ö

Since human beings responded too slowly, it was necessary for them to
relinquish decision-making control of the war to the faster intelligence of
computers. ôIn the coming war, we must abandon any hope of regulating the
course of the conflict. If we decide to ærunÆ the war at human speed, we
will almost surely lose, Our only hope is to put our trust in machines.
This makes human judgment, human values, human thinking utterly
superfluous. World War III will be war by proxy: a pure war of machines,
over which we dare exert no influence for fear of so slowing the
decision-making mechanism as to cause our defeat.ö And the final, crucial
transitionùthe transition from computers working at nanoseconds to
computers working at picosecondsùwas dependent on Type IIb diamonds.







Elliot was appalled by this prospect of turning control over to the
creations of men.

Ross shrugged. ôItÆs inevitable,ö she said. ôIn Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania,
there are traces of a house two million years old. The hominid creature
wasnÆt satisfied with caves and other natural shelters; he created his own
accommodations. Men have always altered the natural world to suit their
purposes.ö

ôBut you canÆt give up control,ö Elliot said.

ôWeÆve been doing it for centuries,ö Ross said. ôWhatÆs a domesticated
animalùor a pocket calculatorùexcept an attempt to give up control? We
donÆt want to plow fields or do square roots so we turn the job over to
some other intelligence, which weÆve trained or bred or created.ö

ôBut you canÆt let your creations take over.ö

ôWeÆve been doing it for centuries,ö Ross repeated. ôLook: even if we
refused to develop faster computers, the Russians would. TheyÆd be in Zaire
right now looking for diamonds, if the Chinese werenÆt keeping them out.
You canÆt stop technological advances. As soon as we know something is
possible, we have to carry it out.ö

ôNo,ö Elliot said. ôWe can make our own decisions. I wonÆt be a part of
this.ö

ôThen leave,ö she said. ôThe CongoÆs no place for academics, anyway.ö

She began unpacking her rucksack, taking out a series of white ceramic
cones, and a number of small boxes with antennae. She attached a box to
each ceramic cone, then entered the first tunnel, placed the cones flat
against the walls, moving deeper into darkness.

Peter not happy Peter.

ôNo,ö Elliot said. Why not happyÆ

ôItÆs hard to explain, Amy,ö he said.

Peter tell Amy good gorilla.

ôI know, Amy.ö

Karen Ross emerged from one tunnel, and disappeared into the second. Elliot
saw the glow of her flashlight as she placed the cones, and then she was
hidden from view.

Munro came out into the sunlight, his pockets bulging with diamonds.
ôWhereÆs Ross?ö

ôIn the tunnels.ö

ôDoing what?ö

ôSome kind of explosive test, looks like.ö Elliot gestured to the three
remaining ceramic cones on the ground near her pack.

Munro picked up one cone, and turned it over. ôDo you know what these are?ö
he asked.

Elliot shook his head.

ôTheyÆre RCs,ö Munro said, ôand sheÆs out of her mind to place them here.
She could blow the whole place apart.ö









Resonant conventionals, or RCs, were timed explosives, a potent marriage of
microelectronic and explosive technology. ôWe used RCs two years ago on
bridges in Angola,ö

Munro explained. ôProperly sequenced, six ounces of explosive can bring
down fifty tons of braced structural steel. You need one of those
sensorsöùhe gestured to a control box lying near her packùöwhich monitors
shock waves from the early charges, and detonates the later charges in the
timed sequence to set up resonating waves which literally shake the
structure to pieces. Very impressive to see it happen.ö Munro glanced up at
Mukenko, smoking above them.

At that moment, Ross emerged from the tunnel, all smiles. ôWeÆll soon have
our answers,ö she said.

ôAnswers?ö

ôAbout the extent of the kimberlite deposits. IÆve set twelve seismic
charges, which is enough to give us definitive readings.ö

ôYouÆve set twelve resonant charges,ö Munro said.

