Unknown

FANTASTIC VOYAGE II -- DESTINATION BRAIN

by Isaac Asimov

v1.0 (10-Aug-1999)

If you find and correct errors in the text, please update the version number by 0.1 and redistribute.

CHAPTER 1 -- NEEDED

He who is needed must learn to endure flattery.

-- Dezhnev Senior

"Pardon me. Do you speak Russian?" said the low voice, definitely contralto, in his ear.

Albert Jonas Morrison stiffened in his seat. The room was darkened and the computer screen on the platform was displaying its graphics with an insistence that had been lost on him.

He must have been more than half-asleep. There had definitely been a man on his right when he sat down. When had that man changed into a woman? Or risen and been replaced?

Morrison cleared his throat and said, "Did you say something, ma'am?" He couldn't make her out clearly in the dim room and the flashing light from the computer screen obscured rather than revealed. He made out dark hair, straight, hugging the skull, covering the ears -- no artifice.

She said, "I asked if you spoke Russian."

"Yes, I do. Why do you want to know?"

"Because that would make it easier. My English sometimes fails me. Are you Dr. Morrison? A. J. Morrison? I'm not certain in this darkness. Forgive me if I have made a mistake."

"I am A. J. Morrison. Do I know you?"

"No, but I know you." Her hand reached out, touching the sleeve of his jacket lightly. "I need you badly. Are you listening to this talk? You did not seem to be."

They were both whispering, of course.

Morrison looked about involuntarily. The room was sparsely filled and no one was sitting very close. His whisper grew lower just the same. "And if I'm not? What then?" (He was curious -- if only out of boredom. The talk had put him to sleep.)

She said, "Will you come with me now? I am Natalya Boranova."

"Come with you where, Ms. Boranova?"

"To the coffee shop -- so that we may talk. It is terribly important."

That was the way it began. It didn't matter, Morrison decided afterward, that he had been in that particular room -- that he had not been alert -- that he had been intrigued enough, flattered enough to be willing to go with a woman who said she needed him.

She would, after all, have found him wherever he had been and would have seized upon him and would have made him listen. It might not have been quite so easy under other circumstances, but it would all have gone as it did. He was certain.

There would have been no escape.

He was looking at her in normal light now, and she was less young than he had thought. Thirty-six? Forty, perhaps?

Dark hair. No gray. Pronounced features. Heavy eyebrows. Strong jaws. Pleasant nose. Sturdy body, but not fat. Almost as tall as he was, even though she was wearing flat heels. On the whole, a woman who was attractive without being beautiful. The kind of woman, he decided, one could get used to.

He sighed, for he was facing the mirror and he saw himself there. Sandy hair, thinning. Blue eyes, faded. Thin face, thin body, stringy. Beaky nose, nice smile. He hoped it was a nice smile. But no, not a face you would want to get used to. Brenda had gotten entirely unused to it in a little over ten years, and his fortieth birthday would be five days past the fifth anniversary of the day his divorce had been made final and official.

The waitress brought the coffee. They had been sitting there, not talking but appraising each other. Morrison finally felt he had to say something.

"No vodka?" he said in an attempt at lightness.

She smiled and looked somehow even more Russian when she did so. "No Coca-Cola?"

"If that's an American habit, Coca-Cola is at least cheaper."

"For good reason."

Morrison laughed. "Are you this quick in Russian?"

"Let us see if I am. Let's talk Russian."

"We'll sound like a couple of spies."

Her last sentence had been in Russian. So had Morrison's reply. The change of language made no difference to him. He could speak and understand it as easily as English. That had to be so. If an American wished to be a scientist and keep up with the literature, he had to be able to handle Russian, almost as much as a Russian scientist had to be able to handle English.

This woman, Natalya Boranova, for instance, despite her pretence that she was not at home in English, spoke it readily and with only a faint accent, Morrison noticed.

She said, "Why will we sound like spies? There are hundreds of thousands of Americans speaking English in the Soviet Union and hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens speaking Russian in the United States. These are not the bad old days."

"That's true. I was joking. But in that case, why do you want to speak Russian?"

"This is your country and that gives you a psychological advantage, does it not, Dr. Morrison? If we speak my language, it will balance the scales a bit."

Morrison sipped at his coffee. "As you wish."

"Tell me, Dr. Morrison. Do you know me?"

"No. I have never met you before."

"And my name? Natalya Boranova? Have you heard of me?"

"Forgive me. If you were in my field, I would have heard of you. Since I have not, I assume you are not in my field. Should I know you?"

"It might have helped, but we'll let it go. I know you, however. In fact, I know a great deal about you. When and where you were born. Your schooling. The fact that you are divorced and that you have two daughters that live with your ex-wife. I know about your university position and the research you do."

Morrison shrugged. "None of that would be hard to find out in our computer-ridden society. Should I be flattered or annoyed?"

"Why either?"

"It depends on whether you tell me that I am famous in the Soviet Union, which would be flattering, or that I have been the target of an investigation, which might be annoying."

"I have no intention of being anything but honest with you. I have investigated you -- for reasons that are important to me."

Morrison said coldly, "What reasons?"

"To begin with, you are a neurophysicist."

Morrison had finished his coffee and had absently signaled for a refill. Boranova's cup was half-empty, but she had apparently lost interest in it.

"There are other neurophysicists," Morrison said.

"None like you."

"Clearly you are trying to flatter me. That can only be because you don't know anything about me after all. Not the crucial things."

"That you are not successful? That your methods of brain wave analysis are not generally accepted in the field?"

"But if you know that, then why are you after me?"

"Because we have a neurophysicist in our country who knows your work, and he thinks it is brilliant. You have rather jumped into the unknown, he says, and you may be wrong -- but if you are, you are brilliantly wrong."

"Brilliantly wrong? How is that different from wrong?"

"It is his view that it is impossible to be brilliantly wrong without being not altogether wrong. Even if you are in some ways wrong, much of what you maintain will prove useful -- and you may be entirely right."

"What is the name of this paragon who has this view of me? I'll mention him with favor in my next paper."

"He is Pyotor Leonovich Shapirov. Do you know him?"

Morrison sat back in his chair. He had not expected this. "Know him?" he said. "I've met him. Pete Shapiro I called him. Our people here in the United States think he's as crazy as I am. If it turns out that he's backing me, that's just one more nail in my coffin. -- Listen, tell Pete I appreciate his faith in me, but if he really wants to help me, please ask him not to tell anyone he's on my side."

Boranova looked at him disapprovingly. "You are not a very serious man. Is everything a joke to you?"

"No. Just me. I'm the joke. I've got something really great and I can't convince anyone of it. Except Pete -- I've now found out -- and he doesn't count. I can't even get my papers published these days."

"Then come to the Soviet Union. We can use you -- and your ideas."

"No no. I'm not emigrating."

"Who said emigrate? If you wish to be an American, be an American. But you have visited the Soviet Union in the past and you can visit it once again and stay a while. Then return to your own country."

"Why?"

"You have crazy ideas and we have crazy ideas. Perhaps yours can help ours."

"What crazy ideas? I mean, yours. I know what mine are."

"It's not something to discuss until I know if you are perhaps willing to help us."

Morrison, still sitting back in his chair, was vaguely aware of the buzz about him, of people drinking, eating, talking -- most of them from the conference, he was sure. He stared at this intense Russian woman who admitted to crazy ideas and wondered what kind of--

He stiffened and cried out, "Boranova! I have heard of you. Of course. Pete Shapiro mentioned you. You're --"

In his excitement he was speaking English and her hand came down on his, her nails pressing hard against his skin.

He choked it off and she removed her hand, saying, "Sorry. I did not mean to hurt you."

He stared at the marks on his hand, one of which, he decided, was going to be slightly bruised. He said quietly in Russian, "You're the Miniaturizer."

Boranova looked at him with an easy calm. "Perhaps a little walk and a bench by the river. The weather is beautiful."

Morrison held his lightly damaged hand in the other. There had been a few, he thought, who had looked in his direction when he had cried out in English, but none seemed to show any interest now. He shook his head. "I think not. I should be attending the conference."

Boranova smiled as though he had agreed that the weather was beautiful. "I don't think so. I think you'll find a seat by the river more interesting."

For one flashing moment, Morrison thought her smile might be intended to be seductive. Surely she wasn't implying --

He abandoned the thought almost before he had put it clearly to himself. That sort of thing was pass‚ even on holovision: "Beautiful Russian Spy Uses Sinuous Body to Dazzle Naive American."

To begin with, she wasn't beautiful and her body wasn't sinuous. Nor did she look as though anything of that nature could possibly be on her mind and he himself, after all, wasn't that naive -- or even interested.

Yet he found himself accompanying her across the campus and toward the river.

They walked slowly -- sauntered -- and she talked cheerfully about her husband Nikolai and her son Aleksandr, who was going to school and was, for some strange reason, interested in biology, even though his mother was a thermodynamicist. What's more, Aleksandr was a dreadful chess player, much to his father's disappointment, but he showed signs of promise on the violin.

Morrison did not listen. He occupied himself, instead, in trying to recall what he had heard about the Soviet interest in miniaturization and what possible connection there might be between that and his own work.

She pointed to a bench. "This one looks reasonably clean."

They sat down. Morrison stared over the river, watching, with eyes that did not really absorb it, the line of cars filing along the highway on their side and the parallel line on the highway on the other side -- while sculls, looking like centipedes, plied the river itself.

He remained silent and Boranova, staring at him thoughtfully, finally said, "You do not find this interesting?"

"Find what interesting?"

"My suggestion that you come to the Soviet Union."

"No!" He said it curtly.

"But why not? Since your American colleagues do not accept your ideas, and since you are depressed over this and are seeking a way out of the dead end at which you have arrived, why not come to us?"

"Given your investigations into my life, I am sure you know that my ideas are not accepted, but how can you possibly be sure that I am all that depressed over it?"

"Any sane man would be depressed. And one has only to talk to you to be certain."

"Do you accept my ideas?"

"I? I am not in your field. I know nothing -- or very little -- about the nervous system."

"I suppose you simply accept Shapirov's estimate of my ideas."

"Yes. And even if I did not -- desperate problems may require desperate remedies. What harm, then, if we try your ideas as a remedy? It will certainly leave us no worse off."

"So you have my ideas. They have been published."

She gazed at him steadily. "Somehow we don't think all your ideas have been published. That is why we want you."

Morrison laughed without humor. "What good can I possibly do you in connection with miniaturization? I know less about miniaturization than you do about the brain. Far less."

"Do you know anything at all about miniaturization?"

"Only two things. That the Soviets are known to be investigating it -- and that it is impossible."

Boranova stared thoughtfully at the river. "Impossible? What if I told you we had accomplished the task?"

"I would as soon believe you if you told me polar bears fly."

"Why should I lie to you?"

"I point out the fact. I'm not concerned about the motivation."

"Why are you so certain miniaturization is impossible?"

"If you reduce a man to the dimensions of a fly, then all the mass of a man would be crowded into the volume of a fly. You'd end up with a density of something like --" he paused to think -- "a hundred and fifty thousand times that of platinum."

"But what if the mass were reduced in proportion?"

"Then you end up with one atom in the miniaturized man for every three million in the original. The miniaturized man would not only have the size of a fly but the brainpower of a fly as well."

"And if the atoms are reduced, too?"

"If it is miniaturized atoms you are speaking of, then Planck's constant, which is an absolutely fundamental quantity in our Universe, forbids it. Miniaturized atoms would be too small to fit into the graininess of the Universe."

"And if I told you that Planck's constant was reduced as well, so that a miniaturized man would be encased in a field in which the graininess of the Universe was incredibly finer than it is under normal conditions?"

"Then I wouldn't believe you."

"Without examining the matter? You would refuse to believe it as a result of preconceived convictions, as your colleagues refuse to believe you?"

And at this, Morrison was, for a moment, silent.

"Not the same," he mumbled at last.

"Not the same?" Again she stared thoughtfully out over the river. "In what way not the same?"

"My colleagues think I'm wrong. My ideas are not theoretically impossible in their opinion -- only wrong."

"While miniaturization is impossible?"

"Yes."

"Then come and see. If it turns out that miniaturization is impossible, just as you say, then you'll at least have a month in the Soviet Union as a guest of the Soviet Government. All expenses will be paid. If there's a friend you would like to bring with you, bring her, too. Or him."

Morrison shook his head. "No thanks. I'd rather not. Even if miniaturization were possible, it is not my field. It would not help me or be of interest to me."

"How do you know? What if miniaturization gave you the opportunity to study neurophysics as you have never studied it before -- as no one has ever studied it before? And what if, in doing so, you might be able to help us? That would be our stake in it."

"How can you offer me a new way of studying neurophysics?"

"But, Dr. Morrison, I thought that was what we were talking about. You cannot really prove your theories because you cannot study single nerve cells in sufficient detail without damaging them. But what if we make a neuron as large as the Kremlin for you -- or even larger -- so that you can study it a molecule at a time?"

"You mean you can reverse miniaturization and make a neuron as large as you wish."

"No, we can't do that, as yet, but we can make you as small as we wish and that would amount to the same thing, wouldn't it?"

Morrison rose, staring at her.

"No," he said in half a whisper. "Are you insane? Do you think I am insane? Good-bye! Good-bye!"

He turned and strode away rapidly.

She called after him. "Dr. Morrison. Listen to me."

He made a sweeping gesture of rejection with his right arm and broke into a run across the drive, narrowly dodging the cars.

Then he was back into the hotel, puffing, almost dancing with impatience as he waited for the elevator.

Madwoman! he thought. She wanted to miniaturize him, attempt this impossibility on him. -- Or attempt the possibility of it on him, which would be infinitely worse.

Morrison was still shaking when he stood at the door of his hotel room, holding the plastic rectangle of his key, breathing hard, and wondering if she knew his room number. She could find out, of course, if she were sufficiently determined. He looked down the length of the corridor each way, half-afraid he might see her running toward him, face contorted, hair flying, hands outstretched.

He shook his head. This was madness. What could she do to him? She could not carry him off bodily. She could not force him to do anything he didn't want to do. What childish terror was overcoming him?

Morrison took a deep breath and thrust his key into the door slit. He felt the small click as the key seated itself, then he withdrew it and the door swung open.

The man sitting in the wicker armchair at the window smiled at him and said, "Come in."

Morrison stared at him in astonishment, then twisted his head to look at the room number.

"No no. It's your room, all right. Do come in and close the door behind you."

Morrison followed orders, staring at the man in silent astonishment.

He was a comfortably plump man, not quite fat, filling the chair from arm to arm. He wore a thin seersucker jacket and under it was a shirt so white that it seemed to glisten. He was not yet what one might call bald, but he was clearly on the way and what remained of his brown hair was crisply curly. He did not wear glasses, but his eyes were small and had a nearsighted look about them, which might be misleading -- or which perhaps meant he wore contacts.

He said, "You came back running, didn't you? I watched you --" he pointed out the window -- "sitting on the bench, then get up and come toward the hotel at the double. I was hoping you would come up to your hotel room. I didn't want to sit up here all day waiting for you."

"You were here in order to watch me from the window?"

"No, not at all. That was just an accident. You just happened to walk out with the lady to that bench. Convenient, but not really foreseen. It's all right, though. If I hadn't had the view from the window, there were others watching."

By that time Morrison had caught his breath and his mind had steadied itself to the point where he asked the question that should have had pride of place in the conversation. "Who are you, anyway?"

In response the man, smiling, took a small wallet from his inner jacket pocket and let it flip open. He said, "Signature, hologram, fingerprint, voiceprint."

Morrison looked from the hologram to the smiling face. The hologram was smiling, too. He said, "All right, so you're security. It still doesn't give you the right to break into my private quarters. I'm available. You could have called me from the lobby or knocked at my door."

"Strictly speaking, you're right, of course. But I thought it best to meet you as discreetly as possible. Besides, I presumed on old acquaintance."

"What old acquaintance?"

"Two years ago. Don't you remember? An international conference in Miami? You were presenting a paper and had a hard time of it --"

"I remember the occasion. I remember the paper. It's you I don't remember."

"That's not surprising, perhaps. I met you afterward. I asked you questions, and we actually had a few drinks together."

"I don't consider that old acquaintance. -- Francis Rodano?"

"That's my name, yes. You even pronounced it correctly. Accent on the second syllable. Broad a. Subliminal memory, obviously."

"No, I don't remember you. The name was on your identification. -- I'd rather you left."

"I would like to talk to you in my official capacity."

"Apparently everyone wants to talk to me. What about?"

"Your work."

"Are you a neurophysicist?"

"You must know I'm not. Slavic languages was my major. I minored in economics."

"Then what can we talk about? I'm good at Russian, but you're probably better. And I know nothing about economics."

"We can talk about your work. As we did two years ago. -- Look, why don't you sit down? It's your room and I won't really take long. If you want the chair I'm sitting on, I'll be glad to give it to you."

Morrison sat down at the side of the bed. "Let's get this over with. What do you want to know about my work?"

"The same thing I wanted to know two years ago. Is there anything to your notion that there's a specific structure in your brain that's specifically responsible for creative thought?"

"Not quite a structure. It's not something you can cut out in the ordinary way. It's a neuronic network. Yes, I think there's something to that. Obviously. The catch is that no one else thinks so because they can't locate it and have no evidence for it."

"Have you located it?"

"No. I reason backward from results and from my analysis of brain waves and I don't seem to be convincing. My analyses are not -- orthodox." He added bitterly, "Orthodoxy in this field has gotten them nowhere, but they won't let me be unorthodox."

"I am told that you use mathematical techniques in your electroencephalographic analyses that are not only unorthodox, but are flat wrong. To be unorthodox is one thing; to be wrong is quite another."

"The only reason they say I am wrong is that I cannot prove that I am right. The only reason I cannot prove that I am right is that I can't study an isolated brain neuron in sufficient detail."

"Have you tried to study them? If you work with a living human brain, don't you leave yourself open to severe lawsuits or to criminal trial?"

"Of course. I'm not mad. I've worked with animals. I have to."

"You told me all this two years ago. I take it, then, you have made no startling discoveries in the last two years."

"None. But I'm convinced I'm right just the same."

"Your being convinced doesn't matter if you can't convince anyone else. But now I have to ask you another question. Have you done something in the last two years that has managed to convince the Soviets?"

"The Soviets?"

"Yes. What is this attitude of surprise, Dr. Morrison? Haven't you spent an hour or two in conversation with Dr. Boranova? Isn't she the one whom you just left in a great hurry?"

"Dr. Boranova?" Morrison, in his confusion, could think of nothing better to do than play the parrot.

Rodano's face lost none of its pleasantness. "Exactly. We know her well. We keep half an eye on her whenever she is in the United States."

"You make it sound like the bad old days," mumbled Morrison.

