Micro

Chapter 39

Tantalus Base 31 October, 5:00 p.m.

How long the man had been standing there Karen couldn’t say—possibly he had been watching them the entire time they’d explored the base. She saw his hair flash in the breeze, long, white. He wore armor of some kind, but she couldn’t tell what it was made of. His eyes looked hard and cold, even at that distance. He lifted up an object, and she saw it was a gas rifle.

“Down!” Karen shouted, grabbing Rick.

He fired. There was a hiss, and glint of steel ripped past them and buried itself in the ground somewhere beyond, and exploded with a thump. Karen began crawling, dragging Rick behind her, but there was nowhere to hide. Another sniper…Drake had found them…

The man’s voice came to them over the wind. “That was a warning. Stand up and show me your hands. If you have weapons, drop them in front of you.”

They obeyed him. Karen held up the blowgun so he could see it, and dropped it on the ground. She placed the container of darts next to it.

“Put your hands on your head.”

Karen obeyed, and called out, “We have two injured. We need help.”

He didn’t answer. He moved toward them, keeping the gun raised. As he got closer, they saw that he was an older man, with a weather-beaten face bronzed by the sun, and deep-set blue eyes. He clearly had muscles, and he looked physically powerful. How old was he? He could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty, it seemed. His armor had been carved from the hard parts of a beetle. A scar ran across his forehead and wandered down his neck and ran under the breastplate of his armor. He studied them, searching their faces.

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 with furniture, shelves of books, laboratory equipment, and supplies of all kinds. It was a living area.

“Home sweet home,” he said. He began taking off his armor, hanging it in a storage space. Side passages went off into additional rooms, and they could see electronic equipment in one room.

There was a desk with a computer sitting on it, several chairs made of twigs and woven grass. A circular fireplace hearth occupied the center of the hall. A rack near the fireplace held strips of smoked insect meat. Rourke had also laid in supplies of dried fruit, edible seeds, and chunks of dry taro root.

Rourke’s bed was the shell of a candlenut packed with soft, shredded bark. A tall pile of cut-up candlenuts sat heaped against one wall. Ben Rourke carried several of the oily pieces of nutmeat to the fireplace, and he lit the fire using a gas torch. The fire caught, throwing light and warmth through the room, and the smoke went up through a hole in the ceiling.

Ben Rourke seemed to be a jack of all trades, clearly a brilliant man who knew a lot about many things. He seemed happy in his fortress; he seemed to have found a life he enjoyed. They wondered about his story. How had he ended up here? Why did he hate Vin Drake? What had Drake done to him? Karen and Rick both glanced at their hands and arms, and noticed the bruises there. It would be a good idea to persuade Rourke they needed to leave for Nanigen soon; or to learn from him how he had beaten the bends.

The first order of business, however, was for Rourke to examine Rick and Danny and tend to their medical needs. Rourke started with Rick. He rubbed Rick’s limbs, stared into his eyes, and asked questions. He got out a small chest and opened it; it was a medical chest, rather like the kind that sea captains took with them on long voyages. The chest contained a number of items, including forceps, scissors, sterile compresses, a very long scalpel, a bone saw, a bottle of iodine, and a bottle of Jack Daniels. Rourke examined the puncture wound under Rick’s arm, where the wasp’s stinger had gone in. He doused the wound with iodine, which made Rick jump; and he said it would heal. He added, “You guys need a bath.”

“We’ve been in the micro-world for three days,” Karen said.

“Three days,” Rourke said thoughtfully. “Actually you’ve been here longer than that. I suppose you’ve noticed the time compression?”

“What do you mean?” Rick asked.

“Time moves faster for us here. Your bodies are running faster; your hearts are beating like a hummingbird’s.”

“We had to sleep during the day,” Karen remarked.

“Of course you did. And your time is running out. The bends are already affecting you; I can see it. The crash will come soon. The bruising, the pain in the joints, the nosebleed, the end.”

Karen asked Rourke, “How did you avoid the bends?”

“I didn’t. I damn near died from them. But I found a way to make it through; maybe some people can survive them.”

“What did you do?” Rick asked.

“Right now we have to deal with this fellow’s arm.” He turned his attention to Danny.

Danny had seated himself in a chair near the fire. The chair was made of wicker woven from fern hairs and tiny twigs, yet it was massive and quite comfortable. He stretched out in it, cradling his arm. The sleeve had torn off completely, and the larvae under the skin made the arm bulge in lumps. Ben Rourke studied Danny’s arm, poking it gently. “It was likely a parasitic wasp that egged you. She mistook your arm for a caterpillar.”

“Am I going to die?”

“Of course.” Danny opened his mouth with a frightened look, but Rourke added, “ When is the only question. If you don’t want to die right now, that arm has to come off.” He drew out the long scalpel and handed Danny the bottle of Jack Daniels. “Anesthetic. Start drinking while I boil the tools.”

“No.”

“If you don’t get that arm off, those grubs could migrate.”

“To where?”

“Your brain.” Rourke held up the bone saw and touched its teeth.

Danny leaped out of the chair and stepped backward, holding the bottle in front of him like a club. “Stay away from me!”

“Don’t spill that whiskey. I don’t have much left.”

“You’re not a doctor!” He took a glug from the bottle. “I want a real doctor!” He wiped his mouth, and coughed.

“You’re not going anywhere right now, Mr. Minot,” Rourke said, replacing his instruments in the chest. “Night is coming. At night, the wise stay underground.”