Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm (20 page)

Sergei Pirov felt something extraordinary happening to his body. Something terrible.

His skin crawled with electric ants. From the inside. His joints ached and his bones throbbed as he moved. An invisible force seemed to be adjusting his physical form, gradually but inexorably, to a different shape.

After he'd defected to the United States to work for Project Proteus, Pirov had chosen to wear braces on his teeth, even as an adult, to correct years of orthodontic neglect in the Soviet Union. He had endured the constant pressure, the tightened wires and clamps that took years to bring his teeth into the proper position. Brackets, bands, and retainers had aligned his overbite until the teeth looked straight and perfect, an American dream.

Now it felt as if his entire body were undergoing a similar process, completely out of his control.

What is happening to me?

This went beyond his normal body aches, the uncertain tremor in his hands, the queasiness he often felt in his digestive system. This… frightened him.

Beside Pirov, the dutiful Rajid Sujatha remained focused on scanning the alien body. The Bengali doctor searched his readings for a blip that would allow him to trace the microscopic ship through the murky interference. “Still no sign, Director Hunter.”

Barely able to remain standing upright, Pirov fought to retain his composure. He wanted to leave this chamber, longed to shower and sleep, then spend the rest of his career reading journals and pondering what he already knew.

But a relentless buzzing crackled inside his mind, and his ears rang from spurious signals, sounds he was never meant to hear. Even back at his comfortable desk, he wouldn't have been able to concentrate on reading.

Beads of sweat broke out over his skin, followed by shivers and hot flashes. With disbelieving horror, he realized he must have contracted some kind of fever. An alien virus? Not possible. But still, the heat raged inside his flesh.

He couldn't understand
how
he could have been exposed.

With the alien's lifepod now open, both he and Sujatha might have been contaminated by whatever was on the extraterrestrial's body. But how could that be? He wore full anti-contamination gear and had followed all protocols. He could not possibly have contracted any sort of pathogen from the specimen. Besides, there hadn't been a long enough incubation period.

It was impossible. But still, he felt it happening inside him.

Though it went against strict procedures, Pirov didn't dare mention his symptoms, not with Deputy Foreign Minister Garamov watching him. He could not let them down, and he had already made too many excuses on this vital mission.

He and Dr. Sujatha were sealed within a Class IV containment room. In order to get out, both of them would undergo enormously complex sterilization procedures. Even if he complained about his symptoms, what could anyone do for him now?

Above, Vasili Garamov watched him like a bird of prey, and Pirov didn't dare relax for a moment, though he found it exceedingly difficult to concentrate. No need to bother Director Hunter about his chills, or the Deputy Foreign Minister. Once the mission was over, in an hour, he could arrange for whatever help he needed.

The old Russian doctor remained quieter than usual, doing his work and concentrating on the UFO creature he could see and study…

Deep within his body, ten generations of nanomachines had already reproduced. They rebuilt the aging human on a genetic level, using DNA patterns stored in microscopic computer memories.

Before he could tell what was happening to him, before he realized the fundamental changes within himself, Sergei Pirov became something no longer human.

While Rajid Sujatha scanned for the
Mote,
he detected only static. No discernible blip from the minuscule vessel.

“I cannot locate them.” He set the instrument on the surgical table beside him. “No readings. Perhaps they are too deep… and they will begin to grow soon. They should be searching for a way out.”

Sujatha realized how uncharacteristically silent Dr. Pirov had become. The Russian moved about sluggishly, picking up medical instruments and staring at them as if he'd forgotten what they were for. Then Pirov returned to the naked alien inside the open lifepod and stood motionless, staring. He kept his back turned to Sujatha.

“Are you all right, Dr. Pirov?”

The older man froze, startled, as if he'd been caught doing something illegal. His hesitant voice came over the suit speakers. “I am fine.” The timbre sounded thick and hoarse, as if he'd grown oddly congested.

Sujatha waited, but his colleague said nothing more and did not turn around. Frowning behind his faceplate, the Bengali doctor glanced up at the observation deck, but Hunter was busy conferring with the Deputy Foreign Minister.

In a friendly tone, Sujatha attempted to start a conversation with Pirov. “When this mission is over, perhaps you would consider having dinner with me and my girls? We could meet for our next furlough in San Francisco. That would be most enjoyable, I think.”

Pirov had never been particularly outgoing, nor was he forthcoming about personal details. The elderly Russian seemed fixated on his work, content to stay in his laboratory or office day after day. But Pirov might have a soft spot inside him. Sujatha thought he could bring the man out of his shell.

