It flashed through his mind that Kaliinin had put some random electric charge on his suit and that whatever it was he was passing, by the most miserable of coincidences, had a charge that exactly complemented his own.

Under normal circumstance, that would not have mattered. The ship and the structure passed each other at such a speed that no attraction could have sufficed to rip him loose, but he was a tiny object with neither mass nor inertia and, for a moment, he felt -- stretched -- as though the structure and the ship disputed ownership. The ship, it seemed to his appalled eyes, briefly faltered and then was pushed loose by the current.

Morrison had been peeled off by the object and the ship, still continuing with the current, moved off so rapidly that it was lost to sight at once. One second it was with him, the next second it was totally gone.

Before he had time to realize what had happened, he was alone and helpless -- an atom-sized object in a brain cell. His only faint attachment to life and reality -- the ship -- was forever gone.

68.

Some minutes must have been lost to Morrison. During that time, he had no conception of where he was or of what had happened. He was conscious only of absolute panic, of the conviction that he was on the point of death.

When life continued, Morrison was almost sorry. If that moment had been death, it would have been all over. Now he still had to wait for it.

How long would his air last? Would heat and humidity crawl on, even if more slowly than before, inexorably, just the same, perhaps. Would his light give out before he did and would he have to die in utter darkness as well as utterly alone? He thought, quite madly, How will I know when I'm dead if it's absolutely dark before and absolutely dark thereafter? (He thought of Ajax's prayer to Zeus that if he had to meet death, let it be in the light of day. And, with this, Morrison thought hopelessly, And with one person, at least, to hold one's hand.)

What to do, then?

Just wait?

What had gone wrong, anyway?

Ah, he was not yet dead. The fear had receded enough to allow room for a little curiosity -- and a will to fight and live.

Could he somehow get loose from this thing? It seemed disgraceful, somehow, to die like a fly stuck in amber. -- And every moment the ship was getting farther away. Almost at once he thought, It's already too far away for me to be caught, no matter what I do.

The thought drove him to frenzy and Morrison writhed with all his might, trying to break loose. It did no good and it occurred to him that he was wasting energy and increasing the heat within the suit.

He slid his hands upward along the misty structure that held him, but his hands bounced away. Like charges repel each other.

He reached along it -- right, left, up, down. Somewhere there was the opposite charge. He might be able to seize hold then and try to tear the structure apart. (Why were his teeth chattering? Fright? Desperation? Both?)

His right hand clicked shut as it was attracted to a portion of the structure. He clenched hard, trying to push past the mere charge and tear at the atomic arrangement itself -- if there was any atomic arrangement that had meaning aside from the charge itself.

For a moment, Morrison felt the structure resist a too-tight grip with a kind of rubbery rebound. And then, without warning, it crumbled in his hand. He stared in amazement at his hand, trying to make out what had happened. There was no tearing, ripping, or wrenching sensation. It seemed to him that a portion of the structure had simply disappeared.

Morrison tried again, groping here and there, until another portion vanished. What was happening?

Wait awhile! The miniaturization field extended beyond the ship slightly, Boranova had said. It would extend beyond the suit, too. When he squeezed as hard as he might, some of the atom he was touching would miniaturize and, in so doing, it would lose its normal architecture and break loose from the atoms to which it had formerly been bonded. Anything he touched -- if he could touch it hard enough -- would miniaturize.

Any atom or portion thereof that he miniaturized in this way would become a point-sized particle with far less mass than an electron. It would take off at nearly the speed of light, pass through matter as though that matter weren't there, and be gone.

Could this be so? It had to be so. Nothing else he could imagine would make sense.

And even as he thought this, Morrison began to push his hands and feet violently against the imprisoning material -- and broke loose.

He was no longer glued to the structure. He was an independent body coursing along the intercellular stream.

It didn't stop the ship from being forever out of reach, but he was at least on its trail. (Foolish! Foolish! What good was it to be on its trail? On his own scale, he was dozens of kilometers from the ship -- if not scores.)

Another thought struck him and staggered him. He had been miniaturizing atoms to get free, but such miniaturization required an input of energy. Not much at this stage, since there was so little mass to remove, but where would the energy come from?

It had to come from the suit's own miniaturization field. Every atom that miniaturized weakened the field, therefore. How much had he weakened it, then, by getting loose?

And was that why he wasn't feeling the heat? Had the miniaturization of his surroundings soaked up some of the heat as well as of the energy of the miniaturization field? No, that couldn't be so, for he hadn't felt much in the way of heat even before he began breaking loose.

Yet another thought struck him, making his position more desperate still. If he had broken loose from the structure at the expense of the energy of his field -- if his field had been weakened -- then he would have deminiaturized slightly. Was that the reason for spontaneous deminiaturization?

Boranova had talked of the possibility of such spontaneous deminiaturization. The possibility of that increased, the smaller the miniaturized object was. -- And he was now small.

As long as he had been on the ship, he had been part of the overall miniaturization field of the ship. He was part of a molecule-sized object. While he was part of the cytoskeleton of the cell, he was part of an even larger object. But now he was alone, separate, part of nothing beyond himself. He was an atom-sized object.

He was much more likely, now, to deminiaturize spontaneously, except that it wouldn't be spontaneous -- it would be the weakening of the field by the miniaturization of surrounding normal objects.

How could he tell if he were deminiaturizing? If he were, the process would proceed at an exponential rate. He would be deminiaturizing slowly at first, but as he grew larger he would affect a larger volume of surrounding material and he would grow larger at a faster rate, then still faster, and finally it would be an explosion and he would die.

But what did it matter if he were deminiaturizing? If he were, then, in a brief time -- seconds merely, at most -- he would be dead and it would happen too quickly to make any impression upon him. One moment he would be alive and the next moment there would be nothingness.

How could he ask for a better death? Why should he want to know a second earlier that it was going to happen?

Because he was alive and he was human -- and wanting to know was what made an object alive and human.

How could he tell?

Morrison stared at the dim glinting around him, at the moving swell of the water molecules, turning and shifting around him in a kind of slow motion as both he and they moved along the intercellular stream.

If he were increasing in size, they should seem to be decreasing, and vice versa.

Morrison stared. They were decreasing in size, getting smaller. Was this death? Or his imagination?

Wait, were the water molecules increasing in size? Swelling? Getting larger? Ballooning? If so, it must follow that he was getting smaller.

Would he shrink to the size of a subsubatomic particle? A subelectron? Would he go streaking off at the speed of light and explode when he was halfway to the moon, dying in a vacuum before he had time to know he was in a vacuum?

No, the molecules were shrinking, not expanding -- Morrison closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was going mad. Or was he beginning to experience brain damage?

Better to die, then. Better death altogether than a dead brain and living body.

Or were the water molecules pulsating? Why should they pulsate?

Think, Morrison, think. You're a scientist. Find an explanation. Why should they pulsate?

He knew why the field might weaken -- its tendency to miniaturize the surroundings. Why should it strengthen?

It would have to gain energy to strengthen. From where?

What about the surrounding molecules? They had more random heat energy per volume than he had because they were at a higher temperature. Ordinarily, heat should flow from the surroundings into his suit until his suit and he himself would be at blood temperature and he would die of his own inability to rid himself of the heat he had accumulated, as he almost had on his earlier venture outside the ship.

But there was not only the heat energy intensity of his body; there was also the energy of the miniaturization field. And, as he was struck randomly by the water molecules, energy need not flow into him in the form of heat, but in the form of miniaturization activation. The field would grow more intense and he would shrink.

This must be true at all times when a miniaturized object was surrounded by normal objects of higher temperature. The energy might flow from the surroundings to the miniaturized object either as heat or as field intensity. And it must be that the smaller the object, the more intensely miniaturized, the more it was the field that gained the energy and not the object itself.

Probably the ship, too, was pulsating, growing larger and smaller constantly, but to an extent not great enough to notice. Still, that was why the Brownian motion hadn't increased as far as it might have and that was why the air-conditioning could perform its function with less strain. The miniaturization field formed a cushion in both cases.

But he -- Morrison, alone in the cell -- was much smaller, possessing less mass, and for him the energy inflow went far more into miniaturization than heat.

Morrison's fists clenched helplessly. He let go of the computer and didn't care. Undoubtedly, the others, Boranova and Konev certainly, knew of this and might have explained it to him. Once again they let him go into danger without warning him.

And now that he had worked it out for himself -- what good did it do him?

He opened his eyes suddenly.

Yes, there were pulsations. Now that he knew what to expect, he saw them. The water molecules were expanding and contracting in an irregular rhythm as they gave up energy to the field and then extracted energy from it. I

Morrison watched it with a stupefied swaying rhythm and he found himself muttering soundlessly: "Larger, smaller, larger, smaller, larger, smaller."

It could only get so large, he thought. The expansion mirrored his own contraction and there was only so much energy to be pushed into him to power that contraction. The cellular contents had a temperature only so high. On the other hand, they could take large quantities of energy from him, and once they took enough, what was left would go more and more quickly, and he would explode.

Therefore, when the water molecules expanded in size (and he himself was growing smaller) he was safe. He would not grow very small. When the water molecules contracted in size, however (and he himself was growing larger), he was not safe. If the water molecules continued to contract until they were too small to see that meant he would be expanding toward instantaneous explosion.

"Larger, smaller -- smaller -- stop contracting!"

Morrison let his breath go, for the molecules were expanding again.

Over and over! Each time -- would the contraction stop?

It seemed to be playing with him and it didn't matter anyway. No matter if it brought him to the brink of destruction, then snatched him away, and if it did it a million times over, it wouldn't matter. Sooner or later, his air would be gone and he would die a slow, suffocating death.

Better a quick death, surely.

69.

Kaliinin was screaming. She was the first to realize what had happened and she choked on her words.

"He's gone! He's gone!" she shrieked.

Boranova was unable to stop herself from asking the obvious question. "Who's gone?"

Kaliinin turned wide eyes on her and said, "Who's gone? How can you ask who's gone? Albert is gone."

Boranova stared blankly out at the spot where Morrison had been and now wasn't. "What happened?"

Dezhnev muttered hoarsely, "I'm not sure. We cut a corner closely. Albert, attached to the outside of the ship, introduced an asymmetry, perhaps. I tried to steer the ship away from -- from whatever it was, but it didn't respond properly."

"A fixed macromolecular organelle," said Konev, who looked up now after having buried his face in his hands, "scraped him off. We've got to get back to him. He may have the information we need."

Boranova by now clearly understood the situation. She unclasped herself with a quick movement and stood up. "Information?" she said tightly. "Is that what you feel the loss of, Yuri? Information? Do you know what's going to happen now? Albert's miniaturization field is isolated and he's only atom-sized. The chance of his undergoing spontaneous deminiaturization is at least fifty times ours. Given enough time, the chance will become too good. Information or not, we must get him. If he deminiaturizes, he will kill Shapirov and he will kill us."

Konev said, "We're just arguing motivation. We both want him back. The reasons why are secondary."

"We should never have sent him out," said Kaliinin. "I knew it was wrong to do so."

"It is done," said Boranova gruffly, "and we must proceed from that point. Arkady!"

"I'm trying," said Dezhnev. "Don't teach a drunkard to hiccup."

"I'm not trying to teach you anything, old fool. I'm ordering you. Turn around. Back! Back!"

"No," said Dezhnev. "Let this old fool tell you that's ridiculous. Do you want me to make a U-turn and buck the current? You want me to try to force my way upstream?"

Boranova said, "If you just stand still, the stream will bring him to us."

"He is adhering to something. He will not be brought to us," said Dezhnev. "What we must do is turn to the other side of the dendrite and let the return stream carry us back."

Boranova put both hands to her head and said, "I apologize for calling you an old fool, Arkady, but if we go back by the counterstream we'll miss him."

"We have no choice," said Dezhnev. "We lack the energy to try to make our way against the stream we're in."

Konev said, sounding a bit weary but reasonable, "Let Arkady do as he wishes, Natalya. We will not lose Albert."

"How can you know that, Yuri?"

"Because I can hear him. -- Or, rather, sense him. -- Or, rather, sense Shapirov's thoughts by way of his instrument, bare and uninsulated in the cell."

There was a momentary silence. Boranova, clearly astonished, said, "Are you getting something?"

"Of course. In that direction," said Konev, pointing.

"You can tell the direction?" said Boranova. "How?"

"I'm not sure how. I just feel. It's in that direction!"

Boranova said, "Arkady, do as you were planning."

"I am doing it regardless of what you say, Natasha. You may be captain, but I am navigator with death staring me in the face. What have I to lose? As my old father would say: 'If you are dangling from a rope over an abyss, don't bother snatching at a coin that falls out of your pocket.' -- It would be better if I had a real steering mechanism than this system of trying to maneuver three off-center engines."

Boranova had stopped listening. She peered into the darkness uselessly and said, "What is it you hear, Yuri? Shapirov's thoughts tell us -- what?"

"Nothing at the moment. It is just noise. Anguish."

Kaliinin muttered, as though to herself, "Do you suppose part of Shapirov's mind knows he's in a coma? Do you suppose part of his mind feels trapped and is clamoring to get out? Like Albert -- trapped? Like we ourselves -- trapped?"

Boranova said sharply, "We are not trapped, Sophia. We can move. We will find Albert. We will get out of this body. Do you understand, Sophia?" She reached for the other woman's shoulders, her fingers digging deeply.

Kaliinin winced. "Please. I understand."

Boranova turned to Konev. "Is that all you get? Anguish?"

"But strongly." Then, curiously, staring at Boranova, "Do you sense nothing?"

"Nothing at all."

"But it is so strong. Stronger than anything I felt when Albert was in the ship. It was right for him to move outside."

"But can't you make out any actual thoughts? Words?"

"Perhaps I am too far. Perhaps Albert hasn't got his machine properly focused. And you really sense nothing?"

Boranova shook her head decisively and glanced briefly at Kalimin, who said in a low voice (rubbing one shoulder), "I sense nothing, either."

And from Dezhnev came a discontented, "I never get any of these mysterious messages."

"You got 'Hawking.' Albert suggested there might be different brain types as there are different blood types and that he and I might be of the same type. He may be right," said Konev.

Boranova said, "From what direction does the sensation come now?"

"From there." This time Konev pointed much closer to the fore end of the ship. He said, "You are turning, arent you, Arkady?"

"I am," said Dezhnev, "and I'm now fairly close to the doldrums between the two streams. I am planning to edge only slightly into the counterstream so that we head back, but not too quickly."

"Good," said Boranova. "We don't want to miss him. -- Yuri, can you judge the intensity? Is it getting stronger?"

"Yes, it is." Konev seemed a bit surprised, as though he had not noticed the rise in intensity until Boranova had mentioned it.

"Is it imagination, do you think?"

"It might be," said Konev. "We haven't really gotten any closer to him. We're just making a turn. It's almost as if he's approaching us."

"Perhaps he's washed off whatever he adhered to or forced himself loose. In that case, the current would carry him to us, if we're forcing a turn and staying essentially in the same place."

"Perhaps."

"Yuri," said Boranova vehemently, "you just concentrate on the sensation. Keep Arkady aware at all times of the direction from which it comes, which means you will have to be pointing toward Albert steadily. -- Arkady, as you get closer to Albert, you will have to turn toward the original stream again and get into it as close to his position as possible. Then once we're moving together, it will be easy to drift closer by use of our motors."

"Easy for one who's not controlling the motors," growled Dezhnev.

"Easy or difficult," said Boranova, her formidable eyebrows hunching low, "do it. If not -- No, there is no 'If not.' Do it."

Dezhnev's lips moved, but no sound came and silence fell upon the ship -- except for the unheard flood of sensation that entered Konev's mind but left the other minds empty.

Konev remained standing, facing in the direction from which it seemed to him the sensation was coming. He muttered once, "Definitely stronger." Then, after several moments, "It seems to me I can almost sense words. Maybe, if he comes close enough --"

His expression grew even more strained, as though it were trying to force the sensation, to cram it into his mind, while taking the noise apart and separating it into words. His finger kept pointing rigidly and he said finally, "Arkady, begin curving back into the doldrums and be ready to plunge into the original stream. -- Quickly. Don't let him pass us."

"As quickly as the motors will let me," said Dezhnev. Then, in a lower voice, "If I could maneuver this ship by the same magic with which the rest of you hear voices --"

"Head straight for the membrane," said Konev, ignoring the remark.

It was Kaliinin who saw the spark of light first. "There he is!" she cried out. "That's the light of his suit."

"I don't have to see it," said Konev to Boranova. "The noise is like a volcanic eruption in Kamchatka."

"Still noise, Yuri? No words?"

"Fright," said Konev, "incoherent fright."

Boranova said, "If I were aware in any way of being trapped in a comatose body, it would be precisely how I would feel. -- But how has he come to realize it now? Earlier we did make out words and even quiet and peaceful images."

Dezhnev said, panting a little in the excitement of the chase, which had him unconsciously holding his breath, "It may be something we've done with this ship. We've stirred up his brain."

"We're too small," said Konev with contempt. "We can't even stir up this one cell noticeably."

"We're coming up to Albert," said Dezhnev.

