by Isaac Asimov
He could recognize none of the equipment. How could he? He was entirely a theoretician and when he worked in his own field, he used computerized devices that he had designed and modified himself. For a moment, he felt a stab of nostalgia for his laboratory at the university, for his books, for the smell of the animal cages, even for the stupid obstinacy of his colleagues.
There were people everywhere in the Grotto. There were a dozen nearby and others farther off and the impression was of the interior of a human ant hill crawling with machinery, with humanity, with purpose.
No one paid any attention to the newcomers or to each other. They went about their work in silence, their steps muffled by their sandals.
Again Boranova seemed to read Morrison's mind and when she spoke it was in a whisper. "We keep our council here. None of us knows more than it is good for him - or her - to know. There must be no leaks of significance."
"But surely they must communicate."
"When they must, they will - minimally. It reduces the pleasure of camaraderie, but it is necessary."
"This kind of compartmentalization slows progress," said Morrison.
"It's the price we pay for security," said Boranova, "so if no one talks to you, it is not a personal matter. They will have no reason to talk to you."
"They'll be curious about a stranger."
"I have seen to it that they know you are an outside expert. That is all they need to know."
Morrison frowned. "How can they expect an American to be an outside expert?"
"They don't know you're an American."
"My accent will give me away at once as it did to the serving woman."
"But you will not talk to anyone, except for those to whom I will introduce you."
"As you wish," said Morrison indifferently.
He was still looking around. Since he was here, he might as well learn what he could, even if it should turn out to be trivial. When - if - he returned to the United States, he would surely be asked for every detail he had observed and he might as well have something to give them.
He said in Boranova's ear, "This must be an expensive place. What fraction of the national budget is expended here?"
"It's expensive," said Boranova, admitting nothing further, "and the government labors to limit the expense."
Dezhnev said sourly, "I had to work for an hour this morning to persuade them to allow a small additional experiment for your benefit - may the Committee catch the cholera."
Morrison said, "The cholera no longer exists, even in India."
"May it be reinstated for the Committee."
Boranova said, "Arkady, if these supposedly humorous expressions of yours get back to the Committee, it will do you no good."
"I'm not afraid of those pigs, Natasha."
"I am. What will happen to next year's budget if you infuriate them?"
Morrison said, with sudden impatience, but speaking even more softly, "What concerns me is neither the Committee nor the budget, but the simple question of what it is I am doing here."
Dezhnev said, "You are here to witness a miniaturization and to be given an explanation of why we need your help. Will that satisfy you, Comrade Am- Comrade Outside Expert?"
17.
Morrison followed the other two to something that looked like a small old-fashioned train carriage on very narrow-gauge tracks.
Boranova placed her thumb on a smooth patch and a door slid open smoothly and without noise. "Please get in, Dr. Morrison."
Morrison held back. "Where are we going?"
"To the miniaturization chamber, of course."
"By railroad? How big is this place?"
"It is large, Doctor, but not so large. This is a matter of security. Only certain individuals can use this device and only by using it can one penetrate into the core of the Grotto."
"Are your own people so untrustworthy?"
"We live in a complex world, Dr. Morrison. Our people are trustworthy, but we do not wish to subject large numbers to temptations they need not face. And if someone persuades one of us to go - elsewhere, as we have persuaded you, it is safer if their knowledge is limited, you see. - Please get in."
Morrison entered the compact vehicle with some difficulty. Dezhnev followed him with equal trouble, saying, "Another example of senseless cheese paring. Why so small? Because the bureaucrats spend billions of rubles on a project and they feel virtuous if they save a few hundred in odd places at the cost of making hardworking people miserable."
Boranova got into the front seat. Morrison could not see how she manipulated the controls or, for that matter, if there were controls to manipulate. It was probably controlled by a computer. The carriage began to move suddenly and Morrison felt the slight backward jar that resulted.
There was a small window at eye level on either side, but not of clear glass. Morrison could see a small section of the cavern outside in a streaky, wavy, poorly focused manner. Apparently, the windows were not meant for vision, but were merely intended to reduce what might otherwise be an unacceptably tight enclosure to those with claustrophobic tendencies.
It seemed to Morrison that the individuals he could make out through the glass paid no attention to the moving carriage. Everyone here, he thought, is well-trained. To show any interest in any procedure with which you have nothing directly to do must apparently be a sign of discourtesy - or worse.
It seemed to Morrison that they were approaching the wall of the cavern and the carriage, with another small jerk, slowed. A section of the wall slid aside and the carriage, with yet another jerk, picked up speed and moved through the opening.
It grew dark almost at once and the dim light in the carriage's ceiling did little more than change night to dusk.
They were in a narrow tunnel into which the carriage fit with apparently little room to spare, except on the left side where Morrison, peering past Dezhnev, thought he could make out another pair of rails. There must be at least two such carriages, he thought, with room to pass one another in the tunnel if both were in operation.
The tunnel was as dimly lit as the carriage and it was not straight. Either it had been carved through the hill in such a way as to follow lines of least resistance in order to save money or it was curved deliberately in some dim, atavistic search for making things more secure by making them more complicated. The darkness inside and outside the carriage might serve the same purpose.
