Isaac Asimov (6 page)

Grant’s lip quirked. “Sorry, doctor, but you’ve just said a naughty word. At college, I majored in football with a strong minor in girls. Don’t waste theory on me.”

“I have seen your record, Mr. Grant, and it is not quite as you say. However, I will not deprive you of your manhood by accusing you of your obvious intelligence and education, even if we are in private. I will not waste theory on you, but will get the nub of the information to you without that. —I assume you have observed our insigne, CMDF.

“Sure have.”

“Do you have any idea of what it means?”

“I’ve made a few guesses. How about Consolidated Martian Dimwits and Fools. I’ve got a better one than that but it’s unprintable.”

“It happens to stand for Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces.”

“That makes less sense than my suggestion,” said Grant.

“I’ll explain. Have you ever heard of the miniaturization controversy?”

Grant thought a while. “I was in college then. We spent a couple of sessions on it in the physics course.”

“In between football games?”

“Yes. In the off-season, as a matter of fact. If I remember it, a group of physicists claimed they could reduce the size of objects to any degree, and it was exposed as a fraud. Well, maybe not a fraud but a mistake anyway. I remember the class ran through several arguments showing why it was impossible to reduce a man to the size of, say, a mouse, and keep him a man.”

“I’m sure this was done in every college in the land. Do you remember any of the objections?”

“I think so. If you’re going to reduce size you can do it in one of two ways. You can push the individual atoms of
an object closer together; or you can discard a certain proportion of the atoms altogether. To push the atoms together against the interatomic repulsive forces would take extraordinary pressures. The pressures at the center of Jupiter would be insufficient to compress a man to the size of a mouse. Am I right so far?”

“You are luminous as the day.”

“And even if you managed it, the pressure would kill anything alive. Aside from that, an object reduced in size by pushing atoms together would retain all its original mass, and an object the size of a mouse with the mass of a man would be difficult to handle.”

“Amazing, Mr. Grant. You must have amused your girlfriends for many hours with this romantic talk. And the other method?”

“The other method is to remove atoms in careful ratio so that the mass and size of an object decreases while the relationship of the parts remains constant. Only if you reduce a man to the size of a mouse you can keep only one atom out of maybe seventy thousand. If you do that to the brain, what is left is scarcely more complicated than the brain of a mouse in the first place. Besides, how do you re-expand the object, as the miniaturizing physicists claimed to be able to do? How do you get the atoms back and put them in their right places?”

“Quite so, Mr. Grant. But then how did some reputable physicists come to think that miniaturization was practical?”

“I don’t know, doctor, but you don’t hear of it anymore.”

“Partly because the colleges did such a careful job—under orders—of knocking it on the head. The technique went underground both here and on the Other Side. Literally. Here. Underground.” It was almost with passion that Michaels tapped the desk before him. “And we must maintain special courses in miniaturization techniques for graduate physicists who can learn it nowhere else—except in analogous schools on the Other Side. Miniaturization is quite possible, but by neither method you have described. Have you ever seen a photograph enlarged, Mr. Grant? Or reduced to microfilm size?”

“Of course.”

“Without theory, then, I tell you that the same process can be used on three-dimensional objects; even on a man.

We are miniaturized, not as literal objects, but as images; as three-dimensional images manipulated from outside the universe of space-time.”

Grant smiled. “Now, teacher, those are just words.”

“Yes, but you don’t want theory, do you? What physicists discovered ten years ago was the utilization of hyperspace; a space, that is, of more than the three ordinary spatial dimensions. The concept is beyond grasping; the mathematics are almost beyond grasp; but the funny part is that it can be done. Objects can be miniaturized. We neither get rid of atoms nor push them together. We reduce the size of the atoms, too; we reduce everything; and the mass decreases automatically. When we wish, we restore the size.”

“You sound serious,” said Grant. “Are you telling me that we can really reduce a man to the size of a mouse?”

