Good company robs even death of some of its terrors.
65.
Morrison watched what followed with a certain detachment. He did not intend to participate actively. If something forced itself into his mind, he would respond and report it. It would be unscientific not to.
Kaliinin, at his left, looked grim and her fingers were idle. He leaned toward her and whispered, "Have you got us back as L-glucose?"
She nodded.
He said, "Are you aware of this Nastiaspenskaya hypothesis?"
She said, "It's not in my field. I've never heard of it."
"Do you believe it?"
But Kaliinin was not to be trapped. She said, "I'm not qualified either to believe or disbelieve, but he believes it. - Because he wants to."
"Do you sense anything?"
"Nothing more than before."
Dezhnev was, of course, silent. Boranova occasionally produced a crisp word or two, which, however, seemed to Morrison's ears to lack conviction.
Only Konev seemed to maintain enthusiasm. At one point, he cried out, "Did anyone get that? Anyone? 'Circular rhythm.' 'Circular rhythm.'"
There was no direct answer and, after a while, Morrison said, "What does that mean, Yuri?"
Konev did not answer. - And even he grew quiet after a while and was reduced to staring blankly ahead as the ship moved onward in the fluid stream.
Boranova asked, "Well, Yuri?"
Konev said rather hoarsely, "I do not understand it."
Dezhnev said, "Yuri, little son, it may be this is a bad neuron and isn't doing much thinking. We'll have to try another and maybe another. The first one may have been simply beginner's luck."
Konev looked at him angrily. "We don't work with single cells. We're in a group of cells - a million of them or more - that are a center of creative thought by Albert's theory. What one of them thinks, they all think - with minor variations."
Morrison said, "That's what I believe I have shown."
Dezhnev said, "Then we don't go looking from cell to cell?"
"It would be no use," said Morrison.
"Good," said Dezhnev heavily, "because we don't have the time and we don't have the energy. So what do we do now?"
In the silence that followed, Konev said again, "I do not understand it. Nastiaspenskaya could not be wrong."
And now Kaliinin, with great deliberation, unclasped herself and stood up.
She said, "I want to say something and I don't want to be interrupted. Natalya, listen to me. We have gone far enough. This is an experiment that perhaps had to be done, even though, in my opinion, it was sure to fail. Well, it has failed."
She pointed a slim finger briefly at Konev, without looking at him. "Some people want to alter the Universe to their liking. Whatever is not so, they would make so by sheer force of will - except that the Universe is beyond any person's will, squeeze he ever so hard.
"I don't know if Nastiaspenskaya is correct or not. I don't know if Albert's theories are correct or not. But this I know-what they think, and what any neuroscientist thinks about the brain generally, must be about a reasonably normal brain. Academician Shapirov's brain is not reasonably normal. Twenty percent of it is nonfunctioning-dead. The rest must be distorted in consequence and the fact that he has been in a coma for weeks shows that.
"Any reasonable human being would realize that Shapirov cannot be thinking in normal fashion. His brain is an army in - in disarray. It is a factory in which all the equipment has been jarred loose. It is sparking randomly, emitting broken thoughts, scattered pieces, splinters of memory. Some men" - she pointed again - "won't admit it because they believe that if they only insist loudly enough and strongly enough, the obvious will retreat and the impossible will somehow come into being."
Konev had now also unclasped and was also standing. He turned slowly and looked at Kaliinin. (Morrison was astonished. Konev was actually looking at her. And on his face there was no visible sign of anger or hatred or contempt. It was a hangdog look, with a touch of self-contempt in it. Morrison felt sure of this.)
Yet Konev's voice was steady and hard as he looked away from Kaliinin and turned to Boranova, addressing her.
"Natalya, was this point made before we embarked on this voyage?"
"If you mean, Yuri, did Sophia say all this to me before this moment? She did not."
"Is there any reason we should be plagued with crew members who have no faith in our work? Why should such a person have agreed to come on this voyage?"
