They meant to dismantle the Mote without further analysis.
The second machine rammed the starboard engine cone like a kamikaze, knocking the vessel into a spin. From his station at the window, Arnold Freeth tumbled on top of Dr. Tyler, both of them sprawling to the floor of the main cabin. Tyler scrambled away, glaring at Freeth.
Tomiko clenched sweaty hands around her firing controls. “Just get me close enough for a good shot, Marc.”
“Affirmative. As soon as I take a break from dodging.”
The first nanomachine recovered from its initial abortive impact, spun up, and intentionally collided with the side of the Mote. Its benzene-tipped mandibles and articulated carbon hands scratched the wide observation window as it ricocheted off.
“Is that close enough for you?” Devlin asked.
Tomiko fired a shot before she was ready, grazing the mechanical attacker but leaving a black streak of a few dead muscle cells deep beneath them. She swore while Devlin struggled to keep the Mote under control.
He applied thrust to pull away, and the impellers roared, but now both nanocritters managed to latch onto irregularities on the hull. With jittery movements they hauled themselves along the external plates, moving with microfiber pulleys and molecular pistons that slid through carbon-walled buckytubes.
Devlin flew in a dizzy corkscrew to throw them off. He could hear the horrendous shrieking of metal edges scraping across the outside of the ship, diamond-tipped apparatus chopping and pounding. Every scraping sound, every gash in the enameled hull surface felt like a wound to his own body.
“I'll get you a new paint job when this is all over. Promise.”
Tomiko swiveled the fore and aft laser cannons, targeting the first nanomachine in her crosshairs. “One thing I can't stand, it's rudeness.” Intersecting lances chopped the device to pieces, severing fullerene walls and bursting open the hydrogen and fluorine memory layers on the circuit wafer. “And you're not being at all polite.”
Melting globules sprayed from the severed nanocomponents like blood. Amputated claw arms flailed about in twitching death throes.
The remaining micro-attacker hurled itself against the Mote's hull. Tomiko's next shot drilled through its body core. As the device shuddered and fell away, it let out an electromagnetic shriek from the transceiver horn, a death cry … or an urgent call for assistance.
Arnold Freeth managed to get to his hands and knees. “We have to call for emergency extraction! We never counted on anything like this!” He blinked. “Did we?”
Cynthia Tyler disentangled herself from the UFO expert. “Don't underestimate Team Proteus, Freeth. We can handle this.”
Devlin set his jaw in a grim line. “Calling for emergency extraction is problematic right now, since I don't think we can get any signal past this interference—and I no longer have the slightest idea where we are.” He flew forward. “But don't worry yet. I am not going to be outsmarted by a machine with a brain half the size of a germ.”
Cynthia Tyler brushed her jumpsuit off. She offhandedly helped Freeth up, then ignored him again. Looking chagrined, he buckled himself back into his seat. “Sorry about that.”
Tyler didn't spare him a glance, focusing instead on Major Devlin. “Go inside that gap in the musculature. If you find a nerve corridor, we can follow the neurons.”
“Roger that.” Taking a nose dive, Devlin plunged between smooth cells, hoping he wouldn't encounter any nanocritters lying in wait. Bright spotlights slid across reddish-brown organic barricades, yellow streamers, and crimson lace until he found a dark opening where a neural pipeline threaded through the cellular forest.
“Where exactly will this take us, Doc?” Devlin asked. A flicker of lightning shot along the pathway, obscured by a translucent coating that surrounded the nerve strand like insulation on a wire.
Firmly wedged into a seat beside one of the mounted laptop computers, Tyler consulted her reference databases. “I have absolutely no idea.”
“Ah, honesty. I appreciate that.”
Devlin picked up speed when he found the ganglion path clear. He longed to suit up and go outside to check the damage to the Mote, but he could make few cosmetic repairs here on the miniaturized scale.
Tomiko glanced at the mission chronometer on the control panel. “One hour, fifteen minutes. You do have a plan as to how exactly we're going to get out of this mess, right, Marc?”
