Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain fv-2

by Isaac Asimov

  Paleron started the engine, looked around the parking area, which was deserted except for a cat going about some business of its own, and moved out over a sandy patch to the path that led to the nearby road.

  Slowly the limo picked up speed and when it finally reached the ninety-five kilometer-per-hour mark, it was moving along a two-lane highway on which, occasionally, an automobile, moving in the other direction, passed them. Morrison found himself capable of thinking normally again.

  He glanced back earnestly through the rear window. A car, far behind them, was turning off at an intersection they had passed some moments before. No one appeared to be following them.

  Morrison then turned to watch Paleron's profile. She seemed competent but grim. It was clear to him now that she was not only no waitress by true profession but was very likely no Soviet citizen. Her English had a strong urban accent that no European would learn in school or could pick up in a way that would be true enough to fool Morrison's ear.

  He said, "You were waiting there outside the hotel, reading a book, so that you would see Sophia and myself when we came."

  "You got it," said Paleron.

  "You're an American agent, aren't you?"

  "Shrewder and shrewder."

  "Where are we going?"

  "To the designated airport where the Swedish plane will pick you up. I had to get the details on that from Kaliinin."

  "And you know how to get there?"

  "Yes, indeed. I've been in Malenkigrad for considerably longer a period than your Kaliinin has been here. - But tell me, why did you tell her this man, Konev, was in love with her? She was just waiting to hear that from a third person. She wanted it confirmed and you did that for her. In that way, you handed over the whole game to Konev. Why did you do it?"

  "For one thing," said Morrison mildly, "it was the truth."

  "The truth?" Paleron, looking bemused, shook her head. "You don't belong in the real world. You sure don't. I'm surprised no one knocked you on the head and buried you long ago - just for your own good. Besides, how do you know it's the truth?"

  Morrison said, "I know. - But I was sorry for her. She saved my life yesterday. She saved all our lives yesterday. For that matter, Konev saved my life, too."

  "You all saved each other's life, I suppose."

  "Yes, as a matter of fact."

  "But that was yesterday. Today you started fresh and you shouldn't have let yesterday influence you. She would never have taken up with him again if it weren't for your dumb remark. He could have sworn himself purple about loving her and all the rest of that rubbish and she wouldn't have believed him. She dared not. Be made a fool of again? Never! She would have stunned him to the ground in another minute and then you told her, 'Why, yes, kid, that there guy loves you,' and that's all she needed. I tell you, Morrison, you shouldn't be out without your keeper."

  Morrison stirred uneasily, "How do you know all this?"

  "I was on the floor in the back seat of this car, ready to go with you and Kaliinin and to make sure she took you there. And then you pulled your dumb trick. What was there to do but grab you and keep you from being stunned down, then get you back to the room where we could have some privacy, and after that get hold of the stunner somehow?"

  "Thank you."

  "That's all right. - And I made them look like a loving couple, too. Anyone coming in will be bound to say, 'Excuse me,' and leave quickly - and that will give us more time."

  "How long will it be before they're conscious again?"

  "I don't know. It depends on how accurately I placed the radiation and what each state of mind was and who knows what else. But when they do come back, it will take them some time to remember what happened. I'm hoping that in their position, the first thing they'll remember is that they're in love. That would preoccupy them for a while. Then when they do get around to remembering you and what it was that was being done with Moscow, it will be too late."

  "Are they going to be permanently damaged?"

  Paleron cast a quick look at Morrison's concerned face. "You're worried about them, aren't you? Why? What are they to you?"

  "Well… shipmates."

  Paleron made an inelegant sound. "I guess they'll recover okay. They might be better off if some of that supersensitive edge is ground off. They can get together and make a nice family then."

  "And what's going to happen to you? You'd better get on the plane with me."

  "Don't be a jackass. The Swedes wouldn't take me. They've got orders to take one guy and they'll test you to make sure you're the right one. They'll have records of your fingerprints and your retina pattern, right out of the files of the Population Board. If they take the wrong person or an additional person, that'll be a new incident and the Swedes are too smart for that."

  "But then what will happen to you?"

  "Well, for starters, I'll say you got hold of the stunner and rayed them both, then held the stunner on me and made me take you to the airport because you didn't know its location. You ordered me to stop outside the gates, then stunned me down and tossed the stunner into the car. Early tomorrow, I'll make my way back to Malenkigrad, like I was coming out of a stunning."

  "But Konev and Kaliinin will deny your story."

  "They weren't looking at me when they were stunned and almost no one remembers the actual moment of stunning, anyway. Besides, the Soviet Government knows that they ordered you returned and if you are returned, then anything Konev will tell them about you will do him no good. The government will accept the fait accompli. It's rubles to kopeks or, better, dollars to kopeks that they'll prefer to forget the whole thing - and I'll just go back to waitressing."

  "There's bound to be some suspicion clinging to you."

  "Then we'll see," she said. "Nichevo! What will be, will be." She smiled faintly.

  They continued to travel along the highway and Morrison finally said with a touch of diffidence, "Shouldn't we to speed it up a little?"