Rodano shrugged. "No, not at all. There is no danger of nuclear war now. We are polite to each other, the Soviet Union and we. We cooperate in space. We have a cooperative mining station on the moon and freedom of entry into each other's space settlements. That makes these the good new days. But, Doctor, some things don't change entirely. We keep an eye on our polite companions, the Soviets, just to make sure they stay virtuous. Why not? They keep an eye on us."

Morrison said, "You keep an eye on me, too, it would seem."

"But you were with Dr. Boranova. We couldn't help seeing you."

"That won't happen again, I assure you. I have no intention of ever being in her vicinity again if I can help it. She's a madwoman."

"Do you mean that literally?"

"Take my word for it. -- Look, nothing of what she and I talked about is secret as far as I'm concerned. What she said I feel free to repeat. She's involved in some miniaturization project."

"We've heard of it," said Rodano easily. "They have a special town in the Urals devoted to miniaturization experiments."

"Are they getting anywhere as far as you know?"

"We wonder."

"She's tried to tell me they are, that they've succeeded in producing actual miniaturization."

Rodano said nothing.

Morrison, who had waited a moment to let him speak, then said, "But that's impossible, I tell you. Scientifically impossible. You must realize that, Or, since your field of expertise is Slavic languages and economics, take my word for it. "

"I don't have to, my friend. There are many others who say it is impossible and yet, nevertheless, we wonder. The Soviets are free to play with miniaturization if they please, but we don't actually want them to have it unless we do also. After all, we don't know to what uses it might be put."

"To none! To none!" said Morrison fiercely. "There's no point in worrying about it. If our government really doesn't want the Soviet Union to get too far ahead in technology, it should encourage this miniaturization madness. Let the Soviets spend money on it -- and time and material -- and concentrate every atom of their scientific expertise on it. Everything will be wasted."

"And yet," said Rodano. "I don't think Dr. Boranova is mad or a fool, any more than I think that you are mad or a fool. -- Do you know what I was thinking as I watched the two of you in so intent a conversation on the park bench? It seemed to me that she wanted your help. Perhaps she thought that with your theories on neurophysics you could somehow help the Soviet push for miniaturization. Their peculiar theories and your peculiar theories might add up to something that is not at all peculiar. Or so I think."

Morrison's lips tightened. "I told you I have no secrets to keep, so I'm telling you that you're right. Just as you say, she wants me to go to the Soviet Union and help out in their miniaturization project. I won't ask how you know that, but I don't think it's just an idle guess and don't try to persuade me it is."

Rodano smiled and Morrison went on. "In any case, I said no. I refused absolutely. I stood up and left at once -- and in a hurry. You saw me hurry. That's the truth. I would have reported it if you had given me time to do so. And I'm reporting it now, as a matter of fact, to you. Nor is there any reason for you not to believe me because why, under any circumstances, would I take any part in a project that has absolutely no sense to it. Even if I wanted to work against my country, which I don't, I'm enough of a physicist not to try to do so by involving myself in anything as insane as working on a project without hope. They might as well be working on a perpetual motion machine, or antigravity, or faster-than-light travel, or --" He was perspiring freely.

And Rodano said gently, "Please, Dr. Morrison, no one doubts your loyalty. Certainly I don't. I'm not here because I am perturbed at your having had a discussion with the Russian woman. I am here because we had reason to think she might approach you and we feared you would not listen to her."

"What?"

"Now understand me, Dr. Morrison. Please understand. We would suggest -- in fact, we would very much want -- to have you go with Dr. Boranova to the Soviet Union."

Morrison stared at Rodano, face pale, lower lip quivering slightly. He brushed at his hair with his right hand and said, "Why do you want me to go to the Soviet Union?"

"Not I, personally. The United States Government wants it."

"Why?"

"For the obvious reason. If the Soviet Union is engaged in miniaturization experiments, we would like to know as much about them as possible."

"You've got Madame Boranova. She must know a great deal. Grab her and beat it out of her."

Rodano sighed and said, "I know you're joking. We can't do that these days. You know that. The Soviet Union would retaliate at once in the most unpleasant ways and world opinion would be with them. So let's not waste time with jokes like that."

"All right. Granted, we can't do anything crude. I presume we have agents attempting to dig out the details."

"The operative word, Doctor, is attempting. We have our agents in the Soviet Union, to say nothing of sophisticated espionage equipment both Earthside and in space, just as they have agents here. But if they and we are very good at poking around quietly, we're also very good at keeping things secret. If anything, the Soviet Union is better at it than we are. Even though these are not what you call the bad old days, the Soviet Union is still not quite an open society in our sense and they've had more than a century of practice in keeping things under the rug."

"Then what do you expect me to do?"

"You're different. The usual agent is sent into the Soviet Union or into some region in which the Soviet Union is operating under some cover which might possibly be penetrated. He -- or she -- must insinuate himself into a place where he is not really welcome and manage to elicit information that is secret. This isn't easy. He -- or she -- usually does not succeed and he -- or she -- is sometimes caught, which is always unpleasant all around. In your case, though, they're asking for you; they behave as though they need you. They will place you in the very midst of their secret installations. What an opportunity you will have."

"But they've just asked me to go in these last two hours. How do you know so much about it?"

"They've been interested in you for quite a while now. One of the reasons I made it my business to talk to you two years ago was because they seemed interested in you even at that time and we were wondering why that should be. So when they made their move, we were ready."

Morrison's fingers drummed on the arm of the chair, his nails making a rhythmic clicking noise. "Let me get this straight. I'm to agree to go with Natalya Boranova to the Soviet Union, presumably to the region where they are supposedly working on miniaturization. I am to pretend to help them --"

"You needn't pretend," said Rodano comfortably. "Help them if you can, especially if that means you get to know the process better."

"All right, help them. And then give you what information I have when I return."

"Exactly."

"What if there is no information? What if the whole thing is one gigantic bluff or if they're only kidding themselves? What if they're following some Lysenko type down into an empty hole?"

"Then tell us that. We would love to know that -- if it's a matter of knowing and not just thinking. After all, the Soviets, we are pretty certain, are under the impression that we are making progress on the matter of antigravity. Maybe we are and maybe we're not. They don't know for certain and we're not about to let them find out. Since we're not asking any Soviet scientist to come and help us, we're not giving them an easy entry. For that matter, there's some talk the Chinese are working on faster-than-light travel. Oddly enough, those are two items you mentioned as being theoretically impossible. I haven't heard that anyone's working on perpetual motion, however."

"These are ridiculous games the nations are playing," said Morrison. "Why don't they cooperate in these matters? We might as well be in the bad old days."

"Not quite. But being in the good new days does not mean we're in heaven. There is still residual suspicion and there are still attempts to take a giant step forward before someone else does. Maybe it's even a good thing. If we're driven by selfish motives of aggrandizement, as long as that doesn't lead to war, we may make more rapid progress. To stop trying to steal a march on neighbors and friends might reduce us to indolence and decay."

"So if I go and am eventually in a position to assure you, authoritatively, that the Soviets are drilling a dry hole or that they are indeed making progress of such and such a nature, then I will be helping not only the United States, but the whole world, to remain vigorous and progressiveeven including the Soviet Union."

Rodano nodded. "That's a good way to look at it."

Morrison said, "I have to give you people credit. You're clever con artists. However, I don't fall for it. I favor cooperation among nations and I'm not going to play these dangerous twentieth-century games in the rational twenty-first. I told Dr. Boranova I wasn't going and I'm telling you I'm not going."

"Do you understand that it is your government that is asking this of you."

"I understand that you are asking me and I'm refusing you. But if it happens that you actually represent the government's views in this, then I am prepared to refuse the government as well."

Morrison sat there, flushed, chin up. His heart was beating rapidly and he felt heroic.

Nothing can make me change my mind, he thought. What can they do? Throw me in jail? What for? They have to have a charge.

He waited for anger from the other. For a threat.

Rodano merely looked at him with an expression of quiet bemusement.

"Why do you refuse, Dr. Morrison?" he asked. "Have you no feelings of patriotism?"

"Patriotism, yes. Insanity, no."

"Why insanity?"

"Do you know what they plan to do with me?"

"Tell me."

"They intend to miniaturize me and place me in a human body to investigate the neurophysical state of a brain cell from the inside."

"Why should they want you to do that?"

"They imply it's to help me with my research, which they claim will also help them, but I certainly don't intend to submit to such an experiment."

Rodano scratched lightly at his fluffy hair, put it into a mild disarray, and quickly flattened it again as though anxious not to show too much pink skin.

He said, "You can't possibly be concerned over this. You tell me that miniaturization is flatly impossible -- in which case, they can't miniaturize you whatever their intentions or desires."

"They'll perform some sort of experiment on me. They say they have miniaturization, which means they are either liars or mad, and in either case I won't have them playing games with me -- either to do them pleasure, or to do you pleasure, or to do the whole American government pleasure."

"They're not mad," said Rodano, "and whatever their intentions, they know very well we'd hold them responsible for the well-being of an American citizen invited by them to their country."

"Thank you! Thank you! How would you hold them responsible? Send them a stiff note? Hold one of their citizens in reprisal? Besides, who says they'll execute me publicly in Red Square? What if they decide they don't want me to return and talk about their work on miniaturization? They'll have what they want of me -- whatever that may be -- and they'll decide that the American government need not benefit in their turn from any knowledge I may have gained from them. So they arrange a small accident. So sorry! So sorry! And they, of course, will pay reparations to my sorrowing family and send back a flag-draped coffin. No, thank you. I'm not the type for a suicide mission."

Rodano said, "You dramatize. You'll be a guest. You will help them if you can and you needn't be ostentatious about learning things. We're not asking you to be a spy; we will be grateful for anything you may pick up more or less unavoidably. What's more, we will have people there who will keep an eye on you if they can. We intend to see to it that you get back safely --"

"If you can," interposed Morrison.

"If we can," agreed Rodano. "We can't promise you miracles. Would you believe us if we did?"

"Do what you will, this is not a job for me. I'm not that courageous. I'm not planning to become a pawn in some crazy chess game, with my life very possibly at stake, just because you -- or the government -- ask me to."

"You frighten yourself unnecessarily."

"Not so. Fright has its proper role; it keeps one cautious and alive. There's a trick to staying alive when you're someone like me; it's called cowardice. It may not be admirable to be a coward if someone has the muscles and mind of an ox, but it's no crime for a weakling to be one. I am not so great a coward, however, that I can be forced to take on a suicide role, simply because I fear revealing my weakness. I reveal it gladly. I am not brave enough for the role. Now, please leave."

Rodano sighed, half-shrugged, half-smiled, and rose slowly to his feet. "That's it, then. We can't force you to serve your country if you don't wish to."

He moved toward the door, his feet dragging a little, and then, even with his hand reaching for the doorknob, he turned and said, "Still, it upsets me a little. I'm afraid I was wrong and I hate to be wrong."

"Wrong? What did you do? Bet someone five bucks I'd jump at the chance to give my life for my country?"

"No, I thought you would jump at the chance to advance your career. After all, you're not getting anywhere as things are. Your ideas are not listened to; your papers are no longer published. Your appointment at your university is not likely to be renewed. Tenure? Forget it. Government grants? Never. Not after you have refused our request. After this year, you will have no income and no status. And yet you will not go to the Soviet Union, as I was sure you would as the one way of salvaging your career. Failing that, what will you do?"

"My problem."

"No. Our problem. The name of the game in this good new world of ours is technological advance: the prestige, the influence, the abilities that come with being able to do what other powers cannot. The game is between the two chief contestants and their respective allies; we and they, the U.S. and the S.U. For all our circumspect friendship, we still compete. The counters in the game are scientists and engineers and any disgruntled counter might conceivably be used by the other side. You are a disgruntled counter, Dr. Morrison. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I understand that you're about to be offensive."

"We have your statement that Dr. Boranova invited you to visit the Soviet Union. Did she, really? May she not have invited you to stay in the United States and work for the Soviet Union in return for support for your ideas?"

"I was right. You are offensive."

"It's my job to be so -- if I must. What if I'm right after all and you would jump at the chance of advancing your career. Only this is the way you intend to do it -- stay here and accept Soviet money or backing in return for giving them whatever information you can."

"That is wrong. You have no evidence suggesting that and you cannot prove it."

"But I can suspect it and so can others. We will then make it our business to keep you under constant surveillance. You will not be able to do science. Your professional life will be over -- entirely. -- And you can avoid all that, simply by doing as we ask and going to the Soviet Union."

Morrison's lips tightened and he said, out of a dry throat, "You're threatening me in a crude attempt at blackmail and I won't capitulate. I'll take my chances. My theories on the brain's thinking center are correct and that will someday be recognized -- whatever you or anyone does."

"You can't live on 'someday.'"

"Then I'll die. I may be a physical coward, but I'm not a moral one. Good-bye."

Rodano, with one last look, half-commiserating, left.

And Morrison, shaking in a spasm of fear and hopelessness, felt the spirit of defiance leak away, leaving nothing behind but despair.

CHAPTER 2 -- TAKEN

If asking politely is useless, take.

-- Dezhnev Senior

Then I'll die, thought Morrison.

He hadn't even bothered double-locking the door after Rodano left. He sat in the chair, lost in thought, face vacant. The westering sun slanted in through the window and he didn't bother to push the contact that would opacify the glass. He simply let it slant in. In fact, he found a distant hypnotic fascination in watching the dust motes dance.

He had fled from the Russian woman in fright, but he had stood up to the American agent, stood up with the courage of -- of despair.

And desperation -- minus the courage -- was all he felt now. What Rodano had said was, after all, true. His appointment would not be renewed for the coming year and none of the feelers he had sent out had twitched. He was poison at the academic box office and he lacked the kind of experience (or, more important, the kind of contacts) that would get him a job in the private sector, even if the quiet countervailing effort of an offended government were not taken into account.

What would he do? Go to Canada?

There was Janvier at McGill University. He had once expressed an interest in Morrison's ideas. Once! Morrison had not tried McGill, since he hadn't planned to leave the country. Now his plans were of no account. He might have to.

There was Latin America, where a dozen universities might welcome a Northerner who could speak Spanish or Portuguese -- at least after a fashion. Morrison's Spanish was poor; his Portuguese was nil.

What had he to lose? There were no family ties. Even his daughters were distant now, fading at the edges, somehow, like old photographs. He had no friends to speak of -- at least none that had survived the disasters of his research.

There was his program, of course, specially designed by himself. It had been built, in the first place, by a small firm according to his specifications. Since then he had modified it endlessly on his own. Perhaps he should patent it, except that no one but he was ever likely to use it. He would take it with him, of course, wherever he went. He had it with him now, in his left inner jacket pocket, within which it bulged like an oversize wallet.

Morrison could hear the roughness of his own breathing and he realized that he was escaping from the purposeless merry-go-round of his thoughts by falling asleep over them. How could he interest others in anything, he thought bitterly, when he bored even himself?

He was aware that the sun no longer struck his window and that a gathering twilight encompassed his room. So much the better.

He became conscious of a polite buzz. It was the room telephone, he realized, but he didn't budge. Morrison let his eyes remain closed. It was probably this man, this Rodano, calling to make a final try. Let him ring.

Sleep closed in and Morrison's head lolled to one side in so uncomfortable a position that he didn't stay asleep long.

It was perhaps fifteen minutes later that he started awake. The sky was still blue, but the twilight in his room had darkened and he thought, with some guilt, that he had missed all the papers given in the afternoon. And then, rebelliously, he thought: Good! Why should I want to hear them?

Rebellion grew. What was he doing at the convention anyway? In three days he had not heard one paper that had interested him, nor had he met anyone who could do his sinking career one bit of good. What would he do the remaining three days except try to avoid the two people he had met whom he desperately did not want to meet again -- Boranova and Rodano.

He was hungry. He hadn't had a proper lunch and it was almost dinnertime. The trouble was that he was in no mood to eat alone in the hotel's plush restaurant and in less of a mood to pay its inflated prices. The thought of waiting in line for a stool at the coffee shop was even less appetizing.

That decided everything. He'd had enough. He might as well check out and walk to the train station. (It was not a long walk and the cool evening air would, perhaps, help clear the miseries out of his mind.) It would take him little more than five minutes to pack; he'd be on his way in ten.

He went about the, task grimly. At least he would save half the hotel bill and he would get away from a place that, he was convinced, would bring him only misery if he stayed.

He was quite right, of course, but no prescient bell in his mind rang to inform him that he had already stayed too long.

After quickly checking out at the desk downstairs, Morrison stepped out of the large glass doors of the hotel, glad to be free, but still ill at ease. He had carefully investigated the lobby to make sure that neither Boranova nor Rodano was in sight and now he looked up and down the line of taxis and studied the knots of people moving in and out of the hotel.

All clear -- it seemed.

All clear, except for an angry government, nothing accomplished, and endless trouble ahead. McGill University seemed more attractive every moment -- if he could get in.

He swung down the sidewalk in the darkening evening toward the train station, which was just too far away to be in sight. He would get home, he calculated, well past midnight and he would have no chance at all of sleeping on the train. He had a book of crossword puzzles that might occupy him -- if the light were good enough. Or --

Morrison wheeled around at the sound of his name. He did this automatically, though by rights, under the conditions that prevailed, he should have hurried onward. There was no one here he wanted to speak to.

"Al! Al Morrison! Good heavens!" The voice was high-pitched and Morrison didn't recognize it.

Nor did he recognize the face. It was round, middle-aged, smooth-shaven, and decorated with steel-framed glasses. The person it belonged to was welldressed.

Morrison at once felt the usual agony of trying to remember a person who clearly remembered him and who behaved as though they were good friends. His mouth fell open with the effort of riffling through his mind's card catalog.

The other man seemed to be aware of what was troubling Morrison and it didn't seem to bother him. He said, "You don't remember me, I see. No reason you should. I'm Charlie Norbert. We met at a Gordon Research Conference -- oh, years ago. You were questioning one of the speakers on brain function and did a good job. Very incisive. So it's no wonder I remember you, you see."

"Ah yes," mumbled Morrison, trying to remember when he had last been at a Gordon Research Conference. About seven years ago, wasn't it? "That's very flattering of you."

"We had a long talk about it that evening, Dr. Morrison. I remember because I was so impressed by you. No reason for you to remember, though. There's nothing impressive about me. Listen, I came across your name on the list of attendees. Your middle name, Jonas, brought you right back. I wanted to talk to you. I called your room about half an hour ago, but there was no answer."

Norbert seemed to be aware of Morrison's suitcase for the first time and said in obvious dismay, "Are you leaving?"

"Actually, I'm trying to catch a train. Sorry."

"Please give me a few minutes. I've been reading about your -- notions."

Morrison stepped back a little. Even expressed interest in his ideas was not enough at the moment. Besides, the other's after shave lotion was strong and invaded his personal space, as did the man himself. Nothing the other said brought back any memory of him.

Morrison said, "I'm sorry, but if you've been reading about my notions, you're probably the only one. I hope you don't mind, but --"

"But I do mind." Norbert's face grew serious. "It strikes me the field isn't properly appreciative of you."

