Watanabe went out thinking. Nanigen. Small robots. Now there seemed to be a link between the Willy Fong mess and Nanigen.
Time to have a chat with the CEO.
Vin Drake had dropped by the communications center. He had kicked the young woman operator out of the room and locked the door, and had taken over the pinger himself. Now he gazed into a screen that displayed a three-dimensional terrain map of the northwest cliffs of Manoa Valley, from the valley’s bottom to the structure of Tantalus Crater, two thousand feet above. Near the top of Tantalus Cliffs, at the base of the crater, he saw a circle with crosshairs over it.
This showed the approximate location of the stolen hexapod. The survivors, he could see, had made it nearly to the lower slopes of Tantalus Crater. At the rate they were climbing, they would reach Tantalus Base maybe by tomorrow morning, unless a predator got them. He couldn’t control the predators. What he could control was Tantalus Base.
Sitting in the communications room, Drake got out his encrypted corporate phone and called Don Makele. “The hexapod is getting close.”
Chapter 32
Tantalus Cliffs 31 October, 9:45 a.m.
The truck climbed up over a lip of rock and emerged into a pocket of mossy ground. A small pond gleamed, and a miniature waterfall dribbled into the pond. As the drops landed in the water, they made the water shimmer with prismatic flashes.
Rick, Karen, and Erika climbed down from the truck. They stood by the pool, gazing into it. It was crystal- clear, with a mirror-like surface.
“We’re so dirty,” Erika said.
“I could use a swim,” Karen said.
They saw their reflections in the water; they were tired-looking and sweaty, and their clothing had become ragged and grimy. Karen knelt and touched the water. Her finger dented the water but didn’t break it. She was touching the meniscus, the rubbery surface of the water. She pushed against the meniscus, putting her weight into it, and her hand broke through the surface. “It’s so tempting,” she said.
“Don’t do it. You’ll be killed,” Danny said from the truck.
“There’s nothing dangerous here, Danny,” Karen said.
Rick wasn’t so sure. He took the harpoon and probed it around in the pool, jabbing it into the bottom and stirring the water. If any nasty creature lived in the pool, he hoped the disturbance would lure it out. The water flickered with single-celled organisms drifting and corkscrewing, but none of these little creatures seemed dangerous.
The pool was small and shallow enough that they could see all of it. Nothing seemed threatening.
“I’m going for a swim,” Erika said.
“I’m not,” Danny said.
Rick and Karen glanced at each other.
Erika went off behind a clump of moss, and returned naked. “Is there a problem?” she said to the others, while Danny stared. “We’re all biologists here.” She stepped onto the surface of the pool. The water dimpled under her toes, but it supported her weight, didn’t break. She pressed down harder, and suddenly she broke through and went in up to her neck. She waded over to the waterfall and stood under it. The droplets tumbled down, bursting on her head and making her gasp. “It’s magnificent. Come in.”
Karen began to take off her clothes in a matter-of-fact way. Rick Hutter wasn’t sure what to do; he felt embarrassed to be looking at Karen while she undressed, more embarrassed to be swimming with her and Erika naked. He got his clothes off fast, and jumped into the water.
“Welcome to Eden,” Erika said.
“A dangerous Eden.” Rick ducked down, and began scrubbing his head.
As Karen explored the pool, she saw it was like a fish tank full of living things, but they weren’t fish, they were single-celled organisms. The creatures spun and darted and drifted. A torpedo-shaped creature swam up against her.
It was a Paramecium, a pond-water animal, a protozoan consisting of a single cell. The Paramecium was covered with rippling hairs that propelled the creature through the water. It began bumping along Karen’s arm, tickling her skin. She cupped her hands and picked up the Paramecium, holding it in a handful of water. She could feel the hairs beating on her palms, and the cell squirmed. It reminded her of a cat that didn’t like being held. “I won’t hurt you,” she said to the cell, stroking it gently with a fingertip. As she touched the hairs, they reacted by reversing direction, beating against her finger. It was like stroking velvet that fought back.
Why am I talking to a cell? Karen thought. That’s pretty silly. A cell is a machine, she told herself. It’s just a clockwork of proteins inside a water-filled bag. And yet…she couldn’t help feeling that the cell was also a small being, full of its own purposes and desires. A cell wasn’t intelligent the way a human is, of course. A cell couldn’t imagine galaxies or compose a symphony, yet it was a sophisticated biological system, perfectly adapted to survive in this environment, and bent on making copies of itself, as many as possible. “Good luck,” she said out loud, opening her hands and letting the cell go free. She watched it hurry away, corkscrewing as it swam. She said to Rick, “We’re not so different from these protozoa.”
“I don’t see the resemblance,” Rick said.
“A person is a protozoan on the day the person is conceived. As the biologist John Tyler Bonner likes to say, ‘A human being is a single-celled organism with a complicated fruiting body.’ ”
Rick grinned. “The fruiting body is the best part.”
“Crude,” Karen remarked. Erika smirked at him.
A shadow crossed the pool, and a scream echoed above. Instinctively they ducked their heads under the water. When they came up, Rick looked around and said, “Birds.”
“What kind?” Karen said.
“No idea. They’re gone, anyway.” They washed their clothes in the pool, rinsing the dust and mud out. Afterward, they spread their clothes to dry, and sunbathed for a little while on the moss. The clothes dried quickly.
“We need to get going,” Rick Hutter said, buttoning his shirt.
Just then, the distant cries grew louder, and dark shapes flashed through the air above them. The humans leaped to their feet.
A flock of birds was cruising along the cliffs, landing and taking off. The birds were foraging. Their cries shattered the air.
A bird landed before them. It was enormous, with shiny black feathers, a yellow bill, and an alert gaze. It hopped around, investigating the spot, and screamed, a raspy, echoing cry. And then suddenly it took off. More birds arrived overhead, and they began circling, inspecting the scene, and landing in trees that clung to the cliff face. The humans became aware of many eyes watching them. The cries of the birds surrounded the pool.
Rick dashed for the truck, grabbed the gas rifle. “They’re mynahs!” he shouted. “Get cover!”
Mynahs were carnivores.
Danny had tumbled out of the truck, and he cowered underneath it. Karen had thrown herself down behind a rock, while Erika wedged herself down into clumps of moss. Rick knelt in the open, holding the gas rifle, watching the black shapes as they swept past the cliff, their cries streaming in the wind.
The birds saw him. They had no fear of something so small. A mynah cruised in and landed, and hopped across the ground toward him. He fired at the bird. The gun erupted with a hiss, kicking him backward, but at that instant the mynah leaped into the air and soared away, downwind. He had missed. He reloaded frantically, slamming another pin into the chamber. The gun was a bolt-action rifle: it fired one projectile at a time.
He thought there must be twenty or thirty of them, anyway. They swirled around the cliffs, their cries deafening. “They hunt in packs,” Rick said.
Another mynah landed.