"Sophia," said Boranova, "can you detect his electrical pattern?"

"Faintly, Natalya."

"Well, throw everything you've got into something complementary that will attract him tightly."

"He seems a little large. Natalva."

"He's oscillating, I'm sure," said Boranova grimly. "Once you attach him to the ship, he'll become part of our general miniaturization field and his size will adjust. Quickly, Sophia."

There was a slight bump as Morrison was electronically pulled against the side of the ship.

CHAPTER 16 -- DEATH

Once the sun sets, it grows dark; don't let that catch you by surprise.

-- Dezhnev Senior

70.

Morrison could not later recall anything that took place -- either just before or just after his return to the ship. Try as he might, he did not remember seeing the ship coming for him at any time, nor did he recall the moment of transfer, nor the removal of his plastic suit.

Going far enough back, he remembered the despair and loneliness of waiting to explode and die. Going far enough forward, he remembered looking up at the concerned face of Sophia Kaliinin bending over him. There was nothing in between.

Hadn't this happened already? The two incidents, joined by Kaliinin's care for him, were separated by several hours in time, but melted into one.

He said in a hoarse and almost unintelligible voice, "Are we headed in the right direction?" He said it in English.

Kaliinin hesitated, then answered slowly, also in English and with a moderately heavy accent, "Yes, Albert, but that was some time ago, when we were in the capillary. You came back and then went out a second time. We are in a neuron now. Remember?"

Morrison frowned. What was all this?

Slowly, in bits, his memory returned. He closed his eyes and tried to get it all straight. Then he said, "How did you find me?" He spoke in Russian now.

Konev said, "I sensed -- quite strongly -- the thought waves of Shapirov as it came through your instrument."

"My computer! Is it safe?"

Konev said, "It was still attached to you. Did you make out actual thoughts?"

"Actual thoughts?" Morrison stared at him fuzzily. "What actual thoughts? What are you talking about?"

Konev was clearly impatient, but he set his lips tightly together and then said, "I could make out Shapirov's thought waves reaching me across the cell by way of your device, but there were no actual words or images."

"What did you sense, then?"

"Anguish."

Boranova said, "The rest of us sensed nothing at all, but it seemed to us that what Yuri described was the anguish of a mind that knew it was in a comatose trap, that knew it was a prisoner. Did you sense anything more specific than that?"

"No." Morrison looked down upon himself and realized that he was sprawled across two seats, his head was in the crook of Kaliinin's arms, and that he was in his one-piece cotton suit. He tried to struggle upright. "Water, please."

He drank thirstily, then said, "I don't recall hearing anything or sensing anything. In my position --"

Konev said sharply, "What has your position to do with it? Your computer was transmitting information. I sensed it at a considerable distance. How would it be possible for you not to sense anything?"

"I had other things to think about, Yuri. I was lost and I was sure of death. Under the circumstances, I paid no attention to anything else."

"I can't believe that, Albert. Don't lie to me."

"I am not lying to you. -- Madame Boranova." He managed to pronounce the name very formally. "I demand that I be treated in a courteous manner."

"Yuri," said Boranova sharply. "Don't make accusations. If you have questions to ask, ask them."

Konev said, "Then let me put it this way. I sensed a great deal of emotion, even though I was far from the instrument in terms of our miniaturized state. You, Albert, were right on top of your device and it was keyed to your brain, not mine. Our brains are of similar type, presumably, but they are not identical and you can sense on your instrument more sharply than I can. How is it possible, then, that I could sense so much and that you should nevertheless claim to have sensed nothing?"

Morrison said strenuously, "Do you think I had time or inclination for sensing? I was swept away from the ship. I was separated, alone, lost."

"I understand that, but you need make no special effort to sense. The sensations would invade your mind despite anything that might be taking place."

"I received no sensations just the same. What filled my mind was that I was alone and I was going to die. How is it possible you don't understand that? I thought I would heat up and die, as I almost did the first time." A sudden doubt assailed him and he looked across at Kaliinin. "There were two times, weren't there?"

"Yes, Albert," she said softly.

"And then I realized I wasn't heating up. Instead, it seemed to me that I was growing larger and smaller -- oscillating. I was involved in some sort of miniaturization transfer in place of heat transfer. Is that possible, Natalya?"

Boranova hesitated, then said, "That effect follows naturally from the field equations of miniaturization. It has never been tested, but apparently you confirmed it while out there."

"It seemed to me that my surroundings were oscillating in size, that the water molecules all around me were expanding and contracting, and it seemed to me to be more logical that it was I who was oscillating, rather than that everything else was."

"You were correct and what you report is valuable. One might argue from this that the turmoil of the event to you was not without its compensation in a larger sense."

Konev said indignantly, "Albert, you tell us that you were perfectly capable of careful and rational thought out there -- and yet you expect us to believe that you sensed nothing?"

Morrison raised his voice, "Can't you understand, you monomaniac, that it was this very careful and rational thought, as you call it, that filled my mind to the exclusion of everything else? I was in absolute terror. I expected, with each contraction of the molecules around me, that contraction would continue indefinitely, which would mean, in actual fact, that I would expand indefinitely; that, in other words, I would undergo spontaneous deminiaturization and explode and die. I was not in the least concerned with sensing thought waves at that moment. If any had forced themselves on me, I would, in my condition then, have ignored them. That is the truth."

Konev twisted his face into an expression of scorn. "If I had an important job to do and if a firing squad had their weapons trained on me, then in the few moments before they fired, I would still concentrate on my job."

Dezhnev muttered, "As my father used to say: 'Anyone can hunt a bear fearlessly when the bear is absent.'"

Konev turned on him fiercely, "I've had enough of your father, you old drunkard."

Dezhnev said, "Repeat that to me when we are safely back in the Grotto and you will then find you are hunting the bear when the bear is present."

Boranova said, "Not another word, Yuri. Are you intent on quarreling with everyone?"

"Natalya, I'm intent on doing my job. Albert must go out again."

"No," said Morrison in terror. "Never."

Dezhnev, who glared at Konev less than lovingly, said, "A hero of the Soviet Union is heard from. He must do his job, so Albert must go out into the cell again."

Boranova said, "Dezhnev is right, Yuri. You boast that even a firing squad would not interrupt your duty. Go out once, then, as Albert has done twice."

Konev said, "It is his machine. It is keyed to his brain."

"So I understand," said Boranova, "but you, as you yourself say, have the same brain type. At least you could sense what he sensed. Certainly you sensed the skeptic waves when he was lost in the intercellular current. And you were at a distance. With the machine in your very hand and yourself outside, you would gather data of your own, which should be more valuable to us, in any case. Of what use would it be to have Albert's keener perception if you insist on disbelieving whatever he says?"

All were staring at Konev now. Even Kaliinin managed to look at him at intervals through her long lashes.

Then Morrison coughed slightly and said, "I'm afraid I urinated into the suit. A little. Not much, I think. Terror has its price."

"I know," said Boranova. "I've drained it and cleaned it as well as I could. That shouldn't stop Yuri. A little bit of urine residue will surely not stop the dedication to duty of a man like him."

Konev said, "I resent this clumsy sarcasm on the part of all of you, but I'll go out into the cell. Do you really think I'm afraid of doing that? My only thought to the contrary has been that Albert is the best receiver. Still, I am second-best, certainly, and if he will not do it, then I will, provided --"

He paused and Dezhnev said, "Provided the bear is not there, eh, Yuri, my hero."

Konev said bitterly, "No, old sot, provided that I am held firmly to the ship. Albert was torn loose because he was attached feebly, a poor job on the part of the one in charge of that department. I want no poor jobs done on me."

Kaliinin said to no one, her eyes on her fingertips, "Albert must have struck a structure in such a way as to exactly fit it, electrically speaking. The chance of that happening was very low. Even so, I shall try to make use of an odd pattern on the ship and the suit in order to reduce the odds as far as I can manage."

Konev nodded. "I'll accept that," he said to Boranova. Then, to Morrison, "You say there is no heat transfer?"

Morrison said, "None that I could detect. Just size oscillation."

"Then I won't bother removing my garment."

Boranova said, "You understand, Yuri, that you won't stay out long. We cannot stretch the risk of deminiaturization indefinitely."

"I understand," said Konev and with Morrison's help he clambered into the suit.

71.

Morrison looked through the hull of the ship and watched Konev.

Twice it had been the other way around. He had been outside looking in. (And for a while, that second time, he had been nowhere looking nowhere.)

Morrison felt a little chagrined that Konev seemed so composed. Konev did not turn to look into the ship. He held Morrison's computer in his hands, following Morrison's hasty instructions on the elementary aspects of expanding and focusing. He seemed entirely intent on his job. Was he really that icily brave? Would he continue to concentrate even if he were ripped loose as Morrison had been? Probably -- and Morrison felt ashamed of himself.

He looked at the others on the ship.

Dezhnev remained at his controls. He had to stay near the membrane of the cell. He had suggested moving into the doldrums between the two streams. Nearly motionless as they would then be (probably turning in a slow eddy, actually), they would not risk the kind of accident that had torn Morrison loose. Konev had vetoed that at once. It was along the membrane that the skeptic waves moved and he wanted to be near them.

Dezhnev had also suggested turning the ship upside down. Up and down made no difference here in the cell, any more than it did in outer space. By turning upside down, the air lock would be on the side of the ship away from the membrane and that might keep Konev away from cytoskeletal structures.

That merely angered Konev. He pointed out that such structures might be anywhere in the cell and that, in any case, he did not want the bulk of the ship between himself and the membrane.

So he was out there, in just the way he wanted, and Dezhnev, paying close attention to his controls, whistled very softly to himself.

Boranova watched her instrument, looking up only occasionally to gaze thoughtfully at Konev. Kaliinin was fidgety. It was the only word. Her eyes shifted toward Konev a hundred times and they shifted away as many times.

Boranova said suddenly, "Albert, it's your instrument. Do you think Yuri can work it? Do you think he's getting anything?"

Morrison smiled briefly. "I preset it for him. There isn't much further for him to do and I explained the focusing. Just the same, I know he isn't getting anything, Natalya."

"How can you know that?"

"if he were to sense something, I would overhear it -- or oversense it, perhaps I should say -- as he oversensed me when I was out in the stream. I sense nothing; absolutely nothing."

Boranova looked surprised. "But could that be? If he sensed something when you held it, why shouldn't he sense something when he holds it?"

"Perhaps conditions have changed. Consider that all this agony that Konev says he detected when he followed my machine's broadcast of Shapirov's thoughts to me. That was not characteristic of what we heard before."

"I know. It had been almost idyllic before. Green fields. Mathematical equations."

"Can it be, then, that the living part of Shapirov's brain, if it is capable of consciousness, has just recently recognized its comatose position, that it has done so in the last hour, perhaps --"

"Why should that have happened in the last hour? That's too much of a coincidence that it should do so now, just as we are in the brain."

"Perhaps we have stimulated the brain by actually being in it, and brought the realization about in consequence. Or, perhaps it is a coincidence. The funny thing about coincidences is that they do happen. -- And perhaps the realization that struck him with anguish not long ago has now caused him to sink into silent apathy."

Boranova looked uncertain. "I still can't believe that. Do you really think Yuri's not getting anything?"

"Nothing of any significance. I am quite certain."

"Perhaps I should call him in."

"I would if I were you, Natalya. He's been out nearly ten minutes. If he isn't getting anything, that's time enough."

"But what if he's getting something?"

"Then he'll refuse to come in. You know Konev."

Boranova said, "Tap on the hull of the ship, Albert. You're nearest his face."

Morrison did so and Konev looked in their direction. His face was blurred through the plastic headpiece but he wore an unmistakable frown. Boranova gestured for him to come in.

Konev hesitated, then nodded, and Morrison said to Boranova, "There's your proof."

Konev was brought in and they could see his face was flushed. They unbuckled his helmet and he drew in a deep breath.

"Whew! That's good. It was getting a little warm out there. Since I was attached to the ship, the size oscillation was less than I expected and the heat transfer was perceptible. -- Help me get the rest of this plastic armor off."

Boranova said in a sudden small spasm of hope, "Is that why you were ready to come in? The heat?"

"That was certainly the chief reason."

"Did you sense anything, Yuri?"

And Konev scowled and said, "No. Not a thing. Nothing."

Morrison lifted his head. A muscle in his right cheek twitched briefly, but he did not smile.

72.

"Well, Natasha, little captain," said Dezhnev with an air of faded bonhomie. "What do we do next? Any ideas?"

He received no answer, In fact, no one seemed to notice that he had spoken.

Konev was still mopping away at his chest and at the back of his neck. His look at Morrison had no bonhomie in it at all. His dark eyes smoldered. "There was a great deal of transmission out there when you were outside the ship."

"If you say so," said Morrison coldly, "but I told you that I don't remember a thing about it."

"Maybe it does make a difference who holds the device."

"I don't believe that."

"Science is not a matter of belief, but of evidence. Why don't we see what happens when you go out holding your own device exactly as I did? We'll have you bound firmly so that you don't come loose again and you can stay out the same ten minutes I did. No more."

Morrison said, "I won't do it. That's already been tried."

"And I sensed Shapirov's thoughts -- even if you say you didn't."

"You did not sense his thoughts. You sensed only emotion. There were no words."

"Because you let go of the device. You admitted that yourself. Try it now, without letting go."

"No. It won't work."

"You were frightened because you were torn loose. This time you will not be torn loose, as I was not. You will not be frightened."

"You underestimate my capacity for terror, Yuri," said Morrison, shrugging.

Konev looked disgusted. "Is this a time to joke?"

"I'm not joking. I'm easily terrified. I lack your -- whatever.

"Courage?"

"All right. If you want an admission I lack courage, I'll admit it."

Konev turned to look at Boranova. "Natalya. You are the captain. Direct Albert to try once more."

"I don't think I can direct him under these conditions," said Boranova. "As he himself has said, what good will it do if we combine our strength, force him into the suit, and shove him out? If he is incapable of doing anything, we'll get nothing out of it. However, I can ask him. -- Albert."

"Save your breath," said Morrison wearily.

"Once more. Not more than three minutes by the clock unless you get a transmission."

"We won't. I'm convinced we won't."

"Then only three minutes to prove the point."

Morrison said, "To what end, Natalya? If I get nothing, Yuri will say I am deliberately misadjusting my computer. If there is no trust between us, we will accomplish nothing in any case. How would it be, for instance, if I displayed Konev's conviction that to disagree is to lie? I say I sensed nothing of either Shapirov's thoughts or emotions when I was alone in the intracellular stream. Konev said he sensed a great deal. Who else did? Did you, Natalya?"

"No. I sensed nothing."

"Sophia?"

Kaffinin shook her head.

"Arkady?"

Dezhnev said in an aggrieved tone, "I do not seem to be able to sense very much."

Morrison said, "Well, then, Yuri stands alone. How are we to know he really sensed anything? I shall not be as unkind as he is. I shall not accuse him of lying -- but isn't it possible that his wild desire to sense something caused him to imagine he had?"

Konev's face was white with anger, but his voice, except for a slight tremor, was cool enough. "Forget all that. We have spent hours in this body and I'm asking for one last observation, one last experiment, that may justify all that has gone before."

"No," said Morrison. "Last pays all. I've heard that before."

Boranova said, "Albert, this time there will be no mistake. One last experiment."

Dezhnev said, "It would have to be a last experiment. Our power supply is lower than I would like it to be. Finding you was costly, Albert."

"Yet we did find you," said Konev, "and without counting the cost. I found you." He suddenly smiled tightly and fiercely. "And I wouldn't have found you if I did not detect the transmissions emanating from your device. It would have been impossible. There's the proof that what I sensed was not imaginary. And since I found you, pay me back."

Morrison's nostrils flared. "You came after me because my explosion would have killed you all in a matter of minutes, perhaps. What payment do you expect for your anxiety to save your own li-"

The ship rocked violently without warning. It swayed heavily and Konev, who had been standing, tottered and caught at the back of his seat.

"What was it?" called out Boranova, clutching with one hand at her own control device.

Kaliinin bent over her computer. "I caught a glimpse, but you can't tell in this light. It may have been a ribosome."

"A ribosome," repeated Morrison in astonishment.

"Why not? They're scattered all over the cell. They're the protein-manufacturing organelles."

"I know what they are," said Morrison indignantly.

"So it landed us a blow. Or rather, as we skimmed along, we landed it a blow. It doesn't matter which way you look at it; we just had a giant piece of Brownian motion."

"Worse than that," said Dezhnev, pointing outward in horror. "We're not getting heat transfer, we're getting field oscillation."

Morrison, staring in despair, recognized the phenomenon he had seen when alone in the cell. The water molecules were expanding and contracting -- visibly so.

"Stop it! Stop it!" shouted Konev.

"I'm trying to," said Boranova through tight lips. "Arkady, shut off the jets and make all the power available to me. -- Shut off the air-conditioning, lights, everything!"

Boranova bent over the tiny glow that marked her battery-powered computer.

Morrison could see nothing except for the light from Boranova's computer and, in the seat next to him, Kaliinin's. He could not see, in the otherwise total darkness of a cell buried in the interior of a brain, the water molecules swelling and subsiding.

