Through it all, Skip King kept his corporate smile fixed as the bars on a prison door. He raised his arms for silence. This time, the crowd won.
"Keep Brontosaur in Africa! Keep Brontosaur African!"
Then Nancy Derringer slipped to the empty chair at the end of the VIP row.
"Wait a minute," King shouted. "Here's somebody you have to hear." The roar continued unabated. King found the volume control, set it to max, and said, "May I present the foremost authority on dinosaurs in the universe, the lovely Nancy Derringer!"
While the crowd was covering its ears, he waved Nancy over.
"Come on, baby," he hissed. "Save the corporation's bacon here."
Nancy stepped up to the microphone as if walking on glass.
"What do I say?" she asked, eyes uncertain.
King kept his hand on the mike. "Anything. Quiet them down. We gotta get out of here before they stampede." He took his hand off the mike and said, "And here she is, as talented as she is built: Nancy Derringer!" Then King beat a hasty retreat to his seat.
Blushing, Nancy addressed the mob.
"I know how you must feel . . ." she began.
The crowd booed.
"But in the interest of science, this is the best way."
They hissed.
"We have facilities in America to humanely house the animal."
They hooted.
"And it's my hope that the Apatosaur will be returned to the wild after a suitable interval of study."
At that, the crowd laughed in derision.
Someone took off their sneaker and threw it. It bounced off the podium. Nancy kept it from toppling with both hands.
"Really, you must try to understand. This is for the animal's welfare."
"Boo!" someone shouted. "You are going to slaughter it and feed rich Americans the meat."
"Oh, be serious. Who told you that?"
"I have read this in the International Enquirer."
"Oh, come on."
A rock sailed up and landed on the tiny bald spot at the top of Skip King's head.
"Oww!" he cried, jumping up with both hands covering his head.
The skies rained hard objects.
King turned to President Oburu. "Do something!"
The president turned to his nephew, the minister of the interior, and spoke rapidly. The minister of the interior leaned over to his son, the deputy minister, who then consulted briefly with his half brother, the chief of the secret police, who stood up and lifted a silver whistle hanging from a gold chain about his thick neck and blew into it.
The Gondwanaland authorities had obviously prepared for this eventuality. On signal, pepper gas grenades popped and fell into the crowd. Military vehicles rumbled into view and water cannon began knocking down the audience closest to the stage. People began running, but the ground was a river. They slipped and slid and all was bedlam.
In the confusion, King shouted to his camera crew, "Cut film! Don't record this! Everybody understand that?"
Then he was at Nancy Derringer's side saying, "Don't sweat it, Nance. I'll protect you."
"You! This is all your fault!" She raised her hand to slap him in the face, but King covered his face in time.
"Now, now, you're just hysterical with fear. Come on!"
The sound of tear gas shells brought Remo to the side door of the ekranoplane. He threw it open and immediately the sting of pepper gas drove him back.
"Remo, what is it?" Chiun asked.
Remo coughed his lungs clear. "Trouble."
"I am charged with guarding this fine animal," Chiun said imperiously. "You may quell the troubles if you wish."
"I counted every toe," Remo warned. "Twenty. There better be twenty when I get back, too."
"Tattletale!"
Remo charged his lungs and plunged out of the Orlyonok. A wave of Gondwanalanders pounded toward him, holding handkerchiefs or sleeves and other bits of clothing in front of their mouths and noses. Their eyes were red and teary. And they were in no mood to give way.
Remo, blowing a slow but steady stream of carbon dioxide through both nostrils to keep the pepper gas from entering his lungs, ran directly at them.
He veered, looking for an opening. He found one, zipped through, and immediately changed direction. It was like running against a tide that was also running. Remo sensed the flow of bodies around him, drew their motion into his own, and avoided every stumbling form and groping, outstretched hand.
But there came a point where there was no more space in the crush of bodies. He changed tactics in midrun, leaping suddenly into the air. One foot came down on the head of a man. The man felt only a slight scuff that disturbed his springy peppercorn hair, and the foot was gone. Remo's other foot touched another head and impelled him along.
He ran over the ground, so fast that people brushed at their hair and looked over their shoulders in time to see a white man seemingly running on air.
Technically, Remo was running on hair, but no one understood that. They were too busy fleeing to imagined safety.
He reached the stage, where the speakers were crouched down, trying not to breathe the noxious onion-flavored fumes.
Remo found Nancy struggling with Skip King to get off the podium.
"Time to go," Remo called.