Fantastic Voyage - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,9

Defense Forces," he muttered, "Coastal Marine Department Fisheries."

"What?" he said aloud. He had not heard the M.P.'s remark.

"If you'll get in, sir," repeated the M.P. with stiff propriety, indicating the empty seat.

"Sure. Quite a place you have here."

"Yes, sir."

"How big is it?"

They were passing through a cavernous empty area, with trucks and motor-carts lined against the wall, each with its ('MDF insigne.

"Pretty big," said the M.P.

"That's what I like about everybody here," said Grant. "Full of priceless nuggets of data."

The scooter moved smoothly up a ramp to a higher level and a well-populated one. Uniformed individuals, both male and female, moved about busily, and there was an indefinable but undeniable air of agitation about the place.

Grant caught himself following the hurrying footsteps of n girl in what looked like a nurse's uniform (CMDF neatly printed over the curve of one breast) and remembered the plans he had begun to make the evening before.

If this was another assignment ...

The scooter made a sharp turn and stopped before a desk.

The M.P. scrambled out. "Charles Grant, sir."

The officer behind the desk was unmoved at the information. "Name?" he said.

"Charles Grant," said Grant, "like the nice man said."

"I.D. card, please."

Grant handed it over. It carried an embossed number only, to which the officer gave one curt glance. He inserted it into the Identifier on his desk, while Grant watched without much interest. It was precisely like his own wallet Identifier, overgrown and acromegalous. The gray, featureless screen lit up with his own portrait, full-face and profile, looking as it always did in Grant's own eyes-darkly and menacingly gangsterish.

Where was the open, frank' look? Where the charming smile? Where the dimples in his cheeks that drove the girls mad, mad? Only those dark, lowering eyebrows remained to give him that angry look. It was a wonder anyone recognized him.

The officer did, and apparently without trouble-one glance at the photo, one at Grant. The I.D. card was whipped out, handed back, and he was waved on.

The scooter turned right, passed through an archway and then down a long corridor, marked off for traffic, two lanes each way. Traffic was heavy, too, and Grant was the only one not uniformed.

Doors repeated themselves at almost hypnotically periodic intervals on either side, with pedestrian lanes immediately adjacent the walls. Those were less heavily populated.

The scooter approached another archway over which was a sign reading: "Medical Division."

An M.P. on duty in a raised box like that of a traffic policeman hit a switch. Heavy steel doors opened and the scooter slid through and came to a stop.

Grant wondered what part of the city he was under by now.

The man in the general's uniform, who was approaching hastily, looked familiar. Grant placed him just before they had closed to within hand-shaking stage.

"Carter, isn't it? We met on the Transcontinental a couple of years ago. You weren't in uniform then?"

"Hello, Grant. -Oh, darn the uniform. I wear it only for status in this place. It's' the only way we can establish a chain of command. Come with me. -Granite Grant, wasn't it?"

"Oh, well."

They passed through a door into what was obviously ' an operating room. Grant glanced out through the observation window to see the usual sight of men and women in white, bustling about in almost visible asepsis, surrounded by the hard gleam of metal-ware, sharp and cold; and all of it dwarfed and rendered insignificant by the proliferation of electronic instruments that had converted medicine into a branch of engineering.

An operating table was being wheeled in, and a full shock of grizzled hair streamed out over the white pillow.

It was then that Grant had his worst stab, of surprise.

"Benes?" he whispered.

"Benes," said General Carter, bleakly.

"What happened to him?"

"They got to him after all. Our fault. We live in an electronic age, Grant. Everything we do, we do with our transistorized servants in hand. Every enemy we have, we ward off by manipulating an electron flow. We had the route bugged in every possible way, but only for electronified enemies. We didn't count on an automobile with a man at the controls and on rifles with men at the triggers."

"I suppose you got none of them alive."

"None. The man in the car died on the spot. The others were killed by our bullets. We lost a few ourselves."

Grant looked down again. There was the look of blank emptiness on Benes' face that one associated with deep sedation.

"I assume he's alive so that there's hope."

"He's alive. But there isn't much hope."

Grant said,