Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,21

a secret enemy agent, converted to Their side on one of his trips to scientific conferences overseas ..."

"How dramatic," said Grant, dryly. "Anyone else on board attend such conferences?"

Michaels thought a moment. "As a matter of fact, we all have. Even the girl attended a short meeting last year, one at which Duval presented a paper. But anyway, suppose it was Owens who was converted. Let us say that he was assigned the task of seeing to it that Benes was to be killed. It might be necessary for him to risk his own death. The driver of the collision car knew be was going to die; the five men at the rifles knew they would die. People don't seem to mind dying.

"And Owens may be prepared to die now rather than let us succeed? Is that why he is nervous?"
"Oh, no. What you now suggest is quite unbelievable. I can imagine, for the sake of argument, that Owens might be willing to give his life for some ideal, but not that he would be willing to sacrifice the prestige of his ship by having its first big mission fail."

"Then you think we can eliminate him and forget about the possibility of funny work at the cross-roads."

Michaels laughed gently, his moon-face genial. "Of course. But I'll bet Carter has considered every one of us. And that you have, too."

Grant said, "Duval, for instance?"

"Why not? Anyone at all might be on the Other Side. Not for pay, perhaps; I am sure no one here can be bought; but out of mistaken idealism. Miniaturization, for instance, is primarily a war weapon right now and many of the people here are firmly against that aspect of it. A signed statement to that effect was sent to the president some months ago; a plea to end the miniaturization race, establish a combined program with other nations for the exploitation of miniaturization for peaceful research in biology and medicine in particular."

"Who were involved in that movement?"

"A great many. Duval was one of the most vociferous and outspoken leaders. And, as a matter of fact, I signed the statement as well. I assure you the signers were sincere. I was and I am. It is possible to argue that Benes' device for unlimited duration of miniaturization, if it works, would greatly increase the danger of war and annihilation. If so, I suppose Duval or myself might be eager to see Benes dead before he can speak. For myself, I can deny that I am so motivated. To such an extreme, in any case. As for Duval„ his great problem is his unpleasant personality. There are many who would be eager to suspect him of anything."

Michaels twisted in his seat and said, "And that girl there."

"She signed, too?"

"No, the statement was for senior personnel only. But why is she here?"

"Because Duval insisted. We were there when it happened."

"Yes, but why should she be available for his insisting. She is young and quite pretty. He is twenty years older than she and is not interested in her-or in any human being. Can she be eager to come along for Duval-or for some other more political reason?"

Grant said, "Are you jealous, Dr. Michaels?"

Michaels looked startled. Slowly, he smiled. "You know, I never really thought of that. I'll bet I am: I'm no older than Duval and if she is really interested in older men, it would certainly be pleasanter to have her prefer me. But even allowing for my prejudice, there's room for wondering about her motives."

Michaels' smile faded and he grew glumly serious once more. "And then, after all, the safety of this ship depends not only on ourselves but on those outside who are to a certain extent in control of us. Colonel Reid was as much in favor of the petition as any of us, although as a military officer he could not engage in political activity. Yet though his name was absent from the petition, his voice wasn't. He and Carter quarreled over that. They were good friends before."

"Too bad," said Grant.

"And Carter himself. He's very paranoid. The stresses of the work here might have created instability in the sanest of men. I wonder if one can be entirely sure that Carter hasn't grown somewhat twisted ..."

"Do you think he has?"

Michaels spread out his arms, "No, of course not. I told you-this is therapeutic talk. Would you rather I sat here and merely perspired, or that I screamed softly?"

Grant said, "No, I guess not. In