Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain

Chapter 10. Capillary

Dezhnev turned his head, startled, and said, "It's a white cell, Albert, a leucocyte. It is nothing to be bothered about."

Morrison swallowed and felt distinctly annoyed. "I know it's a white cell. It just caught me by surprise. It's bigger than I thought it would be."

"It's nothing," said Dezhnev. "A piece of pumpernickel, really, and no bigger than it should be. We're just smaller. And even if it were as big as Moscow, so what? It's just floating along in the bloodstream as we are."

"As a matter of fact," said Kaliinin gently, "it doesn't even know we're here - I mean, that we're anything special. It thinks we're a red corpuscle."

Konev seemed to be addressing the air in front of him in an abstracted sort of way, saying, "White cells do not think."

A flash of resentment crossed Kaliinin's face, flushing it slightly, but her voice remained even. "By saying 'think,' Albert, I am merely using a figure of speech. What I mean is that the white cell's behavior toward us is that which it would display toward a red corpuscle."

Morrison cast another look toward the large billowing cell up ahead and decided that, harmless or not, he found its appearance distasteful. He looked with much appreciation at the contrast made by Kaliinin's pretty high-cheekboned face, and wondered why she had never had that little mole under the left corner of her lip removed. Then he wondered if it didn't add just the right trifle of piquancy to a face that might otherwise be considered too pretty to possess character.

That moment of beside-the-point speculation effectively removed the uneasiness that the white cell's appearance had introduced and Morrison returned, in his mind, to Kaliinin's statement.

"Does it act as though we're a red corpuscle because we're the right size for it?"

"That may help," said Kaliinin, "but it's not the real reason. You judge a red corpuscle to be a red corpuscle because you see it. The white cell judges a red corpuscle to be one because it senses the characteristic pattern of the electromagnetic pattern on its surface. White cells are trained - that is just another figure of speech - let us say, adapted - to ignore that."

"But this ship doesn't have the electromagnetic pattern of a red corpuscle… Ah, but I guess you've taken care of that."

Kaliinin smiled in gentle self-satisfaction. "Yes, I have. It is my speciality."

Dezhnev said, "That is it, Albert. Our little Sophia knows, completely in her head" - he tapped his right temple - "the exact electromagnetic pattern of every cell, every bacterium, every virus, every protein molecule, every -"

"Not quite," said Kaliinin, "but those I forget, my computer can supply. And I have a device here that can use the energy of the microfusion motors to place positive and negative electric charges on the ship in whatever pattern I choose. The ship has the charge pattern of a red corpuscle on itself as best as I can duplicate it, and that is close enough to cause the white cell to react - or, rather, not to react - accordingly."

"When did you do that, Sophia?" asked Morrison with interest.

"When we were reduced to the size that would make us a potential object of interest for a white cell or for the immune apparatus generally. We don't want antibodies swarming over us, either."

A thought occurred to Morrison. "Since we're talking about being reduced in size, why hasn't the Brownian motion gotten worse? I should think it would batter us more as we got smaller."

Boranova put in from behind, "So it would if we were unminiaturized objects of this size. Since we are miniaturized, there are theoretical reasons that prevent Brownian motion from getting very bad. It's nothing to worry about."

Morrison thought about it, then shrugged. They weren't going to tell him anything they thought might make him too knowledgeable in the matter of miniaturization and what did that matter? The Brownian motion had not grown worse. In fact, it had grown less troublesome (or was he just getting used to it?) and he had no objection to that. That made it, as Boranova said, nothing to worry about.

His attention shifted back toward Kabinin. "How long have you been training in this field, Sophia?"

"Since my graduate days. Even without Shapirov's coma, we all knew the time would come when a trip through a bloodstream would become necessary. We've been planning something like this for a long time and we knew that this skill of mine would be needed."

"You might have planned an automated crewless ship."

"Someday, perhaps," said Boranova, "we will, but not yet. We cannot, even now, make the automation equivalent to the versatility and ingenuity of a human brain."