  "Not even by a kilometer per hour," said Paleron firmly. "We're going at just under the speed limit and the Soviets have every centimeter of the highway radarized. They have no sense of humor about the speed limit and I don't intend to spend hours trying to get out of a police station because I wanted to save fifteen minutes reaching the plane."

  It was past noon now and Morrison was beginning to feel the mild, premonitory pinches of hunger. He said, "What was it that Konev told Moscow about me, do you suppose?"

  Paleron shook her head. "Don't know. Whatever it was, he got a response on his personal wavelength. It signaled about twenty minutes ago. You didn't hear?"

  "No."

  "You wouldn't last long in my business. - Naturally, they got no answer, so whoever Konev was talking to in Moscow will try to find out why. Someone will find them and then they'll figure you're on the way to the airport and someone will chase out after us to see if you can be headed off. Like Pharaoh's chariots."

  "We don't have Moses to part the Red Sea for us," muttered Morrison.

  "If we get to the airport, we'll have the Swedes. They won't give you up to anybody."

  "What can they do against the Soviet military?"

  "It won't be the Soviet military. It will be some functionary, working for an extremist splinter group, who will try to bluff the Swedes. But we have official papers giving you up to them and they won't be bluffed. We just have to get there first."

  "And you don't think we should go faster?"

  Paleron shook her head firmly.

  Half an hour later, Paleron pointed and said, "There we are and we have the breaks. The Swedish plane is in early and has landed."

  She stopped the car, pressed a button, and the door flew open on his side. "You go on alone. I don't want to be seen, but listen -" She leaned toward him. "My name is Ashby. When you get to Washington, tell them that if they think it's time for me to get out - I'm ready. Got it?"

  "I've got it."

  Morrison got out of the car, blinking in the sunlight. In the d
istance, a man in uniform - not a Soviet uniform, as nearly as he could tell - waved him forward.

  Morrison broke into a run. There were no speed limits on running and though he could see no one in pursuit he would not have been surprised to see someone rise out of the ground to stop him.

  He turned, waved a last time in the direction of the car, thought he saw an answering wave, and continued to run.

  The man who had gestured to him advanced, first at a walk, then at a run, and caught him as he all but fell forward. Morrison could see now that he was wearing a European Federation uniform.

  "May I please have your name?" said the man in English. His accent, to Morrison's infinite relief, was Swedish.

  "Albert Jonas Morrison," he said and together they walked toward the plane and the small group waiting to check his identity.

  88.

  Morrison sat at the plane window, tense and exhausted, staring downward at the land fleeing east. A lunch, consisting largely of herring and boiled potatoes, had soothed the inner man but scarcely the inner mind.

  Had the miniaturized trip through the bloodstream and brain yesterday (only yesterday?) twisted him forever into a mental attitude of apprehension of imminent disaster? Would he never again be able to accept the Universe as friendly? Would he never walk through it in serene consciousness that no one and no thing wished him harm?

  Or had there merely been insufficient time for him to recover?

  Of course, common sense told him that there was reason not to feel completely safe yet. That was still Soviet earth under the plane.

  Was there still time for Konev's ally in Moscow, whoever he might be, to send out planes after the Swedes? Was he powerful enough to do so? Would Pharaoh's chariots take to the air and continue the pursuit?

  For a moment, his heart failed him when he actually saw a plane in the distance - then another.

  He turned to the stewardess, who sat across the aisle from him. He did not have to ask the question. She apparently read his anxious expression accurately.

  "Federation planes," she said, "as escort. We've left Soviet territory. The planes are Swedish-crewed."

  Then, when they passed over the English Channel, American planes joined the escort. Morrison was safe from the chariots, at any rate.

  His mind did not let him rest, however. Missiles? Would someone actually commit an act of war? He tried to calm himself. Surely no man in the Soviet Union, not even the Soviet Executive himself, could make such a move without consultation and no consultation would take less than hours or perhaps days.

  It couldn't be.

  Still, it wasn't until the plane had landed on the outskirts of Washington that Morrison could allow himself to feel that it was over and that he was safely in his own country.

  89.

  It was Saturday morning and Morrison was recovering. He had attended to his creature needs. He had had breakfast and had washed. He was even partly dressed.

  Now he lay in bed on his back, arms behind his head. It was cloudy outside and he had only half-clarified the window because he wanted a sense of privacy. In the hours after he had disembarked from the plane and had been rushed to his present place of concealment, there had been enough official crowding around him to make him wonder a bit if he was any better off in the United States than he had been in the Soviet Union.

  The doctors had finally finished their probing, the initial questions had been asked and answered, even during dinner, and they had finally left him to his sleep in a room that was, in turn, inside something that resembled a fortress for the depth of its security.

  Well, at least he didn't have to face miniaturization. There was always that thought to comfort him.

  The door signal flashed and Morrison reached over his head, feeling the bedboard for the button that would clarify the one-way patch on the door. He recognized the face that appeared and pushed another contact that allowed the door to be opened from the outside.

  Two men entered. The one whose familiar face had been at the one-way patch said, "You remember me, I hope."

