by Isaac Asimov
The ship rocked violently without warning. It swayed heavily and Konev, who had been standing, tottered and caught at the back of his seat.
"What was it?" called out Boranova, clutching with one hand at her own control device.
Kaliinin bent over her computer. "I caught a glimpse, but you can't tell in this light. It may have been a ribosome."
"A ribosome," repeated Morrison in astonishment.
"Why not? They're scattered all over the cell. They're the protein-manufacturing organelles."
"I know what they are," said Morrison indignantly.
"So it landed us a blow. Or rather, as we skimmed along, we landed it a blow. It doesn't matter which way you look at it; we just had a giant piece of Brownian motion."
"Worse than that," said Dezhnev, pointing outward in horror. "We're not getting heat transfer, we're getting field oscillation."
Morrison, staring in despair, recognized the phenomenon he had seen when alone in the cell. The water molecules were expanding and contracting - visibly so.
"Stop it! Stop it!" shouted Konev.
"I'm trying to," said Boranova through tight lips. "Arkady, shut off the jets and make all the power available to me. - Shut off the air-conditioning, lights, everything!"
Boranova bent over the tiny glow that marked her battery-powered computer.
Morrison could see nothing except for the light from Boranova's computer and, in the seat next to him, Kaliinin's. He could not see, in the otherwise total darkness of a cell buried in the interior of a brain, the water molecules swelling and subsiding.
There was no uncertainty about it, however. He could feel the jarring in the pit of his stomach. It was not the water molecules that were oscillating, after all. It was the miniaturization field that was - and the objects that were buried in it - and he himself.
Each time the ship expanded (and the water molecules seemed to contract), the field converted some of its energy to heat and he could feel the flush that swept over him. Then, as Boranova forced energy into the field, squeezing it into contraction, the heat vanished. For a while, he could feel the oscillations slow and subside.
But then they began to grow wilder and he knew that Boranova was failing. She could not fend off the spontaneous deminiaturization that was on the way and, in ten seconds, he knew he would be dead. He - and all of them, and the body in which they were buried - would be an exploding puff of water vapor and carbon dioxide.
He felt dizzy. He was going to faint and, in his pusillanimous way, he would thus anticipate death by a second and his last recognizable emotion would be one of intense shame.
73.
The seconds passed and Morrison didn't faint. He stirred a little. He should be dead by now, shouldn't he? (It was inevitable that the next thought should come: Can there be an afterlife after all? - He dismissed the possibility quickly.)
He was aware of someone sobbing. No! It was harsh breathing.
He opened his eyes (he hadn't realized they were closed) and found himself staring at Kaliinin in the dim light. Since all the energy available was being pumped into the effort to keep the ship from deminiaturizing, he saw her only by the glow of her own computer. He could make out her head bent over it, her hair in disarray and her breath whistling sharply through her parted lips.
He looked around in a sudden renewal of hope and thought and life. The ship's oscillations seemed less extreme. They were settling downward into a kind of peace even as he watched.
And then cautiously, Kaliinin stopped and looked up sidewise at him, her face twitching into a painful smile. "It is done," she said in a hoarse whisper.
The light within the ship brightened slowly, almost tentatively, and Dezhnev uttered a huge shuddering sigh. "If I am not dead now," he said, "I hope to live yet a little while. As my father once said: 'Life would be unbearable if death were not worse yet.' - Thank you, Natasha. You may be my captain forever."
"Not I," said Boranova, her face looking very old - to the point where Morrison would not have been surprised to see white streaks in her black hair. "I simply couldn't pump enough energy into the ship. Was it something you did, Sophia?"
Kaliinin's eyes were closed now, but her breasts were still heaving. She stirred a little, as though reluctant to answer, reluctant to do anything but savor life for a time. Then she said, "I don't know. Maybe."
Boranova said, "What did you do?"
