“Roger that, and I still destroyed my own ship.” Devlin tried to relax, knowing his blood-pressure readings would be off the scale. “Garrett, if you had wrecked the Mote, I'd have given you a couple of black eyes.” He heaved a deep sigh and let his shoulders slump. “At least I've got no one to blame but myself.”
Felix Hunter strode into the recovery room, looking pleased with himself. When he saw Marc Devlin, he stopped short of giving his son-in-law a hug and stood at a professional distance.
Devlin got up off his medical bench, dangling a lead to the blood-pressure cuff behind him, to the consternation of the medical technician. “I knew you wouldn't leave us behind, Felix.”
Trish Wylde turned toward the Director, her short reddish hair in disarray, her pretty face drawn with concern. “I'm very sorry about Dr. Tyler,” she said, looking guiltily at him. “When I came into your office, I never meant to cast doubt on her qualifications. I'm sorry I questioned her place on the team. That was selfish of me, and such jealousy has no place in the Project. I was out of line.”
Trish walked around the padded table so she could face the Director. “Cynthia was an excellent researcher, an invaluable part of the team. What she did probably saved the rest of the crew. Maybe even all of humanity.”
Freeth nodded, his eyes moist. “Believe me, there's no doubt about it.”
“Next time, Dr. Wylde.” Hunter looked at her with his intent, expressive brown eyes. “I made you a promise.”
After his extensive debriefing, Arnold Freeth stood near the portal guard's glass cage. He held out his hand while Director Hunter paid him. In cash.
The bills blurred out, one at a time, like playing cards from a hustler. Freeth could barely follow the counting. “There you are, Mr. Freeth. One thousand dollars, which constitutes your consulting fee of five hundred per day for two days. As agreed.”
The UFO expert was ecstatic to receive such a large payment, more than he usually got as a bonus or a salary, though he wasn't about to confess as much now. Besides, he was proud to have had some small part in saving Earth.
“Uh, can I have some paperwork for this? A receipt or a written record?” He seemed embarrassed. “Because of my profession, I… tend to get audited often. Only serves to enhance my belief in government conspiracies.”
Hunter stood firm, his mustache a dark line across his upper lip. “Sorry, Mr. Freeth. Nothing you can trace back to this mountain facility.”
“You did sign the agreement and confidentiality forms, Mr. Freeth,” Devlin said. “We tend to take those things seriously.”
“Then how do I record this on my taxes?” Freeth looked from one man to the other.
“You don't.”
“Paying way too much for a man with admittedly bogus credentials, aren't we?” Tomiko Braddock said, lounging against the rock wall next to Devlin. She gave Freeth a teasing look. “But I suppose Arnold did turn out to be a good addition to the team.”
Squirming, he seemed overwhelmed. “Thank you for letting me see that I was right all along… even if I did doctor my video a little.”
Devlin placed a brotherly arm on Freeth's shoulder. “You proved to be just as useful as Dr. Tyler had first expected, Mr. Freeth, fake autopsy or not.”
He gestured out into the sunlight, where the government sedan had already been pulled inside the staging area within the chain-link fence. “Let's take you home.”
Later, alone deep within the underground facility, Felix Hunter stood just inside the silent miniaturization room. The lights had been dimmed. He cradled the white experimental rabbit. Absently, he scratched Fluffy Alice's ears, pondering what he would write in his letter to Rajid Sujatha's family.
The Proteus guards, scientists, and technical support staff were stunned and subdued, the near-miss casting a pall too heavy to be lifted by their survival and triumph. No one else had come into the dim chamber.
He stared at the translucent prismatic grid that lined the floor and ceiling inside the focal point of the miniaturization beams. The technical stations were empty. Repairs and further testing would start within a day or so; he wondered if Project Proteus would ever be allowed to conduct experimental missions again.
The rabbit hung in his arms like a furry pillow, plump and content. She sniffed his finger.
It would be such a tragedy to lose everything now. What a boon it would be to worldwide industry if he could establish cooperative research agreements and technology transfers for the innovative shrinking process. Medical uses, data storage, military applications, materials studies, scientific analysis, cargo transportation.
