Micro - Michael Crichton [102]
“Another Nanigen missing? You’ve got to be kidding—”
“Ms. Kinsky says she called the company. Nobody’s seen her husband since yesterday afternoon.”
The Nanigen security chief hadn’t reported this one. There were just too many Nanigen people dropping out of sight in the quiet little Honolulu town.
Another phone call. It was Dorothy Girt, a forensic scientist in the Scientific Investigation Section. “Dan—would you come down and take a look at something? It’s the Fong case. I’ve found something.”
Shit. The Willy Fong Mess. Not what he needed right now.
Don Makele walked into Vin Drake’s office. He had a disturbed look on his face. “Telius and Johnstone are dead.”
Drake gritted his teeth. “What happened?”
“I lost radio contact with them. They had located the survivors. They had begun the, uh, rescue operation,” Makele said. He was sweating again. “Right in the middle of this, they were attacked by something. I heard screaming and then—Telius—well…he got eaten.”
“Eaten?”
“I heard it. Some kind of predator. His radio went dead. I called for a long time. There were no more transmissions.”
“What do you think?”
“I think everybody’s dead.”
“Why?”
“My men were the best. Something got through their weapons and armor.”
“So the students—”
Makele shook his head. “Not a chance.”
Drake leaned back. “So there was an accident with a predator.”
Makele sucked on his lips. “When I was in Afghanistan, I noticed something about accidents.”
“What’s that?” Drake asked.
“Accidents happen more often to assholes.”
Drake chuckled. “That’s true.”
“The rescue—it failed, sir.”
Drake realized that Don Makele understood exactly what was meant by rescue. Nevertheless, Drake had his doubts. “How can you be sure, Don, that the rescue…ah…failed?”
“There’s no survivors. I’m sure of it.”
“Show me the bodies.”
“But there aren’t—”
“I will not believe the students are dead until I see evidence of their deaths.” Drake leaned back. “As long as there’s hope, we will spare no effort to save them. No effort. Am I clear?”
Makele left Drake’s office without saying a word. There was nothing to say.
As for Vin Drake, he felt reasonably good about what had happened to Telius and Johnstone. It meant he didn’t have to pay them bonuses in valuable stock. Nevertheless, he could not assume that all the students were dead. They had shown some survival skills, surprising tenacity, and so he would continue to try to flush them out, just in case some of them were still alive.
Chapter 30
The Pali
30 October, 4:00 p.m.
This thing would kick ass in Boston traffic,” Karen King remarked. She was driving the hexapod up a steep slope, guiding it across a jumble of rocks and grass stems. It lurched.
“Please! Watch my arm.” Danny was sitting in the passenger seat, gripping his left arm, which hung like a sausage in the sling. It had become badly swollen, filling the sleeve of his shirt. The hexapod moved along steadily, its legs whining, climbing through a vast, vertical world glowing with a million shades of green. In the cargo compartment, in back, Erika sat huddled, tied in with rope. Rick walked along beside the vehicle, holding the gas rifle and looking around, alert for predators, a bandolier of needle-bullets slung over his shoulder.
The terrain had gotten very steep. The soil had given way to crumbly lava pebbles and grit with protruding masses of lava rock, everything festooned with grasses and small ferns. Koa and guava trees twisted this way and that, mixed with thin, straight shafts of loulu palms. Many of the trees were draped with vines. Branches rattled in a steady wind that blew across the mountain face, and the breeze occasionally battered the truck and the humans. A wall of mist drifted through the vegetation—a cloud—followed by brilliant sunshine.
The deaths of Peter Jansen and Amar Singh weighed on the students. Their group had been winnowed from eight people stranded in the micro-world down to four survivors. Their number had been cut in half in just two days. Fifty