“In principle we can reduce a man to the size of a bacterium, of a virus, of an atom. There is no theoretical limit to the amount of miniaturization. We can shrink an army with all its men and equipment to a size that will fit in a match-box. Ideally, we could then ship that match-box where it is needed and put the army into business after restoring it to full size. You see the significance?”

Grant said, “And the Other Side can do it, too, I take it.”

“We’re certain they can. —But come, Grant, matters are progressing at full speed and our time is limited. Come with me.”

It was “come with me” here and “come with me” there. Since Grant had awakened that morning, he had not been allowed to remain in one place for longer than fifteen minutes. It annoyed him and yet there seemed nothing he could do about it. Was it a deliberate attempt to keep him from having time enough to think? What were they preparing to spring on him?

He and Michaels were in the scooter now, Michaels handling it like a veteran.

“If both We and They have it, we neutralize each other,” said Grant.

“Yes, but in addition,” said Michaels, “it does neither of us very much good. There’s a catch.”

“Oh?”

“We’ve worked for ten years to extend the size ratio; to reach greater intensities of miniaturization, and of expansion,
too—just a matter of reversing the hyperfield. Unfortunately, we’ve reached our theoretical limits in this direction.”

“What are they?”

“Not very favorable. The Uncertainty Principle intervenes. Extent of miniaturization multiplied by the duration of miniaturization, using the proper units, of course, is equal to an expression containing Planck’s constant. If a man is reduced to half-size, he can be kept so for centuries. If he is reduced to mouse-size, that can be kept up for days. If he is reduced to bacterium-size, that can be kept up only for hours. After that he expands again.”

“But then he can be miniaturized again.”

“Only after a sizable lag period. Do you want some of the mathematical background?”

“No. I’ll take your word for everything.”

They had arrived at the foot of an escalator. Michaels got out of the scooter with a small, weary grunt. Grant vaulted the side.

He leaned against the railing as the staircase moved majestically upward. “And what has Benes got?”

“They tell me he claims he can beat the Uncertainty Principle. Supposedly, he knows how to maintain miniaturization indefinitely.”

“You don’t sound as though you believe that.”

Michaels shrugged, “I am skeptical. If he extends both miniaturization intensity and miniaturization duration that can only be at the expense of something else, but for the life of me I can’t imagine what that something else might be. Perhaps that only means I am not a Benes. In any case, he says he can do it and we cannot take the chance of not believing him. Neither can the Other Side, so they’ve tried to kill him.”

They had come to the top of the escalator and Michaels had paused there briefly to complete his remark. Now he moved back to take a second escalator up another floor.

“Now, Grant, you can understand what we must do—save Benes. Why we must do it—for the information he has. And how we must do it—by miniaturization.”

“Why by miniaturization?”

“Because the brain clot cannot be reached from outside. I told you that. So we will miniaturize a submarine, inject it into an artery, and with Captain Owens at the controls and with myself as pilot, journey to the clot. There, Duval and his assistant, Miss Peterson, will operate.”

Grant’s eyes opened wide. “And I?”

“You will be along as a member of the crew. General supervision, apparently.”

Grant said, violently, “Not I. I am not volunteering for any such thing. Not for a minute.”

He turned and started walking down the up-escalator, with little effect. Michaels followed him, sounding amused. “It is your business to take risks, isn’t it?”

“Risks of my own choosing. Risks I am used to. Risks I am prepared for. Give me as much time to think of miniaturization as you have had and I’ll take the risk.”

“My dear Grant. You have not been asked to volunteer. It is my understanding that you have been assigned to this duty. And now its importance has been explained to you. After all, I am going too, and I am not as young as you, nor have I ever been a football player. In fact, I’ll tell you. I was depending on you to keep my courage up by coming along, since courage is your business.”

“If so, I’m a rotten businessman,” muttered Grant. Irrelevantly, almost petulantly, he said, “I want coffee.”

He stood still and let the escalator carry him up again. Near the top of the escalator was a door marked “Conference Room.” They entered.

Grant grew aware of the contents of the room in stages. What he saw first was that at one end of the long table that filled the center of the room was a multi-cup coffee dispenser and that next to it was a tray of sandwiches.

