Boranova said, "How did you come to do that? No one has ever suggested in my hearing that this might -"
"Nor in mine," said Kaliinin. "Nor in mine. I was just wondering this morning before we got on the ship what I would do - or what anyone could do - if spontaneous deminiaturization began. We'd need energy, but if the ship couldn't pump up enough - I thought, Could the cell itself supply the energy? If it did, it would only be through ATP, which every cell has. I didn't know if it would work. I had to spend energy, forcing the electrical pattern on and off the ship, and I knew I might spend more than I got from ATP. Or the energy of the ATP might simply not afFect the ship in such a way as to counter the deminiaturization. It was all such a gamble."
Dezhnev said - softly, almost as though to himself, "As my old father would say: 'If you have nothing to lose, gamble freely.'" Then, briskly, he said, "Thank you, little Sophia. My life is yours from now on. I will give it to you at your need. I will go farther. I will even marry you if that would strike you as convenient."
"A chivalrous offer," said Kaliinin, smiling faintly, "but I wouldn't ask marriage of you. Your mere life - at need - would be quite enough."
Boranova was entirely herself now and she said, "This will be cited in detail in the final report. Your quick thinking and your quick action saved everything."
Morrison couldn't trust himself to make any speech at all. (Unaccountably, he felt near tears. - In gratitude for life? In admiration for Kaliinin?) All he could do was reach for Kaliinin's hand, put it to his lips, and kiss it. Then, after clearing his throat vigorously, he said with extraordinary mildness, "Thank you, Sophia."
She looked embarrassed, but did not draw her hand away immediately. She said, "It might not have worked. I didn't think it would work."
"Had it not," said Dezhnev, "we would be no deader."
Through all this, only Yuri Konev had not said a word and Morrison turned to look at him. He sat as he usually sat, very upright and very much turned away from them.
Morrison, finding his voice suddenly - and his anger - said, "Well, Yuri, what have you to say?"
Konev looked over his shoulder briefly and said, "Nothing."
"Nothing? Sophia saved the expedition."
Konev shrugged, "She did her job."
"Her job? She did much more than her job." Morrison leaned forward and reached wildly for Konev, grabbing his shoulder. "She invented the technique that saved us. And in doing so, she saved your life, you idiot. She's the reason you're still alive. You can at least thank her."
"I'll do as I please," said Konev, twitching his shoulder and then writhing out of Morrison's grasp.
Morrison's hands found their way around Konev's throat. "You miserable, egotistical barbarian," he grunted out, squeezing desperately. "You love her in your own insane way and you won't give her a kind word. Not one kind word, you piece of dirt."
Again Konev pulled himself loose and then the two were pummeling each other clumsily. They were half-trapped by the seats from which they had partly risen and neither could maneuver properly under zero-gravity conditions.
Kaliinin screamed, "Don't hurt him!"
He won't hurt me, thought Morrison, striving mightily. He had not been engaged in this kind of physical combat since he was sixteen and, he thought in embarrassment, he wasn't doing any better now.
Boranova's voice rang out sharply. "Stop it. Both of you."
And they did. Both of them.
Boranova said, "Albert, you are not here to teach anyone manners. And Yuri, you need not labor to be a boor, it comes natural to you. If you do not wish to acknowledge Sophia's -"
Sophia said with an obvious effort, "I'm not asking for thanks - from anyone."
"Thanks?" said Konev angrily. "Let us all say thanks. Before the deminiaturization started, I was trying to get this American coward to thank us for rescuing him. I didn't want thanks in words. This isn't a dance floor. We needn't bow and curtsy. I wanted him to show his thanks by getting out there and trying to sense some of Shapirov's thoughts. He refused. Who is he to teach me how and when to say thanks?"
Morrison said, "I said before the deminiaturization that I wouldn't do it and I repeat that now."
Dezhnev interrupted and said, "We beat a dead horse here. We have consumed our energy supply as though it were vodka at a wedding. Between pursuits and deminiaturizations, we have very little to spare for the task of deminiaturizing under controlled conditions. We must get out now."
Konev said, "It would take very little energy to have this man go out for a couple of minutes and come in again. Then we can leave."
For a moment, Konev and Morrison stared at each other hostilely and then Dezhnev said in a voice that seemed drained of some of its life, "My poor old father used to say: 'The most frightening phrase in the Russian language is "That's odd."'"
Konev turned angrily and said, "Shut up, Arkady."
Dezhnev replied, "I mentioned that only because it is now time for me to say it: That's odd."
Boranova pushed her dark hair back from her forehead (a bit wearily, Morrison thought, and noted the hair itself was clearly damp with perspiration). She said, "What is odd, Arkady? Let us not play games."
"The current flow of the cellular material is slowing."
There was a brief silence, then Boranova said, "How can you tell?"
Dezhnev said heavily, "Natasha, dear, if you sat in my seat you would know that there are fibers criss-crossing the cell -"
"The cytoskeleton," put in Morrison.
"Thank you, Albert, my child," said Dezhnev with a grand wave of his hand. "My father used to say: 'It is more important to know the thing than the name.' Still, never mind. The whatever - you - call - it doesn't stop the cell flow and it doesn't stop the ship, but I can see it glint past. Well, it's glinting past more slowly now. I assume the fibers don't move, so I take it we're slowing. And since I'm not doing anything to slow the ship, I assume that it is the intracellular flow that is really slowing. - This is called logic, Albert, so you don't have to educate me on that point."
Kaliinin said in a small voice, "I think we have damaged the cell." She sounded conscience-stricken.
Morrison took it so and said, "One brain cell gone, more or less, won't hurt Shapirov in any way, especially in the condition he's in. I wouldn't be surprised if the cell were gone, though. After all, the ship came after me in a furious race, I imagine - and I thank you all again for that - and it probably vibrated itself nearly to death and must have vibrated the entire cell as well."
Konev said, frowning darkly, "That's mad. We're molecule-sized - and a small molecule at that. Do you suppose anything we can do, whether moving or jiggling, is going to damage an entire cell?"
Morrison said, "We don't have to reason it out, Yuri. It's an observed fact. The intracellular stream is stopping and that isn't normal."
"In the first place, that's just Arkady's impression," said Konev, "and he's no neurologist -"
"Do I have to be a neurologist to have eyes?" demanded Dezhnev hotly, one arm raised as though to strike at the younger man.
Konev cast a brief glance at Dezhnev, but made no other acknowledgment of his remark. He said, "And besides, we don't know what is normal in a living brain cell from this level of observation. There may be calms and eddies in the flow, so that even if something like this is observed, it might be only temporary."
"You're whistling past the graveyard, Yuri," said Morrison. "The fact is, we can't use this cell any more and we don't have sufficient remaining energy to wander around searching for another cell."