Now that their flight had become smooth again, Freeth unbuckled and came forward on unsteady legs. “Do you have some way to send a locator beacon, or an SOS? So they can find us?”
“Good idea, Mr. Freeth.” Devlin's fingers danced across the comm controls. Through selective filters he had already damped out most of the caterwauling nanomachine signals in the surrounding tissue, though no outside message had been able to penetrate for the past hour. Now, using the specific frequency and signal-embedding protocol he and Felix had agreed on, he added a signature beacon. “That should produce a recognizable pattern for the Proteus technicians to find us.”
A skitter of light flickered along the ganglion like a shooting star. Devlin followed the strand until it linked with an intersection of neurons, where sparkling pulses passed through like bullet trains on intersecting tracks, colliding with enough force that Devlin backed off, shielding his eyes.
“The neural signals are getting stronger,” Dr. Tyler said.
“Maybe the alien is waking up,” Freeth suggested.
“If he sits up and stretches, we may be in for a rough ride.” Devlin veered away from the electrical discharges in the nerve cluster and entered another passage that looked like a glandular opening. Without warning, the Mote plunged into a bubbly, foamy mass of tissue. Moss-green forms swirled up in shapeless tangles, like free-form sculptures shot through with coppery chips.
“You take me to the strangest places, Marc. What is this?” Tomiko said.
“Another organ of some kind, Doc? I'd love to have some inkling of where we are.” Devlin's voice had an edge of frustration. “A spleen or a kidney? The liver? Sweetbreads, gizzard, gallbladder? Maybe even the brain?”
Tyler could only shake her head helplessly. “I can't offer any suggestions, Major Devlin.” She scanned her databases for comparable tissue, but found nothing verifiable. She looked over at Arnold Freeth in defeat. “I confess I underestimated just how strange this creature would be.”
Without warning, the nanocritters struck again.
A new swarm of machines emerged from the convoluted walls of the strange organ. Wave after mechanical wave, they surged from openings in the spongy tissue, hundreds of devices with pincer arms and groping claws. They surrounded the Mote like a wolf pack scenting wounded prey.
“How did they know where to find us? Did they just happen to be in the neighborhood?” The nose of their ship crashed into a blockade of three machines, shattering one and crippling two others. “Don't be shy with your laser here, Tomiko.”
She was already blasting right and left. The hot beams sliced the attacking devices into components, lopping off segmented arms, exploding power cells. Devlin spun the Mote in a backward loop, throwing off Tomiko's accuracy. She rolled with the motion, adjusting her aim and targeting again. She left a graveyard of metallic and carbon debris behind them.
Devlin's single intention was to get his ship away from this new ambush. “Somehow, they tracked us to this place then set a trap. There's no other explanation for it.”
“Awfully goal-oriented critters,” Tomiko said.
He flew deeper into the organ's spongy mass. In their wake, dozens of micro-devices lay damaged or destroyed—while tiny reinforcements continued to emerge from the fleshy pockets.
Some nanodevices paused at the microscopic wreckage and began picking over the ruined carbon-lattice hulks, sorting components and raw materials. The miniature robots set up work crews and went about repairing minimally damaged machines, tearing others apart for scrap. They reassembled new devices from the fullerenes and bucky
tubes, producing even more hunters.
With a world of resources around them, the nanocritters could copy themselves far faster than Tomiko's quick shots could destroy them. Devlin knew that Team Proteus could never outfight or outrun all of the voracious machines. They had to find another way.
Their best hope was to get out of the extraterrestrial body and escape the trap.
Devlin descended through dark catacombs into a biological wilderness. He had no idea where he was going, and their time grew shorter every second. Now they had only an hour before they grew back to normal size.
The ever-multiplying nanomachines marshaled their forces and continued the hunt.
Chapter 32
Mission clock: 1:10 remaining
Seated a dozen light years away, as far as Team Proteus was concerned, Felix Hunter clasped his large hands around his knees, trying to maintain his composure. After the last fragmented message from Marc, he felt as if he were frozen inside, not knowing what was happening to his crew.