"That fact struck me a long time ago, Mr. Norbert."

"Call me Charlie. We were on a first-name basis long ago. -- You don't have to go unappreciated, you know?"

"There's no compulsion about it. I just am and that's it. Well --" Morrison turned as if to leave.

"Wait, Al. What if I told you I could get you a new job with people who are sympathetic to your way of thinking?"

Morrison paused again. "I would say you were dreaming."

"I'm not. Al, listen to me -- boy, am I glad I bumped into you -- I want to introduce you to someone. Look, we're starting a new company, Genetic Mentalics. We've got lots of money behind us and big plans. The trick is to improve the human mind by means of genetic engineering. We've been improving computers every year, so why not our personal computer as well?" He tapped his forehead earnestly. "Where is he? I left him in the car when I saw you walk out of the hotel. You know, you haven't changed much in the years since I last saw you."

Morrison was untouched by that. "Does this new company want me?"

"Of course it wants you. We want to change the mind, make it more intelligent, more creative. But what is it we change in order to accomplish that? You can tell us."

"I'm afraid I haven't gotten that far."

"We don't expect offhand answers. We simply want you to work toward it. -- Listen, whatever your salary is now, we'll double it. You just tell us your present figure and we'll go to the small trouble of multiplying it by two. Fair enough? And you'll be your own boss."

Morrison frowned. "This is the first time I've ever met Santa Claus in a business suit. Smooth-shaven, too. What's the gag?"

"No gag. -- Where is he? -- Ah, he moved the car to get it out of the line of traffic. -- Look, he's my boss, Craig Levinson. We're not doing you a favor, Al. You'll be doing us a favor. Come with me."

Morrison hesitated only momentarily. It's always darkest before the dawn. When you're down, there's no direction but up. Lightning does strike sometimes. -- He was suddenly full of old saws.

He let himself be led by the other, hanging back only slightly.

Norbert waved and called out, "I found him! This is the fellow I told you about. Al Morrison. He's the one we need."

A grave middle-aged face looked out from behind the steering wheel of a late-model automobile, whose color was something uncertain in the gathering darkness. The face smiled, teeth gleaming whitely, and the voice that belonged to it said, "Great!"

The trunk door lifted upward as they approached and Charlie Norbert took Morrison's suitcase. "Here, let me unload you." He swung it into the trunk and closed the door.

"Wait," said Morrison, rather surprised.

"Don't worry, Al. If you miss this train, there's another. If you want, we'll hire a limousine to take you home -- eventually. Get in."

"Into the car?"

"Certainly." The back door had swung open invitingly.

"Where will we be going?"

"Look," said Norbert, his voice dropping half an octave and getting much softer. "Let's not waste time. Get in."

Morrison felt something hard against his side and twisted in order to see what it was.

He felt it -- whatever it was -- push against him. Norbert's voice was a whisper now. "Let's be very quiet, Al. Let's not make a fuss."

Morrison got into the car and was suddenly very frightened. He knew that Norbert was holding a gun.

Morrison pushed himself across the back seat, wondering if he could reach the other door and get out again. Even if Norbert had a gun, would he want to use it in a hotel parking lot with a hundred people within thirty meters? After all, even if the gun were silenced, his sudden collapse would surely draw attention.

The possibility vanished quickly, however, when a third man got into the other door, a large one who grunted as he bent himself into the car and who looked at Morrison, if not malevolently, then certainly with an expression that was free of any trace of friendship.

Morrison found himself squeezed between a man on either side and was incapable of stirring. The car moved forward smoothly and picked up speed once it moved onto the highway.

Morrison said in a choked voice, "What is this all about? Where are we going? What are you going to do?"

Norbert's voice, without the falsetto and without the synthetic bonhomie, was grim. "No need to worry, Dr. Morrison. We have no intention of harming you. We just want you with us."

"I was with you back there." (He tried to point "back there," but the man on his right leaned against him and he could not free his right hand to do so.)

"But we want you to be with us -- somewhere else."

Morrison tried to sound threatening. "See here, you're kidnapping me. That's a serious offense."

"No, Dr. Morrison, let's not call it kidnapping. Let's call it being friendly in a rather forcible way."

"Whatever you call it, this is illegal. Or are you the police? If so, identify yourself and tell me what I've done and what this is all about."

"We are not charging you with anything. I told you. We just want you with us. I'd advise you to keep quiet, Doctor, and remain calm. It will be better for you."

"I can't remain calm if I don't know what's going on."

"Force yourself," said Norbert unsympathetically.

Morrison couldn't think of anything further to say that would help matters and, without actually becoming calm, fell silent.

The stars were out now. The night was as clear as the day had been. The automobile moved through traffic consisting of a thousand cars, each of which had someone behind the wheel who was going quietly about his or her ordinary business without any awareness that in a nearby car a crime was being committed.

Morrison's heart continued working overtime and his lips trembled. He couldn't help but be nervous. They said they meant him no harm, but how far could he trust them? So far, everything that this man on his left had told him had been a lie.

He tried to be calm, but to what organ of his body did he speak in order to achieve calmness? He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe deeply and slowly -- and to think rationally. He was a scientist. He had to think rationally.

These must be Rodano's colleagues. They were taking him to headquarters, where the pressure to force him to undertake the mission would be increased. However, they couldn't succeed. He was an American and that meant he could be treated only according to certain established rules, certain legal procedures, and certain customary modes of action. There could be nothing arbitrary, nothing improvised.

He drew another deep breath. He merely had to keep saying no and they would be helpless.

There was a small lurch and his eyes flew open.

The car had turned off the highway onto a narrow dirt road.

Automatically, he said, "Where are we going?"

There was no answer.

The automobile bumped along for a considerable distance and then turned into a field, obscure and dark. In the glow of the car's headlights, Morrison made out a helicopter, its rotors turning slowly and its motor making only the slightest purr.

It was one of the new kind, its sound waves suppressed, its smooth surface absorbing, rather than reflecting, radar beams. Its popular name was the "hushicopter."

Morrison's heart sank. If they were using a hushicopter, which were extremely expensive and quite rare, then he was being treated as no ordinary prey. He was being treated as a big fish.

But I'm not a big fish, he thought desperately.

The automobile stopped and the headlights went out. There was still the faint purr and a few dim violet lights, hardly visible, marked the spot where the hushicopter sat.

The large man at Morrison's right threw open the car door and, again with a grunt, lowered his head and forced his way out. His large hand reached in for Morrison.

Morrison tried to shrink away. "Where are you taking me?"

The large man seized his upper arm. "Come out. Enough talking."

Morrison felt himself half-lifted, half-pulled out of the car. His shoulder hurt as it might be expected to do, considering that it had been nearly yanked out of its socket.

But he disregarded the pain. It was the first time he had heard the large man speak. The words were in English, but the accent was thickly Russian.

Morrison felt cold. These were not Americans who had him.

10.

Morrison had entered the hushicopter -- though that is not an accurate description of what took place. To enter implies a voluntary action and he had been much more nearly pushed into the vehicle.

It had pulsed its way through the darkness as he sat between the same two men between whom he had sat in the car. It was almost as though nothing had changed, although the whisper of the rotors was distinctly more hypnotic than the purr of the automobile engine had been.

After an hour -- or possibly less -- they came out of the darkness of the air and drifted downward toward the darkness of the ocean. Morrison could tell it was the ocean because he could smell it, was vaguely aware of the fog of droplets in the air, and because he could make out, very dimly, the dark bulk of a ship -- dark on dark.

How could the hushicopter make its way out to the ocean and pinpoint a ship? -- the right ship, he was sure. Even in his half-stupor of despair, Morrison's mind could not help searching for solutions. Undoubtedly, the hushicopter pilot had followed a shielded and pseudorandomized radio beam. The beam seemed random but, given the key, it could be found to have order and its source could be identified. Properly done, the pseudorandomness could not be penetrated even by quite an advanced computer.

Nor was the ship more than a temporary stopping place. He was allowed to use the head, given time for a hurried meal of bread and thick soup (which he found most welcome), and was then ushered -- with the unceremonious hustle he had begun to accept as a fact of life -- into a medium-sized airplane. It was a ten-seater (he counted automatically), but except for the two pilots and, sitting in the rear, the two men who had been on either side of him in the car and in the hushicopter, he was alone in the plane.

Morrison looked back at his guards, whom he just made out in the very dim light that filled the plane's interior. There was enough room in the plane so that they were not forced to hem him in. Nor did they need to do so out of fear that he might break and run for it. Here, he could break out only onto the deck of the ship. Once the plane took off, he could break out only into the open air with nothing beneath him but water of indefinite depth.

He wondered numbly why they were not taking off and then the door opened to admit another passenger. Despite the dimness, he recognized her at once.

He had met her for the first time only twelve hours before, but how could he have progressed from that first moment of meeting to the present moment in only twelve hours?

Boranova sat down in the seat next to his and said in a low voice, "I am sorry, Dr. Morrison." She was speaking in Russian.

And, as though that were the signal, the sound of the airplane's engines deepened and he felt himself pressed against his seat as the plane moved steeply upward.

Morrison stared at Natalya Boranova, trying to collect his thoughts. Dimly, he felt a desire to say something to her in a suave, imperturbable way, but there was no chance of that.

His voice was a creak and even after he cleared his throat, all he could say was "I've been kidnapped."

"That could not be helped, Dr. Morrison. I regret this. I really do. I have my duty, you understand. I had to bring you back by persuasion if I could. Otherwise --" She let the last word hang.

"But you can't behave in this fashion. This is not the twentieth century." He choked a little in his earnest attempt to stifle his sense of indignation to the point where he could speak sensibly. "I am not a recluse. I am not a derelict. I will be missed and American intelligence is perfectly aware that we spoke and they know that you wanted me to come to the Soviet Union. They will know I have been kidnapped -- they may know it already -- and your government will find itself in the middle of a kind of international incident it will want no part of."

"Not so," said Boranova earnestly, her dark eyes gazing levelly into his. "Not so. Of course your people know what has happened, but they have no objections. Dr. Morrison, the Soviet Union's intelligence operations are marked both by advanced technology and by over a century of close study of American psychology. I have no doubt that American intelligence is just as advanced. It is this equality of expertise, which is shared by several of the other geographical units of the planet, that helps to keep us in cooperation. Each of us is firmly convinced that no one else is far ahead on a road of its own."

"I don't know what you're driving at," said Morrison. The planet was arrowing through the night, speeding toward the eastern dawn.

"What concerns American intelligence most right now is our attempt at miniaturization."

"Attempt!" Morrison said with a note of sardonic amusement.

"Successful attempt. -- The Americans don't know that it is successful. They don't know if the miniaturization project may not be a mask behind which something altogether different is going on. They know we're doing something. I'm sure they have a detailed map of the area in the Soviet Union where the experiments are proceeding -- every building, every truck convoy. They undoubtedly have agents who are doing their best to penetrate the project.

"Naturally, we're doing our best to counter all this. We are not indignant. We know a great deal about the American experiments in antigravity and it would be naive to take the attitude that we can probe and that the Americans can't; that we can have our successes, but the American mustn't."

Morrison rubbed his eyes. Boranova's quiet, even voice was making him realize that his ordinary bedtime was past and that he was sleepy. He said, "What has this to do with the fact that my country will bitterly resent my kidnapping?"

"Listen to me, Dr. Morrison. Understand me. Why should they? We need you, but they can't be certain why. They have no reason to suppose there is anything of value in your neurophysical notions. They must think we are following a false trail and will get nothing out of you, but they can have no objection to getting an American into the miniaturization project. If this American finds out what it is all about, the information will prove valuable to them. -- Don't you think they might reason in this fashion, Dr. Morrison?"

"I don't know how they would reason," said Morrison carefully. "It is not a matter of interest to me."

"But you spoke to a Francis Rodano after you left me so suddenly. -- You see, we know even that. Would you care to tell me that he did not suggest that you play along with us and go to the Soviet Union in order to find out what you might find out?"

"You mean he wants me to play the spy?"

"Doesn't he? Didn't he make that suggestion?"

Again Morrison ignored the question. He said, "And since you are convinced I am to be a spy, you will have me executed after I do whatever it is you want me to do. Isn't that what happens to spies?"

"You've been viewing too many old-fashioned movies, Dr. Morrison. In the first place, we will see to it that you don't find out anything important -- anything at all. In the second place, spies are too valuable a commodity to destroy. They are useful as trading units for any agents of ours that may be in American hands -- or in foreign hands generally. I believe that the United States takes much the same attitude."

Morrison said, "To begin with, then, I am not a spy, madame. I am not going to be a spy. I know nothing about American intelligence operations. Also, I'm not going to do anything for you."

"I'm not at all sure about that, Dr. Morrison. I think you'll decide to work with us."

"What do you have in mind? Will you starve me till I agree? Beat me? Keep me in solitary confinement? Put me in a work camp?"

Boranova frowned and shook her head slowly in what seemed to be genuine shock. "Really, Doctor, what are these things you suggest? Are we back in the days when you were loudly proclaiming us to be an evil empire and inventing horror stories about us? I don't say that we might not be tempted to use strong measures if you intransigeantly refuse. Necessity drives sometimes, you know. -- But we won't have to. I'm convinced of that."

"What convinces you?" Morrison asked wearily.

"You're a scientist. You're a brave man."

"I? Brave? Lady, lady, what do you know about me?"

"That you have a peculiar viewpoint. That you have upheld it all this time. That you have watched your career go downhill. That you have convinced nobody. And that, despite all this, you cling to your view and do not budge from what you are certain is right. Is not this the act of a brave man?"

Morrison nodded. "Yes. Yes. It is a kind of bravery. Still, there are a thousand crackpots in the history of science who clung all their lives to some ridiculous view against logic, against evidence, against their own self-interest. I may be just another one of them."

"In that case, you might be wrong, but you would still be brave. Do you think bravery is entirely a matter of physical daring?"

"I know it is not. There are all kinds of bravery and perhaps," he said bitterly, "every one of those kinds of bravery is a mark of insanity or, at any rate, folly."

"Surely you do not consider yourself a coward?"

"Why not? In some ways, I flatter myself by saying that I am sane."

"But mad in your stubborn views concerning neurophysics?"

"I would not be surprised."

"But surely you think your views are correct."

"Certainly, Dr. Boranova. That would be part of my madness, would it not?"

Boranova shook her head. "You are not a serious man. I've said that before. My countryman Shapirov thinks you're right -- or, if not right, at least a genius."

"Next best thing, certainly. Part of his madness, too."

"Shapirov's opinion is very special."

"To you, I'm sure. -- Look, lady, I am tired. I am so groggy, I don't know what I'm saying. I'm not sure all this is real. I hope it isn't. Let me just -- just rest a little."

Boranova sighed and a look of concern entered her eyes. "Yes, of course, my poor friend. We wish you no harm. Please believe that."

Morrison let his head bow down on his chest. His eyes closed. Dimly, he felt himself pushed gently to one side and a pillow placed under his head.

Time passed. A dreamless time.

When he opened his eyes, he was still on the plane. There were no lights, but he knew without any doubt whatever that he was still on the plane.

He said, "Dr. Boranova?"

She replied instantly, "Yes, Dr. Morrison?"

"We're not being pursued?"

"Not at all. There are several of our own planes flying distant interference, but they have had nothing to do. Come, my friend, we want you and your government wants us to have you."

"And you still insist that you have miniaturization? That it is not madness? Or a hoax?"

"You will see for yourself. And you will see what a wonder it is, so that you will want to be part of it. You will demand to be part of it."

"And what will you be doing with it," asked Morrison thoughtfully, "assuming this is not an elaborate joke you are playing on me? Do you plan to make a weapon of it? Transport an army in a plane like this? Infiltrate each land with an invisible host? That sort of thing?"

"How revolting!" She cleared her throat as though she were tempted to spit with disgust. "Have we not enough land? Enough people? Enough resources? Have we not our large share of space? Are there not more important things to do with miniaturization? Can it be that you are so twisted and distorted that you do not see what it will mean as a research tool? Imagine the study of living systems that it will make possible; the study of crystal chemistry and solid-state systems; the construction of ultraminiaturized computers and devices of all sorts. Think further of what we might learn of physics if we can alter Planck's constant to suit ourselves. What might we not learn of cosmology?"

Morrison struggled to sit upright. He was still woozy, but there was an incipient dawn outside the plane windows and he could see Boranova very dimly.

He said, "Is that what you wish to do with it, then? Noble scientific endeavors?"

"What would your government do with it if you had it? Try to achieve a sudden military superiority and restore the bad old days?"

"No. Of course not."

"So that only you are noble and only we are terribly evil? Do you honestly believe that? -- It may be, of course, that if miniaturization becomes sufficiently successful, the Soviet Union may achieve a lead in the development of a space-centered society. Think of transporting miniaturized material from one world to another, of sending a million colonists in a spaceship that would house only two or three human beings of normal size. Space will acquire a Soviet coloring, a Soviet tinge -- not because the Soviet people will dominate and be masters, but because Soviet thought will have won in the battle of ideas. And what is wrong with that?"

Morrison shook his head in the dimness. "Then I certainly won't help you. Why should you expect me to? I won't fasten Soviet thought on the Universe. I prefer American thought and tradition."

"You think you do and I don't blame you for it. But we will persuade you. You will see."

"You won't."

Boranova said, "My dear friend Albert -- if I may call you that. I have said that we will be admired for our progress. Do you think you will be immune? -- But let us leave such discussions for another time."

She pointed out the plane window at the gray sea beneath, which was just becoming visible.

"We are now over the Mediterranean," she said, "and soon we will be over the Black Sea and then across the Volga to Malenkigrad -- Smalltown, in English, eh? -- and the sun will have risen when we land. That will be symbolic. A new day. New light. I predict you will be eager to help us establish this new day and I would not be surprised if you never wish to leave the Soviet Union again."

"Without your forcing me to stay?"

"We will fly you home freely if you ask us to -- once you have helped us."

"I won't help you."

"You will."

"And I demand now that I be returned."

"Now doesn't count," said Boranova cheerfully.

And they flew the last several hundred kilometers to Malenkigrad.

CHAPTER 3 -- MALENKIGRAD

A pawn is the most important piece on the chessboard -- to a pawn.

-- Dezhnev Senior

Francis Rodano was at his office early the next morning, which was Monday and the beginning of the week. That he had worked on Sunday was common enough not to surprise him. That he had slept at all during the night just completed did.

When he arrived, half an hour before the official start of the day, Jonathan Winthrop was already there. That did not surprise Rodano, either.

Winthrop walked into Rodano's office within two minutes of the latter's arrival. He leaned against the wall, the palms of his large hands hugging his elbows, his left leg crossing his right, so that the toe of his left shoe was digging into the carpet.

"You look worn-out, Frank," he said, his eyebrows hunching low over his dark eyes.

