Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,37

Cora's profile and watched that, but the view from the window overpowered even his study of the curve of her chin.

Two minutes? How much would that be! Two minutes as his miniaturized time-sense would make it out to be? Or two minutes by their Time Recorder. He twisted his head to look at it. It read 56 and, as he watched, it blanked out and then, very deliberately, 55 appeared dimly and darkened.

There was a sudden wrench and Grant was nearly thrown out of his seat.

"Owens!" he cried out. "What happened?"

Duval said, "Have we struck something?"

Grant struggled his way toward the ladder and managed to climb up. He said, "What's wrong."

"I don't know." Owens' face was a contorted mask of effort. "The ship won't handle."

Michaels' voice came up tensely, "Captain Owens, correct your course. We're approaching the wall."

"I know that," gasped Owens. "We're in some sort of current."

Grant said, "Keep trying. Do your best."

He swung down and, with his back against the ladder, trying to hold steady against the heaving of the ship, said, "Why should there be a cross-current here? Aren't we going along with the arterial flow?"

"Yes," said Michaels, emphatically, his face waxen in its pallor, "there can't be anything to force us sideways like this." He pointed outward at the arterial wall, much closer now and still approaching. "There must be something wrong with the controls. If we strike the wall and damage it, a clot may form about us and fix us there, or the white cells may respond."

Duval said, "But this is impossible in a closed system. The laws of hydrodynamics..."

"A closed system?" Michaels' eyebrows shot upward. With an effort, he staggered his way to his charts, then moaned, "It's no use, I need more magnification and I can't get it here. -Watch it, Owens, keep away from the wall."

Owens . shouted back: "I'm trying. I tell you there's a current that I can't fight."

"Don't try to fight it directly, then," cried Grant. "Give the ship its head and confine yourself to trying to keep its course parallel to the wall."

They were close enough now to see every detail of the wall. The strands of connective tissue that served as its chief support were like trusses, almost like Gothic arches, yellowish in color and glimmering with a thin layer of what seemed a fatty substance.

The connective strands stretched and bowed apart as though the whole structure were expanding, hovered a moment, then moved together again, the surface between the trusses crinkling as they closed in. Grant did not need to ask to realize he was watching the arterial wall pulse in time to the beat of the heart.

The buffeting of the ship was growing worse. The wall was closer still and beginning to look ragged. The connective strands had worked loose in spots, as though they themselves had been withstanding a raging torrent for much longer than ever the Proteus had, and were beginning to buckle under the strain. They swayed like cables of a gigantic bridge, coming up to the window and sliding past wetly, giving off their sparkling yellow color in the jumping beam of the ship's headlights.

The approach of the next made Cora scream in shrill terror.

Michaels shouted, "Watch out, Owens."

Duval muttered, "The artery is damaged."

But the current swept around the living buttress and carried the ship with it, throwing it into a sickening lurch that piled everyone helplessly against the left wall.

Grant, his left arm having withstood a painful slam, caught at Cora with his other and managed to keep her upright. Staring straight ahead he was trying to make sense out of the sparkling light.

He shouted, "Whirlpool! Get into your seats, all of you. Strap yourselves in."

The formed particles, from red corpuscles down, were virtually motionless outside the window for the moment as all were caught in the same whirling current while the wall blurred into yellow featurelessness.

Duval and Michaels struggled to their seats and wrenched at their harnesses.

Owens shouted, "Some sort of opening dead ahead." Grant said urgently to Cora, "Come on. Pull yourself into your seat."

"I'm trying," she gasped.

Desperately, all but unable to keep his footing against the sharp swaying of the ship, Grant pushed her down and then reached for her harness.

It was quite too late. The Proteus was caught up in the whirlpool now and was lifted upward and round with the force of a carnival whip."

Grant managed to seize a stanchion by a reflex grab and reached out for Cora. She had been hurled to