The centipede suddenly let go of the leaf-bed and began lashing its head back and forth, opening and closing its mouth-fangs, looking to seize prey. It had poor eyesight but could detect smell with its antennae, which it now whacked around. An antenna slapped Karen, knocking her into the wall of the palisade.
The centipede swung around and faced her.
Amar, lying on his back on the ground, rolled away as the centipede turned on Karen. He struggled to his feet, still holding the harpoon, and shouted, “Hey!”
That had no effect, so Amar jumped up onto the centipede’s back. He stood on the armored shell, trying to keep his balance as it heaved around, holding the harpoon, uncertain where to thrust it.
“Aim for the heart!” Karen shouted.
He had no idea where the heart was; the creature’s body was divided into many segments. “Where?” he shouted.
“Segment four!”
Amar counted four segments down from the head and raised the harpoon, but then hesitated. There was something magnificent about the creature. In that moment of hesitation, the centipede heaved its back. Amar drove the harpoon down deep into the centipede’s back, but was thrown off. He tumbled to the ground, the harpoon still lodged in the centipede’s back. The centipede whirled around, twisting and writhing, and its fangs snapped shut, the point of one fang slashing across Amar’s chest, tearing apart his shirt and covering him with squirting venom. The venom drenched Amar.
Amar curled up, moaning in pain. He felt as if his chest had been dipped in flames. The centipede went into a flurry while the harpoon clanged around. Rick and Karen rushed in and dragged Amar away. The centipede uncoiled, coiled up again, hissing. The harpoon stood in its back.
“Go up!” Karen shouted. “Centipedes don’t climb trees!”
They had camped at the foot of a tree, and the tree was covered with moss. They jumped up into the moss, grabbing handholds and footholds, and started to climb. Because gravity was less powerful in the micro-world, they could climb quickly and easily. Amar tried to climb, but shooting waves of pain were running through his body, and he couldn’t grip anything. Peter hauled Amar up, lifting him under the arms and trying not to touch the wound on his chest. They quickly reached two feet above the ground, and they stopped in a sort of cave of moss, looking out and down, trying to see the centipede.
The centipede was crawling out of the ruins of the fort, the harpoon waving in its back. They could hear it hissing. It did not get very far. It became still, and its breathing ceased. Amar had dealt it a fatal blow with the harpoon. Rick’s curare had worked.
They were huddled in a cave of moss, two feet above the ground, out of reach of any centipede. They had turned off their headlamps. Amar Singh seemed to be going out of his mind. Peter and Karen held him, talking to him, trying to keep him calm. Amar was in shock, sweating profusely, but his body temperature plummeted, and his skin felt cold and clammy. They wrapped him in the space blanket.
They also examined him with a light. The slash from the centipede fang had laid open his chest to the bone, and he had obviously lost a lot of blood. He had been splashed with a large quantity of venom, too, which had drenched the wound. There was no way of knowing how much venom Amar had absorbed, or what it would do to him.
Amar struggled with them, delirious. His breathing ran fast and shallow. “It burns…”
“Amar, listen to me. You’ve been envenomed,” Peter said.
“We have to leave this place!”
“You need to keep still.”
“No!” Amar struggled while the others held him and tried to calm him. “It’s coming! It’s almost here!” he moaned.
“What is?”
“We’re going to die!” Amar screamed. He fought to escape.
They held him down, trying to quiet his struggling.
Peter knew that the venom of centipedes had not been studied much by scientists. There was no antivenin, no antidote, for any type of centipede venom. Peter feared Amar might go into a breathing arrest. Some of the symptoms of centipede envenomation resembled rabies. Amar was experiencing waves of hyperesthesia, feeling and sensing everything with too much intensity. Sounds were too loud, and the slightest touch on his skin made him cringe. He kept trying to pull the space blanket off his body. “It burns, it burns,” he kept saying.
Peter flicked on his headlamp for a moment to get a look at Amar.
