Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,10

"Did anyone have a chance to, talk to him?"

"A Captain Owens-William Owens-do you know him?"

Grant shook his head, "Just a glance at the airport of someone Gonder referred to by that name."

Carter said, "Owens spoke to Benes but got no crucial information. Gonder spoke to him, too. You spoke to him more than anyone. Did he tell you anything?"

"No, sir. I would not have understood if he had. It was my mission to get him into this country and nothing more,"

"Of course. But you talked to him and he might have said more than he meant to."

"If he did, it went right over my head. But I don't think he did. Living on the Other Side, you get practice keeping your mouth shut."

Carter scowled. "Don't be unnecessarily superior, Grant. You get .the same practice on this side. If you don't know that . . . I'm sorry, that was unnecessary."

"It's all right, general," Grant shrugged it off, tonelessly.

"Well the point is, he talked to no one. He was put out of action before we could get what we wanted out of him. He might as well never have left the Other Side."

Grant said, "Coming here, I passed a place cordoned off..."

"That was the place. Five more blocks and we would have had him safe."

"What's wrong with him now?"

"Brain injury. We have to operate-and that's why we need you."

"Me-?" Grant said, strenuously. "Listen, general, at brain surgery, I'm a child. I flunked Advanced Cerebellum at old State U."

Carter did not react and to Grant his own words sounded hollow.

"Come,with me," said Carter.

Grant followed, through a door, down a short stretch of corridor and into another room.

"Central Monitoring," said Carter, briefly. The walls were covered with TV panels. The central chair was half-surrounded by a semi-circular console of switches, banked on a steep incline.

Carter sat down while Grant remained standing.

Carter said, "Let me give you the essence of the situation. You understand there's a stalemate between Ourselves and Them."

"And has been for a long time. Of course."

"The stalemate isn't a bad thing, altogether. We compete; we run scared all the time; and we get a lot done that way. Both of us. But if the stalemate must break, it's got to break in favor of our side. You see that, I suppose?"

"I think I do, general," said Grant, dryly.

`Genes represents the possibility of such a break. If he could tell us what he knows ..:'

"May I ask a question, sir?"

"Go ahead."

"What does he know? What sort of thing?"

"Not yet. Not yet. Just wait a few moments. The exact nature of the information is not crucial at the moment. Let me continue ... If he could tell us what he knows, then the stalemate breaks on our side. If he dies, or even if he recovers but without being able to give us our information because of brain damage, then the stalemate continues."

Grant said, "Aside from humanitarian sorrow for the loss of a great mind, we can say that maintaining the stalemate Isn't too bad."

"Yes, if the situation is just as I have described, but it may not be."

"How do you make that out?"

"Consider Benes. He is known as a moderate but we had no indication that he was having trouble with his government. He had shown every sign of being loyal for a quarter of a century, and he'd been well-treated. Now he suddenly defects ..."

"Because he wants to break the stalemate on our side."

"Does he? Or could it be that he revealed enough of his work, before realizing its full significance, to give the Other Side the key to the advance. He may then have come to realize that, without quite meaning to, he had placed world dominion securely into the hands of his own side, and perhaps he wasn't sufficiently confident in the virtues of his own side to be satisfied with that. -So now he comes to us, not so much to give us the victory, as to give no one the victory. He comes to us in order to maintain the stalemate."

"Is there any evidence for that, sir?"

"Not one bit," said Carter. "But you see it as a possibility, I presume, and you realize that there is not one bit of evidence against it, either."

"Go on."

"If the matter of life or death for Benes meant a choice between total victory for us or continued stalemate-well, we could manage. To lose our chance of total victory would he a damned shame, but we might get another chance tomorrow. However,