ôWell, theyÆre all I brought. WeÆve got to make do.ö

ôTheyÆll do,ö Munro said. ôPerhaps too well. That volcanoöùhe pointed
upwardsùöis in an eruptive phase.ö

ôIÆve placed a total of eight hundred grams of explosive,ö Ross said.
ôThatÆs less than a pound and a half. It canÆt make the slightest
difference.ö

ôLetÆs not find out.ö

Elliot listened to their argument with mixed feelings. On the face of it,
MunroÆs objections seemed absurdùa few trivial explosive charges, however
timed, could not possibly

trigger a volcanic eruption. It was ridiculous; Elliot wondered why Munro
was so adamant about the dangers. It was almost as if Munro knew something
that Elliot and Ross did notùand could not even imagine.













3. DOD/ARPD/VULCAN

           7021



IN 1978, MUNRO HAD LED A ZAMBIA EXPEDITION which included Robert Perry, a
young geologist from the University of Hawaii. Perry had worked on PROJECT
VULCAN, the most advanced program financed under the Department of Defense
Advanced Research Project Division.

VULCAN was so controversial that during the 1975 House Armed Services
Subcommittee hearings, project DOD/ ARPD/VULCAN 7021 was carefully buried
among ômiscellaneous long-term findings of national security significance.ö
But the following year, Congressman David Inaga (D., Hawaii) challenged DOD
/ AR PD/VULCAN. demanding to know ôits exact military purpose, and why it
should be funded entirely within the state of Hawaii.ö

Pentagon spokesmen explained blandly that VULCAN was a ôtsunami warning
systemö of value to the residents of the Hawaiian islands, as well as to
military installations there. Pentagon experts reminded Inaga that in 1948
a tsunami had swept across the Pacific Ocean, first devastating Kauai, but
moving so swiftly along the Hawaiian island chain that when it struck Oahu
and Pearl Harbor twenty minutes later, no effective warning had been given.

ôThat tsunami was triggered by an underwater volcanic avalanche off the
coast of Japan,ö they said. ôBut Hawaii has its own active volcanoes, and
now that Honolulu is a city of half a million, and naval presence is valued
at more than thirty-five billion dollars, the ability to predict tsunami
activity secondary to eruptions by Hawaiian volcanoes assumes major
long-term significance.ö

In truth, PROJECT VULCAN was not long-term at all; it was intended to be
carried out at the next eruption of Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano
in the world, located on the big island of Hawaii. The designated purpose
of VULCAN was to control volcanic eruptions as they progressed; Mauna Lea
was chosen because its eruptions were relatively mild and gentle.

Although it rose to an altitude of only 13,500 feet, Mauna Lea was the
largest mountain in the world. Measured from its origin at the depths of
the ocean floor, Mauna Loa had more than twice the cubic volume of Mount
Everest; it was a unique and extraordinary geological formation. And Mauna
Loa had long since become the most carefully studied volcano in history,
having a permanent scientific observation station on its crater since 1928.
It was also the most interfered-with volcano in history, since the lava
that flowed down its slopes at three-year intervals had been diverted by
everything from aerial bombers to local crews with shovels and sandbags.

VULCAN intended to alter the course of a Mauna Loa eruption by ôventingö
the giant volcano, releasing the enormous quantities of molten magma by a
series of timed, non-nuclear explosions detonated along fault lines in the
shield. In October, 1978, VULCAN was carried out in secret, using navy
helicopter teams experienced in detonating high-explosive resonant conic
charges. The VULCAN project lasted two days; on the third day, the civilian
Mauna Lea Volcanic Laboratory publicly announced that ôthe October eruption
of Mauna Lea has been milder than anticipated, and no further eruptive
episodes are expected.ö









PROJECT VULCAN was secret but Munro had heard all about it one drunken
night around the campfire near Bangazi. And he remembered it now as Ross
was planning a resonant explosive sequence in the region of a volcano in
its eruptive phase. The basic tenet of VULCAN was that enormous, pent-up
geological forcesùwhether the forces of an earthquake, or a volcano, or a
Pacific typhoonùcould be devastatingly unleashed by a relatively small
energy trigger.

Ross prepared to fire her conical explosives.

