Fantastic Voyage : Microcosm

by Kevin J. Anderson

  He turned quickly to Trish Wylde. “And get me a fan! Just a desk fan from one of the offices. We need a positive-pressure air flow so that nothing drifts through the pinhole.”

  As the final preparations were made, Hunter stood close to the bulletproof glass, knowing the miniaturized vessel was still far, far too small for his naked eye to see.

  Chapter 40

  Mission clock: 0:00

  Loudspeakers inside the containment chamber broadcast all transmissions from Team Proteus as part of the mission, designed to keep the doctors apprised of the Mote's interior explorations.

  Now, the alien creature that had been Rajid Sujatha listened to the full plans for the miniaturized crew's escape. The infesting nanomachines tapped into his human memories and knowledge—comprehending what they needed to do.

  As the remaining few technicians and Marine guards prepared for the terrible ionization blast, the Sujatha-alien gazed impassively at Felix Hunter. The lean, distinguished-looking Director came closer, a reminder of Sujatha's past and humanity itself. But the barrier between them was much thicker than the shatterproof window. They stared at each other through the impenetrable glass as Sujatha's thoughts and memories flickered like dying embers.

  The human being inside him exerted control for just a moment, lurching his traitorous body away. But as the desperately fleeing Mote shot toward the window, still too small to be seen, the Sujatha-alien made his way back to where the outside laser drill had burned a new needle-width hole. He stood like a colossus in the torn remnants of his anti-contamination suit, a huge obstruction blocking the way with his sheer bulk.

  The nanomachines inside him remained disoriented enough not to comprehend what the body was doing. Sujatha managed to stop short, swaying clumsily in front of the pinhole, but not covering it.

  Hunter shouted for the technicians to assist him, working with scanners to detect the Mote's position. “Find them! Give me a progress report.”

  The mission chronometer had reached zero. Team Proteus was already growing larger. Inexorably.

  On the far side of the chamber, inside the open lifepod, the original extraterrestrial astronaut twitched. It began to move.

  Hunter felt a deep dread and looked desperately at Trish Wylde as she ran up with the hastily retrieved desk fan. “Hurry!”

  The technician checked his scanner again. “Okay, the Mote is almost at the glass. Almost there.”

  Then, in a single, smooth motion, the original alien pilot sat up inside its stasis pod. Its own cautious revival finally complete, after being shocked into deep stasis by the explosion of its ship, the extraterrestrial creature sucked in a huge breath of Earth air.

  Hesitated.

  Then exhaled.

  The enormous black eyes opened, stared at the bright lights, and never blinked. Naked and sexless, the creature flexed its prehensile fingers and its stick-thin reinforced arms.

  Satisfied that its body functioned again, the revived alien climbed out of the open lifepod. It took jerky steps, adjusting to Earth gravity, and moved to join its counterpart at the window. They communicated with bursts of compact language, part transmitted signal and part high-speed words.

  Next, on the floor of the containment chamber, the burnt corpse of Sergei Pirov also twitched, shuddered, and began to stir. Alive again.

  Masses of nanomachines inside the old Russian's body had scrambled to reconnect nerves, joining biological materials into fibers, stitching together the muscles and spinal cord, rebuilding vertebrae with microscopic bricks and mortar.

  Before long, the Pirov-alien would also heal sufficiently to join them in their conquest. The three of them would pool their strength and break out of the sealed chamber.

  After the mission chronometer hit zero, the Mote shot like a bullet across the room, aiming toward the tracer beam. Far below, the exaggerated terrain changed. Broad-stroke details grew more discernible, as if Devlin's eyesight were getting better.

  But that wasn't the reason.

  “We're growing. I have no way to tell what our relative size is now.”

  “Okay, let's move it!” Tomiko said. As they crossed the distance, covering inches every second, they could see the glass barrier, the signal indicating the tiny new borehole.

  Suddenly, something enormous blocked their way. It seemed to be the size of a planet.

