Micro - Michael Crichton [103]
“That’s enough,” Karen said to him. There was no point talking about Vin Drake, since all that did was to make them feel more helpless. “Peter wouldn’t give up,” Karen said to Rick, more calmly, as she worked the controls, guiding the truck straight up the face of a large rock. Rick jumped on board for the ride.
They had gotten into mountain vegetation. Occasional gaps in the canopy revealed a striking vista. Cliffs and blades of the Pali plunged all around, and a waterfall roared nearby. Somewhere above them, a curving stretch of ridge formed the lip of Tantalus Crater. As the machine marched along, its feet stirred up living things. Startled springtails bounced away, flipping through the air; worms wriggled and seethed; mites scuttled here and there, sometimes climbing up the legs of the hexapod. They had to keep brushing mites off the vehicle, or the creatures would crawl around inside it and all over the gear, dropping small blobs of mite dung and getting everything dirty. And in the air all around, insects by the thousands flew, humming past, spiraling around, glittering in the sunlight.
“I can’t stand all this life,” Danny complained. He hunched forward over his bad arm, looking utterly miserable.
“If the batteries last,” Rick was saying, “we might make Tantalus by nightfall.”
“What then?” Karen said, working the controls.
“We do reconnaissance. Watch the base, then decide our next move.”
“What if the base isn’t there? Torn out, just like the stations?”
“Do you have to be such a pessimist?”
“I’m just trying to stay realistic, Rick.”
“Fine, Karen. Tell me your plan.”
Karen didn’t have a plan, so she didn’t answer Rick. Just get to Tantalus and hope something turns up. It wasn’t a plan, it was a hail-Mary pass. As they moved along, Karen considered their situation. She was profoundly frightened, she had to admit it, but her fear also made her feel very alive. She wondered how much longer she had to live. Maybe a day, maybe hours. Better make the best of it, just in case your life turns out to be as short as an insect’s, she told herself.
She looked over at Rick Hutter. How did the guy do it? There he was, tramping along with the gun slung over his shoulder, swaggering a little, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. For a moment, she envied him. Even though she disliked him.
She heard a moan. It was Erika, sitting in the back of the truck with her arms wrapped around her knees.
“Are you all right, Erika?” Karen asked her.
“All right.”
“Are you…scared?”
“Of course I am scared.”
“Try not to be too scared. It’ll be okay,” Karen said.
Erika didn’t reply. She didn’t seem able to handle the pressure of this journey. Karen felt sorry for Erika, and worried about her.
Don Makele paid a visit to the communications center at Nanigen, a small office equipped with encrypted radio gear and corporate wireless networking equipment. He spoke to a young woman who was monitoring all the corporate channels. “I want to try to get a ping from a piece of equipment we’ve lost in Manoa Valley,” he said to the young woman. He gave her the serial number of the piece.
“What kind of equipment is it?” she asked him.
“Experimental.” He wasn’t going to tell her it was an advanced hexapod from the Omicron Project.
Typing commands by remote, the young woman switched on a high-power seventy-two-gigahertz transmitter on the roof of the greenhouse in the Waipaka Arboretum. It was a line-of-sight transmitter. “Where should I point it?”
“Northwest. Toward Supply Station Echo.”
“Got it.” Tapping a keyboard, she oriented the transmitter.
“Now ping.”
The young woman entered a