"That's true," said Kaliinin. "An automated pattern maker would place us in the red corpuscle pattern as a way of following the path of least resistance, and it would do little more than that. After all, it would be a useless expense and perhaps an impractical exercise altogether to try to instil in an automated pattern maker the ability to change appropriately in response to all sorts of improbable conditions. When I am present, however, I have the capacity to do almost anything. I can change the pattern to meet an unlikely emergency, to test the value of something earlier unthought of, or simply to suit a whim. - For instance, I could change the ship's pattern to that of an E coli bacterium and the white cell would attack at once."

"I'm sure of that," said Morrison, "but don't do it, please."

"No fear," said Kaliinin. "I won't."

But Boranova's voice sounded in sudden - and uncharacteristic - excitement. "On the contrary, Sophia, do that!"

"But, Natalya -"

"I mean it, Sophia. Do it. We haven't tested your instrument under field conditions, you know. Let's try it."

Konev muttered, "That's a waste of time, Natalya. Let us first get to where we're going."

Boranova said, "It won't do us any good to get there - if we can't enter a cell. Here is an immediate opportunity at hand to see if Sophia can control the behavior of a cell."

"I agree," said Dezhnev boisterously. "This has been a remarkably uneventful trip so far."

"That's the best kind, I should think," said Morrison.

But Dezhnev held up a disapproving hand. "My old father used to say: 'To want peace and quiet above all else is to hope for death.'"

"Go ahead, Sophia," Boranova said firmly. "We waste time."

Kaliinin hesitated a bare moment - the time required, perhaps, to remember that Boranova was captain of the ship - then her hand flickered over the controls of her device and the configurations upon the television screen altered markedly. (Morrison admired, in an apprehensive sort of way, the speed with which she did it.)

Morrison lifted his eyes to the white cell ahead, and for a moment he saw no change. And then it seemed as though a fit of trembling overtook the monster and Dezhnev whispered, "Aha, it recognizes the presence of its prey."

At the extreme forward end of the white cell, its substance seemed to bulge toward and all around them in an uneven circle. At the same time, the substance in the center retreated as though it were being sucked in. Morrison envisioned a monster's jaws preparing for a meal.

Konev said, "It works, Natalya. That creature ahead is preparing to envelop and engulf us."

Boranova said, "So it is. Very well, Sophia, restore us to the red cell mode."

Again Kaliinin's fingers flickered and the configurations on the screen returned (as nearly as Morrison's memory could judge) to what they had earlier been.

This time, however, the white cell remained unaffected. Its outer rim was shooting past the ship, which was now heading into the deep central concavity.

Morrison was appalled. The entire ship was encased by something that looked precisely like fog - a gritty granular fog, within which a multilobed object, faintly denser than the rest, writhed its way around them. Morrison knew that this must be the nucleus of the white cell.

Konev snapped out angrily, "Apparently, once the white cell gears itself for engulfment, the rest is automatic and nothing will stop it. - What now, Natalya?"

Boranova replied quietly, "I admit I hadn't expected this. The fault is mine."

"What's the difference?" said Dezhnev, frowning. "It's no matter. What can this blob do to us? It cannot crush us. It is not a boa constrictor."

Konev said, "It can try to digest us. We're in a food vacuole right now and digestive enzymes are pouring in around us."

"Let them pour," said Dezhnev. "I wish them the joy of the attempt. The ship's wall is not digestible to anything a white cell has. After a while, it will reject us as indigestible residue."

"How will it know?" asked Kaliinin.

"How will it know what?" snapped Dezhnev.

"How will it know we are indigestible residue? It was spurred into activity by our bacterial charge pattern."

"Which you removed."

"Yes, but as someone remarked, the white cell, once stimulated, apparently has to go through its whole cycle of activity. It is not a thinking device; it is entirely automatic." Kaliinin was frowning now and looking around at the others. "It seems to me that the white cell will continue trying to digest us until it is given the appropriate stimulus that will put its engulfment mechanism into reverse and allow it to eject us."

Boranova said, "But we now have the charge pattern of a red corpuscle again. Don't you think that would stimulate rejection? It doesn't eat red cells."

"I think it's too late for that," said Kaliinin a little diffidently, as though nervous about standing up to Boranova. "The red corpuscle pattern keeps it unengulfed, but once it is engulfed by some means, it would seem that the pattern alone is insufficient to spark ejection. After all, here we are; we are not being ejected."

