"More likely a little less. If the heart was beating -"
"Yes, I know, but it isn't," said Konev. Then he said, "Natalya, may I have whatever records you have concerning what we have sensed of Shapirov's thought processes? I am going to send the raw data - completeout to the Grotto."
Boranova said, "You mean in case we don't make it out."
"That's exactly what I mean. This material is what we went in for and there's no reason to have it perish with us if we can't get out."
"That's a proper attitude, Yuri," said Boranova.
"Provided," said Konev, his voice suddenly taking on a tinge of anger, "the data has any value at all." Briefly, he glared at Morrison.
Konev then bent toward Dezhnev and together the two began electronically transmitting the information they had collected, computer to computer, from tiny to large, from inside a vein to the outside world.
Kaliinin was still holding Morrison's hand, perhaps as much for comfort to herself as to him, Morrison thought.
He said in a low voice, "What happens, Sophia, if we run out of energy before we reach the needle?"
She lifted her eyebrows briefly and said, "We'll just have to remain passively in place. The people in the Grotto will try to reach us wherever we are."
"We won't deminiaturize explosively as soon as the energy is gone, will we?"
"Oh no. Miniaturization is a metastable state. You remember we explained that. We'll stay as we are indefinitely. Eventually - sometime - this chance pseudo-Brownian motion of expanding and contracting will set up spontaneous deminiaturization, but that might not be for - Who knows?"
"Years?"
"Possibly."
"That won't do us any good, of course," said Morrison. "We'll die of asphyxiation. Without energy, we won't be able to recycle our air supply."
"I said the people in the Grotto would try to reach us. Our computers will still be working and they can home in on us, cut to the vein and into it, and spot us electronically - or even visually."
"How can they find one cell among fifty trillion?"
Kaliinin patted his hand. "You are in a pessimistic mood, Albert. We're an easily recognizable cell - and a broadcasting one."
"I think I would feel better if we find the hypodermic needle now and they don't have to look for us."
"So would I. I am merely pointing out that running out of energy and not finding the needle is not the ultimate end."
"And if we do find it?"
"Then we are drawn out and the Grotto's own energy sources will be applied to the task of derniniaturizing us."
"Can't they do it now?"
"We're too closely surrounded by masses of unminiaturized material and it would be too difficult to focus the deminiaturizing field with sufficient accuracy. Once we are out and visible to them, the conditions will be entirely different."
At this point, Dezhnev said, "Have we transmitted everything, Yuri?"
"Yes. Everything."
"Then it is my duty to tell you that I have only enough energy to continue moving this ship for five minutes. Perhaps less, but certainly not more."
Morrison, Kaliinin's hand still in his, squeezed convulsively and the young woman winced.
Morrison said, "I'm sorry, Sophia."
He released her hand and she rubbed it vigorously.
Boranova said, "Where are we, Yuri? Can we get to the needle?"
"I should say yes," said Konev. "Slow down, Arkady. Conserve what energy you have."
"No, believe me," said Dezhnev. "At the present speed, I am cutting through the blood with comparatively little turbulence, thanks to the streamlining and surface characteristics of the ship. If I slow down, there'll be more turbulence and energy waste."
Konev said, "But we don't want to overshoot the mark."
"We won't. Any time you want me to cut the motors, we begin to slow down at once because of the blood viscosity. As we slow down, the turbulence builds, we slow down faster, and in ten seconds we're motionless. If we had our normal mass and inertia, the rapid pace of slowing would plaster us all up against the front of the ship."
"Stop when I tell you, then."
Morrison had risen and was looking over Konev's shoulder again. The cerebrograph, he judged, must be at enormous expansion, perhaps at maximum. The thin red line that had marked the path of the ship by dead reckoning was now thick and was approaching a small green circle, which, Morrison surmised, must represent the position of the hypodermic needle.
But it was dead reckoning and it could be off a bit. Konev was alternating his gaze between the cerebrograph and the view up ahead of the ship.
"We should have aimed for an artery," Morrison said suddenly. "They're empty after death. We wouldn't have had to waste energy on viscosity and turbulence."
Konev said, "Useless idea. The ship cannot progress through air." He might have gone on, but at this point he stiffened and cried out, "Stop, Arkady! Stop!"
Dezhnev hit a knob hard with the heel of his hand. It moved inward and Morrison felt himself sway gently forward as the ship slowed and stopped almost at once.
Konev pointed. There was a large circle, glowing with an orange light. He said, "They're using fiber optic methods to make sure the tip glows. They said I wouldn't miss it."
"But we have missed it," said Morrison tightly, "We're looking at it, but we're not there. To get into it, we have to turn - and that means that Dezhnev has to unhook communications again."
"No use," said Dezhnev. "I have enough power in my engines to have kept us going another forty-five seconds maybe, but I certainly do not have enough to start us moving from scratch. We are at this moment dead in the water and cannot move again."
"Well, then?" began Morrison with what was almost a wail.
"Well, then," said Konev, "there is another kind of motion that is possible. That hypodermic needle has intelligence at the other end. Arkady, tell them to push it in very slowly."
The orange circle expanded slowly, becoming slightly elliptical.
Morrison said, "It's going to miss us."
Konev made no reply to that, but leaned over toward Arkady to speak directly into the transmitter. The orange ellipse became, for a moment, more markedly elliptical, but this ceased after a bark from Konev. It became nearly circular after that. The needle was close now and was pointing at them.
And then there was sudden motion everywhere. The faint outlines of the red corpuscles and the occasional platelet, moved, and converged toward and through the circle. And the ship was moving, too.
Morrison looked up and around as the orange circle moved past them neatly on all sides, then slipped behind the ship, shrank rapidly, and disappeared.
Konev said with grim satisfaction, "They've sucked us in. From this point on, we sit quietly. They will handle everything."
Now Morrison did his best to wash away thought, to close his mind. Either he would be brought back to the standard world, to normality, to reality, or he would die in a microblink and the rest of the Universe would go on without him - as it would do, in any case, in twenty years, or thirty, or forty.
He shut his eyes firmly and tried to respond to nothing, not even to the beating of his heart. At one point he felt a light touch on his left hand. That would have to be Kaliinin. He withdrew his hand - not suddenly in rejection, but slowly, as though simply to say: "Not now."