by Isaac Asimov
"Provided," said Konev, his voice suddenly taking on a tinge of anger, "the data has any value at all." Briefly, he glared at Morrison.
Konev then bent toward Dezhnev and together the two began electronically transmitting the information they had collected, computer to computer, from tiny to large, from inside a vein to the outside world.
Kaliinin was still holding Morrison's hand, perhaps as much for comfort to herself as to him, Morrison thought.
He said in a low voice, "What happens, Sophia, if we run out of energy before we reach the needle?"
She lifted her eyebrows briefly and said, "We'll just have to remain passively in place. The people in the Grotto will try to reach us wherever we are."
"We won't deminiaturize explosively as soon as the energy is gone, will we?"
"Oh no. Miniaturization is a metastable state. You remember we explained that. We'll stay as we are indefinitely. Eventually - sometime - this chance pseudo-Brownian motion of expanding and contracting will set up spontaneous deminiaturization, but that might not be for - Who knows?"
"Years?"
"Possibly."
"That won't do us any good, of course," said Morrison. "We'll die of asphyxiation. Without energy, we won't be able to recycle our air supply."
"I said the people in the Grotto would try to reach us. Our computers will still be working and they can home in on us, cut to the vein and into it, and spot us electronically - or even visually."
"How can they find one cell among fifty trillion?"
Kaliinin patted his hand. "You are in a pessimistic mood, Albert. We're an easily recognizable cell - and a broadcasting one."
"I think I would feel better if we find the hypodermic needle now and they don't have to look for us."
"So would I. I am merely pointing out that running out of energy and not finding the needle is not the ultimate end."
"And if we do find it?"
"Then we are drawn out and the Grotto's own energy sources will be applied to the task of derniniaturizing us."
"Can't they do it now?"
"We're too closely surrounded by masses of unminiaturized material and it would be too difficult to focus the deminiaturizing field with sufficient accuracy. Once we are out and visible to them, the conditions will be entirely different."
At this point, Dezhnev said, "Have we transmitted everything, Yuri?"
"Yes. Everything."
"Then it is my duty to tell you that I have only enough energy to continue moving this ship for five minutes. Perhaps less, but certainly not more."
77.
Morrison, Kaliinin's hand still in his, squeezed convulsively and the young woman winced.
Morrison said, "I'm sorry, Sophia."
He released her hand and she rubbed it vigorously.
Boranova said, "Where are we, Yuri? Can we get to the needle?"
"I should say yes," said Konev. "Slow down, Arkady. Conserve what energy you have."
"No, believe me," said Dezhnev. "At the present speed, I am cutting through the blood with comparatively little turbulence, thanks to the streamlining and surface characteristics of the ship. If I slow down, there'll be more turbulence and energy waste."
Konev said, "But we don't want to overshoot the mark."
"We won't. Any time you want me to cut the motors, we begin to slow down at once because of the blood viscosity. As we slow down, the turbulence builds, we slow down faster, and in ten seconds we're motionless. If we had our normal mass and inertia, the rapid pace of slowing would plaster us all up against the front of the ship."
"Stop when I tell you, then."
Morrison had risen and was looking over Konev's shoulder again. The cerebrograph, he judged, must be at enormous expansion, perhaps at maximum. The thin red line that had marked the path of the ship by dead reckoning was now thick and was approaching a small green circle, which, Morrison surmised, must represent the position of the hypodermic needle.
But it was dead reckoning and it could be off a bit. Konev was alternating his gaze between the cerebrograph and the view up ahead of the ship.
"We should have aimed for an artery," Morrison said suddenly. "They're empty after death. We wouldn't have had to waste energy on viscosity and turbulence."
Konev said, "Useless idea. The ship cannot progress through air." He might have gone on, but at this point he stiffened and cried out, "Stop, Arkady! Stop!"
Dezhnev hit a knob hard with the heel of his hand. It moved inward and Morrison felt himself sway gently forward as the ship slowed and stopped almost at once.
Konev pointed. There was a large circle, glowing with an orange light. He said, "They're using fiber optic methods to make sure the tip glows. They said I wouldn't miss it."
"But we have missed it," said Morrison tightly, "We're looking at it, but we're not there. To get into it, we have to turn - and that means that Dezhnev has to unhook communications again."
"No use," said Dezhnev. "I have enough power in my engines to have kept us going another forty-five seconds maybe, but I certainly do not have enough to start us moving from scratch. We are at this moment dead in the water and cannot move again."
"Well, then?" began Morrison with what was almost a wail.
"Well, then," said Konev, "there is another kind of motion that is possible. That hypodermic needle has intelligence at the other end. Arkady, tell them to push it in very slowly."
The orange circle expanded slowly, becoming slightly elliptical.
Morrison said, "It's going to miss us."
Konev made no reply to that, but leaned over toward Arkady to speak directly into the transmitter. The orange ellipse became, for a moment, more markedly elliptical, but this ceased after a bark from Konev. It became nearly circular after that. The needle was close now and was pointing at them.
