Micro

He seemed completely paralyzed. Rick’s face looked like a mask. Eyes moving, blinking, but no expression. The muscles in his face had gone AWOL and he had peed his pants. At least he was breathing, and his heart was beating. The wasp venom was tricky stuff, she realized. It had disabled some of his nervous system but not all of it. Was he trying to talk? She couldn’t be sure.

“Can you blink?” she asked. “If you blink your eyes, it means yes. If you don’t blink, it means no. Can you understand me?”

He blinked once. Yes. Then something trembled in his face.

“Rick! Is that a smile?”

Yes. Trying to.

“That’s a start. Does anything hurt?”

Yes.

“What hurts?…Never mind. I’m going to carry you. Will that hurt?”

He didn’t blink. No.

She lifted Rick under the arms and dragged him around the dead wasp, keeping their bodies away from the big droplet of venom that still hung from the wasp’s stinger. As she dragged Rick, though, she could see how dire his condition was. He would never survive unless he could move his muscles. His nervous system needed help. That fucking venom-the droplet of poison gleamed in her headlamp, suspended from the stinger-that venom had acted like a smart bomb, taking out only parts of his nervous system. Horrible poison, but sophisticated, too. Nature could do magic with chemistry that no human drug could accomplish.

Rick needed help or he would die.

Staring at that clear drop of poison, Karen got an idea. The venom that had paralyzed Rick might also help save him.

She needed to collect it. She groped at her waist, and found a water bottle suspended on a cord from her machete belt. She poured out the water, then held the open mouth of the bottle to the venom droplet, and watched as the liquid dripped into the bottle. She screwed on the top. Okay.

“I’ve got a plan, Rick. It’s crazy but it might work.”

He just stared at her.

Jamming her knees against the walls of the shaft, Karen pushed him up the shaft ahead of her as she climbed. She felt like Superwoman; she never could have done this in the big world. It was a long climb, accomplished in stages with rests in between, and she was glad she was as strong as an ant. Finally she arrived at the mouth of the nest.

Danny Minot had given up hope. He couldn’t believe his eyes when Rick Hutter popped out of the hole, followed by a battered-looking Karen King. “I got him,” she said fiercely, and hoisted him across her shoulders. She carried him across the sand and dropped him in the shade of the plant beside Danny.

She knelt by Rick and studied him. Danny huddled nearby, crouching to keep out of the wind.

“Can you stand up?” she asked Rick.

He blinked once.

“Yes? You want to try?” She helped him stand up. He swayed, tottering, and dropped to his knees, then sank and fell over.

She showed him the canteen of wasp venom. “This might save you, Rick. No guarantees. What we need to do now-” she looked at the line of towering bamboo across the open ground-“is get ourselves back into the forest.”

She was thinking of the death of that sniper, how the man had gone into a grand mal seizure from the spider venom. The man’s death carried information that might save Rick.

Chapter 38

Tantalus Base 31 October, 2:30 p.m.

The wind blew across the ridgeline of Tantalus Crater. Karen King and Danny Minot walked along slowly, carrying Rick in a stretcher made from a space blanket. Karen wore the backpack, and the blowgun was slung across her back. They moved step by step, making their way painstakingly toward the wall of bamboo trees and the Great Boulder. Rick’s breathing came hoarsely from the stretcher.

“Put him down,” Karen said to Danny. She examined Rick. His face was pale and drawn, and his lips were turning blue. He wasn’t getting enough oxygen. What especially worried her was his breathing: ragged, irregular, insufficient. The wasp venom might have affected the breathing center in his brain stem. If his breathing shut down, he was finished.

She opened his shirt and found a bruise on his chest. What was that? The bends coming on? Or just the result of being thrown around by the wasp? They had to get out of this open area. They were morsels for birds, food for another wasp.

“How are you doing, Rick?”

He moved his head slowly from side to side.

“Not so good? Just don’t fall asleep. Okay? Please.”

Karen studied the bamboo forest ahead. “We just need to get under those plants, Rick. It’s not far, now.” She hoped, prayed, she’d find what she needed there. In the leaves.

She heard a sigh. “How are you doing, Rick?”

Silence. Rick had lost consciousness. She shook him. “Rick! Wake up! It’s me, Karen!” His eyes opened and closed. He was becoming unresponsive.

All right. Maybe she could make him angry. She had always been good at that. She slapped him in the face. “Hey Rick!”

His eyes flew open. That had worked.

“I nearly got myself killed dragging your sorry ass out of that hellhole. Don’t you dare die on me now.”

“We might have to leave him,” Danny said softly.