ôI think,ö Munro said, ôthat you should try again to contact Houston.ö

ôThatÆs not possible,ö Ross said, supremely confident. ôIÆm required to
decide on my ownùand IÆve decided to assess the extent of diamond deposits
in the hillsides now.ö

As the argument continued, Amy moved away. She picked up the detonating
device lying alongside RossÆs pack. It was a tiny handheld device with six
glowing LEDs, more than enough to fascinate Amy. She raised her fingers to
push the buttons.

Karen Ross looked over. ôOh God.ö

Munro turned. ôAmy,ö he said softly. ôAmy, no. No. Amy no good.ö

Amy good gorilla Amy good.

Amy held the detonating device in her hand. She was captivated by the
winking LEDS. She glanced over at the humans.

ôNo, Amy,ö Munro said. He turned to Elliot. ôCanÆt you stop leer?ö

ôOh, what the hell,ö Ross said. ôGo ahead, Amy.ö









A series of rumbling explosions blasted gleaming diamond dust from the mine
shafts, and then there was silence. ôWell,ö Ross said finally, ôI hope
youÆre satisfied. ItÆs perfectly clear that such a minimal explosive charge
could not affect the volcano. In the future you can leave the scientific
aspects to me, andùö

And then Mukenko rumbled, and the earth shook so hard that they were all
knocked to the ground.













4: ERTS Houston







AT 1 A.M. HOUSTON TIME, R. B. TRAVIS FROWNED at the computer monitor in his
office. He had just received the latest photosphere imagery from Kitt Peak
Observatory, via GSFC telemetry. GSFC had kept him waiting all day fur the
data, which was only one of several reasons why Travis was in a bad humor.

The photospheric imagery was negativeùthe sphere of the sun appeared black
on the screen, with a glowing white chain of sunspots. There were at least
fifteen major sunspots across the sphere, one of which originated the
massive solar flare that was making his life hell.

For two days now, Travis had been sleeping at ERTS. The entire operation
had gone to hell. ERTS had a team in northern Pakistan, not far from the
troubled Afghan border, another in central Malaysia, in an area of
Communist insurrection; and the Congo team, which was facing rebelling
natives and some unknown group of gorilla-like creatures.

Communications with all teams around the world had been cut off by the
solar flare for more than twenty-four hours. Travis had been running
computer simulations on all of them with six-hour updates. The results did
not please him. The Pakistan team was probably all right, but would run six
days over schedule and cost them an additional two hundred thousand
dollars; the Malaysia team was in serious jeopardy; and the Congo team was
classified CANNYùERTS computer slang fur ôcan not estimate.ö Travis had had
two CANNY teams in the pastùin the Amazon in 1976, and in Sri Lanka in
1978ù and he had lost people from both groups.

Things were going badly. Yet this latest GSFC was much better than the
previous report. They hadùit seemedù managed a brief transmission contact
with the Congo several hours earlier, although there was no verification
response from Ross. He wondered whether the team had received the warning
or not. He stared at the black sphere with frustration.

Richards, one of the main data programmers, stuck his head in the door. ôI
have something relevant to the CFS.ö

ôFire away,ö Travis said. Any news relevant to the Congo Field Survey was
of interest.

ôThe South African seismological Station at the University of JoÆburg
reports tremors initiating at twelve oh four P.M. local time. Estimated
epicenter coordinates are consistent with Mount Mukenko in the Virunga
chain. The tremors are multiple, running Richter five to eight.ö

ôAny confirmation?ö Travis asked.

ôNairobi is the nearest station, and theyÆre computing a Richter six to
nine, or a Morelli Nine, with heavy downfall of ejecta from the cone. They
are also predicting that the LAC, the local atmospheric conditions, are
conducive to severe electrical discharges.ö

Travis glanced at his watch. ôTwelve oh four local time is nearly an hour
ago,ö he said. ôWhy wasnÆt I informed?ö

Richards said, ôIt didnÆt come in from the African stations until now. I
guess they figure itÆs no big deal, another volcano.ö

Travis sighed. That was the troubleùvolcanic activity

was now recognized as a common phenomenon on the earthÆs surface. Since
1965, the first year that global records were kept, there had been
twenty-two major eruptions each year, roughly one eruption every two weeks.

Outlying stations were in no hurry to report such ôordinaryö occurrencesùto
delay was proof of fashionable boredom.