“Turn it off!” Amar screamed, swinging his arms. The light hurt his eyes. His eyes watered with tears that streamed down his face, though he wasn’t crying. Above all, an unspeakable feeling of doom had gripped Amar’s mind. He seemed to believe that at any moment something terrible would happen. “We have to leave this place!” he moaned. “It’s coming! It’s getting closer!” But he couldn’t say what “it” was.
“Run!” Amar shrieked. He tried to crawl out of the moss cave and jump. Peter and the others struggled with him, and they held his arms and legs, trying to keep him from leaping from the tree into the night.
For a long time Amar Singh struggled and babbled, but during the early hours of the morning he grew quieter and seemed to stabilize. Or perhaps he had exhausted himself. Peter took this as a good sign. He hoped Amar was turning the corner.
“I’m going to die,” Amar whispered.
“No you’re not. Hang in there.”
“I’ve lost my faith. When I was a little kid I believed in reincarnation. Now I know there’s nothing after death.”
“It’s the venom talking, Amar.”
“I’ve hurt so many people in my life. No way to make it up now.”
“Come on, Amar. You haven’t hurt anybody.” Peter hoped his voice conveyed confidence.
All of this happened in darkness, for they didn’t dare turn on their lights. Erika Moll had been very afraid of the dark as a small child, and her fear of the dark roared back as she listened to Amar’s frightened babbling. Amar’s suffering hit Erika Moll harder than the others, and she began to cry. She couldn’t stop crying.
“Will somebody shut the woman up, please?” Danny Minot said. “It’s bad enough with Amar going insane, but this sobbing is getting on my nerves.” He began stroking his nose, running his fingertips over his face.
Peter could see that Danny wasn’t doing well, either, but he turned his attention to Erika. He put his arms around her and smoothed her hair. They had been lovers, but this wasn’t love, it was survival. Just trying to keep people from dying. “It will be all right,” he said to Erika, and squeezed her hand.
Erika began reciting the Lord’s Prayer. “Vater unser im Himmel…”
“She turns to God when science fails her,” said Danny.
“What do you know about God?” Rick said to him.
“As much as you do, Rick.”
The others tried to sleep. The moss was warm and soft, and they were exhausted after the harrowing fight. None of them wanted to fall asleep, but sleep took them gently in its arms anyway.
Chapter 24
Chinatown, Honolulu
30 October, 11:30 a.m.
L ieutenant Dan Watanabe sat at a table in an eatery in downtown Honolulu, called the Deluxe Plate, holding a piece of Spam sushi in his fingertips. The sushi was a ball of fried rice wrapped in seaweed, with a chunk of Spam at the center. He took a bite. The seaweed, the fried rice, and the salty pork combined in his mouth into a taste that could be found nowhere but Hawaii.
He savored it, chewing slowly. During World War II, whole shiploads of Spam had arrived in Hawaii to feed the troops. American soldiers had basically fought the war on Spam; Spam and an atomic bomb had guaranteed American victory. At the same time, the people of Hawaii had developed a passion for the canned pork product, a love that would never die. Dan Watanabe believed that Spam was a brain food. He believed it could help him think more clearly about a case.
Right now he thought about the missing Nanigen executive. The executive, Eric Jansen, had apparently drowned off Makapu‘u Point when his boat had sta
lled out and flipped in heavy surf. However, his body had not turned up. Plenty of white sharks cruised the Molokai Channel, the stretch of sea between Makapu‘u Point and the island of Molokai, and the sharks could have eaten the body. But more likely the body should have washed up around Koko Head, since the prevailing winds and currents would carry it that way. Instead, it disappeared. Then, shortly after Eric’s disappearance, his brother, Peter Jansen, shows up in Hawaii.
And then Peter disappears.
The Honolulu Police had gotten a call from the chief security officer of Nanigen, Donald Makele, who reported that seven graduate students from Massachusetts had gone missing along with a Nanigen executive named Alyson F. Bender. One of those students had been Peter Jansen. The students had been in employment discussions with Nanigen. All eight persons, including the Bender woman, had gone out for the evening and never returned.
