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 "flopover" 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 calm-or 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 GOAL-ORIENTED 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 "Primates" 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 primatologist 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 "Primate Communications (Gorilla)." 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.
"Hello," a wary male voice said.
"Dr. Peter Elliot?"
"Yes…" The voice was still cautious, hesitant. "Are you a reporter?"
"No," she said. "This is Dr. Karen Ross in Houston; I'm associated with the Earth Resources Wildlife Fund, which supports your research."
"Oh, yes…" The voice remained cautious. "You're sure you're not a reporter?
It's only fair to tell you I'm recording this telephone call as a potential legal document."
Karen Ross hesitated. The last thing she needed was some paranoid academic recording ERTS developments. She said nothing.
"You're American?" he said.
"Of course."
Karen Ross stared at the computer screens, which flashed
VOICE IDENTIFICATION
CONFIRMED: ELLIOT, PETER, 29
YEARS.
"State your business," Elliot said.
"Well, we're about to send an expedition into the Virunga region of the Congo, and-"
"Really? When are you going?" The voice suddenly sounded excited, boyish.
"Well, as a matter of fact we're leaving in two days, and-"
"I want to go," Elliot said.
Ross was so surprised she hardly knew what to say. "Well, Dr. Elliot, that's not why I'm calling you, as a matter of fact-"
"I'm planning to go there anyway," Elliot said. "With Amy."
"Who's Amy?"
"Amy is a gorilla," 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 "get out of town" 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