"How long will this take - uh -" asked Morrison.
Dezhnev looked at him with (in the dimness) an unreadable expression. "You don't know how to address me, I see. I do not have an academic title, so why not call me Arkady? Everyone does here and why not? My father always said, 'What counts is the person, not the name.'"
Morrison nodded. "Very well. How long will this take, Arkady?"
"Not long, Albert," said Dezhnev cheerfully - and Morrison, having been lured into first-name informality, could not object to the return.
He surprised himself a little by finding he did not wish to object. Dezhnev, even with his father's aphorisms included, seemed to be uncomplicated, at least, and, under the circumstances, Morrison welcomed a chance of refraining from the perpetual fencing match to which Boranova seemed to subject him.
The carriage could not be moving at a speed faster than a leisurely walk, but there was a small lurch each time it took a curve on the track. Apparently, petty economies included leaving the curves unbanked.
Then, with absolutely no warning, light flooded in and the carriage ground to a stop.
Morrison blinked as he stepped out. The room they were now in was not as large as the one they had left and there was virtually nothing in it. There were only the tracks under the carriage that made a wide arc and then led back toward the section of the wall from which they had emerged. He could see another small carriage disappearing into the opening and the wall closing behind it. The carriage in which they had arrived made a slow circuit of the arc and came to rest near the wall.
Morrison l
ooked around. There were many doors and the ceiling was comparatively low. Without definite evidence of the fact, he felt that he was in a three-dimensional checkerboard, with numerous small rooms on several levels.
Boranova was waiting for him, seeming to observe his curiosity with a touch of disapproval. "Are you ready, Dr. Morrison?"
"No, Dr. Boranova," said Morrison. "Since I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing, I'm not ready. However, if you will lead the way, I will follow."
"That is sufficiently ready. - This way, then. There is someone else you must meet."
They passed through one of the doors and into another small room. This one was very well-lit and had its walls lined with thick cables.
In the room was a young woman who looked up when they came in, pushing aside something, that seemed, from its appearance, to be some kind of technical report. She was quite pretty in a pale and vulnerable way. Her flaxen hair was cut short but with enough of a wave in it to keep her from looking too severe. The scanty cotton uniform she wore, which Morrison already knew to be universal within the Grotto, showed her to be attractively slim and shapely enough, though without Boranova's opulence. Her face was marred or perhaps enhanced (according to taste) by a tiny mole just under the left corner of her mouth. Her cheekbones were high, her hands thin-fingered and graceful, and her expression did not appear as though she were much given to smiling.
Morrison smiled, however. For the first time since his kidnapping, it seemed to him that there might be a lighter side to this dismal situation in which he had been unwillingly plunged.
"Good day," he said. "It's a pleasure meeting you." He tried to give his Russian an educated sound and to get rid of what the serving woman had so easily detected as his American accent.
The young woman made no direct answer but, turning to Boranova, said in a voice that was slightly husky, "Is this the American?"
"It is," said Boranova. "He is Dr. Albert Jonas Morrison, professor of neurophysics."
"Assistant professor," said Morrison deprecatorily.
Boranova ignored the correction. "And this, Dr. Morrison, is Dr. Sophia Kaliinin, who is our electromagnetics expert."
"She scarcely looks old enough," said Morrison gallantly.
The young lady did not seem amused. She said, "I look, perhaps, younger than I am. I am thirty-one years old."
Morrison looked abashed and Boranova cut in quickly, "Come, we are ready to begin. Please check the circuits and set matters in motion. - And quickly."
Kaliinin hurried out.
Dezhnev looked after her with a grin. "I'm glad she doesn't seem to like Americans. It cuts out a hundred million potential competitors at least. Now if she also didn't like Russians and would come to realize that I am as Karelo-Finnish as she is."
"You Karelo-Finnish?" said Boranova, forced into a smile. "Who would believe that, you madman?"
"She would - if she were in the proper mood."
"This would require an impossible mood." Boranova turned to Morrison. "Please do not take Sophia's behavior personally, Dr. Morrison. Many of our citizens pass through an ultrapatriotic phase and feel it to be very Soviet to dislike Americans. It is more pose than reality. Frn sure, once we begin to work together as a team, that Sophia will let down her barriers."
"I understand completely. Things are similar in my country. As a matter of fact, at the moment, I'm not very fond of Soviets - and understandably, I think. But" - and he smiled - "I could make an exception for Dr. Kaliinin very easily."
Boranova shook her head. "American like you or Russian like Arkady, there is a peculiar masculine way of thought that transcends national boundaries and cultural differences."
Morrison was unmoved. "Not that I will be working with her - or with anyone. I have grown tired of telling you, Dr. Boranova, that I don't accept the existence of miniaturization and that I cannot and will not be of assistance to you in any way."
Dezhnev laughed. "You know, one could almost believe Albert. He speaks so seriously."
Boranova said, "Observe, Dr. Morrison. This is Katinka."
She tapped a cage which Morrison, startled, now observed for the first time. Dr. Kahinin had rather absorbed his attention till now and even after she had left he had been idly keeping his eye on the door through which she had gone, waiting for her reappearance.
