Isaac Asimov - Fantastic Voyage II - Destination Brain

"Where are we going?"

"Get in." She virtually hurled him into the limo.

She settled quickly behind the wheel and Morrison resisted the impulse to ask her if she knew how to drive. It had finally gotten through to his stunned mind that Paleron wasn't simply a waitress.

That she had played the part of one, however, was made plain by the faint odor of onions still clinging to her and mixing rather infelicitously with the richer and pleasanter odor of the limo's interior.

Paleron started the engine, looked around the parking area, which was deserted except for a cat going about some business of its own, and moved out over a sandy patch to the path that led to the nearby road.

Slowly the limo picked up speed and when it finally reached the ninety-five kilometer-per-hour mark, it was moving along a two-lane highway on which, occasionally, an automobile, moving in the other direction, passed them. Morrison found himself capable of thinking normally again.

He glanced back earnestly through the rear window. A car, far behind them, was turning off at an intersection they had passed some moments before. No one appeared to be following them.

Morrison then turned to watch Paleron's profile. She seemed competent but grim. It was clear to him now that she was not only no waitress by true profession but was very likely no Soviet citizen. Her English had a strong urban accent that no European would learn in school or could pick up in a way that would be true enough to fool Morrison's ear.

He said, "You were waiting there outside the hotel, reading a book, so that you would see Sophia and myself when we came."

"You got it," said Paleron.

"You're an American agent, aren't you?"

"Shrewder and shrewder."

"Where are we going?"

"To the designated airport where the Swedish plane will pick you up. I had to get the details on that from Kaliinin."

"And you know how to get there?"

"Yes, indeed. I've been in Malenkigrad for considerably longer a period than your Kaliinin has been here. - But tell me, why did you tell her this man, Konev, was in love with her? She was just waiting to hear that from a third person. She wanted it confirmed and you did that for her. In that way, you handed over the whole game to Konev. Why did you do it?"

"For one thing," said Morrison mildly, "it was the truth."

"The truth?" Paleron, looking bemused, shook her head. "You don't belong in the real world. You sure don't. I'm surprised no one knocked you on the head and buried you long ago - just for your own good. Besides, how do you know it's the truth?"

Morrison said, "I know. - But I was sorry for her. She saved my life yesterday. She saved all our lives yesterday. For that matter, Konev saved my life, too."

"You all saved each other's life, I suppose."

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"But that was yesterday. Today you started fresh and you shouldn't have let yesterday influence you. She would never have taken up with him again if it weren't for your dumb remark. He could have sworn himself purple about loving her and all the rest of that rubbish and she wouldn't have believed him. She dared not. Be made a fool of again? Never! She would have stunned him to the ground in another minute and then you told her, 'Why, yes, kid, that there guy loves you,' and that's all she needed. I tell you, Morrison, you shouldn't be out without your keeper."

Morrison stirred uneasily, "How do you know all this?"

"I was on the floor in the back seat of this car, ready to go with you and Kaliinin and to make sure she took you there. And then you pulled your dumb trick. What was there to do but grab you and keep you from being stunned down, then get you back to the room where we could have some privacy, and after that get hold of the stunner somehow?"

"Thank you."

"That's all right. - And I made them look like a loving couple, too. Anyone coming in will be bound to say, 'Excuse me,' and leave quickly - and that will give us more time."

"How long will it be before they're conscious again?"

"I don't know. It depends on how accurately I placed the radiation and what each state of mind was and who knows what else. But when they do come back, it will take them some time to remember what happened. I'm hoping that in their position, the first thing they'll remember is that they're in love. That would preoccupy them for a while. Then when they do get around to remembering you and what it was that was being done with Moscow, it will be too late."

"Are they going to be permanently damaged?"

Paleron cast a quick look at Morrison's concerned face. "You're worried about them, aren't you? Why? What are they to you?"

"Well… shipmates."

Paleron made an inelegant sound. "I guess they'll recover okay. They might be better off if some of that supersensitive edge is ground off. They can get together and make a nice family then."

"And what's going to happen to you? You'd better get on the plane with me."

"Don't be a jackass. The Swedes wouldn't take me. They've got orders to take one guy and they'll test you to make sure you're the right one. They'll have records of your fingerprints and your retina pattern, right out of the files of the Population Board. If they take the wrong person or an additional person, that'll be a new incident and the Swedes are too smart for that."

"But then what will happen to you?"

"Well, for starters, I'll say you got hold of the stunner and rayed them both, then held the stunner on me and made me take you to the airport because you didn't know its location. You ordered me to stop outside the gates, then stunned me down and tossed the stunner into the car. Early tomorrow, I'll make my way back to Malenkigrad, like I was coming out of a stunning."

"But Konev and Kaliinin will deny your story."

"They weren't looking at me when they were stunned and almost no one remembers the actual moment of stunning, anyway. Besides, the Soviet Government knows that they ordered you returned and if you are returned, then anything Konev will tell them about you will do him no good. The government will accept the fait accompli. It's rubles to kopeks or, better, dollars to kopeks that they'll prefer to forget the whole thing - and I'll just go back to waitressing."

"There's bound to be some suspicion clinging to you."

"Then we'll see," she said. "Nichevo! What will be, will be." She smiled faintly.

They continued to travel along the highway and Morrison finally said with a touch of diffidence, "Shouldn't we to speed it up a little?"

"Not even by a kilometer per hour," said Paleron firmly. "We're going at just under the speed limit and the Soviets have every centimeter of the highway radarized. They have no sense of humor about the speed limit and I don't intend to spend hours trying to get out of a police station because I wanted to save fifteen minutes reaching the plane."

It was past noon now and Morrison was beginning to feel the mild, premonitory pinches of hunger. He said, "What was it that Konev told Moscow about me, do you suppose?"

Paleron shook her head. "Don't know. Whatever it was, he got a response on his personal wavelength. It signaled about twenty minutes ago. You didn't hear?"

"No."

"You wouldn't last long in my business. - Naturally, they got no answer, so whoever Konev was talking to in Moscow will try to find out why. Someone will find them and then they'll figure you're on the way to the airport and someone will chase out after us to see if you can be headed off. Like Pharaoh's chariots."

"We don't have Moses to part the Red Sea for us," muttered Morrison.

"If we get to the airport, we'll have the Swedes. They won't give you up to anybody."

"What can they do against the Soviet military?"

"It won't be the Soviet military. It will be some functionary, working for an extremist splinter group, who will try to bluff the Swedes. But we have official papers giving you up to them and they won't be bluffed. We just have to get there first."