"Because I am a scientist," shot back Kaliinin and she, too, addressed Boranova. "Because I wanted to test the effect of artificial electrical patterns on biochemical interaction. That has been done, so that for me the voyage was a success, and for Arkady, since the ship has handled as it should, and for Albert, since the evidence for his theories is stronger now, I gather, than it was before we came here, and for you, Natalya, since you brought us down here and, presumably, will bring us back safely again. But for one" - pointing at Konev - "it has been a failure and the mental stability of he who has failed would be greatly helped by the frank admission of that failure."
(She's getting back at him with a vengeance, thought Morrison.)
But Konev did not crumple under Kaliinin's forceful attack. He remained surprisingly calm and he said, still to Boranova, "That is not so. That is the reverse of what is true. It was clear from the start that we could not expect Shapirov to think as he did when he was in full health. It was entirely likely we would get bits and pieces of meaning intermingled with meaninglessness and trivialities. That we did. I was hoping to get a higher percentage of meaning in this new neuron immediately past the synapse. There we failed. That makes the task before us more difficult, but not impossible.
"We've got well over a hundred phrases and images we've salvaged from Shapirov's thinking. Don't forget 'nu times c equals m sub s,' which must be significant. There's no possible reason to think of that simply as a triviality."
Boranova said, "Have you thought, Yuri, that it is possible that that fragment of a mathematical expression represents something Shapirov tried and found wanting?"
"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.
Any atom or portion thereof that he miniaturized in this way would become a point-sized particle with far less mass than an electron. It would take off at nearly the speed of light, pass through matter as though that matter weren't there, and be gone.
Could this be so? It had to be so. Nothing else he could imagine would make sense.
And even as he thought this, Morrison began to push his hands and feet violently against the imprisoning material - and broke loose.
He was no longer glued to the structure. He was an independent body coursing along the intercellular stream.
It didn't stop the ship from being forever out of reach, but he was at least on its trail. (Foolish! Foolish! What good was it to be on its trail? On his own scale, he was dozens of kilometers from the ship - if not scores.)
Another thought struck him and staggered him. He had been miniaturizing atoms to get free, but such miniaturization required an input of energy. Not much at this stage, since there was so little mass to remove, but where would the energy come from?
It had to come from the suit's own miniaturization field. Every atom that miniaturized weakened the field, therefore. How much had he weakened it, then, by getting loose?
And was that why he wasn't feeling the heat? Had the miniaturization of his surroundings soaked up some of the heat as well as of the energy of the miniaturization field? No, that couldn't be so, for he hadn't felt much in the way of heat even before he began breaking loose.
Yet another thought struck him, making his position more desperate still. If he had broken loose from the structure at the expense of the energy of his field - if his field had been weakened - then he would have deminiaturized slightly. Was that the reason for spontaneous deminiaturization?
Boranova had talked of the possibility of such spontaneous deminiaturization. The possibility of that increased, the smaller the miniaturized object was. - And he was now small.
As long as he had been on the ship, he had been part of the overall miniaturization field of the ship. He was part of a molecule-sized object. While he was part of the cytoskeleton of the cell, he was part of an even larger object. But now he was alone, separate, part of nothing beyond himself. He was an atom-sized object.
He was much more likely, now, to deminiaturize spontaneously, except that it wouldn't be spontaneous - it would be the weakening of the field by the miniaturization of surrounding normal objects.
How could he tell if he were deminiaturizing? If he were, the process would proceed at an exponential rate. He would be deminiaturizing slowly at first, but as he grew larger he would affect a larger volume of surrounding material and he would grow larger at a faster rate, then still faster, and finally it would be an explosion and he would die.
But what did it matter if he were deminiaturizing? If he were, then, in a brief time - seconds merely, at most - he would be dead and it would happen too quickly to make any impression upon him. One moment he would be alive and the next moment there would be nothingness.
How could he ask for a better death? Why should he want to know a second earlier that it was going to happen?
Because he was alive and he was human - and wanting to know was what made an object alive and human.
How could he tell?
