The greatest difficulty comes at the start. It's called "getting ready."
31.
Later that evening, after a long - and tedious - medical exam, he joined the four Soviet researchers for dinner. The Last Supper, Morrison thought grimly.
Sitting down, he burst out, "No one told me the results of my examination!" He turned to Kaliinin. "Did they examine you, Sophia?"
"Yes, indeed, Albert."
"Did they tell you the results?"
"I'm afraid not. Since it is not we who pay them, I suppose they don't feel they owe us anything."
"It doesn't matter," said Dezhnev jovially. "My old father used to say, 'Bad news has the wings of an eagle, good news the legs of a sloth.' If they said nothing, it was because they had nothing bad to report."
"Even the bad news," said Boranova, "would have been reported to me - and only to me. I am the one who must decide who will accompany us."
"What did they tell you about me?" asked Morrison.
"That there is nothing important wrong with you. You will be coming with us and in twelve hours the adventure will begin."
"Is there anything unimportant wrong with me, then, Natalya?"
"Nothing worth mentioning, except that you display, according to one doctor, a 'typical American bad temper.'"
"Huh!" said Morrison. "One of our American freedoms is that of being bad-tempered when doctors show a typical Soviet lack of concern for their patients."
Nevertheless, his apprehension over the state of his mind ebbed and, as it did so, inevitably the apprehension over his impending miniaturization rose higher.
He lapsed into silence, eating slowly and without much of an appetite.
32.
Yuri Konev was the first to rise from the dinner table. For a moment he remained standing, leaning forward over the table, a slight frown on his intense, youthful face.
"Natalya," he said, "I must take Albert to my office. It is necessary that we discuss tomorrow's task and prepare for it."
Boranova said, "You will remember, please, that we must all have a good night's sleep. I don't wish you to forget the passage of time. Do you want Arkady to go with you?"
"I don't need him," said Konev haughtily.
"Nevertheless," said Boranova, "there will be two guards at your office door and you will call out if you need them."
Konev turned from her impatiently and said, "I won't need them, Natalya, I'm sure. Come with me, Albert."
Morrison, who had been watching them both from under lowered eyebrows, rose and said, "Is this going to be a long trip? I'm tired of being shuttled from point to point in the Grotto."
Morrison knew well he was being ungracious, but it didn't seem to bother Konev, who responded just as ungraciously, "I should think a professor would be used to plunging back and forth across a university campus."
Morrison followed Konev out the door and together they tramped along the corridor in silence. Morrison was aware that at a certain point two guards fell in behind them. He heard additional footsteps keeping time with his own. He looked back, but Konev did not.
Morrison said impatiently, "Much longer, Yuri?"
"That is a foolish question, Albert. I have no intention of walking you past our destination. When we get there, we will be there. If we are still walking, it is because we are not there yet."
"I should think, with all this walking, you might arrange golf carts or something of the sort for the corridors."
"Anything to allow the muscles to atrophy, Albert? Come, you are not so old that you cannot walk or so young that you must be carried."
Morrison thought, If I were that poor woman with his child, I would shoot off fireworks to celebrate his denial of fatherhood.
They reached Konev's office at last. At least Morrison assumed it was his office when Konev barked the word "Open" and the door slid smoothly open in response to his voiceprint. Konev strode through first.
"What if someone imitates your voice?" asked Morrison curiously. "You don't have a very distinctive voice, you know."
Konev said, "It also scans my face. It will not respond to either separately."
"And if you have a cold?"
"One time when I had a bad one, I could not get into my office for three days and I finally had to have the door opened mechanically. If my face were bruised or scarred by accident, I might also have trouble. Still, that is the price of security."
"But are the people here so - inquisitive - that they would invade your privacy?"
"People are people and it is not wise to overtempt even the best of them. I have things here unique to myself and they may be viewed only when I decide to allow it. This, for instance." His slim hand (very well cared-for and manicured, Morrison noticed - he might neglect other things for his work, but not himself) rested on an extraordinarily large and thick volume, which, in turn, rested on a stand that had been clearly designed for it.
"What is that?" asked Morrison.
