Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm (11 page)

Tomiko groaned from the cockpit. “I knew it!” Tyler looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“He's saying it was all special effects,” Tomiko said.

Tyler's jaw dropped. “A… fake?” Freeth seemed to get smaller and smaller in his chair.

Devlin sagged in the cockpit. “Now's a fine time to tell us, Mr. Freeth. At this point, we can't exactly turn around and drop you back off.”

“I trusted you. I
recommended
you for this mission, and you never said a word!” Cynthia Tyler's astonishment rapidly evolved into humiliation and outrage. “I'd like to do a little alien dissection on
you.
Director Hunter told me your video was a scam, but I convinced him to take a chance. Now it turns out you're a con artist… and I'm a fool.” She looked more furious at herself than at him.

“I'm sorry, believe me.” Freeth looked in every direction, trying to avoid the glares of his crewmates. He swallowed hard and raised his chin in an attempt to reassemble his dignity. “All my life I've
known
aliens exist, with all my heart—but no one listened. People laughed at me.” His freckled face wore a plaintive expression. “So, I concocted a minor deception to help the public see what I knew to be the truth. Is that so wrong?”

Tyler growled, “A lot of people think they
know
things that turn out to be false. They're called crackpots.”

“I've been called that plenty of times. Plenty of times.” Freeth had been heckled and hounded for years, and now he clearly drew strength from an inner conviction that had always helped him stand against a constant outpouring of ridicule. He dredged up a few scraps of pride and gestured toward the vast alien body below. “But I
was
right, wasn't I? In this instance, the ends justified the means, so I don't have any regrets even with my… my white lies exposed. After all the scorn I've taken from the mainstream public and the media, I'm finally vindicated.”

“Don't feel vindicated yet. Your 'white lies' got you included on a top-secret mission. You're going to have a lot of explaining to do once we get back outside,” Tyler said. “And you are going to clear me of any culpability in this scam.”

Freeth looked directly at her. “I thought that if I could just make people more open-minded, alter their attitudes, maybe I could change the world. Your mind was open. And here you are face-to-face with an alien. If humans ever get a chance to meet with a superior extraterrestrial race, think of what that would mean for mankind.”

“Slavery? Invasion? Total destruction of the human race?” Tomiko suggested. “Don't you watch the movies, Arnold?”

“You're paranoid.” He turned back to Tyler. “I can still be a valuable part of this team.”

“Don't expect any authorship credit on a single one of my research papers,” she said, as if that were a grave punishment. “Not even an acknowledgment.”

Smoothly piloting the
Mote,
Devlin sighed. “Okay, we've all got to get along for the remainder of this mission. Even if he was pulling our legs about the autopsy, Mr. Freeth is still the closest thing to an expert we've got—and we're stuck with him for the duration.”

Not mollified in the least, Tyler raked her gaze over the trembling man. “I'd be willing to toss him out the window if I didn't know he'd damage the specimen once our miniaturization field loses its integrity.” Then, pointedly ignoring him, she turned back to her atmosphere analysis.

Watching the mission chronometer, Devlin descended toward the alien wilderness of skin.

Chapter 17

Mission clock: 4:25 remaining

Moving at high speed, over a centimeter per second, the
Mote
closed the distance to the gigantic specimen. Cynthia Tyler kept her eyes peeled, trying to understand the amazing sights that bombarded her intense eyes. She still wanted to strangle Arnold Freeth.

“Step on it, Marc. It's been half an hour and we're not even inside the body yet,” Tomiko said.

“I'll try to locate some kind of pore or orifice to make our entry,” Tyler said, staring out the starboard window. “I'm looking for vestigial hair follicles, blemishes, tiny scars, piles of dead cells.”

Pointedly ignoring Freeth, she held a tape recorder near her mouth and documented her observations with a breathless monologue of descriptions, speculations, and simple exclamations. She also added personal asides for herself, suggestions for research journals and possible qualified peer-reviewers.

Because they had been unable to get any interior scans of the body to guide them, Team Proteus had no overall map or structure of the alien's gross anatomy. The specimen was a vast blank canvas upon which she could paint her studies, a mystery to be solved.

For the first time in her life, Tyler would have the opportunity to name the major organs of a new species, to conquer numerous biological formations. Make her mark. Her initial assessments would lay the foundation for decades of further analysis. Even a Nobel Prize wasn't entirely out of the question…

The
Mote
cruised over sweeping gray plains that looked like a bombing range, puckered and uneven. She dictated descriptions of discolorations, fissures, and canyons in the tissue.

“Since the skin is smooth and pale, hair follicles mostly atrophied, the alien obviously does not come from a harsh environment. If we observed large patches of melanin, I might deduce that the alien's sun has a significant output of ultraviolet radiation against which the race requires protection. Given its pale appearance, however, this specimen must come from a world that is far from its sun or has a thick cloud cover.”

“Not necessarily true,” Arnold Freeth interrupted.