Nanomachines? Swarms? Trying to stay clear? The micro-explorers hadn't been able to get another signal out. The Mote could already be destroyed. He should never have sent his son-in-law on the mission.
Hunter loved being at the nexus of every necessary decision, being in charge. Perhaps he should have suited up and gone inside the containment chamber with the two doctors, just to touch the specimen with his own hands…
Vasili Garamov stood up on bony legs and removed a cigarette from his pack. He held it like a talisman in his long fingers, but did not light it. He let out a slow sigh, looking as if he longed for the Cold War days, when no important decision was made outside the confines of a smoke-filled room.
Congressman Durston took great delight in pointing out, “If you want to have a smoke, Mr. Garamov, you'll need to go outside and pass through all the security procedures again. That's probably forty-five minutes, minimum. Think of everything you'll miss.”
Garamov's pale face flushed slightly at Durston's taunt. “I can endure.”
Sergei Pirov felt something extraordinary happening to his body. Something terrible.
His skin crawled with electric ants. From the inside. His joints ached and his bones throbbed as he moved. An invisible force seemed to be adjusting his physical form, gradually but inexorably, to a different shape.
After he'd defected to the United States to work for Project Proteus, Pirov had chosen to wear braces on his teeth, even as an adult, to correct years of orthodontic neglect in the Soviet Union. He had endured the constant pressure, the tightened wires and clamps that took years to bring his teeth into the proper position. Brackets, bands, and retainers had aligned his overbite until the teeth looked straight and perfect, an American dream.
Now it felt as if his entire body were undergoing a similar process, completely out of his control.
What is happening to me?
This went beyond his normal body aches, the uncertain tremor in his hands, the queasiness he often felt in his digestive system. This… frightened him.
Beside Pirov, the dutiful Rajid Sujatha remained focused on scanning the alien body. The Bengali doctor searched his readings for a blip that would allow him to trace the microscopic ship through the murky interference. “Still no sign, Director Hunter.”
Barely able to remain standing upright, Pirov fought to retain his composure. He wanted to leave this chamber, longed to shower and sleep, then spend the rest of his career reading journals and pondering what he already knew.
But a relentless buzzing crackled inside his mind, and his ears rang from spurious signals, sounds he was never meant to hear. Even back at his comfortable desk, he wouldn't have been able to concentrate on reading.
Beads of sweat broke out over his skin, followed by shivers and hot flashes. With disbelieving horror, he realized he must have contracted some kind of fever. An alien virus? Not possible. But still, the heat raged inside his flesh.
He couldn't understand how he could have been exposed.
With the alien's lifepod now open, both he and Sujatha might have been contaminated by whatever was on the extraterrestrial's body. But how could that be? He wore full anti-contamination gear and had followed all protocols. He could not possibly have contracted any sort of pathogen from the specimen. Besides, there hadn't been a long enough incubation period.
It was impossible. But still, he felt it happening inside him.
Though it went against strict procedures, Pirov didn't dare mention his symptoms, not with Deputy Foreign Minister Garamov watching him. He could not let them down, and he had already made too many excuses on this vital mission.
He and Dr. Sujatha were sealed within a Class IV containment room. In order to get out, both of them would undergo enormously complex sterilization procedures. Even if he complained about his symptoms, what could anyone do for him now?
Above, Vasili Garamov watched him like a bird of prey, and Pirov didn't dare relax for a moment, though he found it exceedingly difficult to concentrate. No need to bother Director Hunter about his chills, or the Deputy Foreign Minister. Once the mission was over, in an hour, he could arrange for whatever help he needed.
The old Russian doctor remained quieter than usual, doing his work and concentrating on the UFO creature he could see and study…
Deep within his body, ten generations of nanomachines had already reproduced. They rebuilt the aging human on a genetic level, using DNA patterns stored in microscopic computer memories.
Before he could tell what was happening to him, before he realized the fundamental changes within himself, Sergei Pirov became something no longer human.