ôBut they have problems,ö Richards said. ôWith the satellites disrupted by
the sunspots, everybody has to transmit surface cable. And I guess as far
as theyÆre concerned, the northeast Congo is uninhabited.ö

Travis said, ôHow bad is a Morelli Nine?ö

Richards paused. ôItÆs pretty bad, Mr. Travis.ö













5. ôEverything Was Movingö







IN THE CONGO, EARTH MOVEMENT WAS RICHTER scale 8, a Moreili scale IX. At
this severity, the earth shakes so badly a man has difficulty standing.
There are lateral shifts in the earth and rifts open up; trees and even
steel-frame buildings topple.

For Elliot, Ross, and Munro, the five minutes following the onset of the
eruption were a bizarre nightmare. Elliot recalled that ôeverything was
moving. We were all literally knocked off our feet; we had to crawl on our
hands and knees, like babies. Even after we got away from mine-shaft
tunnels, the city swayed like a wobbling toy. It was quite a whileùmaybe
half a minuteùbefore the buildings began to collapse. Then everything came
down at once: walls caving in, ceilings collapsing, big blocks of stone
crashing down into the jungle. The trees were swaying too, and pretty soon
they began falling over.ö

The noise of this collapse was incredible, and added to that was the sound
from Mukenko. The volcano wasnÆt rumbling anymore; they heard staccato
explosions of lava blasting from the cone. These explosions produced shock
waves; even when the earth was solid under their feet, they were knocked
over without warning by blasts of hot air. ôIt was,ö Elliot recalled, ôjust
like being in the middle of a war.ö

Amy was panic-stricken. Grunting in terror, she leapt into ElliotÆs
armsùand promptly urinated on his clothesùas they began to run back toward
the camp.

A sharp tremor brought Ross to the ground. She picked herself up, and
stumbled onward, acutely aware of the humidity and the dense ash and dust
ejected by the volcano. Within minutes, the sky above them was dark as
night, and the first flashes of lightning cracked through the boiling
clouds. It had rained the night before; the jungle surrounding them was
wet, the air supersaturated with moisture. In short, they had all the
requisites for a lightning storm. Ross felt herself torn between the
perverse desire to watch this unique theoretical phenomenon and the desire
to run for her life.

In a searing burst of blue-white light, the lightning storm struck. Bolts
of electricity crackled all around them like rain; Ross later estimated
there were two hundred bolts within the first minuteùnearly three every
second. The familiar shattering crack of lightning was not punctuation but
a continuous sound, a mar like a waterfall. The booming thunder caused
sharp ear pains, and the accompanying shock waves literally knocked them
backward.

Everything happened so fast that they had little chance to absorb
sensations. Their ordinary expectations were turned upside down. One of the
porters, Amburi, had come back toward the city to find them. They saw him
standing in a clearing, waving them ahead, when a lightning bolt crashed up
through a nearby tree into the sky. Ross had known that the lightning flash
came after the invisible downward flow of electrons and actually ran upward
from the ground to the clouds above. But to see it! The explosive flash
lifted Amburi off his feet and tossed him through the air toward them; he
scrambled to his feet, shouting hysterically in Swahili.

All around them trees were cracking, splitting and hissing clouds of
moisture as the lightning bolts shot upward through them. Ross later said,
ôThe lightning was everywhere, the blinding flashes were continuous, with
this terrible sizzling sound. That man [Amburi] was screaming and the next
instant the lightning grounded through him. I was close enough to touch him
but there was very little heat, just white light. He went rigid and there
was this terrible smell as his whole body burst into flame, and he fell to
the ground. Munro rolled on him to put out the fire but he was dead, and we
ran on. There was no time to react; we kept falling down from the
[Earthquake] tremors. Soon we were all half-blinded from the lightning. I
remember hearing somebody screaming but I didnÆt know who it was. I was
sure we would all die.ö

Near camp, a gigantic tree crashed down before them, presenting an obstacle
as broad and high as a three-story building. As they clambered through it,
lightning sizzled through the damp branches, stripping off bark, glowing
and scorching. Amy howled when a white bolt streaked across her hand as she
gripped a wet branch. Immediately she dived to the ground, burying her head
in the low foliage, refusing to move. Elliot had to drag her the remaining
distance to the camp.