Her eyes - all five pairs of eyes, in fact - uneasily surveyed the wall of the ship. They were trapped in the cloudy cell.

"I think," Kaliinin went on, "that there's a charge pattern to the kind of indigestible residue left by the bacteria the white cell is designed to engulf and that that alone would be a trigger for ejection."

"In that case," said Dezhnev, "give it the pattern it wants, Sophia, my little chicken."

"Gladly," said Kaliinin, "if you will tell me what it is because I don't know. I can't just try patterns at random. The number of possible patterns is astronomical."

"As a matter of fact," said Konev, "can we be sure the white cell ejects anything at all? Perhaps indigestible residue becomes part of its granular material and remains within it until it is removed and dismantled in the spleen."

Boranova said sharply (perhaps weighed down with the knowledge that she was responsible for their present situation, thought Morrison), "There is no point in babbling. Is there a constructive suggestion?"

Dezhnev said, "I can turn on the microfusion motors and bore a way out of the white cell."

"No," said Boranova sharply. "Do you know the direction which we are heading at this moment? Inside this food vacuole we may be slowly turning or the vacuole itself may be drifting through the cell's substance. If you smash your way outward, you may damage the wall of the blood vessel and the brain itself."

Konev said, "For that matter, white cells can wiggle out of a capillary, working their way between the cells that make up the capillary wall. Since the path we have taken has led us into an arteriole branch that has narrowed to just about capillary size, we can't even be sure that we're still in the bloodstream."

"Yes, we can," said Morrison suddenly. "The white cell can pinch itself small, but it can't pinch us small. If it squeezes out of the vessel, it would be forced to leave us behind. - And that would be a good thing, except that it hasn't done it."

"There you are," said Dezhnev. "I should have thought of it sooner. Natasha, make us bigger and crack the white cell open. Give it indigestion like it has never had."

Again a sharp negative from Boranova. "And crack the blood vessel open, too? The blood vessel is fairly small now, not much wider than the white cell."

Kaliinin said, "If Arkady will get in touch with the Grotto, someone there might have an idea."

There was silence for a moment and then Boranova said in a half-strangled way, "Not just yet. We have done something foolish - well, I have - and you know as well as I do that it would be better for all of us if we didn't need help."

"We can't wait forever," said Konev restlessly. "The fact is that I don't know where we are by now. I can't rely on the white cell drifting with the bloodstream or with maintaining any given speed, for that matter. Once we are lost, it may take considerable time to locate ourselves and we may need help from the Grotto to do it, too. In that case, how do we explain being lost?"

Morrison said, "How about the air-conditioning?"

There was a pause and Boranova said, "What do you mean, Albert?"

"Well, we're sending miniaturized subatomic particles out of the ship and into interplanetary space. They carry heat away from the ship, I was told, so that we remain cool even in the all-pervasive warmth of the body we're in. That coolness must be something the white cell is not designed to tolerate. If we turn up the air-conditioning and become colder still, there may come a time when the white cell will be uncomfortable enough to eject us."

Boranova mulled this over and said evenly, "I think - possibly - that might work."

Dezhnev said, "Don't bother thinking. I've turned up the air-conditioning to maximum. Let's see if anything happens besides all of us getting frostbite."

Morrison watched the fog outside. He was well aware that he was as tense as the others. He was not in agony over an unfortunate decision - an ill-advised experiment. Nor was he biting his nails over the fate of Shapirov and yet - Tapping his own emotions, it occurred to him that having come thus far, having been miniaturized and finding himself in a small cerebral arteriole, he suddenly had an urge to check out his theories. Had he come this far in order to turn back and spend the rest of his life, holding up an imaginary thumb and forefinger nearly in contact and saying in the depth of his mind, "Missed it by that much"?

Very well, then. He had passed from desperately not wanting to attempt the project to a definite reluctance to abort it.

Dezhnev's voice broke in on his thoughts. "I don't think this little animal likes what's happening."

Morrison was conscious of a biting chill, and shivered as he became aware that the thin cotton uniform he wore was a totally inadequate shield against this sudden onset of winter.

