Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,17

The ship will be about the size of a large bacterium."

"Well, then," said Owens. "If we enter an artery, we will be exposed to the full force of the arterial current."

"Not quite a mile an hour," said Carter.

"Never mind the miles per hour. We will be moving about 100,000 times the length of our ship each second. That will be equivalent, under ordinary circumstances, to moving 200 miles a second-or something like that. On our miniaturized scale we'll be moving a dozen times as fast as any astronaut over moved. At least."

"Undoubtedly," said Carter, "but what of it? Every red blood corpuscle in the blood-stream moves as quickly and the ship is much more sturdily built than the corpuscle."

"No, it is not," said Owens, passionately. "A red blood corpuscle contains billions of atoms, but the Proteus will crowd billions of billions of billions of atoms into the same space; miniaturized atoms, to be sure, but what of that. We will be made up of an immensely larger number of units than the red blood corpuscle and we'll be, flabbier for that reason. Furthermore, the red blood corpuscle is in an environment of atoms equal in size to those that make it up; we will be in an environment made up of what will be to us monstrous atoms."

Carter said, "Can you answer that, Max?"

Michaels harumphed. "I do not pretend to be as expert on the problems of miniaturization as Captain Owens. I expect that he is thinking of the report by James and Schwartz that fragility increases with intensity of miniaturisation."

"Exactly," said Owens.

"The increase is a slow one, if you remember, and James rind Schwartz had to make some simplifying assumptions in the course of their analysis which may prove to be not entirely valid. After all, when we enlarge objects, they certainly do not become less fragile."

"Oh, come on, we've never enlarged any object more than a hundred-fold," said Owens, contemptuously, "and here we are talking about miniaturizing a ship about a million times in linear dimensions. No one's ever gone that far, or oven anything close to that far, in either direction. The fact is that there isn't anyone in the world who can predict just how fragile we will become, or how well we can stand up to the pounding of the blood-stream, or even how we might respond to the action of a white blood corpuscle. Isn't that so, Michaels?"

Michaels said, "Well-yes."

Carter said, with what seemed rising impatience, "It would seem that the course of orderly experiment leading to so drastic a miniaturization has not yet been completed. We're in no position to carry through a program of such experimentation so we have to take our chances. If the ship does not survive, it doesn't.

"That bucks me up," muttered Grant.

Cora Peterson leaned toward him, whispering tightly

"Please, Mr. Grant, you're not on the football field."

"Oh, you know my record, miss?"

"Shh."

Carter said, "We are taking all the precautions we can. Benes will be in deep hypothermia for his own sake. By freezing him we will cut down the oxygen requirements to , the brain. That will mean the heartbeat will be drastically slowed and the velocity of the blood flow as well."

Owens said, "Even so, I doubt that we could survive the turbulence ..."

Michaels said, "Captain, if you stay away from the artery walls, you will be in the region of laminar flow-no turbulence to speak of. We will be in the artery only for minutes, and once in the smaller vessels, we will have no problem. The only place where we would not be able to avoid killing turbulence would be in the heart itself and we would nowhere near the heart. -May I continue, now?"

"Please do," said Carter.

"Having reached the clot, it will be destroyed by a laser beam. The laser and its beam, having been miniaturized in proportion, will not, if properly used - as in Duval's hand it is sure to be - do any damage to the brain or even the blood-vessel itself. Nor will it be necessary to demolish every vestige of the clot. It will be enough to break it up into fragments. The white blood-cells will then take care of it.

"We will leave the vicinity at once, of course, returning by way of the venous system, until we reach the base of the neck where we will be removed from the jugular vein."'

Grant said, "How will anyone know where we are and when?"

Carter said, "Michaels will be piloting you and