He moved toward that at once and it was only after downing half a cup of it hot and black and following that by a Grant-sized bite of a sandwich, that item two entered his awareness.

This was Duval’s assistant—Miss Peterson, wasn’t that her name?—looking down in the mouth but very beautiful and standing terribly close to Duval. Grant had the instant feeling that he was going to find it difficult to like the surgeon and only then did he begin to absorb the rest of the room.

A colonel sat at one end of the table, looking annoyed. One hand twirled an ashtray slowly while the ashes of his cigarette dropped to the floor. He said emphatically to Duval, “I’ve made my attitude quite clear.”

Grant recognized Captain Owens standing under the portrait of the president. The eagerness and smiles he had
seen at the airport were gone and there was a bruise on one cheekbone. He looked nervous and upset and Grant sympathized with the sensation.

“Who’s the colonel?” Grant asked Michaels in a low voice.

“Donald Reid, my opposite number on the military side of the fence.”

“I take it he’s annoyed with Duval.”

“Constantly. He’s got a lot of company. Few like him.”

Grant had the impulse to answer,
She
seems to, but the words sounded petty in his thoughts and he dismissed them. Lord, what a dish! What did she see in that solemn cutthroat?

Reid was talking in a low voice, carefully controlled. “And aside from that, doctor, what is
she
doing here?”

“Miss Cora Peterson,” said Duval, icily, “is my assistant. Where I go professionally, she accompanies me professionally.”

“This is a dangerous mission …”

“And Miss Peterson has volunteered, understanding full well its dangers.”

“A number of men, entirely qualified to help, have also volunteered. Matters would be far less complicated if one of those men accompanied you. I will assign you one.”

“You will not assign me one, colonel, for if you do, I will not go, and there will be no power to make me. Miss Peterson is a third and fourth arm to me. She knows my requirements well enough to do her job without instructions, to be there before I call, to supply what is needed without being asked. I will
not
take a stranger who will need to be shouted at. I can
not
be responsible for success if I lose one second because my technician and I do not mesh, and I will
not
take any assignment in which I am not given a free hand with which to arrange matters in such a way as will carry with it the best chance for success.”

Grant’s eye moved to Cora Peterson again. She looked acutely embarrassed, yet stared at Duval with the expression Grant had once seen in a beagle’s eye when its little boy owner returned from school. Grant found that intensely annoying.

Michaels’ voice cut across the argument as Reid was rising furiously to his feet. “I would suggest, Don, that since the key step of the entire operation rests upon Dr. Duval’s hand and eye and since, in fact, we cannot now dictate to him, we humor him in this respect—without prejudice to
necessary action afterward, eh? I am willing to take responsibility for that.”

He was offering Reid a face-saving way out, Grant realized, and Reid, fuming darkly, would have to take it.

Reid slammed the flat of his hand on the table before him. “All right. Let it be on record that I opposed this.” He sat back, lips trembling.

Duval sat down also, unconcerned. Grant moved forward to pull out a chair for Cora, but she helped herself and was seated before he could reach her.

Michaels said, “Dr. Duval, this is Grant, a young man who will be accompanying us.”

“As muscle man, doctor,” said Grant. “My only qualification.”

Duval looked up cursorily. His acknowledgement was a minimal nod thrown in Grant’s general direction.

“And Miss Peterson.”

Grant smiled flashily. She smiled not at all and said, “How do you do?”

“Hello,” said Grant, looked down at what little was left of his second sandwich, realized that no one else was eating at all, and put it down.

Carter came in at this point, walking rapidly and nodding vaguely to right and left. He sat down and said, “Will you join us, Captain Owens? Grant?”

Owens reluctantly moved to the table and took his place opposite Duval. Grant sat down several chairs removed and found himself able, in looking at Carter, to contemplate Cora’s face in profile.

Could a job be entirely bad if
she
were part of it?

Michaels, who sat down immediately next to Grant, leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “Actually, it isn’t a bad idea to have a woman along. The men, perhaps, will be more on their mettle. And it would please me.”