Isaac Asimov (7 page)

“Is that why you made the pitch for her?”

“Actually, no. Duval is serious. He wouldn’t go without her.”

“Is he that dependent on her?”

“Perhaps not. But he’s that intent on having his way. Especially against Reid. No love lost there.”

Carter said, “To business. You can drink, or eat, if you wish, while this is going on. Do any of you have any urgent point to make?”

Grant said, suddenly, “I haven’t volunteered, general. I decline the post and suggest you find a substitute.”

“You’re not a volunteer, Grant, and your offer to decline is declined. Gentlemen—and Miss Peterson—Mr. Grant has been chosen to accompany the expedition for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it was he who brought Benes to this country, managing that assignment with complete skill.”

All eyes turned to Grant, who felt himself wincing at the momentary expectation that there would be a polite patter of applause. There was none, and he relaxed.

Carter went on. “He is a communications expert and an experienced frogman. He has a record of resourcefulness and flexibility and is professionally capable of making instant decisions. For that reason I will place the power of making policy decisions in his hands once the voyage begins. Is that understood?”

It apparently was, and Grant, staring in annoyance at his fingertips, said, “Apparently it is up to the rest of you to do your jobs while I take care of emergencies. I am sorry but I wish to state for the record that I do not consider myself qualified for this post.”

“The statement is recorded,” said Carter, unembarrassed, “and we will go on. Captain Owens has designed an experimental submarine for oceanographic research. It is not ideally suited for the task at hand, but it is itself at hand, and there is no other vessel in existence that is better suited. Owens himself will, of course, be at the controls of his ship, the
Proteus
.

“Dr. Michaels will be the pilot. He has prepared and studied the map of Benes’ circulatory system, which we will shortly consider. Dr. Duval and his assistant will be in charge of the actual operation, the removal of the clot.

“You all know the importance of this mission. We hope for a successful operation and for your safe return. There is the chance that Benes may die during the operation, but that becomes a certainty if the mission is not undertaken. There is a chance that the ship may be lost, but under the circumstances, I am afraid that ship and crew are expendable. The possible price is large but the gain we seek—I don’t mean the CMDF only, but all mankind—is greater.”

Grant muttered under his breath, “Yea, team.”

Cora Peterson caught it and looked at him with brief penetration from under dark eyelashes. Grant flushed.

Carter said, “Show them the chart, Michaels.”

Michaels pressed a button on the instrument before him and the wall lit up with the tri-dimensional map of Benes’
circulatory system that Grant had last seen in Michaels’ office. It seemed to rush toward them and enlarge as Michaels turned a knob. What was left of the circulatory network made up the clear delineation of a head and neck.

The blood vessels stood out with an almost fluorescent brilliance and then grid lines appeared across it. A thin dark arrow darted into the field, manipulated by the photo-pointer in Michaels’ hand. Michaels did not rise but remained seated in his chair, one arm over its back.

“The clot,” he said, “is there.” It had not been visible to Grant’s eyes, at least until it had been pointed out, but now that the black arrow delicately marked out its limits, Grant could see it—a small solid nodule plugging an arteriole.

“It represents no immediate danger to life, but this section of the brain” (the arrow danced about) “is suffering from nerve compression and may already have experienced damage. Dr. Duval tells me that the effects may be irreversible in twelve hours or less. An attempt to operate in the ordinary manner will involve cutting through the skull either here, here, or here. In each of these three cases, unavoidable damage will be extensive and the results doubtful.

“On the other hand, we could attempt to reach the clot via the bloodstream. If we can enter the carotid artery here in the neck, we will be on a reasonably direct route to our destination.” The flowing of the arrow along the line of the red artery, picking its way through the blueness of the veins, made it seem very easy.

Michaels went on, “If, then, the
Proteus
and its crew are miniaturized and injected …”

Owens spoke up suddenly. “Wait a while.” His voice was harsh and metallic. “How far will we be reduced?”

“We’ll have to be small enough to avoid activating the body’s biological defenses. The overall length of the ship will be three micra.”

“How much is that in inches?” interjected Grant.

“Just under a ten-thousandth of an inch. The ship will be about the size of a large bacterium.”

“Well, then,” said Owens. “If we enter an artery, we will be exposed to the full force of the arterial current.”

“Not quite a mile an hour,” said Carter.

“Never mind the miles per hour. We will be moving about 100,000 times the length of our ship each second. That will be equivalent, under ordinary circumstances, to moving 200 miles a second—or something like that. On
our miniaturized scale we’ll be moving a dozen times as fast as any astronaut ever moved. At least.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Carter, “but what of it? Every red blood corpuscle in the bloodstream moves as quickly and the ship is much more sturdily built than the corpuscle.”

“No, it is
not
,” said Owens, passionately. “A red blood corpuscle contains billions of atoms, but the
Proteus
will crowd billions of billions of billions of atoms into the same space; miniaturized atoms, to be sure, but what of that. We will be made up of an immensely larger number of units than the red blood corpuscle and we’ll be flabbier for that reason. Furthermore, the red blood corpuscle is in an environment of atoms equal in size to those that make it up; we will be in an environment made up of what will be to us monstrous atoms.”

Carter said, “Can you answer that, Max?”

Michaels harrumphed. “I do not pretend to be as expert on the problems of miniaturization as Captain Owens. I suspect that he is thinking of the report by James and Schwartz that fragility increases with intensity of miniaturization.”

“Exactly,” said Owens.

