Isaac Asimov - Fantastic Voyage II - Destination Brain

Kaliinin stared at Konev, her eyes suddenly swimming in tears. "I want to believe you," she whispered.

"Then believe. The American has told you."

As though she were sleepwalking, she moved toward Konev, holding the stunner out to him.

Morrison shouted, "Your orders - to the plane!" He rushed wildly at them.

But as he did so, he collided heavily with another body. Arms were around him, holding him closely, and a voice in his ear said, "Take it easy, Comrade American. Do not attack two good Soviet citizens."

It was Valeri Paleron, who held him in a strong and unbreakable grip.

Kaliinin clung as closely to Konev, though with different effect, the stunner still gripped loosely in her right hand.

Paleron said, "Academician, Doctor, we could become conspicuous here. Let us go back to the American's room. Come, Comrade American, and come quietly or I will be compelled to hurt you."

Konev, catching Morrison's eye, smiled tightly in absolute triumph. He had it all - his woman, his child, and his American - and Morrison saw his dream of returning to America pop like a soap bubble and vanish.

Morrison sat in the hotel room that he had, for some fifteen minutes, thought he would never see again. He was close to despair - closer, it seemed to him, than he had been even when he was alone and lost in the cellular stream of the neuron.

What was the use? Over and over again, he thought this, as though the phrase were reverberating in an echo chamber. He was a loser. He had always been a loser.

For a day or so, he had thought that Sophia Kaliinin had been attracted to him, but, of course, she hadn't. He had been nothing more than her weapon against Konev and when Konev had called to her - beckoned to her - she had returned to him and had then no further use for her weapons, either for Morrison or for her stunner.

He looked at them dully. They were standing together in the sunlight streaming through the window - they in the sunlight, he in the shadow, as it must always be.

They were whispering together, so lost in each other that Kaliinin seemed unaware that she was still holding the stunner. For a moment, her knees bent as though she was going to get rid of its weight by dropping it on the bed, but then Konev said something and she was all attention and again unaware of the stunner's existence.

Morrison called out hoarsely, "Your government will not endure this. You have orders to release me."

Konev looked up, his eyes brightening slightly, as though he were being persuaded, with difficulty, to pay attention to his captive. It was not, after all, as though he had to watch Morrison in any physical sense. The waitress, Valeri Paleron, was doing that most efficiently. She stood a meter from Morrison and her eyes (somehow amused - as though she enjoyed the job) never left him.

Konev said, "My government need not concern you, Albert. It will change its mind soon enough."

Kaliinin raised her left hand as though to object, but Konev enclosed it in his.

"Do not be concerned, Sophia," he said. "Information at my disposal has been forwarded to Moscow. It will make them think. They will get back to me on my personal wavelength before long and when I tell them we have safely secured Morrison, they will take action. I am sure they will have the persuasive power to make the Old Man see reason. I promise you that."

Kaliinin said in a troubled voice, "Albert!"

Morrison said, "Are you getting ready to tell me that you are sorry, Sophia, that you crossed me out of existence at one word from the man you seemed to have hated?"

Kaliinin reddened. "You are not crossed out of existence, Albert. You will be well-treated. You will work here as you would have worked in your own country, except that here you will be truly appreciated."

"Thank you," said Morrison, finding some small reservoir of the sardonic inside himself. "If you feel happy for me, of what importance is my feeling for myself?"

Paleron intervened impatiently, "Comrade American, you talk too much. Why do you not sit down? - Sit down. " (She pushed him into a chair.) "You may as well wait quietly, since there is nothing else you can do."

She then turned to Kaliinin, around whose shoulders Konev's right arm was protectively placed. "And you, little Tsaritsa," she said, "are you still planning to place this fine lover of yours out of action that you hold this stunner so menacingly in your hand? You will be able to embrace him the more tightly if both arms are free."

Paleron reached for the stunner Kaliinin was holding and Kaliinin gave it up without a word.

"Actually," said Paleron, looking curiously at the stunner, "I am relieved at having it. In the paroxysm of your newfound love, I feared you might shoot in all directions. It would not be safe in your hands, my little one."

She moved back to the vicinity of Morrison, still studying the stunner and turning it in various ways.

Morrison stirred uneasily. "Don't point it in my direction, woman. It may go off."

Paleron looked at him haughtily. "It will not go off if I don't want it to, Comrade American. I know how to use it."

She smiled in the direction of Konev and Kaliinin. Relieved of the weapon, Kaliinin now had both arms around Konev's neck and was kissing him with quick, gentle touches of her lips against his. Paleron said in their direction, but not really to them, for they weren't listening, "I know how to use it. Like this! And like this!"

And first Konev, then Kaliinin crumpled.

Paleron turned toward Morrison. "Now help me, you idiot, we must work quickly."

She said it in English.

Morrison had difficulty understanding. He simply stared at her.

Paleron pushed his shoulder as though she were trying to awaken him from a deep sleep. "Come on. You grab the feet."

Morrison obeyed mechanically. First Konev and then Kaliinin were lifted onto the bed, from which Paleron had stripped the thin blanket. She stretched both of them out along the narrow confines of the single mattress, then searched Kaliinen in a quick, practiced way.

"Ah," she said, staring at a sheet of folded paper, whose close-set print marked it indelibly as something written in governmentese. She flipped it into the pocket of her white jacket and continued the search. Other items came to light - a pair of small keys, for instance. Quickly she went over Konev, plucking a small metallic disc from the inner surface of his lapel.

"His personal wavelength," she said and placed that, too, into her pocket.

Finally she retrieved a black rectangular object and said, "This is yours, isn't it?"

Morrison grunted. It was his computer program. He had been so far gone he had not been aware that Konev had taken it from him. He clutched at it frantically now.

Paleron turned Kaliinin and Konev toward each other, propping them so that they would not fall apart. She then placed Konev's arm around Kaliinin and covered the two with the blanket, tucking it in under each to help keep them in place.

"Don't stare at me like that, Morrison," she said when she was done. "Come on." She seized his upper arm in a firm grip.

He resisted. "Where are we going? What's happening?"

"I'll tell you later. Not a word now. There is no time to lose. Not a minute. Not a second. Come." She ended with soft fierceness and Morrison followed her.

Out of the room they went, down the stairs as softly as she could manage (he following and imitating), along the carpeted corridor, and out to the limousine.

Paleron opened the front door on the passenger side with one of the keys she had obtained from Kaliinin's pocket and said brusquely, "Get in."