could live for a short while in a shrunken state, as long as the animal was brought back to normal size within a couple of days. We began calling the illness micro-bends, because it reminded us of the bends in scuba diving. As long as an animal’s time in the shrunken state was limited, the animal seemed to be healthy.
“Next, there were several human volunteers, including the man who’d designed the tensor generator. His name was Rourke, I think. Humans could live for a few days in the micro-world with no ill effects, it seemed. But then there was…an accident. The generator broke down and we lost three scientists. They got trapped in the micro-world and couldn’t be returned to normal size. One of the fatalities was the guy who designed the generator. Since then, we’ve had other…problems. If a person is stressed or suffers a major injury, the micro- bends can come on very suddenly, and sooner than usual. So we have lost…more…employees. That’s why Mr. Drake halted operations while we try to learn how to keep people from dying in the micro-world. You see, Mr. Drake really does care about safety…”
“What’s the disease like in humans?” Rick interrupted.
Kinsky went on. “It begins with bruises, especially on your arms and legs. If you have a cut you can bleed endlessly. It’s like hemophilia-you can bleed to death from a small cut. At least that’s what I’m hearing. But they’re keeping the details pretty quiet,” Kinsky said. “I just run the generator.”
“Is there any treatment?” Peter asked.
“The only treatment is decompression. Get the person restored to full size as soon as possible.”
“We’re in trouble…” Danny murmured.
“We need to do an inventory of our assets now,” Karen said decisively. She laid the backpack she’d grabbed in the generator room on top of a dead leaf. With only the moonlight to see by, she opened the pack and spread various things out on the leaf as if it were a table. They gathered around and checked the contents carefully. The backpack contained a first-aid kit, including antibiotics and basic medications; a knife; a short length of rope; a reel, rather like a fishing reel, which was attached to a belt; a windproof lighter; a silver space blanket; a thin waterproof tent; a water-backpacker’s headlamp. There was also a pair of headsets with throat mikes attached to them.
“Those are two-way radios,” Kinsky said. “For communicating with headquarters.”
There was also a very-fine-mesh ladder; and keys or starter controls for some kind of machine not present. Karen put everything but the lamp back into the pack and zipped it shut.
“Pretty useless,” Karen said, getting to her feet and putting on the headlamp. She switched it on, casting the light around, playing it over the plants and leaves. “We really need weapons.”
“Your light-please turn it off-” Kinsky muttered. “It attracts things-”
“What kind of weapons do we need?” Amar asked Karen.
“Say,” Danny interrupted, as if something had just occurred to him. “Are there poisonous snakes in Hawaii?”
“No,” Peter said. “There are no snakes at all.”
“Not many scorpions, either, certainly not in the rain forest. It’s too wet for them here,” Karen King added. “There is a Hawaiian centipede that can deliver a nasty sting to a human being. It could certainly kill us at our present dimension. In fact, a great many animals can kill us. Birds, toads, all sorts of insects, ants, wasps, and hornets-”
“You were talking about weapons, Karen,” Peter said.
“We need some kind of projectile weapon,” Karen said, “something that can kill at a distance-”
“A blowgun,” Rick broke in.
Karen shook her head. “Nah. It would be a tenth of an inch long. No good.”
“Wait, Karen. I could use a hollow piece of bamboo, I could use it full-size, half an inch long.”
Peter said, “And a wooden dart to fit in it.”
“Sure,” Rick said. “The dart sharpened by-”
“Heat,” Amar said, “as the tempering agent. But for poison-”
“Curare,” Peter said, getting up, looking around. “I bet lots of plants around here have-”
Rick interrupted, “That’s my specialty. If we could make a fire, we could boil bark and plant materials, and extract poison. And especially if we can find some piece of metal, iron…to make a dart point…”
“My belt buckle?” Amar said.
“And then what?”
“Boil the stuff. Then test it.”
“That takes a long time.”
“It’s the only way.”
“What about using the skin of a frog?” Erika Moll said. In the night, they heard the croaking of what seemed to be bullfrogs all around them.
Peter shook his head. “We don’t have the right kind here. What you’re hearing are bufos, large toads. They’re the size of your fist. Well, your old fist. They’re gray, not brightly colored. They do manufacture unpleasant skin toxins, they’re called bufotenins, not curare-based compounds of the Central American-”
“All right, for Christ’s sake!” Danny snapped.
“Just explaining…”
“We get the picture!”
Erika put her arm around Peter’s shoulder, nodded to Danny. He was still fussing with his nose, scratching at it with both hands, holding them curved as if they were little paws.
As if he were a mole.
“Cracking up?” Erika whispered fearfully.
Peter nodded.
Amar said, “To continue, the poison you recommend…”
Watching Danny, Peter said, “Bark scrapings of Strychnos toxifera tree, add oleander, sap not leaf, include Chondrodendron tomentosum if it’s available, boil the mixture for at least twenty-four hours.”
“Let’s get started,” Karen King said.
“We could find these plants a lot more easily in the morning light,” Jenny Linn said. “What’s the rush?”
“The rush,” Karen said, “is those halogen lamps back at the entrance. Right now Vin Drake could be heading here to kill us.” She swung the pack over her shoulders and tightened the straps. “So let’s get started.”
Chapter 13
Alapuna Road 29 October, 2:00 a.m.
In bright moonlight, they hadn’t much cover. The dense hau bush that clung to the cliff side stopped at the level of the dirt road, and it was only too easy to see the two cars driving along the narrow volcanic ridge. To the left, the land sloped down gently to agricultural fields. To the right, a steep cliff ended at crashing surf on the north shore of Oahu.
Alyson drove the first car, the Bentley convertible. Whenever she hesitated, Vin Drake waved her on from the second car, the BMW. They still had a distance to go to reach the washed-out bridge. Finally he could see it in the moonlight, cream-colored concrete from the 1920s; amazing it had lasted that long.
Alyson stopped and started to get out of the car. “No, no,” he said, waving her back in. “You have to dress it.”
“Dress it?”
“Yes. The students are all jammed into the Bentley, remember? They’re partying.” He was carrying a laundry bag full of clothes and other items he’d collected from what the students had left in the front office and in the Bentley parked at Nanigen: several phones, shorts, T-shirts, bathing suits, a towel, a couple of rolled-up issues of Nature and Science, a tablet computer-she started tossing the things at random around the car.
“No, no,” he said. “Alyson, please. We have to decide where everyone was sitting.”
“I’m nervous.”
“Very well, we still have to do it.”
“It’ll all get messed up when you push it over the cliff.”
