helicopter. Bertie loved flying. Her enthusiasm for any new adventure was endearing but exhausting to others. Bertie never seemed to run low on pluck or zeal; she seldom had a negative or brooding thought about anything... even Tom's caution when it came to marrying, or at least bedding her without sanction, which would have been just fine with Bertie.
"Of course I know what I'm in for," Etan Culver was saying to Lincoln Grayle in defense of his chosen art. "Accomplishment without critical recognition is tantamount to serving a life sentence of neglect."
The land turned green and marshy below drifting mist. Daylight spread in a soft flood, wildlife appearing, motionless, like painted figurines in a shop window. The chopper's shadow coasted over flashy groundwater, seepage from the porous black lava into which Kilimanjaro's snowmelt flowed. Entire groves of yellow-bark fever trees looked bone yard dead in the dawning, destroyed, Tom told them, by elephants for whom acacia bark was a basic food group, or by toxic salts flushed into the root systems when the water table rose in other, wetter years.
Tom set the helicopter down on the dirt landing strip near Tukai and three of the tourist lodges by Olokenya swamp, one of which had five-star pretensions. They were met by a Land Rover and a VW combi from the Elephant Research Center.
Pegeen vomited as soon as she climbed out of the helicopter. She looked wan and contrite. Etan was annoyed.
"Don't know what that's about," he said. "She's been doing it all week. Change of food, I reckon."
Pegeen made a face. Bitter taste in her mouth, or bitterness in the young marriage. Bertie gave her water, glanced at Eden. They knew, from what Pegeen's aura was telling them, that Pegeen was pregnant. They hadn't said anything: it needed to be Pegeen's surprise, once she found out for herself.
They had breakfast at the luxury lodge; Tom was a partner, owning a third share. Then they were on the move again.
T he Acoustic Biologist in charge of the Elephant Research Center was a Scot named Pert Kincaid, middle-aged and reedy in a tan T-shirt and khaki shorts. She'd had two operations for carcinoma. She was subject to eye infections and wore dark wraparound glasses. Her body seemed withered by ordeal in the harsh pastoral of Equatorial Africa. She was hardy and unbreakable only in her desire to glean every bit of information from the subsonic language of her elephants.
Elephant families and bond groups make a lot of dust; a low rusty cloud like a stain in a porcelain sink south of the Enkongo Naroke swamp provided their direction this morning. The elephants normally traveled during the day from the acacia groves and grasslands where they fed to the deep swamp interiors where they rested and bathed, undetectable and undisturbed.
Pegeen, the asthmatic, put on a surgical mask. She and Etan rode in the Land Rover with Pert Kincaid and Eden, who drove. Tom, Bertie, Lincoln Grayle, and a young Research Associate followed in the combi. Every day, even when there were guests, was a workday for the Research Center staff. Pert had recording equipment with her and extra headphones that would enable the others to listen for infrasound communication between the elephants in the windless early-morning air.
"Elephants are so big," Pegeen said, looking dubiously at the boxy headphones, "and you don't have any trouble hearing them at the zoo. What is infrasound?"
"Frequencies well below oor range o' hearin'!" Pert told her, voice raised to be heard over the racket the diesel engine and a defective muffler were making. The track they followed was rocky, with dried, sweetly decaying piles of elephant dung Eden took pains to avoid, wrestling with the stiff steering until her wrists ached. "Sound audible tae oor airs travels in short waves and dissipates as it encounters natural objects: particles in the air, heat risin' fr' the groond. Infrasound is composed o' long waves tha' travel great distances
"Of course I know what I'm in for," Etan Culver was saying to Lincoln Grayle in defense of his chosen art. "Accomplishment without critical recognition is tantamount to serving a life sentence of neglect."
The land turned green and marshy below drifting mist. Daylight spread in a soft flood, wildlife appearing, motionless, like painted figurines in a shop window. The chopper's shadow coasted over flashy groundwater, seepage from the porous black lava into which Kilimanjaro's snowmelt flowed. Entire groves of yellow-bark fever trees looked bone yard dead in the dawning, destroyed, Tom told them, by elephants for whom acacia bark was a basic food group, or by toxic salts flushed into the root systems when the water table rose in other, wetter years.
Tom set the helicopter down on the dirt landing strip near Tukai and three of the tourist lodges by Olokenya swamp, one of which had five-star pretensions. They were met by a Land Rover and a VW combi from the Elephant Research Center.
Pegeen vomited as soon as she climbed out of the helicopter. She looked wan and contrite. Etan was annoyed.
"Don't know what that's about," he said. "She's been doing it all week. Change of food, I reckon."
Pegeen made a face. Bitter taste in her mouth, or bitterness in the young marriage. Bertie gave her water, glanced at Eden. They knew, from what Pegeen's aura was telling them, that Pegeen was pregnant. They hadn't said anything: it needed to be Pegeen's surprise, once she found out for herself.
They had breakfast at the luxury lodge; Tom was a partner, owning a third share. Then they were on the move again.
T he Acoustic Biologist in charge of the Elephant Research Center was a Scot named Pert Kincaid, middle-aged and reedy in a tan T-shirt and khaki shorts. She'd had two operations for carcinoma. She was subject to eye infections and wore dark wraparound glasses. Her body seemed withered by ordeal in the harsh pastoral of Equatorial Africa. She was hardy and unbreakable only in her desire to glean every bit of information from the subsonic language of her elephants.
Elephant families and bond groups make a lot of dust; a low rusty cloud like a stain in a porcelain sink south of the Enkongo Naroke swamp provided their direction this morning. The elephants normally traveled during the day from the acacia groves and grasslands where they fed to the deep swamp interiors where they rested and bathed, undetectable and undisturbed.
Pegeen, the asthmatic, put on a surgical mask. She and Etan rode in the Land Rover with Pert Kincaid and Eden, who drove. Tom, Bertie, Lincoln Grayle, and a young Research Associate followed in the combi. Every day, even when there were guests, was a workday for the Research Center staff. Pert had recording equipment with her and extra headphones that would enable the others to listen for infrasound communication between the elephants in the windless early-morning air.
"Elephants are so big," Pegeen said, looking dubiously at the boxy headphones, "and you don't have any trouble hearing them at the zoo. What is infrasound?"
"Frequencies well below oor range o' hearin'!" Pert told her, voice raised to be heard over the racket the diesel engine and a defective muffler were making. The track they followed was rocky, with dried, sweetly decaying piles of elephant dung Eden took pains to avoid, wrestling with the stiff steering until her wrists ached. "Sound audible tae oor airs travels in short waves and dissipates as it encounters natural objects: particles in the air, heat risin' fr' the groond. Infrasound is composed o' long waves tha' travel great distances