Munro was the first to reach camp. He found Kahega trying to pack the tents
for their departure, but it was impossible with the tremors and the
lightning crashing down through the dark ashen sky. One Mylar tent burst
into flames. They smelled the harsh burning plastic. The dish antenna,
resting on the ground, was struck and split apart, sending metal fragments
flying.

ôLeave!ö Munro shouted. ôLeave!ö

ôNdio mzee!ö Kahega shouted, grabbing his pack hastily. He glanced back
toward the others, and in that moment Elliot stumbled out of the black
gloom with Amy clinging to his chest. He had injured his ankle and was
limping slightly.

Amy quickly dropped to the ground.

ôLeave!ö Munro shouted.

As Elliot moved on, Ross emerged from the darkness of the ashen atmosphere,
coughing, bent double. The left side of her body was scorched and
blackened, and the skin of her left hand was burned. She had been struck by
Lightning, although she had no later memory of it. She pointed to her nose
and throat, coughing. ôBurns. . . hurts. . .ö

ôItÆs the gas,ö Munro shouted. He put his arm around her and half-lifted
her from her feet, carrying her away. ôWe have to get uphill!ö

An hour later, on higher ground, they had a final view of the city engulfed
with smoke and ash. Farther up on the slopes of the volcano, they saw a
line of trees burst into flames as an unseen dark wave of lava came sliding
down the mountainside. They heard agonized bellows of pain from the gray
gorillas on the hillside as hot lava rained down on them. As they watched,
the foliage collapsed closer and closer to the city, until finally the city
itself crumbled under a darkly descending cloud, and disappeared.

The Lost City of Zinj was buried forever.

Only then did Ross realize that her diamonds were buried forever as well.













       6. Nightmare





THEY HAD NO FOOD, NO WATER, AND VERY LITTLE ammunition. They dragged
themselves through the jungle, clothes burned and torn, faces haggard,
exhausted. They did not speak to one another, but silently pressed on.
Elliot said later they were ôliving through a nightmare.ö

The world through which they passed was grim and colorless. Sparkling white
waterfalls and streams now ran black with soot, splashing into scummy pools
of gray foam. The sky was dark gray, with occasional red flashes from the
volcano. The very air became filmy gray; they coughed and stumbled through
a world of black soot and ash.

They were all covered with ashùtheir packs gritty on their backs, their
faces grimy when they wiped them, their hair many shades darker. Their
noses and eyes burned. There was nothing to do about it; they could only
keep going.

As Ross trudged through the dark air, she was aware of an ironic ending to
her personal quest. Ross had long since acquired the expertise to tap into
any ERTS data bank she wanted, including the one that held her own
evaluation. She knew her assigned qualities by heart:

YOUTHFUL-ARROGANT (probably) / TENUOUS HUMAN RAPPORT (she particularly
resented that one) / DOMINEERING (maybe) INTELLECTUALLY ARROGANT (only
natural) / INSENSITIVE (whatever that meant) / DRIVEN TO SUCCEED AT ANY
COST(was that so bad?)

And she knew her Late-stage conclusions. All that flop-over matrix garbage
about parental figures and so on. And the last line of her report: SUBJECT
MUST BE MONITORED IN LATE STAGE GOAL ORIENTED PROCEDURES.

But none of that was relevant. She had gone after the diamonds only to be
beaten by the worst volcanic eruption in Africa in a decade. Who could
blame her for what had happened? It wasnÆt her fault. She would prove that
on her next expedition....

Munro felt the frustration of a gambler who has placed every bet correctly
but still loses. He had been correct to avoid the Euro-Japanese consortium;
he had been correct to go with ERTS; and yet he was coming out
empty-handed. Well, he reminded himself, feeling the diamonds in his
pockets, not quite empty handed.

