Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,57

to his work that he doesn't notice his assistant seems aware of your existence. You are a fine-looking young man, Grant, and you have saved her serious injury at the time of the whirlpool; perhaps even her life. Duval watched that and he must have watched her reaction."

"There was no reaction. She's not interested in me."

"I watched her when you were lost in the alveolus. She was distraught. What was obvious to anyone then, might have been obvious to Duval much sooner-that she was attracted to you. And he might have gotten rid of you for that reason."

Grant bit at his lower lip in thought, then said, "All right. And the loss of air. Was that an accident, too?"

Michaels shrugged. "I don't know. I suspect you will suggest that Owens might have been responsible for that."

"He might. He knows the ship. He designed it. He can best gimmick its controls. And only he checked on what was wrong."

"That's right, you know. That's right."

"And for that matter," went on Grant with gathering anger, "what about the arterio-venous fistula? Was that an accident, or did you know it was there?"

Michaels sat back in his chair and looked blank. "Good Lord, I hadn't thought of that. I give you my word, Grant, I sat here and honestly thought there wasn't a thing that happened that could possibly point in my direction specifically. I realized that it could be maintained that I had slyly damaged the laser or undone your lifeline knot or jammed the air chamber valve when no one was looking-or all three, for that matter. But in each case it was so much more likely that someone else had done it. The fistula, I admit, could be no one but myself."

"That's right."

"Except, of course, that I didn't know it was there. But I can't prove that, can I?"

"No."

Michaels said, "Do you ever read detective stories, Grant?"

"In my younger days I read quite a few. Now ..."

"Your profession spoils the fun. Yes, I can well imagine that. But you know, in detective stories, it is always so simple. A subtle clue points to one person and one person only and the detective sees it though no one else does. In real life, it seems, the clues point everywhere."

"Or nowhere," said Grant, firmly. "We could be dealing with a series of accidents and misfortunes."

"We could," conceded Michaels.

Neither, however, sounded very convincing. -Or convinced.
Chapter 14 : LYMPHATIC
Owens' voice sounded from the bubble, "Dr. Michaels, look ahead. Is that the turnoff?"

They could feel the Proteus slowing.

Michaels muttered, "Too much talk. I should have been watching."

Immediately ahead was an open-ended tube. The thin walls facing them were ragged, fading away, almost into nothingness. The opening was barely wide enough for the Proteus.

"Good enough," called out Michaels. "Head into it."

Cora had left the work-bench to look forward in wonder, but Duval remained in his place, still working, with infinite, untiring patience.

"That must be a lymphatic," she said.

They had entered and the walls surrounded them, no thicker than those of the capillary they had left some time back.

As in the capillaries, the walls were made up, quite clearly, of cells in the shape of flat polygons, each with a rounded nucleus at the center. The fluid through which they were passing was very similar to that in the pleural cavity, sparkling yellowish in the Proteus headlights, and lending a yellow cast to the cells. The nuclei were deeper in color, almost orange.

Grant said, "Poached eggs! They look exactly like poached eggs!" Then, "What's a lymphatic?"

"It's an auxiliary circulatory system in a way," said Cora, explaining eagerly. "Fluid squeezes out of the very thin capillaries and collects in spaces in the body and between the cells. That's interstitial fluid. These drain off into tiny tubes or lymphatics that are open at their ends, as you saw just now. These tubes gradually combine into larger and larger tubes until the largest are the size of veins. All the lymph ... "

"That's the fluid about us?" asked Grant.

"Yes. All the lymph is collected into the largest lymphatic of all, the thoracic duct, which leads into the subclaviar vein in the upper chest and is thus restored to the main circulatory system."

"And why have we entered the lymphatic?"

Michaels leaned back, the course momentarily secure. "Well," he put in, "it's a quiet backwater. There's no pumping effect of the heart. Muscular pressures and tensions move the fluid and Benes isn't having many of those right now. So we can be assured a quiet