Don Makele’s call had been taken by the Missing Persons Detail in the Honolulu Police Department. A report had been written up, and it ended up in the “Daily Highlights” bulletin that circulated through the department each morning. Watanabe, glancing over the “Highlights,” had noticed it. So there were two missing Nanigen executives, Eric Jansen and Alyson Bender. Plus seven students.
Nine people tied to Nanigen. Gone.
Of course, people did go missing in Hawaii, especially young tourists. The surf could be very dangerous. Or they went on a drinking binge, or they got so high on Puna weed they seemed to forget their names. They hopped a flight to Kauai and went backpacking on the Na Pali Coast, and didn’t tell anybody where they’d gone. But nine people, all linked to Nanigen, from different places, doing different things, all missing?
Dan Watanabe took a swig of black coffee, and finished off his sushi. He had an unpleasant feeling mixed with a professional curiosity. He could almost smell it. It was a whiff of probable cause. A scent of unrevealed crime.
“Refill?” the waitress, Misty, said to him, offering a coffee pitcher.
“Thanks.” It was Kona coffee, strong enough to put structure in one’s afternoon.
“Dessert, Dan? We got a haupia chiffon pie.”
Watanabe patted his stomach. “Gosh, no thanks, Misty. I just had my ration of Spam.”
Misty left the check on the table, and he stared out the window. An elderly Chinese woman passed by, hauling a wheelie basket full of her day’s shopping, which included a fish wrapped in newspaper, the tail sticking out. A shadow raced down the street, darkening the people—a passing cloud—then hot sunlight flared, then another cloud-shadow. As usual, the trade winds were driving rain and sunlight across Oahu. Rain and sun, endlessly marching over the island, and when you looked into the mountains, you often saw rainbows.
He put on his sunglasses and walked back to police headquarters, taking his time, running his tongue over his teeth, trying to work out a Spam knot from between his molars. By the time he got back to his office, Watanabe had made up his mind.
He had decided to open an investigation into Nanigen.
Do it quietly.
The matter was sensitive. Nanigen was a rich company, with a high-profile CEO. The company might have political connections, who knows. The Nanigen matter would take time away from his investigation into the bizarre case involving the three dead men—the lawyer Willy Fong, the PI Marcos Rodriguez, and the unidentified Asian male. The victims had bled to death from numerous cuts while they’d been inside Fong’s locked office. The Willy Fong Mess, as he liked to call it, would have to go on hold. He wasn’t getting anywhere with the Willy Fong Mess anyway.
At headquarters, Watanabe dropped by the office of his boss, Marty Kalama. “I want to look into these disappearances at Nanigen.”
“Why, Dan?” Kalama said, sitting back and blinking rapidly.
Watanabe knew Kalama wasn’t questioning his methods. Kalama just wanted to hear what he had in mind, his reasoning. Watanabe said, “First I want to wait a short while and see if the missing people turn up. If they don’t, I’ll assemble a squad. But right now, I just want to do a little poking around on my own. Low-pro.”
“You suspect criminal activity?”
“I don’t have probable cause. But things don’t add up.”
“Okay,” Kalama said. “Explain.”
“Peter Jansen. When I showed him a video of his brother, Eric, drowning, he seemed to recognize a female in the video who was a witness to the drowning. But then he, like, covers it up, says he doesn’t know the woman. I think he was lying. Then I had a couple of my people visiting Nanigen to get info on Eric Jansen, the executive who drowned. My guys met the CEO, named Drake. Drake was polite, but. My guys said it was like a traffic stop when the subject is visibly nervous but there’s no obvious reason for him to be nervous.”
“Maybe Mr., uh—”
“Drake.”
“—Drake was upset about losing his executive.”
Watanabe said, “It was more like he had a body in the trunk of his car.”
Marty Kalama squinted behind his rimless spectacles. “Dan, I’m not hearing about evidence.”
Watanabe patted his stomach. “Gut. My Spam is talking to me.”
Kalama nodded. “Be careful.”
“About what?”
“You know what Nanigen does, right?”
Watanabe grinned. Oops. He hadn’t yet looked into Nanigen’s business.
“They make small robots,” Kalama went on. “Really small.”
“Okay, so?”