Elliot was returning without photographs, videotapes, sound recordings, or
the skeleton of a gray gorilla. Even his measurements had been lost.
Without such proofs, he dared not claim a new speciesùin fact, he would be
unwise even to discuss the possibility. A great opportunity had slipped
away from him, and now, walking through the dark landscape, he had only a
sense of the natural world gone mad:

birds fell screeching from the sky, flopping at their feet, asphyxiated by
the gases in the air above; bats skittered through the midday air; distant
animals shrieked and howled. A leopard, fur burning on its hindquarters,
ran past them at noon. Somewhere in the distance, elephants trumpeted with
alarm.

They were trudging lost souls in a grim sooty world that seemed like a
description of hell; perpetual fire and darkness, where tormented souls
screamed in agony. And behind them Mukenko spat cinders and glowing rain.
At one point, they were engulfed in a shower of red-hot embers that sizzled
as they struck the damp canopy overhead, then turned the wet ground
underfoot smoky, burning holes in their clothing, scorching their skin,
setting hair smoldering as they danced in pain and finally sought shelter
beneath tall trees, huddled together, awaiting the end of the fiery rain
from the skies.









Munro planned from the first moments of the eruption to head directly for
the wrecked C-130 transport, which would afford them shelter and supplies.
He estimated they would reach the aircraft in two hours. In fact, six hours
passed before the gigantic ash-covered hulk of the plane emerged from the
murky afternoon darkness.

One reason it had taken them so long to move away from Mukenko was that
they were obliged to avoid General Muguru and his troops. Whenever they
came across jeep tracks, Munro led them farther west, into the depths of
the jungle.

ôHeÆs not a fallow you want to meet,ö Munro said. ôAnd neither are his
boys. And theyÆd think nothing of cutting your liver out and eating it
raw.ö









Dark ash on wings and fuselage made the giant transport look as if it had
crashed in black snow. Off one bent wing, a kind of waterfall of ash hissed
over the metal down to the ground. Far in the distance, they heard the soft
beating of Kigani drums, and thumping mortar from MuguruÆs troops.

Otherwise it was ominously quiet.

Munro waited in the forest beyond the wreckage, watching the airplane. Ross
took the opportunity to try to transmit on the computer, continuously
brushing ash from the video screen, but she could not reach Houston.

Finally Munro signaled, and they all began to move forward. Amy, panicked,
tugged at MunroÆs sleeve. No go, she signed. People there.

Munro frowned at her, glanced at Elliot. Elliot pointed to the airplane.
Moments later, there was a crash, and two white-painted Kigani warriors
emerged from the aircraft, onto the high wing. They were carrying cases of
whiskey and arguing about how to get them down to the jungle floor below.
After a moment, five more Kigani appeared beneath the wing, and the cases
were passed to them. The two men above jumped down, and the group moved
off.

Munro looked at Amy and smiled.

Amy good gorilla, she signed.

They waited another twenty minutes, and when no further Kigani appeared,
Munro led the group to the airplane. They were just outside the cargo doors
when a rain of white arrows began to whistle down on them.

ôInside!ö Munro shouted, and hurried them all up the crumpled landing gear,
onto the upper wing surface, and from there into the airplane. He slammed
the emergency door, arrows clattered on the outer metal surface.

Inside the transport it was dark; the floor tilted at a crazy angle. Boxes
of equipment had slid across the aisles, toppled over, and smashed. Broken
glassware crunched underfoot. Elliot carried Amy to a seat, and then
noticed that the Kigani had defecated on the seats.

Outside, they heard drums, and the steady rain of arrows on the metal and
windows. Looking out through the dark ash, they glimpsed dozens of
white-painted men, running through the trees, slipping under the wing.

ôWhat are we going to do?ö Ross asked.

ôShoot them,ö Munro said briskly, breaking open their supplies, removing
machine-gun clips. ôWe arenÆt short of ammunition.ö

ôBut there must be a hundred men out there.ö

ôYes, but only one man is important. Kill the Kigani with red streaks
painted beneath his eyes. ThatÆll end the attack right away.ö

ôWhy?ö Elliot asked.

ôBecause heÆs the Angawa sorcerer,ö Munro said, moving forward to the
cockpit. ôKill him and weÆre off the hook.ö









Poison-tipped arrows clattered on the plastic windows and rang against the
metal; the Kigani also threw feces, which thudded dully against the
fuselage. The drums beat constantly.