There was no uncertainty about it, however. He could feel the jarring in the pit of his stomach. It was not the water molecules that were oscillating, after all. It was the miniaturization field that was -- and the objects that were buried in it -- and he himself.

Each time the ship expanded (and the water molecules seemed to contract), the field converted some of its energy to heat and he could feel the flush that swept over him. Then, as Boranova forced energy into the field, squeezing it into contraction, the heat vanished. For a while, he could feel the oscillations slow and subside.

But then they began to grow wilder and he knew that Boranova was failing. She could not fend off the spontaneous deminiaturization that was on the way and, in ten seconds, he knew he would be dead. He -- and all of them, and the body in which they were buried -- would be an exploding puff of water vapor and carbon dioxide.

He felt dizzy. He was going to faint and, in his pusillanimous way, he would thus anticipate death by a second and his last recognizable emotion would be one of intense shame.

73.

The seconds passed and Morrison didn't faint. He stirred a little. He should be dead by now, shouldn't he? (It was inevitable that the next thought should come: Can there be an afterlife after all? -- He dismissed the possibility quickly.)

He was aware of someone sobbing. No! It was harsh breathing.

He opened his eyes (he hadn't realized they were closed) and found himself staring at Kaliinin in the dim light. Since all the energy available was being pumped into the effort to keep the ship from deminiaturizing, he saw her only by the glow of her own computer. He could make out her head bent over it, her hair in disarray and her breath whistling sharply through her parted lips.

He looked around in a sudden renewal of hope and thought and life. The ship's oscillations seemed less extreme. They were settling downward into a kind of peace even as he watched.

And then cautiously, Kaliinin stopped and looked up sidewise at him, her face twitching into a painful smile. "It is done," she said in a hoarse whisper.

The light within the ship brightened slowly, almost tentatively, and Dezhnev uttered a huge shuddering sigh. "If I am not dead now," he said, "I hope to live yet a little while. As my father once said: 'Life would be unbearable if death were not worse yet.' -- Thank you, Natasha. You may be my captain forever."

"Not I," said Boranova, her face looking very old -- to the point where Morrison would not have been surprised to see white streaks in her black hair. "I simply couldn't pump enough energy into the ship. Was it something you did, Sophia?"

Kaliinin's eyes were closed now, but her breasts were still heaving. She stirred a little, as though reluctant to answer, reluctant to do anything but savor life for a time. Then she said, "I don't know. Maybe."

Boranova said, "What did you do?"

Kaliinin said, "I couldn't just wait for death. I made the ship the electric duplicate of a D-glucose molecule and hoped the cell would do the normal thing and interact with a molecule of ATP -- adenosine triphosphate. In doing so, it gained a phosphate group and energy. The energy, I hoped, would go into reinforcing the miniaturization field. I then neutralized the ship and the phosphate group fell off. D-glucose again, another gain in energy, then neutral, and so on, over and over." She stopped to pant a bit. "Over and over. My fingers were working so fast, I didn't know if I were hitting the right keys or not -- but I must have. And the ship gained enough energy to stabilize the field."

Boranova said, "How did you come to do that? No one has ever suggested in my hearing that this might --"

"Nor in mine," said Kaliinin. "Nor in mine. I was just wondering this morning before we got on the ship what I would do -- or what anyone could do -- if spontaneous deminiaturization began. We'd need energy, but if the ship couldn't pump up enough -- I thought, Could the cell itself supply the energy? If it did, it would only be through ATP, which every cell has. I didn't know if it would work. I had to spend energy, forcing the electrical pattern on and off the ship, and I knew I might spend more than I got from ATP. Or the energy of the ATP might simply not afFect the ship in such a way as to counter the deminiaturization. It was all such a gamble."

Dezhnev said -- softly, almost as though to himself, "As my old father would say: 'If you have nothing to lose, gamble freely.'" Then, briskly, he said, "Thank you, little Sophia. My life is yours from now on. I will give it to you at your need. I will go farther. I will even marry you if that would strike you as convenient."

"A chivalrous offer," said Kaliinin, smiling faintly, "but I wouldn't ask marriage of you. Your mere life -- at need -- would be quite enough."

Boranova was entirely herself now and she said, "This will be cited in detail in the final report. Your quick thinking and your quick action saved everything."

Morrison couldn't trust himself to make any speech at all. (Unaccountably, he felt near tears. -- In gratitude for life? In admiration for Kaliinin?) All he could do was reach for Kaliinin's hand, put it to his lips, and kiss it. Then, after clearing his throat vigorously, he said with extraordinary mildness, "Thank you, Sophia."

She looked embarrassed, but did not draw her hand away immediately. She said, "It might not have worked. I didn't think it would work."

"Had it not," said Dezhnev, "we would be no deader."

Through all this, only Yuri Konev had not said a word and Morrison turned to look at him. He sat as he usually sat, very upright and very much turned away from them.

Morrison, finding his voice suddenly -- and his anger -- said, "Well, Yuri, what have you to say?"

Konev looked over his shoulder briefly and said, "Nothing."

"Nothing? Sophia saved the expedition."

Konev shrugged, "She did her job."

"Her job? She did much more than her job." Morrison leaned forward and reached wildly for Konev, grabbing his shoulder. "She invented the technique that saved us. And in doing so, she saved your life, you idiot. She's the reason you're still alive. You can at least thank her."

"I'll do as I please," said Konev, twitching his shoulder and then writhing out of Morrison's grasp.

Morrison's hands found their way around Konev's throat. "You miserable, egotistical barbarian," he grunted out, squeezing desperately. "You love her in your own insane way and you won't give her a kind word. Not one kind word, you piece of dirt."

Again Konev pulled himself loose and then the two were pummeling each other clumsily. They were half-trapped by the seats from which they had partly risen and neither could maneuver properly under zero-gravity conditions.

Kaliinin screamed, "Don't hurt him!"

He won't hurt me, thought Morrison, striving mightily. He had not been engaged in this kind of physical combat since he was sixteen and, he thought in embarrassment, he wasn't doing any better now.

Boranova's voice rang out sharply. "Stop it. Both of you."

And they did. Both of them.

Boranova said, "Albert, you are not here to teach anyone manners. And Yuri, you need not labor to be a boor, it comes natural to you. If you do not wish to acknowledge Sophia's --"

Sophia said with an obvious effort, "I'm not asking for thanks -- from anyone."

"Thanks?" said Konev angrily. "Let us all say thanks. Before the deminiaturization started, I was trying to get this American coward to thank us for rescuing him. I didn't want thanks in words. This isn't a dance floor. We needn't bow and curtsy. I wanted him to show his thanks by getting out there and trying to sense some of Shapirov's thoughts. He refused. Who is he to teach me how and when to say thanks?"

Morrison said, "I said before the deminiaturization that I wouldn't do it and I repeat that now."

Dezhnev interrupted and said, "We beat a dead horse here. We have consumed our energy supply as though it were vodka at a wedding. Between pursuits and deminiaturizations, we have very little to spare for the task of deminiaturizing under controlled conditions. We must get out now."

Konev said, "It would take very little energy to have this man go out for a couple of minutes and come in again. Then we can leave."

For a moment, Konev and Morrison stared at each other hostilely and then Dezhnev said in a voice that seemed drained of some of its life, "My poor old father used to say: 'The most frightening phrase in the Russian language is "That's odd."'"

Konev turned angrily and said, "Shut up, Arkady."

Dezhnev replied, "I mentioned that only because it is now time for me to say it: That's odd."

74.

Boranova pushed her dark hair back from her forehead (a bit wearily, Morrison thought, and noted the hair itself was clearly damp with perspiration). She said, "What is odd, Arkady? Let us not play games."

"The current flow of the cellular material is slowing."

There was a brief silence, then Boranova said, "How can you tell?"

Dezhnev said heavily, "Natasha, dear, if you sat in my seat you would know that there are fibers criss-crossing the cell --"

"The cytoskeleton," put in Morrison.

"Thank you, Albert, my child," said Dezhnev with a grand wave of his hand. "My father used to say: 'It is more important to know the thing than the name.' Still, never mind. The whatever - you - call - it doesn't stop the cell flow and it doesn't stop the ship, but I can see it glint past. Well, it's glinting past more slowly now. I assume the fibers don't move, so I take it we're slowing. And since I'm not doing anything to slow the ship, I assume that it is the intracellular flow that is really slowing. -- This is called logic, Albert, so you don't have to educate me on that point."

Kaliinin said in a small voice, "I think we have damaged the cell." She sounded conscience-stricken.

Morrison took it so and said, "One brain cell gone, more or less, won't hurt Shapirov in any way, especially in the condition he's in. I wouldn't be surprised if the cell were gone, though. After all, the ship came after me in a furious race, I imagine -- and I thank you all again for that -- and it probably vibrated itself nearly to death and must have vibrated the entire cell as well."

Konev said, frowning darkly, "That's mad. We're molecule-sized -- and a small molecule at that. Do you suppose anything we can do, whether moving or jiggling, is going to damage an entire cell?"

Morrison said, "We don't have to reason it out, Yuri. It's an observed fact. The intracellular stream is stopping and that isn't normal."

"In the first place, that's just Arkady's impression," said Konev, "and he's no neurologist --"

"Do I have to be a neurologist to have eyes?" demanded Dezhnev hotly, one arm raised as though to strike at the younger man.

Konev cast a brief glance at Dezhnev, but made no other acknowledgment of his remark. He said, "And besides, we don't know what is normal in a living brain cell from this level of observation. There may be calms and eddies in the flow, so that even if something like this is observed, it might be only temporary."

"You're whistling past the graveyard, Yuri," said Morrison. "The fact is, we can't use this cell any more and we don't have sufficient remaining energy to wander around searching for another cell."

Konev ground his teeth. "There must be something we can do. We can't give up."

Morrison said, "Natalya, make the decision. Is there any point in investigating this cell any further? And are we in a position to seek out another cell?"

Boranova raised her hand and bowed her head in a moment of thought. The others turned to look at her and Konev seized the opportunity to grasp Morrison by the upper arm and pull him closer. His eyes were dark with hostility. He whispered, "How is it you think I am in love with --" he jerked his head in Kaliinin's direction. "What gives you the right to think so? Tell me that."

Morrison looked at him blankly.

At this point, Boranova spoke, but it was not to answer Morrison's question. She said mildly, "Arkady, what is it you are doing?"

Dezhnev, who was bent over his controls, lifted his head. "I am rearranging the wiring back to what it was. I am hooking up communications again."

Boranova said, "Have I told you to do that?"

Dezhnev said, "Necessity has told me to do that."

Konev said, "Does it occur to you it will be impossible to steer?"

Dezhnev growled and said in sullen irony, "And does it occur to you that there may be no more steering to do?"

"What is the necessity that drives you, Arkady?" said Boranova patiently.

Dezhnev said, "I don't think it's this cell alone that is out of order. The temperature around us is going down. -- Slowly."

Konev sneered. "By your measurements?"

"No. By the ship's measurements. By the background infrared radiation we're getting."

"You can't tell anything by that," said Konev. "At our size, we get very few infrared photons. The level would vary all over the lot."

Dezhnev nodded at Konev and said, "Like this." His hand waved up and down frenetically. "Still, it can wave up and down like a rowboat in a typhoon and yet do so at a lower and lower average level." And his hand sank ever lower as it continued its trembling.

Boranova said, "Why should the temperature be dropping?"

Morrison smiled grimly. "Come on, Natalya. I think you know why. I know that Yuri knows why. Arkady must find out and for that reason necessity is forcing him to put back communications."

An uncomfortable silence fell, except for Dezhnev's occasional grunts and muttered expletives as he struggled with the ship's wiring.

Morrison gazed out at the surroundings, which he could once again see in the usual unsatisfactory fashion now that ship's lighting had been restored. There were the usual dim glitter of molecules, large and small, that traveled with them. Now that Dezhnev had mentioned it, he saw the occasional reflection of light from a line that stretched across the path before them and then moved over (or under) and behind at express speed.

These were, undoubtedly, very thin collagen fibers that preserved the shape of the irregular neuron and kept it from converting itself into a roughly spherical blob under the pull of its own surface tension. Had he been watching for it, he would have noticed it before. It occurred to him that Dezhnev, as navigator, had to watch for everything and, in the entirely unprecedented situation in which the ship found itself, Dezhnev had had no guide, no instruction, no experience to let him know what to watch for. There was no question but that Dezhnev's task had placed him under greater tension than the others had allowed for.

Certainly, to Morrison himself, Dezhnev had been taken for granted as the least of the five. Not fair, Morrison thought now.

Dezhnev had straightened up now. He had an earphone in one ear canal and said, "I should be able to establish communication." He said, "Are you there? Grotto. --Grotto."

Then he smiled. "Yes. We are, to this point, safe. -- I'm sorry, but as I told you, it was either communicate or steer. -- How is it at your end? -- What? Repeat that, more slowly. -- Yes, I thought so."

He turned to the others. "Comrades," he said, "Academician Pyotr Leonovich Shapirov is dead. Thirteen minutes ago, all vital signs ceased and our task now is to leave the body."

CHAPTER 17 -- EXIT

If trouble were as easy to get out of as into -- life would be one sweet song.

-- Dezhnev Senior

75.

A gray silence fell over the ship.

Kaliinin buried her face in her hands and then, after a long moment, broke the silence by whispering, "Are you sure, Arkady?"

And Dezhnev, blinking hard to hold back tears, said, "Am I sure? The man has been on the brink of death for weeks. The cellular flow is slowing, the temperature is falling, and the Grotto, which has him wired with every instrument ever invented, says he is dead. What is there to be but sure?"

Boranova sighed. "Poor Shapirov. He deserved a better death."

Konev said, "He might have held out another hour."

Boranova said with a frown, "He did not pick and choose, Yuri."

Morrison felt chilled. Until now he had been conscious of some surrounding red corpuscles, of a specific speck of intercellular region, of the interior of a neuron. His environment had been circumscribed to the immediate.

Now he looked out of the ship, through its transparent plastic walls, at what appeared to him, for the first time, to be thickness upon thickness of matter. On their present scale, with the ship the size of a glucose molecule and himself not much more than the size of an atom, the body of Shapirov was larger than the planet Earth.

Here he was, then, buried in a planetary object of dead organic matter. He felt impatience over the pause for mourning. Time for that later, but meanwhile -- He said in a voice that was perhaps a little louder than it ought to have been, "How do we get out?"

Boranova looked at him in surprise, eyes widening. (Morrison was certain that in her grief for Shapirov the thought of leaving had been momentarily buried.)

She cleared her throat and made a visible effort to be her usual businesslike self. She said, "We must deminiaturize to some extent, to begin with."

Morrison said, "Why only to begin with? Why not deminiaturize all the way to normality right now?" Then, as though to forestall the inevitable objection, "We will inflict damage on Shapirov's body, but it is a dead body and we are still alive. Our needs come first."

Kaliinin looked at Morrison reproachfully. "Even a dead body deserves respect, Albert, especially the dead body of a great scientist like Academician Pyotr Shapirov."

"Yes, but surely not to the entent of risking five lives." Morrison's impatience was growing. Shapirov was only someone he had known by distant reputation and peripherally -- to Morrison he was not the demigod he seemed to be to the others.

Dezhnev said, "Aside from the question of respect, we are enclosed by Shapirov's cranium. If we expand to fill that cranium and then try to crumble the cranium by the effect of our miniaturization field, we will lose too much energy and deminiaturize explosively. We must first find our way out of the cranium."

Boranova said, "Albert is right. Let's begin. I will deminiaturize to cell size. Arkady, have the people in the Grotto determine our exact position. Yuri, make sure you locate that position accurately on your cerebrograph."

Morrison stared out the hull at the distant cell membrane -- a brighter and more continuous sparkle, one that was visible through the occasional flicker of light from the intervening molecules.

The first indication of deminiaturization was the fact that the molecules -- subsided. (It was the only word Morrison could think of to describe what happened.)

It was as though the little curved swellings that filled the space around them -- and which Morrison's brain constructed out of twinklings rather than saw directly -- shrank. It was for all the world as though they were balloons with the air being let out of them until the surroundings seemed relatively smooth.

But even as the liquid around them grew smooth, the large macromolecules in the distance -- the proteins, the nucleic acids, the still larger cellular structures -- also shrank and, in doing so, grew more distinct. The sparks of light they reflected were more closely spaced.

The cell membrane itself seemed to be approaching and it, too, could be seen more clearly. It came closer still and yet closer. The ship was, after all, in a narrow dendrite that projected from the cell body itself and if the ship was going to enlarge to the size of a cell, it would have to grow much larger than this mere projection.

It was clear that the membrane was going to collide with the ship and Morrison automatically clenched his teeth and steeled himself for the shock of impact.

There was none. The membrane came closer and closer and then simply separated and was not there. It was too thin a structure and too lightly bound to withstand the consequences of being forced into a miniaturization field. Though the ship was derniniaturizing to an extent, it was still far, far smaller than the normal world around it and the molecules of the membrane, on entering the field and shrinking, lost contact with each other so that the integrity of the whole vanished.