And then there was sudden motion everywhere. The faint outlines of the red corpuscles and the occasional platelet, moved, and converged toward and through the circle. And the ship was moving, too.
Morrison looked up and around as the orange circle moved past them neatly on all sides, then slipped behind the ship, shrank rapidly, and disappeared.
Konev said with grim satisfaction, "They've sucked us in. From this point on, we sit quietly. They will handle everything."
78.
Now Morrison did his best to wash away thought, to close his mind. Either he would be brought back to the standard world, to normality, to reality, or he would die in a microblink and the rest of the Universe would go on without him - as it would do, in any case, in twenty years, or thirty, or forty.
He shut his eyes firmly and tried to respond to nothing, not even to the beating of his heart. At one point he felt a light touch on his left hand. That would have to be Kaliinin. He withdrew his hand - not suddenly in rejection, but slowly, as though simply to say: "Not now."
At another point, he heard Boranova say, "Tell them, Arkady, to evacuate Section C, to put in strictly long-distance controls. If we go, there is no point in carrying anyone with us."
Morrison wondered if Section C were indeed evacuated. He would evacuate if he were ordered to or even if he were not ordered to, but there might be those lunatics who would be anxious to be on the spot when the first crew to explore a living body returned safely. - So they could tell their grandchildren, he supposed.
What happened to such people, he wondered, if they ended up not having grandchildren - if they died too young to see them - if their children chose never to have children - if the -
Dimly, he was aware that he was deliberately immersing himself in nonsense and trivia. One can't really think of nothing and especially not if one has spent a lifetime devoting one's self to thought, but one can think of something utterly unimportant. There are, after all, so many more possible thoughts that are unimportant rather than important, trivial rather than vital, nonsensical rather than sensible, that -
He might even have fallen asleep. Thinking about it afterward made him feel certain he had
. He wouldn't have thought it would be possible to be so cold-blooded, but it wasn't cold blood; it was weanness, relief from tension, the feeling that someone else was making decisions, that he himself might be totally relaxed at last. And perhaps (although he didn't want to admit it), it had all been too much and he had simply passed out.
And again he felt a light touch on his left hand and this time it did not go away. He stirred and opened his eyes on something that looked like ordinary illumination. Too ordinary - it hurt his eyes. He blinked rapidly and they watered.
Kaliinin was looking down at him. "Wake up, Albert!"
He wiped at his eyes, began to make the natural interpretation of his surroundings, and said, "Are we back?"
"We are back. All is well. We are safe and we're waiting for you. You're nearest the door."
Morrison looked back at the open door and started to his feet, rising a few inches and sinking back. "I'm heavy. "
Kaliinin said, "I know. I feel like an elephant myself. Just get up slowly. I'll help you."
"No no, that's all right." He fended her off. The room was crowded. His vision had cleared to the point where he could see the crowd, face upon face, looking toward him, smiling, watching. He did not want them - Soviet citizens, all - to see the sole American helped to his feet by a young Soviet woman.
Slowly, a little drunkenly but by himself, he rose to his feet, stepped sidewise to the door and very carefully let himself down to a small flight of stairs. Half a dozen pairs of arms reached out to help him, utterly disregarding his words: "It's all right. I don't need help."
Then he said sharply, "Wait!"
Before stepping to solid ground, he turned and looked past Kaliinin, who was right behind him.
"What is it, Albert?" she asked.
He said, "I was just taking a last look at the ship because I don't intend ever to see it again - not at a distance, not in films, not in any form of reproduction."
Then he was on normal ground again and the others followed. It was with relief that Morrison saw that every one of them was helped down.
There would then have been some sort of impromptu celebration, but it was Boranova who stepped forward, looking distinctly disheveled and much unlike her usual calm, well-cared-for self - all the more so since she was wearing the thin cotton coverall that did very little to hide the mature lines of her body.
"Fellow workers," she said, "I'm sure there will be appropriate ceremonies at some reasonable time to mark this fantastic voyage of ours, but please, we are in no condition to join you now. We must rest and recover from an arduous time and we beg your indulgence."
They were all led off to wild shouts and frantic waving and only Dezhnev had the presence of mind to take a glass offered to him that contained something that was either water or vodka and Morrison, for one, had no doubt as to which of the alternatives was, in fact, the case. The broad smile on Dezhnev's damp face as he sipped made it certain.
Morrison said to Kaliinin, "How long were we on the ship?"
"I think it was over eleven hours," said Kaliinin.
Morrison shook his head. "It seemed more like eleven years."
"I know," she said, smiling slightly, "but clocks lack imagination."
"One of Dezhnev Senior's aphorisms, Sophia?"
"No. One of my own."
"What I want," said Morrison, "is a chance at the bathroom, and a shower, and fresh clothes, and a good dinner, and a chance to shout and scream, and a good night's sleep. In that order, I think, especially with the bathroom coming first."
"You'll have it all," said Kaliinin, "as will the rest of us."
And they did and the dinner seemed to Morrison to be particularly satisfactory. Throughout their stay on the ship, tension had managed to suppress his appetite, but such things are merely deferred and hunger was gnawing with a vengeance once Morrison felt truly safe, truly comfortable, truly clean, and truly clothed.