While Rajid Sujatha scanned for the Mote, he detected only static. No discernible blip from the minuscule vessel.
“I cannot locate them.” He set the instrument on the surgical table beside him. “No readings. Perhaps they are too deep… and they will begin to grow soon. They should be searching for a way out.”
Sujatha realized how uncharacteristically silent Dr. Pirov had become. The Russian moved about sluggishly, picking up medical instruments and staring at them as if he'd forgotten what they were for. Then Pirov returned to the naked alien inside the open lifepod and stood motionless, staring. He kept his back turned to Sujatha.
“Are you all right, Dr. Pirov?”
The older man froze, startled, as if he'd been caught doing something illegal. His hesitant voice came over the suit speakers. “I am fine.” The timbre sounded thick and hoarse, as if he'd grown oddly congested.
Sujatha waited, but his colleague said nothing more and did not turn around. Frowning behind his faceplate, the Bengali doctor glanced up at the observation deck, but Hunter was busy conferring with the Deputy Foreign Minister.
In a friendly tone, Sujatha attempted to start a conversation with Pirov. “When this mission is over, perhaps you would consider having dinner with me and my girls? We could meet for our next furlough in San Francisco. That would be most enjoyable, I think.”
Pirov had never been particularly outgoing, nor was he forthcoming about personal details. The elderly Russian seemed fixated on his work, content to stay in his laboratory or office day after day. But Pirov might have a soft spot inside him. Sujatha thought he could bring the man out of his shell.
Pirov, hunched over the alien specimen, made no response. For the previous three hours, he had dutifully recorded measurements and collected observational data. His gloved hands now clutched the rim of the open lifepod, as if he were about to faint.
Sujatha didn't understand what was wrong. “Dr. Pirov, are you certain you're all right?” He stepped closer, but the Russian did not flinch. “Perhaps I should call Director Hunter? Do you need assistance?”
Pirov's anti-contamination hood and curved faceplate cast his features into shadow. But when he slowly, stiffly raised his head, Sujatha saw past the boundaries of his mask.
The Russian doctor's features had changed.
His head was flatter, and his eyes had enlar
ged, slanting upward into grossly enhanced orbs. Hanging in threads around his cheeks and neck, bristles of salt-and-pepper hair had fallen out, like shedding fur. Pirov's ears had shrunk against the sides of his head, retreating into his skull. His square chin was now pointed, and his lips had receded. His skin looked grayish.
Astonishingly, Sergei Pirov now resembled the extraterrestrial specimen lying inside the lifepod.
Sujatha reeled backward reflexively and stumbled against the defunct laser drill apparatus. And Pirov was upon him like a wild animal.
The Russian reacted with inhuman speed, crashing a gloved hand across Sujatha's hood. His knuckles caught the Bengali directly on the faceplate with all the power of a sledge hammer. Sujatha's hooded head smacked against the metal elbow of the laser drill, and he felt as if he'd been struck by a high-caliber bullet.
Sujatha fell to the floor. Stunned and terrified, he crab-walked backward to get away from Dr. Pirov. He sounded the alarm.
Above, in the observation deck, Director Hunter and the security guards scrambled to respond. Both Hunter and Garamov shouted into the intercom, demanding an explanation for Pirov's actions.
A hairline crack split Sujatha's transparent polymer face shield. To the thousands upon thousands of reproduced nanomachines that showered off Pirov's glove, the tiny breach was a rift the size of a canyon.
The microscopic devices streamed through the crack and poured onto Sujatha's face, into his eyes and nostrils and mouth. They seeped into every pore, conquering yet another human body.
They had already analyzed the systems from Dr. Pirov and were ready for a second alien conversion. This one would proceed even faster than the first.
Chapter 33
Mission clock: 58 minutes remaining
The Mote dodged through a maze of blood vessels, stringy fibers, and connective tissue. But nothing gave a clue how to escape from the alien's body. They were much too far from their entry point to follow the original plan.
Fantastic Voyage : Microcosm Page 19