Micro

“But look at the mountain,” Karen said to Peter, sweeping her arm. Indeed, Tantalus Peak dominated the view upward, a hulk of a volcanic cone blanketed with near-vertical super-jungle. “It’s two thousand feet high, Peter.” She paused and thought for a moment. “For us that’s like climbing seven Mount Everests.”

“But gravity won’t slow us down,” Peter answered calmly. He had taken out the binoculars and was sweeping across Tantalus. He found a massive boulder, sitting in an open area on the lip of the crater. “That could be the Great Boulder. The map says Tantalus Base is at the foot of it.” He couldn’t see the base, though-it would be only a few feet across, not visible from this distance. He took out the compass and sighted a line on the boulder. “It’s on bearing of three hundred and thirty degrees from here. Just follow the compass line-”

“It’ll take weeks,” Karen said. “We have a couple more days, tops, before the bends hit us.”

“Soldiers,” Peter said to her, “can walk thirty miles a day.”

“Peter, we’re not soldiers,” Erika groaned.

“I s’pose we could try,” Karen said. “But what about Amar? He can’t walk.”

“We’ll carry him,” Peter said.

“What are we going to do with Danny? He’s a pain in the ass,” Karen said.

“Danny is one of us. We’ll take care of him,” Peter said firmly.

Just then, Peter’s radio beeped and started crackling with a frantic voice. It was Danny calling.

“Speak of the devil,” Karen murmured.

Peter put on the headset and heard Danny Minot shouting, “Help! Oh, God! Help me!”

In the lower branches of the tree, tucked in a sunny spot, Danny Minot had fallen asleep. His mouth hung open and he snored; he was exhausted after the longest and most terrifying night of his life. He didn’t hear the clattering noise that approached him and hovered over him. As she helicoptered, hovering, her expressionless eyes studied him. She was a wasp.

She landed and advanced carefully. Lightly, she touched his left arm with her antennae, then tapped her antennae over his throat, his cheeks, tasting his skin. The skin, so pale, so soft, reminded her of a caterpillar. A host. From the end of her abdomen hung a long tube, like a length of garden hose. The tube had a drill bit at the end of it.

She took him gently in her forelegs and planted her drill bit in his shoulder. She thrust the bit into his flesh. It injected anesthetic. Then she activated the drill bit, and drove the tube in deep.

She began gasping, making sounds that eerily resembled a woman in childbirth.

Danny was dreaming. The dream shifted. He was holding a beautiful girl in his arms. She was naked and gasping with arousal. They kissed. He felt her tongue go down his throat…he looked up at her, and her eyes were compound eyes, bulging in a woman’s face…she clutched him, wouldn’t let go…he woke with a start…

“Ahhg!”

He was staring into the eyes of a giant wasp. The wasp was holding him tight, gripping him with her legs and burying her stinger in his shoulder. And he felt nothing. His arm had gone dead.

“No!” he screamed, and grabbed the stinger in both hands, and tried to pull it out. But then the wasp pulled its stinger out of his shoulder anyway, and let go of him, and flew away.

He rolled over on his back, clutching his arm. “Aah! Ay! Help!” The arm had become a nothingness hanging from his shoulder, a dead weight with no feeling in it, as if it had been pumped full of Novocain. He noticed a small hole in his shirt, with dark wetness spreading in the cloth-blood. He tore open his shirt and stared at a hole in his shoulder. It was as neat and round as a drill hole, and it oozed blood. There was no sensation of pain, nothing.

He clutched for the headset. “Help! Oh God! Help!” he shouted.

“Danny?” Peter’s voice came on.

“Something stung me…Oh my God.”

“What stung you?”

“I can’t feel it. It’s dead.”

“What’s dead?”

“My arm. It was so big…” His voice ran up into whimpering terror.

Rick Hutter’s voice came on. “What’s happening?” He was calling from the moss cave lower on the tree, where he had stayed with Amar Singh.

“Danny’s been stung,” Peter said. “Danny-stay where you are. I’m coming down to you.”

“I fought it off.”

“Good.”

Danny hunched up, not wanting to look at his shoulder. The blood oozed into his shirt. He felt his forehead. Did he have a fever? Was he getting delirious? He began muttering. “No poison…I’m fine…No poison. No poison, no poison…”

Peter took the first-aid kit with him. Descent was easy and quick: he let himself down hand over hand, sometimes hanging by one hand. He found Danny curled up in a fetal position, his face drained of color. His left arm seemed limp.

“I can’t feel my arm,” Danny whimpered.

Peter pulled open Danny’s shirt and inspected the wound on his shoulder. It was a small puncture wound. He cleaned it with an iodine swab, expecting Danny to feel a sting from the swab, but Danny felt nothing.