  Hunter's voice came over the communications speakers again. “Marc, you're almost there, but Dr. Sujatha and the other alien are trying to prevent you from reaching the window. I think they understand what you're trying to do.”

  “We're still too small for them to see us,” Devlin said. “How can they know where we are?”

  Arnold Freeth scratched his mousy-brown hair. “Their bodies are full of nanomachines. They might be able to hear our own beacon. Just like before.”

  Tyler looked at him and nodded. “Freeth's right, Major Devlin. Remember the SOS signal?” The UFO expert fairly glowed upon hearing her acceptance.

  Devlin responded by shutting down the tracking beacon. He sent another message outside. “Mr. Freeth knows what he's talking about, Felix. We'll have to go in on our own now. Watch for the flash from thermal grenades when we're through the window tunnel.” Tomiko had already removed the explosives from their storage cabinet.

  The monolithic aliens in front of the transparent wall waved huge hands, stirring the air like a cyclone. Devlin fought his way through the whirlpools and vortices toward their only escape route. The Mote dodged city-sized hands flailing back and forth.

  And all the while Team Proteus kept growing.

  “What are those things trying to do? They're too big to capture us.” Tomiko looked like she wanted to zap an alien fingertip with her lasers, but she had only a trickle of power left, and no shots to waste.

  As they passed under Sujatha's sleeve, a rain of kamikaze nanomachines poured off like lemmings falling from a cliff. Thousands upon thousands of the expendable devices dropped blindly through the air, microscopic paratroopers aiming for the miniaturized vessel.

  Most of the nanocritters plummeted toward the far-off floor, but some crashed onto the Mote, now only the relative size of wheelbarrows. Using grappling arms to slice apart the metal plates, a full dozen of the carbon-lattice machines began to systematically dismantle the already battered ship.

  The screech of tearing metal and the drumbeat of

  articulated limbs outraged Devlin. “Come on, come on,” he repeated, like a mantra. He hoped the straining impeller engines would carry them to the pinhole, where it might be safe. Seconds ticked away.

  Gritting her teeth and growling, Tomiko swiveled the rear laser cannon, aiming at two nanomachines, but Devlin reached over to stay her trigger finger. “Whoa, we've got to save enough power to blast through the glass.”

  Her tight expression showed her frustration. “Maybe I should just go out and throw a few punches.”

  A continuous rain of nanomachines fell around the vessel like huge mechanical piranha. Several more attached themselves to the hull.

  With the fading miniaturization field, the Mote had already grown large enough that the nanocritters looked much smaller, like vultures tearing at a carcass. Therefore, more of the destructive devices could crowd onto the Mote's hull and cause further damage.

  “I see the window up ahead,” Devlin said, gritting his teeth. “And the beacon.”

  The giant Lexan cliff rose before them. At their still-microscopic size, the glass looked anything but smooth, with numerous pits and scratches and crystalline notches. The bore-hole tunnel looked like the X on a treasure map.

  With a groaning screech, two of the Mote's outer hull plates fell away. Twisted pieces of the plating dropped off like dead leaves.

  Arnold Freeth shouted as nanomachines sliced through the roof of the main compartment. A crack of daylight and whistling air burst through.

  Buckytube arms reached in, bending the plates back, chewing through the support framework. Whining pyridine-tipped
saws cut into the ship's body.

  Devlin closed his ears to the destruction going on behind him, though his hazel eyes stung with tears of frustration. “There's the tunnel right now. On our way.” No matter how much he fought with the controls, the Mote's engines could propel them no faster.

  In the main compartment, Cynthia Tyler detached one of their chairs and used the shaft to jab at the nanomachines. “Freeth, help me!” She clanged the chair back and forth, trying to beat back the articulated limbs like a lion tamer facing a wild beast.

  To her astonishment, the nanocritter grabbed the seat and tore it from her grip. With a blur of metal limbs, the machine hauled the chair through the widening breach in the ship's roof. Outside, a pair of nanomachines ripped the seat to shreds.