And perhaps the white cell "thought" this, too, for the fog thinned and a rift appeared in it. Then, in another moment or two, the surroundings were clear and the white cell was a ball of fog to their rear, drifting away - or perhaps crawling away - amoebalike, from an unpleasant experience.

Boranova said (sounding a little dumbfounded), "Well, it's gone."

Dezhnev waved both hands high in the air. "A toast - if we had a small swallow of vodka with us - to our American hero. It was an excellent suggestion."

Kaliinin nodded at Morrison and smiled. "It was a good idea."

"As good as mine was bad," said Boranova, "but at least we know that your technique can do what it should, Sophia - as long as we know enough. And as for you, Arkady, ease the air-conditioning intensity before we all catch pneumonia. - So you see, Albert, we have already done well to take you with us."

"Perhaps," said Konev tightly, "but in the meanwhile, I think the white cell took us on an excursion. We are not where we were and I do not know exactly where we are."

Boranova's lips tightened and she asked with some difficulty, "How can you not know where we are? We were inside the white cell only a few minutes. It couldn't have moved us into the liver, could it?"

Konev seemed at least equally upset. "No, we're not in the liver, Madame." (He came down heavily on the honorific, giving it the French pronunciation.) "But I suspect the white cell, dragging us with it, has turned into a branching capillary so that we are now out of the mainstream of the arteriole - which was not yet quite a capillary - that we were carefully following."

"Which capillary did it turn into?" asked Boranova.

"That is what I don't know. There are a dozen capillaries it might have turned into and I don't know which one it was."

"Doesn't your red marker -" began Morrison.

"My red marker," said Konev at once, "works by dead reckoning. If I know where we are and the speed at which we're progressing, it will move along with us, turning when I tell it to turn."

"You mean," said Morrison incredulously, "it only marks your position insofar as you know your position - no more than that?"

"It is not a magical marker, no," said Konev freezingly. "It acts to mark our place and keep track of it, lest we lose it in the confusion of the three-dimensional complexity of the bloodstream and the neuronic networks, but we have to guide it. At this stage, it's not complex enough to guide itself. In an emergency, we can be located from outside, but that's a time-consuming process."

It seemed to be time for someone to ask a classically foolish question and that someone turned out to be Dezhnev. He said, "Why should the white cell have turned off into a capillary?"

Konev turned red. Speaking so rapidly that Morrison could hardly make out the Russian, he said, "And how should I know that? Am I privy to the thought processes of a white cell?"

"That's enough," said Morrison sharply. "We're not here to fight with each other." (He noted the quick look that Boranova had shot toward him and he chose to interpret it as representing gratitude.)

"Actually," he went on, "the solution is simple. We're in a capillary. Very well. The current is at a creeping pace in capillaries, so where is the difficulty in making use of the famous microfusion engines? If you put them into reverse, we will just back out of this capillary and eventually - not a very long eventually, either - we will be back at the junction point and in the arteriole again. Then we continue onward until we get to the proper turnoff and into the proper capillary. We'll have lost a little time and spent a little power, that's all."

Morrison's statement was greeted with solemn stares. Even Konev, who generally spoke - when he did - with his face steadfastly forward, turned now, his angry frown concentrated on Morrison.

Morrison said uneasily, "Why are you all looking at me like that? It's a perfectly natural course of procedure. If you had been driving a car and accidentally turned into a narrow alley and found it the wrong one, wouldn't you back out?"

Boranova was shaking her head. "Albert, I'm sorry. We have no reverse."

"What?" Morrison stared at her blankly.

"We have no reverse. We have only a forward drive. Nothing more."

Morrison said, "How is it possible to - No reverse gear at all?"

"None."

Morrison looked around at the other four faces and then burst out, "Of all the stupid, incompetent, maddening situations. It's only in the Sov-"

He stopped.

Boranova said, "Finish the thought. You were going to say that it's only in the Soviet Union that such a situation would be allowed to arise."

Morrison swallowed, then said grumpily, "I was going to say that, yes. It might be an ill-tempered statement, but I'm angry - and the statement may be true, at that."

