Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,5

as I've said, but even so I am a little surprised that he managed it. I have to ask myself: is there a double-double-cross involved? Did They expect us to try to get Benes and have They prepared a pseudo-Benes?"

"I can tell the difference," said Owens, confidently.

"You don't know what can be done these days with plastic surgery and narco-hypnosis. "

"It doesn't matter. The face can fool me, but the conversation won't. Either he knows the Technique" (Owens' momentary whisper clearly capitalized the word) "better than I do' or he's not Benes, whatever he looks like. They can fake Benes' body, perhaps, but not his mind."

They were on the field now. Colonel Gonder looked at his watch. "I hear it. The ship will be landing in minutes-and on time."

Armed men and armored vehicles splayed out to join those that had already surrounded the air-field and turned it into occupied territory sealed off against all but authorized personnel.

The last of the city's lights had faded out, doing no more than to fuzz the horizon to the left. Owens' sigh was one of infinite relief. Benes would be here, at last, in one more moment.

Happy ending?

He frowned at the intonation in his mind that had put a question mark after those two words.

Happy ending! he thought grimly, but the intonation slithered out of control so that it became happy ending?

Again.
Chapter 2 : CAR

Grant watched the lights of the city approaching with intense relief as the plane began its long approach. No one had given him any real details as to the importance of Dr. Benes-except for the obvious fact that he was a defecting scientist with vital information. He was the most important man in the world, they had said-and then had neglected to explain why.

Don't press, they had told him. Don't throw the grease in the fan by getting tense. But the whole thing is vital, they said. Unbelievably vital.

Take it easy, they had said, but everything depends on it; your country, your world, humanity.

So it was done. He might never have made it if they hadn't been afraid of killing Benes. By the time they got to the point where They realized that killing Benes was the only way they could salvage even a draw, it was too late and he was out.

A bullet crease over the ribs was all Grant had to show for it and a long band-aid took care of that.

He was tired now, however, tired to the bone. Physically tired, of course, but also tired of the whole crazy foolishness. In his college days, ten years before, they had called him Granite Grant and he had tried to live up to that on the football field, like a dumb jerk. One broken arm was the result but at least he was lucky enough to have kept his teeth and nose intact so that he could retain that craggy set of good looks. (His lips twitched into a silent, flicking smile.)

And since then, too, he had discouraged the use of first names. Only the monosyllabic grunt of Grant. Very masculine. Very strong.

Except to heck with it. What was it getting him except weariness and every prospect of a short life. He had just passed thirty now and it was time to retire to his first name.

Charles Grant. Maybe even Charlie Grant. Good Old Charlie Grant!

He winced, but then frowned himself firm again. It had to be. Good Old Charlie. That was it. Good old soft Charlie who likes to sit in an arm-chair and rock. Hi, Charlie, nice day. Hey, there, Charlie, looks like rain.

Get yourself a soft job, good old Charlie, and snooze your way to your pension.

Grant looked sidewise at Jan Benes. Even he found something familiar about that shock of grizzled hair, the face with its strong, fleshy nose above the untidy, coarse mustache, likewise grizzled. Cartoonists made do with that nose and mustache alone, but there were his eyes, too, nested in fine wrinkles, and there were the horizontal lines that never left his forehead. Benes' clothes were moderately ill-fitting, but they had left hurriedly, without time for the better tailors. The scientist was pushing fifty, Grant knew, but he looked older.

Benes was leaning forward, watching the lights of the approaching city.

Grant said, "Ever been to this part of the country before, professor?"

"I have never been to any part of your country," said Benes, "or was that intended to be a trick question?" There was a faint but definite trace of accent in