Isaac Asimov - Fantastic Voyage II - Destination Brain

"Semyon Dezhnev was a great explorer - and not inconsequential."

"I'm willing to admit that. I am glad to learn of him and I marvel at his achievement. But my not having heard of him is not a fit occasion for Soviet-American rivalry. Be ashamed of yourself!"

Kaliinin's eyes fell, then lifted to his cheek. (Had she left a bruise there? Morrison wondered.) She said, "I'm sorry I struck you, Albert. It need not have been that hard, but I didn't want you to faint. At that moment, I felt I would have no patience to deal with an unconscious American. I did let unjustified anger guide me."

"I'll grant you meant well, but I, too, wish you had not struck so hard. Still, I will accept your apology."

"Then let us get into the ship,"

Morrison managed a smile. Somehow he felt a little better dealing with Kaliinin than he would have with Dezhnev or Konev - or even Boranova. A pretty woman, still quite young, does somehow distract a man's mind from his troubles more effectively than most things would. He said, "Aren't you afraid I might try to sabotage it?"

Kaliinin paused. "Actually, I'm not. I suspect you have enough respect for a vessel of scientific exploration to avoid doing it any damage whatever. Besides - and I say this seriously, Albert - the laws against sabotage are excessively severe in the Soviet Union and the slightest mistake in handling anything in the ship will set off an alarm that will have guards here in a matter of seconds. We have strict laws against guards beating up saboteurs, but sometimes they tend to forget themselves in their indignation. Please don't even think of touching anything."

She put a hand on the hull as she spoke and presumably closed a contact, though Morrison didn't see how it was done. A door - a rectangle curved at the edge - opened. (The door's own edge seemed to be double. Would it also act as an air lock?)

The opening was compact. Kaliinin, entering first, had to stoop. She held out a hand to Morrison. "Careful, Albert."

Morrison not only stooped, but turned sideways. Once inside the ship, he found that he could not quite stand upright. When he bumped his head gently, he looked up at the ceiling, startled.

Kaliinin said, "We'll be doing our work sitting down for the most part, so don't be concerned about the ceiling."

"I don't think claustrophobes would like this."

"Are you claustrophobic?"

"No."

Kaliinin nodded her relief. "That's good. We have to save space, you know. What can I tell you?"

Morrison looked around. There were six seats, in pairs. He sat down in the one nearest the door and said, "These are not exactly roomy, either."

"No," admitted Kaliinin. "Weight lifters could not be accommodated."

Morrison said, "Obviously, this ship was built long before Shapirov went into his coma."

"Of course. We've been planning to have miniaturized personnel invade living tissue for a long time. That would be necessary if we wished to make truly important biological discoveries. Naturally, we expected that we would work with animals at the start and study the circulatory system in fine detail. It is for that project that this ship was built. No one could possibly have guessed that when the time came to carry out the first such microvoyage, the subject would not only be a human body but Shapirov himself."

Morrison was still studying the interior of the ship. It seemed bare. Detail was surprisingly difficult to make out in the situation of transparency-on-transparency and miniaturization of the old-type - ordinary, but microscopic - components.

He said, "There will be five on the ship: you and I, Boranova, Konev, and Dezhnev."

"That's right."

"And what will each of us be doing?"

"Arkady will control the ship. Obviously, he knows how to do that. It's the child of his hands and mind. He'll be in the left front seat. To his right will be the other male, who has a complete map of the neurocirculatory pattern of Shapirov's brain. He will be the pilot. I will sit behind Arkady and I will control the electromagnetic pattern of the ship's surface."

"An electromagnetic pattern? What's that for?"

"My dear Albert. You recognize objects by reflected light, a dog recognizes objects by emitted odor, a molecule recognizes objects by surface electromagnetic pattern. If we're going to make our way as a miniaturized object among molecules, we must have the proper patterns in order to be treated as friends rather than foes."

"That sounds complicated."

"It is - but it happens to be my life study. Natalya will sit behind me. She will be the captain of the expedition. She will make the decisions."

"What kind of decisions?"

"Whatever kind are necessary. Obviously, those can't be predicted in advance. As for you, you will sit to my right."

Morrison rose and managed to shift his position along the narrow aisle on the door side of the seats and move one seat back. He had been in Konev's seat and now he was in what would be his own. He could feel his heart pounding as he imagined himself in that same seat on the following day, with the miniaturization process in progress.

He said in a muffled voice, "There is only one man, then - Yuri Konev - who was miniaturized and deminiaturized and was unharmed by the process."

"Yes."

"And he mentioned no discomfort in the process, no sickness, no mental disturbance?"

"Nothing of the sort was reported."

"Would that be because he is a stoic? Would he feel it would be beneath the dignity of a hero of Soviet science to complain?"

"Don't be foolish. We are not heroes of Soviet science and the one you speak of certainly isn't. We are human beings and scientists and, in fact, if there were any discomfort that we felt, we would be compelled to describe it in full detail, since it might be that with modifications of the process we could remove that discomfort and make future miniaturizations less difficult. Hiding any part of the truth would be unscientific, unethical, and dangerous. Don't you see that - since you are a scientist yourself?"

"Yet there may be individual differences. Yuri Konev survived untouched. Pyotr Shapirov did not - quite."

"That had nothing to do with individual differences," said Kaliinin impatiently.

"We can't really tell, can we?"

"Then judge for yourself, Albert. Do you think we would take the ship into miniaturization without a final testing - with and without human beings aboard? This ship was miniaturized, empty, during the course of this past night - not to a very great extent, but enough to know that all is well."

At once Morrison struggled upward to get out of his seat. "In that case, if you don't mind, Sophia, I want to get out before it is tested with human beings aboard."

"But, Albert, it's too late."

"What!"

"Look out the ship at the room. You haven't once looked outside since you got in, which, I suppose, was a good thing. But look out now. Go ahead. The walls are transparent and the process is complete for now. Please! Look!"

Morrison, startled, did so and then, very slowly, his knees bent and he seated himself again. He asked (and even as he did so, he knew how foolish he must sound), "Do the ship's walls have a magnifying effect?"

"No, of course not. Everything outside is as it always is. The ship and I and you have been miniaturized to about half our linear dimensions."

Morrison felt dizziness overcome him and he bent his head between his knees and breathed slowly and deeply. When he lifted his head again, he saw Kaliinin watching him thoughtfully. She was standing in the narrow aisle, leaning slightly against a seat's armrest to allow the ceiling to clear her head.

"You might have fainted this time," she said. "It would not have disturbed me. We are being deminiaturized now and that will be more time-consuming than the miniaturization, which took no more than three or four minutes. It will take an hour or so for us to get back, so you will have ample time to recover."