Pirov, hunched over the alien specimen, made no response. For the previous three hours, he had dutifully recorded measurements and collected observational data. His gloved hands now clutched the rim of the open lifepod, as if he were about to faint.

Sujatha didn't understand what was wrong. “Dr. Pirov, are you certain you're all right?” He stepped closer, but the Russian did not flinch. “Perhaps I should call Director Hunter? Do you need assistance?”

Pirov's anti-contamination hood and curved faceplate cast his features into shadow. But when he slowly, stiffly raised his head, Sujatha saw past the boundaries of his mask.

The Russian doctor's features had changed.

His head was flatter, and his eyes had enlarged, slanting upward into grossly enhanced orbs. Hanging in threads around his cheeks and neck, bristles of salt-and-pepper hair had fallen out, like shedding fur. Pirov's ears had shrunk against the sides of his head, retreating into his skull. His square chin was now pointed, and his lips had receded. His skin looked grayish.

Astonishingly, Sergei Pirov now resembled the extraterrestrial specimen lying inside the lifepod.

Sujatha reeled backward reflexively and stumbled against the defunct laser drill apparatus. And Pirov was upon him like a wild animal.

The Russian reacted with inhuman speed, crashing a gloved hand across Sujatha's hood. His knuckles caught the Bengali directly on the faceplate with all the power of a sledge hammer. Sujatha's hooded head smacked against the metal elbow of the laser drill, and he felt as if he'd been struck by a high-caliber bullet.

Sujatha fell to the floor. Stunned and terrified, he crab-walked backward to get away from Dr. Pirov. He sounded the alarm.

Above, in the observation deck, Director Hunter and the security guards scrambled to respond. Both Hunter and Garamov shouted into the intercom, demanding an explanation for Pirov's actions.

A hairline crack split Sujatha's transparent polymer face shield. To the thousands upon thousands of reproduced nanomachines that showered off Pirov's glove, the tiny breach was a rift the size of a canyon.

The microscopic devices streamed through the crack and poured onto Sujatha's face, into his eyes and nostrils and mouth. They seeped into every pore, conquering yet another human body.

They had already analyzed the systems from Dr. Pirov and were ready for a second alien conversion. This one would proceed even faster than the first.

Chapter 33

Mission clock: 58 minutes remaining

The
Mote
dodged through a maze of blood vessels, stringy fibers, and connective tissue. But nothing gave a clue how to escape from the alien's body. They were much too far from their entry point to follow the original plan.

Since the last skirmish, Devlin hadn't seen any sign of the pursuing nanocritters, but neither had he heard a word from Project Proteus, despite the continued SOS signal.

Now the ship traveled with a flow of loose cells, amber fatty globules, and spindly clusters of crystalline growths. Finally, they reached a large fluid-filled sac that sprawled in front of them. Devlin eyed the roadblock in frustration. “Told you I'd get us here safely, wherever
here
is.”

Dr. Tyler studied the liquid-swollen membrane, finally sounding confident again. “That's probably a bursa, or some equivalent cushioning sac between bones and a joint. At least it gives us a sense of perspective.”

“Even if this is a joint, though, we can't tell whether we're in a knuckle joint or the hip socket,” Freeth countered.

Cynthia Tyler turned to him with a long-suffering expression. “Unfortunately, you're correct. I guess it doesn't tell us much of anything after all.”

The UFO expert looked at her in surprise. “Believe me, I
am
trying to help.”

With no point of reference and no reliable monitoring of the distance and speed traveled during their frantic flight, Devlin could only guess where they were. But he was reluctant to admit he was totally lost. “At least Lewis and Clark had the constellations, the horizon, the direction of sunrise and sunset as referents.” He made a disgusted sound. “I don't even have a functional compass.”

The
Mote
plunged into the murky lubricating sac. The yellowish liquid swallowed them like an ocean of spoiled chicken stock. As the ship hummed forward, visibility in the soupy fluid grew even more difficult. Faint ripples distorted the illumination beams.

“We could put on a blindfold and throw a dart at the map, Marc,” Tomiko suggested.

“We don't even have a map to throw a dart at.”

By the time the Mote's spotlights glinted off the geometric constructions of carbon lattices, the predatory nanomachines were already whirring toward them.

Devlin slammed a fist down onto the smooth control panel, then immediately brushed the surface, by way of an apology. “If
I
don't know where I'm going, how could they find us?”

“Those things are making quite an effort to go after one tiny ship,” Tomiko said.