"That," said Konev, "is Academician Shapirov - or at least the essence of him." He opened the book and flipped the pages. Page after page (all of them, perhaps) were filled with symbols arranged in diagrammatic fashion.
Konev said, "I have it on microfilm, of course, but there are certain conveniences to having it in a printed volume." He patted the pages almost lovingly.
"I still don't understand," said Morrison.
"This is the basic structure of Shapirov's brain, translated into a symbolism of my own devising. Fed into the appropriate software, it can reconstitute a three-dimensional map of the brain in intimate detail on a computer screen."
"Astonishing," said Morrison, "if you are serious."
"I am serious," said Konev. "I have spent my entire career on this task: translating brain structure into symbols and symbols into brain structure. I have invented and advanced this science of cerebrography."
"And you used Shapirov as your subject."
"By incredible good fortune, I did. Or perhaps it was not good fortune, but merely inevitable. We all have our small vanities and it seemed to Shapirov that his brain was worth preserving in detail. Once I began working on this field under his direction - for there was the feeling that we might someday want to explore animal brains at least - he insisted on having his own brain analyzed cerebrographically."
Morrison said with a sudden excitement, "Can you get his theories out of the recorded cerebral structure of his brain?"
"Of course not. These symbols record a cerebral scanning that was carried through three years ago. That was before he had evolved his recent notions and, in any case, what I have preserved here is, unfortunately, only the physical structure and not the thoughts. Still, the cerebrograph will be invaluable to us in tomorrow's voyage."
"I should think so - but I have never heard of this."
"I'm not surprised. I have published papers on this, but only in the Grotto's own publication - and these remain highly classified. No one outside the Grotto, not even here in the Soviet Union, knows of them."
"That is bad policy. You will be overtaken by someone else who will publish and who will be granted priority."
Konev shook his head. "At the first sign that significant advances in this direction are being made elsewhere, enough of my early work will be published to establish priority. I have cerebrographs of canine brains that I can publish, for instance. But never mind that. The point is that we have a map of Shapirov's brain to guide us, which is a matter of incredible good fortune. It was made without the knowledge that we might need it someday to guide us through that very cerebral jungle."
Konev turned to a computer and, with practiced flips of his wrist, inserted five large discs.
"Each one of these," he said, "can hold all the information in the Central Moscow Library without crowding. It is all devoted to Shapirov's brain."
"Are you trying to tell me," said Morrison indignantly, "that you could transfer all that information, all of Shapirov's brain, into that book you have here?"
"Well, no," said Konev, glancing at the book. "In comparison with the total code, that book is only a small pamphlet. However, it does hold the basic skeleton, so to speak, of Shapirov's neuronic structure and I was able to use it as a guide by which to direct a computer program that mapped it out in greater detail. It took months for the best and most advanced computer we have to do the job.
"And even so, Albert, all we have reaches merely to the cellular level. If we were to map the brain down to the molecular level and try to record all the permutations and combinations - all the conceivable thoughts that might arise from a particular human brain like Shapirov's; all the creativity, actual and potential - I suppose it would take a computer the size of the Universe working for a much longer time than the Universe has existed. What I have, however, may be enough for our task."
Morrison, entranced, asked, "Can you show me how it works, Yuri?"
Konev studied the computer - which was turned on, as one could tell by the soft whisper of its cooling mechanism - then pushed the necessary keys. On the screen there appeared the side view of a human brain.
Konev said, "This can be viewed at any cross-section." He pressed a key and the brain began to peel as though it were being continually sliced by an ultrathin microtome some thousands of slices per second. "At this rate," he said, "it would take an hour and fifteen minutes to complete the task, but I could stop it at any chosen point. I could also cut off thicker slices or cut off one thick calculated slice to bring me at once to any wanted cross-section."
As he spoke, he demonstrated. "Or I could orient it in another direction or rotate it along any axis. Or I can magnify it to any extent down to the cellular level, either slowly or, as you see, quickly." As he said this, the material of the brain spread outward in all directions from a central point - dizzyingly - so that Morrison was forced to blink his eyes and then look away.
