"I understand. But the larger we get, Arkady, the more difficult it will be to pass between the fibers. The neurons of the brain are well-protected. The brain is the only organ to be completely encased in bone and the neurons themselves, which are the most irregular in the body, are well-packed with intercellular material. Look for yourself. It's only if we're down to the size of a glucose molecule that we can make our way through and around the collagen without, perhaps, doing drastic damage to the brain."

At this point, Konev committed the unusual act of turning in his seat, looking upward as he turned to his left so that his glance passed over Kaliinin before meeting Boranova's eyes. He said, "I don't think we have to travel onward completely blind - completely at random."

"How otherwise, Yuri?" asked Boranova.

"Surely the neurons give themselves away. Each has nerve impulses running its length periodically and at very short intervals. That might be detected."

Morrison frowned. "The neurons are insulated."

"The axons are - not the cell bodies."

"But it is the axons where the nerve impulse is strongest."

"No, it is the synapses where the nerve impulse may be strongest and they are not insulated, either. The synpases ought to be sparking all the time and you ought to be able to detect it."

Morrison said, "We couldn't in the capillary."

"We were on the wrong side of the capillary wall at the time. - Look, Albert, why are you arguing the matter? I'm asking you to try to detect brain waves. That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"I was kidnapped," said Morrison violently. "That's why I'm here."

Boranova leaned forward. "Albert, whatever the reason, you're here and Yuri's suggestion is a reasonable one. - And, Yuri, must you always be confrontational?"

Morrison found himself shaking with anger and for a moment he wasn't sure why. Konev's suggestion was indeed reasonable.

Then it occurred to him that he was being asked to put his theories to the test under conditions which would allow him no escape. He was on the very border of a brain cell that was magnified with respect to himself to mountainous proportions. He might be asked next to make his test inside, actually inside, such a cell. And if he did - and if he failed - under what blanket of argument and excuse could he hide from the fact that his work was wrong and had always been wrong?

He was angry, surely, at being thrust into this uncomfortable corner by circumstance and not at Konev particularly.

He was aware of Boranova waiting for him to say something and of Konev maintaining his incandescent stare.

Morrison said, "If I detect signals, I will detect them from all sides. Except for the capillary we have just left, we're surrounded by uncounted numbers of neurons."

"But some are closer than others," said Konev, "and one or two would be closest of all. Can't you detect the direction from which the signals will be the strongest? We can home in on that signal."

"My receiving device isn't equipped to determine directional signals."

"Ah! Then Americans, too, make use of devices that are equipped for specific purposes and do not prepare for emergency needs. It is not merely the ignorant Soviets who -"

"Yuri!" said Boranova sternly.

Konev swallowed. "I suppose you'll tell me I'm confrontational again. In that case, Natalya, you tell him to think of a way of devising something that will tell him the direction from which the strongest signals are coming."

"Please, Albert, make the attempt," said Boranova. "If you fail, we shall just have to blunder our way through this collagen jungle and hope we come upon something before too long."

"We're blundering onward even as we speak," put in Dezhnev almost cheerfully, "but I still see nothing."

Still angry, Morrison activated his computer and put it into the brain wave reception mode. The screen flickered, but it was only noise - though the noise was more prominent than it had been within the capillary.

Until now, he had always used leads that involved micropositioning inside a nerve. Where was he to put the leads now? He had no nerve to put them into - or, rather, he was already inside the brain, which made the whole matter of positioning anomalous. Perhaps, though, if he let the leads (made as stiff as possible) rise in the air and spread apart like a pair of antennae, they might play the part. At their present size, the spread would be tiny and could scarcely be useful but -

He doubled and redoubled the leads and they stood up in long loops, looking very much like the insect antennae that had first given them their names. He then focused and sharpened reception as well as he could and the flickering on the screen suddenly broke into deep narrow waves - but only for a moment. Involuntarily, he let out a cry.

"What happened?" said Boranova, startled.

"I received something. Just a flash. But it's gone."

"Try again."

Morrison looked up. "Listen. All of you. Quiet. Working this thing is difficult and I manage best when I can concentrate entirely. Understood? No noise. Nothing."

"What was it you received?" said Konev softly.

"What?"

"Like a flash. You received something like a flash. May we know what it was?"

"No. I don't know what I received. I want to listen again." He looked behind him to the left. "Natalya, I'm in no position to give orders, but you are. I am not to be disturbed by anyone, particularly by Yuri."

"We will all be quiet," said Boranova. "Proceed, Albert. - Yuri, not one word."

Morrison looked sharply to his left, for there had been a soft touch on his hand. Kaliinin was looking at him keenly and there was a small smile on her face. She mouthed words in an exaggerated fashion and he managed to catch the Russian: "Pay no attention to him. Show him! Show him!"

Her eyes seemed to glitter. Morrison could not help but smile warmly in response. She might be motivated entirely by a desire for vengeance against the man who had abandoned her, but he enjoyed the look of assurance and faith that was present in her eyes.

(How long ago had it been since a woman had looked at him with pride and with trust in his abilities? How many years ago had it been since Brenda had lost hers?)

A spasm of self-pity shook him and he had to wait for a moment.

Back to the device. He tried to shut out the world, shut out his condition, think only of his computer, only of the tiny fluctuations in the electromagnetic field produced by the interchange of sodium and potassium ions across the neuronic membrane.

The screen flashed again, steadied, and resolved into a pattern of low peaks and valleys. Carefully, barely daring to touch the keys, Morrison threw in an expansion directive. The peaks and valleys spread out, the edges sliding off the screen. On the single peak and valley left remaining, there was a fuzzy smaller wiggle.

It's recording the waves, he thought, afraid to say so, afraid even to think it with any intensity, lest the slightest physical or mental effect suffice to blank it out.

The minor wiggle - the skeptic waves, as he called them - went out of focus and back in, never quite sharpening.

Morrison wasn't surprised. He might be detecting the fields of a number of cells that didn't quite duplicate each other. There was also the insulating effect of the plastic wall of the ship. There was the eternal shaking of Brownian motion. There might even be the interfering charge of atom groupings outside the miniaturization field.

The wonder was that he had gotten waves at all.

Slowly he made hand contact with the antennae - slid his fingers up and down, first one hand, then the other, then both in unison, then both in opposite directions. Then he bent the antennae gently, this way and that. There were sharpening and fuzzing of the skeptic waves, but he didn't know, for certain, exactly what he was doing that resulted in the sharpening.