"And do you think we're not angry, Albert?" said Boranova with her glance level upon him. "Do you know how long we've been working on a ship like this? Years! Many years! Since miniaturization first seemed to become a practical possibility, we have been thinking of entering a bloodstream someday and exploring the working mammalian body - if not the human body - from within.

"But the more we planned and the more we designed, the more expensive the project grew, and the more stubborn the budgeteers in Moscow became in response. I can't blame them; they had to balance the expense of this project against other expenses in areas that were far less problematical than miniaturization was. So, as a result, the ship grew simpler and simpler in concept, as we cut out first this, then that, then the other thing. Do you remember when you Americans were building your first shuttles? What you planned and what you got?

"In any case, we ended up with an unpowered craft, fit for observation only. We planned to enter the bloodstream and let the current carry us where it would. When we had all the information we could get, we would slowly deminiaturize. This would kill the animal which we had been studying - it would only be an animal, of course, but even so some of us agonized over that. That was all this ship was planned for. Nothing more. We had no way of knowing that we would suddenly be faced with a situation in which we had to invade a human body, in which we had to get to a specific spot in the brain, in which we would have to emerge without killing the body. In which we had to - and all we had was this ship, which was not meant for the job at all."

The anger and contempt on Morrison's face had vanished into a frown of concern. "What did you do?"

"We worked as fast as we could. We improved the microfusion motors and a few other things, frightened that at any moment Shapirov would die, and equally frightened - or more so - that our hurry would cause us to make some fatal mistake. Well, I don't think we made any fatal mistakes, but still the microfusion motors we ended up with were to be used for acceleration only when absolutely necessary - they had originally been designed only for lighting, air-conditioning, and other low-energy uses. Of course, we lacked the time to do a complete job, so - no reverse gear."

"Didn't anyone point out that there might just be a chance you would want to go into reverse?"

"That would mean more money and there was none to be had. After all, we had to compete with space, which was a going concern, with the realistic needs of agriculture, commerce, industry, crime control, and half a hundred other departments of government all clutching at the national purse. Of course we never had enough."

Dezhnev sighed and said, "And so here we are. As my good father used to say: 'Only simpletons go to fortune-tellers. Who else would be in such a hurry to hear bad news?'"

"Your father is telling me nothing I don't know, Arkady. At least with that remark. I'm afraid to ask, but can we simply turn the ship?" Morrison asked.

Dezhnev said, "You are wise to be afraid. In the first place, the capillary is too narrow. The ship has no room to turn."

Morrison shook his head impatiently. "You don't have to do it in the ship's present size. Shrink it a bit. Miniaturize it. You're going to have to miniaturize anyway before getting inside a cell. Do it now and turn it."

Dezhnev said mildly, "And in the second place, we can't turn it any more than we can go backward. We have a forward gear and that is all."

"Unbelievable," whispered Morrison to himself. Then aloud, "How could you consent to begin this project with so inadequate a ship?"

Konev said, "We had no choice and we were not counting on playing games with white cells."

Boranova, her face expressionless, her voice toneless, said, "If the project fails, I will take full responsibility."

Kaliinin looked up and said, "Natalya, assigning blame will not help us. Right now, we have no choice. We must go ahead. Let us move on, miniaturize if we have to, and find some likely cell to enter."

"Any cell?" said Konev in a stifled fury, and addressing no one. "Any cell? What good will that do?"

"We might find something useful anywhere we go, Natalya," said Kaliinin.

When Konev made no response, Boranova said, "Is there any objection to that, Yuri?"

"Objection? Of course there's objection." He did not turn, but his very back seemed stiff with anger. "We have ten billion neurons in the brain and someone is suggesting that we wander among them blindly and choose one at random. It would be an easier task to drive along Earth's roads in an automobile and randomly choose some human being on the wayside in the hope that he might be a long-lost relative. Much easier. The number of human beings on Earth is a little more than half the number of neurons in the brain."

"That is a false analogy," said Kaliinin, carefully turning her face toward Boranova. "We are not engaged in a blind search. We are looking for Pyotr Shapirov's thoughts. Once we detect them, we need only move in the direction in which the thoughts strengthen."

"If you can," said Morrison, shaking his head. "If your single forward gear happens to be carrying you in the direction in which the thoughts weaken, what do you do then?"

