Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,70

the essence," said Michaels, harshly. "I would have thought it was the soul. Where is the human soul, Duval?"

"Because I can't point it out, do you think it doesn't exist?" demanded Duval. "Where is Benes', genius? You are in his brain. Point to his genius."

"Enough!" said Grant.

Michaels called up to Owens. "We're almost there. Cross over into the capillary at the indicated point. Just push through."

Duval said thoughtfully, "That's the awesome thing of it. We're not just in the mind of a man. This, all about us, is the mind of a scientific genius; someone I would put almost on a par with Newton."

He was silent for a moment and then quoted:

"... Where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face. The marble index of a mind . . ."

Grant cut in, with an awed whisper:

"... forever Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone."

Both were silent for an instant, and Grant said, "Do you think Wordsworth ever thought of this, or could have, when he spoke of `strange seas of thought.' This is the literal sea of thought, isn't it? And strange it is, too."

Cora said, "I didn't think of you as the poetic type, Grant."

Grant nodded. "All muscle, no mind. That's me."

"Don't be offended."

Michaels said, "When you are done with mumbling poetry, gentlemen, look ahead."

He pointed. They were in the blood-stream again, but the red corpuscles (bluish in color) drifted without any definite motion, shuddering slightly in response to Brownian motion, no more. Up ahead was a shadow.

A forest of dendrites could be seen through the transparent walls of the capillary; each strand, each twig with its line of sparkle moving along itself-but more slowly now, and still more slowly. And after a certain point, there were no more sparkles.

The Proteus came to a halt. For an instant or two, there was silence, then Owens, said quietly, "That's our destination, I think."

Duval nodded. "Yes. The clot."
Chapter 17 : CLOT
Duval said: "Notice how the nerve action ends at the clot. That's visible evidence of nerve damage; possibly irreversible. I wouldn't swear that we can help Benes now, even if we remove the clot."

"Good thinking, doctor," said Michaels sarcastically. "That excuses you, doesn't it?"

"Shut up, Michaels," said Grant, coldly.

Duval said, "On with the swim-suit, Miss Peterson. This had got to be done right now. -And put it on inside out. The antibodies are sensitized to its normal surface and there may be some about."

Michaels smiled wearily. "Don't trouble yourselves. It's too late." He pointed to the Time Recorder, which was just making the slow, slow change from 7 to 6.

He said, "You couldn't possibly perform the operation in time to allow us to get to the removal point in the jugular. Even if you succeed in the removal of the clot, we'll end by de-miniaturizing right here and killing Benes. "

Duval did not stop in his donning of the suit. Nor did Cora. Duval said, "Well, then, he'll be no worse off than he will be if we don't operate."

"No, but we will. We'll get larger slowly at first. It may take us a whole minute to reach a size that will attract the attention of a white blood cell. There are millions of them around this site of injury. We'll be engulfed."

"So?"

"I doubt that either the Proteus or we could withstand the physical strain placed upon us by the compression within a digestive vacuole inside a white cell. Not in our miniaturized state, and not after all the ship and we have already gone through. We'll continue expanding, but when we are back to full size, it will be as a crushed ship and crushed human beings. -You had better leave here, Owens, and make it as quickly as you can for the removal point."

"Hold it," interposed Grant, angrily. "Owens, how long will it take us to removal point?"

Owens said, faintly, "Two minutes!"

"That leaves us four minutes. Maybe more. Isn't it true that de-miniaturization after sixty minutes is a conservative estimate? Couldn't we remain miniaturized for longer, if the field holds a little longer than expected."

"Maybe," said Michaels, flatly, "but don't kid yourself. A minute longer. Two minutes at the outside. We can't beat the Uncertainty principle."

"All right. Two minutes. And mightn't it take longer to de-miniaturize than we're counting on?"

Duval said, "It might take a minute or two, if we're lucky."

Owens put in. "It's because of the random nature of the basic structure of the universe. With luck, if everything breaks our way ..."

"But only a