“The increase is a slow one, if you remember, and James and Schwartz had to make some simplifying assumptions in the course of their analysis which may prove to be not entirely valid. After all, when we enlarge objects, they certainly do not become
less
fragile.”

“Oh, come on, we’ve never enlarged any object more than a hundred-fold,” said Owens, contemptuously, “and here we are talking about miniaturizing a ship about a million times in linear dimensions. No one’s ever gone that far, or even anything close to that far, in either direction. The fact is that there isn’t anyone in the world who can predict just how fragile we will become, or how well we can stand up to the pounding of the bloodstream, or even how we might respond to the action of a white blood corpuscle. Isn’t that so, Michaels?”

Michaels said, “Well—yes.”

Carter said, with what seemed rising impatience, “It would seem that the course of orderly experiment leading to so drastic a miniaturization has not yet been completed. We’re in no position to carry through a program of such experimentation so we have to take our chances. If the ship does not survive, it doesn’t.”

“That bucks me up,” muttered Grant.

Cora Peterson leaned toward him, whispering tightly, “Please, Mr. Grant, you’re not on the football field.”

“Oh, you know my record, miss?”

“Shh.”

Carter said, “We are taking all the precautions we can. Benes will be in deep hypothermia for his own sake. By freezing him we will cut down the oxygen requirements of the brain. That will mean the heartbeat will be drastically slowed and the velocity of the blood flow as well.”

Owens said, “Even so, I doubt that we could survive the turbulence …”

Michaels said, “Captain, if you stay away from the artery walls, you will be in the region of laminar flow—no turbulence to speak of. We will be in the artery only for minutes and once in the smaller vessels, we will have no problem. The only place where we would not be able to avoid killing turbulence would be in the heart itself and we would go nowhere near the heart. —May I continue, now?”

“Please do,” said Carter.

“Having reached the clot, it will be destroyed by a laser beam. The laser and its beam, having been miniaturized in proportion, will not, if properly used—as in Duval’s hands it is sure to be—do any damage to the brain or even the blood vessel itself. Nor will it be necessary to demolish every vestige of the clot. It will be enough to break it up into fragments. The white blood cells will then take care of it.

“We will leave the vicinity at once, of course, returning by way of the venous system, until we reach the base of the neck where we will be removed from the jugular vein.”

Grant said, “How will anyone know where we are and when?”

Carter said, “Michaels will be piloting you and see to it that you are in the right place at all times. You will be in communication with us by radio …”

“You don’t know if that will work,” put in Owens. “There’s a problem in adapting the radio waves across the miniaturization gap, and no one has ever tried this big a gap.”

“True, but
we
will try. In addition, the
Proteus
is nuclear powered and we will be able to trace its radioactivity, also across the gap. —You will have just sixty minutes, gentlemen.”

Grant said, “You mean we have to complete the job and be out in sixty minutes.”

“Exactly sixty. Your size will have been adjusted to that, which should be ample time. If you stay for a longer interval, you will start enlarging automatically. We can keep you down no longer. If we had Benes’ knowledge we could keep you down indefinitely but if we had his knowledge …”

“This trip would be unnecessary,” said Grant, sardonically.

“Exactly. And if you begin enlarging within Benes’ body, you will become large enough to attract the attention of the body defenses, and shortly thereafter, you will kill Benes. You will see to it that this does not happen.”

Carter then looked about. “Any further remarks? —In that case, you will begin preparations. We’d like to make entry into Benes as quickly as possible.”

The level of activity in the hospital room had reached the visual analog of a scream. Everyone was moving at a rapid walk, almost a half-run. Only the figure on the operating table was still. A heavy thermal blanket lay over it, the numerous coils snaking through it, filled with their circulating refrigerant. And under it was the nude body, chilled to the point where life within it was a sluggish whisper.

Benes’ head was now shaven and marked off like a nautical chart in numbered lines of latitude and longitude. On his sleep-sunk face was a look of sadness, frozen deeply in.

On the wall behind him was another reproduction of the circulatory system, enlarged to the point where the chest, neck and head were sufficient in themselves to cover the wall from end to end and floor to ceiling. It had become a forest in which the large vessels were as thick as a man’s arm while the fine capillaries fuzzed all the spaces between.

In the control tower, brooding over the operation room, Carter and Reid watched. They could see the desk-level banks of monitors, at each of which a technician sat, each in his CMDF uniform, a symphony in zippered white.

Carter moved to the window, while Reid said softly into a mike, “Bring the
Proteus
into the Miniaturization Room.”

It was customary protocol to give such orders in a quiet voice, and there was quiet on the floor, if absence of sound was the mere criteria. Last-minute adjustments were being frantically made at the thermal blanket. Each technician studied his own monitor as though it were his new bride, isolated at last. The nurses hovered about Benes like large, starch-winged butterflies.

With the
Proteus
beginning the preparation for miniaturization, every man and woman on the floor knew the last stage of the countdown had begun.

Reid pushed a button. “Heart!”

The Heart Sector was laid out in detail on the TV screen that was rostrumed just under Reid. Within that sector, the
EKG recordings dominated and the heartbeat sounded in a dull double-thump of sorrowful slowness. “How does it look, Henry?”

“Perfect. Holding steady at thirty-two per minute. No abnormalities, acoustic or electronic. The rest of him should only be like this.”

“Good.” Reid flicked him off. To a heart man, what could be wrong if the heart was right?

He turned on the Lung Sector. The world on the screen was suddenly one of respiration rates. “All right, Jack?”

“All right, Dr. Reid. I’ve got the respiration down to six per minute. Can’t take it any lower.”