"I don't care," Ross said finally, dropping to the ground, gasping for breath.
"Just like a woman," Munro said scornfully, and smiled when Ross glared at him. Munro humiliated them, chided them, encouraged them - and 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 laser - it was the size of a pencil eraser, mounted on a tiny steel tripod - could be accurately aimed. The two lasers on the volcano were positioned so that their beams crossed many miles away, above the jungle. And if Ross's 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. "Only at night," she said, "when they aren't moving. During the day, they won't be able to lock on our beacons - that's the beauty of the system."
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 range - the 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. "Wait until night," 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.
"Hell," Munro said.
"But what does it mean?" Elliot asked.
"It means," Munro said gloomily. "the consortium has stopped jamming us."
"Isn't that good?"
"No," Ross said. "It's bad. They must already be on the site, and they've found the diamonds." She shook her head, and adjusted the video screen:
HUSTN CONFRMS CONSRTUM ONSITE ZINJ PROBABILITY 1.000. TAK NO FURTHR RSKS. SITUTN HOPELSS.
"I can't believe it," Ross said. "It's all over."
Elliot sighed. "My feet hurt," he said.
"I'm tired," Munro said.
"The hell with it," Ross said.
Utterly exhausted, they all went to bed.
Chapter 8
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 o'clock 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 porter's 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 Naragema - the Devil's 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.
"They call it the Devil's Eye," Munro said, "because from below, during an eruption, it glows like a red eye."
From the Devil's 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?ro's 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.