rapid that Royan felt they were about to fall out of the sky, and that
she had left her stomach back there somewhere at thirty thousand feet.
Fred levelled Big Dolly out only feet above the desert floor, so low
that it was like riding in a high-speed bus rather than flying. Fred
lifted her delicately over each undulation of the tawny, sun'scorched
terrain, skimming the black rock ridges and standing on a wingtip to
swerve around the occasional wind-blasted hill.
'Nile crossing in seven and a half minutes.' jannie punched, the
stopwatch fixed to the control wheel in front of him. 'And unless my
navigation has gone all to hell there should be an island shaped like a
shark directly under us as we cross.'
As the needle of the stopwatch came up to the mark, the broad,
glittering expanse of the river flashed beneath them. Royan caught a
brief glimpse of a green island with a few thatched huts on the tip, and
a dozen dugout canoes lying on the narrow beach.
'Well, the old man hasn't lost his touch yet,' Fred remarked. 'Still
good for a few thousand miles before we trade him in.'
'Not so much of the old man stuff, you little squirt. I have some tricks
up my sleeve that I haven't even used yet.'
'Ask Mara.' Fred grinned affectionately at his father as he banked on to
a new southwesterly heading, and with his wingtip so close to the ground
that he scattered a herd of camels feeding in the sparse thorn scrub.
They lumbered away across the plain, each trailing a wisp of white dust
like a wedding train.
'Another three hours' flying time to the rendezvous.' Jannie looked up
from the map. 'Spot on! We should land forty minutes before sunset.
Couldn't be better,'
'I' better go back and change into my hiking gear, then.' Royan went
back into the main cabin, pulled her bag from under the bunk and
disappeared into the lavatory. When' she emerged twenty minutes later
she wore khaki culottes and a cotton top.
'These boots were made for walking.' She stamped them on the deck.
'That's fine.' Nicholas watched her from the bunk.
'But how about that knee?'
t vopuiuj ProcesV
'It will get me there,' she said, defensively.
'You mean I am to be deprived of the pleasure of back acking you again?'
The Ethiopian mountains came up so subtly on the eastern horizon that
Royan was not aware of them until Nicholas pointed out to her the faint
blue outline against the brighter blue of the African sky.
'Almost there.' He glanced at his wrist-watch. 'Let's go up to the
flight deck.'
Looking forward through the windshield there was no landmark ahead of
them - just the vast brown savannah, speckled with the black dots of
acacia trees.
'Ten minutes to go,' Jannie intoned. 'Anyone see anything?' There was no
reply, and they all stared ahead.
'Five minutes.'
'Over there!' Nicholas pointed over his shoulder.