Morrison watched everything after that with fascination. The surroundings seemed chaotic until, as objects continued to shrink, he began to recognize the intercellular jungle of collagen that they had encountered before entering the neuron. That jungle continued to shrink, in its turn, until the collagen trunks and cables became nothing more than twine.

Boranova said, "And that is all. We will want to be able to fit within a small vein."

Dezhnev grunted. "That is all under any circumstances. Our remaining energy supply is not great."

Boranova said, "It will last until we find our way out of the cranium, surely."

Dezhnev said, "We can hope so. However, you're only the captain of the ship, Natasha; you are not the captain of the laws of thermodynamics."

Boranova shook her head as though in reproof and said, "Arkady, have them determine our position -- and don't lecture me."

Konev said, "I'm certain, Natalya, that it is not terribly important to determine our position. It cannot be measurably different from what it was when we left the capillary. All our wanderings since have merely taken us to a nearby neuron and from that to a neighboring neuron. The difference in position on even an ordinary microscopic scale is scarcely measurable."

And then, after a wait of several minutes, the position came through and Konev said, "As I told you."

Morrison said, "What's the good of the position, Yuri? We don't know which way we're headed and we can only go in whatever direction that might be. Now that communications are restored, we can't steer."

Konev said, "Well, then, since there is only one way in which we can head, we will head in that direction. I'm sure that Arkady's father had a saying concerning that."

Dezhnev said at once, "He used to say: 'When only one course of action is possible, there is no difficulty in deciding what to do.'"

"You see?" said Konev. "And we will find that whatever direction we go in, we will find a way out. Move ahead, Arkady."

The ship moved forward, ploughing through the now fragile threads of collagen, splashing through a neuron, and cutting across a thin axon. (It was hard to believe they were recently inside one of those axons and that it had seemed like a highway a hundred kilometers across.)

Morrison said dryly, "Suppose that Shapirov was still alive when it became necessary for us to leave his body. What would we have done?"

"What do you mean?" said Boranova.

"I mean, what alternative is there to this? Would we not have had to determine our position? And to do that, would we not have had to establish communications? And once that was done, would we not have been able to move in only one direction -- forward? Would we not have had to deminiaturize in order not to have to travel the equivalent of tens of thousands of kilometers, but merely the equivalent of a few kilometers? In short, in order to get out, would we not have had to push our way through the living neurons of a living Shapirov, as we are now pushing our way through dying and dead ones?"

Boranova said, "Well -- yes."

"Where, then, is the respect for a living body? After all, we actually hesitated to violate the integrity of a dead one."

"You must understand, Albert, that this is an emergency operation with an inadequate ship. We have no choice. And, in any case, it is not like your suggestion that we deminiaturize completely in the brain, smashing the cranium and leaving Shapirov headless. Our present course, even if Shapirov was alive, would destroy a dozen neurons -- or possibly a hundred -- and that would not have been likely to make Shapirov's condition appreciably worse. Brain neurons are continually dying throughout life -- like red corpuscles."

"Not quite," said Morrison grimly. "Red corpuscles are continually replaced. Neurons never are."

Konev interrupted, his voice rather loud, as though he were impatiently overriding the idle talk of others. "Arkady, stop. We need another position determination."

There was at once a dead silence within the ship, one that continued -- as though any speech might interfere with the measurements being made in the Grotto or might hamper the concentration of those making the measurement.

Finally Dezhnev whispered the measurements to Konev, who said, "Confirm them, Arkady. Make sure you have them right."

Morrison unclasped himself. He was still virtually without mass, but there was distinctly more of it than there had been when they were maneuvering within the cell. He pulled himself cautiously upward, so that he could see the cerebrograph over Konev's shoulder.

There were two red spots on it, with a thin red line connecting them. The map displayed on the screen condensed a bit, the two dots shrinking toward each other, and then it expanded again in a different orientation.

Konev's fingers worked busily over the computer keys and the map grew double and uninterpretable. Morrison knew, however, that Konev could view it through a device that would render it stereoscopic, displaying a third dimension.

Konev laid down that device and said, "Natalya, this time chance is on our side. Wherever we are and in whatever direction we were traveling, we'd be bound to encounter a small vein sooner or later. In this case, it is sooner. We are not far away and we will strike it in such a way that we will be able to enter."

Morrison heaved an internal sigh of relief, but could not help saying, "And what would you have done if chance had dictated a vein very far away?"

Konev said coolly, "Then I would have had Dezhnev break communications again and steer to a closer one."

Dezhnev, however, turned to stare at Morrison, made a grimace of disagreement, and mouthed the words, "Not enough energy."

"Move forward, Arkady," said Boranova peremptorily, "and get to the vein."

After a few minutes, Dezhnev said, "Yuri's map is right, which I wouldn't have bet on with any enthusiasm. That's it ahead."

Morrison found himself staring at a curving wall reaching into the indefinite haze upward and downward and with just a faint suggestion of tiling to it. If it was a vein, it was as yet not very far removed from a capillary. Morrison wondered uneasily if the ship would be able to fit inside it.

76.

Boranova said, "Is there any way, Sophia, that you can give the ship an electric charge pattern that will slip us into the vein?"

Kaliinin looked doubtful and Morrison, holding up his hand, said, "I don't think so, Natalya. The individual cells may not be entirely dead even now, but certainly the organization within them has been destroyed. I don't think any cell in the body can take us in by pinocytosis or by any other means.

"What do I do, then?" said Dezhnev unhappily, "Force my way in?"

"Of course," said Konev. "Lean against the vein wall. A small bit of it will then miniaturize and disintegrate and you can move in. You won't have to use your motors much."

"Ah," said Dezhnev, "the expert speaks. The vein will miniaturize and disintegrate at the expense of our field and that would take energy, too -- more energy than forcing our way in would."

"Arkady," said Boranova, "don't be angry. This is not the time for it. Use your motors moderately and take advantage of the first weakening of the vein wall through miniaturization to burst through. Using both techniques will consume less energy than either separately."

"We can hope so," said Dezhnev, "but saying so doesn't make it so. When I was little, my father said to me once: 'Vehemence, my little son, is no guarantee of truth.' He told me this when I swore with great earnestness that I had not broken his pipe. He asked me if I understood the statement. I said I didn't and he explained it to me very carefully. Then he walloped me."

"Yes, Arkady," said Boranova, "but move in now."

Konev said, "It's not as though you're going to flood the brain with blood. It wouldn't matter now that Shapirov is dead, but, as it happens, the blood isn't flowing now. Virtually nothing will leak."

"Ah," said Dezhnev, "this raises an interesting point. Ordinarily, once we enter a vein, the blood flow would carry us in a particular direction. Without blood flow, I must use my engines -- but in which direction must we go?"

"Once we penetrate at this point," said Konev calmly, "you will turn to the right. So my cerebrograph says."

"But if there is no current to turn me to the right and if I enter at an angle to the left?"

"Arkady, you will enter at an angle to the right. My cerebrograph tells me that, too. Just push in, will you?"

"Go ahead, Arkady," said Boranova. "We have no choice but to rely on Yuri's cerebrograph."

The ship moved forward and, as the prow touched the vein wall, Morrison could feel the slight vibration of the laboring motors. And then the wall simply gave and pulled away in all directions and the ship was inside.

Dezhnev stopped the motors at once. The ship moved in at a rapidly slowing pace, rebounded off the far wall (maintaining contact so briefly as to cause no damage that Morrison could see), and straightened out with the long axis of the ship along the enormous tunnel of the vein. The ship's width was better than half the width of the blood vessel.

"Well," said Dezhnev, "are we pointed in the right direction? If we're not, there's nothing to be done. I can't back up. We fit the vein too tightly for Albert to get out and turn us around and we have an insufficient remaining supply of energy to miniaturize further and make such a turn possible."

"You're pointed in the right direction," said Konev sternly. "Just get moving and you'll find out soon enough. The vessel will get larger as we move."

"Let's hope it does. -- And if it does, how far do we have to travel before we can move out of the body?"

"I can't say yet," said Konev. "I have to follow the vein on my cerebrograph, consult with the people in the Grotto, and arrange for the insertion of a hypodermic needle into the vein as close as possible to the position in which we'll be when we emerge from within the cranium."

Dezhnev said, "May I explain that we cannot move on forever. What with miniaturizing and deminiaturizing, with steering at very low efficiency, with wrong capillaries, and with chasing after Albert when he was lost, we have used up much more energy than we had counted on using. We had much more energy than we thought we'd need, but, even so, we've almost used it all."

Boranova said, "Do you mean we're out of energy?"

"Just about. Haven't I been telling you this for quite a while?" said Dezhnev. "Haven't I been warning you we were running low?"

"But how low are we? Are you saying we don't have enough to carry us out of the cranium?"

"Ordinarily, we would have plenty for that, even now. If we were in a living vein, we could count on a blood current sweeping us along. But there is no current. Shapirov is dead and his heart isn't beating. That means I'll have to force my way through the bloodstream with my motors going and the cooler the stream gets, the more viscous it will become, the harder the motors will have to work, and the more rapidly the energy supply will run out."

Konev said, "We have only a few centimeters to go."

Dezhnev said furiously, "Only a few? Less than the width of my palm? Really? At our present size, we've got kilometers to go."

Morrison said, "Should we deminiaturize further, then?"

"We can't." Dezhnev was now speaking very loudly. "We don't have the energy for it. Uncontrolled deminiaturization takes no energy; it releases energy. But controlled deminiaturization -- Look, Albert, if you jump out of a high window, you will reach the ground without effort. But if you want to survive the ordeal and if you want to be lowered slowly while you hang on to a rope, that takes a great deal of effort. Understand?"

Morrison muttered, "I understand."

Kaliinin's hand stole to his and squeezed it gently. She said in a low voice, "Don't mind Dezhnev. He grumbles and howls, but he'll get us there."

Boranova said, "Arkady, if vehemence doesn't guarantee truth, as you told us just now, neither does it guarantee a cool head and a solution. Rather, the reverse. So why don't you just push your way along the vein and perhaps the energy will last until we reach the hypodermic."

Dezhnev scowled and said, "It's what I will do, but if you want me to keep a cool head, you must let me get rid of some heat."

The ship began to move and Morrison thought to himself: Every meter we go is a meter closer to the hypodermic needle.

It didn't make much sense as a comforting thought, since to fail to reach the needle by a small distance might be as fatal as to fail by a large distance. Yet it worked to slow the beat of his heart and it gave him a sense of accomplishment as he watched the wall slide rapidly backward.

The red corpuscles and platelets seemed far more numerous now than they had been in the arteries and capillaries on the way in. Then there had been a blood flow and there had been only the relatively few objects in their immediate neighborhood that had moved along the flow with them. Now the various formed bodies were largely motionless and the ship moved past what seemed countless numbers, squeezing them right and left and leaving them behind, bobbing, in their wake.

They even passed an occasional white cell, large and globular and quiescent. Now, though, they were totally unresponsive to the presence of a foreign object speeding by. In one case, the ship simply whipped through a white cell and left it sprawling behind.

Konev said, "We are going in the right direction. The vein is now distinctly wider than it was."

And so it was. Morrison had noticed that without managing to grasp the significance. He had been too intent on simply moving.

He felt a small surge of hope. To have been going in the wrong direction would have been total disaster. The vein would have narrowed and burst, leaving them adrift in gray matter with, perhaps, insufficient fuel to find and reach another vein.

Konev was taking down something that Dezhnev was repeating to him. He nodded and said, "Have them confirm those figures, Arkady. -- Good!"

He spent some time with his cerebrograph and then said, "Listen, they know the vein we're in and they will be inserting a hypodermic needle at a specific spot that I have marked off on the cerebrograph. We will reach it in half an hour or a little less. -- Can you keep going for half an hour, Arkady?"

"More likely a little less. If the heart was beating --"

"Yes, I know, but it isn't," said Konev. Then he said, "Natalya, may I have whatever records you have concerning what we have sensed of Shapirov's thought processes? I am going to send the raw data -- completeout to the Grotto."

Boranova said, "You mean in case we don't make it out."

"That's exactly what I mean. This material is what we went in for and there's no reason to have it perish with us if we can't get out."

"That's a proper attitude, Yuri," said Boranova.

"Provided," said Konev, his voice suddenly taking on a tinge of anger, "the data has any value at all." Briefly, he glared at Morrison.

Konev then bent toward Dezhnev and together the two began electronically transmitting the information they had collected, computer to computer, from tiny to large, from inside a vein to the outside world.

Kaliinin was still holding Morrison's hand, perhaps as much for comfort to herself as to him, Morrison thought.

He said in a low voice, "What happens, Sophia, if we run out of energy before we reach the needle?"

She lifted her eyebrows briefly and said, "We'll just have to remain passively in place. The people in the Grotto will try to reach us wherever we are."

"We won't deminiaturize explosively as soon as the energy is gone, will we?"

"Oh no. Miniaturization is a metastable state. You remember we explained that. We'll stay as we are indefinitely. Eventually -- sometime -- this chance pseudo-Brownian motion of expanding and contracting will set up spontaneous deminiaturization, but that might not be for -- Who knows?"

"Years?"

"Possibly."

"That won't do us any good, of course," said Morrison. "We'll die of asphyxiation. Without energy, we won't be able to recycle our air supply."

"I said the people in the Grotto would try to reach us. Our computers will still be working and they can home in on us, cut to the vein and into it, and spot us electronically -- or even visually."

"How can they find one cell among fifty trillion?"

Kaliinin patted his hand. "You are in a pessimistic mood, Albert. We're an easily recognizable cell -- and a broadcasting one."

"I think I would feel better if we find the hypodermic needle now and they don't have to look for us."

"So would I. I am merely pointing out that running out of energy and not finding the needle is not the ultimate end."

"And if we do find it?"

"Then we are drawn out and the Grotto's own energy sources will be applied to the task of derniniaturizing us."

"Can't they do it now?"

"We're too closely surrounded by masses of unminiaturized material and it would be too difficult to focus the deminiaturizing field with sufficient accuracy. Once we are out and visible to them, the conditions will be entirely different."

At this point, Dezhnev said, "Have we transmitted everything, Yuri?"

"Yes. Everything."

"Then it is my duty to tell you that I have only enough energy to continue moving this ship for five minutes. Perhaps less, but certainly not more."

77.

Morrison, Kaliinin's hand still in his, squeezed convulsively and the young woman winced.

Morrison said, "I'm sorry, Sophia."

He released her hand and she rubbed it vigorously.

Boranova said, "Where are we, Yuri? Can we get to the needle?"

"I should say yes," said Konev. "Slow down, Arkady. Conserve what energy you have."

"No, believe me," said Dezhnev. "At the present speed, I am cutting through the blood with comparatively little turbulence, thanks to the streamlining and surface characteristics of the ship. If I slow down, there'll be more turbulence and energy waste."

Konev said, "But we don't want to overshoot the mark."

"We won't. Any time you want me to cut the motors, we begin to slow down at once because of the blood viscosity. As we slow down, the turbulence builds, we slow down faster, and in ten seconds we're motionless. If we had our normal mass and inertia, the rapid pace of slowing would plaster us all up against the front of the ship."

"Stop when I tell you, then."

Morrison had risen and was looking over Konev's shoulder again. The cerebrograph, he judged, must be at enormous expansion, perhaps at maximum. The thin red line that had marked the path of the ship by dead reckoning was now thick and was approaching a small green circle, which, Morrison surmised, must represent the position of the hypodermic needle.

But it was dead reckoning and it could be off a bit. Konev was alternating his gaze between the cerebrograph and the view up ahead of the ship.

"We should have aimed for an artery," Morrison said suddenly. "They're empty after death. We wouldn't have had to waste energy on viscosity and turbulence."

Konev said, "Useless idea. The ship cannot progress through air." He might have gone on, but at this point he stiffened and cried out, "Stop, Arkady! Stop!"

Dezhnev hit a knob hard with the heel of his hand. It moved inward and Morrison felt himself sway gently forward as the ship slowed and stopped almost at once.

Konev pointed. There was a large circle, glowing with an orange light. He said, "They're using fiber optic methods to make sure the tip glows. They said I wouldn't miss it."

"But we have missed it," said Morrison tightly, "We're looking at it, but we're not there. To get into it, we have to turn -- and that means that Dezhnev has to unhook communications again."

"No use," said Dezhnev. "I have enough power in my engines to have kept us going another forty-five seconds maybe, but I certainly do not have enough to start us moving from scratch. We are at this moment dead in the water and cannot move again."

"Well, then?" began Morrison with what was almost a wail.

"Well, then," said Konev, "there is another kind of motion that is possible. That hypodermic needle has intelligence at the other end. Arkady, tell them to push it in very slowly."

The orange circle expanded slowly, becoming slightly elliptical.

Morrison said, "It's going to miss us."

Konev made no reply to that, but leaned over toward Arkady to speak directly into the transmitter. The orange ellipse became, for a moment, more markedly elliptical, but this ceased after a bark from Konev. It became nearly circular after that. The needle was close now and was pointing at them.

And then there was sudden motion everywhere. The faint outlines of the red corpuscles and the occasional platelet, moved, and converged toward and through the circle. And the ship was moving, too.