She rounded on him. “Are you
trying
to start a fight, Freeth?”

He shook his head, not backing down from her glare. “I'm used to hostile colleagues, Dr. Tyler.”

“I am not your colleague,” she said through clenched teeth.

He sighed. “I just wanted to point out that the species could live underground, or in domed cities. Don't limit your possibilities.”

With no response beyond a noncommittal grunt, Tyler returned to her dictation.

They soared over glandular openings, pores, craters, any one of which could be a way inside. “The outer layer appears to be keratinized, but without epidermal scales, as in a reptile. On the exterior of the skin—human skin at least—we see only dead cells. The inner cells of our epidermis divide rapidly and force new cells to the surface. The basal layer synthesizes an inert protein called keratin, which is found in hair and nails. This helps outer toughness.”

Freeth tried to interrupt, but Tyler cut him off, not wanting to listen. She concentrated on her tape recorder. “I note a pronounced graininess as we grow closer. Perhaps there are outer growths or eruptions from the epidermal cells. The pores appear to be glandular openings, designed to produce mucous or possibly toxic secretions.” She turned to the supposed UFO expert as if he were an idiot and needed a translation. “In other words, the skin might feel slimy.”

“I knew that,” Freeth said. “In fact, there are lots of reports—”

“Hey, Doc,” Devlin called back to them, “why don't you choose one of those pores so we can get inside?”

The bumpy epidermal surface resolved itself into a complex forest of growths. Strange nodules swayed on stalks connected to the main skin cells, like balloons on strings, forming a carpet of crowded, shapeless blobs. As the
Mote
skimmed overhead, the weird growths reacted with great agitation, as if a strong wind had rippled across a field of bizarre grass.

“Talk about having your skin crawl,” Tomiko muttered.

“They're reacting to us,” Tyler observed. The lumps stretched and groped. “Interesting.”

“Like wax melting in a lava lamp,” Freeth said. “So much for the skin cells being dead, like in humans.” He looked over at Tyler, raising an eyebrow. “Right, Doctor?”

Intrigued now, Tyler pressed her face against the window. “We could be observing a post-mortem stimulation response. But the specimen
might
still be alive.” She sounded hopeful.

The protrusions swelled to bulbous mushroom-like heads. Their movement grew more chaotic, like a morass of microscopic eels guarding the skin pores.

“Major Devlin, we've got to get closer to observe them,” Tyler said. “I've never seen anything remotely similar.”

“Well, it is an
alien,
after all,” Freeth pointed out.

“Right. Listen to the
expert,”
Tyler said with a sour expression.

His nostrils flared. “Excuse me, Dr. Tyler, but I've spent most of my life studying the stories, the theories, the eye-witness accounts. I have read libraries full of information on any subject connected with life elsewhere in the universe. I am far more familiar with this alien than—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the ends of the stalks split apart like swollen lips to reveal jagged jaws. Tomiko nearly fell out of her co-pilot's seat as the trunks stretched toward their ship. “What the—”

The
Mote
jolted as one of the things clanged against the bottom hull.

Devlin reacted roughly, changing their course as another growth struck with a thump. Arnold Freeth let out a squawk.

The distorted wormlike shapes boiled and changed into a pack of fang-filled monsters, some with bear-trap maws, others with sharp saw blades. The stalks expanded, striking out faster than Team Proteus could get away. Hideous jaws of crystallized teeth careened into the Mote's front window, clacking on the plasglass and leaving a zigzag residue of secretions.

“Whoa! Don't mess with my ship!” Devlin applied a burst to the impeller engines. The surge sent the craft forward and up with a violent lurch.

A swaying skin sentinel whipped toward them like a lamprey, but Devlin twisted the ship out of its path. Cellular mouths slammed together like hangar doors crashing shut.

Tomiko Braddock, already half off her seat, was thrown to the deck. “Not much of a welcome mat… and we aren't even
inside
yet.”

Swarms of the bulbous structures rose up like cannibalistic taffy. The
Mote
gained altitude, straining to stay out of reach, but the jaws stretched, showing extraordinary flexibility.

“All right, Freeth—explain
that
!”
Tyler looked at him as if she truly expected an answer from him.

Tomiko leapt back into her seat, more flustered at losing her balance than from the attack itself. “Not a good time to be caught without my hands on the weapons controls.”

“I didn't have time to be polite.” Devlin patted the
Mote's
control panel. “And not to you, either, baby.”

Like witches' claws screeching across a chalkboard, the fang-filled sentinels struck glancing blows off the hull. With a loud thump, one of the “heads” rammed them, rattling the floorplates.

The organic strands grew with impossible speed and elasticity. “What
are
these things?” Devlin asked. The fangs snapped like shark mouths; the fan blades whirred like eviscerating buzz saws.

“I'm thinking, I'm thinking,” Freeth cried.

“Enough of this.” Tomiko powered up her defensive lasers. When she had insisted Devlin design them into the craft, he'd argued about the need for such weapons on simple exploration missions. Now, though, Devlin promised himself he would buy her a drink.