He focused on the cage of wire mesh. Katinka was, apparently, a white rabbit of moderate size and placid appearance, who was munching away at greenery with the rapt concentration of her kind.
Morrison was aware of the slight scrabbling noise she made and of the rabbit odor, which he must have noted, unconsciously, earlier and ignored.
He said, "Yes, I see her. A rabbit."
"Not just a rabbit, Doctor. She is a most unusual creature. Unique. She has made history to a far greater extent than has the catalog of war and disaster that usually is thought of by that name. If we exclude such purely incidental creatures as worms, fleas, and submicroscopic parasites, Katinka is the first living creature that has been miniaturized. In fact, she has been miniaturized on three separate occasions and would have been miniaturized dozens of times more if we had been able to afford it. She has contributed enormously to our knowledge of the miniaturization of life forms and, as you can see, her experiences have in no way adversely affected her."
Morrison said, "I do not wish to be insulting, but your bare statement that the rabbit has been miniaturized three times is not really evidence that this has indeed happened. I do not mean to cast doubt upon your integrity, but, in a case like this, I think you understand that nothing less than witnessing the fact is sufficiently convincing."
"Certainly. And it is for that reason' that - at considerable expense - Katinka will now be miniaturized a fourth time."
18.
Sophia Kaliinin swirled back in and turned to Morrison. "Are you wearing a watch or do you have anything metallic on you?" she asked crisply.
"I have no possessions on me at all, Dr. Kaliinin. Nothing but the clothes I wear, the single pocket of which is empty. Even this identification bracelet that has been put on me seems to be of plastic."
"It is merely that there is a strong electromagnetic field and metal would interfere."
Morrison said, "Any physiological effects?"
"None. Or at least none have yet been detected."
Morrison, who was waiting for them to give up their pretense of miniaturization and wondering how long they could carry on the fraud (he was growing more censorious over the matter by the minute), said, with just a touch of malice, "Might not overexposure lead to birth defects should you ever get pregnant, Dr. Kaliinin?"
Kaliinin flushed. "I have a baby. She is perfectly normal."
"Were you exposed during pregnancy?"
"Once."
Boranova said, "Is the inquisition over, Dr. Morrison? May we begin?"
"You still maintain that you will miniaturize the rabbit?"
"Certainly."
"Then go ahead. I'm all eyes."
(How foolish of them, he thought sardonically. They would soon be claiming, of course, that something had gone wrong, but where would they go from there? What was it all about?)
Boranova said, "To begin with, Dr. Morrison, would you lift the cage?"
Morrison made no move to do so. He looked from one to the other of the three Soviets in suspicion and uncertainty.
Dezhnev said, "Go ahead. It won't hurt, Albert. You won't even get your hands dirty and, after all, hands were meant to become dirty at work."
Morrison put his hands on either side of the cage and lifted. It weighed about ten kilograms, he judged. He grunted and said, "May I put it down now?"
"Of course," said Boranova.
"Gently," said Kaliinin. "Do not disturb Katinka."
Morrison lowered it carefully. The rabbit, which had momentarily stopped feeding when the cage was lifted, sniffed the air curiously and returned tentatively to its unhurried chewing.
Boranova nodded an
d Sophia moved to one side of the room where a bank of controls were all but hidden by the cables. She looked over her shoulder at the cage as though estimating its position, then walked over to move it slightly. She returned to the controls and closed a switch.
A whining sound made itself heard and the cage began to glitter and shimmer as though something, all but invisible, had interposed itself between it and themselves. The shimmer extended beneath the cage, separating it from the stone-top table on which it had been resting.
Boranova said, "The cage is now enclosed in the miniaturization field. Only the objects within the field will be miniaturized."
Morrison stared and a little worm of uncertainty began to stir within him. Were they going to try some clever illusion on him and make him think he had witnessed miniaturization? He said, "And how exactly did you produce that so-called miniaturization field?"
"That," said Boranova, "we do not intend to tell you. I think you understand what classified information is. Go ahead, Sophia."
The whine heightened in pitch and intensified somewhat. Morrison found it unpleasant, but the others seemed to endure it stolidly. In looking at them, he had taken his eyes off the cage. Now when he looked at it again, it seemed to have grown smaller.
He frowned and bent his head so as to line up one side of the cage with the vertical line of a cable on the opposite wall. He held his head steady, but the side of the cage shrank away from the reference line. There was no mistake, the cage was distinctly smaller. He blinked his eyes in frustration.
Boranova smiled narrowly. "It is indeed shrinking, Dr. Morrison. Surely your eyes tell you so."
The whine continued - the shrinking continued. The cage was perhaps half its original linear measurement.
Morrison said, with obvious lack of conviction, "There are such things as optical illusions."
Boranova called out. "Sophia, stop the process for a moment."
The whine lowered into silence and the glitter of the miniaturization field dimmed and died. The cage sat on the table as before, a considerably smaller version than it had been. Inside was the rabbit still - a smaller rabbit, but one that was proportioned in every way as the original had been, munching on smaller leaves, with smaller pieces of carrot distributed across the floor of the cage.
