Micro - Michael Crichton [72]
“We don’t know anything about that,” Telius said.
“That’s correct,” Drake said. “You don’t.”
Somebody drove by and parked their car, and Drake paused. He and the two men turned away, and walked along the edge of the parking lot, saying nothing for a few moments, waiting for the person to go inside the building. The trade wind rattled the seed pods of acacia shrubs growing in the empty lot nearby.
Drake turned and gazed at the metal building. “That building doesn’t look like much. But in the near future, the business inside it will be worth at least a hundred billion dollars. A hundred billion dollars.” He paused to let the number sink in. “Incredible wealth will be created for the lucky people who own ground-floor shares in Nanigen.” He squinted into the sunlight, then looked sideways at the two men. “You know what ground-floor shares are, right? The owners of ground-floor shares can sell their shares for a spectacular profit when the company goes public in an IPO.” Did they see where he was going with this? Their faces revealed precisely nothing. No thought, no emotion, nothing to be read or inferred.
Professional faces, he thought.
Drake continued. “I want you to go into the micro-world on a rescue mission to find the spies. I’ll give you a full movement kit. A hexapod and weapons, anything you need. The spies were dropped…are believed to have been lost in an area about twenty-meters radius around Supply Station Echo. So I want you to begin your search at Echo. It’s possible the missing persons are following the micro-trails, looking for supply stations in order to take refuge in them. The supply stations have all been removed—all except for Station Kilo. We couldn’t find Station Kilo. You are to follow the networks of trails, moving from the site of one station to the next, searching for the spies. And…ah…” How to put this clearly, so there would be no mistake? “You will find the missing people. But here’s the point: the rescue will fail. Understand? Despite your best efforts, the spies will not be found. I don’t want to know anything about how you do it. The spies have to disappear, but I don’t want to hear any rumors about what happened to them, either. If no trace of them is found, there will be a…reward.” Drake put his hands in his pockets, and felt the wind kissing his face. “Failure,” he added softly, “is the only option.”
He turned around and looked at the two men. He saw nothing there. The men’s faces held no expression. A small bird whipped past and landed in the acacia bushes.
“If the rescue effort fails, the reward for each of you will be one share of Nanigen ground-floor stock. When Nanigen goes public, a single share will be worth at least a million dollars. Get it?”
The men just looked at him with eyes as flat as the parking lot.
But they got it. He was sure of that.
“You’re venture capitalists now,” Drake said, slapping Telius on the shoulder as he left.
The rain ended as quickly as it had begun. A steamy golden glow filled the forest as the clouds broke, and the water quickly receded as the rivulets emptied, and the rain ran off into the stream that drained the Manoa Valley. They had lost a lot of their gear, scattered by the water. And Jenny had disappeared. They collected themselves together in a group, and when everyone was accounted for, they spread out looking for their gear and, most of all, for Jenny. They went downhill, following the water flow, using the two headset radios to keep in touch.
“Jenny! Are you there? Jenny!” they shouted, but there was no answer and no sign of her.
“I found the harpoon,” Rick said. It hadn’t traveled far. His darts had been in a plastic case inside