Rodano looked up at the other's shock of coarse gray hair, which routinely deprived him of any claim of his own to splendor of appearance, and said, "I feel worn-out, but I was hoping it didn't show." Rodano was very aware of having gone through the morning's rituals thoroughly and carefully and of having dressed with considerable judgment.

"It shows, though. Your face is the mirror of your soul. Some agent in the field you'd have made."

Rodano said, "We're not all made for the field."

"I know. And we're not all made for desk work, either." Winthrop rubbed his bulbous nose as though he were anxious to file it down to normal size. "I take it you're worried about your scientist, what's his name?"

"His name is Albert Jonas Morrison," said Rodano wearily. There was this pretense at the Department of not knowing Morrison's name, as though everyone was anxious to emphasize that the project wasn't theirs.

"Okay. I have no objection to your mentioning his name. I take it you're worried about him."

"Yes, I'm worried about him, along with a lot of other things. I wish I could see things more clearly."

"Who doesn't?" Winthrop sat down. "Look, there's no use worrying. You've handled this from the start, and I've been willing to let you do so because you're a good man. I'm perfectly satisfied you've done all you could to make this work because one thing about you is that you understand the Russkies."

Rodano winced. "Don't call them that. You've been watching too many twentieth-century movies. They're not all Russians, any more than we're all Anglo-Saxons. They're Soviets. If you want to understand them, try to understand how they think of themselves."

"Sure. Anything you say. Have you figured out what's so important about your scientist?"

"Nothing, as far as I know. No one takes him seriously except the Soviets."

"Do you think the Soviets know something we don't?"

"A few things, I'm sure, but I haven't any notion of what they see in Morrison. It's not the Soviets, either. It's one Soviet scientist -- a theoretical physicist named Shapirov. It's possible that he's the guy who worked out the method of miniaturization -- if the method has really been worked out at all. Scientists outside the Soviet Union are ambivalent about Shapirov. He's erratic and, to put it kindly, eccentric. The Soviets are all gung-ho on him, however, and he's all gung-ho on Morrison, though that may just be another sign of his eccentricity. Then the interest in Morrison recently graduated from curiosity to desperation."

"Ah? And how do you know that, Frank?"

"Partly from contacts inside the Soviet Union."

"Ashby?"

"Partly."

"Good agent."

"At it too long. Needs to be replaced."

"I don't know. Let's not retire a winner."

"In any case," said Rodano, unwilling to fight the point, "there was a sudden multiplication of interest in Morrison, on whom I'd been keeping tabs for a couple of years."

"This Shapirov, I suppose, had another brainstorm about Morrison and persuaded the Russ-- Soviets they needed him."

"Perhaps, but the funny thing is that Shapirov seems to have dropped out of the news recently."

"Out of favor?"

"No sign of that."

"Could be, Frank. If he's been feeding the Soviets a line of garbage about miniaturization and they've caught on to it, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes. These may be the good new days, but the Soviets have never learned to have a sense of humor about being made to look or feel foolish."

"It could be that he's gone underground because the miniaturization project is heating up. And that could also explain the sudden desperation about Morrison."

"What does he know about miniaturization?"

"Only that he's sure it's impossible."

"It makes no sense, does it?"

Rodano said carefully, "That's why we let him be taken. There's always the hope it will shake up the pieces and that they may then come together in a new way that will begin to make sense."

Winthrop looked at his watch. "He should be there by now. Malenkigrad. What a name! No news of any plane crash last night anywhere in the world, so I guess he's there."

"Yes -- and just the wrong person to send, too, except he was the one that the Soviets wanted."

"Why is he wrong? Is he shaky ideologically?"

"I doubt that he has an ideology. He's a zero. All last night I've been thinking that it's all a mistake. He lacks guts and he's not very bright, except in an academic sense. I don't think he can possibly think on his feet -- if he ever has to. He's not going to be smart enough to find out anything. I suspect he'll be in one long panic from beginning to end and I've been thinking for hours now that we'll never see him again. They'll imprison him -- or kill him -- and I've sent him there."

"That's just middle-of-the-night blues, Frank. No matter how dumb he is, he'll be able to tell us whether he watched a demonstration of miniaturization, for instance, or what it was they did to him. He doesn't have to be a shrewd observer. He need only tell us what happened and we will do the necessary thinking."

"But, Jon, we may never see him again."

Winthrop placed his hand on Rodano's shoulder. "Don't begin by assuming disaster. I'll see that Ashby gets the word. If something can be done, it will be done and I'm sure the Russ-- Soviets will hit a sane moment and let him go if we put on enough quiet pressure when the time comes. Don't make yourself sick over it. It's a move in a complex game and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. There are a thousand other moves on the board."

12.

Morrison felt haggard. He had slept through much of Monday, hoping it would rid him of the worst of his jet lag. He had eaten gratefully of the food that had been brought in toward evening, had partaken even more gratefully of a shower. Fresh clothing was given him that fit rather indifferently -- but what of that? And he had spent Monday night alternately sleeping and reading.

And brooding.

The more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that Natalya Boranova was correct in her estimate that he was here only because the United States was satisfied to have him here. Rodano had urged him to go, had vaguely threatened him with further career troubles (how much deeper in trouble could he possibly get?) if he did not go. Why, then, should they object to his having been taken? They might object on principle or feel there was the danger of setting an undesirable precedent, but apparently their own eagerness to have him go had overruled that.

What, then, would be the point in demanding to be taken to the nearest American consul or in making wild threats of American retaliation?

As a matter of fact, now that the deed had been done with American connivance -- surely with American connivance -- it would be impossible for the United States to take open action on his behalf or express any indignation whatever. Questions would inevitably arise as to how the Soviets had managed to spirit him off and there would be no answer other than American stupidity or American connivance. And surely the United States would not want to have the world come to either conclusion.

Of course, he could see why this had been done. It was as Rodano had explained. The American government wanted information and he was in an ideal position to get it for them.

Ideal? In what way? The Soviets would not be fools enough to let him get any information they didn't want him to have and if they thought that the information he managed to get (or couldn't avoid getting) was too much, they would not be fools enough to let him go.

The more he thought of that, the more he felt that, dead or alive, he would never see the United States again and that the American intelligence community would shrug its collective shoulders and write it all off as an unavoidable miss -- nothing gained but, then again, nothing much lost.

Morrison assessed himself -- Albert Jonas Morrison, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurophysics, originator of a theory of thought that remained unaccepted and all but ignored; failed husband, failed father, failed scientist, and now failed pawn. Nothing much lost.

In the depth of the night, in a hotel room in a town he didn't even know the location of, in a nation that for over a century had seemed the natural enemy of his own, however much a spirit of reluctant and suspicious cooperation might rule in the last few decades, Morrison found himself weeping out of self-pity and out of sheer childish helplessness -- out of a feeling of utter humiliation that no one should think him worth struggling for or even wasting regret over.

And yet -- and here a small spark of pride managed to surface -- the Soviets had wanted him. They had gone to considerable trouble to get him. When persuasion had failed, they had not hesitated to use force. They couldn't possibly have been certain that the United States would studiously look the other way. They had risked an international incident, however slightly, to get him.

And they were going to considerable trouble to keep him safe now that they had him. He was here alone, but the windows, he noted, had bars on them. The door was not locked, but when, earlier, he had opened it, two uniformed and armed men looked up from where they had been lounging against the opposite wall and asked him if he were in need of anything. He didn't like being in prison, but it was a measure, of sorts, of his value -- at least here.

How long would this last? Even though they might be under the impression that his theory of thought was correct, Morrison himself had to admit that it remained a fact that all the evidence he had gathered was circumstantial and terribly indirect -- and that no one had been able to confirm his most useful findings. What would happen if the Soviets found that they, too, could not confirm them or if, on closer consideration, they found it all too gaseous, too vaporous, too atmospheric to trouble with.

Boranova had said Shapirov had thought highly of Morrison's suggestions, but Shapirov was a notorious wild man who changed his mind daily.

And if Shapirov shrugged and turned away, what would the Soviets do? If their American trophy were of no use to them, would they return him contemptuously to the United States (one more humiliation, in a way) or hide their own folly in taking him, by imprisoning him indefinitely -- or worse.

In fact, it had been some Soviet functionary, some specific person, who must have decided to kidnap him and risk an incident and if the whole thing turned sour, what would that functionary do to save his own neck -- undoubtedly at the expense of Morrison's?

By dawn on Tuesday, when Morrison had been in the Soviet Union for a full day, he had convinced himself that every path into the future, every alternative route that could possibly be taken, would end in disaster for him. He watched the day break, but his spirits remained in deepest night.

13.

There was a brusque knock at his door at 8 a.m. He opened it a crack and the soldier on the other side pushed it open farther, as though to indicate who it was who controlled the door.

The soldier said, more loudly than necessary, "Madame Boranova will be here in half an hour to take you to breakfast. Be ready."

While he dressed hurriedly and made use of an electric razor of rather ancient design by American standards, he wondered why on Earth he had been faintly astonished at hearing the soldier speak of Madame Boranova. The archaic "comrade" had long passed out of use.

It made him feel irritable and foolish, too, since of what value was it to brood over tiny things in the midst of the vast morass in which he found himself? -- Except that that was what people did, he knew.

Boranova was ten minutes late. She knocked more gently than the soldier had and when she entered said, "How do you feel, Dr. Morrison?"

"I feel kidnapped," he said stiffly.

"Aside from that. Have you had enough sleep?"

"I may have. I can't tell. Frankly, madame, I'm in no mood to tell. What do you want of me?"

"At the moment, nothing but to take you to breakfast. And please, Dr. Morrison, do believe that I am as much under compulsion as you are. I assure you that I would rather, at this moment, be with my little Aleksandr. I have neglected him sadly in recent months and Nikolai is not pleased at my absence, either. But when he married me, he knew I had a career, as I keep telling him."

"As far as I'm concerned, you are free to send me back to my own country and spend all your time with Aleksandr and Nikolai."

"Ah, if that could be so -- but it cannot. So come, let us go to breakfast. We could eat here, but you would feel imprisoned. Let us eat in the dining room and you will feel better."

"Will I? Those two soldiers outside will follow us, won't they?"

"Regulations, Dr. Morrison. This is a high-security zone. They must guard you until someone in charge is convinced that it is safe not to guard you -- and it would be difficult to convince them of that. It is their job not to be convinced."

"I'll bet," said Morrison, shrugging himself into the jacket they had given him, which was rather tight under the armpits.

"They will in no way interfere with us, however."

"But if I suddenly break away or even just move in an unauthorized direction, I assume they will shoot me dead."

"No, that would be bad for them. You are valuable alive, not dead. They would pursue you and, eventually, seize you. -- But then, I'm sure you understand that you must do nothing that would be uselessly troublesome."

Morrison frowned, making little effort to hide his anger. "When do I get my own baggage back? My own clothes?"

"In time. The first order of business is to eat."

The dining room, which they reached by an elevator and a rather long walk along a deserted corridor, was not very large. It contained a dozen tables, each one seating six, and it was not crowded.

Boranova and Morrison were alone at their table and no one offered to join them. The two soldiers were at a table near the door and though they each ate enough for two, they faced Morrison and their eyes never left him for more than a second or two.

There was no menu. Food was simply brought to them and Morrison found he had no quarrel over the quantity. There were hard-boiled eggs, boiled potatoes, cabbage soup, and caviar, along with thick slices of dark bread. They were not given out in individual portions, but were placed in the center of the table where each person could help himself.

Perhaps, thought Morrison, they bring enough food to feed six and, since we two are the only ones here, we should only consume a third. And after a while, he had to admit that with a full stomach he felt a little mollified. He said, "Madame Boranova --"

"Why not call me Natalya, Dr. Morrison? We are very informal here and we will be colleagues for perhaps an extended period of time. The repeated 'madames' will give me a headache. My friends even call me Natasha. It could come to that."

She smiled, but Morrison felt stubbornly indisposed to be ingratiated. He said, "Madame, when I feel friendly, I will certainly act friendly, but as a victim and an involuntary presence here, I prefer a certain formality."

Boranova sighed. She bit off a sizable chunk of bread and chewed moodily. Then, swallowing, she said, "Let it be as you wish, but please spare me the 'madames.' Let me have my professional title -- and I don't mean 'academician.' Too many syllables. -- But I interrupted you."

"Dr. Boranova," said Morrison, more coldly than before. "You haven't told me what it is you want of me. You mentioned miniaturization, but you know and I know that that is impossible. I think that you spoke of it merely to mislead -- to mislead me and to mislead anyone overhearing us. Let us drop that, then. Surely here we have no need to play games. Tell me why I am really here. After all, eventually you must, since you apparently expect me to be of some use to you and I can't be that if I am left completely ignorant of what it is that you wish."

Boranova shook her head. "You are a hard man to convince, Dr. Morrison. I have been truthful with you from the start. The project is one of miniaturization."

"I cannot believe that."

"Why, then, are you in the city of Malenkigrad?"

"Small city? Littletown? Tinyburg?" said Morrison, feeling a pleasure in hearing his own voice sound the phrases in English. "Perhaps because it is a small city."

"As I have had periodic occasion to say, Dr. Morrison, you are not a serious man. Still, you will not be in doubt long. There are a few people you should meet. One of them should, in fact, be here by now." She looked around with an annoyed frown. "So where is he?"

Morrison said, "I notice that no one approaches us. Every once in a while, the people at the other tables look at me, but then they look away if they catch my eye."

"They have been warned," said Boranova absently. "We will not waste your time with irrelevancies and almost everyone here is an irrelevancy as far as you are concerned. But some are not. Where is he?" She rose. "Dr. Morrison, excuse me. I must find him. I will not be gone long."

"Is it safe to leave me?" said Morrison sardonically.

"The soldiers will remain, Dr. Morrison. Please do not give them cause to react. Intellect is not their forte and they are trained to follow orders without the painful necessity of thinking, so they might easily hurt you."

"Don't worry. I'll be careful."

She left, moving hurriedly out the door after exchanging a few words with the soldiers as she passed.

Morrison watched her go, then glanced over the dining room morosely. Having found nothing of interest, he bent his eyes upon his clasped hands on the table and then stared at the still-sizable portions of unconsumed food before him.

"Are you all through, comrade?"

Morrison looked up sharply. He had decided "comrade" was an archaism, hadn't he?

-- A woman was standing, looking at him, with one balled fist on her hip in a negligent manner. She was a reasonably plump woman in a white uniform, slightly stained. Her hair was reddish-brown, as were her eyebrows, which arched disdainfully.

"Who are you?" asked Morrison, frowning.

"My name? Valeri Paleron. My function? Hardworking serving woman, but Soviet citizen and member of the party. I brought you this food. Didn't you notice me? Am I beneath your notice, perhaps?"

Morrison cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, miss. I have other things on my mind. -- But you had better leave the food. Someone else is supposed to be coming here, I think."

"Ah! And the Tsarina? She will be back, too, I suppose?"

"The Tsarina?"

"You don't think we have Tsarinas any longer in the Soviet Union? Think again, comrade. This Boranova, the granddaughter of peasants and a long line of peasants, considers herself quite a lady, I'm sure." She made a sound with her lips like a long "psh-sh-sh," redolent with contempt and a touch of herring.

Morrison shrugged. "I do not know her very well."

"You are an American, aren't you?"

Morrison said sharply, "Why do you say that?"

"Because of the way you speak Russian. With that accent, what would you be? The son of Tsar Nicholas the Tyrant?"

"What's wrong with the way I speak Russian?"

"It clashes as though you learned it in school. You can hear an American a kilometer away as soon as he says, 'A glass of vodka, please.' He is not as bad as an Englishman, of course. Him you can hear two kilometers away."

"Well, then, I'm an American."

"And you'll be going home someday?"

"I certainly hope so."

The serving woman nodded her head quietly, pulled out a rag, and wiped the table thoughtfully. "I would like to visit the United States someday."

Morrison nodded. "Why not?"

"I need a passport."

"Of course."

"And how does a simple, loyal serving woman get one?"

"I suppose you must apply for one."

"Apply? If I go to a functionary and I say, 'I, Valeri Paleron, wish to visit the United States,' he will say, 'Why?'"

"And why do you want to go?"

"To see the country. The people. The wealth. I am curious how they live. -- That would not be reason enough."

"Say something else," said Morrison. "Say you want to write a book about the United States as a lesson to Soviet youth."

"Do you know how many books --"

She stiffened and began to wipe the table again, suddenly absorbed in her work.

Morrison looked up. Boranova was standing there, her eyes hard and angry. She uttered a harsh monosyllable that Morrison didn't recognize but that he could have sworn was an epithet and not a very polite one, either.

The serving woman flushed dully. Boranova made a small gesture with her hand and the woman turned and left.

Morrison noticed that a man stood behind Boranova -- short, thick-necked, with narrowed eyes, large ears, and a broad-shouldered, muscular body. His hair was black, longer than usual for a Russian, and it was in wild disarray, as though he clutched at it a great deal.

Boranova made no move to introduce him. She said, "Was that woman talking to you?"

"Yes," said Morrison.

"She recognized you to be an American?"

"She said my accent made it obvious."

"And she said she wants to visit the United States?"

"Yes, she did."

"What did you say? Did you offer to help her go there?"

"I advised her to apply for a passport if she wanted to go."

"Nothing more?"

"Nothing more."

Boranova said with discontent, "You must pay no attention to her. She is an ignorant and uncultured woman. -- Let me introduce to you my friend, Arkady Vissarionovich Dezhnev. This is Dr. Albert Jonas Morrison, Arkady."

Dezhnev managed a clumsy bow and said, "I have heard of you, Dr. Morrison. Academician Shapirov has spoken of you often."

Morrison said coldly, "I am flattered. -- But tell me, Dr. Boranova, if that serving woman annoys you so much, it should be an easy task to have her replaced or transferred."

Dezhnev laughed harshly. "Not a chance, Comrade American -- which I expect is what she called you --"

"Not actually."

"Then she would have sooner or later, had we not interrupted you. That woman, I suspect, may be an intelligence operator and is one of those who keeps a close eye on us.

"But why --?"

"Because with an operation like this, no one can be trusted entirely. When you Americans are engaged in breakthrough science, are you not kept under close observation?"

"I don't know," said Morrison stiffly. "I have never been engaged in any breakthrough science that my government has been in the least interested in. -- But what I was going to ask is, why does that woman act as she does if she is an intelligence agent?"

"To be a provocateur, obviously. To say outrageous things and to see what she can trip someone else into saying."

Morrison nodded. "Well, it's your worry, not mine."

"As you say," said Dezhnev. He turned to Boranova. "Natasha, have you told him yet?"

"Please, Arkady--"

"Now come, Natasha. As my father used to say, 'If you must pull a tooth, it is mistaken kindness to pull it slowly.' Let's tell him."

"I have told him we're involved in miniaturization."