"Exactly," said Konev. "I had plotted out a course that would have taken us directly to an important junction in the particular neuronic network that is related to abstract thought - according to Albert's researches. The bloodstream would have carried us there and whatever tortuous path it took, the ship would have followed. And now -" He lifted both his arms and shook them at the unresponsive Universe.

"Nevertheless," said Boranova, her voice strained, "I don't see that we have any choice but to do what Sophia suggests. If that fails, we must find a way out of the body and perhaps try again another day."

"Wait, Natalya," said Morrison. "There just may be another way to remedy the situation. Is it at all possible for one of us to get outside the ship and into the bloodstream?"

Morrison did not expect an affirmative answer. The ship, which had seemed to him earlier to be a marvelous example of high technology, had now shrunk in his imagination to a stripped-down scow of which nothing at all could be expected.

It seemed to him best, from any practical standpoint, to do as Kaliinin had suggested - to try any brain cell they could reach. But if that failed, it would mean getting out of the body and trying again, as Boranova had just said, and Morrison did not feel he would be physically capable of going through this again. He would try any wild scheme to prevent that.

"Is it possible to get out of this ship, Natalya?" he asked again as she looked at him, dazed. (The others were no more responsive.) "- Look, don't you understand? Suppose you want to collect samples? Do you have a dredge, a scoop, a net? Or can someone get outside and go scuba diving?"

Boranova finally seemed to overcome her surprise at the question. Her heavy eyebrows lifted into an attitude of wonder. "You know, we do. One diving suit for reconnoitering, the plans say. It should be under the back row seats. Under here, in fact."

She unclasped herself and went into a slow float, then managed to pull herself into a horizontal position, her light cotton clothing billowing.

"It's here, Albert," she said. "I presume it has been checked - I mean, against gross errors. There would be no leaks, no obvious flaws. I don't know that it's been field-tested."

"How could it be?" said Morrison. "I take it this is the first time the ship - or anything - has been in a bloodstream."

"I imagine it must have been checked in warm water adjusted to the proper viscosity. I blame myself for not checking on this, but of course there was no thought at any time of anyone leaving the ship. I had even forgotten the suit existed."

"Do you at least know if the suit has an air supply?"

"Indeed it does," said Boranova with sonie asperity. "And it has a power supply that makes it possible for it to have a light of its own. You mustn't think of us as utter incompetents, Albert. -Though," she said with a rueful shrug, "I suppose we - or, at least, I - have given you some reason to think so."

"Does the suit have flippers?"

"Yes, on both hands and feet. It is meant for maneuvering in fluid."

"In that case," said Morrison, "there is perhaps a way out."

"What are you thinking of, Albert?" asked Kaliinin.

Morrison said, "Suppose we miniaturize a bit further so that the ship can turn easily without scraping the capillary walls. Someone then gets into the suit, moves outside the ship - assuming you have an air lock of some sort - and, propelling himself by means of the flippers, turns the ship. Once the ship is turned, the person gets back into the ship, which is now facing in the correct direction. The motor is started and we push our way back against the feeble capillary current to the joining with the arteriole and thus back to our original path."

Boranova said thoughtfully, "A desperate remedy, but our condition, too, is desperate. Have you ever done any scuba diving, Albert?"

"Some," said Morrison. "That's why I thought of this."

"And none of us have - which is why we didn't think of it. In that case, Albert, unclasp yourself and let us get this suit on you."

"On me?" Morrison sputtered.

"Of course. It is your idea and you're the one with experience."

"Not in the bloodstream."

"No one has experience in the bloodstream, but the rest of us don't even have it in water."

"No," said Morrison savagely. "This thing is your baby - you four. I've done the thinking that got you out of the white cell and I've just done the thinking that could get you out of your present fix. That's my share. You do the doing. One of you."

"Albert," said Boranova. "We're all in this together. In here, we are neither Soviets nor Americans; we are human beings trying to survive and to accomplish a great task. Who does what depends on who can do what best, and nothing more."

Morrison caught Kaliinin's eye. She was smiling very slightly and Morrison thought he could read admiration in that smile.

Groaning softly at the folly of being influenced in so childish a manner by a hunger for admiration, Morrison knew he would agree to this madness of his own suggestion.