Kaliinin said, "I couldn't just wait for death. I made the ship the electric duplicate of a D-glucose molecule and hoped the cell would do the normal thing and interact with a molecule of ATP - adenosine triphosphate. In doing so, it gained a phosphate group and energy. The energy, I hoped, would go into reinforcing the miniaturization field. I then neutralized the ship and the phosphate group fell off. D-glucose again, another gain in energy, then neutral, and so on, over and over." She stopped to pant a bit. "Over and over. My fingers were working so fast, I didn't know if I were hitting the right keys or not - but I must have. And the ship gained enough energy to stabilize the field."
Boranova said, "How did you come to do that? No one has ever suggested in my hearing that this might -"
"Nor in mine," said Kaliinin. "Nor in mine. I was just wondering this morning before we got on the ship what I would do - or what anyone could do - if spontaneous deminiaturization began. We'd need energy, but if the ship couldn't pump up enough - I thought, Could the cell itself supply the energy? If it did, it would only be through ATP, which every cell has. I didn't know if it would work. I had to spend energy, forcing the electrical pattern on and off the ship, and I knew I might spend more than I got from ATP. Or the energy of the ATP might simply not afFect the ship in such a way as to counter the deminiaturization. It was all such a gamble."
Dezhnev said - softly, almost as though to himself, "As my old father would say: 'If you have nothing to lose, gamble freely.'" Then, briskly, he said, "Thank you, little Sophia. My life is yours from now on. I will give it to you at your need. I will go farther. I will even marry you if that would strike you as convenient."
"A chivalrous offer," said Kaliinin, smiling faintly, "but I wouldn't ask marriage of you. Your mere life - at need - would be quite enough."
Boranova was entirely herself now and she said, "This will be cited in detail in the final report. Your quick thinking and your quick action saved everything."
Morrison couldn't trust himself to make any speech at all. (Unaccountably, he felt near tears. - In gratitude for life? In admiration for Kaliinin?) All he could do was reach for Kaliinin's hand, put it to his lips, and kiss it. Then, after clearing his throat vigorously, he said with extraordinary mildness, "Thank you, Sophia."
She looked embarrassed, but did not draw her hand away immediately. She said, "It might not have worked. I didn't think it would work."
"Had it not," said Dezhnev, "we would be no deader."
Through all this, only Yuri Konev had not said a word and Morrison turned to look at him. He sat as he usually sat, very upright and very much turned away from them.
Morrison, finding his voice suddenly - and his anger - said, "Well, Yuri, what have you to say?"
Konev looked over his shoulder briefly and said, "Nothing."
"Nothing? Sophia saved the expedition."
Konev shrugged, "She did her job."
"Her job? She did much more than her job." Morrison leaned forward and reached wildly for Konev, grabbing his shoulder. "She invented the technique that saved us. And in doing so, she saved your life, you idiot. She's the reason you're still alive. You can at least thank her."
"I'll do as I please," said Konev, twitching his shoulder and then writhing out of Morrison's grasp.
Morrison's hands found their way around Konev's throat. "You miserable, egotistical barbarian," he grunted out, squeezing desperately. "You love her in your own insane way and you won't give her a kind word. Not one kind word, you piece of dirt."
Again Konev pulled himself loose and then the two were pummeling each other clumsily. They
were half-trapped by the seats from which they had partly risen and neither could maneuver properly under zero-gravity conditions.
Kaliinin screamed, "Don't hurt him!"
He won't hurt me, thought Morrison, striving mightily. He had not been engaged in this kind of physical combat since he was sixteen and, he thought in embarrassment, he wasn't doing any better now.
Boranova's voice rang out sharply. "Stop it. Both of you."
And they did. Both of them.
Boranova said, "Albert, you are not here to teach anyone manners. And Yuri, you need not labor to be a boor, it comes natural to you. If you do not wish to acknowledge Sophia's -"
Sophia said with an obvious effort, "I'm not asking for thanks - from anyone."