Konev said, "This is now at the cellular level. Those small objects are individual neurons and if I expanded the image still further, you would see the axons and dendrites. If one wishes, we could follow a single axon through the cell into a dendrite and across a synapse to another neuron and so on, traveling, by computer, through a brain three-dimensionally. Nor is the matter of three demensions just a manner of speaking. The computer is outfitted for holographic imaging and it can present a three-dimensional appearance quite literally."
Morrison said challengingly, "Then why do you need miniaturization? Why do you need to send ships into the brain?"
Konev briefly allowed a look of contempt to cross his face. "That is a foolish question, Albert, and I suppose it is inspired only by your fear of miniaturization. You are groping for any excuse to eliminate it. What you see here on the screen is a three-dimensional mapping of the brain, but only three-dimensional. It has caught it at what is, essentially, an instant of time. In effect, we see unchanging material - dead material. What we want to be able to detect is the living activity of the neurons, the changing activity with time. We want a four-dimensional view of the electric potentials that rise and fall, the microcurrents that travel along the cells and cell fibers, and we want to interpret them into thoughts. That's your task, Albert. Arkady Dezhnev will manipulate the ship along the routes I have chosen and you will give us the thoughts."
"On what basis have you chosen the routes?"
"On the basis of your own papers, Albert. I have chosen the regions you had decided must represent the neuronic network for creative thought and, using this book, with its coded representation of Shapirov's brain as my initial guide, I calculated centers where more or less direct pathways could be found to several portions of the network. I then located them more accurately on the computer and it is to one or more of those centers that we will penetrate tomorrow."
Morrison shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't guarantee that we will be able to determine actual thoughts, even if we find the centers in which thinking takes place. It's as though we might reach a place where we can hear people's voices, but if we don't know the language, we are still left in ignorance of what they are saying."
"We can't know that in advance. The varying electric potentials in Sbapirov's mind must resemble those in ours and we may simply be aware of his thoughts without knowing how we are aware. In any case, we can't tell unless we go in and try."
"In that case, you will have to be ready for possible disappointment."
"Never," said Konev with the utmost seriousness. "I intend to be the person to whom the human brain will finally yield its secrets. I will solve, completely, the ultimate physiological mystery of humanity, perhaps of the Universe - if we are the most advanced thinking devices that exist anywhere. So we will work together, you and I, tomorrow. I want you to be ready for it, to help guide me by studying carefully the brain waves we encounter. I want you to interpret Shapirov's thoughts and, most particularly, his thoughts on combining quantum theory and relativity so that trips such as ours tomorrow can become routine and we can begin the study of the brain in all earnestness."
He stopped and stared at Morrison intently, then said, "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Does none of this impress you?"
"Of course it impresses me, but... I have a question. Today when I watched the rabbit being miniaturized, there was a pronounced whine during the process - and a rumble when it was deminiaturized. There was nothing of the sort when I was subjected to it - or I would have known what was happening."
Konev raised a finger, "Ah. The noise is apparent when you are in real space, but not when you are in miniaturized space. I was the first to realize that was so when I was miniaturized and I reported it. We still don't know why the miniaturization field seems to stop sound waves when it doesn't stop light waves, but then we expect to learn new aspects of the process as we go on."
"As long as we don't discover fatal aspects," muttered Morrison. "Are you afraid of nothing, Yuri?"
"I'm afraid of not being able to complete my work. That would be true if I died tomorrow or if I refused to undergo miniaturization. Being stopped by death, however, is only a small possibility, but if I refuse to undergo miniaturization, then I am stopped certainly. That is why I much prefer to risk the former than take the latter way out."
"Does it bother you that Sophia will be undergoing miniaturization with you?"
Konev frowned. "What?"
"If you don't remember her first name, it may help if I refer to her as Kaliinin."
"She is part of the group and will be on the ship. Yes."
"And you don't mind?"
"Why should I?"
"After all, she feels you have betrayed her."
Konev frowned darkly and a dull flush rose to his face. "Has her madness gone so far as to force her to confide her incoherencies to strangers? If she weren't needed on this project -"
"I'm sorry. She didn't sound incoherent to me."
Morrison didn't know why he was pushing the matter. Perhaps he felt diminished at fearing a task the other so ardently welcomed and he therefore wished to dirninish in turn. "Were you never her - friend?"
