Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780553273274
Published: 2011-06-18T12:58:16+00:00

46.

The first thing Morrison sensed was cold.

A wave of cold. Then a touch of cold.

Then light.

He was staring at a face. For an interval of time, he did not grasp the fact that it was a face. It was just a pattern of light and shade at first. Then a face. Then the face of Sophia Kaliinin.

She said softly, "Do you know me?"

Slowly, creakily, Morrison nodded.

"Say my name."

"Sophia," he croaked.

"And to your left?"

His eyes turned, and difficulty focusing, then he turned his head. "Natalya," he said.

"How do you feel?"

"Headache." His voice sounded small and far away.

"It will go away."

Morrison closed his eyes and surrendered to the peace of nonstruggle. Just to do nothing was the highest good. To feel nothing.

Then he felt a cool stroke over his groin and his eyes opened again. He discovered that the suit had been removed and he was naked.

He felt arms holding him down and heard a voice say, "Don't worry. We can't give you a shower. There's no water for that. But we can use a damp towel. You need to be cooled -- and cleaned."

"... undignified," he managed, struggling over the syllables.

"Foolish. We'll dry you now. A little deodorant. Then back into your one-piece." Morrison tried to relax. It was only when he felt cotton against his body that he spoke again. He asked, "Did I turn the ship properly?"

"Yes," said Kaliinin, nodding her head vigorously, "and fought off two red corpuscles most savagely. You were heroic."

Morrison said hoarsely, "Help me up." He pushed down with his elbows against his seat and, of course, drifted into the air.

He was brought down.

"I forgot," he muttered. "Well, strap me in. Let me sit and recover."

He fought down the dizzy feeling, then said, "That plastic suit is worthless. A suit for use in the bloodstream of a warm-blooded animal must be cooled."

"We know," said Dezhnev from his seat at the controls. "The next one will be."

"The next one," spat Morrison bitterly.

"At least," said Dezhnev, "you did what was necessary and the suit made that possible."

"At a cost," said Morrison, who then slipped into English in order to express his feelings more accurately.

"I understood that," said Konev. "I lived in the United States, you know. If it will make you feel better, I'll teach you how to say every one of those words in Russian."

"Thanks," said Morrison, "but they taste better in English." He licked his dry lips with a dry tongue and said, "Water would taste still better. I'm thirsty."

"Of course," said Kaliinin. She held a bottle to his lips. "Suck at it gently. It won't pour when it has no mass to speak of. -- Slowly, slowly. Don't waterlog yourself."

Morrison drew his head away from the bottle. "Do we have enough water?"

"You must replace what you lost. We'll have enough."

Morrison drank more, then sighed. "That's much better. -- There was something I thought of when I was out in the capillary. Just a flash. I wasn't sufficiently myself to understand my own thought." He bent his head and ,covered his eyes with his hands.

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