One moonless night in Kikwit, I looked up at the pitch black sky, trying to spot a familiar constellation. I was on the other side of the world, looking at stars that can't be seen from New York. I finally found the Southern Cross, got my bearings, and started off on my short walk from the Ebola epidemic control center to a Catholic mission, where I would spend the night.

Hotels are scarce in impoverished Kikwit. The one reasonable facility had run out of fuel to power its generator, so there was no electricity. It seemed preferable to stay at the mission, where solar cells gathered energy during the day, powering up batteries to light my room at night.

My walk was through blackness, lit only by the pinpoint glows of dancing fireflies. About halfway to my destination, I heard a by-then familiar sound: A woman's voice called from a distance, crying out in the local language, KiCongo. Though I can't speak KiCongo, I had heard such cries enough by then to recognize their nature.

``Someone has died! Someone has died!'' she wailed, shouting to the dark heavens the name and description of another victim of the mysterious Ebola virus. (Since January, it has killed more than 120 people in Zaire.)

I paused a moment and listened as other voices, including the soprano wails of children, joined the woman's grief, loudly telling all the world of their great loss. Word of deaths and news of the epidemic spread from one voice to another. There are no televisions in Kikwit. No newspaper. No local radio station. No telephones. There is also no running water, electrical power or sewage system.

People in this city, with its estimated 250,000 to 500,000 population, survive by their wits; young children walk 10 miles to the forest, where they cut huge loads of bananas off the trees and arrange the fruit in carefully balanced towers up to 2 feet high. They then put those towers atop their heads and walk all the way back into Kikwit, where they sell the fruit for cash that their parents will use to buy milk, rice, flour and -- if they are lucky -- meat.

It is out of such a desperate place that the Ebola virus emerged. For 19 years, the virus had been hidden away, causing no epidemics, while it quietly lived inside some as yet unidentified animal. And somewhere in the forests, in which the people of Kikwit search for food and wood to burn, is the animal that carried the deadly virus. No one yet knows which animal it is or how the organism gets from the animal to people.

As a medical writer, I am accustomed to seeing people who are sick and dying. Many of my colleagues think I should have been afraid of catching the virus, but I've studied sufficient science and spent enough time in virology laboratories to know how to protect myself.

While I didn't wear any protective gear, I avoided physical contact with all people -- including the scientists studying the disease -- and any food or objects that people had just touched. I always carried my own jug of water, which I purified myself. I wasn't worried about breathing around sick or infected people because the virus is not spread through the air.

But what experience never teaches adequately is how to stay above the emotions around you. A journalist is expected to be a dispassionate observer -- a tough standard to meet when a 12-year-old girl, her face streaming with tears, beckons you to join her in wailing over a photograph of her father, who had died hours earlier of a deadly, mysterious virus.

NEWSDAY EXPLAINER

Where the Ebola Virus Was Found

Since mid-January, the Ebola virus has killed more than 150 people in the African nation of Zaire. The viral hemorrhagic fever -- named after a river in Zaire ear where a strain of the virus was first detected in 1976 -- has been centered largely in the city of Kikwit. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ebola disease was first recognized in western Sudan and Zaire 19 hears ago, and in those outbreaks over 600 people became ill and over 400 people died. The CDC believes the potential for introduction of Ebola to countries outside of Zaire is low because the area where it has arisen is remote and infrequently visited. There is no direct air service between United States and Zaire.

What the Virus Looks Like

The Ebola virus is shown in this updated electron micrograph photo, provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atalanta, which has sent a tem of researchers to Zaire to investigate. Ebola disease is usually fatal. It is characterized by the sudden onset of fever, malaise, muscle pain and headache followed by vomiting and diarrhea. People infected with the virus may suffer massive internal hemorrhaging, wihich can cause sever organ failure. Transmission usually occurs by direct contract with infected blood or other bodily seretions.

Where the Virus May Reside When It's Not Killing Humans

Scientists are now foraging through a forest in Kikwit, Zaire, known as the Foret Pont Mwembe. There they trap mice, rats and bats so their blood and tissues can be analyzed for Ebola infection. The are hoping to find out where the Ebola virus resides between outbreaks. Other hemorrhagic fever viruses are carried by rats, bats and mice, possibly because rodents^ blood-clotting mechanisms may render them less likely to suffer uncontrolled bleeding from the viruses. In doing their work, scientists work inside respirator body suits to protect themselves from the deadly disease.

Send Messages Of Support
You might want to send letters of thanks to the brave scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control who went to Zaire to stern the Ebola outbreak. You can write to their boss, C.J. Peters, chief of the CDC'S special pathogens branch at the Center, 1600, Clifton Rd., Atlanta Ga. 30333

You can call for updates on the outbreak
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintains a hotline to provide you with updates on the viral disease (800) 900-0681.