"Friend?" Konev's face mirrored his contempt. "What is friendship? When I joined the project, I found her here; she had joined a month earlier. We worked together, we were new and untried together. Of course, there was what one might call friendship, a physical need for intimacy. What of it? We were young and unsure of ourselves. It was a passing phase."
"But it left something behind. A child."
"That was not my doing." And his mouth closed with a snap.
"She says -"
"I have no doubt she would like to saddle me with the responsibility, but it won't work."
"Have you considered genetic analysis?"
"No! The child is adequately cared for, I imagine, and even if genetic analysis seemed to indicate I might be the parent, I would refuse all efforts to tie me to the child emotionally, so what would the woman have to gain?"
"Are you so coldhearted?"
"Coldhearted! What do you imagine I have done - corrupted a young, innocent virgin? She took the initiative in everything. In the sad story that I suppose she told you, did she happen to mention that she'd been pregnant before, that she had had an abortion some years before I met her? I don't know who the father was then or who it is now. Perhaps neither does she - either time."
"You are being unkind to her."
"I am not. She is being unkind to herself. I have a mistress. I have a love. It is this project. It is the human brain in the abstract, its study, its analysis, and all that that might lead to. The woman was, at best, a distraction - at worst, a destruction. This little talk we are having - that I did not ask for - that she goaded you into undertaking, no doubt -"
"She did not," intedected Morrison.
"Goads are not necessarily noticed. This discussion may cost me a night's sleep and make me that much less sharp tomorrow when I will need all my sharpness. Is that your intention?"
"No, of course not," Morrison said quietly.
"Then it is surely hers. You have no idea in how many different ways she has attempted interference and how often she has succeeded. I don't look at her, I don't speak to her, yet she will not leave me alone. Her imaginary wrongs seem as fresh in her mind as they were when I first broke away. Yes, I do mind her being on the ship with me and I have said so to Boranova, but she says that both of us are needed. Are you satisfied?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you so."
"What did you mean? Simply to have a quiet conversation? 'Say, what about all those betrayals and dirty tricks you have committed?' Just a friendly talk?"
Morrison remained silent, bowing his head slightly against the other's rage. Three out of five on the ship - himself and the two ex-lovers - would be laboring under a sense of unbearable wrong. He wondered if, on careful questioning, Dezhnev and Boranova would prove similarly disabled.
Konev said harshly, "You had better go. I brought you here to bury your fear of the project by providing you with a blaze of enthusiasm. Obviously, I have failed. You are more interested in prurient gossip. Go, the guards outside this door will take you to the quarters assigned you. You will need to sleep."
Morrison sighed. Sleep?
33.
Yet on this, his third night in the Soviet Union, Morrison slept.
Dezhnev had been waiting outside Konev's room with the guards, his broad face grinning and his large ears all but flapping with merriment. After the shadowed intensity of Konev's personality, Morrison found himself welcoming Dezhnev's chatter on all subjects but the morrow's miniaturization.
Dezhnev urged a drink on him. "It is not vodka, not alcohol," he had said, "It is milk and a little sugar and flavoring. I stole it from the commissary where it is used, I think, for animals, because all those officials find human beings more easily replaceable than the animals. It is the curse of overpopulation. As my father used to say, 'To get a human being takes a moment of pleasure, but to get a horse costs money.' But drink. It will settle the stomach. I promise you."
The drink was in a can which Morrison punctured. He poured it into a cup that Dezhnev proffered and it tasted fairly good. He thanked Dezhnev almost cheerily.
When they got to Morrison's room, Dezhnev said, "Now the important thing for you to do is to sleep. Sleep well. Let me show you where everything is." And as he did so, he rather resembled a large and slightly unkempt mother hen. With a hearty "Good night. Be sure to get plenty of sleep," Dezhnev left the room.
And Morrison slept. Almost as soon as he worked himself into his favorite position - stomach down, left leg bent, knee outward - he began to feel sleepy. Of course, he had little sleep the last two nights, but he suddenly guessed that there had been a mild sedative in the cup into which he had poured the drink. Then came the thought that perhaps Konev should take such a sedative. Then - nothing.
When he woke, he could not even remember having had any dreams.