Morrison looked up and around as the orange circle moved past them neatly on all sides, then slipped behind the ship, shrank rapidly, and disappeared.

Konev said with grim satisfaction, "They've sucked us in. From this point on, we sit quietly. They will handle everything."

78.

Now Morrison did his best to wash away thought, to close his mind. Either he would be brought back to the standard world, to normality, to reality, or he would die in a microblink and the rest of the Universe would go on without him -- as it would do, in any case, in twenty years, or thirty, or forty.

He shut his eyes firmly and tried to respond to nothing, not even to the beating of his heart. At one point he felt a light touch on his left hand. That would have to be Kaliinin. He withdrew his hand -- not suddenly in rejection, but slowly, as though simply to say: "Not now."

At another point, he heard Boranova say, "Tell them, Arkady, to evacuate Section C, to put in strictly long-distance controls. If we go, there is no point in carrying anyone with us."

Morrison wondered if Section C were indeed evacuated. He would evacuate if he were ordered to or even if he were not ordered to, but there might be those lunatics who would be anxious to be on the spot when the first crew to explore a living body returned safely. -- So they could tell their grandchildren, he supposed.

What happened to such people, he wondered, if they ended up not having grandchildren -- if they died too young to see them -- if their children chose never to have children -- if the --

Dimly, he was aware that he was deliberately immersing himself in nonsense and trivia. One can't really think of nothing and especially not if one has spent a lifetime devoting one's self to thought, but one can think of something utterly unimportant. There are, after all, so many more possible thoughts that are unimportant rather than important, trivial rather than vital, nonsensical rather than sensible, that --

He might even have fallen asleep. Thinking about it afterward made him feel certain he had. He wouldn't have thought it would be possible to be so cold-blooded, but it wasn't cold blood; it was weanness, relief from tension, the feeling that someone else was making decisions, that he himself might be totally relaxed at last. And perhaps (although he didn't want to admit it), it had all been too much and he had simply passed out.

And again he felt a light touch on his left hand and this time it did not go away. He stirred and opened his eyes on something that looked like ordinary illumination. Too ordinary -- it hurt his eyes. He blinked rapidly and they watered.

Kaliinin was looking down at him. "Wake up, Albert!"

He wiped at his eyes, began to make the natural interpretation of his surroundings, and said, "Are we back?"

"We are back. All is well. We are safe and we're waiting for you. You're nearest the door."

Morrison looked back at the open door and started to his feet, rising a few inches and sinking back. "I'm heavy. "

Kaliinin said, "I know. I feel like an elephant myself. Just get up slowly. I'll help you."

"No no, that's all right." He fended her off. The room was crowded. His vision had cleared to the point where he could see the crowd, face upon face, looking toward him, smiling, watching. He did not want them -- Soviet citizens, all -- to see the sole American helped to his feet by a young Soviet woman.

Slowly, a little drunkenly but by himself, he rose to his feet, stepped sidewise to the door and very carefully let himself down to a small flight of stairs. Half a dozen pairs of arms reached out to help him, utterly disregarding his words: "It's all right. I don't need help."

Then he said sharply, "Wait!"

Before stepping to solid ground, he turned and looked past Kaliinin, who was right behind him.

"What is it, Albert?" she asked.

He said, "I was just taking a last look at the ship because I don't intend ever to see it again -- not at a distance, not in films, not in any form of reproduction."

Then he was on normal ground again and the others followed. It was with relief that Morrison saw that every one of them was helped down.

There would then have been some sort of impromptu celebration, but it was Boranova who stepped forward, looking distinctly disheveled and much unlike her usual calm, well-cared-for self -- all the more so since she was wearing the thin cotton coverall that did very little to hide the mature lines of her body.

"Fellow workers," she said, "I'm sure there will be appropriate ceremonies at some reasonable time to mark this fantastic voyage of ours, but please, we are in no condition to join you now. We must rest and recover from an arduous time and we beg your indulgence."

They were all led off to wild shouts and frantic waving and only Dezhnev had the presence of mind to take a glass offered to him that contained something that was either water or vodka and Morrison, for one, had no doubt as to which of the alternatives was, in fact, the case. The broad smile on Dezhnev's damp face as he sipped made it certain.

Morrison said to Kaliinin, "How long were we on the ship?"

"I think it was over eleven hours," said Kaliinin.

Morrison shook his head. "It seemed more like eleven years."

"I know," she said, smiling slightly, "but clocks lack imagination."

"One of Dezhnev Senior's aphorisms, Sophia?"

"No. One of my own."

"What I want," said Morrison, "is a chance at the bathroom, and a shower, and fresh clothes, and a good dinner, and a chance to shout and scream, and a good night's sleep. In that order, I think, especially with the bathroom coming first."

"You'll have it all," said Kaliinin, "as will the rest of us."

And they did and the dinner seemed to Morrison to be particularly satisfactory. Throughout their stay on the ship, tension had managed to suppress his appetite, but such things are merely deferred and hunger was gnawing with a vengeance once Morrison felt truly safe, truly comfortable, truly clean, and truly clothed.

The main course at the dinner was a roast goose of enormous size which Dezhnev carved, saying, "Be abstemious, my friends, for as my father used to say: 'Eating too much kills more quickly than eating too little.'"

Having said this, he served himself a much larger helping than he served anyone else.

The one outsider present was a very blond tall man, who was introduced as the military commander of the Grotto, something which could be seen at once, since he was in full uniform with a spate of decorations. The others seemed extraordinarily polite to him and extraordinarily uncomfortable at the same time.

Throughout the meal, Morrison felt the tension returning. The commander looked at him often, with unsmiling gravity, but said nothing to him directly. Because of the commander's presence, he felt uable to ask the important question and then, finally, when he might have raised it after the commander's departure, he suddenly found himself too sleepy. He would not be able to argue it out properly if there were any complications.

And when he finally managed to tumble into bed, his last semiconscious thought was that there would be complications.

79.

Breakfast was late and Morrison found that it was for two. Only Boranova joined him.

He was mildly disappointed, for he had looked forward to the presence of Sophia Kaliinin, but when she failed to appear, he decided not to ask after her. There were other questions he would have to ask.

Boranova looked tired, as though she had not had enough sleep, but she looked happy, too. Or perhaps (Morrison thought) "happy" was too strong a word. Contented, rather.

She said, "I had a good talk with the commander last night and there was a two-way video call with Moscow. Carefully shielded. Comrade Rashchin himself spoke with me and was clearly pleased in the highest degree. He is not a demonstrative man but he told me that he had been in touch with events all yesterday and that, during the interval in which we were not in communication with the outside world, he had been unable to eat or to do anything but pace back and forth. That, perhaps, was an exaggeration. He even said he had wept with joy at hearing that we were all safe and that may be true. Undemonstrative men can be emotional when the dam breaks."

"It sounds good for you, Natalya."

"For the whole project. You understand that, according to the tentative schedule under which we had worked, we were not expected to launch a voyage into a living human body for at least five years. To have done so with a grossly inadequate ship and to have come out of it alive is viewed as a great triumph. Even the bureaucracy in Moscow understood the emergency under which we labored."

"I doubt that we really got what we were after."

"You mean Shapirov's thoughts? That was, of course, Yuri's dream. On the whole, it was fortunate that he talked us all into following that dream. We would never have attempted the voyage otherwise. Nor does the failure of the dream dim our feat. Had we failed to return alive, we can be sure that there would have been much criticism of our folly in attempting the matter. As it is, though, we are the first to have entered a living human body and to have returned alive -- a Soviet first that will stand forever in history. There will be no non-Soviet feat of the sort for years and our Soviet leadership is well-aware of that and very satisfied. We are assured of the money we will need for a considerable time, I imagine, provided we can come up with a spectacular feat now and then."

She smiled broadly at this and Morrison nodded and smiled politely with her. He cut away at the ham omelet he had requested and said, "Would it have been diplomatic to emphasize that an American was one of the crew? Was I mentioned at all?"

"Come, Albert, don't think so ill of us. Your feat in turning the ship by hand at the risk of your life was mentioned with emphasis."

"And Shapirov's death? That will not be blamed on us, I hope?"

"The death is understood to have been unavoidable. It is well-known that he was kept alive as long as he was by advanced medical methods only. I doubt that it will be mentioned to any great extent in the records."

"In any case," said Morrison, "the nightmare is over."

"The nightmare? Come, give yourself a month or two and it will seem an exciting episode that you'll be glad you experienced."

"I doubt it."

"You'll see. If you live to witness other such voyages, you'll be delighted to say, 'Ah, but I was on the very first,' and you'll never tire of telling the story to your grandchildren."

That's the opening, thought Morrison. Aloud, he said, "I see you assume that I will see my grandchildren someday. What happens to me once we're finished with breakfast, Natalya?"

"It will be out of the Grotto for you and back to the hotel."

"No no, Natalya. I want more than that. What follows that? I warn you that if the miniaturization project is going to go public and if there's a parade in Red Square, I don't intend to be part of it."

"Parades are out of the question, Albert. We're a long way from going public, although we're closer to it by far than we were the day before yesterday. "

"Let me put it baldly then. I want to go back to the United States. Now."

"As soon as possible, certainly. I imagine there will be pressure from your government."

"I should hope so," said Morrison dryly.

"They would not have been willing to have you back before you had a chance to help us or" -- her eyes looked into his rather sternly -- "from their point of view, spied on us. But now that you have done your part -- and I'm sure they will be aware of that somehow -- they will demand you back."

"And you must send me back. You promised that over and over."

"We will keep our promise."

"Nor need you think I have spied on you, I have seen nothing you have not let me see."

"I know that. Yet, when you return to your own country, do you imagine that you will not be questioned exhaustively on what you have seen?"

Morrison shrugged. "That was the consequence you must have accepted when you brought me here."

"True and we won't let it keep us from returning you. It is quite certain you won't be able to tell your people anything they don't already know. They poke their noses into our affairs carefully and skillfully --"

"As your people poke their noses into ours --" said Morrison with some indignation.

"Undoubtedly," said Boranova with a negligent wave of her hand. "Of course, you will be able to tell them of our success, but we don't really object to their knowing. To this day, Americans insist on believing that Soviet science and technology is second-class. It will do us good to teach them a lesson in this. One thing, though --"

"Ah," said Morrison.

"Not a large thing, but a lie. You must not say we brought you here by force. In any public mention of this matter, you must state -- if the question arises -- that you came here voluntarily, in order to test your theories under conditions not available to you elsewhere in the world. It is a totally likely thing. Who would disbelieve you?"

"My government knows otherwise."

"Yes, but they will themselves urge you to tell the lie. They are as little eager as we are to plunge the world into a crisis over this. Aside from the fact that crises between the United States and the Soviet Union would instantly antagonize the rest of the world against both of us in these so-called good new days, the United States will no more wish to admit they had let you be taken than we would to admit we had taken you. Come, Albert, it is a small thing."

Morrison sighed. "If you return me now, as you say you will do, I will keep quiet about this small matter of kidnapping."

"You use the conditional. You say 'if.'" Boranova was grim. "You clearly find it troublesome to believe me to be a person of honor. Why? Because I am a Soviet. Two generations of peace, two generations of getting along, and your old habits persist. Is there to be no hope for humanity?"

"Good new days or not, we still don't like your system of government."

"Who gives you the right to judge us? We don't like yours, either. -- But never mind. If we begin to quarrel, that will spoil what should be a happy day for you -- and what is a happy day for me."

"Very well. We will not quarrel."

"Then let us say good-bye now, Albert, and someday we will meet again under more normal circumstances I am sure." She held out her hand to him and he took it. She went on, "I have asked Sophia to escort you back to the hotel and to make the arrangements for your leaving. You will not object to that, I'm sure."

Morrison pressed her hand strongly. "No. I rather like Sophia."

Boranova smiled. "I had sensed that somehow."

80.

It was a happy day for Boranova and her exhaustion did not prevent her from enjoying it.

Exhaustion! How many days of rest, how many nights of sleep, how long a stretch at home with Nikolai and Aleksandr would it take to cure that?

But she was alone now and for a period of time there would be nothing to do. Seize the moment!

Boranova stretched out luxuriously on the couch in her office and gave herself over to a curious jumble of thought -- now a commendation from Moscow, with a promotion, all mixed up with days on the beach at Crimea with her husband and son. It became almost real as she slept and dreamed that she was pursuing little Aleksandr as he marched firmly into the cold waters of the Black Sea in heedless lack of concern over the possibility of drowning himself. She was carrying a drum that she was beating wildly in order to attract the attention he stubbornly refused to give her.

And the vision broke apart and faded and the drumbeat was a hammering at the door.

She rose with a confused effort, smoothed the blouse she was wearing, and strode to the door in hasty concern. This turned to fury when she threw it open and found Konev frowning darkly, his fist raised to renew his assault.

"What is this, Yuri?" she said indignantly. "Is this your way of announcing yourself? There are signals."

"Which no one answered, though I knew you to be within."

Boranova motioned him in with a quick gesture of her head. She was not anxious to see him and he was not a pleasant sight.

She said, "Haven't you slept at all? You look awful."

"I haven't had time. I've been working."

"At what?"

"At what do you suppose, Natalya? At the data we obtained yesterday in the brain."

Boranova felt her anger seep away. After all, it was Konev whose dream this had been. The success of survival was sweet for everyone but Konev. Only he felt the failure.

She said, "Sit down, Yuri. Try to face it. The thought analysis didn't work -- and it couldn't. Shapirov was too far gone. Even as we went in, he was on the point of death."

Konev looked at Boranova blankly, as though totally disregarding her words. "Where is Albert Morrison?"

"There's no use in hounding him, Yuri. He did what he could, but Shapirov's was a dying brain. -- Listen to me. It was a dying brain."

Again that blank look. "What are you talking about, Natalya?"

"The data we got. The supposed data that you're struggling with. Let it go. The voyage has been a marvelous success even without it."

Konev shook his head. "A marvelous success without it? You don't know what you're saying. Where is Morrison?"

"He's gone, Yuri. It's finished. He's on his way back to the United States. As we promised."

Konev's eyes opened wide. "But that's impossible. He can't go. He mustn't go."

"Well, now," said Boranova calmly. "What are you talking about?"

Konev rose to his feet. "I went over the data, you stupid woman, and it's all plain. We must keep Morrison. At all costs, we must keep him."

Boranova's face reddened. "How dare you insult me, Yuri? Explain yourself at once or I will have you suspended from this project. What is this new mad fixation of yours on Albert?"

Konev lifted his hands halfway upward, as though impelled by an overwhelming desire to strike out at something, with nothing present to strike at.

He gasped, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I withdraw the adjective. But you must understand. All through our stay in the brain -- all the time we were trying to tap Shapirov's thoughts -- Albert Morrison was lying to us. He knew what was happening. He must have known and he carefully led us in the wrong direction. We must have him, Natalya, and we must have his device. We can never let him go."

CHAPTER 18 -- RETURN

94.

The trouble with triumph is that you may be on the other side.

-- Dezhnev Senior

81.

Morrison was doing his best to keep his feelings under control. There was a natural elation. He was going to go home. He was going to be free. He was going to be safe. Much more than that, he would --

But he dared not think of that climactic bit as yet. Yuri Konev was fearfully intelligent and already suspicious. Morrison's thoughts, if Konev concentrated on them, might give themselves away in his facial expressions somehow.

-- Or were they just playing with him? That was the other side of the coin.

Were they planning to break his spirit and turn him to their own uses? It was an old trick, to raise hopes and then dash them -- far worse than having no hope at all at any time.

Would Natalya Boranova do such a thing? She had not hesitated to take him forcibly when he would not come willingly. She had not hesitated to threaten to destroy his reputation forever to get him on the ship. How much farther would she go? Would she stop at nothing?

His heart bounded with a marked relief when Sophia Kaliinin appeared. Surely she would not be party to such a deception.

He believed that even more firmly when she smiled at him, looking happier than he had ever seen her. She took his hand and tucked it under her arm.

"You'll be going home now. I'm so glad for you," she said and Morrison could not make himself believe that those words -- their intonation, her expression -- were all part of a careful lie.

Nevertheless, he said cautiously, "I hope I'm going home."

And she said, "You are. -- Have you ever been on a skimmer?"

For a moment, Morrison stumbled on the Russian word, then used a translated English phrase. "Do you mean an SPF -- a solar-powered flyer?"

"This is a Soviet design. Much better. It has light engines. You can't always trust the sun."

"But why a skimmer, then?" They were moving briskly toward the passageway that would lead them out of the Grotto.

"Why not? We'll be at Malenkigrad in fifteen minutes and since you've never been in a Soviet skimmer, you'll love it. It will be one more way of celebrating your return."

"I'm a little nervous of heights. Will it be safe?"

"Absolutely. Besides, I couldn't resist. We're in a wonderful situation now and I don't know how much longer it will last. Whatever we want we getfor the moment. I said, 'A skimmer is what we will want,' and they smiled all over their faces and said, 'Why, certainly, Dr. Kaliinin. It will be waiting for you.' Day before yesterday, I would have had to fill out a proof-of-need form for a plate of borscht. Today I am a hero of the Soviet Union -- unofficially, as yet. We all are. You, too, Albert."

