Isaac Asimov - Fantastic Voyage II - Destination Brain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Because it is."

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

"Then I say show me!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Vacuumed?" asked Morrison, coughing also.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Spy satellites are illegal," said Morrison indignantly.

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

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

"All out," said Dezhnev.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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