Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,65

reflection of miniaturized light. Each filament shone like a questing sunbeam.

She screamed, "Come quickly. There are antibodies all about." In her thoughts she could see, all too clearly, the antibodies coating the bacterial cell, fuzzing it completely, then crushing it as inter-molecular forces drew the antibodies together.

An antibody had touched her elbow and was clinging there. She shook her arm in revulsion and horror, so that her whole body writhed and went slamming into the column. The antibody did not shake loose. Another joined it, the two fitting together neatly, filaments interlaced.

"Antibodies," muttered Grant.

Michaels said, "She must have done enough damage to surrounding tissue to spark their appearance."

"Can they do anything to her?"

"Not immediately. They're not sensitized to her. No antibodies are deliberately designed for her form. But some will fit somewhere on a sheerly random basis and she will stimulate the formation of more like those that do fit. Then they'll come swarming."

Grant could see them now, swarming already, settling about her like a cloud of tiny fruit-flies.

He said, "Michaels, get back to the sub. One person is enough to risk. I'll get her out of here somehow. If I don't, it will be up to the three of you to get whatever's left of us back into the ship. We can't be allowed to de-miniaturize here-whatever happens."

Michaels hesitated, then said, "Take care," and turned, hastening back to the Proteus.

Grant continued to plunge toward Cora. The turbulence caused by his approach sent the antibodies spinning and dancing rapidly.

"Let's get you out of here, Cora," he panted.

"Oh, Grant. Quickly."

He was pulling desperately at her oxygen cylinders, where they had cut into a column and stuck. Thick strands of viscous material were still oozing outward from the break and it was that, perhaps, which had triggered the arrival of the antibodies.

"Don't move, Cora. Let me . . . Ah!" Cora's ankle was caught between two fibers and he strained them apart. "Now, come with me."

Both executed a half-somersault and started moving away. Cora's body was fuzzed with clinging antibodies but the bulk were left behind. Then, following who knew what kind of equivalent of "scent" on the microscopic scale, they began to follow; first a few, then many, then the entire growing swarm.

"We'll never make it," gasped Cora.

"Yes, we will," said Grant. "Just put every muscle you have into it."

"But they're still attaching themselves. I'm scared, Grant." -

Grant looked over his shoulder at her, then fell back slightly. Her back was half-covered by a mosaic of the wool-balls. They had gauged the nature of her surface well, that part of it at least.

He brushed her back hurriedly, but the antibodies clung, flattening out at the touch of his hand and springing back into shape afterward. A few were now beginning to probe and "taste" Grant's body.

"Faster, Cora!"

"But I can't. .. "

"But you can. Hang on to me, will you?"

They shot upward, over the lip of the precipice, to the waiting Proteus.

Duval helped Michaels up through the hatch. "What's happening out there?"

Michaels pulled off his helmet, gasping. "Miss Peterson was trapped in the Cells of Hensen. Grant is trying to get her loose but antibodies are swarming over her."

Duval's eyes widened. "What can we do?"

"I don't know. Maybe he can get her back. Otherwise, we've got to go on."

Owens said, "But we can't leave them there."

"Of course not," said Duval. "We've got to go out there, all three of us and . . ." Then, harshly, "Why are you back here, Michaels? Why aren't you out there?"

Michaels looked at Duval hostilely, "Because I wouldn't have done any good. I haven't got Grant's muscles or his reflexes. I'd have been in the way. If you want to help, get out there yourself."

Owens said, "We've got to get them back, alive or - or - otherwise. They'll be de-miniaturizing in about a quarter of an hour."

"All right, then," shouted Duval. "Get into your swimsuit and let's get out there."

"Wait," said Owens. "They're coming. I'll get the hatch ready."

Grant's hand was clutching firmly at the wheel of the hatch, while the signal light flashed redly above it. He picked at the antibodies on Cora's -back, pinching the wool-like fibers of one between thumb and forefinger, feeling its soft springiness give and then become a wiry core that gave no further.

He thought: This is a peptide chain.

Dim memories of college courses came back. He had once been able to write the chemical formula of a portion of a peptide chain and here was the real thing.