"Is that all?" said Dezhnev. He sat down, pulled his chair next to that of Morrison, and leaned toward him. Morrison, with his personal space invaded, automatically withdrew. Dezhnev came closer still and said, "Comrade American, my friend Natasha is a romantic and she is convinced that you will want to help us for love of science. She feels that we can persuade you to do gladly what must be done. She is wrong. You will not be persuaded any more than you were persuaded to come here voluntarily."

"Arkady, you are being boorish," snapped Boranova.

"No, Natasha, I am being honest -- which is sometimes the same thing. Dr. Morrison -- or Albert, to avoid formality, which I hate" -- he shuddered dramatically -- "since you won't be persuaded and since we have no time, you will do what we want by force, as you were brought here by force."

Boranova said, "Arkady, you promised you wouldn't --"

"I do not care. I have thought since I promised and I have decided that the American must know what he faces. It will be easier for us -- and it will be easier for him, too."

Morrison looked from one to another and his throat tightened so that it grew difficult to breathe. Whatever it was they planned for him, he knew he would be given no choice.

14.

Morrison continued to be silent while Dezhnev, unconcerned, proceeded to eat his own breakfast with relish.

The dining room had more or less emptied out and the serving woman, Valeri Paleron, was carrying off the remains and was wiping down the chairs and tables.

Dezhnev caught her eye, beckoned to her, and indicated that the table was to be cleared.

Morrison said, "So I have no choice. No choice in what?"

"Hah! Has Natasha not even told you that?" replied Dezhnev.

"She told me on several occasions that I was to be involved in miniaturization problems. But I know -- and you know -- that there is no miniaturization problem except that of trying to turn an impossibility into fact -- and I certainly can't help you in that. What I want to know is what you really have for me to do."

Dezhnev looked amused. "Why do you think miniaturization is impossible?"

"Because it is."

"And if I tell you that we have it?"

"Then I say show me!"

Dezhnev turned to Boranova, who drew a deep breath and nodded.

Dezhnev rose. He said, "Come. We will take you to the Grotto."

Morrison bit his lip in vexation. Small frustrations loomed large. "I do not know that Russian word you've used."

Boranova said, "We have an underground laboratory here. We call it the Grotto. It is one of our poetic words, not used in ordinary conversation. The Grotto is the site of our miniaturization project."

15.

Outside an air-jet awaited them. Morrison blinked, adjusting his eyes to the sunlight. He regarded the jet curiously. It lacked the elaboration of American models and seemed little more than a sled with small seats and with a complex engine in front. It would be absolutely useless in cold or wet weather and he wondered whether the Soviets had an enclosed version for those times. Perhaps this was just a summer runabout.

Dezhnev took the controls and Boranova directed Morrison into the seat behind Dezhnev, while she took the one to his right side. She turned to the guards and said, "Go back to the hotel and wait for us there. We will take full responsibility from this point." She handed them a printed slip of paper on which she scrawled her signature, the date, and, after consulting her wristwatch, the time.

When they arrived at Malenkigrad, Morrison discovered that it was a small town in fact, as well as in name. There were rows of houses -- each two stories high -- with a deadly sameness about them. The town had clearly been built for those who worked on the project -- whatever it was that they masked with the fairy tale of miniaturization -- and it had been built without undue expense. Each house had its own vegetable garden and the streets, although paved, had an unfinished look about them.

The little craft, riding on the jets of air pushing against the ground, blew up a small cloud of dust, which was, for the most part, left behind as they progressed smoothly forward. Morrison could see that it was not comfortable for the pedestrians they passed who, one and all, took evasive action as it approached.

Morrison felt the discomfort in full when they passed an air-jet moving in the other direction and was inundated in the dust.

Boranova looked amused. She coughed and said, "Do not be concerned. We will be vacuumed soon."

"Vacuumed?" asked Morrison, coughing also.

"Yes. Not so much for us, for we can live with a little dust, but the Grotto must be reasonably dust-free."

"So must my lungs. Wouldn't it be better to have these air-jets enclosed?"

"They promise us shipments of more elaborate models and perhaps someday they will arrive. Meanwhile, this is a new town and it is built in the steppes, where the climate is arid. That has its advantages -- and its disadvantages, too. The settlers grow vegetables, as you saw, and they have some animals, too, but large-scale agriculture must wait until the community is larger and there are irrigation facilities. For now, it doesn't matter. It is miniaturization that concerns us."

Morrison shook his head. "You speak of miniaturization so often and with such a straight face, you might almost trick me into believing it."

"Believe it. You will have the demonstration Dezhnev arranged."

Dezhnev said from his seat at the controls, "And I had trouble doing so. Once again I had to speak to the Central Coordinating Committee -- may what is left of their gray hairs fall out. As my father used to say, 'Apes were invented because politicians were needed.' How it is possible to sit two thousand kilometers away and make policy --"

The air-jet glided smoothly forward to the rather sharp ending of the town and to the broad, low rocky massif that suddenly loomed before them.

"The Grotto," said Boranova, "is located inside that. It gives us all the room we want, frees us from the vagaries of weather, and is impenetrable from aerial surveillance, even from spy satellites."

"Spy satellites are illegal," said Morrison indignantly.

"It is merely illegal to call them spy satellites," shot back Dezhnev.

The air-jet banked as it made a turn, then landed in the shadow of a rocky cleft in the body of the massif.

"All out," said Dezhnev.

He moved forward, the other two following, and a door opened in the hillside. Morrison didn't see how it was done. It didn't look like a door; rather it seemed an integral part of the rocky wall. It opened just as the cavern of the Forty Thieves had with the utterance of the words "Open Sesame."

Dezhnev stepped to one side and gestured for Morrison and Boranova to move inside. Morrison went out of the brilliant morning sunshine into a rather dimly lit chamber to which his eyes took half a minute to adapt. It was no thieves' cave but an elaborately detailed structure.

Morrison felt as though he had stepped from the Earth onto the moon. He had never been on the moon, of course, but he was familiar, as was virtually everyone on Earth, with the appearance of the underground lunar settlements. This had precisely that other-worldly air about it somehow, except, of course, that gravity was Earth-normal.

CHAPTER 4 -- GROTTO

Small can be beautiful: An eagle may at times go hungry; a pet canary, never.

-- Dezhnev Senior

16.

In a large and well-lit washroom, Boranova and Dezhnev began to remove their outer clothing. Morrison, alarmed at the prospect, hesitated.

Boranova smiled. "You may keep your underclothing on, Dr. Morrison. Just toss everything else, except your shoes, into that bin. I presume there is nothing in your pockets. Place your shoes at the base of the bin. By the time we leave, it will all be cleaned and ready for use."

Morrison did as he was told, trying not to observe that Boranova had a most opulent figure, concerning which she seemed totally unaware. Amazing, he thought, what clothes will obscure when not designed to reveal.

They were washing now, with lavish application of soap -- faces to the ears and arms to the elbows -- then brushing savagely at their hair. Again Morrison hesitated and Boranova, reading his mind, said, "The brushes are cleaned after each use, Dr. Morrison. I don't know what you may have read of us, but some of us understand hygiene."

Morrison said, "All this just to go into the Grotto? Do you go through this every time?"

"Every time. That's why no one goes in just briefly. And even when staying within, there are frequent ablations. -- You may find the next step unpleasant, Dr. Morrison. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and hold it if you can. It will take about a minute."

Morrison followed orders and found himself strongly buffeted by a swirling wind. He staggered drunkenly and collided with one of the bins. He held on tightly. Then, as suddenly as it started, it was over.

He opened his eyes. Dezhnev and Boranova looked as though they had put on fright wigs. He felt his own hair and knew he must look the same. He reached for his brush.

"Don't bother," said Boranova, "There's more we'll have to go through."

"What was that all about?" said Morrison. He found he had to clear his throat twice before he could speak.

"I mentioned that we'd have the dust vacuumed away from us, but that's only the first stage of the cleaning process. -- Through this door, please." She held it open for him.

Morrison emerged into a narrow but well-lit corridor, the walls glowing photoluminescently. He lifted his eyebrows. "Very nice."

"Saves energy," Dezhnev said, "and that's very important. -- Or are you referring to the technological advancement? Americans seem to come to the Soviet Union expecting everything to be kerosene lamps." He chuckled and added, "I admit we haven't caught up with you in every respect. Our brothels are very primitive compared with yours."

"You strike back without waiting to be struck," said Morrison. "That is a sure sign of an unclear conscience. If you were anxious to demonstrate advanced technology, I could point out that it would be very simple to pave the avenue going from Malenkigrad to the Grotto and to use closed air-jets. We would need less of this."

Dezhnev's face darkened, but Boranova put in sharply, "Dr. Morrison is quite right, Arkady. I don't like your feeling that it is not possible to be honest without being rude. If you cannot be both honest and polite, keep your tongue on your own side of your teeth."

Dezhnev grinned uneasily. "What have I said? Of course the American doctor is right, but is there anything we can do when decisions are made in Moscow by idiots who save small bits of money without counting the consequences? As my old father used to say, 'The trouble with economizing is that it can be very expensive.'"

"That's true enough," said Boranova. "We could save a great deal of money, Dr. Morrison, by spending on a better road and better air-jets, but it is not always easy to persuade those who hold the purse strings. Surely you have the same trouble in America."

She was motioning even as she talked and Morrison followed her into a small chamber. As the door closed behind them, Dezhnev held out a bracelet to Morrison. "Let me tie this around your right wrist. When we hold up our arms, you hold up yours."

Morrison felt his weight lighten momentarily as the chamber floor dropped.

"An elevator," he said.

"Clever guess," said Dezhnev. Then he clapped a hand to his mouth and said in a muffled tone, "But I mustn't be rude."

They stopped smoothly and the elevator door opened.

"Identification!" came a peremptory voice.

Dezhnev and Boranova raised their bands, at which Morrison did as well. Under the purplish light that suddenly suffused the elevator, the three bracelets glittered in patterns which were not, Morrison noted, exactly alike.

They were ushered down another corridor and into a room which was both warm and damp.

"We will have to have a final scrubdown, Dr. Morrison," said Boranova. "We are accustomed to this and stripping is routine for us. It is easier -- and timesaving -- to do it as a group."

"If you can stand it," said Morrison grimly, "I can."

"It is unimportant," said Dezhnev. "None of us are strangers to the sight."

Dezhnev scrambled out of his underclothes, stepped over to a portion of the wall where a small red knob was glowing, and placed his right thumb immediately above it. A narrow panel in the wall slid open and revealed white garments hanging flaccidly to one side. He placed his underclothes at the bottom.

He seemed utterly unabashed about being nude. His chest and shoulders were dark with hair and there was a long-healed scar on his right buttock. Morrison wondered idly how that might have come about.

Boranova did the same as Dezhnev had done and said, "Pick a light that is on, Dr. Morrison. It will open to your thumbprint and then, when you touch it again, it will close. After that it will open only to your thumbprint, so please remember your locker number and you won't have to press every locker in order to find your own."

Morrison did as he was told.

Boranova said, "If you need to use the bathroom first, you can go there."

"I'm all right," said Morrison.

With that, the room was aswirl with a damp mist of water droplets.

"Close your eyes," called out Boranova, but it was unnecessary for her to say so. The initial sting of the water forced his eyes closed at once.

There was soap in the water or, at any rate, something that stung his eyes, tasted bitter in his mouth, and irritated his nostrils.

"Lift your arms," called out Dezhnev. "You needn't circle. It comes from all directions."

Morrison lifted his arms. He knew it came from all directions. It came from the floor, too, as he could tell by the slightly uncomfortable pressure on his scrotum.

"How long does this last?" he gasped.

"Too long," said Dezhnev, "but it is necessary."

Morrison counted to himself. At the count of 58, it seemed to him that the bitterness on his lips ceased. He squinted his eyes. Yes, the other two were still there. He continued to count and when he reached 126, the water stopped and he was bathed in uncomfortably hot and dry air.

He was panting by the time that stopped too and he realized he had been holding his breath.

"What was all that for?" he said, looking away uncomfortably at the sight of Boranova's large but firm breasts and finding little comfort in Dezhnev's hairy chest.

"We are dry," said Boranova. "Let's get dressed."

Morrison was eager but was almost immediately disappointed by the nature of the white clothes in the locker. They consisted of a blouse and pants of light cotton, the pants held by a cord. There was also a light cap to cover the hair and light sandals. Though the cotton was opaque, it seemed to Morrison that little or nothing was truly left to the imagination.

He said, "Is this all we wear?"

"Yes," said Boranova. "We work in a clean, quiet environment at even temperature and, with throwaway clothes, we can't expect much in the way of fashion or expense. Indeed, barring a certain understandable reluctance, we could easily work in the nude. But enough -- come."

And now at last they stepped into what Morrison recognized at once as the main body of the Grotto. It stretched away before him -- between and beyond ornate pillars to a distance he couldn't make out.

He could recognize none of the equipment. How could he? He was entirely a theoretician and when he worked in his own field, he used computerized devices that he had designed and modified himself. For a moment, he felt a stab of nostalgia for his laboratory at the university, for his books, for the smell of the animal cages, even for the stupid obstinacy of his colleagues.

There were people everywhere in the Grotto. There were a dozen nearby and others farther off and the impression was of the interior of a human ant hill crawling with machinery, with humanity, with purpose.

No one paid any attention to the newcomers or to each other. They went about their work in silence, their steps muffled by their sandals.

Again Boranova seemed to read Morrison's mind and when she spoke it was in a whisper. "We keep our council here. None of us knows more than it is good for him -- or her -- to know. There must be no leaks of significance."

"But surely they must communicate."

"When they must, they will -- minimally. It reduces the pleasure of camaraderie, but it is necessary."

"This kind of compartmentalization slows progress," said Morrison.

"It's the price we pay for security," said Boranova, "so if no one talks to you, it is not a personal matter. They will have no reason to talk to you."

"They'll be curious about a stranger."

"I have seen to it that they know you are an outside expert. That is all they need to know."

Morrison frowned. "How can they expect an American to be an outside expert?"

"They don't know you're an American."

"My accent will give me away at once as it did to the serving woman."

"But you will not talk to anyone, except for those to whom I will introduce you."

"As you wish," said Morrison indifferently.

He was still looking around. Since he was here, he might as well learn what he could, even if it should turn out to be trivial. When -- if -- he returned to the United States, he would surely be asked for every detail he had observed and he might as well have something to give them.

He said in Boranova's ear, "This must be an expensive place. What fraction of the national budget is expended here?"

"It's expensive," said Boranova, admitting nothing further, "and the government labors to limit the expense."

Dezhnev said sourly, "I had to work for an hour this morning to persuade them to allow a small additional experiment for your benefit -- may the Committee catch the cholera."

Morrison said, "The cholera no longer exists, even in India."

"May it be reinstated for the Committee."

Boranova said, "Arkady, if these supposedly humorous expressions of yours get back to the Committee, it will do you no good."

"I'm not afraid of those pigs, Natasha."

"I am. What will happen to next year's budget if you infuriate them?"

Morrison said, with sudden impatience, but speaking even more softly, "What concerns me is neither the Committee nor the budget, but the simple question of what it is I am doing here."

Dezhnev said, "You are here to witness a miniaturization and to be given an explanation of why we need your help. Will that satisfy you, Comrade Am-- Comrade Outside Expert?"

17.

Morrison followed the other two to something that looked like a small old-fashioned train carriage on very narrow-gauge tracks.

Boranova placed her thumb on a smooth patch and a door slid open smoothly and without noise. "Please get in, Dr. Morrison."

Morrison held back. "Where are we going?"

"To the miniaturization chamber, of course."

"By railroad? How big is this place?"

"It is large, Doctor, but not so large. This is a matter of security. Only certain individuals can use this device and only by using it can one penetrate into the core of the Grotto."

"Are your own people so untrustworthy?"

"We live in a complex world, Dr. Morrison. Our people are trustworthy, but we do not wish to subject large numbers to temptations they need not face. And if someone persuades one of us to go -- elsewhere, as we have persuaded you, it is safer if their knowledge is limited, you see. -- Please get in."

Morrison entered the compact vehicle with some difficulty. Dezhnev followed him with equal trouble, saying, "Another example of senseless cheese paring. Why so small? Because the bureaucrats spend billions of rubles on a project and they feel virtuous if they save a few hundred in odd places at the cost of making hardworking people miserable."

Boranova got into the front seat. Morrison could not see how she manipulated the controls or, for that matter, if there were controls to manipulate. It was probably controlled by a computer. The carriage began to move suddenly and Morrison felt the slight backward jar that resulted.

There was a small window at eye level on either side, but not of clear glass. Morrison could see a small section of the cavern outside in a streaky, wavy, poorly focused manner. Apparently, the windows were not meant for vision, but were merely intended to reduce what might otherwise be an unacceptably tight enclosure to those with claustrophobic tendencies.

It seemed to Morrison that the individuals he could make out through the glass paid no attention to the moving carriage. Everyone here, he thought, is well-trained. To show any interest in any procedure with which you have nothing directly to do must apparently be a sign of discourtesy -- or worse.

It seemed to Morrison that they were approaching the wall of the cavern and the carriage, with another small jerk, slowed. A section of the wall slid aside and the carriage, with yet another jerk, picked up speed and moved through the opening.

It grew dark almost at once and the dim light in the carriage's ceiling did little more than change night to dusk.

They were in a narrow tunnel into which the carriage fit with apparently little room to spare, except on the left side where Morrison, peering past Dezhnev, thought he could make out another pair of rails. There must be at least two such carriages, he thought, with room to pass one another in the tunnel if both were in operation.

The tunnel was as dimly lit as the carriage and it was not straight. Either it had been carved through the hill in such a way as to follow lines of least resistance in order to save money or it was curved deliberately in some dim, atavistic search for making things more secure by making them more complicated. The darkness inside and outside the carriage might serve the same purpose.

"How long will this take -- uh --" asked Morrison.

Dezhnev looked at him with (in the dimness) an unreadable expression. "You don't know how to address me, I see. I do not have an academic title, so why not call me Arkady? Everyone does here and why not? My father always said, 'What counts is the person, not the name.'"

Morrison nodded. "Very well. How long will this take, Arkady?"

"Not long, Albert," said Dezhnev cheerfully -- and Morrison, having been lured into first-name informality, could not object to the return.

He surprised himself a little by finding he did not wish to object. Dezhnev, even with his father's aphorisms included, seemed to be uncomplicated, at least, and, under the circumstances, Morrison welcomed a chance of refraining from the perpetual fencing match to which Boranova seemed to subject him.

The carriage could not be moving at a speed faster than a leisurely walk, but there was a small lurch each time it took a curve on the track. Apparently, petty economies included leaving the curves unbanked.

Then, with absolutely no warning, light flooded in and the carriage ground to a stop.

Morrison blinked as he stepped out. The room they were now in was not as large as the one they had left and there was virtually nothing in it. There were only the tracks under the carriage that made a wide arc and then led back toward the section of the wall from which they had emerged. He could see another small carriage disappearing into the opening and the wall closing behind it. The carriage in which they had arrived made a slow circuit of the arc and came to rest near the wall.

