Micro

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.”