Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain fv-2

by Isaac Asimov

  "I have thought of it, but why should it stick in his mind, in that case? It is certainly worth investigating. And how much of what seems to be trivial or meaningless would not be so if even one phrase or image gave us a necessary hint. With each step forward, other things might more easily fall into place. We certainly have no reason as yet to declare this voyage a failure - or any part in it."

  Boranova nodded slightly. "Well, let's hope you're right, Yuri, but, as Arkady has already asked, what do we do now? What, in your opinion, ought we to do now?"

  With great deliberation, Konev said, "There's one thing we haven't tried yet. We've tried detection outside the neuron, inside the neuron, inside the axon, inside the dendrites, past the synapse, but, in every single case, we have tried it inside the ship, inside its presumably insulating walls."

  "In that case, then," said Boranova, "are you suggesting that we make the attempt outside the ship and within the cell fluid itself? Remember, such an observer would still be inside a plastic suit."

  "A plastic suit is not as thick as a plastic ship and the insulating effect would presumably be less. Besides, the computer itself need not be inside the suit."

  Morrison said with gathering alarm, "Who do you have in mind for this?"

  Konev looked at him coolly. "There is only one possibility, Albert. The computer is your design and is made to match your brain. You are, of necessity, the most sensitive to Shapirov's thoughts. It would be foolish in the highest degree to send out anyone else. I have you in mind for this, Albert."

  66.

  Morrison's stomach clenched tightly. Not that! He couldn't be asked to do it again!

  He tried to say so, but his mouth seemed to have dried completely and instantaneously and he could make no sound other than a throaty hiss. It flashed through his mind that he had been beginning to enjoy the feeling of not being a coward, of wandering, by ship, through the brain cell fearlessly - but he was a coward, after all.

  "Not that!" he cried out, but it wasn't his voice; it was higher by an octave. It was Kaliinin.

  She had turned around to face Boranova, holding herself down in her seat with knuckles standing out whitely.

  "Not that, Natalya," she cried again passionately, her chest heaving in excitement. "It's a cowardly suggestion. Poor Albert has been out there once already. He nearly died and if it hadn't been for him we might still be lost in the wrong capillary and we might never have reached this cell block at all. Why should he have to do that again? It is surely someone else's turn and since he wants it done" - no one questioned who "he" was - "let him do it. He should not ask it of someone else."

  Morrison, beneath his own fright, wondered faintly if Kaliinin's emotion was due to a growing affection for him or a determination to oppose at every point any strong wish of Konev's. There was a corner of Morrison's mind that was pragmatic enough to be certain it was the latter.

  Konev's face had grown slowly redder as Sophia spoke. He said, "There's no cowardice here." (He spat out the word, making it quite plain that that was what had most offended him.) "I am making the only possible suggestion. If I go out there, which I am perfectly willing to do, it can only be with Albert's device, which won't work as well for me as it would for him. We cannot choose this one or that one according to whim. It must be the one who can get the best results and there is no question, in that case, who it must be."

  "True," said Morrison, finding his voice now, "but there is no reason to suppose that reception will be better outside the ship than inside."

  Konev said, "There is no reason to think the reverse, either. And as Dezhnev will tell you, our energy supply - and therefore our time - is decreasing. There is no room for delay. You'll have to leave the ship as you did before - and now."

  Morrison said in a low voice, which he hoped would make the remark final, "I'm sorry. I will not leave the ship."

  But Boranova had apparently made up her mind. "I'm afraid you'll have to, Albert," she said gently.

  "No."

  "Yuri is right. Only you and your device can give us the information we need."

  "I am certain there'll be no information."

  Boranova held out her two hands, palms upward. "Perhaps not, but we can't leave that a matter of conjecture. Let us find out."

  "But -"

  Boranova said, "Albert, I promise you that if you do this one thing for us, your part in all this will be reported honestly when the time comes for open publication. You will be known as the man who worked out the correct theory of thought, the man who developed the device that could exploit that theory properly, the man who saved the ship in the capillary, and the man who detected Shapirov's thinking by bravely venturing into the neuron, as earlier he had ventured into the bloodstream."

  "Are you implying that the truth will not be told if I refuse?"

  Boranova sighed. "You force me to play the role of villainess openly. I would rather you had been satisfied with the implication. - Yes, the truth need not be told. That, after all, is the only weapon I hold against you. We cannot very well turn you out of the ship by force, since there is no advantage in your merely being outside. You must also sense poor Shapirov's thought and for that we must have your willing cooperation. We will reward you for that, but only for that."

  Morrison looked around at his crewmates' faces, searching for help. Boranova - steadily studying him. Konev - staring him down imperiously. Dezhnev - looking awkward, not willing to commit himself either way. And Kaliinin… his only hope.

  Morrison gazed at her thoughtfully and said, "What do you think, Sophia?"

  Kaliinin hesitated, then said in a voice that did not tremble, "I think it is wrong to threaten you in this way. A task like this should be performed voluntarily and not under duress."

  Dezhnev, who had been humming very softly to himself, now said, "My old father used to say: 'There is no duress like one's own conscience and it is that which makes life so needlessly bitter.'"