Amy was terrified, and buckled herself into a seat, signing, Amy leave now
bird fly

Elliot found two Kigani concealed in the rear passenger compartment. lb his
own amazement he killed both without hesitation, firing the machine gun
which bucked in his hands, blasting the Kigani back into the passenger
seats, shattering windows, crumpling their bodies.

ôVery good, Doctor.ö Kahega grinned, although by then Elliot was shaking
uncontrollably. He slumped into a seat next to Amy.

People attack bird bird fly now bird fly Amy want go.

ôSoon, Amy,ö he said, hoping it would prove true.

By now, the Kigani had abandoned their frontal assault; they were attacking
from the rear, where there were no windows. Everyone could hear the sound
of bare feet moving over the tail section and up onto the fuselage above
their heads. Two warriors managed to climb through the open aft cargo door.
Munro, who was in the cockpit, shouted, ôIf they get you, they eat you!ö

Ross fired at the rear door, and blood spattered on her clothes as the
intruding Kigani were knocked out backward.

Amy no like, she signed. Amy want go home. She clutched her seat belt.

ôThereÆs the son of a bitch,ö Munro shouted, and fired his machine gun. A
young man of about twenty, his eyes smeared with red, fell onto his back,
shuddering with machine-gun fire. ôGot him,ö Munro said. ôGot the Angawaö
He sat back and allowed the warriors to remove the body.ö

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.

ôWhat happens now?ö Elliot asked. ôHave we won?ö

Munro shook his head. ôTheyÆll wait for nightfall. Then theyÆll come back
to kill us all.ö

Elliot said, ôWhat will we do then?ö

Munro had been thinking about that. He saw no possibility of their leaving
the aircraft for at least twenty-four hours.

They needed to defend themselves at night and they needed a wider clearing
around the plane during the day. The obvious solution was to burn the
waist-high bush in the immediate vicinity of the planeùif they could do
that without exploding the residual fuel in the airplane tanks.

ôLook for flamethrowers,ö he told Kahega, ôor gas canisters.ö And he began
to check for documents that would tell him tank locations on the C-130.

Ross approached him. ôWeÆre in trouble, arenÆt we.ö

ôYes,ö Munro said. He didnÆt mention the volcano.

ôI suppose I made a mistake.ö

ôWell, you can atone,ö Munro said, ôby thinking of some way out.ö

ôIÆll see what! can do,ö she said seriously, and went aft. Fifteen minutes
later, she screamed.

Munro spun back into the passenger compartment, his machine gun raised to
fire. But he saw that Ross had collapsed into a seat, laughing
hysterically. The others stared at her, not sure what to do. He grabbed her
shoulders and shook her: ôGet a grip on yourself,ö he said, but she just
went on laughing.

Kßhega stood next to a gas cylinder marked PROPANE. ôShe see this, and she
ask how many more, I tell her six more, she begins to laugh.ö

Munro frowned. The cylinder was large, 20 cubic feet. ôKahega, whatÆd they
carry that propane for?ö

Kahega shrugged. ôToo big for cooking. They need only five, ten cubic feet
for cooking.ö

Munro said, ôAnd there are six more like this?ö

ôYes, boss. Six.ö

ôThatÆs a hell of a lot of gas,ö Munro said, and then he realized that Ross
with her instinct for planning would have grasped at once the significance
of all that propane, and Munro also knew what it meant, and he broke into a
grin.

Annoyed, Elliot said, ôWill someone please tell us what this means?ö

ôIt means,ö Munro said through his laughter, ôit means things are looking
up.ö









Buoyed by 50,000 pounds of heated air from the propane gas ring, the
gleaming plastic sphere of the consortium balloon lifted off from the
jungle floor, and climbed swiftly into the darkening night air.

The Kigani came running from the forest, the warriors brandishing spears
and arrows. Pale white arrows sliced up in the fading light, but they fell
short, arcing back down to the ground again. The balloon rose steadily into
the sky.

At an altitude of 2,000 feet, the sphere caught an easterly wind which
carried it away from the dark expanse of the Congo forest, over the smoking
red volcanic heart of Mount Mukenko, and across the sharp depression of the
Rift Valley, vertical walls shimmering in the moonlight.