  Morrison made no move to get out of bed. He was the center now around which all revolved, at least temporarily, and he would take advantage of that. He simply raised his arm in casual greeting and said, "You're the agent who wanted me to go to the Soviet Union. Rodano, isn't it?"

  "Francis Rodano, yes. And this is Professor Robert G. Friar. I imagine you know him."

  Morrison hesitated and then courtesy swung his feet off the bed and lifted him to his feet. "Hello, Professor. I know of you, of course, and have seen you on holovision often enough. I'm pleased to make your personal acquaintance."

  Friar, one of the "visible scientists" whose photographs and HV appearances had made him familiar to most of the world, smiled tightly. He had a round face, pale blue eyes, an apparently permanent vertical crease between his eyebrows, ruddy cheeks, a sturdy body of average height, and a way of looking around him restlessly.

  He said, "You, I take it, are Albert Jonas Morrison."

  "That's right," said Morrison easily. "Mr. Rodano will vouch for me. Please sit down, both of you, and forgive me if I continue to relax on the bed. I have about a year's relaxation to catch up on."

  The two visitors sat down on a large couch and leaned toward Morrison. Rodano smiled a bit tentatively. "I can't promise you much relaxation, Dr. Morrison. At least for a while. Incidentally, we have just received word from Ashby. Do you remember her?"

  "The waitress who turned the tables? Yes, indeed. Without her -"

  "We know the essentials of the story, Morrison. She wants you to know that your two friends have recovered and are apparently fond of each other still."

  "And Ashby, herself? She told me she was ready to leave if Washington thought it best. I reported that last night."

  "Yes, we'll get her out one way or another. - And now I'm afraid we must bother you again."

  Morrison frowned. "How long will this keep up?"

  "I don't know. You must take it as it comes. - Professor Friar, won't you take over?"

  Friar nodded. "Dr. Morrison, do you mind if I take notes. - No, let me rephrase that. I am going to take notes, Morrison."

  He plucked a small computer keyboard of advanced design out of his briefcase.

  Rodano said mildly, "Where will these notes go, Professor?"

  "To my recording device, Mr. Rodano."

  "Which is where, Professor?"

  "In my office at Defense, Mr. Rodano," Then, with some irritation under the other's continuing stare, "Into my safe in my office at Defense and both the safe and the recording device are well-coded. Does that satisfy you?"

  "Proceed, Professor."

  Friar turned to Morrison and said, "Is it true that you were miniaturized, Morrison. You, personally?"

  "I was. At my smallest, I was the size of an atom while part of a ship the size of a glucose molecule. I spent better than half a day inside a living human body, first in the bloodstream, then in the brain."

  "And this is true? No chance of an illusion or trickery?"

  "Please, Professor Friar. If I were tricked or hypnotized, my testimony now would be worthless. We can't proceed unless you recognize the fact that I am in my right mind and can be relied on to report events that correspond reasonably well with reality."

  Friar's lips pressed together and then he said, "You are right. We must make assumptions to begin with and I will assume you are sane and reliable - without prejudice to further reconsideration of such assumptions."

  "Of course," said Morrison.

  "In that case" - and Friar turned to Rodano - "we begin with one great and important observation. Miniaturization is possible and the Soviets do indeed have it and make use of it and can miniaturize even living human beings without apparent harm to them."

  He turned back to Morrison. "Presumably, the Soviets claim to miniaturize by reducing the size of Planck's constant."

  "Yes, they do."

  "Of course they do. There's no other conc
eivable way of doing it. Did they explain the procedure by which that was done?"

  "Certainly not. You might as well make the assumption that the Soviets scientists I dealt with are as sane as we are. They wouldn't carelessly give away anything they don't want us to know."

  "Very well, then. Assumption made. Now tell us exactly what happened to you in the Soviet Union. Do not tell it as an adventure story, but only as the observations of a professional physicist."

  Morrison began to talk. He was not entirely sorry to do so. He wanted to exorcise it and he didn't want the responsibility of being the only American to know what he knew. He told the story in detail and it took hours. He did not finish until they were sitting at a lunch delivered by room service.

  Over dessert, Friar said, "Let me summarize, then, as best I can from memory. To begin with, miniaturization does not affect time flow, nor the quantum interactions - that is, the electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions. The gravitational interaction is affected, however, and decreases in proportion to mass, as it naturally would. Is that so?"

  Morrison nodded.

  Friar went on. "Light - and electromagnetic radiation, generally - can cross into and out of the miniaturization field, but sound cannot. Normal matter is weakly repelled by the miniaturization field but, under pressure, normal matter can be made to enter it and be itself miniaturized, at the expense of the energy of the field."

  Morrison nodded again.

  Friar said, "The more miniaturized an object becomes, the less energy is required to miniaturize it further. Do you know if the energy requirement decreases in proportion to the mass remaining at any particular stage of miniaturization?"

  "That would certainly seem logical," said Morrison, "but I don't recall anyone mentioning the quantitative nature of that phenomenon."

  "To go on, then. The more miniaturized an object, the greater the chance of its spontaneous deminiaturization - and that refers to the entire mass within the field, rather than to any component part. You, as a separated individual, were more likely to deminiaturize spontaneously than you would as part of the ship. Is that right?"