Morrison looked around. There were many doors and the ceiling was comparatively low. Without definite evidence of the fact, he felt that he was in a three-dimensional checkerboard, with numerous small rooms on several levels.

Boranova was waiting for him, seeming to observe his curiosity with a touch of disapproval. "Are you ready, Dr. Morrison?"

"No, Dr. Boranova," said Morrison. "Since I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing, I'm not ready. However, if you will lead the way, I will follow."

"That is sufficiently ready. -- This way, then. There is someone else you must meet."

They passed through one of the doors and into another small room. This one was very well-lit and had its walls lined with thick cables.

In the room was a young woman who looked up when they came in, pushing aside something, that seemed, from its appearance, to be some kind of technical report. She was quite pretty in a pale and vulnerable way. Her flaxen hair was cut short but with enough of a wave in it to keep her from looking too severe. The scanty cotton uniform she wore, which Morrison already knew to be universal within the Grotto, showed her to be attractively slim and shapely enough, though without Boranova's opulence. Her face was marred or perhaps enhanced (according to taste) by a tiny mole just under the left corner of her mouth. Her cheekbones were high, her hands thin-fingered and graceful, and her expression did not appear as though she were much given to smiling.

Morrison smiled, however. For the first time since his kidnapping, it seemed to him that there might be a lighter side to this dismal situation in which he had been unwillingly plunged.

"Good day," he said. "It's a pleasure meeting you." He tried to give his Russian an educated sound and to get rid of what the serving woman had so easily detected as his American accent.

The young woman made no direct answer but, turning to Boranova, said in a voice that was slightly husky, "Is this the American?"

"It is," said Boranova. "He is Dr. Albert Jonas Morrison, professor of neurophysics."

"Assistant professor," said Morrison deprecatorily.

Boranova ignored the correction. "And this, Dr. Morrison, is Dr. Sophia Kaliinin, who is our electromagnetics expert."

"She scarcely looks old enough," said Morrison gallantly.

The young lady did not seem amused. She said, "I look, perhaps, younger than I am. I am thirty-one years old."

Morrison looked abashed and Boranova cut in quickly, "Come, we are ready to begin. Please check the circuits and set matters in motion. -- And quickly."

Kaliinin hurried out.

Dezhnev looked after her with a grin. "I'm glad she doesn't seem to like Americans. It cuts out a hundred million potential competitors at least. Now if she also didn't like Russians and would come to realize that I am as Karelo-Finnish as she is."

"You Karelo-Finnish?" said Boranova, forced into a smile. "Who would believe that, you madman?"

"She would -- if she were in the proper mood."

"This would require an impossible mood." Boranova turned to Morrison. "Please do not take Sophia's behavior personally, Dr. Morrison. Many of our citizens pass through an ultrapatriotic phase and feel it to be very Soviet to dislike Americans. It is more pose than reality. Frn sure, once we begin to work together as a team, that Sophia will let down her barriers."

"I understand completely. Things are similar in my country. As a matter of fact, at the moment, I'm not very fond of Soviets -- and understandably, I think. But" -- and he smiled -- "I could make an exception for Dr. Kaliinin very easily."

Boranova shook her head. "American like you or Russian like Arkady, there is a peculiar masculine way of thought that transcends national boundaries and cultural differences."

Morrison was unmoved. "Not that I will be working with her -- or with anyone. I have grown tired of telling you, Dr. Boranova, that I don't accept the existence of miniaturization and that I cannot and will not be of assistance to you in any way."

Dezhnev laughed. "You know, one could almost believe Albert. He speaks so seriously."

Boranova said, "Observe, Dr. Morrison. This is Katinka."

She tapped a cage which Morrison, startled, now observed for the first time. Dr. Kahinin had rather absorbed his attention till now and even after she had left he had been idly keeping his eye on the door through which she had gone, waiting for her reappearance.

He focused on the cage of wire mesh. Katinka was, apparently, a white rabbit of moderate size and placid appearance, who was munching away at greenery with the rapt concentration of her kind.

Morrison was aware of the slight scrabbling noise she made and of the rabbit odor, which he must have noted, unconsciously, earlier and ignored.

He said, "Yes, I see her. A rabbit."

"Not just a rabbit, Doctor. She is a most unusual creature. Unique. She has made history to a far greater extent than has the catalog of war and disaster that usually is thought of by that name. If we exclude such purely incidental creatures as worms, fleas, and submicroscopic parasites, Katinka is the first living creature that has been miniaturized. In fact, she has been miniaturized on three separate occasions and would have been miniaturized dozens of times more if we had been able to afford it. She has contributed enormously to our knowledge of the miniaturization of life forms and, as you can see, her experiences have in no way adversely affected her."

Morrison said, "I do not wish to be insulting, but your bare statement that the rabbit has been miniaturized three times is not really evidence that this has indeed happened. I do not mean to cast doubt upon your integrity, but, in a case like this, I think you understand that nothing less than witnessing the fact is sufficiently convincing."

"Certainly. And it is for that reason' that -- at considerable expense -- Katinka will now be miniaturized a fourth time."

118.

Sophia Kaliinin swirled back in and turned to Morrison. "Are you wearing a watch or do you have anything metallic on you?" she asked crisply.

"I have no possessions on me at all, Dr. Kaliinin. Nothing but the clothes I wear, the single pocket of which is empty. Even this identification bracelet that has been put on me seems to be of plastic."

"It is merely that there is a strong electromagnetic field and metal would interfere."

Morrison said, "Any physiological effects?"

"None. Or at least none have yet been detected."

Morrison, who was waiting for them to give up their pretense of miniaturization and wondering how long they could carry on the fraud (he was growing more censorious over the matter by the minute), said, with just a touch of malice, "Might not overexposure lead to birth defects should you ever get pregnant, Dr. Kaliinin?"

Kaliinin flushed. "I have a baby. She is perfectly normal."

"Were you exposed during pregnancy?"

"Once."

Boranova said, "Is the inquisition over, Dr. Morrison? May we begin?"

"You still maintain that you will miniaturize the rabbit?"

"Certainly."

"Then go ahead. I'm all eyes."

(How foolish of them, he thought sardonically. They would soon be claiming, of course, that something had gone wrong, but where would they go from there? What was it all about?)

Boranova said, "To begin with, Dr. Morrison, would you lift the cage?"

Morrison made no move to do so. He looked from one to the other of the three Soviets in suspicion and uncertainty.

Dezhnev said, "Go ahead. It won't hurt, Albert. You won't even get your hands dirty and, after all, hands were meant to become dirty at work."

Morrison put his hands on either side of the cage and lifted. It weighed about ten kilograms, he judged. He grunted and said, "May I put it down now?"

"Of course," said Boranova.

"Gently," said Kaliinin. "Do not disturb Katinka."

Morrison lowered it carefully. The rabbit, which had momentarily stopped feeding when the cage was lifted, sniffed the air curiously and returned tentatively to its unhurried chewing.

Boranova nodded and Sophia moved to one side of the room where a bank of controls were all but hidden by the cables. She looked over her shoulder at the cage as though estimating its position, then walked over to move it slightly. She returned to the controls and closed a switch.

A whining sound made itself heard and the cage began to glitter and shimmer as though something, all but invisible, had interposed itself between it and themselves. The shimmer extended beneath the cage, separating it from the stone-top table on which it had been resting.

Boranova said, "The cage is now enclosed in the miniaturization field. Only the objects within the field will be miniaturized."

Morrison stared and a little worm of uncertainty began to stir within him. Were they going to try some clever illusion on him and make him think he had witnessed miniaturization? He said, "And how exactly did you produce that so-called miniaturization field?"

"That," said Boranova, "we do not intend to tell you. I think you understand what classified information is. Go ahead, Sophia."

The whine heightened in pitch and intensified somewhat. Morrison found it unpleasant, but the others seemed to endure it stolidly. In looking at them, he had taken his eyes off the cage. Now when he looked at it again, it seemed to have grown smaller.

He frowned and bent his head so as to line up one side of the cage with the vertical line of a cable on the opposite wall. He held his head steady, but the side of the cage shrank away from the reference line. There was no mistake, the cage was distinctly smaller. He blinked his eyes in frustration.

Boranova smiled narrowly. "It is indeed shrinking, Dr. Morrison. Surely your eyes tell you so."

The whine continued -- the shrinking continued. The cage was perhaps half its original linear measurement.

Morrison said, with obvious lack of conviction, "There are such things as optical illusions."

Boranova called out. "Sophia, stop the process for a moment."

The whine lowered into silence and the glitter of the miniaturization field dimmed and died. The cage sat on the table as before, a considerably smaller version than it had been. Inside was the rabbit still -- a smaller rabbit, but one that was proportioned in every way as the original had been, munching on smaller leaves, with smaller pieces of carrot distributed across the floor of the cage.

Boranova said, "Do you honestly think that this is an optical illusion?"

Morrison was silent and Dezhnev said, "Come, Albert, accept the evidence of your senses. This experiment consumed considerable energy and if you remain unconvinced, our clever administrators will be annoyed with all of us for wasting money. What do you say, then?"

And Morrison, shaking his head in rueful confusion, said, "I don't know what to say."

Boranova said, "Would you lift the cage again, Dr. Morrison?"

Again Morrison hesitated and Boranova said, "The miniaturization field has not left it radioactive or anything like that. The touch of your unminiaturized hand will not affect it, nor will its state of miniaturization affect you. You see?" And she placed her hand, flatly and gently, on top of the cage.

Morrison's hesitation was not proof against that. Gingerly, he placed his hand on either side of the cage and lifted. He exclaimed in surprise, for it could not be much over a kilogram in mass. The cage trembled in his grip and the miniaturized rabbit, alarmed, hopped to one corner of the cage and huddled there in agitation.

Morrison put the cage down and, as nearly as he could estimate, did so in its original position, but Kaliinin walked over and made a small adjustment.

Boranova said, "What do you think, Dr. Morrison?"

"It weighs considerably less. Is there some way you pulled a switch?"

"Pulled a switch? You mean replaced the larger object with a smaller while you were watching, the smaller exactly like the larger in everything but size. Dr. Morrison, please."

Morrison cleared his throat and didn't press the point. It lacked plausibility even to himself.

Boranova said, "Please notice, Dr. Morrison, that not only has the size been decreased, but the mass in proportion. The very atoms and molecules of which the cage and its contents are composed have shrunk in size and mass. Fundamentally, Planck's constant has decreased, so that nothing inside has changed relative to its own parts. To the rabbit, itself, its food, and everything within the cage seems perfectly normal. The outside world has increased in size relative to the rabbit, but, of course, it remains unaware of that."

"But the miniaturization field is gone. Why don't the cage and its contents revert to ordinary size?"

"For two reasons, Dr. Morrison. In the first place, the miniaturized state is metastable. That is one of the great fundamental discoveries that make miniaturization possible. At whatever point we stop in the process, it takes very little energy to maintain it in that state. And secondly, the miniaturization field is not entirely gone. It is merely minimized and drawn inward so that it still keeps the atmosphere within the cage from diffusing outward and normal molecules outside from diffusing inward. It also leaves the walls of the cage touchable by unminiaturized hands. -- But we are not finished, Dr. Morrison. Shall we continue?"

Morrison, troubled and unable to deny the direct experience, wondered for a moment if he had somehow been drugged into a kind of super-suggestibility that would make him experience whatever he was told he was experiencing. In a choked way, he said, "You are telling me a great deal."

"Yes, we are, but only superficially. If you repeat this in America, you will probably not be believed and nothing you say will give the slightest hint as to the core of the miniaturization technique." Boranova lifted her hand and Kaliinin again threw the switch.

The whine returned and the cage began once again to shrink. It seemed to be going faster now and Boranova, as though reading Morrison's mind, said, "The further it shrinks, the less mass there is to remove and the more rapidly it shrinks further."

Morrison found himself staring, in a state of near-shock, at a cage that was a centimeter across and still shrinking.

But Boranova raised her hand again and the whine died.

"Be careful, Dr. Morrison. It weighs only a few hundred milligrams now and it is a fragile object indeed to anyone on our scale. Here. Try this."

She handed him a large magnifying glass. Morrison, without saying a word, took it and held it over the tiny cage. He might not have managed to make out what the moving object within it was if he had come upon it without prior knowledge, for his mind would not have accepted such an incredibly tiny rabbit.

He had seen it shrink, however, and he stared at it now with a mixture of confusion and fascination.

He looked up at Boranova and said, "Is this really happening?"

"Do you still suspect an optical illusion or hypnotism or -- what else?"

"Drugs?"

"If it were drugs, Dr. Morrison, it would be a greater achievement than miniaturization. Look around you. Doesn't everything else look normal? It would be an unusual drug indeed that would alter your sense perception of a single object in a large room of unchanged miscellany. Come, Doctor, what you've witnessed is real."

"Make it larger," said Morrison breathlessly.

Dezhnev laughed and suppressed in a quick choke. "If I laugh, the wind may well blow away Katinka, whereupon Natasha and Sophia will both strike me with everything else in this room. If you wish it enlarged, you will have to wait."

Boranova said, "Dezhnev is right. You see, Dr. Morrison, you have witnessed a scientific demonstration, not magic. If it were magic, I could snap my finger and the rabbit would be its normal self again in a normal cage -- and then you would know you were witnessing an optical illusion. However, it takes considerable energy to decrease Planck's constant to a tiny fraction of its normal value, even over a relatively small volume of the Universe, which is why miniaturization is so expensive a technique. To enlarge Planck's constant once again must result in the production of energy equal to that which had been consumed originally, for the law of conservation of energy holds even in the process of miniaturization. We cannot deminiaturize then any faster than we can dispose of the heat produced, so that it takes considerable time to do it -- much more than it took to miniaturize."

For a while, Morrison was silent. He found the explanation involving conservation of energy more convincing than the demonstration itself. Charlatans would not have been so meticulous about obeying the constraints of physics.

He said, "It seems to me, then, that your miniaturization process can scarcely be a practical device. At most it would only serve as a tool, perhaps, to broaden and expand quantum theory."

Boranova said, "Even that would be enough, but don't judge a technique by its initial phase. We can hope that we will learn how to circumvent these large energy changes, how to find methods of miniaturization and deminiaturization that will be more efficient. Does all the energy-change have to pass from electromagnetic fields into miniaturization and then into heat on deminiaturization? Might not deminiaturization be somehow inveigled into releasing energy as electromagnetic fields again. That would be easier to handle, perhaps."

"Have you repealed the second law of thermodynamics?" asked Morrison with exaggerated politeness.

"Not at all. We don't expect an impossible 100 percent conversion. If we can convert 75 percent of the derniniaturization energy into an electromagnetic field -- or even only 25 percent -- that would be an improvement over the present situation. However, there is hope of a technique even more subtle and far more efficient and that is where you come in."

Morrison's eyes widened. "I? I know nothing about this. Why pick me out for your salvation? You would have done as well with a child out of kindergarten."

"Not so. We know what we are doing. Come, Dr. Morrison, you and I shall go to my office while Sophia and Arkady begin the tedious process of restoring Katinka. I will there show you that you know quite enough to help us make miniaturization efficient and therefore a commercially practical venture. In fact, you will see quite clearly that you are the only person who can help us."

CHAPTER 5 -- COMA

Life is pleasant Death is peaceful. It is the transition that is troublesome.

-- Dezhnev Senior

19.

"This," said Natalya Boranova, "is my own portion of the Grotto."

She sat down in a rather battered armchair that (Morrison imagined) she found perfectly comfortable, having molded it to her body over the years.

He sat down in another chair, smaller and more austere, with a satin-covered seat that was less comfortable than it looked. He glanced over the surroundings with a sharp sensation of homesickness. There were ways in which it reminded him of his own office. There was the computer outlet and the large screen. (Boranova's was far more ornate than his own -- the Soviet style tended toward the curlicue and Morrison felt a momentary curiosity as to the reason and then put that aside as a trivial matter.)

There was also the same trend toward disorder in the piles of printouts, the same distinct odor they gave rise to, the same occasional old-fashioned book in among the film cassettes. Morrison tried to read the title of one that was too far off and too worn to be made out. (Books always had an ancient appearance, even when they were new.) He had the impression it was an English-language book, which would not have surprised him. He himself had several Russian classics in his laboratory for an occasional brushup of the language.

Boranova said, "We are quite private here. We will not be overheard and we will not be disturbed. Later we can have lunch brought in."

"You are kind," said Morrison, trying not to sound sardonic.

Boranova seemed to take it at face value. "Not at all. And now, Dr. Morrison, I can't help having noticed that Arkady is on a first-name basis with you. He is, of course, to a certain extent an uncultured individual and is apt to presume. Still, may I ask again if, despite the conditions that brought you here, we might be pleasant and informal with each other?"

Morrison hesitated. "Well, call me Albert, then. But it will be merely a convenience and no sign of friendship. I am not likely to dismiss my kidnapping."

Boranova cleared her throat. "I did try to persuade you to come of your own free will. If necessity had not driven us so hard, we would have gone no farther than that."

"If you are embarrassed by what you have done, then return me to the United States. Send me back now and I will be willing to forget this episode and will make no complaint to my government."

Slowly Boranova shook her head. "You know that cannot be done. Necessity still drives. You will see what I mean, shortly. But meanwhile, Albert, let us talk together, without nonsense, as part of the global family of science that rises superior to questions of nationality and other artificial distinctions among human beings. -- Surely by now you have accepted the reality of miniaturization."

"I must accept it." Morrison shook his head, almost regretfully.

"And you see our problem?"

"Yes. It is far too expensive in energy."

"Imagine, however, if we lower the energy cost drastically. Imagine if we can bring about miniaturization by plugging a wire into a wall socket and consuming no more energy than we would if we were heating a toaster oven."

"Of course -- but apparently it can't be done. Or, at any rate, your people cannot do it. Why all the secrecy, then? Why not publish the findings you have already made and welcome the contributions of the rest of the family of science? Secrecy seems to imply the possibility that the Soviet Union is planning to use miniaturization as a weapon of some kind, one powerful enough to make it possible for your country to find it feasible to break the mutual understanding that has led to peace and cooperation throughout the world for the last two generations."

"That is not so. The Soviet Union is not trying to establish a world hegemony."

"I hope not. Still, if the Soviet Union seeks secrecy, it is understandable that other units of the global alliance would begin to wonder if it seeks conquest."

"The United States has its secrets, has it not?"

"I don't know. The American government does not confide in me. If it does have secrets -- and actually I suppose it does -- I disapprove of that, too. But tell me why there is any necessity for secrets? What does it matter if you develop miniaturization, or we, or both of us in combination -- or the Africans, for that matter? We Americans invented the airplane and the telephone, but you have both. We were the first to reach the moon, but you enjoy your full share of the lunar settlements. You, on the other hand, were the first to crack the problem of fusion power and the first to build a solar power station in space and we participate fully in both."

