Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,78

I waited until I was sure, and I was never really sure.

"We were plagued with a series of accidents, or what might possibly have been accidents. For instance, the laser was damaged and there was the chance that Miss Peterson had damaged it? But why in so clumsy a fashion? She knew a dozen ways of gimmicking the laser so that it would seem perfectly all right and yet not work properly. She could have arranged it so that Duval's aim would be off just enough to make it inevitable that he kill the nerve, or perhaps even Benes. A crudely damaged laser was either an accident, then, or the deliberate work of someone other than Miss Peterson.

"Then, too, my lifeline came loose in the lungs and I nearly died as a result. Duval was the logical suspect there, but it was he who suggested that the ship's headlight be shone into the gap, and that saved me. Why try to kill me and then act to save me? It doesn't make sense. Either that was an accident, too, or my lifeline had been loosened by someone other than Duval.

"We lost our air-supply, and Owens might have arranged that little disaster. But then when we pulled in more air, Owens improvised an air-miniaturization device that seemed to, do miracles. He could easily not have done so and no one of us would have been able to accuse him of sabotage. Why bother to lose our air and then work like the devil to gain it back? Either that was an accident, too, or the air supply had been sabotaged by someone other than Owens.

"I could omit myself from consideration, since I knew that I wasn't engaged in sabotage. That left Michaels. "

Carter said, "You reasoned that he had been responsible for all those accidents."

"No, they might still have been accidents. We'll never know. But if it were sabotage then Michaels was far and away the most likely candidate for he was the only one who was not involved in a last-minute rescue, or who might be expected to have performed a more subtle piece of sabotage. So now let's consider Michaels.

"The first accident was the encounter with the arterio-venous fistula. Either that was an honest misfortune or Michaels had guided us into it deliberately. If this was sabotage, then unlike all the other cases, only one culprit was conceivable, only one - Michaels. He admitted as much himself at one point. Only he could possibly have guided us into it; only he could possibly know Benes' circulatory system well enough to spot a microscopic fistula; and it was he who directed the exact spot of insertion into the artery in the first place."

Reid said, "It might still have been a misfortune; an honest error."

"True! But whereas in all the other accidents, those who were involved as possible suspects did their best to pull us through, Michaels, after we had emerged into the venous system, argued hard for immediate abandonment of the mission. He did the same at every other crisis. He was the only one to do so consistently. And yet that wasn't the real giveaway as far as I was concerned."

"Well, then, what was the giveaway?" asked Carter.

"When the mission first started and we were miniaturized and inserted into the carotid artery, I was scared. We were all a little uneasy, to say the least, but Michaels was the most frightened of all. He was almost paralyzed with fear. I accepted that at the time. I saw no disgrace in it. As I said, I was pretty frightened myself, and in fact, I was glad of the company. But ... "

"But?"

"But after we had gotten through the arterio-venous fistula, Michaels never showed any trace of fear again. At times when the rest of us were nervous, he was not. He had become a rock. In fact, at the start, he had given me plenty of statements on what a coward he was-to explain his obvious fear-but toward the end of the voyage, he was offended almost to frenzy when Duval implied he wits a coward. That change in attitude got to seeming queerer and queerer to me.

"It seemed to me there had to be a special reason for his initial fear. As long as he faced dangers with the rest of us, he was a brave man. Perhaps, then, it was when he faced a danger the rest of us did not share that he was afraid. The inability