As Devlin spun the vessel, the attacking nanomachines surrounded them in three dimensions. Tomiko couldn't fire against a whole swarm. “Too many, Marc. We've got to run for it.”

He could not hide his exasperation as he dove the ship downward in a steep arc through the thick fluid, followed by a wake of churning bubbles.

The nanomachines swirled like a cloud of gnats, agitated by the unexpected move. They picked up speed and closed in.

“Maybe it's Arnold they want,” Tomiko teased. “We could throw him overboard and see if it works as a diversion.”

The UFO expert didn't find the suggestion amusing, but Devlin laughed. “In the movies I've seen, Tomiko, the alien monsters are usually after beautiful Earth women. Want to volunteer?”

“I'm sure there's a compliment buried somewhere in there.”

She opened fire and destroyed the two closest microscopic marauders. The hot beams sent froth whirling through the lubricating fluid.

Ignoring the bubbles erupting all around the
Mote,
Devlin plowed ahead with his fingers crossed. Molten fragments of exploded nanomachines caromed off the front viewport and clanged against the hull. Then the
Mote
broke through the cordon with nothing worse than another scratch on the windshield.

The bursa sea stretched to a distant shore of porous openings that pocked a solid plain of bone. The calcified barricade reminded Devlin of massive reefs. “If we hide in there, at least the critters can't come at us from all sides.” Without hesitation, he headed toward the honeycombed bone. “Just tell me these caves aren't dead ends, Doc.”

Tyler's expression grew more intense than ever. She answered cautiously. “If this were human bone structure, we
might
encounter a spongy marrow tissue where red blood cells are made. That would give us room to maneuver.”

Devlin took her answer as a recommendation and shot toward the nearest passageway into the network of bone. The nanomachines followed in their wake, picking up speed.

The ship entered a breathtaking gallery of hard white calcium that sparkled under the spotlights. Devlin flew through one tunnel at a breakneck pace, hooked sideways into another, and followed what appeared to be the clearest path. He executed unexpected turns and random jumps, unwilling to slow even in the confined spaces. “I'm not going to relax a single muscle until I get us all out of this body and back to our own size again, safe and sound.”

“Fine by me,” Tomiko said, holding on to her seat as he dodged through sharp turns and lacy overhanging loops of hard white mineral.

“We made it into the spongy tissue.” Tyler stroked her hands along the window glass as if tracing the bone structure. “Those calcified walls are called lamellae.”

“In humans,” the UFO expert said, then sat down, as if realizing he was being a pest.

Spherical cells swirled around them, gelatinous masses like bumper cars that drifted toward the outflowing blood vessels. “I presume those are newborn erythrocytes—or the
equivalent
thereof,” Tyler added quickly without looking at Freeth. “Red blood cells are a special case, unlike other cells because they have no DNA. They're just bags of hemoglobin.
If
the alien uses a similar process, they arise in the red marrow from pluripotential stem cells, which can also create leukocytes or platelets.”

Freeth seemed pleased that she was trying to be open-minded, or at least covering her bases. “Believe me, I don't want to meet any marauding white blood cells. We're having enough trouble with nanocritters at the moment.”

Tyler agreed. “A leukocyte wouldn't have the sheer determination those nanomachines are exhibiting.” For the moment, at least, none of the attacking machines had managed to follow them.

“And a white blood cell couldn't
track
us, either. It's almost as if—” Devlin stopped in mid-sentence, then groaned. His hands flashed over the comm system controls, shutting down the emergency transmitter. “Our SOS beacon—we've been shouting our location to them everywhere we go.” He rested his forehead in his palm. “The critters must have been homing in on the distress call.”

Freeth said, “But if Project Proteus was mounting some kind of extraction effort, now they'll have no way of knowing where we are.”

“And neither do the nanocritters.” Tomiko ran her strong hands up and down the weapons controls, her almond eyes wary. “Personally, I think we're getting the better part of the bargain.”

Tyler continued to scan the cavernous passages that blurred past. “Terrestrial bones have a long, hollow shaft that contains the yellow marrow. If this alien continues to have similarities to human structure, we should be able to travel a great distance without any obstruction.”

“Roger that,” Devlin said.
Full speed to nowhere.

“Traveling a great distance is good,” Freeth said. “Dr. Tyler, human bone isn't this porous, is it?” His voice still sounded a bit tentative, as if he feared she would snap at him for asking a question. “To me, that suggests the species came from a planet with lower gravity than ours, or maybe they evolved from birds, which would give them a strong but lightweight skeletal structure.”

