Dezhnev pointed to a dark horizontal line that moved slowly up and down against the wall of the ship and said with satisfaction, "That's the surface of the water. I thought the motions would be worse. Apparently, there are engineers in this place who are almost as good as I am."
Boranova said, "Actually, engineering has little to do with it. We're being held in place by surface tension. That will only work while we're at the surface of a fluid. It will not affect us once we're in Shapirov's body."
"But this ripple effect, Natasha? This up-and-down movement. Is that affecting it at all?"
Boranova was studying her instruments and, in particular, a small screen on which a horizontal line seemed to be playing out forever, without budging from the center. Morrison, twisting and lifting until his back ached, could just make it out.
Boranova said, "It's as steady as your hand when you are sober, Arkady."
"No better than that, eh?" Dezhnev's laugh boomed out.
(He sounds relieved, thought Morrison uneasily and wondered what the "it" was that Dezhnev had felt might be affected.)
"What happens now?" asked Morrison.
Konev spoke for the first time, as far as Morrison could remember, since miniaturization had begun. "Must everything be explained to you?"
Morrison answered with spirit. "Yes! You have had everything explained to you. Why should I not have it explained as well?"
Boranova said quietly, "Albert is perfectly correct, Yuri. Please hold your temper and be reasonable. You will need his help soon enough and I hope he will not be so discourteous as to snap at you."
Konev's shoulders twitched, but he said nothing in reply.
Boranova said, "The cylinder of a hypodermic syringe will pick us up, Albert. It will be under remote control."
And, as though that cylinder were waiting to hear her say so, a shadow encased them from behind, swallowing them almost at once. Only in front was there a circle of light visible for a moment and then that disappeared, too.
Boranova said calmly, "The needle has been clamped on. Now we will have to wait a while."
The interior of the ship, which had become quite dark, was suddenly suffused with a white light, rather softer and more restful than before, and Boranova said, "From now on there will be no more light from the outside until our journey is over. We will have to rely on our own internal illumination, Albert."
Puzzled, Morrison looked around for the source of the light. It seemed to be in the transparent walls themselves.
Kaliinin, interpreting his glance, said, "Electroluminescence."
"But what is the source of power?"
"We have three microfusion engines." She looked at him proudly. "Of a type that's the best in the world." Then she repeated, "In the world."
Morrison let it go. He had the impulse to talk of the American microfusion engines on the latest space vessels, but what would be the point? Someday the world would be freed of its nationalist fervors, but that day had not yet arrived. Still, as long as those fervors did not express themselves in violence or threat of violence, matters were bearable.
Dezhnev, leaning back in his seat with his arms behind his neck and apparently addressing the gently illuminated wall before him, said, "Someday what we will do is expand a hypodermic syringe, place that around a full-sized ship, and miniaturize the whole thing. Then we won't have this small-scale maneuvering."
Morrison said, "Oh, can you do the other thing, too? What do you call it? Maximization? Gigantization?"
"We don't call it anything," said Konev crisply, "because it can't be done."
"Maybe someday, though."
"No," said Konev. "Never. It is physically impossible. It takes a lot of energy to miniaturize, but more than an infinite amount to maximize."
"Even if you hooked it up to relativity?"
"Even so."
Dezhnev made an inelegant sound with his lips. "That for your physically impossible. Someday you will see."
Konev relapsed into indignant silence.
Morrison said, "What is it we are waiting for?"
Boranova said, "The last-minute preparation of Shapirov and then the moving up of the needle and its insertion into the carotid."
As she spoke, the ship was jarred forward.
"Is that it?" asked Morrison.
"Not yet. They were merely removing the air bubbles. Don't worry, Albert. We'll know."
"How?"
"Why, they'll tell us. Arkady is in contact with them. It's not difficult. Radio wave photons miniaturize as they cross the boundary from there to here and deminiaturize as they cross in the other direction. There's very little energy involved - even less than in the case of light."
Dezhnev said, "It's time to move up to the base of the needle."
"Then go ahead," said Boranova. "We might as well test the motive power under miniaturization."
There was a gathering rumble that reached a low peak and then settled down into a buzzing murmur. Morrison twisted his head in order to look as nearly backward as he could against his restraining belt.
Water was churning behind them as though paddle wheels were turning. In the absence of any real reference point outside, it was impossible to judge how quickly they were moving, but progress seemed slow to Morrison.
"Are we moving much?" he asked.
"No, but we don't need to," said Boranova. "There's no use wasting energy trying to move faster. After all, we're pushing against normal-sized molecules, which means high viscosity on our scale."
"But with microfusion motors -"
"We have many energy needs for matters other than propulsion."
"I'm just wondering how long it will take us to get to key points in the brain."
"Believe me," said Boranova grimly, "I'm wondering, too, but we will have an arterial current taking us as close as possible."
Dezhnev cried out, "We're there! See?"
Right ahead, in the forward light beam of the ship, a round circle could be seen. Morrison had no trouble translating that into the base of the needle.
On the other end of that needle, they would find Pyotr Shapirov's bloodstream and then they would actually be within a human body.
Morrison said, "We're too large to go through the needle, Natalya."
He felt a peculiar amalgam of emotions at the thought. Uppermost was a feeling of hope that perhaps the whole experiment had failed. This might be as small as they could get and it wasn't small enough. They would have to deminiaturize and it would all be over.
Under that thought, well-hidden, was a little sigh of disappointment. Having come so far, might it not be as well to get into the body and experience the interior of a nerve cell? Ordinarily, being no darer of dangers, no scaler of heights, Morrison would have turned away in horror at the thought - he did turn away in horror - but having miniaturized, having reached this point, having survived the fright so far, was it possible that he might want to go farther?
But above these contradictory urges came a bit of realism. Surely these people were not such fools as to deal with a ship that could not be reduced to a size that would pass through the needle it was supposed to pass through. No conceivable stupidity in these very intelligent people could reach that pitch.
And Boranova, as though she were resonating with that thought, said, almost indifferently, "Yes, we are too large now, but we will not stay too large. That is my job here."
"Yours?" said Morrison blankly.
"Of course. We have been reduced to this point by our central miniaturization device. Now the fine adjustments will be made by me."
Kaliinin murmured, "That is one of the things we must save our microfusion motors for as much as possible."