Nor did he wake of his own accord. Dezhnev was shaking him, as cheerful as he had been the evening before, as wide awake, and even as spruced up as it was possible for that animated haystack to be.
He said, "Awake, Comrade American, for it is time. You must shave and wash. There are fresh towels, combs, deodorants, tissues, and soap in the bathroom. I know because I have delivered them myself. Also a new electric razor. And on top of that, new cotton clothes for you to wear with a reinforcement in the crotch so you will not feel so exposed. They actually have them, the rotten bureaucrats, if you know how to ask - with a fist." And he raised his fist while twisting his face into a look of ferocity.
Morrison stirred and sat up on the bed. It took him a moment to place himself and to weather the shock of realization that it was Thursday morning and that miniaturization was just ahead.
Half an hour or so later, when Morrison stepped out of the bathroom again - satisfactorily bathed, dried, deodorized, shaved, combed, and reaching for his two-piece cotton uniform and his slippers - Dezhnev said, "Satisfactory elimination, my lad? No constipation?"
"Quite satisfactory," said Morrison.
"Good! I don't ask out of idle curiosity, of course. I am not fascinated by excrement. It is just that the ship is not ideally suited for such things. Better we all go in empty. I didn't trust to nature, myself. I took a bit of a laxative."
"How long will we stay miniaturized?" asked Morrison.
"Perhaps not long. An hour if we are very lucky, perhaps twelve if we're not."
"But, look," said Morrison. "I can count on a well-behaved colon, but I can't go for twelve hours without urinating."
"Who can?" asked Dezhnev jovially. "Each seat in the ship is equipped for the eventuality. There is a recess, a removable cover. A built-in toilet, so to speak. I designed it myself. But it will be a struggle and, if you're sensitive, embarrassing. Someday, though, when the energy-free miniaturization process is a fact, we can build ocean liners for miniaturization and live in them like tsars of old."
"Well, let's hope the expedition is not unnecessarily extended." (He found it odd that, for a moment, his apprehension shifted from fears of death or mental disability to the details of how to manipulate the toilet lid and how to proceed as unobtrusively as possible. - It occurred to him that there must have been many grossnesses and indelicacies, involved in the great exploratory trips of the past, items that had gone undetailed and, therefore, unnoted.)
He was in his cotton clothes and had stepped into his slippers when Dezhnev, dressed in slightly larger versions of the same (also with refinement in the crotch), said, "Let us now go to breakfast. We will have good food, high calories, and low bulk, for there will be no eating on board the ship. There'll be water, of course, and fruit juices, but no real beverages of any kind. The sweet Natasha made a terrible face when I suggested we might need a drop of vodka now and then. There were a lot of uncalled-for comments about sots and drunkards. Albert, Albert, how I am persecuted - and unjustly, too."
Breakfast was indeed plentiful, but not exactly filling. There was gelatin and custard, thick slabs of white bread with butter and marmalade, fruit juices, and several varieties of pills to be sluiced down.
The talk over the breakfast table was moderately animated and, for the most part, dealt with the local chess tournament. There was no mention of the ship or of miniaturization. (Was it bad luck to mention the project?)
Morrison did not object to the direction of comment. He even made a few comments about his own adventures as a chess player of marked lack of renown.
And then, all too soon, the table was being cleared and it was time.
They left for the ship.
34.
They walked in single file, with space between themselves. Dezhnev was first, then Kaliinin, then Boranova, then Morrison, and finally Konev.
Almost at once, Morrison understood the purpose. They were on view and they were being individualized. Along the edges of the corridor were men and women - employees of the project, obviously - watching eagerly.
They, at least, must know what was going on, even if the rest of the Soviet Union (let alone the world) did not.
Drezhnev, in front, waved eagerly to the right and left, rather in the fashion of a kindly and popular monarch, and the crowds responded appropriately, shouting, waving, and calling out his name.
Each name was called at various times, for obviously each prospective crew member was known to all. The two women were restrained in their acknowledgement and Konev (as Morrison could see when he looked behind him) was, not unexpectedly, moving along, eyes forward and unresponsive.
And then Morrison was surprised when he distinctly heard the cry, in English, "Hurrah, the American!"