"I hope I won't be expected to stay for the official ceremonies," said Morrison, still cautious.

"The official ceremonies will be confined to the Grotto, of course, and won't be elaborate at all. Your scroll will undoubtedly be forwarded to you. Perhaps our ambassador can give it to you in a quiet Washington ceremony."

"Not necessary," said Morrison. "I would appreciate the honor, but getting it in the mail is all I really want."

They had turned down a corridor that Morrison had not taken before and then walked long enough to make him wonder uneasily where they might be going. No need to have worried, Morrison thought as they emerged into a small airfield.

There was no mistaking the skimmer. It had long wings, glittering with a layer of photovoltaic cells along their entire upper surface, very much as American SPFs had. The American planes, however, relied on the solar panels entirely. The skimmer he saw had small rotors -- gasoline-powered, no doubt -- as assists. Kaliinin might present that as a Soviet improvement but Morrison suspected that the Soviet photovoltaic cells were not as efficient as the American ones.

A mechanic was standing near the skimmer and Kaliinin approached him with long, confident strides. "How does it test out?"

"Sweet as a dream," said the mechanic.

She smiled and nodded, but as he stepped away she muttered to Morrison, "I'll check it out anyway, of course. I've seen dreams that turned into nightmares."

Morrison studied the skimmer with a mixture of interest and apprehension. It looked like the skeleton of a plane, with everything somehow thinner and longer than it should be. The cockpit was tiny, like a soap bubble under the huge flap of wings and the long backward extension of a thin skeletal structure.

Kaliinin had to bend herself nearly double to climb in. Morrison watched her as she fiddled with the controls. Then, after what seemed a considerable lapse of time, she taxied it down the field, turned it, and came back. She raised the rotos and let them turn slowly and eventually everything was shut down and she got out.

"It's working nicely," she said. "The fuel supply is adequate and the sun is shining brilliantly. One couldn't ask for more."

Morrison nodded and looked around. "One could ask for the pilot. Where is he?"

Kaliinin froze at once. "Where is he? Is there some sexual requirement for the task? I pilot my own skimmer."

"You?" exclaimed Morrison quite automatically.

"Yes, I! Why not? I have my license and I qualify as a master pilot. Get in!"

"I'm sorry," stammered Morrison. "I -- I rarely fly and piloting anything through the air is almost a mystical thing to me. I just assumed that a pilot didn't do anything but piloting and that if someone did anything else, he couldn't be a pilot. Do you know what I mean?"

"I'm not even going to try to figure it out, Albert. Get in."

Morrison climbed in, following her directions and doing his best not to damage his head on any portion of the skimmer -- or, perhaps, damaging the skimmer.

He sat in his seat, staring in horror at the skimmer's open side to his right. "Isn't there a door to close?"

"Why do you want a closed door? It would spoil the wonderful feeling of flight. Strap yourself in and you'll be perfectly safe. -- Here, I'll show you how. -- Are you ready now?" She was in the seat beside him, looking quite confident and pleased with herself. They were crowded into contact and that much at least Morrison found rather soothing.

"I'm resigned," he said. "That's as close as I can get to ready."

"Don't be silly. You're going to love this. We'll use the motors to rise."

There was a high-pitched throb of the small engine and a rhythmic slap as the rotors began to spin. Slowly the skimmer rose and -- as slowly -- it turned. It canted to one side while turning and Morrison found himself leaning out over the open side and straining precariously against the strap that held him. He barely managed to fight off the strong impulse to throw his arms around Kaliinin for nothing more than utterly nonerotic security.

The skimmer straightened and Kaliinin said, "Now, listen," as she turned off the engine and threw in a switch labeled, in Cyrillic, SOLAR. The throb ceased and the rotors slackened as the forward propeller began to turn. The skimmer moved slowly and almost silently forward.

"Listen to the quiet," whispered Kaliinin. "It's like drifting on nothing."

Morrison looked down uneasily.

Kaliinin said, "We won't fall. Even if a cloud passed over the sun or if a circuit failure put the photovoltaic cells out of action, there is enough power in the storage components to bring us across kilometers, if necessary, to a safe landing. And if we ran out of power, the skimmer is more than half a glider and it would still settle down to a safe landing. I don't think I could force the craft into a crash even if I tried. The only real danger is a strong wind and there's none of that now."

Morrison swallowed and said, "It's a gentle motion."

"Of course. We're not going much faster than an automobile would go and the sensation is much pleasanter. I love it. Try to relax and look at the sky. There's nothing as peaceful as a skimmer."

He said, "How long have you been doing this?"

"When I was twenty-four, I got my master's license. So did Yu-- so did he. Many a peaceful summer afternoon we spent in the air in a skimmer like this. Once we each had a racing skimmer and marked out lover's knots in the air." Her face twisted slightly as she said that and it occurred to Morrison that she had obtained a skimmer for the short hop to Malenkigrad only for the sake of a momentary reliving of memories and for no other reason.

"That must have been dangerous," he said.

"Not really -- if you know what you're doing. Once we skimmed along the foothills of the Caucasus and that might have been dangerous. A wind squall can easily smash you into a hillside and that wouldn't be fun at all, but we were young and carefree. -- Though I might have been better off if that had happened."

Her voice trailed away and for a moment her face darkened, but then an inner thought seemed to illuminate her into a smile.

Morrison felt his distrust mounting again. Why did the thought of Konev make her so happy, when she could not bear to look at him when they were together in the miniaturized ship?

Morrison said, "You don't seem to mind talking about him, Sophia." Then, deliberately, he used the forbidden word, "About Yuri, I mean. It even seems to make you happy. Why is that?"

And Kaliinin said between her teeth, "It's not sentimental memories that makes me happy, I assure you, Albert. Anger and frustration and -- and heartbreak can make a person vicious. I want revenge and I am mean-spirited enough -- well, human enough -- to enjoy it when it comes."

"Revenge? I don't understand."

"It's simple enough, Albert. He deprived me of love and my daughter of a father when I had no way of striking back. That did not bother him as long as he had his dream of bringing miniaturization to practical low-energy fruition so that he might become, at a bound, the most famous scientist in the world -- or in history."

"But he failed at that. We didn't get the necessary information from Shapirov's brain. You know we didn't."

"Ah, but you don't know him. He never gives up; he's driven by the Furies. I've seen him, fleetingly, looking at you, after the voyage through Shapirov's body was done. I know his looks, Albert. I can tell his thoughts even from the droop of an eyelid. He thinks you have the answer."

"Of what was in Shapirov's brain? I don't. How could I?"

"It doesn't matter whether you do or not, Albert. He thinks you do and he wants you and your device with a greater yearning than he ever wanted anything in his life; certainly more than he wanted me or his child. And I'm taking you away from him, Albert. With my own hands I am taking you out of the Grotto and will watch you leave for your own country. And I will see him sicken to death of frustrated ambition."

Morrison stared at her in astonishment as the skimmer moved along in response to her rock-steady hand at the controls. He had not thought that Kaliinin was capable of wearing an expression of such consuming and malignant joy.

82.

Boranova had listened to Konev's emotional and breathless account and felt herself carried along by the wave of his utter conviction. That had happened before, when he had been convinced that Shapirov's dying mind could be tapped and that Morrison, the American neurophysicist, was the key to doing that. She had been swept along then and she tried to resist it now.

She said finally, "That sounds quite mad."

Konev said, "What's the difference what it sounds like if it's true?"

"Ah, but is it true?"

"I am certain."

Boranova muttered, "We need Arkady here to tell us that his father assured him that vehemence was no guarantee of truth."

"Neither is it a guarantee of the reverse. If you accept what I say, you must also see that we can't let him go. Certainly not now and possibly not ever."

Boranova shook her head violently. "It's too late. There's nothing to be done. The United States wants him back and the government has agreed to let him go. The government can't very well backtrack now without bringing about a world crisis."

"Considering what is at stake, Natalya, we must surely risk it. The world crisis will not explode. There will be loud talk and much posturing for a month or two and then if we have what we want, we might let him go if absolutely necessary -- or we might arrange an accident --"

Boranova rose to her feet angrily. "No! What you are suggesting is unthinkable. This is the twenty-first century, not the twentieth."

"Natalya, whatever century this is, we face the question of whether the Universe is to be ours -- or theirs."

"You know you're not going to convince Moscow that that is what is at stake. The government has what it wants, a safe voyage into and out of a body. At the moment it's all they want. They never understood that we wanted to read Shapirov's mind. We never explained that."

"That was a mistake."

"Come, Yuri. Do you know how long it would have taken to persuade them that Albert would have to be taken forcibly if he did not come voluntarily? They would not have wanted to risk a crisis -- even as much a crisis as they now face, which is a minor one indeed. You will now be asking them to face a much larger one. Not only will you fail but you will encourage them to look into the matter of the arrival of Albert here and I don't think we can afford that."

"The government is not all one piece. There are many high officials who are convinced that we are too eager to give in to the Americans, that we pay too high a price for the occasional pat on the head we receive. I have people to whom I have entry --"

"I have long known that you have. That's a dangerous game you play, Yuri. Better men than you have been caught up in that sort of intrigue and have come to deplorable ends."

"It's the chance I must take. In a case like this, I can turn the government around. But we must have Albert Morrison in our own hands if we're to do it. Once he's gone, it will be all over. -- When is he supposed to be leaving?"

"Nightfall. Sophia and I agreed that, for the sake of avoiding obtrusiveness and of needlessly provoking those who tend to be against accommodation with the Americans, night is better than day."

He stared at her, eyes opening widely enough so that they almost seemed protuberant. "Sophia?" he said harshly. "What's she got to do with it?"

"She's in charge of the details of returning Albert. She requested it."

"She requested it?"

"Yes. I imagine she wished to be with him for an additional while." With a touch of spite, she added, "Perhaps you didn't notice it, but she rather likes the American."

Konev sneered in disgust. "Not a bit of it. I know that devil. I know her if I know anything at all -- every thought in her head. She's getting him away from me. Sitting right next to him in the ship, watching his every move, she must have guessed his importance and she means to deprive me of him. She won't wait for nightfall. She'll hurry him off at once."

He rose and left the room at a run.

"Yuri," Boranova called after him. "Yuri, what do you intend to do?"

"Stop her," floated back the answer.

She gazed after him thoughtfully. She could stop him. She had the authority. She had the means. And yet -- What if he was right? What if what was at stake was indeed nothing less than the Universe? If she stopped him, everything -- everything -- might be handed over to the Americans. If she let him go, there might be a crisis of an intensity that hadn't been dreamed of in generations.

She had to come to a decision at once.

She began again.

If she stopped him, she would have done something. If he then turned out to have been right, the blame for having stopped him and having lost the Universe would rest squarely on her. If he turned out to be wrong after being stopped -- her action would be forgotten. There is nothing dramatic about a mistake that is not made.

If she did nothing to stop him, however, then all was on Konev's head. If he somehow prevented Morrison's return to the United States and if the government were then humiliatingly forced to release him, it would be Konev who would be blamed. Boranova would lose nothing, for he had dashed off without telling her what he was going to do and she could reasonably claim she had not dreamed he would try to subvert the known intention of the government. She would be in the clear. If, on the other hand, he prevented Morrison's return and proved to be right and the government won the battle of wills that followed, she could claim the credit of having done nothing to stop him. She could say that it had been with her permission that he had worked.

Well, then, if she stopped him, the worst was blame, the best was neutral. If she did nothing, the best was credit, the worst was neutral.

So Boranova did nothing.

83.

Morrison decided that Kaliinin was right. As the minutes passed, he grew less uncomfortable in the skimmer and even began to experience a feeble pleasure.

He could see the ground clearly through the open latticework that made up the chassis of the craft. It was about thirty meters below (he judged) and moving smoothly backward.

Kaliinin sat at the controls, completely absorbed, though it didn't seem to Morrison that she had much to do. Presumably, it was skill and patient observation that made it possible for her to keep the skimmer on track without minute-by-minute adjustment.

He said, "What happens if you find yourself moving into a headwind, Sophia?"

She said without taking her eyes from the controls, "Then I would have to use the engine and waste fuel. If it were a fresh wind, it wouldn't pay to use a skimmer at all. Fortunately, today is ideal skimmer weather."

Morrison began to feel something that was almost well-being for the first time since having left the United States -- no, since a considerable length of time before that. He began to picture himself back in the United States; it was the first time he had dared to do so.

He asked, "What happens after we reach the hotel in Malenkigrad?"

"Car to an airport," said Kaliinin crisply, "and then you'll board a plane to America."

"When?"

"Tonight, according to schedule. I'll try to get it done more quickly."

Morrison said with what was almost joviality, "Anxious to get rid of me?"

And to his surprise, the answer came back at once. "Yes. Exactly."

He studied her face in profile. The look of studied hatred had long since vanished, but there was a settled anxiety about her expression that caused Morrison to quiver. The picture of himself back in the United States began to fade around the edges.

He said, "Is anything wrong, Sophia?"

"No, nothing wrong now. It's just that I expect that -- he will come after us. The wolf is in pursuit, so I must get you away quickly if I can."

84.

The city of Malenkigrad lay below them, although it was not exactly a city. Small in name, it was small in fact and it raveled off in all directions into the flat countryside.

It was the bedroom community for the people working on the miniaturization project and during the day -- now -- it seemed all but deserted. There was a moving vehicle here and there, occasionally a pedestrian, and, of course, children playing in the dusty streets.

It occurred to Morrison that he had no way of knowing where, in the mighty stretch of land that made up the Soviet Union, Malenkigrad and the Grotto might be. It wasn't in the birch forest or in the tundra. The early summer was warm and the ground looked semiarid. He might be in central Asia or in the steppes near the European side of the Caspian. He could not say.

The skimmer was dropping now, more gently than an elevator. Morrison would not have believed that so soothing a descent could be possible. Then the wheels touched the ground and they braked to a nearly instant halt. They were in the rear of the hotel, a hotel the small size of which he could appreciate when it was seen from the air.

Kaliinin left the skimmer with a lively jump and motioned to Morrison, who emerged more sedately.

He said, "What happens to the skimmer now?"

She answered carelessly, "I'll pick it up on my return and take it back to the Grotto field if the weather holds. Come, let's go around to the front and I'll get you into your room, where you can rest a little and where we can plan the next step."

"The room with the soldiers watching me, you mean."

She said impatiently, "There'll be no soldiers watching you. We're not afraid of your trying to escape now." Then, with a quick glance around, she added, "Though I'd rather have the soldiers, actually."

Morrison looked about, too, a bit anxiously and decided he'd rather not have the soldiers. It occurred to him that if Konev came to reclaim him, as Kaliinin clearly feared he might do, he might easily come with soldiers at his back.

And then Morrison thought: Or is this really something to fear? She has a thing about Yuri. She'll believe anything of him.

The thought did not quiet him, however.

Morrison had not seen the hotel in broad daylight from outside; he had not had the leisure to study it in any case. It occurred to him that it was probably used only by visiting officials and special guests -- such as he himself, if he could lay claim to the category. He wondered if, small as it was, it was ever full. Certainly, the two nights he had spent here had been quiet indeed. He recalled no noise in the corridors and the dining room, when he had eaten there, had been all but empty, too.

It was at the moment he thought of the dining room that they approached the front entrance and there, to one side, sitting in the sun and poring over a book, was a stoutish woman with reddish-brown hair. She was wearing half-spectacles, perched low on her nose. (Morrison was surprised at that bit of archaism. It was rare to see glasses in these days when eye-molding was routine and normal vision had truly become normal.)

It was the glasses and the studious look on her face that changed her appearance so that Morrison might easily not have recognized her. He would not have, perhaps, if he had not just thought of the dining room. The woman was the waitress to whom he had appealed for help three evenings before and who had failed him -- Valeri Paleron.

He said austerely, "Good morning, Comrade Paleron." His voice was stiff and his expression unfriendly.

She did not seem discomfited by this. She looked up, removed her glasses, and said, "Ah, Comrade American. You are back safe and sound. Congratulations."

"For what?"

"It is the talk of the town. There has been an experiment that was a great success."

Kaliinin, her face like thunder, said sharply, "That should not be the talk of the town. We need no wagging tongues."

"What wagging tongues?" said the waitress with spirit. "Who here does not work at the Grotto or have a relative there? Why should we not know of it and why should we not speak of it? And can I fail to hear? Must I stop my ears? I cannot carry a tray and put my fingers in my ears, too."

She turned to Morrison. "I hear that you did very well and are greatly praised for it."

Morrison shrugged.

"And this man," the waitress said, turning to the frowning and increasingly impatient Kaliinin, "wished to leave before he had the chance to participate in the great deed. He turned to me for help in his scheme to leave -- to me, a waitress. I reported him at once, of course, and that made him unhappy. Even now, see how he glares at me." She wagged her finger at him. "But consider the favor I did you. Had I not prevented you from doing whatever it was they were trying to have you do, you would not now be the great success you are, the toast of Malenkigrad and perhaps even of Moscow. And the little Tsaritsa here surely loves you for it."

