Isaac Asimov - Fantastic Voyage II - Destination Brain

"How?"

"Why, they'll tell us. Arkady is in contact with them. It's not difficult. Radio wave photons miniaturize as they cross the boundary from there to here and deminiaturize as they cross in the other direction. There's very little energy involved - even less than in the case of light."

Dezhnev said, "It's time to move up to the base of the needle."

"Then go ahead," said Boranova. "We might as well test the motive power under miniaturization."

There was a gathering rumble that reached a low peak and then settled down into a buzzing murmur. Morrison twisted his head in order to look as nearly backward as he could against his restraining belt.

Water was churning behind them as though paddle wheels were turning. In the absence of any real reference point outside, it was impossible to judge how quickly they were moving, but progress seemed slow to Morrison.

"Are we moving much?" he asked.

"No, but we don't need to," said Boranova. "There's no use wasting energy trying to move faster. After all, we're pushing against normal-sized molecules, which means high viscosity on our scale."

"But with microfusion motors -"

"We have many energy needs for matters other than propulsion."

"I'm just wondering how long it will take us to get to key points in the brain."

"Believe me," said Boranova grimly, "I'm wondering, too, but we will have an arterial current taking us as close as possible."

Dezhnev cried out, "We're there! See?"

Right ahead, in the forward light beam of the ship, a round circle could be seen. Morrison had no trouble translating that into the base of the needle.

On the other end of that needle, they would find Pyotr Shapirov's bloodstream and then they would actually be within a human body.

Morrison said, "We're too large to go through the needle, Natalya."

He felt a peculiar amalgam of emotions at the thought. Uppermost was a feeling of hope that perhaps the whole experiment had failed. This might be as small as they could get and it wasn't small enough. They would have to deminiaturize and it would all be over.

Under that thought, well-hidden, was a little sigh of disappointment. Having come so far, might it not be as well to get into the body and experience the interior of a nerve cell? Ordinarily, being no darer of dangers, no scaler of heights, Morrison would have turned away in horror at the thought - he did turn away in horror - but having miniaturized, having reached this point, having survived the fright so far, was it possible that he might want to go farther?

But above these contradictory urges came a bit of realism. Surely these people were not such fools as to deal with a ship that could not be reduced to a size that would pass through the needle it was supposed to pass through. No conceivable stupidity in these very intelligent people could reach that pitch.

And Boranova, as though she were resonating with that thought, said, almost indifferently, "Yes, we are too large now, but we will not stay too large. That is my job here."

"Yours?" said Morrison blankly.

"Of course. We have been reduced to this point by our central miniaturization device. Now the fine adjustments will be made by me."

Kaliinin murmured, "That is one of the things we must save our microfusion motors for as much as possible."

Morrison looked from one to another. "Do we have enough energy on board ship for further miniaturization? Surely the impression I got was that a vast quantity of energy was needed for -"

"Albert," said Boranova, "if gravitation were quantized, then it would take the same enormous amount of energy to reduce a mass by half, regardless of the original value of that mass. To reduce the mass of a mouse by half would take the same energy as was required to reduce the mass of an elephant by half. But the gravitational interaction is not quantized and, therefore, neither is mass loss. That means that the energy required for mass loss decreases with that loss - not entirely in proportion, but to an extent. We have so little mass now that it takes much less energy to miniaturize further."

Morrison said, "But since you've never miniaturized anything as large as this ship through so many orders of magnitude, you are depending on the extrapolation of data obtained for a much different size range."

(They're not speaking to an infant, he thought indignantly. I am their equal.)

"Yes," said Boranova. "We are taking the chance that the extrapolation will hold, that something new and unexpected will not surprise us. Still, we live in a Universe that faces us with uncertainties now and then. That can't be helped."

"But we all face death if something goes wrong."

"Didn't you know that?" said Boranova calmly. "Have you been uneasy about this fantastic voyage of ours simply for the pleasure of being uneasy? But we are not alone in this. If things go wrong and the stored energy of miniaturization is released, it will not only destroy us, but it may damage the Grotto to some extent. I'm sure that many an unminiaturized person out there is holding his or her breath and wondering if he or she will survive an explosion. You see, Albert, even those who are not undergoing the risks of miniaturization are not altogether safe."

Dezhnev turned and grinned widely. Morrison noted that one of his upper molars was capped and did not match the rather yellowish tint of his other teeth.

Dezhnev said, "Concentrate on the thought, my friend, that if something goes wrong, you will never know. My father used to say, 'Since we all must die, what better can we ask for than a quick and sudden death?'"

Morrison said, "Julius Caesar said the same thing."

Dezhnev said, "Yes, but we won't even have time to say, 'Et tu, Brute.'"

"There will be no death," said Konev sharply, "and it is foolish to speak of it. The equations are correct."

"Ah," said Dezhnev. "There was a time of superstition when people relied on the protection of God. Thank Equations we now have Equations to rely on."

"Not funny," said Konev.

"I didn't mean to be funny, Yuri. - Natasha, they're ready out there for us to proceed."

Boranova said, "Then there will be no further need to speculate. Here we go."

Morrison gripped his seat tightly, preparing himself, but he felt nothing happen. Up front, though, the round circle he had made out expanded and grew dimmer and dimmer as it moved very slowly backward until it could no longer be made out.

"Are we moving?" he asked automatically. It was the kind of question one was unable to refrain from asking, even though the answer was obvious.

"Yes," said Kaliinin, "and we are expending no energy in doing so. We are not battling the water molecules. We are being carried along by the water flow in the needle as the cylinder presses in slowly."

Morrison was counting to himself. It kept his mind more efficiently occupied than studying the second hand of his watch would have done.

When he reached a hundred, he said, "How long will it take?"

"How long will what take?" asked Kaliinin.

"When do we reach the bloodstream?"

Dezhnev said, "A few minutes. They are going very slowly, just in case there is some kind of microturbulence. As my father once said, 'It is slower, but better, to creep along the downward path than to leap over the cliff.'"

Morrison grunted, then said, "Are we still miniaturizing?"

Boranova answered from behind him. "No. We are down in the cellular range and that is far enough for our needs now."

Morrison was surprised to find that he was trembling. After all, so much was happening and so many new things existed to think about that he had somehow lacked the room to remain in terror. He was not terrified, at least not to an acute stage - yet for some reason he continued to tremble.