He looked in the direction of the outcry and automatically waved, at which, just as automatically, there was a loud and enthusiastic shout and the words were picked up until "Hurrah, the American!" drowned out all else.
Morrison found himself unable to maintain his earlier sullen resignation. He had never been the object of mob jubilation and he took to it immediately and without trouble, waving and grinning madly. He caught Boranova's gravely amused expression and saw Dezhnev pointing his finger at him in an ostentatious that's-the-American gesture, but allowed neither action to disturb him.
And then they passed out of the line of observers and into the large room in which Shapirov was resting in his mental cocoon of coma. The ship was also in the room.
Morrison looked around with astonishment. He said, "There's a camera crew out there."
Kaliinin was now standing next to him. (How beautiful her breasts are, Morrison thought. They were veiled but not hidden by the thin cotton and he could see why Konev had referred to her as a distraction.) She said, "Oh yes, we'll be on television. Every significant experiment is carefully recorded and there are reporters at each occasion so that it might be described. There was even a camera present when you and I were miniaturized yesterday, but we kept it out of sight since you weren't to know you were to undergo the process."
"But if this is a secret project -"
"It will not always be secret. Someday, when we have reached full success, the details of our progress will be revealed to our people and to the world. - Sooner, if it seems some other nation is making progress on its own in the same direction."
Morrison shook his head. "It isn't good, this primary concern with priority. Progress would be much faster if additional brains and resources were put on the job."
Kaliinin said, "Would you willingly give up priority in your own field of research?"
Morrison was silent. It was the obvious retort.
Kaliinin, noting this, said with a shake of her head, "I thought so. It is easy to be generous with someone else's money."
Boranova, meanwhile, was talking to someone whom Morrison judged to be a reporter, one who was listening eagerly. Morrison transferred his attention and found himself listening eagerly, too.
Boranova was saying, "This is the American scientist, Albert Jonas Morrison, who is a professor of neurophysics, which is, of course, Academician Konev's field. He is here serving as both an American observer and as an assistant to Academician Konev."
"And there will be five who will be on the ship?"
"Yes. And there will never be so remarkable a five again - or so remarkable an event - if miniaturization lasts a million years. Academician Konev is the very first human being ever to have undergone miniaturization. Dr. Sophia Kaliinin is the first woman and Professor Albert Morrison is the first American ever to have undergone miniaturization. Kaliinin and Morrison represent the first multiple miniaturization and were the first to be miniaturized in the ship. And as for today's voyage, this will represent the first miniaturization of five human beings at once and it will be the first occasion on which a miniaturized ship and its crew will be inserted into a living human being. The human being into whom we will be inserted is, of course, Academician Pyotr Shapirov, who was the second human being to be miniaturized and the first to be a casualty of the process."
Dezhnev, who was suddenly at Morrison's side, whispered hoarsely into his ear, "There you are, Albert. You are now an indelible footnote in history. You might have imagined until now that you were a failure, but not so. No one can take from you the fact that you were the first American ever to be miniaturized. Even if your countrymen work out the miniaturization process on their own and miniaturize an American, that American can be no better than second."
Morrison had not thought of that. He was tasting this newfound and permanent personal statistic (if the Soviets would someday release Natalya's statement, undistorted and unrewritten) and he found it savory.
Yet he was not satisfied. "It is not what I want to be remembered for."
"Do a good job on this journey we are to take and you will end up being known for much more," said Dezhnev. "Besides, as my old father used to say, 'It is good to be at the head of the table, even if only one other sits with you and there is but a bowl of cabbage soup to share.'"
Dezhnev stepped away and now Kaliinin was again at Morrison's side. She tugged at his sleeve and said, "Albert."
"Yes, Sophia?"
"You were with him after dinner last night, weren't you?"
"He showed me a map of Shapirov's brain. Marvelous!"
"Did he say anything about me?"
Morrison hesitated. "Why should he have?"
"Because you are a curious man, trying to escape your own private devils. You would have asked."
Morrison winced at her characterization of him. He said, "He defended himself."
"How?"
"He mentioned an earlier pregnancy - and - and abortion. It was not something I would believe, Sophia, unless you admitted it."