Boranova said, "All that you say is true. Nevertheless, for over a century, the world has taken it for granted that American technology is superior to Soviet technology. That is a constant irritant to us, and if, in something as basic and as thoroughly revolutionary as miniaturization, it is clearly established that the Soviet Union led the way, then that would be most desirable for us."

"And the global family of science that you appeal to? Are you a member of that or are you merely a Soviet scientist?"

"I am both," said Boranova with a touch of anger. "If it were my decision, then perhaps I would open our discoveries to the world. However, I do not make the decision. My government does and I owe them loyalty. Nor do you Americans make it easy for us to do otherwise. Your constant loud American assumption of superiority drives us into a defensive posture."

"But won't it spoil Soviet pride in their accomplishment to have to call upon an American such as myself to help out?"

"Well, yes, it does sour the milk a bit, but it will at least give the United States a share in the achievement, which we shall acknowledge, Albert. You will be showing yourself a true American patriot and will improve your own reputation if you help us."

Morrison smiled bitterly. "A bribe?"

Boranova shrugged. "If that is how you interpret it, I cannot stop you. But let us talk in a friendly manner and see what will come of it."

"In that case, start by giving me some information. Now that I am forced to believe that miniaturization is possible, can you tell me the basic physics behind it? I am curious."

"You know better than that, Albert. It would be dangerous for you to learn too much. How would we, then, be able to let you go back to your country? -- Besides, although I can operate the miniaturization system, even I don't know the basics. If I did, our government could scarcely risk having me visit the United States."

"You mean we might kidnap you as you kidnapped me. Do you think the United States engages in kidnapping?"

"I am absolutely certain it would when necessity drove sufficiently."

"And who are the people who do know the basics of miniaturization?"

"That also is not something that, in general, it is safe for you to know. However, I can lift the curtain just a bit in this matter. Pyotor Shapirov is one of them."

"Crazy Peter," said Morrison, smiling. "Somehow I'm not surprised."

"You shouldn't be. I am sure you say 'crazy' only as one of your jokes, but it was he who first worked out the basic rationale behind miniaturization. Of course," she added thoughtfully, "it may very well be that that required a certain insanity -- or, at any rate, a certain idiosyncracy of thought. It is also Shapirov who first suggested a method of achieving miniaturization with a minimum expenditure of energy."

"How? The conversion of derniniaturization into an electromagnetic field?"

Boranova made a face. "I was merely giving you an example. Shapirov's method is far more subtle."

"Can it be explained?"

"Only roughly. Shapirov points out that the two great aspects of the unified theory of the Universe -- the quantum aspect and the relativistic aspect -- each depends on a constant that sets a limit. In quantum theory it is Planck's constant, which is very tiny but not zero. In relativity, it is the speed of light, which is very great but not infinite. Planck's constant sets a lower limit to the size of energy transfer and the speed of light sets an upper limit to the speed of information transmission. Shapirov maintains, furthermore, that the two are related. In other words, if Planck's constant is decreased, the speed of light would increase. If Planck's constant were reduced to zero, then the speed of light would be infinite."

Morrison said at once, "In which case, the Universe would be Newtonian in its properties."

Boranova nodded. "Yes. According to Shapirov, then, the reason for the enormous energy consumption of miniaturization is that the two limits are uncoupled, that Planck's constant is decreased without the speed of light being increased. If the two were coupled, then energy would flow from the speed-of-light limit into the Planck's constant limit during miniaturization and in the other direction during deminiaturization, so that the speed of light would go up as miniaturization proceeded and down again during deminiaturization. The efficiency should be nearly a hundred percent. Very little energy would then be required to miniaturize and re-expansion could take place very quickly."

Morrison said, "Does Shapirov know how miniaturization and deminiaturization can be carried through with the two limits coupled?"

"He said he did."

"Said? Past tense? Does that mean he has changed his mind?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what has he done?"

Boranova hesitated. "Albert," she said almost pleadingly, "do not go too fast. I want you to think. You know that miniaturization works. You know that it is possible, but not practical. You know that it would be a boon for humanity and I have assured you that it is not meant for destructive or warlike use. Once we know that our national precedence is recognized, which we want for psychological reasons I have presented to you quite frankly, I am sure we will share miniaturization with all divisions of the globe."

"Really, Natalya? Would you and your nation trust the United States if the situation were reversed?"

"Trust!" said Boranova and sighed heavily. "It doesn't come naturally to anyone. It is the weakness of humanity that we constantly read the worst into others. Yet trust must begin somewhere or the fragile mood of cooperation we have enjoyed for so long will shatter and we will be back to the twentieth century with all its horrors. Since the United States feels so strongly that it is the stronger and more advanced nation, should it not be the first to risk the act of trusting?"

Morrison spread out his arms. "I can't answer that. I am a private citizen and do not represent my nation."

"As a private citizen you can help us, knowing that you will not be harming your own country."

"I can't possibly know such a thing, since I only have your word for it and I don't believe you represent your nation any more than I represent mine. But all this is irrelevant, Natalya. Even if I wanted to, how on Earth can I help you make miniaturization practical, when I know nothing about the subject?"

"Be patient. In a while we will have lunch. Dezhnev and Kaliinin will be through with the deminiaturization of Katinka by then and will join us, together with one other whom you must meet. Then, after lunch, I will take you to see Shapirov."

"I'm not sure about that, Natalya. You told me just a while ago that it would be dangerous for me to meet anyone who really understood miniaturization. I might learn too much and this might raise problems with my return to the United States. Why, then, should I risk seeing Shapirov?"

Boranova said sadly, "Shapirov is an exception. I promise you that you will understand this when you see him -- and you will also understand why we must turn to you."

"That," said Morrison with all the conviction with which he had lately proclaimed the impossibility of miniaturization, "I will never understand."

20.

Lunch was in a well-lit room, for strips of the walls, together with the entire ceiling, were electroluminescent. Boranova had pointed it out with obvious pride and Morrison had refrained from making invidious comparisons with the United States, where electroluminescence was widespread.

Nor did he express his amusement over the fact that despite the electroluminescence there was a small but ornate chandelier centered in the ceiling. Its bulbs contributed nothing to the light, but it undoubtedly made the room seem less antiseptic.

As Boranova had predicted, a fifth person had joined them and Morrison was introduced to someone named Yuri Konev. "A neurophysicist like yourself, Albert," said Boranova.

Konev, who was darkly handsome and who seemed to be in his middle thirties, had an air of almost gawky youth about himself. He shook hands with wary curiosity and said, "I am most pleased to meet you," in creditable English, spoken with a distinct American accent.

"You have been in the United States, I imagine," said Morrison, also in English.

"I spent two years doing graduate work at Harvard University. It gave me a splendid opportunity to practice my English."

"Nevertheless," said Boranova in Russian, "Dr. Albert Morrison does very well in our language, Yuri, and we must give him a chance to practice it here in our country."

"Of course," said Konev in Russian.

Morrison had, indeed, almost forgotten that he was underground. There were no windows in the room, but that was common enough in large office buildings even aboveground.

The meal was not an ebullient one. Arkady Dezhnev ate with silent concentration and Sophia Kaliinin seemed abstracted. She glanced occasionally at Morrison, but ignored Konev completely. Boranova watched everyone, but said very little. She seemed content to leave the floor to Konev.

Konev said, "Dr. Morrison, I must tell you that I have followed your work carefully."

Morrison, who had been eating the thick cabbage soup appreciatively, looked up with a quick smile. This was the first reference to his work, rather than to their work, since he had arrived in the Soviet Union.

"Thank you for your interest, but Natalya and Arkady call me Albert and I will have difficulty in responding to different names. Let us all be on a first-name basis for the brief time that remains before I am returned to my own land."

"Help us," said Boranova in a low voice, "and it will indeed be a brief time."

"No conditions," said Morrison in an equally low tone. "I wish to leave."

Konev raised his voice, as though to force the conversation back into the track he had chosen. "But I must admit, Albert, that I have been unable to duplicate your observations."

Morrison's lips tightened. "I have had this complaint from neurophysicists in the United States."

"Now, why should this be? Academician Shapirov is greatly intrigued by your theories and maintains that you are probably correct, at least in part."

"Ah, but Shapirov isn't a neurophysicist, is he?"

"No, he's not, but he has an extraordinary feel for what is correct. I have never known him to say, 'It seems to me that this must be right,' in which whatever he is discussing hasn't proved to be right -- at least in part. He says you are probably on the road to establishing an interesting relay station."

"A relay station? I don't know what he means by that."

"It's what he said once in my hearing. Some private thought of his own, no doubt." He cast a penetrating glance at Morrison, as though waiting for an explanation of the remark.

Morrison simply shrugged it away. "What I have done," he said, "is to establish a new kind of analysis of the cephalic waves originating in the brain and to have narrowed the search for a specific network within the brain devoted to creative thought."

"There you may be a little overoptimistic, Albert. I have not satisfied myself that this network of yours really exists."

"My results mark it out quite clearly."

"In dogs and monkeys. It is uncertain how far we can extrapolate such information to the much more complex structure of the human brain."

"I admit I haven't worked with the human brain anatomically, but I have analyzed human brain waves carefully and those results are at least consistent with my creative structure hypothesis."

"This is what I haven't been able to duplicate and what American researchers may not have been able to duplicate, either."

Again Morrison shrugged. "Adequate brain wave analysis is, at best, a monumentally difficult thing at the quintenary level and no one else has given the years to the problem that I have."

"Or possesses the particular computerized equipment. You have designed your own program for the purpose of brain wave analysis, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have."

"And described it in the literature?"

"Certainly. If I achieved results with an undescribed program, they would be worth nothing. Who could confirm my results, lacking an equivalent computer program?"

"Yet I have heard, at the International Neurophysical Conference in Brussels last year, that you are continually modifying your program and complaining that the lack of confirmation stems from the use of insufficiently complex programming incapable of Fourier analysis to the proper degree of sensitivity."

"No, Yuri, that is false. Entirely false. I have modified my program from time to time, but I have carefully described each modification in Computer Technology. I have tried to publish the data in The American Journal of Neurophysics, but they haven't accepted my papers these last few years. If others confine their reading to the AJN and don't keep up with relevant literature elsewhere, that is not my fault."

"And yet --" Konev paused and frowned in what seemed to be uncertain thought. "I don't know if I ought to say this because it may be something else that will antagonize you."

"Go ahead. I have, in these last few years, learned to accept all kinds of remarks-hostile, sarcastic, and -- worst of all -- pitying. I am quite hardened to it. -- This is good chicken Kiev, by the way."

"This is a guest meal," murmured Kaliinin, almost under her breath. "Too buttery -- bad for the figure."

"Hah," said Dezhnev loudly. "Bad for the figure. That is an American remark that makes no sense in Russian. My father always said, 'The body knows what it needs. That's why some things taste good.'"

Kaliinin closed her eyes in quite obvious distaste. "A recipe for suicide," she said.

Morrison noticed that Konev did not look at the young woman during this bit of byplay. Not at all.

He said, "You were saying, Yuri? About something that might antagonize me, you thought?"

Konev said, "Well, then, is it true, Albert, or not true that you actually gave your program to a colleague and that, using it in your computer, he was still unable to duplicate your results?"

"That's true," said Morrison. "At least my colleague, an able enough man, said he could not duplicate my results."

"Do you suspect he was lying?"

"No. Not really. It's just that the observations are so delicate that to attempt them while certain of failure may well lead, it seems to me, to failure."

"Might one not argue the other way around, Albert, and say that your certainty of success leads you to imagine success?"

"Possibly," said Morrison. "That has been pointed out to me several times in the past. But I don't think so."

"One more rumor," said Konev. "This I truly hate to repeat, but it seems so important. Is it true that you have claimed that in your analysis of brain waves you have occasionally sensed actual thoughts?"

Morrison shook his head vigorously. "I have never made such a claim in print. I have said to a colleague, once or twice, that in concentrating on the brain wave analysis there are occasionally times when I seem to find thoughts invading my mind. I have no way of telling whether the thoughts are entirely mine or whether my own brain waves resonate to those of the subject."

"Is such a resonance conceivable?"

"I suppose so. The brain waves produce tiny fluctuating electromagnetic fields."

"Ah! It is this, I suppose, that made Academician Shapirov make that remark about a relay station. Brain waves are always producing fluctuating electromagnetic fields -- with or without analysis. You don't resonate -- if resonance is what it is -- to the thoughts of someone in your presence, no matter how intensely he may be thinking. The resonance takes place only when you are busily studying the brain waves with your programmed computer. It presumably acts as a relay station, magnifying or intensifying the brain waves of the subject and projecting them into your mind."

"I have no evidence for that except for an occasional fugitive impression. That's not enough."

"It might be. The human brain is far more complex than any other equivalent piece of matter we know of."

"What about dolphins?" said Dezhnev, his mouth full.

"An exploded view," said Konev at once. "They're intelligent, but their brains are devoted too entirely to the minutiae of swimming to allow enough room for abstract thought on the human scale."

"I have never studied dolphins," said Morrison indifferently.

"Ignore the dolphins," said Konev impatiently. "Just concentrate on the fact that your computer, properly programmed, may act as a relay station, passing thoughts from the mind of the subject you are studying to your own mind. If that is so, Albert, we need you and no other person in the world."

Morrison said, frowning and pushing his chair away from the table, "Even if I can pick up thoughts by way of my computer -- a claim I have never made and which, in fact, I deny -- what can that possibly have to do with miniaturization?"

Boranova rose and looked at her watch. "It is time," she said. "Let us go and see Shapirov now."

Morrison said, "What he says will make no difference to me."

"You will find," said Boranova with a hint of steel in her voice, "that he will say nothing -- but will be utterly convincing just the same."

21.

Morrison had kept his temper well so far. The Soviets were, after all, treating him as a guest and if he could overlook the small matter of his being carried off by force, he had little of which to complain.

But what were they getting at? One by one, Boranova had introduced him to others -- first Dezhnev, then Kaliinin, then Konev -- for reasons he had not penetrated. Over and over, Boranova had hinted of his usefulness without actually saying what it might be. Now Konev talked of it and was equally uncommunicative.

And now they were to see Shapirov. Clearly this had to be a climax of sorts. From the first mention of him by Boranova at the convention two days ago, Shapirov had seemed to hover over the whole matter like a thickening fog. It was he who had worked out the miniaturization process, he who seemed to detect a connection between Planck's constant and the speed of light, he who seemed to value Morrison's neurophysical theories, and he who made the remark about the computer as relay station that had apparently set off Konev's conviction that Morrison -- and only Morrison -- could help them.

It remained for Morrison, now, to resist any blandishments or arguments that Shapirov could present. If Morrison insisted that he would not help them, what would they do when all the blandishments and arguments had failed?

Crude threat of force -- or torture?

Brainwashing?

Morrison quailed. He dared not put his refusal on the basis that he would not. He would have to persuade them that he could not. Surely that was a reasonable position on which to take his stand. What could neurophysics -- and a dubious, unaccepted bit of neurophysical work at that -- have to do with miniaturization?

But why didn't they see that for themselves? Why did they all act as though it were conceivable that a person like himself, who had never as much as thought of miniaturization until some forty-eight hours before, could do something for them -- them, the only experts in the field -- that they could not do for themselves?

It was a rather lengthy walk along corridors and, lost in his own uncomfortable thoughts, Morrison did not notice that they were fewer in number than he had thought.

He said to Boranova suddenly, "Where are the others?"

She said, "They have work to do. We do not have forever to do what we must, you know."

Morrison shook his head. Chatty, they were not. None of them seemed to scatter information. Always close-lipped. A long-standing Soviet habit, perhaps -- or something that was ground into them through their work on a secret project in which even the scientists dared not step outside the narrow limits of their immediate work.

Were they coming to him as a storybook American generalist? Nothing he had ever done, surely, would give anyone that impression. As a matter of fact, he was himself a narrow specialist, knowing virtually nothing outside of neurophysics. -- This was a worsening disease of modern science, he thought.

They had entered another elevator, something he had scarcely bothered to notice, and they were now on another level. He looked around him and recognized characteristics that seemed to transcend national differences.

"Are we in a medical wing?" he asked.

"A hospital," said Boranova. "The Grotto is a self-contained scientific complex."

"And why are we here? Am I --" He stopped suddenly, as the horror of the thought smote him. Was he to be drugged or, by some other medical means, made more compliant?

Boranova had walked on for a moment, then stopped, looked back, and came toward him, saying snappishly, "Now what is frightening you?"

Morrison felt ashamed. Were his facial expressions that transparent? "Nothing is frightening me," he grumbled. "I am simply tired of walking aimlessly."

"What makes you think we are walking aimlessly? I said we were going to see Pyotor Shapirov. We are walking toward him now. -- Come, we have only a few steps left."

They turned a corner and Boranova beckoned him to a window.

He stepped to her side and looked in. It was a room and there were a number of people present. There were four beds, but only one was occupied and it was surrounded by equipment that he did not recognize. There were tubes and glassware extending toward the bed and Morrison counted a dozen functionaries, who might be doctors, nurses, or medical technicians.

Boranova said, "There is Academician Shapirov."

"Which one?" said Morrison, his eyes traveling from one of the figures to the other and finding no one who seemed similar in appearance to the scientist he recalled haVing met once.

"In the bed."

"In the bed? He's ill, then?"

"Worse than ill. He is in a coma. He has been in a coma for over a month and we strongly suspect it is an irreversible state."

"I'm terribly sorry to hear that. I presume that is why you referred to him in the past tense before lunch."

"Yes, the Shapirov we know is in the past tense, unless --"

"Unless he recovers? But you just said the coma is probably irreversible."

"That's true. But neither is he brain-dead. The brain is damaged certainly or he wouldn't be in a coma, but it is not dead and Konev, who has followed your work closely, thinks that some of his thinking network is still intact."

"Ah," said Morrison, the light breaking. "I begin to understand. Why didn't you explain this to begin with? If you had wanted to consult me on such a matter and had explained, I might have been willing to come here with you voluntarily. Yet, on the other hand, if I were to study his cerebral functioning and tell you, 'Yes, Yuri Konev is right,' then what good will that do you?"

"That will do us no good at all. You don't yet begin to understand, you see, and I can't explain exactly what it is I want until you understand the problem. Do you quite realize what is buried there in the still-living portions of Shapirov's brain?"

"His thoughts, I suppose."

"Specifically, his thoughts of the interconnection of Planck's constant and the speed of light. His thoughts of a method for making miniaturization and deminiaturization rapid, low-energy, and practical. With those thoughts, we give humanity a technique that will revolutionize science and technology -- and society -- more than anything since the invention of the transistor. Perhaps more than anything since the discovery of fire. Who can tell?"

"Are you sure you're not being overdramatic?"

