Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,38

the floor. Her fingers curled over the arm of her chair, and strained uselessly.

They were not going to hold, Grant knew, and he reached for her desperately, but he was a good foot short. His own arm was slipping from the stanchion, as he reached for her.

Duval was struggling uselessly in his own seat, but centrifugal pressure had him pinned. "Hold on, Miss Peterson. I will try to help."

With an effort he had reached his harness, while Michaels watched, eyes turning toward them in frozen helplessness, and Owens, pinned in his bubble, remained completely out of the picture.

Cora's legs lifted from the ground in response to the centrifugal effect. "I can't ...

Grant, out of sheer lack of alternatives, released his own hold. He slithered across the floor, hooked a leg around the base of a chair with a blow that numbed it, managed to transfer his left arm there, too, and with his right caught Cora about the waist as her own grip gave way.

The Proteus was turning faster, now, and seemed to be angling downward. Grant could stand the strained position of his body no longer and his leg flipped away from the chair leg. His arm, already bruised and painful by earlier contact with the wall, took the additional strain with an ache that made it feel as though it were breaking. Cora clutched at his shoulder and seized the material of his uniform with vise-like desperation.

Grant managed to grunt out, "Has anyone-figured out what's happening?"

Duval, still struggling futilely with his harness, said, "It's a fistula-an arterio-venous fistula."

With an effort, Grant raised his head and looked out the window once more. The damaged arterial wall came to an end dead ahead. The yellow sparkling ceased and a blackened ragged gap was visible. It reached as high and as low as his restricted vision could make out and red corpuscles, as well as other objects, were vanishing into it. Even the occasional terrifying blobs of white cells which appeared sucked rapidly through the hole.

"Just a few seconds," gasped Grant. "Just a few, Cora." He was telling it to himself, to his. own aching, bruising arm.

With a final vibration that nearly stunned Grant with the agony he had to endure, they were through, and slowing, slowing, into sudden calm.

Grant released his hold and lay there, panting heavily. Slowly, Cora managed to get her legs under her and stand up.

Duval was free now. "Mr. Grant, how are you?" He knelt down at Grant's side.

Cora knelt down, too, touching Grant's arm gently, venturing to try to knead it. Grant grimaced in pain, "Don't touch it!"

"Is it broken?" asked Duval.

"I can't tell." Gingerly and slowly, he tried to bend it; then caught his left biceps in his right palm, and held it tightly. "Maybe not. But even if it isn't, it will be weeks before I can do that again."

Michaels had also risen. His face was twisted almost unrecognizably with relief. "We made it. We made it. We're in one piece. How is it, Owens?"

"In good order, I think," said Owens. "Not a red light on the panel. The Proteus took more than it was designed to take and it held." His voice reflected a fierce pride in himself and his ship.

Cora was still brooding helplessly over Grant. She said, in shock, "You're bleeding!"

"I am? Where?"

"Your side. The uniform is showing blood."

"Oh, that. I had a little trouble on the Other Side. It' just a matter of replacing a band-aid. Honestly, it's nothing Just blood."

Cora looked anxious, then unzipped his uniform. "Sit up,' she said. "Please try to sit up." She slipped an arm under his shoulders and struggled him upright, then pulled the uniform down over his shoulders with practiced gentleness.

"I'll take care of it for you," she said. "And thank you., It seems foolishly inadequate, but thank you."

Grant said, "Well, do the same for me sometime, wilt you? Help me into my chair, will you?"

He struggled to his feet now, Cora helping him on one side, Michaels on the other. Duval, after one glance at them, had limped to the window.

Grant said, "Now what happened?"

Michaels said, "An arterio-ven . . . Well, put it this way. An abnormal connection existed between an artery and a small vein. It happens sometimes, usually as the result of physical trauma. It happened to Benes at the time he was hurt in the, car, I suppose. It represents an imperfection, a kind of inefficiency, but in this case not a serious one. It's microscopic; a