Kaliinin's eyes became bright with gathering tears. "Did he--did he describe the circumstances?"
"No, Sophia. Nor did I ask."
"He might have told you. I was forced when I was seventeen. It had undesirable consequences and my parents took legal measures."
"I understand. Perhaps Yuri chooses not to believe this."
"He may choose to think that I asked for it, but it is all on the record and the rapist is still in prison. Soviet law is hard on offenders of this type, but only if the situation can be thoroughly proven. I recognize the fact that women can falsely accuse men of rape, but this was not one of those situations and Yuri knows it. How cowardly of him to state the fact without the extenuation."
Morrison said, "Nevertheless, now is not the time to be concerned about this, although I understand how deeply it must affect you. We will have a complicated job to do inside the ship and it will need all our concentration and skill. I assure you, though, that I am on your side and not on his."
Kaliinin nodded and said, "I thank you for your kindness and sympathy, but don't be afraid of me. I will do my job."
At this point, Boranova called out, "We are now to enter the ship in the order in which I call your names: Dezhnev - Konev - Kaliinin - Morrison - and myself."
Boranova moved immediately into position behind him and murmured, "How do you feel, Albert?"
"Terrible," said Morrison. "Did you expect any other answer?"
"No," said Boranova. "But, nevertheless, I expect you to do your work as though you didn't feel lousy. Do you understand?"
"I will try," said Morrison through stiff lips and, following Kaliinin, he entered the ship a second time.
35.
One by one, they had to adjust themselves into their seats in the arrangement that Kaliinin had described the day before. Dezhnev was front left at the controls, Konev front right, Kaliinin mid-left, Morrison mid-right, and Boranova rear left.
Morrison blinked his eyes and blew his nose into a tissue he found in one of his pockets. What if he needed more tissues than had been supplied him? (A silly thing to worry about, but it was a more comfortable worry than some he might have.) His forehead felt damp. Was that because of the closeness? Would five people breathing - hyperventilating, perhaps - into a skimpy volume raise the humidity to maximum? Or would there be sufficient ventilation?
He thought suddenly of the first astronauts of a century before - even more constricted, more helpless - but going into a space that was somewhat known and understood, not into a microcosm that was utterly virgin territory.
Yet, as Morrison sat down, he felt the edge of terror dulled. He had, after all, been in the ship before. He had even been miniaturized and deminiaturized and was none the worse for it. It didn't hurt.
He looked around to see how the others were taking it. Kaliinin, to his left, looked coldly blank. A rather icy loveliness. It might have been impressive that she was showing no fear, no anxiety, but (as she had said of him) she was probably sitting there fighting her private devils.
Dezhnev was looking back, perhaps trying to weigh reactions as Morrison was, and very likely for different reasons. Morrison was trying to bolster what little inner courage he could find by borrowing from that of others, whereas Dezhnev (Morrison thought) was weighing responses in order to measure the possible success of the mission.
Konev faced directly forward and Morrison could see only the back of his neck. Boranova was just seating herself and was straightening her flimsy cotton costume.
Dezhnev said, "Friends. Fellow-travelers. Before we can leave, we must each inspect our equipment. Once we start, telling me something doesn't work is not going to strike me as an uproarious joke. As my father used to say, 'The truly wise trapeze artist does not inspect his nails in mid-jump.' It will be my job to make sure that the ship's controls are in order, as I am particularly certain they are, since I designed them myself and supervised the construction.
"As for you, Yuri, my friend, your cereb-whatever-you-call-it - Or your brain map, as anyone with sense would call it - has been transferred point for point into the software of your computer behind the plate before you. Please make sure that you know how to operate the plate and then see if the brain map is functional in all respects.
"Sophia, my little dove, I don't know what it is you do except that you make electricity, therefore make sure you can make it in the style you will find suitable. Natalya," his voice lifted slightly, "are you all right back there?"
Boranova said, "I am perfectly all right. Please check Albert. He needs your help most."
"Of course," said Dezhnev. "I have left him for last, so that he can get my full attention. Albert, do you know how to operate the panel before you?"
"Of course not," Morrison snapped. "How should I know?"
