Maggie sat in her room at the hotel a few nights after arriving in Hampshire.  This entire thing has been disastrous so far.  The media treated her scientific endeavor as a thing to be ridiculed, and the attitude made her want to prove them all wrong.  She was a worthy, notable scientist, and to be treated disrespectfully rankled her.<br/><br/>Standing, she made her way to the desk, opening the drawer and glancing at the report on Lord Ian Allenby.  A third son.  Court-martialed. She had already known that his claims hadn't been taken seriously before, but she had thought for certain that there would be several scientists who would have joined this expedition.  To come here and find out that it was to be Allenby, herself, and some Russian princess was shocking.  Sitting at the edge of the bed, she read the report again.  And then again as she contemplated if she should just go back home to York.<br/><br/>But she couldn't.  No matter how much ridicule she suffered, she had to discover the fate of poor George.  And that meant going on the journey, as she had already agreed to do.  She wondered which was Princess Galitzine would decide.  So far, she knew little of the woman.  Why was she here?  What did she hope to gain with the travels into the Amazonian jungle?  Allenby was either crazy as a loon or had something to prove, or possibly both.  And Maggie herself was going to look for George.<br/><br/>They would embark onto the ship soon, she realized.  She had been careful to only bring along exactly five hundred pounds of supplies, as instructed.  Maggie assumed that Allenby would commission locals to carry their belongings through the rainforest and onto the plateau.  Perhaps he would allow her to go over the five hundred pound limit.  It wasn't as if he had to carry the burden himself, after all.  She had recently read of a new type of microscope that used a modern technology called Köhler illumination.  She would like to take that along.  And a friend of George's named David Misell had recently patented and sold a new device.  She had brought along two, but perhaps purchasing more would be wise.  It was an electrical device that used cells to illuminate.  An electric torch of sorts.