  Intent on flying, Devlin jockeyed them into position with no time for finesse or delicate moves. He set the groaning impeller motors to hover at the sealed mouth of the tunnel.

  Tomiko wasted no time. She fired a blast with her forward laser cannons. The waning power was sufficient to melt away the last micron of glass, opening their escape route. Silica crystals and polymer strands dripped away from the shaft that led outside—their only hope of escape.

  With her weapon's last sparks of energy, she scoured away four other nanomachines that made their way along the rugged vertical glass surface, climbing down toward the tunnel and its signal.

  “All clear in front, Marc! Let's move it.”

  The dying laser cannons sputtered, too weak to vaporize the remaining devices on the ship's outer hull, but the energy was sufficient to knock off a few of their mechanical attackers. The dislodged critters tumbled into the open air, their segmented limbs flailing.

  Devlin nudged the ship toward the tunnel opening—only to find that the Mote had already grown too large to fit into the hole.

  They could not get out.

  Chapter 41

  Mission clock: + 7 minutes

  Wincing at every clash and spark and groan as the brutal nanomachines tore his beautiful vessel apart, Devlin struggled to hold the Mote steady—but they had no place to go.

  It was a losing battle, and he knew it. His heart wrenched as he made the decision. He had worked for years on designing and building and testing this innovative exploration craft. It was almost a part of him. Now he felt as if he'd let the Mote down on her first and only real mission.

  “We'll have to abandon ship.”

  Dr. Tyler said, “And the longer we hesitate, the smaller our chances become.”

  Freeth steeled himself, obviously not eager to climb outside with the nanocritters around them. “Believe me, that's the only thing getting smaller around here.”

  Moment by moment, the miniaturization field continued to degrade. Their prolonged mission slowed the enlargement process, but still the Team was losing the race against time. While the vessel and crew began to grow imperceptibly at first, they would soon expand much faster, by orders of magnitude. They had to get out of the nanotech-infested room before it was too late.

  Even if it meant leaving the Mote behind.

  “Let's go,” Devlin said. “On foot. A fifty-millimeter dash—once we get across the opening.” He studied the tunnel through the window, a cave below the wavering ship, seemingly out of reach.

  He felt sick at the prospect of casting his lovely vessel to the microscopic wolves. Creating this ship had saved him from wallowing in ever deeper depression after his wife's death. He knew the tiny craft better than he knew his own hand.

  But he didn't intend to be one of those captains who went down with his ship in a foolish display of bravery.

  Devlin adjusted the shuddering impellers to hold the vessel in position above the drill hole, as close to the window as possible. “That's the best I can do. Tomiko, get everybody to the airlock. We've got to climb across. Every second counts.”

  She was already out of her seat, clipping the thermal grenades to her belt. Atmospheric currents made the vessel rock and sway.

  The clatter of fullerene limbs and pyridine-clawed feet drummed on the outer hull. Another section of the wall plates bent apart from its seams, pried away by powerful nanomachines.

  Devlin took one last longing glance around the cockpit. Then he quickly peeled the snapshot of Kelli off the window and tucked it into his jumpsuit pocket before he rushed to join the others at the hatch.

  The vulture-sized nanocritters had stripped off the Mote's metal armor as if skinning their prey alive. Like pigs at a trough, the tiny robots crammed against each other, swarming at the roof breach. With diamond-edged jaws, the devices chewed through the hull supports, widening the hole. Trying to get inside. Claws and pincers clacked, scrambled, and poked.

  On her way past the laboratory benches, Tomiko snatched a sampling pole from the analysis station. Under normal circumstances, Dr. Tyler might have used it to investigate organic tissue. But Tomiko wielded it like a spear, jabbing at the nanocritters through the ceiling hole.

  Just like action hero Nolan Braddock. Her mouth formed a grim smile at the irony. But she had to get it right on the first take.

  The machines thrashed with their sharp, jointed limbs. One pincer grabbed the sampling pole and twisted, but Tomiko heaved backward, ripping the machine's buckytube limb out of its socket. She swung again, hard as a ninja warrior this time, driving the others back with a clang of metal against carbon matrix. With a furious thrust, she skewered one device through its optical sensor, then blinded a second one.

