Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm (22 page)

Leaving their mechanical casualties behind, Tomiko was already stroking for the hatch. The three of them climbed up into the airlock. Freeth, proud of what he had done, sealed the hatch without even being told. As pumps in the floor sucked out the fluid, Devlin yanked down his suit hood and stripped off the environmental suit, gasping. He wiped his face with a towel, anxious to rush for the cockpit.

Cynthia Tyler met him as he emerged from the airlock. “More nanomachines just arrived, Major Devlin. I think they've got us cornered.”

Devlin threw himself into the cockpit chair and powered up the impellers, dismayed to see the machines already closing in on their hiding place. “Tomiko, detach that second anchor.”

At the controls, she winched the hooked spike out of the bone wall. “Go!” She reeled in the cable as the
Mote
lurched into motion.

Devlin maneuvered the ship out of the protected alcove, trailing the makeshift IFF transmitter in their wake.

The ship streaked away, on the run again, and the nanocritters followed. Three more devices slammed into the
Mote,
clinging hard like leeches. They battered the hull plates, slashing and cutting, using specialized tools.

Still moist and disheveled, smelling of the salty plasma fluid, Tomiko searched for a way to shoot the nanomachines that were already attached to the hull.

The additional weight of the predatory devices made for sluggish handling. The IFF transmitter trailed behind them, still intact and attached. “Time for the moment of truth.” Devlin crosswired circuits in the front control board, wishing he had time to double-check the power flux parameters. Gambling, he sent a pulse through the metallic tether.

After a cough of static, the IFF transmitter struggled and glowed. A broadcast came out garbled, distorted—making the attacking machines pause. Devlin worked with the power flow on the cockpit boards, trying to massage the signal. “Come on, come on.”

The stolen generator finally sent out a warbling tone that rose and fell unpredictably. The nanohunters stopped in their tracks and then fell back. The
Mote
continued its reckless flight. The three devices clinging to the hull ceased their dismantling activities and waited.

Devlin looked around, eyes wide with hope, holding his breath.

As the makeshift IFF signal continued, the machines detached themselves one by one. Confused, they dropped away into the marrow fluid.

Still sweating, not wanting to push his luck, Devlin accelerated through the bone marrow. From behind, he watched the mechanical marauders hover, as if reassessing their priorities. The stolen identification signal must not be exactly right… but it was close.

Finally, the machines disbanded and went about their normal business.

The crew applauded Devlin's efforts. “We're not out of trouble yet.” He tried to be modest but couldn't keep the grin off his face.

“Okay,” Tomiko said. “About next Saturday night. Are we going to eat in the Proteus cafeteria, or are you a bigger spender than that?”

Devlin laughed. “Tomiko Braddock, I will take you to the best restaurant in Fresno.”

“Now
that's
something to look forward to.”

The
Mote
proceeded through the network of lamellae until they finally discovered a blood vessel leading out of the dense outer bone, through the alien version of Haversian channels, and through the joint articulation.

Devlin didn't know how long their nano-identifier signal would protect the ship. His main goal was to track down the shortest route to the skin and get away to safety. He'd had enough exploration and excitement for one day, and he had a crew to protect.

According to the mission chronometer, they had only half an hour left.

Chapter 36

Mission clock: 26 minutes remaining

Rajid Sujatha's flesh crawled with a life of its own. His muscle fibers were stretching and knotted. His blood sizzled, as if filled with tiny bubbles of charged fluid.

Perspiring heavily inside his anti-contamination suit, Sujatha shuddered. Each breath echoed in his head, like thunder striking his distorted tympanic membranes.

Sujatha forced himself into a sitting position, fighting a wave of dizziness and nausea. Bizarre thoughts hummed inside his head, strange whispering sounds like a swarm of insects that spoke in alien voices.

“No, no, no.” The hood microphone picked up his moaning chant and broadcast it over the loudspeakers.

After his initial fury, Dr. Pirov had ignored him. Sujatha had watched the transformed Russian smash laboratory equipment, trying to find some way to break out of this thick-walled prison.

Pirov's wild attack had been a disjointed impulse, a loss of control, and now Sujatha could feel the same thing coming upon himself. A link had broken in the transition between an intelligent human and an extraterrestrial sentience. Both species had violent and terrible evolutionary pasts; atavistic impulses could easily break free.

Groaning deep in his throat, Sujatha focused on the hair-fine crack in his faceplate. It formed a line across his vision, like a barrier separating his human identity from the burgeoning alienness that was attempting to conquer his very being. He struggled for control.

He remembered his experimental rabbit. Gentle and innocent, Fluffy Alice had survived numerous test missions, shrinking and enlarging. The rabbit had lived her life pampered in a cage. Right now, he wanted to stroke her ears, draw calm from the furry animal.

An hour ago, the last garbled broadcast from Team Proteus had been
infestation… nanomachines… swarms.
By now the
Mote
was probably already destroyed.

“Director Hunter, sir.” Sujatha shook his head and blinked. He desperately wanted to describe his symptoms, to perform a last service as a scientist.

