Micro

“We’re smelling pheromones, the signaling chemicals that animals and plants use for communication,” Jenny said to the others. “It’s the invisible language of nature.” It lifted her spirits-here, she could experience the full spectrum of scents in the natural world for the first time. This revelation both thrilled her and made her feel afraid.

Jenny held a chunk of soil up to her nose and sniffed it. It was teeming with tiny nematode worms and numerous mites and several plump little creatures called water bears, and it smelled faintly like antibiotics. She knew why: the soil was full of bacteria, and many of the bacteria were different kinds of Streptomyces. “You can smell Streptomyces,” Jenny said to the others. “They’re one of the types of bacteria that make antibiotics. Modern antibiotics are derived from them.” The soil was also laced with thin threads of fungus known as hyphae. Jenny pulled a fungal thread out of the soil: it was stiff but slightly stretchy. A cubic inch of soil could hold several miles of these threads of fungus.

Something drifted past Jen’s eyes, falling downward through the thick air. It was a small nugget the size of a peppercorn, studded with knobs. “What on earth is that?” she said, stopping in her tracks to watch it. The nugget landed at her feet. Another fell slowly past. She put out her hand and caught it in her palm, then rolled it between thumb and forefinger. It was tough and hard, like a small nut. “It’s pollen,” she said with wonder. She looked up. There was a hibiscus tree overhead, bursting into a profusion of white flowers, like a cloud. For some reason she could not explain, her heart leaped at the sight of it. For a few moments, Jenny Linn felt glad to be very small.

“I think it’s kind of…wonderful here,” Jenny said, turning slowly around, looking up at the clouds of flowers, while a steady snow of pollen fell around her. “I never imagined this.”

“Jenny, we need to keep moving.” Peter Jansen had stopped to wait for her, and was shepherding people along.

As for Erika Moll, the entomologist, she did not feel happy at all. She was experiencing a growing sensation of fear. She knew enough about insects to be extremely afraid of them right now. They have armor and we don’t, Erika thought. Their armor is made of chitin. It’s bioplastic armor, light and super-tough. She ran her fingers over her arm, feeling the delicacy of her skin, the downy hair. We’re soft, she thought. We’re edible. She didn’t say anything to the others, but felt a choking sense of terror seething below the surface of her calm. She was afraid her fear would betray her, that she would lose control of herself in a panic. Erika Moll compressed her lips, and clenched her hands, and, trying to keep her fear under control, kept walking.

Peter Jansen called for a halt. They rested, sitting on the edges of leaves. Peter wanted to pick Jarel Kinsky’s brain. Kinsky knew a lot about the tensor generator, since he operated it. If they could somehow get themselves back to Nanigen, and could get themselves inside the tensor generator room, would they be able to operate the machine? How would they do it, if they were tiny? Peter asked Kinsky, “Would we need to get help from a normal-size person to run the machine?”

Kinsky looked doubtful. “I’m not sure,” he said, and poked at the ground with a grass spear. “I heard a rumor that the man who designed the tensor generator put a small-size emergency control in it that a micro-human can operate. I presume this tiny control panel is somewhere in the control room. I’ve looked for it, but I’ve never found it. There’s nothing in the engineering drawings, either. But if we could find the tiny control panel, I can operate it.”

“We’ll need your help,” Peter said.

Kinsky lifted the spear from the soil and gazed at a mite that walked along the spear, waving its forelegs. “All I want is to get home to my family,” he said softly, and shook his spear, tossing the mite away.

“Your boss couldn’t care less about your family,” Rick Hutter snapped at Kinsky.

“Rick doesn’t have a family,” Danny Minot whispered to Jenny Linn. “He doesn’t even have a girlf-”

Rick lunged at Danny, who scrambled away, shouting, “You can’t solve a problem with violence, Rick!”

“It would solve you,” Rick muttered.

Peter took Rick by the shoulder and squeezed it, restraining him, as if to say, Stay cool. To Kinsky he said, “Are there any other possibilities for getting back to Nanigen? Besides the shuttle truck, which might not exist.”

Kinsky bowed his head, thinking. After some time he said: “Well-we could try to get to Tantalus Base.”

“What’s Tantalus Base?”

“It’s a bioprospecting facility in Tantalus Crater, on the mountain ridge above this valley.” Kinsky pointed vaguely toward the mountain, which was only a green shape, barely visible through gaps in the tangled forest. “The base is somewhere up there.”

Jenny Linn said, “Vin Drake mentioned Tantalus during the tour.”

“I remember,” Karen said.