  She shouted, “Dr. T, bring the other anchoring rope to the airlock and open the bottom hatch. We'll need it to get across.”

  Her face pinched but determined, Tyler disconnected the metal coils of the anchor cable and hurried with it to the central airlock. Freeth had already opened the hatch, and he helped her drop the barbed end out the open lower hatch.

  As even more machines settled on the Mote, Tomiko poked the pole repeatedly through widening gaps in the ship's structure. The side hull and windows cracked and split open from the relentless pressure.

  Devlin staggered across the main compartment as the ship shuddered in the air, a faithful beast of burden heaving in its death throes. He tried not to think about it. “Tomiko, you're the best athlete around here. You go first. Down the rope, swing across, then anchor it for us on the edge of the drill hole. Now's the time to show off your gymnastics skills.”

  “Garrett's the show-off,” she said with a quick smile. “I'm just a shy girl.”

  She gave up her battle against the attacking devices. Throwing the spear to the deck, she took the loose end of the anchor cable from Freeth. She jumped into the airlock chamber and squatted at the edge of the floor hatch.

  She saw only an infinite sea of empty air at her feet, as if she were about to jump out of a high-flying jet aircraft. Tomiko grabbed the anchored end of the rope, held on, and dropped through the hatch…

  Devlin stood with Freeth and Tyler at the airlock door. “Get ready. We've only got a few seconds.”

  One of the nanomachines ripped out a side window and tried to force its way through the hull opening. Its optical sensors glowed like the eyes of a giant crab. Freeth yanked a laptop computer from its dock on the laboratory desk and tossed it at the tiny robot, knocking the blocky device away into space.

  “Mr. Freeth, you next. Then Dr. Tyler.” Devlin stood grimly. “I'll go last. She's my ship.”

  Air currents howled through the peeled-apart wreckage, and the Mote pitched about in the wind. The patchwork miniaturization field was failing even faster now. He could see that they were already bigger than when they'd first arrived at the escape hole.

  Beneath the ship, Tomiko dangled on the cable. Her muscular legs wrapped around the strand as she swung back and forth. The pinhole in the window glass looked as big as the Eisenhower Tunnel. But the Mote filled a space far larger. Had they really been so small only a few moments before?

  She twisted her hips to increase the pendular arc. Like Tarzan on a vine, but as light as
a dust mote, she swayed closer to the window. Holding the cable below her, she thrashed the end like a whip, trying to strike the opening. The anchor's metal tip brushed against the crystalline glass like fingernails on slate, then slipped away.

  Far in the distance, she saw shadowy titans, the looming aliens trying to prevent their escape. Right now even a centimeter gap was a huge distance for Team Proteus to traverse.

  Nanocritters crawled like mechanical beetles all over the vessel, dozens of them working frantically, crawling down, trying to exploit any hull breach. They had no intention of using the material to assemble more copies of themselves; they wanted only to destroy. Soon they would reach the undercarriage of the Mote.

  If the machines severed the cable from the airlock hatch, Tomiko was doomed… and so was everyone else.

  She swung again, practicing her aim, and finally the anchor hook clanked on the rugged glass, which looked like an iceberg cliff that extended to infinity. The hook bounced across the pitted surface, skidded, clacked against the tunnel opening, but fell again without finding purchase.

  With a gust of air, the Mote jolted away, yanking her and the cable back out of reach. She clung desperately, maintaining her grip with strong fingers.

  Panting, she swung back toward the glass wall at the end of her arc again. This time the hook struck the melted ridges of the bore hole. The grapple held just long enough for her to shimmy down the cable. Rope burn was the least of her worries.

  When she finally thumped onto the uneven bottom of the tunnel, Tomiko kept her grip on the cable and secured the anchor into a cavity. She wished she had some kind of rock hammer, anything to gouge the hole a little deeper. She set the grappling hook as best she could and then pulled on the rope to test it.