"Thanks?" said Konev angrily. "Let us all say thanks. Before the deminiaturization started, I was trying to get this American coward to thank us for rescuing him. I didn't want thanks in words. This isn't a dance floor. We needn't bow and curtsy. I wanted him to show his thanks by getting out there and trying to sense some of Shapirov's thoughts. He refused. Who is he to teach me how and when to say thanks?"
Morrison said, "I said before the deminiaturization that I wouldn't do it and I repeat that now."
Dezhnev interrupted and said, "We beat a dead horse here. We have consumed our energy supply as though it were vodka at a wedding. Between pursuits and deminiaturizations, we have very little to spare for the task of deminiaturizing under controlled conditions. We must get out now."
Konev said, "It would take very little energy to have this man go out for a couple of minutes and come in again. Then we can leave."
For a moment, Konev and Morrison stared at each other hostilely and then Dezhnev said in a voice that seemed drained of some of its life, "My poor old father used to say: 'The most frightening phrase in the Russian language is "That's odd."'"
Konev turned angrily and said, "Shut up, Arkady."
Dezhnev replied, "I mentioned that only because it is now time for me to say it: That's odd."
74.
Boranova pushed her dark hair back from her forehead (a bit wearily, Morrison thought, and noted the hair itself was clearly damp with perspiration). She said, "What is odd, Arkady? Let us not play games."
"The current flow of the cellular material is slowing."
There was a brief silence, then Boranova said, "How can you tell?"
Dezhnev said heavily, "Natasha, dear, if you sat in my seat you would know that there are fibers criss-crossing the cell -"
"The cytoskeleton," put in Morrison.
"Thank you, Albert, my child," said Dezhnev with a grand wave of his hand. "My father used to say: 'It is more important to know the thing than the name.' Still, never mind. The whatever - you - call - it doesn't stop the cell flow and it doesn't stop the ship, but I can see it glint past. Well, it's glinting past more slowly now. I assume the fibers don't move, so I take it we're slowing. And since I'm not doing anything to slow the ship, I assume that it is the intracellular flow that is really slowing. - This is called logic, Albert, so you don't have to educate me on that point."
Kaliinin said in a small voice, "I think we have damaged the cell." She sounded conscience-stricken.
Morrison took it so and said, "One brain cell gone, more or less, won't hurt Shapirov in any way, especially in the condition he's in. I wouldn't be surprised if the cell were gone, though. After all, the ship came after me in a furious race, I imagine - and I thank you all again for that - and it probably vibrated itself nearly to death and must have vibrated the entire cell as well."
Konev said, frowning darkly, "That's mad. We're molecule-sized - and a small molecule at that. Do you suppose anything we can do, whether moving or jiggling, is going to damage an entire cell?"
Morrison said, "We don't have to reason it out, Yuri. It's an observed fact. The intracellular stream is stopping and that isn't normal."
"In the first place, that's just Arkady's impression," said Konev, "and he's no neurologist -"
"Do I have to be a neurologist to have eyes?" demanded Dezhnev hotly, one arm raised as though to strike at the younger man.
Konev cast a brief glance at Dezhnev, but made no other acknowledgment of his remark. He said, "And besides, we don't know what is normal in a living brain cell from this level of observation. There may be calms and eddies in the flow, so that even if something like this is observed, it might be only temporary."
"You're whistling past the graveyard, Yuri," said Morrison. "The fact is, we can't use this cell any more and we don't have sufficient remaining energy to wander around searching for another cell."
Konev ground his teeth. "There must be something we can do. We can't give up."
Morrison said, "Natalya, make the decision. Is there any point in investigating this cell any further? And are we in a position to seek out another cell?"
Boranova raised her hand and bowed her head in a moment of thought. The others turned to look at her and Konev seized the opportunity to grasp Morrison by the upper arm and pull him closer. His eyes were dark with hostility. He whispered, "How is it you think I am in love with -" he jerked his head in Kaliinin's direction. "What gives you the right to think so? Tell me that."
Morrison looked at him blankly.
At this point, Boranova spoke, but it was not to answer Morrison's question. She said mildly, "Arkady, what is it you are doing?"
