It was for Crichton, too. But he at least had manuals to go by. And he’d boned up, fast, as soon as he got detailed to the mission. He knew the sections on ground survey backwards and forwards but all he knew about aerial survey was from the books and they assumed that the helicopter had been fitted with external systems. No external systems were available so, leafing to the back of the manual, he’d found the section on “field expedient aerial survey.” Which was much less detailed than the standard methods. Get close to the destroyed zone, staying upwind from the site, kick up some dust and get a reading. If it was hot, back the fuck up.

His counter was reading normal.

“This isn’t a nuke,” he muttered.

“What?” the pilot shouted. There were internal headsets but they wouldn’t fit over his gear.

“It’s clear!” he yelled back. “Go in closer.”

“How close?”

“As close as you can get,” Crichton said. “Or set it down and I’ll walk!”

The chopper inched forward, slowly, as Crichton kept his wand out against the prop-wash. Still nothing.

“Set her down!” Crichton yelled. “We’re still clear! I need a ground reading.”

“You sure?”

“There is no radiation!”

“I’ve got the same,” the Emergency Services guy said, looking over at Crichton. “This doesn’t make sense!”

“No, shit,” the specialist muttered.

“Wait,” the copilot called back. He had been looking out to the front as the pilot searched for a reasonably flat place to land. “You can see something at the base of the dust cloud.”

The base of the cloud was dark, obscuring the light from the sun that still hadn’t reached zenith. But near the ground there was a deeper darkness.