"In two seconds, you will know. This contact is to open and that contact is to close. Albert, open! - Ah, you see, it slides open noiselessly. Now close! Perfect. Now you know. - And have you seen what is inside the recess?"
"A computer," said Morrison.
"Perfect again, but do me a favor and see if it is a computer equivalent to yours. Your programmed software is in the recess to the side. Please check it out, make sure it fits the computer, and make sure it works as it is supposed to work. I will rely on you to tell me if it is working properly. Please! If you have any doubts, any suspicion, the tiniest hint that something is not just so, we will delay until it is fixed to your entire satisfaction."
Boranova said, "Please, Arkady, no dramatics. There is no time."
Dezhnev ignored her. "But if you tell me that something is wrong that really isn't wrong, my good Albert, Yuri will find out, I assure you, and neither he, nor I, nor anyone will be pleased. So if it occurs to you that inventing a trouble may delay the trip or even cancel it, let it unoccur to you at once."
Morrison could feel his face flushing and he hoped that it would be interpreted as the result of a generous anger over the thought that he might be dishonest in this fashion and not as guilt over a foiled plot.
Actually, as he hovered over his computer, he thought again of what his design and repeated redesign of his program had done. Now and then, these most recent designs of his had brought him - feelings. It was not something he could identify, but it felt as though his own thought centers were being directly stimulated by the brain waves he was analyzing. He had not reported these, but he had occasionally talked about it and the word had gotten out. Shapirov had called his program a relay station because of that - if Yuri was to be believed. Well, then, how could he now check if that were working well, when at best he had had the sensation only a few times and at unpredictable occasions?
Or might it all be simply the will-to-believe, the same will that had led Percival Lowell to see canals on Mars?
He realized that it hadn't actually even occurred to him to try to stymie the voyage by saying his program wasn't working. Dearly as he longed to avoid the risk, he could not do so at the cost of vilifying his program.
And then there was suddenly cause for a bit of fresh panic within Morrison's heart. What if the program had been damaged somehow in transit? How could he persuade them that there was truly something wrong and that he was not simply pretending?
But it all worked beautifully, at least as far as he could tell without it being in actual contact with a skull behind which an active brain existed.
Dezhnev said, as he watched Morrison's hands working, "We have placed new batteries in it. American batteries."
"Everything is working properly," said Morrison, "as far as I can see."
"Good. Is everyone satisfied with the equipment? Then lift your pretty rears from your seats and check the sliding panels there. Do they work? Believe me, you would all be very unhappy if they didn't."
Morrison watched Kaliinin open and close the panel (covered with a thin layer of upholstery) that she was sitting on. His own worked similarly when he imitated her motions.
Dezhnev said, "It will take solid wastes, too, within reason, but let us hope we will have no occasion to check that out. In case the worst comes to the worst, there is a small roll of tissue just under the edge of your seat, where you can reach it easily. As we miniaturize, everything loses mass, so excretions would float. There will, however, be a downward current of air to prevent that. Don't let the draft startle you. There is a liter of water in a tiny refrigerator under the side of your seat. It is only for drinking. If you get dirty or sweaty or smelly, just make up your mind to stay that way. No washing until we get out. And no eating. If we lose a few ounces, so much the better."
Boranova said dryly, "If you lost seven kilograms, Arkady, so much the better. And we would consume less energy in the miniaturization."
"The thought has occurred to me at times, Natasha," replied Dezhnev coolly. "I will now test the controls of the ship and if all responds properly, as I'm sure it will, we will be ready to begin."
There was what seemed to Morrison to be a tense wait in utter silence, except for a soft whistle between the teeth on the part of Dezhnev, as he bent over his controls.
Then Dezhnev sat up, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and said, "All is well. Comrade ladies, Comrade gentleman, and Comrade American, the fantastic voyage we face is about to begin." He fixed an auditor in his left ear, raised a tiny microphone before his mouth, and said, "All is operational within. Is all operational outside? - Very well, then, wish us good fortune, comrades all."
Nothing seemed to happen and Morrison cast a quick look at Kaliinin. She was still immobile, but she seemed to be aware of Morrison's head turning toward her, for she said, "Yes, we are miniaturizing."
The blood roared in Morrison's ears. This was the first time he was consciously miniaturizing.