Isaac Asimov - Fantastic Voyage II - Destination Brain

"One must be grateful for some technological blessings."

Dezhnev frowned and said darkly, "It is well-known that Soviet spacesuits are the best in the world and the Japanese are second."

"But this is not a spacesuit."

"It is modeled on one in many ways." Dezhnev made as though to pull the headpiece down.

"Wait," said Morrison. "What about a radio?"

Dezhnev paused. "Why would you need a radio?"

"To communicate."

"You will be able to see us, and we will be able to see you. Everything is transparent. You can signal to us."

Morrison drew a deep breath. "In other words, no radio."

Boranova said, "I am sorry, Albert. It is really only a very simple suit for small tasks."

Morrison said sourly, "Still, if you do a thing, it's worth doing well."

"Not to bureaucrats," said Dezhnev. "To them, if you do a thing, it's worth doing cheaply."

There was one advantage of irritation and annoyance, thought Morrison; it did tend to wipe out fear. He said, "How do you plan to get me out of the ship?"

Dezhnev said, "Right where you're standing, the hull is double."

Morrison turned sharply to look and, of course, went floundering. He could not seem to remember for three seconds running that he was essentially weightless. Dezhnev helped him control his body at some cost to himself (We must look like a pair of clowns, Morrison thought.)

Morrison found himself staring, at last, at the indicated portion of the hull. Now that his attention was drawn to it, it did seem faintly less transparent than the other portions, but that might well have been his imagination.

Dezhnev said, "Hold still, Albert. My father used to say: 'It is only when a child has learned to hold still that it can be considered a creature of sense.'"

"Your father was not considering zero-gravity conditions."

"The air lock," said Dezhnev, ignoring Morrison's comment, "is modeled on the type we have in our lunar surface enclosures. The inner layer of the lock will peel back, then move around you and seal. Most of the air between the layers will be sucked out - we can't afford to waste air - which will give you a strange feeling, no doubt. Then the outer layer will peel open and you will be outside. Simple! - Now, let me close your helmet."

"Wait! How do I get back?"

"The same way. In reverse."

Now Morrison was closed in completely and a definite claustrophobic sensation helped unsettle him, as the coldness of fear began to wipe out the saving sensation of anger.

Dezhnev was pushing him against the hull and Konev, having managed to turn about in his seat, was helping. The two women remained calmly in their seats and were staring intently.

Morrison did not for a moment feel that they were staring at his body; he wished they were, in fact. That would be relatively benign. He was absolutely certain they were watching to see if the air lock would work, if his suit would work, if he himself would remain alive for more than a few minutes once he was outside the ship.

He wanted to cry out and call off everything, but the impulse to do so remained only an impulse.

He felt a slippery motion behind him and then the whipping of a transparent sheet before him. It was like the seat belt clasping itself around his waist and chest, but here the sheet enclosed him entirely, head to toe, side to side.

It clung to him more and more tightly, as the air between was pumped out. The material of his suit seemed to strain outward as the air inside it pushed against the developing vacuum outside.

And then the outer layer of the hull behind him whipped away and he felt a soft thrust that sent him tumbling outward and into the blood plasma within the capillary.

He was out of the ship and on his own.

Immediately, Morrison felt the enveloping warmth and gasped. As Konev had said - the temperature was 37 degrees Celsius. It was the heat of a sweltering summer day and there was no escape. No shade, no breeze.

He looked around, getting his bearings. Clearly, Boranova had miniaturized the ship further while he had clumsily clambered into the suit. The tiled wall of the capillary was farther away. He could see only a bit of it, for between himself and the wall was a huge cloudy object. A red corpuscle, of course. Then a platelet went slipping between the red corpuscle and the wall, but very slowly.

All of them - red corpuscle, platelet, himself, the ship - were moving along with the small creeping current within the capillary, if one judged by the slow drifting motion of the tilings in the wall.

Morrison wondered why he felt the Brownian motion as little as he did. There was indeed the sensation of movement and the other objects in sight appeared to tremble. Even the tile marks of the capillary walls seemed to shift somehow, in a rather peculiar manner.

But there was no time to be keenly analytical. He had to get things done and get back within the ship.

He was a meter or so from the ship. (A meter? Purely subjective. How many micrometers - how many millionths of a meter was he separated from the ship in real measurements? He didn't pause to try to work out an answer to the question.) He twiddled his flippers to get back to the ship. The plasma was distinctly more viscous than seawater - unpleasantly so.

The heat continued, of course. It would never stop while the body he was in remained alive. Morrison's forehead was getting moist. - Come, he had to get started.

His hand reached out to the place where he had left the ship, but it touched nothing. It was almost as though it were pushing into a soft rubbery cushion of air, although his eyes told him there was nothing between that portion of the hull of the ship and his suited hand except, at best, a film of fluid.

A moment of thought and he saw what was happening. The outer skin of his suit carried a negative electric charge. So did that portion of the hull he was touching. It was repelling him.

There were other portions of the hull, however. Morrison slid his hands along until he was aware of touching the plastic. That was not in itself enough, however, for his hands moved along the area as though it were infinitely slippery.

And then, almost with a click, his left hand froze. It had passed a region of positive charge and remained in place. He tried to pull free first by a gentle backward push and then more frantically. He might as well have been riveted to the spot. He felt farther along with his right hand. Anchor that and he might be able to pull his left hand free.

Click. Anchored now by his right hand, he pulled at his left. Nothing happened. He clung to the hull, crucified there.

Drops of perspiration rolled down his forehead and collected in his armpits.

He shouted uselessly, wiggling his legs in an ecstasy of effort.

They were looking at him, but how could he gesture to his trapped hands? The red corpuscle that had been companion to the ship since he had emerged from it drifted closer and nudged him against the hull. His chest, however, did not cling. Luckily, it was not up against a positively charged region.

Kaliinin was looking toward him. Her lips were moving, but he could not lip-read - not Russian, at any rate. She did something with her computer and his left arm pulled free. Presumably, she had weakened the intensity of the charge.

He nodded his head in what he hoped would be interpreted as a gesture of thanks. Now it would only be necessary to work his way back, positively charged area by positively charged area, until he reached the rear of the ship.

He began the motion and found himself more or less pinned, but not so much this time by the harsh pull of the electromagnetic interaction as by the soft, pillowy push of the red corpuscle.