Isaac Asimov - Fantastic Voyage II - Destination Brain

"But gravity changes. It becomes weaker in here."

"The strong interaction and the electroweak interaction come under the umbrella of the quantum theory. They depend on Planck's constant. As for gravitation?" Kaliinin shrugged. "Despite two centuries of effort, gravitation has never been quantized. Frankly, I think the gravitational change with miniaturization is evidence enough that gravitation cannot be quantized, that it is fundamentally nonquantum in nature."

"I can't believe that," said Morrison. "Two centuries of failure can merely mean we haven't managed to get deep enough into the problem yet. Superstring theory nearly gave us our unified field at last." (It relieved him to discuss the matter. Surely he couldn't do so if his brain were heating in the least.)

"Nearly doesn't count," said Kaliinin. "Still, Shapirov agreed with you, I think. It was his notion that once we tied Planck's constant to the speed of light, we would not only have the practical effect of miniaturizing and deminiaturizing in an essentially energy-free manner, but that we would have the theoretical effect of being able to work out the connection between quantum theory and relativity and finally have a good unified field theory. And probably a simpler one than we could have imagined possible, he would say."

"Maybe," said Morrison. He didn't know enough to comment beyond that.

"Shapirov would say," said Kaliinin, warming to the task, "that at ultraminiaturization, the gravitational effect would be close enough to zero to be utterly ignored and that the speed of light would be so great that it might be considered infinite. With mass virtually zero, inertia would be virtually zero and any object, like this ship, for instance, could be accelerated with virtually zero energy input to any speed. We would have, practically speaking, antigravity and faster-than-light travel. Chemical drive, he said, gave us the Solar System, ion drive would give us the nearer stars, but relativistic miniaturization would give us the whole Universe at a bound."

"It's a beautiful vision," said Morrison, ravished.

"Then you know what we're looking for now, don't you?"

Morrison nodded. "All that - if we can read Shapirov's mind. And if he really had something there and wasn't merely dreaming."

"Isn't the chance worth the risk?"

"I am on the point of believing so," said Morrison in a low voice. "You are terribly convincing. Why couldn't Natalya have used arguments of that sort, rather than those she did use?"

"Natalya is - Natalya. She is a highly practical person, not a dreamer. She gets things done."

Morrison studied Kaliinin as she sat, now in the seat to his left, looking straight ahead with an abstracted look that gave her profile the appearance of an impractical dreamer, at that - but perhaps not one who, like Shapirov, dreamed of conquering the Universe. With her, it was something closer to home perhaps.

He said, "Your unhappiness is not my business, Sophia, as you've said - but I have been told about Yuri."

Her eyes flashed. "Arkady! I know it was he. He is a - a -" She shook her head. "With all his education and all his genius, he remains a peasant. I always think of him as a bearded serf with a vodka bottle."

"I think he's concerned about you in his own way, even if he doesn't express himself poetically. Everyone must be concerned."

Kaliinin stared at Morrison fiercely, as if holding her words back.

He prodded her gently, saying, "Why don't you tell me about it? I think it will help and I am a logical choice, being the outsider of the party - I assure you I am trustworthy."

Kaliinin looked at him again, this time almost gratefully.

"Yuri!" she spat. "Everyone may be concerned, except Yuri. He has no feelings."

"He must have been in love with you at one time."

"Must he? I don't believe it. He has a - a -" - she looked up and spread her hands, which were shaking, as though groping for a word and having to settle for something inferior - "vision."

"We're not always masters of our own emotions and affections, Sophia. If he has found another woman and dreams of her -"

"There's no other woman," said Kaliinin, frowning. "None! He uses that as an excuse to hide behind! He loved me, if at all, only absently, because I was convenient at hand, because I satisfied a vague physical need, and because I was also involved in the project, so that he didn't have to lose much time dallying with me. As long as he had this project firmly in hand, he didn't mind having me - quietly, unobtrusively - at odd moments."

"A man's work -"

"Need not fill every moment of time. I told you he has a vision. He plans to be the new Newton, the new Einstein. He wants to make discoveries so fundamental, so great, that he will leave nothing for the future. He will take Shapirov's speculations and turn them into hard science. Yuri Konev will become the whole of the natural law and everyone else will be commentary!"

"Might that not be considered an admirable ambition?"

"Not when it makes him sacrifice everything and everyone else, when it makes him deny his own child. I? What do I matter? I can be neglected, denied. I am an adult. I can take care of myself. But a baby? A child? To deny her a father? To refuse her? To reject her? She would distract him from his work, she would make demands on him, she would consume a few moments of time here and there - so he insists he is not the father."

"A genetic analysis -"

"No. Would I drag him to court and force a legal decision upon him? Consider what his denial implies? The child is not a virgin birth. Someone must be the father. He implies - no, he states - that I am promiscuous. He has not hesitated to give it as his opinion that I do not know the father of my child since I am lost among the numerous possibilities. Shall I labor to make a man as low as he is the legally proved father of my child against his will? No, let him come to me and admit he is the father and apologize for what he has done - and I may allow him a glance, now and then, at the child."

"Yet I have a feeling you still love him."

"If I do, that is my curse," said Kaliinin bitterly. "It shall not be my child's."

"Is that why you have had to be persuaded to undertake this miniaturization?"

"And work with him? Yes, that is why. But they tell me I cannot be replaced, that what we may do for science lies far above and beyond any conceivable personal feeling - any anger, any hate. Besides -"

"Besides?"

"Besides, if I abandon the project, I lose my status as a Soviet scientist. I lose many privileges and perquisites, which do not matter, and so does my daughter - which matters a great deal."

"Did Yuri have to be persuaded, too, to work with you?"

"He? Of course not. The project is all he knows and sees. He does not look at me. He does not see me. And if he dies in the course of this attempt -" She held out her hand in appeal to him. "Please understand that I do not for a moment believe that this will happen. It is just a stupidly romantic notion that I torture myself with for the love of pain, I suppose. If he should die, he would not even be aware that I would die with him."

Morrison felt himself tremble. "Don't talk like that," he said. "And what would happen to your daughter in that case? Did Natalya tell you that?"

"She did not have to. I know that without her. My daughter would be reared by the state, as the child of a Soviet martyr to science. She might be better off so." Sophia paused and looked around. "But it's beginning to look quite normal out there. We should be out of the ship soon."

Morrison shrugged.

"You will have to spend much of the rest of the day being medically and psychologically examined, Albert. So will I. It will be very boring, but it has to be done. How do you feel?"