Micro

Chapter 34

Nanigen 31 October, 10:20 a.m.

Drake had taken over the communications room. He was staring at the screen of the remote tracking system that had been pinging the hexapod truck. Right now, he was a little puzzled by what he saw on the screen. The crosshairs on the cliff face, indicating the approximate position of the truck, had suddenly shifted downward by a hundred and fifty meters—by about five hundred feet. At first he suspected a system error. But as he watched, and waited, the truck’s location didn’t change. It wasn’t moving.

He allowed himself a modest smile. Yes. It looked like the damn truck had fallen off the cliff. That had to be it. The truck had plunged down the cliff face.

He knew that a micro-size human body could survive any fall, any distance. But the fact that the truck wasn’t moving meant that, at the very least, the truck had been damaged. It might be busted.

The survivors would be in a total panic by now, he realized. They weren’t getting any closer to Tantalus. And the bends would be just starting to affect them. They would not be feeling exactly chipper.

He got Makele on his phone. “Have you been to Tantalus?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I didn’t do anything. Didn’t need to. It’s—”

“They’re not going to make Tantalus anyway. They took a tumble, poor souls.”