“We hear you, Rajid.” He could not look up to see the Director in the observation alcove, but he found the rich voice from the intercom reassuring.

Sujatha forced himself not to stop speaking, afraid that if he lost his momentum of humanity, the alienness would crash down around him again. “My vision is blurred and refocused, apparently shifting to different parts of the spectrum. The bright overhead light hurts my eyes.” In fact, the glare felt like photonic spikes pounding through his pupils.

Hunter said, “I'm sending Dr. Wylde down to the window outside the chamber. Talk to her if you can. Face to face. It might help.”

Sujatha pressed gloved hands against his cracked faceplate, but he could not touch his cheeks. “The orbital cavities around my eyes ache, as if someone is using a rib-spreader to stretch my sockets … to accommodate larger eyes… like those.” He indicated the huge black orbs that Sergei Pirov now blinked at him without compassion or understanding.

After ripping his thick anti-contamination suit to shreds, the unrecognizable Pirov stood with fabric tatters hanging about his shoulders and waist. The transformation complete, his alien body looked smooth and ethereal, a ghost image of a human.

I will look like that soon. It is only a matter of time.

Pirov's bare chest showed only gray skin without fine hair, or nipples, or wrinkles—a body sculpted cell by cell through the work of billions of microscopic machines. It looked like an artificial costume… something unreal.

The Pirov-alien looked at him, and Sujatha backed away, afraid of more violence. But by cracking the Bengali doctor's faceplate, he had already done sufficient damage. Sujatha's transformation was now a foregone conclusion.

Pirov cocked his ovoid head, staring with unblinking black eyes, like a bird studying an insect. His lipless mouth moved, and his thin throat rippled. After several tries, the Russian's voice worked again. “Integration is complete. We have incorporated the cultural data reservoir of this life form.”

His now-pointed chin jutted toward him. “Rajid… Sujatha. We know you. We will soon add your memories to our information pool. Initial adaptation is always hardest upon conquering a new species.”

Part of Sujatha, the new alien part, responded to the words with eager anticipation. But his human personality recoiled in horror as he heard the word “conquer.”

He could feel implanted thoughts as the massive infestation stitched programmed memories into his mind. The nanomachines downloaded information from an alien civilization, data that had been stored inside their partitioned supercomputer.

The Pirov-alien pounded again on the thick windows of their prison. The Lexan vibrated but did not break. He looked up to analyze the faces of Director Hunter and Deputy Foreign Minister Garamov, displaying only a glimmer of recognition. Sujatha saw no emotions, no personality on the inhuman face… but fragments of Pirov's original memories must have yielded information on how the VIP observers fit in with Project Proteus.

“Our space vessel's flight has been interrupted by military aircraft.” Pirov looked over at the still-motionless alien in the lifepod. “Original emissary placed into shock-induced deep stasis. Reanimation delayed.” He paused, curious, calculating, and then lost control again. “Let us out!”

Caught in the transition between human and alien, Sujatha was the only one who could explain. He croaked into his hood microphone. “Director Hunter, sir.” He could give the necessary clues to help the human race combat this threat. “The aliens do not dispatch a military invasion force.” Sujatha shook his head to clear the buzzing from his brain; then a jolt of pain shot down his spine. “Too inefficient.”

A crackle of agony came after he had spoken, a punishment from the nanomachines, but he managed to climb to his feet, not afraid of Pirov anymore, resigned to his fate. “They send only a scout ship with one pilot. He contains the seeds of their whole civilization.” Within Sujatha's body cavity, the organs felt like loose biological masses spinning about in a rock tumbler.

The Pirov-alien looked at him with a masklike face. He displayed no expression, no emotion. “We require nothing more than that to subsume a world.”

Moving with trepidation, Trish Wylde approached the main windows of the containment room. “Director Hunter asked me to come here, to see if I can talk to them.” Perhaps with her pathology expertise, she could learn something, draw important conclusions. But this was so far beyond anything she had ever seen.

The Marine guards stood fully alert and ready, but flustered by not knowing what to do. They couldn't shoot, couldn't run, could only stare at the aliens inside the containment room.

Dr. Wylde tossed her short, reddish hair, screwed up her courage, and pounded on the thick glass to draw Sujatha's attention. When the Bengali doctor turned to her, she noted his waxy, grayish face, his angular features smoothing, his eyes already huge and black, far beyond normal. His bushy eyebrows had fallen out.

Behind him, Pirov no longer resembled a human at all. Hearing her, the Russian doctor launched himself at the window, his slick gray skin striking the glass. His face rippled with loss of control. Trish flinched backward, but held her ground.

Sujatha knocked the Pirov-alien aside, obviously surprised at his own strength. The transformed old man sprawled on the floor, then picked himself up on spindly arms and legs, momentarily disoriented.

Trish tried to be objective, calling upon her knowledge to assess what she could see of the transformation these victims were undergoing. But nothing she'd ever encountered, not even the most extraordinary plague organism, had inflicted such gross bodily changes—not radiation-induced mutations, carcinogens, or birth-defect-causing teratogens.