Morrison stared at the dim glinting around him, at the moving swell of the water molecules, turning and shifting around him in a kind of slow motion as both he and they moved along the intercellular stream.
If he were increasing in size, they should seem to be decreasing, and vice versa.
Morrison stared. They were decreasing in size, getting smaller. Was this death? Or his imagination?
Wait, were the water molecules increasing in size? Swelling? Getting larger? Ballooning? If so, it must follow that he was getting smaller.
Would he shrink to the size of a subsubatomic particle? A subelectron? Would he go streaking off at the speed of light and explode when he was halfway to the moon, dying in a vacuum before he had time to know he was in a vacuum?
No, the molecules were shrinking, not expanding - Morrison closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was going mad. Or was he beginning to experience brain damage?
Better to die, then. Better death altogether than a dead brain and living body.
Or were the water molecules pulsating? Why should they pulsate?
Think, Morrison, think. You're a scientist. Find an explanation. Why should they pulsate?
He knew why the field might weaken - its tendency to miniaturize the surroundings. Why should it strengthen?
It would have to gain energy to strengthen. From where?
What about the surrounding molecules? They had more random heat energy per volume than he had because they were at a higher temperature. Ordinarily, heat should flow from the surroundings into his suit until his suit and he himself would be at blood temperature and he would die of his own inability to rid himself of the heat he had accumulated, as he almost had on his earlier venture outside the ship.
But there was not only the heat energy intensity of his body; there was also the energy of the miniaturization field. And, as he was struck randomly by the water molecules, energy need not flow into him in the form of heat, but in the form of miniaturization activation. The field would grow more intense and he would shrink.
This must be true at all times when a miniaturized object was surrounded by normal objects of higher temperature. The energy might flow from the surroundings to the miniaturized object either as heat or as field intensity. And it must be that the smaller the object, the more intensely miniaturized, the more it was the field that gained the energy and not the object itself.
Probably the ship, too, was pulsating, growing larger and smaller constantly, but to an extent not great enough to notice. Still, that was why the Brownian motion hadn't increased as far as it might have and that was why the air-conditioning could perform its function with less strain. The miniaturization field formed a cushion in both cases.
But he - Morrison, alone in the cell - was much smaller, possessing less mass, and for him the energy inflow went far more into miniaturization than heat.
Morrison's fists clenched helplessly. He let go of the computer and didn't care. Undoubtedly, the others, Boranova and Konev certainly, knew of this and might have explained it to him. Once again they let him go into danger without warning him.
And now that he had worked it out for himself - what good did it do him?
He opened his eyes suddenly.
Yes, there were pulsations. Now that he knew what to expect, he saw them. The water molecules were expanding and contracting in an irregular rhythm as they gave up energy to the field and then extracted energy from it. I
Morrison watched it with a stupefied swaying rhythm and he found himself muttering soundlessly: "Larger, smaller, larger, smaller, larger, smaller."
It could only get so large, he thought. The expansion mirrored his own contraction and there was only so much energy to be pushed into him to power that contraction. The cellular contents had a temperature only so high. On the other hand, they could take large quantities of energy from him, and once they took enough, what was left would go more and more quickly, and he would explode.
Therefore, when the water molecules expanded in size (and he himself was growing smaller) he was safe. He would not grow very small. When the water molecules contracted in size, however (and he himself was growing larger), he was not safe. If the water molecules continued to contract until they were too small to see that meant he would be expanding toward instantaneous explosion.
"Larger, smaller - smaller - stop contracting!"
Morrison let his breath go, for the molecules were expanding again.
Over and over! Each time - would the contraction stop?
It seemed to be playing with him and it didn't matter anyway. No matter if it brought him to the brink of destruction, then snatched him away, and if it did it a million times over, it wouldn't matter. Sooner or later, his air would be gone and he would die a slow, suffocating death.
Better a quick death, surely.
69.
Kaliinin was screaming. She was the first to realize what had happened and she choked on her words.
"He's gone! He's gone!" she shrieked.