He supposed even micro-tourism was an option.
Feeling stronger than he had since before his daughter Kelli died, Hunter vowed not to let this disaster shut down the project, as the debacle with Chris Matheson had done all those years ago. He would fight, as always, using every weapon at his disposal.
And, in the great chess game of international politics, Felix Hunter knew he could win.
Chapter 45
Friday, noon
“Believe me, when you government types interact with paranormal investigators, it's rare that anything positive comes out of it,” Arnold Freeth said on the drive out of the Sierra Nevadas.
His conversation with Devlin was entirely different from their initial meeting just the day before, though his enthusiasm was tempered by delayed stress at what they had been through. “We've all heard stories of Men in Black who show no identification, drive unmarked cars, and represent ultrasecret organizations.”
“Whoa, what secret organizations? You mean like… Project Proteus?” Devlin asked with a sidelong grin. He picked up speed, not particularly impatient but just hating to drive too slow.
“Okay, is that so far-fetched?” Freeth seemed comfortable to be wearing his professional white shirt, tie, and sport jacket again. “I was very suspicious of you at first, Major Devlin. I thought you might drug or hypnotize me at the end of the mission. I've heard that the CIA has some sophisticated brain-wiping technology.”
Devlin steered with one hand as the downhill grade became steeper and the curves sharper in the high foothills. “Why would we want to do that, Mr. Freeth?”
The UFO expert gave him a concerned frown. “You're not going to make me… disappear, are you? After all we've been through together? I may have been gone for two days, but sooner or later someone will notice. I have plenty of connections, speaking engagements, colleagues in the business.”
“Relax, Mr. Freeth. Think about it. If a prominent and outspoken flying saucer expert simply vanished off the face of the Earth, don't you think that would raise more eyebrows than if we simply left you alone?”
Devlin flicked his turn signal, then stomped down on the accelerator to roar past a slow-moving pickup on a tight mountain curve. Earlier, Freeth would have been spooked by the maneuver, but now that he'd seen Devlin's piloting skills through the hazards of an extraterrestrial's body, he had no concerns about mere roads and hills.
They drove for a long time, finally emerging from the foothills into the grassy bowl of the Central Valley, heading west toward San Francisco. The broad, brown expanse spread out before them like an agricultural ocean.
Freeth fidgeted in the front seat of the sedan. “Aren't you afraid I'm going to talk? What if I tell the whole world?”
“You signed the papers and contracts, sir. We could prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.” Devlin showed no concern. “Besides, I think you have more integrity than that.”
“But the public needs to know about these things. Believe me, there have been too many cover-ups already.”
“And if you do, we'll deny everything.” Devlin gave him a wry smile. “Just think it through.”
Freeth pursed his lips in exasperation. “I've talked about other people's UFO encounters for years, and now I have my own incredible real adventure to talk about. I want to tell the world that we had an extraterrestrial sealed in a lifepod. I want to revea
l that our government has developed cutting-edge miniaturization technology as part of a covert international project. I can truthfully say that we explored inside an actual alien's body.”
“Don't forget that we saved the Earth from a deadly nanomachine infestation as part of the bargain,” Devlin added as he raced across the flat farmlands.
With a disappointed groan, Freeth leaned back in the seat. His voice slowed as the implications hit him. “Of course, all the evidence was destroyed. The aliens and the nanomachines were vaporized.”
“Mr. Freeth, people will believe or disbelieve you, according to your past. You've been saying crazy things for years, and you've been heckled for it—but you do have your followers. Dr. Tyler even believed you, and Director Hunter gave you the benefit of the doubt. You claimed to have done an alien dissection for home video. Do you think you're going to win any new adherents by adding the miniaturization part to your story? Or the nanotechnology invasion?”
Freeth's freckled face trembled on the verge of a pout. “The whole fantastic voyage sounds so improbable that even my core audience might have second thoughts.”
Devlin shook his head. “Mr. Freeth, I've grown to respect you. You have a fiery dedication and a persistence in the face of impossible odds. Most people lack that. You have accomplished something truly remarkable, whether or not anyone else believes you.”
