Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,74

an enemy on the basis of some uncertain reasoning, he had vacillated.

He would turn himself in, he thought bitterly, as a jackass unfit for his job.

"But they're not moving," said Carter, savagely. They stay there at the clot. Why? Why? Why?"

The Time Recorder read 1.

"It's too late for them to get out now," said Reid.

A message came through from the electroencephalographic unit. "Sir, EEG data indicates Benes' brain action is being restored to normal."

Carter yelled, "Then the operation is a success. Why are they staying behind?"

"We have no way of knowing."

The Time Recorder moved to 0 and a loud alarm went off. Its shrill jangle filled the entire room with the clang of doom and remained so.

Reid raised his voice to be heard. "We've got to take them out."

"It will kill Benes."

"If' we don't take them out, that will kill Benes, too." Carter said, "If there's anyone outside the ship, we won't be able to get him out."

Reid shrugged, "We can't help that. The white cells may get them or they may de-miniaturize unharmed."

"But Benes will die."

Reid leaned toward Carter, and shouted, "There's nothing to be done about that. Nothing! Benes is dead! Do you want to take a chance on killing five more uselessly."

Carter seemed to. shrink within himself. He said, "Give the order!"

Reid went to the transmitter. "Remove the Proteus," he said quietly, then went on to the window overlooking the operating room.

Michaels was only semi-conscious at best when the Proteus came to rest in the dendrites. The sudden veering that had come after the bright flash of the laser-it must have been the laser-had thrown him against the panel with great force. The only sensation he had from his right arm now was one of frightful pain. It had to be broken.

He tried to look behind him, fighting off the haze of agony. There was a tremendous cavity in the rear of the ship and viscous blood plasma bulged inward, held back partly by the pressure of the miniaturized air within the ship and partly by its own surface tension.

The air he had left would last him for the minute or two that would remain before de-miniaturization. Already, even as he watched, it seemed to his dizzying senses that the dendrite cables had narrowed a bit. They couldn't really be shrinking, so he had to be expanding-very slowly just at first.

At full-size, his arm could be taken care of. The others would be killed by white cells and be done with. He would say-he would say-something that would explain the broken ship. And in any case, Benes would be dead and indefinite miniaturization would die with him. There would be peace - peace ...

He watched the dendrites while his body remained limply draped over the control panel. Could he move? Was he paralyzed? Was his back broken as well as his arm?

Dully, he considered the possibility. He felt his sense of comprehension and awareness slipping away as the dendrites became clouded over with a milky haze.

Milky haze?

A white cell!

Of course, it was a white cell. The ship was -larger than the individuals out in the plasma, and it was the ship that was at the site of damage. The ship would be the first to attract the attention of the white cell.

The window of the Proteus was coated with sparkling milk. Milk invaded the plasma at the break in the ship's hull in the rear and struggled to break through the surface tension barrier.

The next to the last sound Michaels heard was the hull of the Proteus, fragile in its makeup of miniaturized atoms, strained to the breaking point with what it had already been through, cracking and splintering under the assault of the white cell.

The last sound he heard was his own laughter.
Chapter 18 : EYE
Cora saw the white cell at almost the time Michaels did.

"Look," she cried in horror.

They stopped, turned to look back.

The white cell was tremendous. It was five times as large in diameter as the Proteus, perhaps larger; a mountain of milky, skinless, pulsing protoplasm in comparison to the individuals watching.

Its large, lobed nucleus, a milky shadow within its substance seemed to be a malevolent, irregular eye, and the shape of the whole creature altered and changed with every moment. A portion bulged toward the Proteus.

Grant started toward the Proteus, almost as though by reflex action.

Cora seized his arm. "What are you going to do, Grant?"

Duval said, excitedly, "There's no way to save him. You'll be throwing away your life."

Grant shook his