Boranova had the suit out. Like the ship itself, it was transparent, and, except in the head portion, it lay wrinkled and flat. To Morrison, it looked unpleasantly like a life-sized caricature of a human being drawn in outline by a child.

He reached out to touch it and said, "What is it made of? Plastic wrap?"

Boranova said, "No, Albert. It is thin, but it is not weak and it is exceedingly tough and inert. No foreign material will cling to it and it should be perfectly leakproof."

"Should be?" echoed Morrison sardonically.

Dezhnev interrupted. "It is leakproof. I seem to recall it was tested some time ago."

"You seem to recall it."

"I blame myself for not having checked it personally in going over the ship, but I, too, forgot its existence. There was no thought -"

Morrison bitterly exclaimed, "I'm sure your father must have told you once that self-blame is a cheap penalty for incompetence, Arkady."

Dezhnev replied, raspingly, "I am not incompetent, Albert."

Boranova cut in, "We will have our fights when this is all over. Albert, there is nothing to worry about. Even if there were a microscopic leak, the water molecules in the plasma outside are far larger in comparison to the suit than they would be under normal conditions. A leak in a normal suit might let in normal water molecules, but that same leak in a miniaturized suit would not allow those same water molecules, now giants in comparison, to enter."

"That makes sense," muttered Morrison, looking for solace.

"Of course," said Boranova. "We can insert a standard oxygen cylinder right here - small size, but you won't be out there for long - an absorption canister for carbon dioxide here, and a battery for the light. So, you see, you will be equipped."

"Just the same," said Konev, turning to look at Morrison dispassionately, "you had better do it as quickly as possible. It's warm out there - thirty-seven degrees Celsius - and I don't think the suit has a cooling mechanism."

"No cooling mechanism?" Morrison looked at Boranova questioningly.

Boranova shrugged. "It is not easy to cool an object in an isothermal medium. This entire body, which is as large as a mountain to us, is all at a constant temperature of thirty-seven. The ship itself can be cooled by means of the microfusion engines. We can't build an equivalent device into the suit, but then, as we keep saying, you won't be out for very long. - Still, you had better take off the suit you're wearing now, Albert."

Morrison demurred. "It's not heavy, just a thin layer of cotton."

"If you perspire with it on," said Boranova, "you will be sitting in wet clothes when you return to the ship. We have no spare clothing we can ofrer you."

"Well, if you insist," Morrison said. Then he removed his sandals and tried to strip his one-piecer off his legs, something which proved surprisingly difficult in his nearly weightless state.

Boranova, noting his discomfort, said, "Arkady, please help Albert into the suit."

Dezhnev worked his way, with difficulty, over the back of his seat to where Morrison floated, in a cramped posture, against the hull of the ship.

Dezhnev helped Morrison into the legs of the suit one at a time, though the two, working together, were scarcely less clumsy than Morrison alone had been. (Everything about us, Morrison thought, is designed to work in the presence of gravity.)

Dezhnev maintained a running commentary as they struggled. "The material of this suit," he said, "is precisely that of the ship itself. Entirely secret, of course, though, for all I know, you have a similar material in the United States - also secret, I am sure." He paused on a small note of inquiry.

"I wouldn't know," muttered Morrison. His bare leg worked its way into a sheath of thin plastic. It didn't stick to his leg, but moved smoothly along, yet it somehow gave the impression of being cold and wet without, in reality, being either. He had never encountered a surface quite like that of the plastic suit and he didn't know how to intepret the sensation.

Dezhnev said, "When the seams close, they become virtually a single piece of material."

"How do they open again?"

"The electrostatics can be neutralized once you're back in the ship. For now, most of the exterior of the suit has a mild negative charge, balanced by a positive one on the inner surface. Any portion of the suit will cling to any positively charged area on the ship's surface, but not so strongly that you can't pull loose."

Morrison said, "What about the rear end of the ship where the engines are?"

"You need not be concerned about them. They are working at minimum power for our cooling and illumination and any particles emerging from them will pass through you without noticing your presence at all. The oxygen cylinders and waste absorption work automatically. You will produce no bubbles. You need only breathe normally."

"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.