She helped him sit up. He was dizzy, and almost toppled over, but she held him, keeping her arms around him, talking softly to him, telling him everything would be all right. “You saved my life, Rick. You saved my life.”
Danny sat there watching Rick and Karen make up to each other, feeling extremely uncomfortable. In his opinion, this kind of stuff did not advance the effort to get back to Nanigen. He needed a doctor as soon as possible. He glanced down at his arm and almost threw up. The grubs seemed fatter than ever.
In a little while, Rick was able to stand. They began to walk. They went into the bamboo forest, where stalks of bamboo soared like redwoods. They made their way through it, and broke out onto a stunning view. They were facing the Great Boulder on the lip of Tantalus Crater, and looking down into the crater.
The crater extended beneath them, a basin stuffed with rain forest, rimmed by bare ground and patches of stunted, wind-wracked trees. All around the crater, peaks of the Ko‘olau Pali fingered into boiling clouds, and the wind pummeled the scene. At the foot of the Great Boulder lay Tantalus Base.
The base would have been virtually unnoticeable to a person of normal size. There was an aircraft runway about three feet long. At least Karen felt pretty sure it was a runway: she could see a dashed line and taxi markings. Beside the runway stood a cluster of miniature buildings made of concrete. The largest building seemed to be an aircraft hangar. The other buildings were smaller, and looked like bomb shelters. The buildings were embedded partway in the soil and were lightly covered with dead leaves and plant debris, so they blended into the micro-terrain.
Karen stopped. “Wow, Rick!” she said. “We made it!”
He turned his head and smiled, and looked at her. She rubbed his hands, his arms, to get the circulation going.
“Your hands feel warmer. You’re getting better I think.”
They didn’t want to draw attention to themselves, because they didn’t know what to expect from the inhabitants of the base, Nanigen employees who might well be following orders from Vin Drake. They decided to watch the base for a time, looking for activity. They lay down under a mamaki plant. The Great Boulder loomed above like a mountain.
There was no activity on the runway. The place seemed deserted.
The runway was strewn with stones, dried mud, plant debris. A cone of dirt had risen next to it, an ant nest. An ant trail extended across the runway and headed downslope toward the bottom of the crater.
“It doesn’t look good,” Danny Minot whispered.
Karen’s heart fell. If no micro-humans lived here, then there wouldn’t be any shuttle to Nanigen, and no chance of help. This place hadn’t been tended to; it had been overrun by ants.
But there might be airplanes.
They walked slowly down the hillside and went into the hangar. There were tie-downs for aircraft, but no planes. While Rick sat and rested with Danny, Karen explored the base. She found a room that she guessed had once held mechanical parts and supplies, but it had been emptied out, leaving bent metal pins and bolts protruding from the walls and floor. She went into another room. Empty. The next room contained living quarters. It had been flooded by rain and was half-filled with mud.
There was no sign of human life anywhere. Tantalus Base had been abandoned. There was no sign of a road to Honolulu, either. No shuttle truck. No airplanes. Only the trade wind endlessly worrying the ground and whistling through the empty halls of Tantalus.
They emerged from the complex and sat by the runway looking down into the crater. They could see the city, too, through the gap in the crater’s wall, and beyond the city the Pacific Ocean ran off into blue. Nanigen was miles away from this crater, and there was no way home.
Danny Minot lay in the rubble, holding his arm. He began to cry. His sobs echoed off the hangar and drifted into a sky shot with gray rolling clouds and wind.
Karen watched an ant hurry across the runway, carrying a seed. She turned her gaze up to the Great Boulder, and then past it to the horizon line and the clouds. Something moved against the sky near the boulder, and she suddenly realized it was the figure of a man.
Chapter 39
Tantalus Base 31 October, 5:00 p.m.
How long the man had been standing there Karen couldn’t say-possibly he had been watching them the entire time they’d explored the base. She saw his hair flash in the breeze, long, white. He wore armor of some kind, but she couldn’t tell what it was made of. His eyes looked hard and cold, even at that distance. He lifted up an object, and she saw it was a gas rifle.
“Down!” Karen shouted, grabbing Rick.
He fired. There was a hiss, and glint of steel ripped past them and buried itself in the ground somewhere beyond, and exploded with a thump. Karen began crawling, dragging Rick behind her, but there was nowhere to hide. Another sniper…Drake had found them…
The man’s voice came to them over the wind. “That was a warning. Stand up and show me your hands. If you have weapons, drop them in front of you.”
They obeyed him. Karen held up the blowgun so he could see it, and dropped it on the ground. She placed the container of darts next to it.
“Put your hands on your head.”
Karen obeyed, and called out, “We have two injured. We need help.”
He didn’t answer. He moved toward them, keeping the gun raised. As he got closer, they saw that he was an older man, with a weather-beaten face bronzed by the sun, and deep-set blue eyes. He clearly had muscles, and he looked physically powerful. How old was he? He could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty, it seemed. His armor had been carved from the hard parts of a beetle. A scar ran across his forehead and wandered down his neck and ran under the breastplate of his armor. He studied them, searching their faces.
The man’s eyes darted away, flicking around. Karen realized he was keeping alert for predators. He gestured at them with the gun. “Your names.”
Karen gave their names and added, “Who are you?”
He ignored that.
“My arm-” Danny began, and fell silent as the man pointed the gun at his face.
Karen added, “We need medical treatment.”
The man just stared. He poked at the blowgun with his foot. “Interesting,” he said. He picked it up, then examined a dart, and sniffed it. “Poisoned?” he said.
She nodded.
“Where are your guns?”
“We lost our only gun. A bird attack-”
“Vin Drake sent you,” he interrupted. “Why?”
Karen began to explain, “No, Drake tried to kill us-”
The man cut her off. “This is one of Drake’s tricks.”
Karen said, “You’ll have to take our word.”
“Where did you come from?”
“The arboretum.”
“And you made it up here? That’s impossible.”
Karen walked up to him and pushed his gun aside. “Give me back my weapon.”
The man’s eyes widened, maybe in surprise, maybe in anger. After a pause, he pointed his gun at the ground, and broke open the firing chamber. A smile creased his face, exposing white teeth. “Somehow,” he said, “you impress me.” He handed her back the blowgun. “Welcome to Tantalus. My name is Ben Rourke. I’m the inventor of the tensor generator.”
Karen eyed him. “How did you end up here?”
“Castaway by chance, a hermit by choice,” he replied.