Boranova was unable to stop herself from asking the obvious question. "Who's gone?"
Kaliinin turned wide eyes on her and said, "Who's gone? How can you ask who's gone? Albert is gone."
Boranova stared blankly out at the spot where Morrison had been and now wasn't. "What happened?"
Dezhnev muttered hoarsely, "I'm not sure. We cut a corner closely. Albert, attached to the outside of the ship, introduced an asymmetry, perhaps. I tried to steer the ship away from - from whatever it was, but it didn't respond properly."
"A fixed macromolecular organelle," said Konev, who looked up now after having buried his face in his hands, "scraped him off. We've got to get back to him. He may have the information we need."
Boranova by now clearly understood the situation. She unclasped herself with a quick movement and stood up. "Information?" she said tightly. "Is that what you feel the loss of, Yuri? Information? Do you know what's going to happen now? Albert's miniaturization field is isolated and he's only atom-sized. The chance of his undergoing spontaneous deminiaturization is at least fifty times ours. Given enough time, the chance will become too good. Information or not, we must get him. If he deminiaturizes, he will kill Shapirov and he will kill us."
Konev said, "We're just arguing motivation. We both want him back. The reasons why are secondary."
"We should never have sent him out," said Kaliinin. "I knew it was wrong to do so."
"It is done," said Boranova gruffly, "and we must proceed from that point. Arkady!"
"I'm trying," said Dezhnev. "Don't teach a drunkard to hiccup."
"I'm not trying to teach you anything, old fool. I'm ordering you. Turn around. Back! Back!"
"No," said Dezhnev. "Let this old fool tell you that's ridiculous. Do you want me to make a U-turn and buck the current? You want me to try to force my way upstream?"
Boranova said, "If you just stand still, the stream will bring him to us."
"He is adhering to something. He will not be brought to us," said Dezhnev. "What we must do is turn to the other side of the dendrite and let the return stream carry us back."
Boranova put both hands to her head and said, "I apologize for calling you an old fool, Arkady, but if we go back by the counterstream we'll miss him."
"We have no choice," said Dezhnev. "We lack the energy to try to make our way against the stream we're in."
Konev said, sounding a bit weary but reasonable, "Let Arkady do as he wishes, Natalya. We will not lose Albert."
"How can you know that, Yuri?"
"Because I can hear him. - Or, rather, sense him. - Or, rather, sense Shapirov's thoughts by way of his instrument, bare and uninsulated in the cell."
There was a momentary silence. Boranova, clearly astonished, said, "Are you getting something?"
"Of course. In that direction," said Konev, pointing.
"You can tell the direction?" said Boranova. "How?"
"I'm not sure how. I just feel. It's in that direction!"
Boranova said, "Arkady, do as you were planning."
"I am doing it regardless of what you say, Natasha. You may be captain, but I am navigator with death staring me in the face. What have I to lose? As my old father would say: 'If you are dangling from a rope over an abyss, don't bother snatching at a coin that falls out of your pocket.' - It would be better if I had a real steering mechanism than this system of trying to maneuver three off-center engines."
Boranova had stopped listening. She peered into the darkness uselessly and said, "What is it you hear, Yuri? Shapirov's thoughts tell us - what?"
"Nothing at the moment. It is just noise. Anguish."
Kaliinin muttered, as though to herself, "Do you suppose part of Shapirov's mind knows he's in a coma? Do you suppose part of his mind feels trapped and is clamoring to get out? Like Albert - trapped? Like we ourselves - trapped?"
Boranova said sharply, "We are not trapped, Sophia. We can move. We will find Albert. We will get out of this body. Do you understand, Sophia?" She reached for the other woman's shoulders, her fingers digging deeply.
Kaliinin winced. "Please. I understand."
Boranova turned to Konev. "Is that all you get? Anguish?"
"But strongly." Then, curiously, staring at Boranova, "Do you sense nothing?"
"Nothing at all."
"But it is so strong. Stronger than anything I felt when Albert was in the ship. It was right for him to move outside."