I could have been in there myself. I wanted to be a part of the mission. But Director Hunter turned me down.
Her skin crawled. If she'd won her argument with him, if she'd convinced the Director, then
she
might have turned into one of those creatures.

After being knocked aside, Pirov didn't seem to be alert anymore. The transformed doctor wandered over to the open lifepod and seemed to be waiting for something. For the other alien to wake up?

Trish flicked on the wall intercom. “Dr. Sujatha? Do you understand me?”

The Bengali doctor weaved on his feet, as if trying to remember what he had been doing. Sujatha pressed against the window glass, close to her, and paused, his face falling slack. He said nothing.

“Dr. Sujatha! You're the only one who can—”

He continued to explain the invasion plan, as if he hadn't heard her. “The alien pilot investigates mapped planets until it finds a compatible world, especially an inhabited planet. Then it emerges and releases the nanotechnology infection.”

“Like Typhoid Mary.”

“The machines replicate and spread, reshaping all native life forms into an alien image. Like this.” He held his hands up to his monstrous face.
“Like me.”

Trish stepped closer to the window, feeling sick. Before anyone knew an invasion was under way, the takeover would be complete. The aliens would have a ready-made colony on Earth without firing a shot.

With a glance up at the observation deck, Trish could tell the diplomats and Hunter were struggling with what they had heard. Congressman Durston wore a sour expression, no doubt already planning to destroy Project Proteus and sterilize the containment chamber.

Trish didn't think Director Hunter would obliterate the threat unless it was genuine, especially not with his son-in-law inside. But such hesitation might prove deadly for the human race. He might have no choice but to take such drastic action.

“How can we stop the invasion?” she asked, hoping the Bengali doctor's thoughts remained clear. “Dr. Sujatha?”

“You cannot.” Pirov's alien voice held no doubt at all.

Sujatha squeezed his enlarged eyes shut as bolts of pain rippled through his body, holding his mind hostage. “Only a first step. Pilot establishes a beachhead for continued spread of their civilization. Once native population is subdued and converted to—” He winced with a surge of crippling pain. “Then ships come, commercial vessels, a military fleet, government officials. By the time they arrive, the battle is already over.”

Sujatha turned away from Trish and looked plaintively up at Director Hunter. He spoke in a rush, as if fearing he would be stopped at any second. “There is a chance, sir. Unless their pilot transmits a signal that Earth is a prime candidate, that the beachhead is established, the alien civilization will assume he is still traveling from system to system.” He fought against a seizure. “You must… prevent—” He shouted the final words through his growing agony.
“Signal!
Stop it from being sent.”

Like a hunting cat, the Pirov-alien threw himself upon his companion. Sujatha could not back away fast enough. The Russian drove him backward into the wall. Sujatha's head bounced against the thick window, only inches from where Trish stood in the corridor.

The armed Marines scrambled backward, holding up their rifles, but she leaped in front of them, knocking the guns aside. The bulletproof glass should have stopped the weapons fire, but she didn't want to risk the tiniest breach of the chamber.

After fighting off the Pirov-alien, Sujatha could no longer put words together. Within his body, the nanomachines had removed his ability to speak. His limbs watery, he slid to the floor again.

Trish shuddered. Humanity had already received a life-saving stroke of luck when the Russian fighter jets had shot down the UFO, and Garamov's cautious response had been absolutely correct. If the alien pilot had landed on the White House lawn, he would have stepped out and extended a long-fingered hand in a gesture of peace.

A hand crawling with microscopic nano-invaders.
Like a Trojan horse.

The struggle was just beginning here inside the Proteus Facility. If a single replicating machine escaped into the open, there could be no stopping the transformation.

The Pirov-alien prowled over to the open lifepod and gestured with spindly fingers. Before long the microscopic devices inside the original pilot's body would bring him out of stasis. And there would be three of them inside the chamber, working together to complete their mission.

Sujatha found it more and more difficult to control his movements. Even his thoughts were being stolen away, one by one, as if a horde of spiders were crawling through his brain, spinning a web of artificial concepts, pricking his cerebrum with poisoned fangs.

He forced himself to think of his family, summoning the image of his beautiful wife, with her light-brown skin, blue-black hair, soft features. He recalled each one of his daughters, how he enjoyed playing games with them—Chinese checkers on rainy days, or badminton in the backyard.

In his heart Sujatha knew he would never again do such things. But the memories remained clear.
His
memories. As long as he kept those, he could retain his humanity.

A bolt of red lightning screamed across his retinas, scrambling his vision and shooting a vertical spike through his brain. But he did not cry out.

Sujatha envisioned his wife again, focused on her dusky features, tried to whisper her name through uncooperative lips. Then, to his horror, the cruel nanomachines shifted the image until he saw her transformed into an oval-faced alien with huge ebony eyes.

He shook his head and vowed not to let that happen. He moaned with despair, the only sound the nanomachines would allow out of his throat.