“A company like that could have contracts with the government. That’s trouble.”
“You know something about Nanigen?” Watanabe asked his boss.
“I’m just a cop. Cops don’t know shit.”
Watanabe grinned. “I’ll keep you out of it.”
“The hell you will,” Kalama snapped. “Get out of here.” He took off his glasses and polished them with a Kleenex, watching Dan Watanabe leave. The guy was quiet and smart, one of his best detectives. Those were the ones who created the worst trouble. The thing about trouble was that Marty Kalama kind of enjoyed it.
Chapter 25
Fern Gully
30 October, 7:00 a.m.
M orning came, and the six survivors stirred inside a pocket of moss on the trunk of a tree somewhere on a rain-forested mountainside in the Ko‘olau Pali. The birds were singing, slow and deep. They sounded like whales calling to one another in the deep sea.
Peter Jansen stuck his head out of the hiding place in the moss on the side of the ohia tree and looked around. He could see the remains of the fort on the ground below, trashed by the centipede. Nearby lay the dead centipede. Ants had already begun butchering it, and had removed large portions of the carcass.
They were near the bottom of a sea, Peter reflected. It was a sea of jungle as deep as any ocean.
He craned his neck, looking up along the tree’s trunk. The tree was young and small, and its crown was ablaze with red blossoms, as if the tree had burst into flame. “I think we should try to climb to the top,” Peter said.
“Why?” Rick asked.
Peter looked at his watch. “I’d like to get a view of the parking lot. To make sure we’re headed in the right direction. And to watch what happens in the parking lot.”
“Makes sense,” Rick said.
Peter and Rick pulled their heads in. The others sat huddled in the moss, with Amar between them wrapped in the silver blanket; he had finally fallen asleep. A bruise had developed on the side of his head, extending over his left temple. It might be just a bruise, or it might be a sign of the bends—in any case, they decided that Rick would remain with Amar to look after him, while the others would attempt to climb the tree. There were four radio headsets, all told. Rick would keep one radio, while the climbers would carry the others. Peter said, “We should keep radio silence, except in an emergency.”
“You think somebody from Nanigen could be listening?” Karen said.
“The radio’s range is only a hundred feet. But i
f Drake suspects we’re alive, he may be listening for us. And he’s capable of anything,” Peter answered.
They began climbing the tree. Peter led the way up the first pitch. He put on the belt with the reel and line attached to it, and carried the rope ladder from the backpack. Karen King took along Rick Hutter’s blowgun and the box of darts, and the jar of curare. Karen would serve as the expedition’s hunter.
Tree climbing proved to be extremely easy. Mosses and lichens, as well as the rough bark, offered plenty of handholds and footholds as they climbed. They were strong enough in the micro-world to be able to hang from something with one hand, even by just a few fingers. And it didn’t really matter if you fell. There was no real danger in a fall. You’d land on the ground unhurt.
They took turns lead-climbing. One person, secured by another with the reel and belt down below, would lead the way up the trunk carrying the rope ladder, which he would then secure to the tree and drop down to the others to climb.
The tree was covered with furrowed bark, and the bark was densely packed with mosses and liverworts—tiny plants, some of them almost microscopic in size, though to the micro-humans the mosses and liverworts seemed as big as shrubbery. The tree was also crusted with many kinds of lichens, frilly, lacy, and knobby. The leaves were rounded and leathery and the branches snaked around.
Eventually, Danny Minot gave up. “I can’t do this,” he said, and sat down and tucked himself into a lump of lichen in a sunny, warm spot.
“Do you want to stay here while the rest of us go on?” Peter asked.
“Actually, I’d prefer to be in the Algiers Coffeehouse in Harvard Square, drinking espresso and reading Wittgenstein.” Danny grinned weakly.
Peter handed him a radio headset. “Call if you have an emergency.”
“Okay.”
Peter put his hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“Obviously not.” Danny tucked himself down into a frilly lichen.
“We can’t just give up, Danny.”
Danny scowled and leaned back in the lichen, and put on the radio headset. “Testing, testing,” he said into the radio. His voice crackled in their ears.