The UFO expert sagged in the seat and looked out to see the familiar territory racing by. Traffic picked up as they headed toward the sprawling Bay Area cities. He pounded his fist on the seat beside him. “But it is true, damn it!”
“Roger that. And you know the truth. Does anything else really matter?”
By himself on the long drive back to the Proteus Facility, Devlin had plenty of opportunity to reflect and plan. The sun set behind him, changing the chaparral colors with dusk.
When he got back, his first priority would be to find a good restaurant in Fresno, as he had promised Tomiko, for Saturday night. He doubted the daughter of Nolan Braddock and Kira Satsuya would be satisfied with a cheap burger joint.
As he drove into the Sierra foothills burning with sunset light, Devlin let his mind wander, digging himself free of the gloom that surrounded his thoughts of the three lost medical researchers. He thought of an old command adage: Any mission in which personnel are lost is a failed mission.
Despite the ordeal, though, he wouldn't have given up the opportunity for the world. And Devlin would have words for Felix Hunter if the Director tried to choose a different pilot for any upcoming mission.
A different, more personal pain came when he thought of the Mote, his beautiful ship. At least he had managed to rescue his picture of Kelli.
He promised himself that he would redesign the vessel, call up the Mote's old blueprints and modify them to include new ideas and improvements based on his actual mission experience. He touched the snapshot, still in his pocket—he and his wife drenched from a water-balloon fight—and smiled, already rushing ahead with his dreams.
The Mote 2 could be even better than the first. If Project Proteus continued—and he had no reason to believe otherwise, given Felix's talent for negotiations and fixing problems—he would construct a new vessel. Before long, Team Proteus would have an even more sophisticated ship to use in their miniaturized explorations.
The universe was vast, even on a microcosmic scale.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I couldn't have done all the research and technology aspects of this book alone. For sanity checks, ideas, and advice, I relied on the medical expertise of Dr. Ann Weller, the biological expertise of Patricia MacEwan, and the military and physics expertise of Doug Beason. I'm sure mistakes still slipped through, but they are far fewer in number because of the assistance these people generously offered.
At Signet Books, Doug Grad and Laura Anne Gilman helped me work through manuscript after manuscript and were even willing to look at the roughest of drafts to help shape the book into its final form.
My agents, Robert Gottlieb and Matt Bialer, saw the potential in this project and had faith in me from the beginning. Marty Greenberg provided essential ideas and input.
At WordFire, Inc., Catherine Sidor (as usual) did an enormous amount of work transcribing my microcassette tapes, offering suggestions, and helping with the editing chores. Diane Jones and Diane Davis Herdt were my guinea-pig first readers, whose comments led to major plot overhauls. And, of course, my wife, Rebecca Moesta Anderson, was involved in every step of this project, from the brainstorming to the final edit.
I'd also like to thank Eric Ellenbogen and Ben Melnicker for making it possible to revive Fantastic Voyage and for giving me complete creative freedom to tell the best story I possibly could.
Kevin J. Anderson has played in many different universes, from Star Wars to X-Files to those of his own creation. Most recently, his original prequels to Frank Herbert's Dune, House Atreides and House Harkonnen (cowritten with Brian Herbert), became international bestsellers.
His work has been translated into 27 languages and has sold nearly 13 million copies worldwide. During a promotional tour in 1998, Anderson established the Guinness World Record for “Largest Single-Author Book Signing.” He is currently at work on three volumes of a new science fiction epic, The Saga Of Seven Suns.
Anderson's research has taken him to the deserts and ancient cities of Morocco, inside the Cheyenne Mountain NORAD complex, into the Andes Mountains and the Amazon River, inside a Minuteman III missile silo and its underground control bunker, onto the deck of the aircraft carrier Nimitz, to Maya, Aztec, and Inca temple ruins in South and Central America, inside NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral, onto the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange, inside a plutonium plant at Los Alamos, and behind the scenes at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Anderson lives in the Colorado Rockies, where he is an avid mountain climber.
He also, occasionally, stays home and writes.
www.wordfire.com and www.dunenovels.com
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