Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm by Kevin J. Anderson Page B

His voice sounded deep and pervasive inside their suit radios.
    “Felix, get an emergency medical tech in here, now!” she shouted into the open link. “Garrett's hurt.”
    Still growing, Tomiko and Pirov dropped to the lab floor and landed heavily as the now-useless jetpacks gave out. She tried to shield Wilcox from the impact, letting him tumble on top of her.
    The Russian doctor straightened beside Tomiko, looking perplexed and embarrassed by his own helpless reaction.
    While the team approached normal size, two emergency medical technicians hurried toward them like lumbering giants. “Better get a stretcher, take him to the infirmary,” Tomiko called, her voice small and piping as she grew. “Let's move it here!”
    Hunter rushed forward. “What happened?”
    The medical techs hustled Wilcox out of the room, carrying him through the double doors. They took readings, keeping up a running chatter about the best treatment.
    “Big problem, Felix.” Even shaken, Tomiko forced a no-nonsense tone into her voice. She tossed Wilcox's retrieved laser cutter to the floor. “You've got to launch a mission in a few hours—and now you don't have a pilot for the ship.”
    Chapter 7
    Thursday, 10:48 a.m.
    Awed by the successively camouflaged fences inside the Proteus Facility, Arnold Freeth climbed out of the government sedan. Amazement blossomed on his freckled face, and his eyes grew progressively wider. “You've really got an alien body in there, don't you? My God, you want me to—”
    A Marine MP in a private-security-guard uniform swung the first sallyport gate shut and padlocked it. He glanced at Devlin's badge and ID, then saluted. “We've been expecting you, sir. Director Hunter needs to see you immediately.”
    “On my way.” He knew that Felix, frazzled with all the last-minute urgent preparations for the mission, probably wanted to double-check something about the Mote. Devlin gestured for Freeth to follow him into the perimeter, shoes crunching on the packed gravel.
    The UFO expert stretched his neck, risking whiplash as he tried to stare everywhere at once. The high granite bluffs were streaked with black from algae and rain runoff; Ponderosa pines whispered in the breezes, releasing a sun-warmed, resiny scent.
    “Not much of a secret installation, right out in the open. Not at all like Area 51.” He sounded as if he spoke from personal knowledge. “I expected soldiers with machine guns, razor-wire, motion detectors, land mines…”
    Devlin clapped him on a bony shoulder. “If you weren't authorized here, Mr. Freeth, you'd be all too aware of those things.” They headed toward the cavelike entrance.
    “That tunnel is big enough to drive trucks through.”
    “The hard part is driving them up the winding road. Thirty-eight switchbacks. A real headache, especially in the winter. The SST from San Francisco took five hours to get here late last night with the alien body.”
    “When—when can I see it?”
    “Paperwork first, Mr. Freeth. This is the government, after all.”
    Inside the tunnel, a guard sat in a transparent Lexan enclosure surrounded by TV monitors. “Major Devlin! Director Hunter has asked to see you immediately upon your return. There's been an unexpected change in this afternoon's mission.”
    “Roger that, Sergeant.” Devlin took a clipboard the man slid through an opening in his windowed enclosure, then gave Freeth a conspiratorial wink. “There's always an unexpected change, one way or another, and I always manage to fix it.” He turned back to the guard. “I'll go see him as soon as we get Mr. Freeth processed through.”
    The UFO expert stiffened with suspicion when he learned they would have to take fingerprints, retinal scans, and a badge photograph, but Devlin cut off the other man's protests about violated civil rights and privacy. “I can't show you the alien until you go through the red tape. You know bureaucrats.”
    With a discouraged nod, Freeth submitted to the