Micro - Michael Crichton [127]
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.
Ben Rourke lived in a warren of caves near the Great Boulder, about six feet above Tantalus Base. He led them upslope toward the Great Boulder; and he helped Rick along. The cave entrance was a hole in the soil at the foot of the boulder, with a tunnel that ran horizontally inward, like the entrance to a mine. They advanced through the tunnel, while the light grew dim. After some distance they arrived at a door carved from wood. It was shut and latched with an iron hook. Rourke opened the door, and they went through it into a pitch-black tunnel. He threw a switch, and a line of LED lights came on in the ceiling of the tunnel, trending inward. “Welcome to Rourke’s Redoubt,” he said. “As I call my little place.” He closed the door behind them and slammed home an iron pin. “It’s to keep out centipedes.” He walked ahead, with a lanky, tough stride.
The tunnel went around a bend and sloped downward, plunging deeper into the mountain. It turned left and right, and they passed side tunnels going off into darkness. “This is an empty rat warren,” Rourke explained. “Drake’s people deemed the rats a threat to the humans at Tantalus Base, so they poisoned the rats and closed off the nest. I reopened the tunnels and moved in.” At intervals on the ceiling, LED lights cast a blue glow.
“Where does the power come from?” Karen asked him.
“Solar panel. Up in a tree. The wire runs down here to a battery pack. It took me three weeks to drag the damn batteries over from Tantalus Base even with the help of a hexapod walker. Vin Drake has no idea what treasures his people left behind when they abandoned Tantalus. He thinks I’m dead.”
“What’s your relationship with Drake?” Karen asked him.
“Hatred.”
“What happened?”
“All in good time.”
Ben Rourke was a mysterious character. How had he ended up here? How had he avoided death from the bends?
Rick tested his limbs, rubbed his arms. He was covered with bruises, he could see them in the light. At least he could move. He wondered how much time he, Karen, and Danny had before the bends started to affect them, make them sick? How long had they been in the micro-world? It seemed like ages, but actually it had been only three days, he reminded himself. The symptoms start on day three or day four.
They arrived at another heavy wooden door. The doors functioned like the bulkhead doors in a ship, sealing off parts of the warren from other parts. Rourke barred the door behind them, explaining that you couldn’t be too careful with some of the predators that lived around here. He threw a switch, and the lights came on, revealing a hall with a high ceiling, stocked