Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,48

more loudly, and in a tone that seemed saturated with chagrin, he said, "Consider how narrow the bore of that snorkel is, all of you. It looks as big around as a man's arm, but how big is a man's arm on our scale?"

"What of it?" said Grant, shortly. He had a firm grip on the snorkel now and he put his back into moving with it toward the capillary wall, disregarding the soreness of his left biceps. "Grab hold, will you, and help pull."

Michaels said, "There's no point to it. Don't you understand? It should have occurred to me sooner, but the air won't go through that thing."

"What?"

"Not quickly enough. Unminiaturized air molecules are quite big compared to the opening in that snorkel. Do you expect air to leak through a tiny tube barely large enough to see through a microscope."

"The air will be under lung-pressure."

"So what? Ever hear of a slow leak in an automobile tire. The hole through which air leaks in such a tire is' probably no smaller than that and is under considerably more pressure than the lung can generate, and it's a slow leak." Michaels grimaced lugubriously. "I wish I had thought of this sooner."

Grant roared, "Owens!"

"I hear you. Don't crack every ear-drum in existence."

"Never mind hearing me. Did you hear Michaels?"

"Yes, I have."

"Is he right? You're the nearest thing to a miniaturization expert we have. Is he right?"

"Well, yes and no," said Owens.

"And what does that mean?"

"It means, yes, the air will go through the snorkel only very slowly unless it is miniaturized and, no, we need not worry if I can succeed in miniaturizing it. I can extend the field through the snorkel and miniaturize the air on the other side and suck that through by ..."

"Won't such a field-extension affect us?" put in Michaels.

"No, I'll have it set for a fixed maximum of miniaturization and we're there already."

"How about the surrounding blood and lung tissue?" asked Duval.

"There's a limit to how sharply selective I can make the field," admitted Owens. "This is only a small miniaturizer I have here but I can confine it to gas. There's bound to be some damage, however. I just hope it won't be too much."

"We'll have to chance it, that's all," said Grant. "Let's get on with it. We can't take forever."

With four pairs of arms encircling the snorkel and four pairs of legs pumping away, it reached the capillary wall.

For a moment, Grant hesitated. "We're going to have to cut through. -Duval!"

Duval's lips curved in a small smile. "There's no need to call on the surgeon. At this microscopic level, you would do as well. There is no skill needed."

He drew a knife from a small scabbard at his waist, and looked at it. "It undoubtedly has miniaturized bacteria on it. Eventually, they will de-miniaturize in the blood-stream but the white cells will take care of them, then. Nothing pathogenic in any case, I hope."

"Please get on with it, doctor," said Grant, urgently.

Duval slashed quickly with his knife between two of the cells that made up the capillary. A neat slit opened. The thickness of the wall might be a ten-thousandth of an inch in the world generally, but on their own miniaturized scale the thickness amounted to several yards. Duval stepped into the slit and forced his way through, breaking stands of inter-cellular cement and cutting further. The wall was perforated at last and the cells drew apart, like the lips of a gaping wound.

Through the wound could be seen another set of cells, at which Duval slashed neatly and with precision.

He returned and said, "It's a microscopic opening. There'll be no loss of blood to speak of."

"No loss at all," said Michaels emphatically. "The leakage is the other way."

And, indeed, a bubble of air seemed to bulge inward at the opening. It bulged further and then stopped. Michaels put his hand to the bubble. A portion of its surface pushed inward, but the hand did not go through

"Surface tension!" he said.

"What now?" demanded Grant.

"Surface tension, I tell you. At any liquid surface there is a kind of skin effect. To something as large as a human being, an unminiaturized human being, the effect is too small to be noticed, but insects can walk on water surfaces because of it. In our miniaturized state, the effect is even stronger. We may not be able to get beyond the barrier."

Michaels drew his knife and plunged it into the fluid-gas interface as, a moment before,