Tyler didn't disagree. “Possible, I suppose. But if so, the alien's bones might break if it tried to walk across a room under Earth gravity.”

Eager to continue the conversation, Freeth joined her at the window. “Maybe the nanomachines can add metallic atoms to reinforce the bone structure. They could even alter the alien's metabolism and biochemistry to let it breathe different atmospheres and survive under harsh circumstances.”

Tyler seemed just about to give him a smile of grudging acceptance when nine nanocritters smashed through the gossamer lamellae around them. The relentless tiny machines streaked into the bone tunnel, cutting off the fleeing vessel both from the front and rear. Freeth let out a startled squawk and scrambled back from the side window.

Tomiko fired at the leading nanomachine just as two more attackers rammed the
Mote
from behind. Devlin put on a burst of speed through a downward-sloping bone passage. A new mechanical attacker crunched into the port hull and slid off, scraping against the bone walls. The spongy calcium catacombs were too cramped for the nanomachines to surround them.

The
Mote
rushed through the marrow fluid, recoiling from impacts with newborn blood cells. Devlin shifted course much faster than he had any right to expect his reactions to handle. “And Kelli said I was wasting my time with all those videogames.”

Think small.

Targeting carefully with the rear laser cannons, Tomiko looked for an appropriate cluster of lamellae in the crowded bone walls. “Time for a cave-in.”

She hit the nearest nanocritter with a hard blast. The tiny machine broke apart, spreading a fan of fullerene debris, broken diamond memory circuitry, and dangling buckytube arms with metal-atom tips.

Tomiko's rapid pinpoint strikes shot out the overhanging arches of bone, shattering curtain after curtain into hard white rubble. Calcium shards broke away and tumbled to mix with the debris of the destroyed nanomachine, creating a microscopic asteroid belt.

The closest two pursuing devices collided with the wreckage cloud at full speed, like bulls stampeding into a mine field. In seconds, the passage was clogged with broken carbon-lattice bodies and bone fragments.

“Like a pileup in a demolition derby.” Tomiko sounded immensely pleased with herself. She blew imaginary smoke from her fingertip.

Ahead, the calcium lace expanded into larger grottoes and passages. They must be approaching the open medullary shaft Dr. Tyler had predicted. Devlin prayed their way would remain clear. The
Mote
streaked along, leaving a turbulent wake behind it, and no one knew if they were in the alien's leg, or a rib, or its little toe.

“Free and clear. I'm going to see just how fast this ship can go,” Devlin said as they burst into an open area filled with floating cells shaped like fried eggs. “We've got to make some progress toward getting out of here.”

At the far end of the bone shaft, they would undoubtedly encounter another crowded labyrinth of red marrow, and no doubt a new pack of nanocritters…

He couldn't understand why the microscopic machines were so obsessive. Certainly, dismantling the
Mote
would yield a treasure trove of raw materials for the assembly of a few more nanocritters. But judging by the way the devices were already reproducing, they didn't have any dearth of building blocks.
Why do they hold such a grudge?

In fact, he could think of no reason why the nanomachines didn't see
each other
as viable meals. Every one of the finished devices must look like a great big assembly kit to all the others. If the voracious machines were programmed to grab any available molecules and build copies of themselves, what stopped them from just attacking each other?

Devlin blinked in surprise and spoke aloud. “Obviously they have some way to tell the difference.” He craned his neck around, searching for Cynthia Tyler. “Hey, Doc—how does a white corpuscle understand which cells are benign and which ones have foreign proteins that need to be destroyed?”

“The leukocytes respond to a type of code on the surface of natural cells to distinguish them from foreign objects.” She paused and considered his line of reasoning. “Yes. In a similar fashion, these nanomachines must have some way of determining friend or foe.”

Devlin sat up straight. After all his years in the Air Force and his training as a fighter pilot, he should have thought of this sooner. “Each one must have a signal generator, like a jet fighter's IFF—the Identify Friend/Foe transmitter. Those devices have got to be sending out ID signals. Otherwise, they'd tear each other apart like hungry sharks.”

He grinned with relief. In the red marrow approaching at the other end of the long bone, there must be more nanomachines. Waiting to attack the
Mote.

There wasn't much time. Less than an hour remained on the mission chronometer, but now he had an idea that might save his crew.

“Simple.” Devlin kept his hands on the controls but glanced over at Tomiko. “We just have to fool the nanomachines into thinking that we're one of
them.”