Kaliinin said, "If you do not stop this impudence immediately, I shall report you to the authorities."

"Go ahead," said Paleron, her hands on her hips and her eyebrows lifting. "I do my work, I am a good citizen, and I have done nothing wrong. What can you report? -- And there is a fancy car here for you, too."

"I saw no fancy car," said Kaliinin.

"It is not in the parking lot, but on the other side of the hotel."

"What makes you think it is for me?"

"You are the only important persons to approach the hotel. For whom, then, should it be? For the porter? For the desk clerk?"

"Come, Albert," said Kaliinin. "We are wasting our time." She brushed past the waitress, doing this so closely that she stepped on her foot -- perhaps not by accident. Morrison followed meekly.

"I hate that woman," muttered Kaffinin as they walked up the flight of stairs to Morrison's second-floor room.

"Do you think that she is an observer of this place on behalf of the Central Coordinating Committee?" asked Morrison.

"Who knows? But there is something wrong with her. She is possessed by a devil of impudence. She does not know her place."

"Her place? Are there class distinctions, then, in the Soviet Union?"

"Don't be sarcastic, Albert. There are supposedly none in the United States, either, but you have them surely. And so do we. I know what the theory is, but no person can live by theory alone. If Arkady's father didn't say that, he should have."

They walked up one flight of stairs to what had been Morrison's room earlier in the week and apparently still was. Morrison viewed it with mild distaste. It was a room without charm, though the sunlight made it seem less gloomy than he remembered it to be and, of course, the prospect of returning home was enough to add glitter to anything.

Kaliinin sat in the better of the two armchairs in the room, her legs crossed, the upper leg swinging in short arcs. Morrison sat down on the side of the bed and watched her legs thoughtfully. He had never had good occasion to admire his own calmness under pressure and it seemed to him rather unusual to watch someone be more nervous than he himself was.

He said, "You seem greatly troubled, Sophia. What is wrong?"

She said, "I told you. That woman Paleron troubles me."

"She can't upset you that much. What's wrong?"

"I don't like waiting. The days are long now. It will be nine hours until sunset."

"It's amazing that it's only a matter of hours. The diplomatic maneuvering could have continued for months." He said so lightly enough, but the thought gave him a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Not in a case like this. I've seen it work before, Albert. The Swedes are involved. It's not an American plane that's coming. Having an American plane land deep in Soviet territory is still something our government shies away from. But the Swedes -- Well, they serve as an intermediary between the two nations by common consent and they tend to work hard to defuse any possibility of friction."

"In the United States, we consider Sweden lukewarm toward us at the best. I think we'd prefer to have Great Britain --"

"Oh come, you might as well say Texas. As it is, Sweden may be lukewarm toward you, but she is considerably less than that toward us. In any case, it's Sweden and their principle always is that if it is necessary to defuse a situation, it is best to defuse it swiftly."

"It seems quite swift to me. Certainly, I'm the one who should be in the greater hurry, since it is I who am most anxious to leave. Why should a few hours matter to you?"

"I've told you. He is after us." She ground out the pronoun.

"Yuri? What can he do? If your government is giving me up --"

"There are elements in the government who might easily not wish to give you up and our -- friend -- knows some of these well."

Morrison raised a finger to his lips and looked around.

Kaliinin said, "Are you worried about being bugged? That's another American spy novel myth. Bugs are so easily detected these days and so easily scrambled -- I carry a small detector myself and I've never spotted one."

Morrison shrugged. "Then say what you wish."

"Our friend is not a political extremist himself, but he finds he can use those in high office who are. There are extremists in America, too, I suppose. "

"Those who think our policy toward the Soviet Union is too mild?" Morrison nodded. "I've met a few."

"Well, then, there you are. His ambition consumes him and if extremism will advance his plans, then he is prepared to be an extremist."

"Surely you don't think he can arrange some sort of coup in Moscow and put the diehards in control and do it all in time to stop me from leaving for home this evening?"

"You've got it the wrong way around, Albert. If he could somehow prevent you from leaving and precipitate a crisis, he may be able to persuade some in the government to stand firm and delay your leaving for a long time. He can be very persuasive, our friend, when he is in the full grip of his mania. He can sway even Natalya."

Kaliinin fell into a silence and bit at her lower lip. Finally she looked up and said, "He hasn't given up on you and he won't. I'm sure of it. I've got to get you away."

She rose suddenly and paced up and down the room with short, quick steps, looking as though she were trying to force the Universe into turning her way. She stopped in front of the door, listened, then jerked it open suddenly.

Valeri Paleron, her bland expression shifting rapidly into surprise, had one fist raised, as though she were about to knock.

"What do you want?" said Kaliinin tightly.

"I?" said the waitress. "I want nothing. It is a question of whether you do. I have come to ask if you would like some tea."

"We have not asked for any."

"I did not say you have. I come out of courtesy."

"Then go out of courtesy. And do not return."

Paleron, reddening, looked from Kaliinin to Morrison and said between her teeth, "Perhaps I interrupt a tender moment."

"Leave!" said Kaliinin. She closed the door, waited long enough to count to ten in a deliberate manner (her lips moving soundlessly), and then flung it open again. No one was there.

She closed the door and locked it, walked to the opposite end of the room, and said in a low voice, "She had been out there, probably, for quite some time. I heard feet shuffling."

Morrison said, "If high-tech bugging is pass‚, then I suppose there is a premium on old-fashion eavesdropping."

"Ah, but for whom?"

"Do you suppose she does it for Yuri? It doesn't seem likely that he would have the money to hire spies -- or does he?"

"It might not take much money. A woman like that might do it for pleasure."

There was silence for a moment and then Morrison said, "If it's possible that you're beset by spies, Sophia, why not come to America with me?"

"What?" She seemed not to have heard him.

"You might be in trouble for getting me out, you know."

"Why? I have official papers that will place you on the plane. I am under orders."

"That might not save you if a scapegoat is needed. Why not just get on the plane with me, Sophia, and come to America?"

"Just like that? What would happen to my child?"

"We'll send for her afterward."

"We'll send for her? What are you suggesting?"

Morrison flushed slightly. "I'm not sure. We can be friends, certainly. You'll need friends in a new country."

"But it can't happen, Albert. I appreciate your kindness and concern -- or pity -- but it can't happen."

"Yes, it can. This is the twenty-first century, not the twentieth, Sophia. People may move about freely anywhere in the world."

"Dear Albert," said Kaliinin, "you do tend to live in theory. Yes, people can move about, but every nation has its exceptions. The Soviet Union will not allow a highly trained scientist with experience in miniaturization-related fields to leave the country. Think about it and you'll see that that's reasonable. If I do accompany you, there will be an immediate Soviet protest, a sure claim that I have been kidnapped, and there will be a loud howl from all corners of the world that I be sent back in order to avoid a crisis. Sweden will act as quickly for me as she has for you."

"But in my case, I was kidnapped."

"There'll be many who will believe I was -- or who might prefer to believe it -- and I will be sent back by the United States, as you are being sent back by the Soviet Union. We've papered over, in this fashion, dozens of crises over the last six decades or so -- and isn't that better than war?"

"If you say, firmly and frequently, that you want to stay in the United States --"

"Then I never see my child again and my life may be at risk, too. Besides, I don't want to go to the United States."

Morrison looked surprised.

Kaliinin said, "Do you find that hard to believe? Do you want to stay in the Soviet Union?"

"Of course not. My country --" He stopped.

She said, "Exactly. You talk endlessly about humanity, about the importance of a global view, but if we scrape you down to your emotions, it's your country. I have a country also, a language, a literature, a culture, a way of life. I don't want to give it up."

Morrison sighed. "As you say, Sophia."

Sophia said, "But I cannot endure it here in this room any longer, Albert. There's no use waiting. Let us get into the car and I'll drive you to where the Swedish plane is waiting."

"It probably won't be there."

"Then we'll wait at the airport, rather than here, and we'll at least be certain that as soon as it arrives you can board it. I want to see you safely gone, Albert, and I want to see his face afterward."

She was out the room and clattering down the stairs. He followed hastily. He was, in truth, not sorry to be going.

They strode along a carpeted corridor and through a door that led directly out to the side of the hotel.

There, pulled up close to the wall, was a highly polished black limousine.

Morrison, a little breathless, said, "They're certainly supplying us with deluxe transportation. Can you drive that thing?"

"Like a dream," said Kaliinin, smiling -- and then came to a full and sudden halt, her smile forgotten.

Around the corner of the hotel stepped Konev. He, too, halted and for long moments they did not stir, either of them -- as though they were a pair of Gorgons, each of whom had frozen into stone at the glance of the other.

85.

Morrison was the first to speak. He said a little huskily, "Have you come to see me off, Yuri? If so, good-bye. I'm leaving."

The phrases sounded false in his own ears and his heart was pounding.

Yuri's eyes shifted just enough to glance quickly at Morrison and then moved back to their original position.

Morrison said, "Come, Sophia."

He might as well have said nothing. When she spoke -- finally -- it was to Konev. "What do you want?" she demanded harshly.

"The American," said Konev in a tone no softer than hers.

"I'm taking him away."

"Don't. We need him. He has deceived us." Konev's voice was becoming quieter.

"So you say," said Kabinin. "I have my orders. I am to take him to a plane and see that he gets in. You cannot have him."

"It's not I who must have him. It's the nation."

"Tell me. Go on and tell me. Say that Holy Mother Russia needs him and I'll laugh in your face."

"I'll say no such thing. The Soviet Union needs him."

"You care only for yourself. Step out of my way."

Konev moved between the two others and the limo. "No. You don't understand the importance of his staying here. Believe me. My report has already gone to Moscow."

"I'm sure and I can guess to whom it's going, too. But old gruff-and-grumble won't be able to do anything. He's a blowhard and we all know that. He won't dare say a word in the Presidium and if he does, Albert will be long gone."

"No. He's not going."

Morrison said, "I'll take care of him, Sophia. You open the limo door." He felt himself trembling slightly. Konev was not a large man, but he looked wiry and he was clearly determined. Morrison did not believe himself to be a successful gladiator under any conditions and he certainly didn't feel like one now.

Kaliinin lifted her hand, palm turned toward Morrison. "Stay where you are, Albert." She then said to Konev, "How do you intend to stop me. Do you have a gun?"

Konev looked surprised. "No. Of course not. Carrying a hand weapon is illegal."

"Indeed? But I have one." She drew it from her jacket pocket, a small thing almost enclosed in her fist, its small muzzle gleaming as it edged through the space between her first and second fingers.

Konev backed away, eyes widening. "That's a stunner."

"Of course. Worse than a gun, isn't it? I thought you might interfere, so I'm prepared."

"That's also illegal."

"Then report me and I'll plead the need to fulfill my orders against your criminal interference. I will probably get a commendation."

"You won't. Sophia --" He took a step toward her.

She took a step back. "No closer. I'm ready to shoot and I might do so even if you stand where you are. Just keep in mind what a stunner does. It scrambles your brain. Isn't that what you once told me? You'll be unconscious and you'll wake up with partial amnesia and it may take you hours to recover or even days. I've even heard that some people never quite recover. Imagine if your magnificent brain should not quite regain its fine edge."

"Sophia," he said again.

She said, through almost closed lips, "Why do you use my name? The last time I heard you use it, you said, 'Sophia, we will never speak again, never look at each other again.' You are now speaking to me, looking at me. Go away and keep your promise, you miserable --" (She used a Russian word that Morrison didn't understand.)

Konev, white to his lips, said a third time, "Sophia -- Listen to me. Believe that every word I have ever said is a lie, but listen to me now. That American is a deadly threat to the Soviet Union. If you love your country --"

"I'm tired of loving. What has it gotten me?"

"And what has it gotten me?" whispered Konev.

"You love yourself," said Kaliinin bitterly.

"No! You kept saying that, but it's not so. If I have some regard for myself now, it is because only I can save our country."

"You believe that?" said Kaliinin, wondering. "You really believe that? -- You are mad to do so."

"Not at all. I know my own worth. I couldn't let anything deter me -- not even you. For the sake of our country and my work, I had to give you up. I had to give up my child. I had to tear myself in two and throw the better half of myself away."

"Your child?" Kaliinin said. "Are you claiming responsibility?"

Konev's head bent. "How else could I drive you away? How else could I be sure I would work unimpeded? -- I love you. I have always loved you. I have known all along it was my child and that it could be no one else's."

"Do you want Albert so much?" Her stunner did not waver. "Are you willing to say that it is your child -- say you love me -- believe I will, for that, give you Albert -- and then deny it all again? How low an opinion you must have of my intelligence."

Konev shook his head. "How can I convince you? -- Well, if I deliberately threw it all away, I can't expect to get it back again, can I? Will you, in that case, give me the American for the sake of our nation and then throw me away? Would you let me explain the need for him?"

"I wouldn't believe the explanation." Kaliinin threw a quick glance in Morrison's direction. "Do you hear this man, Albert?" she said. "You don't know with what cruelty he cast my daughter and me aside. Now he expects me to believe that he loved me all along."

And Morrison heard himself say, "That much is true, Sophia. He loves you and he has always loved you -- desperately."

Kaliinin froze for a moment. Her free left hand gestured at Morrison while her eyes remained fixed on Konev. "How do you know that, Albert? Did he lie to you, too?"

But Konev shouted in excitement, "He knows. He admits it. Don't you see? He sensed it with his computer. If you now let me explain, you will believe everything."

Kaliinin said, "Is this true, then, Albert? Do you confirm Yuri?"

And Morrison, too late, clamped his mouth shut, but his eyes gave him away.

Konev said, "My love has been unwavering, Sophia. As much as you have suffered, so much have I. But give me the American and there will be no more of it. I will no longer ask that I be spared any chance of hindrance. I will do my work and have you and the child, too, whatever the cost may be -- and may I be cursed if I don't manage both."

Kaliinin stared at Konev, her eyes suddenly swimming in tears. "I want to believe you," she whispered.

"Then believe. The American has told you."

As though she were sleepwalking, she moved toward Konev, holding the stunner out to him.

Morrison shouted, "Your orders -- to the plane!" He rushed wildly at them.

But as he did so, he collided heavily with another body. Arms were around him, holding him closely, and a voice in his ear said, "Take it easy, Comrade American. Do not attack two good Soviet citizens."

It was Valeri Paleron, who held him in a strong and unbreakable grip.

Kaliinin clung as closely to Konev, though with different effect, the stunner still gripped loosely in her right hand.

Paleron said, "Academician, Doctor, we could become conspicuous here. Let us go back to the American's room. Come, Comrade American, and come quietly or I will be compelled to hurt you."

Konev, catching Morrison's eye, smiled tightly in absolute triumph. He had it all -- his woman, his child, and his American -- and Morrison saw his dream of returning to America pop like a soap bubble and vanish.

CHAPTER 19 -- TURNAROUND

In the true triumph, however, there are no losers.

-- Dezhnev Senior

86.

Morrison sat in the hotel room that he had, for some fifteen minutes, thought he would never see again. He was close to despair -- closer, it seemed to him, than he had been even when he was alone and lost in the cellular stream of the neuron.

What was the use? Over and over again, he thought this, as though the phrase were reverberating in an echo chamber. He was a loser. He had always been a loser.

For a day or so, he had thought that Sophia Kaliinin had been attracted to him, but, of course, she hadn't. He had been nothing more than her weapon against Konev and when Konev had called to her -- beckoned to her -- she had returned to him and had then no further use for her weapons, either for Morrison or for her stunner.

He looked at them dully. They were standing together in the sunlight streaming through the window -- they in the sunlight, he in the shadow, as it must always be.

They were whispering together, so lost in each other that Kaliinin seemed unaware that she was still holding the stunner. For a moment, her knees bent as though she was going to get rid of its weight by dropping it on the bed, but then Konev said something and she was all attention and again unaware of the stunner's existence.

Morrison called out hoarsely, "Your government will not endure this. You have orders to release me."

Konev looked up, his eyes brightening slightly, as though he were being persuaded, with difficulty, to pay attention to his captive. It was not, after all, as though he had to watch Morrison in any physical sense. The waitress, Valeri Paleron, was doing that most efficiently. She stood a meter from Morrison and her eyes (somehow amused -- as though she enjoyed the job) never left him.

Konev said, "My government need not concern you, Albert. It will change its mind soon enough."

Kaliinin raised her left hand as though to object, but Konev enclosed it in his.

"Do not be concerned, Sophia," he said. "Information at my disposal has been forwarded to Moscow. It will make them think. They will get back to me on my personal wavelength before long and when I tell them we have safely secured Morrison, they will take action. I am sure they will have the persuasive power to make the Old Man see reason. I promise you that."

Kaliinin said in a troubled voice, "Albert!"

Morrison said, "Are you getting ready to tell me that you are sorry, Sophia, that you crossed me out of existence at one word from the man you seemed to have hated?"

Kaliinin reddened. "You are not crossed out of existence, Albert. You will be well-treated. You will work here as you would have worked in your own country, except that here you will be truly appreciated."

"Thank you," said Morrison, finding some small reservoir of the sardonic inside himself. "If you feel happy for me, of what importance is my feeling for myself?"