  "My conscience doesn't trouble me in this matter," said Morrison. "Shall we put it to a vote?"

  "It wouldn't matter," said Boranova. "I am the captain and in a case like this I alone have the vote."

  "If I am out there and sense nothing, would you believe me?"

  Boranova nodded. "I would. After all, you might so easily invent something that would sound useful if you wished us to be suitably grateful. If you come back with nothing or with trivia, I believe I would have a greater tendency to believe that than if you instantly claimed you had heard something of great importance."

  Konev said, "I am not likely to be fooled. If he comes in with something that seems important, I will be able to tell if it truly is. And now, surely, we have had enough discussion. Let's go!"

  And Morrison, his heart beating and his throat tightening, managed to say, "Very well, I will go - but only for a brief time."

  67.

  Morrison, of his own accord, stripped himself of his cotton garment. The first time (was it really only a couple of hours before?) it had seemed to be a violation of modesty; this second time it was almost routine.

  He was quite aware, as with Kaliinin's help he struggled into the suit, how easily he could suck in his abdomen. Despite a good breakfast, ample water, and a piece of chocolate, his stomach was empty and he was glad it was. He felt a twinge of nausea as the suit enclosed more and more of his body and to throw up, once enclosed, would have been unbearable. Just before enclosure, he refused another piece of chocolate with what was almost a shudder.

  They put his computer into his sheathed hands and Boranova said to him loudly, "Can you work it?"

  Morrison heard her without too much difficulty. He knew he wouldn't hear her once he was outside the ship. He balanced the essentially weightless computer in one hand and struck the keys carefully and rather gracelessly with the other. He shouted back, "I think I can manage."

  Then, rather clumsily, they tied the computer to both his wrists with firm knots of tough plastic twine (probably the same material
of which the suit and the ship itself were made).

  "So you don't lose it," Boranova called out.

  Out into the air lock he went. He felt himself embraced by it, then pressured as the air in it was withdrawn, and then he was outside the ship.

  Outside again. For only a brief time, he had warned the rest, but what good was that? How could he enforce that, if the others within the ship refused to let him back in? Already, he was sorry he had let himself be talked out of the ship by any threat, but dared not articulate the thought. It would do him no good.

  Morrison tucked the computer under his left arm, partly because he did not entirely trust the plastic twine that secured it and partly because he wanted to protect it from the cellular contents as much as possible. He felt the surface of the ship for some spot where the electric charge on his suit would adhere to a charge of opposite nature on the ship's hull.

  Morrison found one that allowed him to keep his back on the ship. The electric field did not hold him tightly and there was considerable give. Still, he was the size of an atom and it might be difficult to concentrate electric charge on a portion of him.

  Or would it be? Wouldn't the electrons that were the source of the charge be microminiaturized as well? He felt - and resented keenly - his ignorance of miniaturization theory.

  He was little aware of his motion along the intracellular stream, for everything was moving along with him. He found himself, however, the center of a shifting and ever-changing panorama. With the thinner plastic of the suit between himself and the scene, with the beacon of his own suit turning here and there as he moved his head and felt the headpiece twist (a little resistantly) with it, he could make out more.

  There was the knobbiness of the water molecules rubbing against each other, like dimly seen balloons. He could see them brush past him slowly, this way or that, and largely ignore him. Occasionally, one would cling for a moment, an electric charge meeting an opposite charge on his suit, so that they clutched at him and released their hold only lingeringly. It was almost as though a molecule occasionally yearned for him but couldn't manage to turn the wish into deed.

  Among these were larger molecules, some as large as the ship, some far larger still. He could see them only because light glinted off them here and there in changing, prismatic fashion. He did not see them; his mind built them up out of what he could glimpse. That he could do this at all was the result of his knowing a good deal about the contents of the cell to begin with, or thought he did. It might also, he thought, simply be his imagination.

  It even seemed to Morrison that he could make out the skeleton of the cellular interior; the large structures that remained in place while the fluid stream passed them and that gave the cell its more or less fixed shape. These structures seemed to go by so quickly he could barely take note of them before they were gone. They alone gave him the impression of the rapid movement of the intercellular stream that carried the ship and him along with it as it weaved in gentle swoops around those fixed structures.

  All this observation had not taken very long, but it was enough. It was time that he now turned his attention to his computer.

  Why? It would detect nothing. Morrison was sure of it, but he couldn't act on that belief, however strongly he felt it. He might be wrong, perhaps, and he owed it to the others - and to himself, too - to make the effort.

  He tried clumsily to adjust the computer to maximum sensitivity, barely able to handle the keys correctly and relieved that the self-contained power pack in the computer worked properly. He concentrated hard in order to sense and tap the currents of thought passing by.

  The device did its work. The water molecules drifted by it as gently and untouchingly as they drifted by him and, disregarding them, his computer portrayed the skeptic waves more purely etched, more steep and clear, more finely detailed, than he had ever before seen them. But for all that, he sensed nothing but a faint hissing whisper that produced neither words nor images but only sadness.

  Wait! How did he know the whisper was sad? Surely that was merely a subjective judgment on his part. Or was he detecting an emotion? Was the partially brain-dead, totally comatose Shapirov sad? Would it be surprising if he were?

