Micro - Michael Crichton [133]
Karen looked at her arms. They weren’t in such great shape either. It was going to be a race against time. Wait for dawn, and hope nobody’s started bleeding by then.
Ben Rourke advised them to sleep inside the magnet. He couldn’t guarantee anything, but the magnetic field might delay the onset of symptoms. The magnet room had a fireplace in it, too, and Rourke hauled in pieces of candlenut, and started a fire. Karen and Rick climbed into the hole in the doughnut of the magnet, wrapped in blankets, and tried to settle down for the night. Neither of them felt terribly relaxed. Yet they were so incredibly tired. Time ran more swiftly in the micro-world, and a day’s rest could not come too soon.
Danny Minot refused to sleep in the magnet. He said he would prefer to sleep in the main hall, where he settled into one of Rourke’s chairs and wrapped himself in a blanket.
Rourke threw another piece of nut on the fire, and stood up. “I’m going to the hangar to get the planes ready. You will need to launch at first light.” Rourke went off down the tunnels into the hangar. He would service the micro-planes, test the instruments, and top off their electric charges, readying them for takeoff the moment daylight glimmered.
Danny Minot found himself alone in the hall, curled up in the chair. He couldn’t possibly sleep. He drank the last of the Jack Daniels, and tossed the bottle away. His arm was stirring, moving on its own, the skin bulging and making crackling noises. He lifted the blanket and looked, and he could see the grubs twitching. He couldn’t stand it. He began to cry. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe the terrible state of his arm, maybe it was his general situation, but he lost it. He wept, and looked down the hall where Rourke had gone. How long would Rourke be gone?
And that was when his arm came apart.
There was a cracking sound, a sound like paper tearing. He didn’t feel anything, but he looked down at the noise. And saw the head of a grub pushing out through a widening split in the skin of his arm. It had a glistening head. It was huge, and it was squirming, waving its head around, lengthening as it struggled out.
“Oh, God! It’s hatching!” he whispered.
The larva began to do something strange and horrible. It spat liquid from its mouth, stringy, thin drools—no, actually, it was thread, it was silk. The larva, still partway inside his arm and more than halfway out, began to spin silk around itself. Rapidly waving its head around, it flung silk threads around its body, building up a covering of silk around itself, even while its rear end stayed rooted in Danny’s arm.
What was it doing? It wasn’t going to hatch! It was just going on to another phase. It was turning into a cocoon. But it refused to leave his arm!
Terrified, he tugged on the larva, trying to make it come free. It lashed angrily, spitting silk, threatening to bite him with little teeth, too. It didn’t want to come out of his arm. It wanted to stay there, anchored in his arm, and build itself a silken case.
“Karen? Rick?” he said softly. The door to the alcove was closed. They didn’t hear him. They couldn’t help him anyway. “Ohhh…”
He stifled a moan of panic. What about that video screen in the next room? Rourke had said it was a communication system that connected with Nanigen. He glanced around. Rick and Karen were in the magnet room, a distance away. Rourke was in the hangar. He threw the blanket off, got up, and went into the communications room, where he inspected the video screen. He found a lens. It was a Minicam pointed in front of the screen. And there was a cover at the base of the screen. He flipped open the cover and discovered a power switch and a red button marked LINK. Simple enough. He pushed the power button, and in a moment the screen powered up, glowing blue. Then he pushed the red button, LINK.
Almost immediately a female voice came on, but the screen remained blank. “Nanigen security services. Where are you calling from?”
“Tantalus. Somebody help