She worked the keys for a while. Still nothing happened.
“Now point the transmitter up the mountainside. Do sequential pings.”
After she worked some more, she brightened. “Got it. It pinged me back.”
“Where is the equipment?”
“Gosh. It’s on the cliffs. Halfway up Tantalus.” She called up an image of the terrain on her screen and pointed to a spot on the mountainside, far above the bottom of Manoa Valley. “How did the equipment get there?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Makele answered.
Somebody had survived. They were now driving the hexapod straight up the mountain. Interesting.
Makele returned to Drake’s office. “Just for the hell of it, I pinged the hexapod. I got a ping back. Guess what. The hexapod is halfway up to Tantalus Crater.”
Drake’s eyes narrowed. What the hell. Somebody had survived the predator that had eaten Telius and Johnstone. “Can we find that hexapod, retrieve it?”
“Those cliffs are really steep. I don’t think we could reach the hexapod right now. Plus we can’t get a tight fix on it. We can get its approximate location on the cliffs. Only good to a hundred meters.”
A tiny smile formed at the corner of Drake’s mouth and grew wider, until it had become a grin. “I wonder…maybe they’re heading for Tantalus Base.”
“Yeah, could be.”
Drake broke into laughter. “Tantalus Base! Ha! I would like to see their faces when they see Tantalus. They’re in for an ugly surprise-if they get there.” He became serious. “You go up to the crater and make sure they get a surprise. I’ll keep track of their progress.”
Rick was driving when there was a beep, and the hexapod’s communication panel lit up. A display flared: ANSWERBACK 23094-451.
“What the hell was that?” Rick said.
Danny slumped in the passenger seat next to him. “Turn that thing off.”
“I can’t. It’s just doing this shit on its own.” Rick began to wonder: was somebody trying to talk to them? Maybe it was Drake. But then the panel went quiet again. He had a feeling, though, that Drake might know where they were. If so, what would they do if Drake found them? The gas rifle would have no effect on a human of normal size. Karen walked alongside.
“The radio’s acting funny,” he said to Karen.
She shrugged.
The terrain trended upward at a steep angle. They came to a low cliff, and the walker climbed it. At the top of the cliff they made their way around a bunch of sedge grass, and came to a rock. “Stop!” Rick said. He advanced toward the rock; he had seen something under it. Something black and shiny. “It’s a beetle hiding under there,” he said. “Erika, what kind?”
Erika focused her attention on the beetle. It was a Metromenus, the same kind they’d seen when they’d first arrived in the micro-world.
“Be careful,” Erika said. “They have a nasty spray.”
“Exactly,” Rick said.
“What’s up?” Karen asked him.
“It’s a chemical war out there. We need chemical weapons, too.”
“We don’t need it,” Karen said to him. “We’ve already got the benzo spray.” She lifted the spray bottle out of her pocket-the self-defense compound that she had made in the lab, which she’d hoped to show to Vin Drake. But when she squeezed the pump, nothing came out. It had been used up spraying the centipede.
Rick was determined to reload the bottle with spray. He crept ahead with the gas rifle, took aim, and fired at the beetle. The needle penetrated the beetle’s shell. There was a muffled explosion, and the beetle shuddered and sprayed chemicals around in its death throes, until the air reeked of acids.
Erika assured them there would be a lot of spray left in the beetle. Rick put on his mad scientist outfit: the rubber apron, the goggles, and the gloves, and he went to work.
First, he flipped the dead beetle over on its back. Next, with his machete, he began tapping around on the jointed segments of the abdomen, looking for an opening.
Erika gave him advice. “Cut between segment six and segment seven. Lift the sclerite plates off- gently.”
Rick sliced into the beetle, working the blade along a joint between segments, then pried with his machete, lifting up the armored plates. They came off with a tearing sound, revealing fat. He started cutting into the fat carefully.
“You’re looking for a pair of chemical sacs at the base of the abdomen,” Erika explained, kneeling next to Rick. “Don’t burst a sac or you’ll be sorry.”
Rick lifted out a football-shaped organ, then another one. These were the chemical sacs. They were closed-muscles clenched them shut. Following Erika’s instructions, he cut the muscle, and the sac began to leak liquid. It stank.
“That’s benzo,” Erika said. “It’s mixed with caprylic acid, a detergent. That helps the chemical stick to surfaces, which enhances its power as a weapon. Don’t get it on your skin.”
It pleased Karen to see Erika interested in something, for a change. Erika had gotten so quiet, so depressed. At least this would distract her.
Rick collected the liquid in a bottle and screwed on the top. Then he handed it to Karen. “There you go. For your protection.”
Karen wondered at Rick. He certainly had energy. She should have thought of collecting more chemicals herself. Rick seemed quite skilled at this business of getting along in the micro-world; he even seemed to enjoy it. It didn’t make her like Rick Hutter any better, but, somewhat to her surprise, she found herself glad to have him along on the journey, anyway. “Thanks,” she said to him, stuffing the bottle back in her pocket.
“Don’t mention it.” Rick took off his outfit and stored it away, and they resumed their upward climb.
The land grew impossibly steep. It went almost vertical, and they arrived at the base of an endless cliff. The cliff ran upward as far as the eye could see, an expanse of bubbly volcanic rock draped with lichens and hanging moss, and dotted with clumps of uluhe ferns. There seemed to be no way around it.
“Damn the cliff, full speed ahead,” Rick said.
They made sure the equipment was tied down, and then Rick jumped in back with Erika, and tied himself in. Karen drove. The truck’s feet stuck to the rock beautifully, and the truck moved upward. They made excellent speed, gaining altitude fast.
But the cliff just seemed to go on forever.
The day was coming to a close, and they didn’t know how far they had come, or how far they had to go. The battery readout showed that the power had been draining steadily; the vehicle had only about a third of its battery power left.
“I think we should bivouac on the cliff,” Rick finally said. “It might actually be safer than anywhere else.”
They found a ledge and parked the truck on it. It was a lovely spot, and it looked out over the valley. They ate the last of the katydid steaks.
Danny spread out some things in the back of the truck, where he intended to spend the night. His arm was clearly swollen. It felt bloated and lifeless. It didn’t seem to belong to him anymore, but had become a dead weight.
“Oooh,” he whispered. He clutched his arm and made a face.
“What’s the matter now?” Rick Hutter said to Danny.
“My arm just popped.”
“Popped?
“Nothing. Just a noise in my arm.”
“Let’s have a look,” Rick said, bending over Danny.
“No.”
“Come on. Roll up your sleeve.”
“It’s fine, all right?”
