They had been speaking in whispers, heads together, but Boranova's ears picked up the key word. "Politics, gentlemen?" she asked frostily.
Konev said, "We're discussing the possible uses of Albert's instrument, Natalya. If I learn something of importance from Shapirov's skeptic waves and Albert does not, he thinks I will keep it from him under the excuse that it is a state secret."
Boranova said, "It well may be."
Konev said mildly, "We need Albert's cooperation. It is his machine and his program and I am sure he knows how to work it at less than perfect efficiency. If he is not completely assured of our honesty and goodwill, he may arrange to have us sense nothing. I am willing to share anything that I sense if he will do the same."
"The Committee may disapprove, as Albert himself pointed out," said Boranova.
"Let it. I don't concern myself with it," said Konev.
"I'll prove I love you, Yuri," interposed Dezhnev with a chuckle. "I won't quote you."
Kaliinin said, "Natalya, I agree that we should be honest with Albert, since we must ask him to be honest with us. Using his own device with which he has experience, he is far more likely to come up with something useful than we are. A policy of quid pro quo is likely to be far more to our advantage than to his. - Isn't that so, Albert?"
Morrison nodded. "I've been thinking precisely that and would have mentioned it if it looked as though you were going to tell me that it was against government policy to be honest with me."
Boranova said, "Well, let us await events." The tension died down.
Morrison remained busy with his own thoughts, watching his machine only in abstraction.
And then Dezhnev said, "There's another cell just ahead - a kilometer or two. It looks as though it might be larger than the one we've been passing. Is that a neuron, Yuri?"
Konev, who seemed to have been in a brown study of his own, snapped to attention. "Albert, what does your machine say? Is that a neuron?"
Morrison was already handling his device. "It must be," he said. "I've never seen the skeptic waves this sharp."
"Good!" said Dezhnev. "Now what?"
Kaliinin looked thoughtfully at the cell surface below. She said, "Natalya, we'll have to miniaturize to glucose size again. Arkady, get us in among the dendrites so that we can get down to the surface of the cell body."
Morrison watched the surface also. The dendrites were much more elaborate than those on the glia. The nearest one branched and branched again until it looked like a fuzzy frond vanishing beyond the reach of ship's light. Others, farther away, were fuzzier and smaller.
Morrison suspected that the fuzziness was at least partly the result of Brownian motion. Surely there couldn't be much of that, however. Probably each final strand of the branchings - each twig - met a similar twig or some neighboring neuron to form that intimate near-touch called a synapse. The wavering of the twig would not be strong enough to break the contact or the brain couldn't do its work.
Dezhnev had the ship approach the surface of the cell body, slowly slithering past the nearest dendrite (he was learning to handle the unbalance of the individual engines with a certain finesse, Morrison thought) - and, as he did so, it seemed to Morrison that the surface of the neuron was changing character.
Of course, it had to, for the ship was miniaturizing again. The ridges in the cell surface were becoming more prominent and were dividing into domes. Between the phospholipid domes the hairs were becoming ropier. Receptors, thought Morrison. Each one of them was designed to link on to a particular molecule that would be useful to the neuron and certainly glucose would he the most useful of those.
The downward change was considerably more rapid than the upward change. Absorbing energy was simple, while the energy release of deminiaturization was dangerous. Morrison understood that well by now.
Kaliinin said, frowning in concern, "I don't know which receptors are for glucose, but a great many of them must be. Skim across them slowly, Arkady - very slowly. If we're caught, I don't want to tear loose - or to tear them loose, either."
"No problem, little Sophie," said Dezhnev. "If I shut off the motors, the ship stops at once. It can't push through the giant atoms that surround us at all easily. Too viscous. So I just give it a touch of energy, enough to shoulder our way past the molecules of water, and we'll tiptoe across the receptors."
"'Through the tulips,'" said Morrison, looking at Konev.
"What?" said Konev, looking both annoyed and puzzled.
"It's a phrase that went through my head. There's an old show tune called 'Tip Toe Through the Tulips With Me,' In English, the words are -"
"What nonsense are you speaking?" snapped Konev.
"I'm trying to point out that whenever someone says 'tiptoe' to me, I automatically hear the phrase 'through the tulips' in my mind. If I happen to be concentrating on my computer when someone says 'tiptoe,' I will still hear the phrase in my mind and it will not mean that I am getting it from the skeptic waves on the computer. Do you take my meaning?"
"You're talking emptily," said Konev. "Leave me alone."
But he looked shaken, Morrison thought. He had taken the meaning.
They were now moving parallel to the surface of the neuron. The receptors were moving gently and Morrison realized that he couldn't tell which were empty and which had attached themselves to some of the molecules moving through the extracellular fluid with them.
He tried to concentrate on those molecules. There seemed to be glitterings in the fluid which might have been the light of the ship's beacon reflected from molecules, but none of it showed up well. Even the surface of the cell membrane wasn't actually clear if you looked at it directly. It was more the surrealistic impression of a surface than an actual one - too few photons were being reflected and too few were reaching them on their small scale.
Still, by the glitter, he could make out a kind of grittiness in the fluid they were passing through (water molecules, surely) and among them, now and then, something wormy-twisting, turning, closing up, then opening again. The immediate neighborhood of the ship was, of course, within the miniaturization field, so that atoms and molecules of the standard-size world were constantly shrinking as they entered - and expanding again as they left. The number of atoms doing so must be enormous but the energy change that resulted, even totaled over that number, were small enough so that it did not drain the ship perceptibly, or bring about spontaneous deminiaturization, or do any damage. - Or, at least, it seemed to do no damage.
Morrison tried not to think about it.
Boranova said, "I don't mean to question your ability, Sophia, but please check and make sure the ship has the electrical pattern of glucose."
"I assure you it does," said Kaliinin.
And as though to give notice that that was indeed so, the ship seemed to twist in mid-fluid, judging by the sudden shift in view through the walls.
Under ordinary conditions, such a twist would have thrown every person on the ship hard against the wall or the seat arm. Mass and inertia, however, were at virtually zero and there was only a faint swaying, hardly distinguishable from that which they associated with Brownian motion.
Kaliinin said, "We've attached ourselves to a glucose receptor."
"Good," said Dezhnev. "I've turned off the motor. Now what do we do?"
"Nothing," said Kaliinin. "We let the cell do its work and we wait."
The receptor did not actually make contact with the ship. This was good, for had it come any closer it would have entered the miniaturization field and its tip would have collapsed. As it was, there was a close meeting of electrical fields only, negative to positive and positive to negative. The attractions were not the full attractions but the lesser ones that resembled hydrogen bonds. It was enough to hold, but weak enough to allow the ship to pull away somewhat, as though it were connected to the receptor by rubber bands rather than by grappling hooks.