Far Away Countries

'Go to hell,' she said to me when I suggested another trip. 'Alone.'

Then she stormed out of my office, practically snarling to anybody who got in her path.

Did I feel insulted? Hell, no. I'm in the exploration business, and explorers are impulsive by nature. The thing inside them that makes them throw things at me -has happened once or twice- is the same thing that makes them explore. It's not the tons of cash we all get out of it. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, would face the kind of horrors they do just for a paycheck, no matter how fat.

They go because they have to. I knew she would.

And I was right. Two weeks later she was again on the road, riding hypnotic cocktails and cortical induction fields, exploring everything in her past her mind had ever blocked out to keep her sane, looking for the plot for our next blockbuster movie.

.finis.