Dezhnev, who was bent over his controls, lifted his head. "I am rearranging the wiring back to what it was. I am hooking up communications again."
Boranova said, "Have I told you to do that?"
Dezhnev said, "Necessity has told me to do that."
Konev said, "Does it occur to you it will be impossible to steer?"
Dezhnev growled and said in sullen irony, "And does it occur to you that there may be no more steering to do?"
"What is the necessity that drives you, Arkady?" said Boranova patiently.
Dezhnev said, "I don't think it's this cell alone that is out of order. The temperature around us is going down. - Slowly."
Konev sneered. "By your measurements?"
"No. By the ship's measurements. By the background infrared radiation we're getting."
"You can't tell anything by that," said Konev. "At our size, we get very few infrared photons. The level would vary all over the lot."
Dezhnev nodded at Konev and said, "Like this." His hand waved up and down frenetically. "Still, it can wave up and down like a rowboat in a typhoon and yet do so at a lower and lower average level." And his hand sank ever lower as it continued its trembling.
Boranova said, "Why should the temperature be dropping?"
Morrison smiled grimly. "Come on, Natalya. I think you know why. I know that Yuri knows why. Arkady must find out and for that reason necessity is forcing him to put back communications."
An uncomfortable silence fell, except for Dezhnev's occasional grunts and muttered expletives as he struggled with the ship's wiring.
Morrison gazed out at the surroundings, which he could once again see in the usual unsatisfactory fashion now that ship's lighting had been restored. There were the usual dim glitter of molecules, large and small, that traveled with them. Now that Dezhnev had mentioned it, he saw the occasional reflection of light from a line that stretched across the path before them and then moved over (or under) and behind at express speed.
These were, undoubtedly, very thin collagen fibers that preserved the shape of the irregular neuron and kept it from converting itself into a roughly spherical blob under the pull of its own surface tension. Had he been watching for it, he would have noticed it before. It occurred to him that Dezhnev, as navigator, had to watch for everything and, in the entirely unprecedented situation in which the ship found itself, Dezhnev had had no guide, no instruction, no experience to let him know what to watch for. There was no question but that Dezhnev's task had placed him under greater tension than the others had allowed for.
Certainly, to Morrison himself, De
zhnev had been taken for granted as the least of the five. Not fair, Morrison thought now.
Dezhnev had straightened up now. He had an earphone in one ear canal and said, "I should be able to establish communication." He said, "Are you there? Grotto. -Grotto."
Then he smiled. "Yes. We are, to this point, safe. - I'm sorry, but as I told you, it was either communicate or steer. - How is it at your end? - What? Repeat that, more slowly. - Yes, I thought so."
He turned to the others. "Comrades," he said, "Academician Pyotr Leonovich Shapirov is dead. Thirteen minutes ago, all vital signs ceased and our task now is to leave the body."
Chapter 17. Exit
If trouble were as easy to get out of as into - life would be one sweet song.
— Dezhnev Senior
75.
A gray silence fell over the ship.
Kaliinin buried her face in her hands and then, after a long moment, broke the silence by whispering, "Are you sure, Arkady?"
And Dezhnev, blinking hard to hold back tears, said, "Am I sure? The man has been on the brink of death for weeks. The cellular flow is slowing, the temperature is falling, and the Grotto, which has him wired with every instrument ever invented, says he is dead. What is there to be but sure?"
Boranova sighed. "Poor Shapirov. He deserved a better death."
Konev said, "He might have held out another hour."
Boranova said with a frown, "He did not pick and choose, Yuri."
Morrison felt chilled. Until now he had been conscious of some surrounding red corpuscles, of a specific speck of intercellular region, of the interior of a neuron. His environment had been circumscribed to the immediate.
Now he looked out of the ship, through its transparent plastic walls, at what appeared to him, for the first time, to be thickness upon thickness of matter. On their present scale, with the ship the size of a glucose molecule and himself not much more than the size of an atom, the body of Shapirov was larger than the planet Earth.