"No, Albert. Does it occur to you that if miniaturization can be tied in with a vast acceleration of the speed of light, a spaceship, if sufficiently miniaturized, can be sent to anywhere in the Universe at many times the ordinary speed of light. We won't need faster-than-light travel. Light will travel fast enough for us. And we won't need antigravity, for a miniaturized ship will have close to zero mass."

"I can't believe all that."

"You couldn't believe miniaturization."

"I don't mean I can't believe the results of miniaturization. I mean I can't believe that the solution of the problem is permanently locked in the brain of one man. Others will eventually think of it. If not now, then next year or next decade."

"It's easy to wait when you are not concerned, Albert. The trouble is we're not going to have a next decade or even a next year. This Grotto which you see all about you has cost the Soviet Union as much as a minor war. Each time we miniaturize anything -- even if it's just Katinka -- we consume enough energy to last a sizable town for a whole day. Already, our government leaders look askance at this expense and many scientists, who do not understand the importance of miniaturization or who are simply selfish, complain that all of Soviet science is being starved for the sake of the Grotto. If we do not come up with a device to save on energy -- an extreme saving, too -- this place will be shut down."

"Nevertheless, Natalya, if you publish what is now known of miniaturization and make it available to the Global Association for the Advancement of Science, then innumerable scientists will put their minds to it and quickly enough someone will devise a method for coupling Planck's constant and the speed of light."

"Yes," said Boranova, "and perhaps the scientist who will obtain the key of low-energy miniaturization will be an American or a Frenchman or a Nigerian or a Uruguayan. It is a Soviet scientist who has it now and we don't want to lose the credit."

Morrison said, "You forget the global fellowship of science. Don't cut it up into segments."

"You would speak differently if it were an American who was on the edge of the discovery and you were asked to do something that might possibly give the credit to one of us. Do you remember the history of the American reaction when the Soviet Union was the first to put an artificial satellite into orbit?"

"Surely we have advanced since then."

"Yes, we have advanced a kilometer, but we have not advanced ten kilometers. The world is not yet entirely global in its thinking. There remains national pride to a considerable extent."

"So much the worse for the world. Still, if we are not global and if national pride is something we are expected to retain, then I should have mine. As an American, why should I be disturbed over a Soviet scientist losing credit for the discovery?"

"I ask you only to understand the importance of this to us. I ask you to put yourself in our place for a moment and see if you can grasp our desperation to do what we can to find out what it is that Shapirov knows."

Morrison said, "All right, Natalya. I understand. I don't approve, but I understand. Now -- listen carefully, please -- now that I understand, what is it you want of me?"

"We want you," said Boranova intensely, "to help us find out what Shapirov's thoughts -- his still-living and existing thoughts -- are."

"How? There's nothing in my theory that makes that possible. Even granting that thinking networks do exist, and that brain waves can be minutely analyzed, and even granting that I occasionally get a mental image, possibly imaginary, possibly an artifact -- there remains no way in which the brain waves can be studied to the extent of interpreting them in terms of actual thoughts."

"Not even if you could analyze, in detail, the brain waves of a single nerve cell that was part of a thinking network?"

"I couldn't deal with a single nerve cell in anything approaching the necessary kind of detail."

"You forget. You can be miniaturized and be inside that single nerve cell."

And Morrison stared at her in sick horror. She had mentioned something like this at their first meeting, but he had put it aside as nonsense -- horrifying, but nonsense, since miniaturization, he was certain, was impossible. But miniaturization was not impossible and now the horror was undiluted and paralyzing.

22.

Morrison did not then, nor could he at any time afterward, clearly recall the events that immediately followed. It was not a case of everything going black as much as everything having blurred.

His next clear memory was that of lying on a couch in a small office with Boranova looking down at him and with the other three -- Dezhnev, Kaliinin, and Konev -- behind her. Those three came into focus more slowly.

He tried to struggle into a sitting position, but Konev moved toward him and placed his hand on Morrison's shoulder. "Please, Albert, rest awhile. Gather your strength."

Morrison looked from one to another in confusion. He had been upset, but he did not clearly remember what he had been upset about.

"What happened? How -- how did I get here?" He looked around the room again. No, he hadn't been here. He had been looking through a window at a man in a hospital bed.

He said, puzzled, "Did I faint?"

"Not really," said Boranova, "but you weren't quite yourself for a while. You seemed to undergo a shock."

Now Morrison remembered. Again he tried to lift himself into a sitting position, more strenuously this time. He struck Konev's restraining hand out of the way. He was sitting up now, with his hands on the couch on either side of him.

"I remember now. You wanted me to be miniaturized. What happened to me when you said that?"

"You simply swayed and -- crumpled. I had you placed on a stretcher and brought here. It didn't seem to anyone that you needed medication, merely a chance to rest and recover."

"No medication?" Morrison looked vaguely at his arms, as though he expected to see needle marks through the sleeve of his cotton blouse.

"None. I assure you."

"I didn't say anything before I collapsed?"

"Not a word."

"Then let me answer you now. I'm not going to be miniaturized. Is that clear?"

"It is clear that you say so."

Dezhnev sat down on the couch next to Morrison. He had a full bottle in one hand and an empty glass in the other.

"You need this," he said and half-filled the glass.

"What is it?" asked Morrison, lifting his arm to ward it off.

"Vodka," said Dezhnev. "It's not medicinal, it's nourishing."

"I don't drink."

"There is a time for everything, my dear Albert. This is a time for a warming bit of vodka, even for those who do not drink."

"I don't drink out of disapproval. I can't drink. I have no head for alcohol, that's all. If I take two swallows of that, I will be drunk within five minutes. Completely drunk."

Dezhnev's eyebrows went up. "So? What other purpose is there in drinking? Come, if you are lucky enough to win your goal in a few inexpensive sips, thank whatever you find thankable. A very small amount will warm you, stimulate your peripheral circulation, clear your head, concentrate your thoughts. It will even give you courage."

Kaliinin's voice sounded in half a whisper, but was distinctly audible. "Do not expect miracles of a little alcohol."

Morrison's head twisted sharply and he looked at her. She did not seem as pretty as he had thought her on their first meeting. There was a hard and unforgiving look about her.

Morrison said, "I have never represented myself as a courageous man. I have never presented myself as anything that would be of help to you. I have maintained from the beginning that I could not do anything for you. That I am here at all is the result of compulsion, as you all know. What do I owe you? What do I owe any of you?"

Boranova said, "Albert, you are shivering. Take a sip of the vodka. You will not be drunk on a sip and we won't force more on you."

Almost as though to show bravery in a small way, Morrison, after a moment's hesitation, took the glass from Dezhnev's hand and swallowed a bit of the liquor recklessly. He felt a burning sensation in his throat, which passed. The taste was rather sweetish than otherwise. He took a larger sip and handed the glass back. Dezhnev took it and placed it and the bottle on a small table on his side of the couch.

Morrison tried to speak, but he coughed instead. He waited, cleared his throat, and said breathily, "Actually, that's not so bad. If you don't mind, Arkady --"

Dezhnev reached for the glass, but Boranova said, "No. That's enough, Albert." Her imperious gesture stopped Dezhnev. "We do not want you drunk, Albert. Just a little warm so you will listen to us."

Morrison could feel the warmth rising within him, as it always had when, on rare occasions of social bonhomie, he had had some sherry or (once) a dry martini. He decided he could handle any argument she could produce.

"All right," he said, "say on," and set his lips into a firm and unyielding line.

"I don't say, Albert, you owe us anything and I'm sorry that all this came as such a shock to you. We are aware that you are not a reckless man of action and we tried to break it to you as gently as possible. I had hoped, in fact, that you would see what was essential on your own, without any necessity of explanation."

"You were wrong," said Morrison. "At no time would such a mad thing have occurred to me."

"You see our necessity, don't you?"

"I see your necessity. I don't see it as mine.

"You might feel you owe it to the cause of global science."

"Global science is an abstraction that I admire, but I am not likely to want to sacrifice my highly concrete body for an abstraction that doesn't seem to exist. The whole point of your necessity is that it is Soviet science that is at stake, not global science."

"Then consider American science," said Boranova, "If you help us, that will become an eternal part of the victory. It will become a joint Soviet-American victory."

"Will my part be publicized?" demanded Morrison. "Or will the thing be announced as purely Soviet?"

Boranova said, "You have my word."

"You cannot commit the Soviet Government."

"Horrible," said Kaliinin. "He judges our government by his own."

Konev said, "Wait, Natalya. Let me talk to our American friend, man to man." He sat down by Morrison and said, "Albert, I appeal to your interest in your work. So far, you have achieved little in the way of results. You have convinced no one in your country and you don't have any chance of doing so as long as you are left with only the tools you have. We offer you a better tool, one whose worth you couldn't dream of three days ago and one which you'll never have again if you turn away from it now. Albert, you have the chance to graduate from romantic speculations to convincing evidence. Do this for us and you will become, at a bound, the most famous neurophysicist in the world."

Morrison said, "You're asking me to risk my life on an untried technique."

"That is not unprecedented. All through history, scientists have risked death to continue their investigations. They have gone up in balloons and have dipped under the seas in primitive armored spheres to make their measurements and observations. Chemists have risked dealing with poisons and explosives, biologists with pathogens of all types. Physicians have injected themselves with experimental sera and physicists, in attempting to establish a self-supporting nuclear reaction, knew well that the explosion that resulted might destroy them or, conceivably, the entire planet."

Morrison said, "You spin dreams. You would never let it be known that an American played a role. Not when you confess your desperation at the possibility that Soviet science would lose the credit."

Konev said, "Let's be honest with each other, Albert. We couldn't hide your share in this, even if we wished to. The American government knows we brought you here. We know they do. You know they do. They made no move to stop us because they want you here. Well, they will know -- or at least guess -- what we wanted you here for and what you did for us, once we announce our success. And they will see to it that American science, in your person, will get full credit."

Morrison sat silently, head bent, for a while. There was a flushed spot, high on each cheek, as a result of the vodka he had drunk. Without looking, he knew that four pairs of eyes were firmly fixed upon him and he suspected that four breaths were being held.

He looked up and said, "Let me ask you one question. How did Shapirov come to be in a coma?"

There was again a silence and three of the pairs of staring eyes shifted to Natalya Boranova.

Morrison, seeing that, also stared at her. "Well?" he said.

Boranova said, "Albert, I will tell you the truth, even if that would tend to defeat our aims. If we try to lie to you, you will be right not to believe anything we say. If you see we are truthful, then you can believe us in the future. Albert, Academician Shapirov is in a coma because he was miniaturized, as we hope you will be. There was a small accident during deminiaturizing that destroyed part of his brain, apparently permanently. That can happen, you see, and we are not hiding it from you. Now give us the credit for utter frankness and say you will help us."

CHAPTER 6 -- DECISION

We are always certain that the decision we have just made is wrong.

-- Dezhnev Senior

23.

Now, finally, Morrison rose, feeling a trifle unsteady on his feet -- whether from the vodka, from the general tension of the day, or from this last revelation he did not know or care. He stamped his feet a little, as though to firm them, then deliberately walked the length of the small room and back.

He faced Boranova and said in a harsh voice, "You can miniaturize a rabbit and nothing seems to happen to it. Did it occur to you that the human brain is the most complex bit of matter we know and that, whatever else might survive, the human brain might not?"

"It did," said Boranova stolidly, "but all our investigations have shown us that miniaturization does not in the least affect the interrelationships within the object being miniaturized. In theory, even the human brain would not be affected by miniaturization."

"In theory!" said Morrison with contempt. "How is it possible that, based on theory alone, you would experiment with Shapirov, whose brain you seem to value so highly? And having failed with him, to your enormous loss, how can you be so mad as to propose experimenting with me to recover that loss? You'll simply fail with me, too, and I cannot accept that."

Dezhnev said, "Don't speak nonsense. We are not mad. Nothing we did was lightly undertaken. The fault was Shapirov's."

Boranova said, "In a way, it was. Shapirov had his eccentric ways. 'Crazy Peter' I believe you call him in English and that is perhaps not so far off. He was intent on having the miniaturization experience. He was getting old, he said, and he would not, like Moses, reach the Promised Land without entering it."

"He might have been forbidden to do so."

"By me? I would forbid Shapirov? You can't be serious."

"Not you. Your government. If the miniaturization process is so precious to the Soviet Union --"

"Shapirov threatened to abandon the project altogether if he did not have his way and that could not be risked. Nor is our government quite so high-handed as it once was in its pressures on troublesome scientists. It must take world opinion into greater account now, as your government must. It is the price of global cooperation. Whether that is for the better or for the worse, I cannot say. In any case, Shapirov was eventually miniaturized."

Morrison muttered, "Absolutely mad."

"No," said Boranova, "for we did not move without precautions. Despite the fact that every exercise in miniaturization is costly and sends shivers through the Central Coordinating Committee, we insisted on a careful approach. Twice we miniaturized chimpanzees and twice we brought them back and could detect no changes in them -- either as a result of minute studies of their behavior or by magnetic resonance imaging of the brain."

"A chimpanzee is not a human being," said Morrison.

"Something we were aware of," said Boranova gravely. "Therefore, we miniaturized a human being next. A volunteer. Yuri Konev, to be precise."

Konev said, "It had to be me. It was I who felt most strongly that the human brain would not be affected. I am the neurophysicist of the project and it was I who made the necessary calculations. I would not ask another human being to risk his sanity on my calculations and my certainty. Life is one thing -- we all lose it sooner or later. Sanity is quite another."

"So brave," whispered Kaliinin, looking at her fingertips, "the deed of a true Soviet hero." Her lip trembled, as though on the brink of a sneer.

Looking firmly at Morrison, Konev said, "I am a loyal Soviet citizen, but I did not do it for nationalist motives. They would be, in this case, irrelevant. I did it as a matter of decency and of scientific ethics. I had confidence in my analysis and of what worth was my confidence if I would not risk myself on it? And it is a matter of something else, too. When the history of miniaturization is recorded, I will be listed as the first human being ever to have been subjected to the process. That will eclipse the deeds of a great-grand-uncle of mine who was a general fighting the German Nazis in the Great Patriotic War. And I would be pleased with that, not out of vainglory but out of a belief that the conquests of peace should always be held superior to victories in war."

Boranova said, "Well, putting ideals to one side and passing on to the facts. Yuri was miniaturized twice. First, he was taken down to about half his height and was restored in perfect order. Then he was miniaturized to the size of a mouse and again was restored in perfect order."

Morrison said, "And then Shapirov?"

"And then Shapirov. He was by no means easy to control even this far. He argued vociferously for the chance to be the first person miniaturized. After Konev's first venture into the small, it was all we could do to persuade him to wait for a second and more drastic attempt. After that we could control him no more. Not only were we forced to miniaturize him, but he swore that he would abandon the project and somehow make his way out of the country to begin a miniaturization project elsewhere if we did not miniaturize him to a greater extent than we had Konev. We had no choice. If 'Crazy Peter,' as you call him, were mad enough to speak of emigrating, that would go beyond what the government would be willing to allow even in these days. We didn't want him in prison, so we miniaturized him to the size of a cell."

"And that passed the limits of safety, did it?"

"No. We have every reason to think he was in perfect order, even miniaturized so far. He was being brought back and then at one point in the deminiaturization there was a misadventure. Deminiaturization took place a trifle too quickly and the temperature rose slightly in Shapirov's body. It had the effect of a high fever -- not enough to kill him, but enough to damage his brain permanently. It might have been reversed if we could have attended to him at once, but deminiaturization had to be completed and that took time. It was an appalling catastrophe and all that we can hope for is the chance to salvage what we need from what is left of his brain."

"There may be another misadventure, as you call it, if I were to be miniaturized. Isn't that so?"

"Yes," said Boranova, "that is so. I don't deny it. There have been failures and misadventures throughout the history of science. Surely you need no reminder that there were deaths of cosmonauts in space both on the American and Soviet sides. That did not prevent our present settlement of the moon -- and of space itself -- as a new home for humanity."

"That may be so, but all advances in space were made by volunteers. No one was launched into space against his will. And I am not volunteering."

Boranova said, "You need not be so frightened of it. We have done our best to make it as safe as possible and, by the way, you will not go alone. Konev and Shapirov did go alone and as bare as the rabbit, for they, like the rabbit, were in a miniaturization field that was encased in air. You, on the other hand, will be in a ship, a kind of modified submarine. It, too, has been miniaturized and deminiaturized without harm. It is a little less expensive to carry through the process with an inanimate object because it can stand a rise in temperature more easily. In fact, such a rise serves to test for the ruggedness and stability of all its components."

"I am not going, Natalya, either alone or with the Red Army."

Boranova ignored the remark. "With you on the ship," she said, "will be we four. Myself, Sophia, Yuri, and Arkady. That is why I have introduced each of them to you. We are all partners in this greatest of all exploring trips. We will not be crossing an ocean or penetrating the vacuum of space. We will instead enter a microscopic ocean and penetrate the human brain. Can you be a scientist -- a neurophysicist -- and resist that?"

"Yes. I can resist that. And easily. I will not go."

Boranova said, "We have your software, your program. You always carry it with you and you had it with you when you were brought here. We will have a computer on board the ship for you, one that is the exact model of the one you use in your laboratory. It should not be a long trip. We will all be miniaturized, taking our chances along with you. You will take your computer readings and record the sensations you receive and then we will all be deminiaturized and your part will be done with. Say that you will join us. Say you will do it."

And Morrison, fists clenched, said stubbornly, "I will not join you. I will not do it."

Boranova said, "I am so sorry, Albert, but that is the wrong answer. We will not accept it."

24.

Morrison felt his heart racing again. If this was going to be a straightforward contest of wills, he was not sure he was up to coping with this woman who, despite all her apparent softness, seemed made of alloy steel. Moreover, she had behind her the full apparatus of the Soviet Union and he himself was alone.

He said desperately, "Surely you know this whole thing is a trumped-up romantic notion. How do you know there is any connection between Planck's constant and the speed of light? All you have is some statement by Shapirov. Isn't that correct? Did he give you any details? Any evidence? Any explanations? Any mathematical analysis? -- It was nothing more than a statement -- an imaginative speculation -- wasn't it?"

Morrison tried to sound confident. After all, if Shapirov had given them anything substantive, they would not now be trying the desperate trick of rifling his brain for something useful. He held his breath, waiting for the response.

Boranova looked at Konev then said, with a shade of reluctance, "We will continue our policy of telling the flat and unadorned truth. We have nothing but some remarks Shapirov made, as you've guessed. He enjoyed keeping things to himself until he could spring them on us fully dressed, so to speak. He was more than a little childish in this respect. Perhaps that was an aspect of his eccentricity -- or of his genius -- or of both."

"But how can you tell, under those circumstances, that such an unsupported speculation would have any validity whatever?"

"When Academician Pyotor Shapirov said, 'I feel it will be thus and so,' that is how it turned out to be."

"Come on. Always?"

"Almost always."

"Almost always. He could have been wrong this time."

"I admit that. He could have been."