From there, the balloon slid across the Zaire border, moving southeast
toward Kenyaùand civilization.







       Epilogue: The Place of Fire



ON SEPTEMBER 18, 1979, THE LANDSAT 3 Satellite, at a nominal altitude of
918 kilometers, recorded a 185-kilometer-wide scan on Band 6 (.7ù.8
millimicrons in the infrared spectrum) over central Africa. Penetrating
cloud cover over the rain forest, the acquired image clearly showed the
eruption of Mount Mukenko still continuing after three months. A computer
projection of ejecta estimated 6ù8 cubic kilometers of debris dispersed
into the atmosphere, and another 2--3 cubic kilometers of lava released
down the western flanks of the mountain. The natives called it Kanya4feka,
ôthe place of fire.ö

On October 1, 1979, R. B. Travis formally canceled the Blue Contract,
reporting that no natural source of Type IIb diamonds could be anticipated
in the foreseeable future. The Japanese electronics firm of Monkawa revived
interest in the Nagaura artificial boron-doping process. American firms had
also begun work on doping; it was expected that the process would be
perfected by 1984.

On October 23, Karen Ross resigned from ERTS to work for the U.S.
Geological Survey EDC in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where no military work
was conducted, and no fieldwork was possible. She has since married John
Bellingham, a scientist at EDC.

Peter Elliot took an indefinite leave of absence from the Berkeley
Department of Zoology on October 30. A press release cited ôAmyÆs
increasing maturity and size. . . making further laboratory research
difficult. . .ô Project Amy was formally disbanded, although most of the
staff accompanied Elliot and Amy to the Institut dÆEtudes Ethnologiques at
Bukama, Zaire. Here AmyÆs interaction with wild gorillas continued to be
studied in the fold. In November, 1979, she was thought to be pregnant; by
then she was spending most of her time with a local gorilla troop, so it
was difficult to be sure. She disappeared in May l980.*

The institute conducted a census of mountain gorillas from March to August
1980. The estimate was five thousand animals in all, approximately half the
estimate of George Schaller, field biologist, twenty years before. These
data confirm that the mountain gorilla is disappearing rapidly.

Zoo reproduction rates have increased, and gorillas are unlikely to become
technically extinct, but their habitats are shrinking under the press of
mankind, and researchers suspect that the gorilla will vanish as a wild,
free-roaming animal in the next few years.

Kabega returned to Nairobi in 1979, working in a Chinese restaurant which
went bankrupt in 1980. He then joined the National Geographic Society
expedition to Botswana to study hippos.

Aid Ubara, the eldest son of the porter Marawani and a radio astronomer at
Cambridge, England, won the Hersko¡vita Prize in 1980 for research on X-ray
emissions from the galactic source M322.

At a handsome profit, Charles Munro sold 31 karats of blue Type IIb
diamonds on the Amsterdam bourse in late 1979; the diamonds were purchased
by Intel, Inc., an American micronics company. Subsequently he was stabbed
by a Russian agent in Antwerp in January 1980; the agentÆs body was later
recovered in Brussels. Munro was arrested by an armed border patrol in
Zambia in March 1980, but charges were dropped. He was reported in Somalia
in May, but there is no confirmation. He still resides in Tangier.

A Landsat 3 image acquired on January 8, 1980, showed



*In May 1980, Amy disappeared for four months, but in September she
returned with a male infant clinging to her chest. Elliot signed to her,
and had the unexpected satisfaction of seeing the infant sign back to him
Amy like Peter like Peter. The signing was crisp and correct and has been
recorded on videotape. Amy would not approach closely with her infant; when
the infant moved toward Elliot, Amy grabbed him to her chest, disappearing
into the bush. She was later sighted among a troop of twelve gorillas on
the slopes of Mt. Kyambara in northeastern Zaire.





that the eruption of Mount Mukenko had ceased. The faint signature of
crossed laser beams, recorded on some earlier satellite passes, was no
longer visible. The projected intersection point now marked a field of
black quatermain lava with an average depth of eight hundred metersùnearly
half a mileùover the Lost City of Zinj.