The main course at the dinner was a roast goose of enormous size which Dezhnev carved, saying, "Be abstemious, my friends, for as my father used to say: 'Eating too much kills more quickly than eating too little.'"
Having said this, he served himself a much larger helping than he served anyone else.
The one outsider present was a very blond tall man, who was introduced as the military commander of the Grotto, something which could be seen at once, since he was in full uniform with a spate of decorations. The others seemed extraordinarily polite to him and extraordinarily uncomfortable at the same time.
Throughout the meal, Morrison felt the tension returning. The commander looked at him often, with unsmiling gravity, but said nothing to him directly. Because of the commander's presence, he felt uable to ask the important question and then, finally, when he might have raised it after the commander's departure, he suddenly found himself too sleepy. He would not be able to argue it out properly if there were any complications.
And when he finally managed to tumble into bed, his last semiconscious thought was that there would be complications.
79.
Breakfast was late and Morrison found that it was for two. Only Boranova joined him.
He was mildly disappointed, for he had looked forward to the presence of Sophia Kaliinin, but when she failed to appear, he decided not to ask after her. There were other questions he would have to ask.
Boranova looked tired, as though she had not had enough sleep, but she looked happy, too. Or perhaps (Morrison thought) "happy" was too strong a word. Contented, rather.
She said, "I had a good talk with the commander last night and there was a two-way video call with Moscow. Carefully shielded. Comrade Rashchin himself spoke with me and was clearly pleased in the highest degree. He is not a demonstrative man but he told me that he had been in touch with events all yesterday and that, during the interval in which we were not in communication with the outside world, he had been unable to eat or to do anything but pace back and forth. That, perhaps, was an exaggeration. He even said he had wept with joy at hearing that we were all safe and that may be true. Undemonstrative men can be emotional when the dam breaks."
"It sounds good for you, Natalya."
"For the whole project. You understand that, according to the tentative schedule under which we had worked, we were not expected to launch a voyage into a living human body for at least five years. To have done so with a grossly inadequate ship and to have come out of it alive is viewed as a great triumph. Even the bureaucracy in Moscow understood the emergency under which we labored."
"I doubt that we really got what we were after."
"You mean Shapirov's thoughts? That was, of course, Yuri's dream. On the whole, it was fortunate that he talked us all into following that dream. We would never have attempted the voyage otherwise. Nor does the failure of the dream dim our feat. Had we failed to return alive, we can be sure that there would have been much criticism of our folly in attempting the matter. As it is, though, we are the first to have entered a living human body and to have returned alive - a Soviet first that will stand forever in history. There will be no non-Soviet feat of the sort for years and our Soviet leadership is well-aware of that and very satisfied. We are assured of the money we will need for a considerable time, I imagine, provided we can come up with a spectacular feat now and then."
She smiled broadly at this and Morrison nodded and smiled politely with her. He cut away at the ham omelet he had requested and said, "Would it have been diplomatic to emphasize that an American was one of the crew? Was I mentioned at all?"
"Come, Albert, don't think so ill of us. Your feat in turning the ship by hand at the risk of your life was mentioned with emphasis."
"And Shapirov's death? That will not be blamed on us, I hope?"
"The death is understood to have been unavoidable. It is well-known that he was kept alive as long as he was by advanced medical methods only. I doubt that it will be mentioned to any great extent in the records."
"In any case," said Morrison, "the nightmare
is over."
"The nightmare? Come, give yourself a month or two and it will seem an exciting episode that you'll be glad you experienced."
"I doubt it."
"You'll see. If you live to witness other such voyages, you'll be delighted to say, 'Ah, but I was on the very first,' and you'll never tire of telling the story to your grandchildren."
That's the opening, thought Morrison. Aloud, he said, "I see you assume that I will see my grandchildren someday. What happens to me once we're finished with breakfast, Natalya?"
"It will be out of the Grotto for you and back to the hotel."
"No no, Natalya. I want more than that. What follows that? I warn you that if the miniaturization project is going to go public and if there's a parade in Red Square, I don't intend to be part of it."
"Parades are out of the question, Albert. We're a long way from going public, although we're closer to it by far than we were the day before yesterday. "
"Let me put it baldly then. I want to go back to the United States. Now."
"As soon as possible, certainly. I imagine there will be pressure from your government."
"I should hope so," said Morrison dryly.
"They would not have been willing to have you back before you had a chance to help us or" - her eyes looked into his rather sternly - "from their point of view, spied on us. But now that you have done your part - and I'm sure they will be aware of that somehow - they will demand you back."
"And you must send me back. You promised that over and over."
"We will keep our promise."
"Nor need you think I have spied on you, I have seen nothing you have not let me see."
"I know that. Yet, when you return to your own country, do you imagine that you will not be questioned exhaustively on what you have seen?"
Morrison shrugged. "That was the consequence you must have accepted when you brought me here."
"True and we won't let it keep us from returning you. It is quite certain you won't be able to tell your people anything they don't already know. They poke their noses into our affairs carefully and skillfully -"
