"Which is it, Arkady?" said Boranova waspishly. "Is it quite certain or is it a matter of opinion?"
"Both," said Dezhnev. "It is my opinion that I am absolutely certain. The trouble is that my opinion isn't always right. My father used to say -"
"I think we ought to try it out," said Konev, cutting off Dezhnev's father, perhaps in the full realization he was doing so.
"Of course," said Dezhnev. "That goes without saying, but as my father used to say" - he raised his voice as though determined not to be again subverted - "the sure thing about anything that goes without saying is that someone is bound to say it. - And you might as well know -"
He paused momentarily and Boranova said, "What might we as well know?"
"Several things, Natasha," said Dezhnev. "In the first place, steering will take a lot of energy. I've done my best, but the ship is not designed for this. For another - well, I can't communicate with the Grotto now."
"Can't communicate?" said Kaliinin, her voice rising to a near squeak in what was either surprise or indignation.
Boranova's voice marked her as definitely indignant. "What do you mean, we can't communicate?"
"Come, Natasha, I can't wire up the motors separately without wires, can I? The best engineer in the world can't make wires out of nothing and can't manufacture silicon chips out of nothing, either. Something had to be dismantled and the one thing I could dismantle without disabling the ship was communications. I told them that out in the Grotto and there was a lot of shrieking and complaining, but how could they stop me? So now we can steer, I think - and we can't communicate, I know."
There was silence as the ship began to move. The surroundings were utterly different now. In the bloodstream, there had been a heaving medley of objects - some crawling ahead of the ship, some slowly drifting behind, depending on eddies and streamlining, Morrison supposed. There was the feeling of movement, if only because the markings on the walls - fatty plaques in the arteries, tiling in the capillaries, slipped steadily backward.
Here, in intercellular space, however, there was stasis. No motion. No feeling of life. The tangle of collagen fibers seemed a forest primeval, built up of trunks only, without leaves, without color, without sound, without motion.
Once the ship pushed forward through the viscous intercellular fluid, however, everything began to move backward. The ship slipped toward and through a V-shaped meeting of fibers and, as they passed through, Morrison had the plain impression of a loose spiral making its way upward along each collagen fiber, the spiral being more marked on the thinner of the two.
Up ahead was a thicker fiber still, a monarch of the collagen jungle.
"You'll have to turn, Arkady," said Konev. "Now's the time to test it."
"All right, but I'll have to lean over. I don't have the controls neatly at my fingertips. There's a limit to improvization." He leaned forward, groping at a level about that of his calves. "I do not relish the thought of having to do this constantly. It is hard on a man of portly habit."
"You mean a man who is fat," said Konev ill-naturedly. "You have let yourself go flabby, Arkady. You should lose weight."
Dezhnev straightened up. "Very well. I will stop right now, go home, and begin to lose weight. Is this a time, Yuri, to lecture me?"
"It is not a time for you to get emotional either, Arkady," said Boranova. "Steer!"
Dezhnev bent over, suppressing a grunt. Slowly, the ship turned rightward in a gentle arc; or, to judge more literally by appearance, the thick collagen fiber drifted leftward as it approached - as did everything else.
"You will hit it," said Konev. "Turn more sharply."
"It won't turn more sharply," said Dezhnev. "Each motor is only so far off-center and I can't change that."
"Well, then, we will hit it," said Konev, an edge of anxiety in his voice.
"Then let us hit," said Boranova angrily. "Yuri, do not go into panic over inconsequentials. The ship is tough plastic; that fiber is undoubtedly rubbery."
And as she spoke, the prow of the ship began to pass the collagen fiber, with little room to spare. Watching through the port side of the ship, it was clear that the broadening beam of the ship would make contact. When the fiber was nearly level with Kalimin's seat, it happened. There was no scraping sound, only a very soft hiss could be detected. Not only was the fiber rubbery, as Boranova had said, so that it compressed slightly under the force of the collision, then rebounded, pushing the ship a trifle away - but the slimy intercellular fluid served as a cushion and a friction reducer.
The ship continued to move and turned leftward in the direction of the fiber.
Dezhnev said, "I shut off the motor as soon as I saw we were about to make contact. This leftward turn we're going through now is a friction turn."
"Yes," said Konev, "but what if you had wanted to turn in the other direction?"
"Then I would have used the motor. Or, considerably earlier in our progress, I would have made a turn toward a graze with the fiber to the right. That fiber would have turned us rightward. The main thing, in any case, is to use the motors as little as possible and the fibers as much as possible. In the first place, we don't want to consume our supply of energy too rapidly. In the second place, the rapid output of energy increases the chances of spontaneous deminiaturization."
"What!" cried Morrison. He turned to Boranova. "Is that true?"
"It's not an important effect," said Boranova, "but it's true. The chances go up a bit. I should say that conservation is the more important of the two reasons for saving energy."
But Morrison could not repress his anger. "Don't you see how ridiculous - no, criminal - this whole situation is? We're in a ship that simply isn't up to the task and everything we do makes it worse."
Boranova shook her head. "Albert, please. You know we have no choice."
"Besides," said Dezhnev, grinning, "if we manage to do the job in this unsuitable ship, think how much more remarkable that will make us. We will be heroes. Authentic heroes. We will surely get the Order of Lenin - each one of us. It will be a foregone conclusion. And if we fail, it is comforting to think that we will be able to explain it as the ship's fault."
"Yes. Soviet heroes, win or lose, all of you," said Morrison. "And what will I be?"
Boranova said, "Remember, Albert, you will not be neglected if we succeed. The Order of Lenin has been given to foreigners on a number of occasions, including many Americans. Even if you should not want the honor for some reason, the success of your theories will be established and you may receive a Nobel Prize before any of us do."
"We're in no position to count our chickens," said Morrison. "I shall refrain from composing my Nobel acceptance speech for just a while, thank you."
"Actually," said Kaliinin, "I wonder if we're in a position to reach a neuron."
"What's the difficulty?" asked Dezhnev. "We can move and steer and we're outside the capillary and in the brain. Just out there is a neuron, any number of them, billions of them."
"Just out where?" Kaliinin asked. "I don't see any neurons. Just collagen fibers."
Dezhnev said, "How much of this intercellular fluid do you think there is?"
"A microscopic thickness," said Kaliinin, "if we were normal in size. However, we're the size of a glucose molecule and, relative to ourselves, there may be a kilometer's distance or more to the nearest neuron."
"Well, then," said Dezhnev, "we'll move our ship a kilometer. It may take a little time but it can be done."