And a nice dinner.

Make that a lobster dinner. And an expensive bottle of wine.

It might even make Garrett Wilcox jealous. Hmmm…

She shot one of the numerous protrusions, and the thing burst with a splat of smoking protoplasm that drifted in gooey droplets. She swept the beam across the writhing tentacular growths, cutting stalks like a harvester slashing a swath through wheat. “Not so tough.”

The cauterized stumps melted back into the skin tissue, flowing like organic wax. The severed stalks squirmed and thrashed as if infuriated.

“Only about ten trillion more to mow down,” Devlin said.

Like a flat stone that caromed off a smooth lake surface, the
Mote
bounced up and away from the alien's skin. In the main compartment, Freeth finally came to a conclusion. “I remember reading something about starfish, Dr. Tyler.
Pedicels,
a defense mechanism on the skin of an echinoderm, animated scissors to deter parasites.”

When the UFO expert mentioned “parasites,” Tyler shot a glance over at him. Her brows knitted as she paused to consider. “All right, pedicellariea might be an appropriate analogy. I've seen them under a microscope, and these growths
might
serve a similar protective function.” She sounded annoyed that she hadn't thought of the answer herself. “It's not the worst idea I've ever heard.”

The once-placid skin surface looked like a boiling cauldron of jaws.

Freeth was too excited to be intimidated by Tyler's scorn any longer. “Maybe they responded because we're made of metal, a completely foreign substance. The alien body's defenses might react against it.”

Tyler crossed her arms over her chest, remembering to be skeptical of anything he said. “That's ridiculous. Perhaps you can tell us why a species would evolve to reject tiny bits of metal, Freeth? If I wrote that in a paper, I'd be laughed out of the scientific community. It makes no biological sense.”

“On the contrary, think about what this may tell us about the alien's home environment. Why
would
they need defenses against microscopic bits of metal? At our size, what harm could we possibly cause?” He looked down at the snake pit of monstrous protrusions. “Maybe that planet isn't as benign as we first thought.”

Tyler thought about that for a moment, then grudgingly spoke into her tape recorder without answering Freeth. “Such a drastic defensive measure would never have developed without the need for survival in hostile conditions. This alien must be programmed—on a genetic level at least—against an invasion or encrustation by foreign objects.
Small
foreign objects. The threat must be sufficient and prevalent enough to warrant such an extreme defense.”

“Yeah, interesting, Doctor T.” Tomiko's tone said exactly the opposite. “It'll make a fine footnote in an obscure journal, once we're home safe and sound. Right now, we've got to find a way
inside,
or we can blow off our mission right now. Three quarters of an hour wasted already!”

Devlin checked his control panels and engine readings, then glanced at the snapshot of Kelli, as if for support. “Well, we always have the option of charging into one of those pores with all guns blazing.”

“You're on, if that's what it takes.”

“Pick a pore, any pore,” he said, gathering speed. Devlin would bank his life—and the lives of the crew, as well as the survival of his precious
Mote—
upon Tomiko's abilities. “They all look the same. Doc, your insights would be appreciated.”

Tyler considered the plethora of possibilities. “Some of them seem to be follicles, others are glandular passages, while still others could be—”

The vessel reached the top of a parabola, then nosed toward a morass of man-eating mouths, razor-edged sawblades and scissors. Acceleration pressed Devlin back against the seat. Every pore looked like a deathtrap, surrounded by rabid pedicellular guards, but he was in command. The decision was his. “All right. I'll take the large one at eleven o'clock.”

As if the pedicels had heard his words, they responded with increased agitation. The fangs seemed to grow sharper, chomping on alien air. The stalks elongated and swayed to cover the deep hole leading into the alien's skin tissue.

Her dark eyes narrowed with grim concentration, Tomiko opened fire like a machine-gunner, slicing down rows of the oozing attackers. Her lasers decapitated the nearest structures and cleared a path to the crater-sized pore, but others flowed over and took their places. Like molten drops of solder, the chopped pedicels extruded new heads and opened fresh mouths.

Gritting his teeth, Devlin rocketed forward, dodging whenever he could. At the edge of the pore, the
Mote
smashed into a pedicel that made a last attempt to stop them. With a clip of their wing, it splattered.

Then the ship plunged into the opening.

Several defeated pedicels drooped over the edge, stretching on absurdly long shafts like Dobermans on bungee cords. One chomped on the casing of the starboard impeller, but Devlin ripped the ship free with a sickening scrape.

The
Mote
shot out of the pedicels' reach, into the depths of the skin.

Devlin switched on the front beams again, shining white cones of light into the unexplored maze of cells. He tried to slow his breathing and cool the prickly thrill-sweat that burst from his skin.

“I hate to raise this possibility,” Freeth spoke from the main compartment, gripping his seat with white-knuckled hands, “but what we find
inside
the alien's body might be even worse…”