  Morrison looked over his shoulder, back at the ship. Surely what he was detecting was enough. He was registering sad nothingness and nothing more. Should he signal now to be pulled in? Would they be willing to do so? And if they brought him in and if he told Boranova that he had sensed nothing, would not Konev tell him angrily that he had been out there only two minutes, that he hadn't given it a chance? Would Konev not demand he go out again?

  And if he waited longer?

  Actually, he could wait longer. At this stage of miniaturization (or for whatever cause), he did not feel any particular heat.

  But if he waited longer - another two minutes, or five minutes, or an hour, for that matter - Konev would still say, "Not enough."

  He could make out Konev looking out toward him, his expression dark and glowering. Kaliinin was directly behind him, since she had unclasped herself and moved over into what had been Morrison's seat. She was staring outward anxiously.

  He caught her eyes and she seemed about to signal to him, but Boranova leaned forward and pushed her shoulder firmly. Kaliinin moved back to her own seat at once. (She had to, Morrison told himself, for her job was to keep an eye on the charge patterns of the ship and of himself right now and she could not - must not - abandon that job, no matter what her anxiety over him.)

  For the sake of completeness, Morrison tried to catch Dezhnev's eye, but the angle required was too great for the twisting ability of his headpiece. He caught, instead, Konev motioning in what seemed, clearly, an interrogative gesture.

  Morrison looked away petulantly, making no attempt to give information, and became aware of something in the distance looming toward him at a great speed. He could make out no details, but he automatically winced as he waited for the current to carry the ship and himself around it.

  It came straight on like a juggernaut and Morrison cowered toward the hull of the ship.

  The ship did evade the object, but not by much and as the looming monster passed him Morrison felt himself drawn outward and toward it.

  It flashed through his mind that Kaliinin had put some random electric charge on his suit and that whatever it was he was passing, by the most miserable of coincidences, had a charge that exactly complemented his own.

  Under normal circumstance, that would not have mattered. The ship and the structure passed each other at such a speed that no attraction could have sufficed to rip him loose, but he was a tiny object with neither mass nor inertia and, for a moment, he felt - stretched - as though the structure and the ship disputed ownership. The ship, it seemed to his appalled eyes, briefly faltered and then was pushed loose by the current.

  Morrison had been peeled off by the object and the ship, still continuing with the current, moved off so rapidly that it was lost to sight at once. One second it was with him, the next second it was totally gone.

  Before he had time to realize what had happened, he was alone and helpless - an atom-sized object in a brain cell. His only faint attachment to life and reality - the ship - was forever gone.

  68.

  Some minutes must have been lost to Morrison. During that time, he had no conception of where he was or of what had happened. He was conscious only of absolute panic, of the conviction that he was on the point of death.

  When life continued, Morrison was almost sorry. If that moment had been death, it would have been all over. Now he still had to wait for it.

  How long would his air last? Would heat and humidity crawl on, even if more slowly than before, inexorably, just the same, perhaps. Would his light give out before he did and would he have to die in utter darkness as well as utterly alone? He thought, quite madly, How will I know when I'm dead if it's absolutely dark before and absolutely dark thereafter? (He thought of Ajax's prayer to Zeus that if he had to meet death, let
it be in the light of day. And, with this, Morrison thought hopelessly, And with one person, at least, to hold one's hand.)

  What to do, then?

  Just wait?

  What had gone wrong, anyway?

  Ah, he was not yet dead. The fear had receded enough to allow room for a little curiosity - and a will to fight and live.

  Could he somehow get loose from this thing? It seemed disgraceful, somehow, to die like a fly stuck in amber. - And every moment the ship was getting farther away. Almost at once he thought, It's already too far away for me to be caught, no matter what I do.

  The thought drove him to frenzy and Morrison writhed with all his might, trying to break loose. It did no good and it occurred to him that he was wasting energy and increasing the heat within the suit.

  He slid his hands upward along the misty structure that held him, but his hands bounced away. Like charges repel each other.

  He reached along it - right, left, up, down. Somewhere there was the opposite charge. He might be able to seize hold then and try to tear the structure apart. (Why were his teeth chattering? Fright? Desperation? Both?)

  His right hand clicked shut as it was attracted to a portion of the structure. He clenched hard, trying to push past the mere charge and tear at the atomic arrangement itself - if there was any atomic arrangement that had meaning aside from the charge itself.

  For a moment, Morrison felt the structure resist a too-tight grip with a kind of rubbery rebound. And then, without warning, it crumbled in his hand. He stared in amazement at his hand, trying to make out what had happened. There was no tearing, ripping, or wrenching sensation. It seemed to him that a portion of the structure had simply disappeared.

  Morrison tried again, groping here and there, until another portion vanished. What was happening?

  Wait awhile! The miniaturization field extended beyond the ship slightly, Boranova had said. It would extend beyond the suit, too. When he squeezed as hard as he might, some of the atom he was touching would miniaturize and, in so doing, it would lose its normal architecture and break loose from the atoms to which it had formerly been bonded. Anything he touched - if he could touch it hard enough - would miniaturize.