Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,63

this stinking ship." Grant pushed at the fibers that were flush with the filters and pulled at those that weren't. Cora and Michaels did the same.

Cora said, "We're making it."

Michaels said, "But we're in the cochlea a lot longer than we had expected to be. At any moment, some sound ... "

"Shut up," said Grant irritably, "and finish the job."

Carter made as if to tear at his hair and then held back. "No, no, no, NO!" he cried. "They've stopped again."

He pointed at the message written on a piece of paper and held up in his direction from one of the television screens.

"At least he remembered not to talk," said Reid. "Why do you suppose they've stopped?"

"How in the world do I know? Maybe they've stopped for a coffee-break. Maybe they've decided to stop for a sunbath. Maybe the girl ..."

He broke off. "Well, I don't know. All I do know is that we have only twenty-four minutes left."

Reid said, "The longer they stay in the inner ear, the more nearly certain it will be that some joker will make a sound-sneeze-something."

"You're right." Carter thought, then said softly, "Oh, for the love of Mike. It's the simple solutions we don't see. Call in that messenger boy."

The security man entered again. He didn't salute.

Carter said. "You still have your shoes off? Okay. Take this down and show it to one of the nurses. You remember about the disemboweling?"

"Yes, sir."

The message read: COTTON AT BENES' EARS.

Carter lit a cigar and watched through the control window as the security man entered, hesitated a moment, then moved with quick, gingerly steps to one of the nurses.

She smiled, looked up at Carter and made a circle of her thumb and forefinger.

Carter said, "I have to think of everything."

Reid said, "It will just deaden the noise. It won't stop it."

"You know what they say about half a loaf," said Carter.

The nurse slipped off her own shoes and was at one of the tables in two steps. Carefully, she opened a fresh box of absorbent cotten and unrolled two feet of it.

She pulled off a fistful in one hand, and seized a fistful in the other. It didn't come readily. She pulled harder, her hand went flying outward, striking a pair of scissors on the table.

It skittered off the table, striking the hard floor. The nurse's foot flew desperately after it, clamping down upon it hard, but not until after it had given out one sharp, metallic clang like the hiccup of a fallen angel.

The nurse's face reddened into a look of deathly horror; everyone else in the room turned to stare; and Carter, dropping his cigar, crumpled into his chair.

"Finished!" he said.

Owens turned on the engine and gently checked the controls. The needle on the temperature gauge, which had been well into the danger zone almost since they had entered the cochlear duct, was dropping.

He said, "It looks good. Are you all set out there?"

Grant's voice sounded in his ear. "Nothing much left. Get ready to move. We're coming in."

And at that moment, the universe seemed to heave. It was as though a fist had driven up against the Proteus, which lifted high. Owens seized a panel for support and held on desperately, listening to a distant thunder.

Below, Duval, as desperately, held on to the laser, trying to cushion it against a world gone mad.

Outside, Grant felt himself flung high in the air as though caught in the grip of a huge tidal wave. He flipped over and over and plunged into the wall of the cochlear duct. He was shaken loose from the wall, which seemed to be caving forward.

Somewhere in a miraculously-calm segment of his mind, Grant knew that on the ordinary scale the wall was responding with rapid vibrations of microscopic amplitude to some sharp sound, but that thought was buried in sheer shock.

Grant tried desperately to locate the Proteus but he caught only a quick glimpse of its headlights flashing against a distant section of the wall.

Cora had been holding on to a projection of the Proteus at the moment the vibration had struck. Instinctively, her grip tightened and for a moment she rode the Proteus as though it were an insanely bucking bronco. The breath was jerked out of her and when her grip was torn away, she went skidding across the floor of the membrane on which the ship had been resting.

The ship's headlights caught the path ahead of her and though she tried in horror to brake her motion