Paleron intervened impatiently, "Comrade American, you talk too much. Why do you not sit down? -- Sit down. " (She pushed him into a chair.) "You may as well wait quietly, since there is nothing else you can do."

She then turned to Kaliinin, around whose shoulders Konev's right arm was protectively placed. "And you, little Tsaritsa," she said, "are you still planning to place this fine lover of yours out of action that you hold this stunner so menacingly in your hand? You will be able to embrace him the more tightly if both arms are free."

Paleron reached for the stunner Kaliinin was holding and Kaliinin gave it up without a word.

"Actually," said Paleron, looking curiously at the stunner, "I am relieved at having it. In the paroxysm of your newfound love, I feared you might shoot in all directions. It would not be safe in your hands, my little one."

She moved back to the vicinity of Morrison, still studying the stunner and turning it in various ways.

Morrison stirred uneasily. "Don't point it in my direction, woman. It may go off."

Paleron looked at him haughtily. "It will not go off if I don't want it to, Comrade American. I know how to use it."

She smiled in the direction of Konev and Kaliinin. Relieved of the weapon, Kaliinin now had both arms around Konev's neck and was kissing him with quick, gentle touches of her lips against his. Paleron said in their direction, but not really to them, for they weren't listening, "I know how to use it. Like this! And like this!"

And first Konev, then Kaliinin crumpled.

Paleron turned toward Morrison. "Now help me, you idiot, we must work quickly."

She said it in English.

87.

Morrison had difficulty understanding. He simply stared at her.

Paleron pushed his shoulder as though she were trying to awaken him from a deep sleep. "Come on. You grab the feet."

Morrison obeyed mechanically. First Konev and then Kaliinin were lifted onto the bed, from which Paleron had stripped the thin blanket. She stretched both of them out along the narrow confines of the single mattress, then searched Kaliinen in a quick, practiced way.

"Ah," she said, staring at a sheet of folded paper, whose close-set print marked it indelibly as something written in governmentese. She flipped it into the pocket of her white jacket and continued the search. Other items came to light -- a pair of small keys, for instance. Quickly she went over Konev, plucking a small metallic disc from the inner surface of his lapel.

"His personal wavelength," she said and placed that, too, into her pocket.

Finally she retrieved a black rectangular object and said, "This is yours, isn't it?"

Morrison grunted. It was his computer program. He had been so far gone he had not been aware that Konev had taken it from him. He clutched at it frantically now.

Paleron turned Kaliinin and Konev toward each other, propping them so that they would not fall apart. She then placed Konev's arm around Kaliinin and covered the two with the blanket, tucking it in under each to help keep them in place.

"Don't stare at me like that, Morrison," she said when she was done. "Come on." She seized his upper arm in a firm grip.

He resisted. "Where are we going? What's happening?"

"I'll tell you later. Not a word now. There is no time to lose. Not a minute. Not a second. Come." She ended with soft fierceness and Morrison followed her.

Out of the room they went, down the stairs as softly as she could manage (he following and imitating), along the carpeted corridor, and out to the limousine.

Paleron opened the front door on the passenger side with one of the keys she had obtained from Kaliinin's pocket and said brusquely, "Get in."

"Where are we going?"

"Get in." She virtually hurled him into the limo.

She settled quickly behind the wheel and Morrison resisted the impulse to ask her if she knew how to drive. It had finally gotten through to his stunned mind that Paleron wasn't simply a waitress.

That she had played the part of one, however, was made plain by the faint odor of onions still clinging to her and mixing rather infelicitously with the richer and pleasanter odor of the limo's interior.

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

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

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

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

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

"You got it," said Paleron.

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

"Shrewder and shrewder."

"Where are we going?"

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

"And you know how to get there?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

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

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

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

"Thank you."

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

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

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

"Are they going to be permanently damaged?"

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

"Well ... shipmates."

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

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

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

"But then what will happen to you?"

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

"But Konev and Kaliinin will deny your story."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No."

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

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

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

"What can they do against the Soviet military?"

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

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

Paleron shook her head firmly.

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

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

"I've got it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

88.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It couldn't be.

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

89.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"To my recording device, Mr. Rodano."

"Which is where, Professor?"

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

"Proceed, Professor."

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

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

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

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

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

"Of course," said Morrison.

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

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

"Yes, they do."

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

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

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

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

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

Morrison nodded.

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

Morrison nodded again.

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

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

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

"That was my understanding."

"And your Soviet companions admitted that it was impossible to maximize and to make things more massive than they are in nature."

"Again, that was my understanding. You must realize, Professor Friar, that I can only repeat what I was told. They might have deliberately misled me or they may have been wrong because they had insufficient knowledge themselves."

"Yes yes, I understand. Do you have any reason to believe they were deliberately misleading you?"

"No. It seemed to me they were being honest."

"Well, perhaps. Now, the most interesting thing to me is that Brownian motion was in balance with miniaturization oscillation and that the greater the degree of miniaturization, the greater the shift in balance toward oscillation and away from ordinary Brownian motion."

"That is an actual observation of my own, Professor, and doesn't rest merely on what I was told."

"And that shift of balance has something to do with the rate of spontaneous deminiaturization."

"That is my own thought. I cannot state it as fact."

"Hmm." Friar sipped thoughtfully at his cofFee and said, "The trouble is that all this is superficial. It tells us about the behavior of the miniaturization field, but nothing about how the field is produced. -- And in decreasing the value of Planck's constant, they leave the speed of light untouched, you say?"

"Yes, but that, as I emphasized, means that maintaining the miniaturization field costs enormously in energy. If they can couple Planck's constant with the speed of light, increasing the latter as they decrease the former -- But they don't have that yet."

"So they say. It was in Shapirov's mind, supposedly, but you were unable to get it out."

"That's right."

Friar remained lost in thought for a few minutes, then shook his head. "We'll go over everything you've said and deduce what we can from it, but I fear it won't help."

"Why not?" asked Rodano.

"Because none of it goes to the heart. If someone who had never seen a robot or heard anything about any of its component parts were to report a robot in operation, he could describe how the head and limbs moved, how the voice sounded, how it obeyed orders, and so on. Nothing he could observe would tell him how a positronic brainpath works or what a molecular valve is. He would not even have an inkling that either exists, nor would those scientists who would work from his observations have any.

"The Soviets have some technique to produce the field and we know nothing about it, nor does anything Morrison can tell us help us there. They might have published material that led up to it, not aware that something crucial was in the making -- that was what happened in the mid-twentieth century, when early work on nuclear fission was published before it was understood that it ought to be kept secret. The Soviets didn't make that mistake with miniaturization, however. Nor have we succeeded in retrieving information concerning the matter through espionage or by the luck of having some key personnel on the other side defect and come to us.

"I will consult with my colleagues on the Board, but on the whole, Dr. Morrison, I'm afraid that your adventure in the Soviet Union, however daring and praiseworthy has -- except for your confirmation that miniaturization does exist -- been useless. I'm sorry, Mr. Rodano, but it might as well not have happened."

90.

Morrison's expression did not change as Friar advanced his conclusion. He poured himself a little more coffee, added cream judiciously, and drank it without haste.

Then he said, "You're quite wrong, you know, Friar."

Friar looked up and said, "Are you trying to say that you know something about the production of the miniaturization field? You had said that --"

"What I'm going to say, Friar, has nothing at all to do with miniaturization. It has everything to do with my own work. The Soviets took me to Malenkigrad and the Grotto in order that I might use my computer program to read Shapirov's mind. It failed at that, which is perhaps not surprising, considering that Shapirov was in a coma and near death. On the other hand, Shapirov, who had a remarkably penetrating mind, referred to my program as a 'relay station' after he had read some of my papers. That's what it turned out to be."

"A relay station?" Friar's face took on a look of puzzled distaste. "What does that mean?"

"Instead of tapping Shapirov's thought, my programmed computer, once inside one of Shapirov's neurons, was acting as a relay, passing thought from one of us to another."

Friar's expression became one of indignation. "You mean it was a telepathic device."

"Exactly. I first experienced that when I was aware of an intense emotion of love and sexual desire for a young woman who was on the miniaturized ship with me. Naturally, I assumed it was my own feeling, for she was a very attractive woman. Nevertheless, I was not aware of any conscious feeling of that sort. It was not until several other instances of the sort that I realized I was receiving the thoughts of a young man on board ship. He and the young lady were estranged, but the passion between them existed, nevertheless."

Friar smiled tolerantly. "Are you sure you were in condition, on board the ship, to interpret these thoughts properly? After all, you were under tension. Did you also receive similar thoughts from the young lady?"

"No. The young man and I exchanged thoughts, involuntarily, on several occasions. When I thought of my wife and children, he thought of a woman and two youngsters. When I was lost in the bloodstream, it was he who picked up my sensations of panic. He assumed he had detected Shapirov's miseries by way of my machine -- which remained in my possession when I was adrift -- but those were my feelings, not Shapirov's. I did not exchange thoughts with either woman on board, but they exchanged thoughts with each other. When they tried to catch Shapirov's thoughts, they detected similar words and feelings -- from each other, of course -- which the young man and myself did not."

"A sexual difference?" said Friar skeptically.

"Not really. The pilot of the ship, a male, received nothing at all, either from the women or from the other men, though on one occasion, he did seem to get a thought. I couldn't say from whom. My own feeling is that there are brain types, as there are blood types -- probably only a few -- and that telepathic communication can be most easily established among those of the same brain type."

Rodano interposed softly, "Even if all this is so, Dr. Morrison. What of it?"

Morrison said, "Let me explain that. For years I've worked to identify the regions and patterns of abstract thought within the human brain with some unremarkable success. Occasionally, I would catch an image, but I never interpreted that properly. I thought it was coming from the animal on whose brain I was working, but I now suspect that they came when I was fairly close to some human being who was in the grip of strong emotion or deep thought. I never noticed that. My fault.

"Nevertheless, having been stung by the general indifference and downright disbelief and ridicule of my colleagues, I never published the matter of catching images, but modified my program in an attempt to intensify it. Some of those modifications were never published, either. Thus, I entered Shapirov's bloodstream with a device that could more nearly serve as a telepathic relay than anything I had ever had before. And now that, at last, my thick head has absorbed exactly what it is that I have, I know what to do to improve the program. I am sure of that."

Friar said, "Let me get this straight, Morrison. You are telling me that, as a result of your fantastic voyage into Shapirov's body, you are now certain you can so modify your device as to make telepathy practical?"

"Practical to an extent. Yes."

"That would be an enormous thing -- if you could demonstrate it." The skepticism in Friar's voice did not disappear.

"More enormous than you perhaps think," said Morrison with some asperity. "You know, of course, that telescopes, whether optical or radio, can be built in parts over a wide area and, if they are coordinated by computer, can achieve the function of a single large telescope, one much larger than can practically be built in a single piece."

"Yes. But what of that?"

"I mention it as an analogy. I am convinced that I can demonstrate something of the same sort in connection with the brain. If we were to have six men united telepathically, the six brains would, for the time, act as one large brain and, in fact, be beyond human in intelligence and in the capacity for insight. Think of the advances in science and technology that could be made, advances in other fields of human endeavor as well. We would, without going through the tedium of physical evolution or the danger of genetic engineering, create a mental superman."

"Interesting, if true," said Friar, obviously intrigued and as obviously unconvinced.

"There is a catch, though," said Morrison. "I performed all my experiments on animals, placing leads from my computer into the brain. That was -- and as I see now, must be -- not at all precise. No matter how we refine it, we will have only a crude telepathic system at best. What we need is to invade a brain and place a miniaturized and property programmed computer in a neuron, where it can act as a relay. The telepathic process will then be sharpened enormously."

"And the poor person on whom you inflict this damage," said Friar, "will eventually explode when the device deminiaturizes."

"An animal brain is much inferior to the human brain," said Morrison earnestly, "because of the fact that the animal brain has fewer neurons, less intricately ordered. The individual neuron in a rabbit's brain may, however, not be significantly inferior to a human neuron. A robot could be used as a relay."

Rodano said, "American brains working in tandem could, then, work out the secret of miniaturization and perhaps even beat the Soviets at the task of coupling Planck's constant to the speed of light."

"Yes," said Morrison enthusiastically, "and one Soviet scientist, Yuri Konev, who was the shipmate who shared thoughts with me, caught on to this, as I did. It was for that reason that he tried to hold on to me and to my program in defiance of his own government. Without me and my program, I doubt that he can duplicate my work for a long time, perhaps not for many years. This is not really his field."

"Continue," said Rodano. "I'm beginning to get a feeling for this."

Morrison said, "This is the situation, then. Right now, we've got a kind of crude telepathy. Even without miniaturization, it may help us forge ahead of the Soviets, but it may not. Without miniaturization -- and without the establishment of a properly programmed computer in an animal neuron as a relay -- we can't be sure of accomplishing anything.

"The Soviets, on the other hand, have a crude form of miniaturization. They may, in the ordinary course of investigation, find a way of linking quantum theory and relativity theory to make a truly efficient miniaturization device, but that might take a very long time.

"So if we have telepathy but not miniaturization, and if they have miniaturization but not telepathy, it may be that we may win after a long period of time -- or they may win. The nation that wins has, in a sense, an unlimited speed of travel and the Universe will belong to it. That nation that loses will wither -- or at least its institutions will wither. It would be good for us if we win the race, but it is they who may win and the process of racing may force the breakdown of two generations of an uneasy peace and lead to an alldestructive war.

"On the other hand, if we and the Soviets are willing to work together and, both of us, to use telepathy as refined and strengthened by a miniaturized relay station in a living neuron, we may achieve, in combination and in a very short time, what amounts to antigravity and infinite speed. The Universe will belong to both the United States and the Soviet Union; indeed, to the whole globe, to Earth, to humanity.

"Why not, gentlemen? No one would lose. Everyone would gain."

Friar and Rodano stared at him in wonder. Friar finally said, swallowing hard, "You make it sound good, if indeed you have telepathy."

"Do you have the time to listen to my explanation?"

"I have all the time you want," said Friar.

It took some hours for Morrison to explain his theory in detail. Then he leaned back and said, "It's almost dinnertime. Now I know that you -- and others as well -- will be wanting to interview me and that you will all want me to set up a system which will demonstrate the practicality of telepathy and that that will keep me busy for -- well, for the rest of my life, for all I know, but I must have one thing now."

"What's that?" asked Rodano.

"Some time off to begin with. Please. I've gone through enough. Give me twenty-four hours -- from now until dinnertime tomorrow. Let me read, eat, think, rest, and sleep. Just one day, if you don't mind, and thereafter I will be at your service."

"Fair enough," said Rodano, rising. "I will arrange that if I can and I suspect I can. The twenty-four hours is yours. Make the most of it. I agree that you'll have precious little time to yourself thereafter. And from now on, for quite a while, resign yourself to being the most strictly guarded person in America, not excluding the President."

"Good," said Morrison. "I'll call for a dinner for one."

91.

Rodano and Friar had finished their own dinner. It had been an unusually silent meal in an isolated and guarded room.

Once it was over, Rodano said, "Tell me, Dr. Friar, do you think Morrison is right in this matter of telepathy?"

Friar sighed and said cautiously, "I will have to consult with some of my colleagues who are more knowledgeable concerning the brain than I am, but I feel he is right. He is very convincing. -- And now I have a question for you?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think Morrison was correct as to the necessity of cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union in this matter?"

There was a lengthy pause and finally Rodano said, "Yes, I think he's right there, too. Of course, there'll be howls from every direction, but we can't risk the Soviets getting there first. Everyone will see that. They'll have to."

"And the Soviets? Will they see it, too?"

"They'll have to, also. They can't risk us getting there first. Besides, the rest of the world will undoubtedly get wind of what is going on and they will clamor for a piece of the action and demand that no new cold war be started. It may take some years, but in the end we will cooperate."

Rodano then shook his head and said, "But do you know what really strikes me as peculiar, Professor Friar?"

Friar said, "What in this whole course of events can possibly strike you as not peculiar?"

"Nothing, I suppose, but what strikes me as most peculiar is this. I met Morrison last Sunday afternoon to urge him to go to the Soviet Union. At the time, my heart sank. He struck me as a man without guts, as a zero, as a wimp, as someone who wasn't even bright except in an academic sense. I didn't think he could be relied on to accomplish anything. I was simply sending him to his death. So I thought -- and so I said to a colleague the next day -- and, so help me, so I still think. He's nothing and it's simply a miracle that he survived and that's only thanks to others. And yet --"

"And yet?"

"And yet he returned, having made an incredible scientific discovery and having set in motion a process whereby the United States and the Soviet Union will both be forced, against their separate wills, to cooperate. And, to top it off, he has made himself the most important and, once we publicize these events, the most famous scientist in the world -- possibly of all time.

"He has, in a sense, destroyed the political system of the world and built a new one -- or at least initiated the process of building a new one -- and he has done it all between the afternoon of last Sunday and the afternoon of today, Saturday. He has done it in six days. Somehow that's a frightening thought."

Friar leaned back and laughed aloud. "It's more frightening than you think. He plans to rest on the seventh day."