"But can't you make out any actual thoughts? Words?"
"Perhaps I am too far. Perhaps Albert hasn't got his machine properly focused. And you really sense nothing?"
Boranova shook her head decisively and glanced briefly at Kalimin, who said in a low voice (rubbing one shoulder), "I sense nothing, either."
And from Dezhnev came a discontented, "I never get any of these mysterious messages."
"You got 'Hawking.' Albert suggested there might be different brain types as there are different blood types and that he and I might be of the same type. He may be right," said Konev.
Boranova said, "From what direction does the sensation come now?"
"From there." This time Konev pointed much closer to the fore end of the ship. He said, "You are turning, arent you, Arkady?"
"I am," said Dezhnev, "and I'm now fairly close to the doldrums between the two streams. I am planning to edge only slightly into the counterstream so that we head back, but not too quickly."
"Good," said Boranova. "We don't want to miss him. - Yuri, can you judge the intensity? Is it getting stronger?"
"Yes, it is." Konev seemed a bit surprised, as though he had not noticed the rise in intensity until Boranova had mentioned it.
"Is it imagination, do you think?"
"It might be," said Konev. "We haven't really gotten any closer to him. We're just making a turn. It's almost as if he's approaching us."
"Perhaps he's washed off whatever he adhered to or forced himself loose. In that case, the current would carry him to us, if we're forcing a turn and staying essentially in the same place."
"Perhaps."
"Yuri," said Boranova vehemently, "you just concentrate on the sensation. Keep Arkady aware at all times of the direction from which it comes, which means you will have to be pointing toward Albert steadily. - Arkady, as you get closer to Albert, you will have to turn toward the original stream again and get into it as close to his position as possible. Then once we're moving together, it will be easy to drift closer by use of our motors."
"Easy for one who's not controlling the motors," growled Dezhnev.
"Easy or difficult," said Boranova, her formidable eyebrows hunching low, "do it. If not - No, there is no 'If not.' Do it."
Dezhnev's lips moved, but no sound came and silence fell upon the ship - except for the unheard flood of sensation that entered Konev's mind but left the other minds empty.
Konev remained standing, facing in the direction from which it seemed to him the sensation was coming. He muttered once, "Definitely stronger." Then, after several moments, "It seems to me I can almost sense words. Maybe, if he comes close enough -"
His expression grew even more strained, as though it were trying to force the sensation, to cram it into his mind, while taking the noise apart and separating it into words. His finger kept pointing rigidly and he said finally, "Arkady, begin curving back into the doldrums and be ready to plunge into the original stream. - Quickly. Don't let him pass us."
"As quickly as the motors will let me," said Dezhnev. Then, in a lower voice, "If I could maneuver this ship by the same magic with which the rest of you hear voices -"
"Head straight for the membrane," said Konev, ignoring the remark.
It was Kaliinin who saw the spark of light first. "There he is!" she cried out. "That's the light of his suit."
"I don't have to see it," said Konev to Boranova. "The noise is like a volcanic eruption in Kamchatka."
"Still noise, Yuri? No words?"
"Fright," said Konev, "incoherent fright."
Boranova said, "If I were aware in any way of being trapped in a comatose body, it would be precisely how I would feel. - But how has he come to realize it now? Earlier we did make out words and even quiet and peaceful images."
Dezhnev said, panting a little in the excitement of the chase, which had him unconsciously holding his breath, "It may be something we've done with this ship. We've stirred up his brain."
"We're too small," said Konev with contempt. "We can't even stir up this one cell noticeably."
"We're coming up to Albert," said Dezhnev.
"Sophia," said Boranova, "can you detect his electrical pattern?"
"Faintly, Natalya."
"Well, throw everything you've got into something complementary that will attract him tightly."
"He seems a little large. Natalva."
"He's oscillating, I'm sure," said Boranova grimly. "Once you attach him to the ship, he'll become part of our general miniaturization field and his size will adjust. Quickly, Sophia."
There was a slight bump as Morrison was electronically pulled against the side of the ship.