"I suppose so," said Morrison, "yet I can't help but think we are crashing without any right through an infinitely delicate mechanism not meant for technological invasion."

"I appreciate your feeling," said Boranova, "but hardly anything in the world seems to have been brought into being by geological and biological processes with any apparent pre-vision of human interference. Humanity does a great deal of wrong to Earth and to life, some of it wittingly. - Incidentally, I'm thirsty. Are you?"

"Definitely," said Morrison.

"You'll find a cup in the little recess under your right armrest. Pass it back."

She distributed water to all five, saying matter-of-factly, "There's no shortage of water, so if you want seconds, say so."

Dezhnev looked at his cup distastefully, while keeping one hand on the controls. He sniffed at it and said, "My father used to say: 'There is no drink like pure water, provided one realizes that it is alcohol that is the purifying agent.'"

"Yes, Arkady," said Boranova. "I am quite sure your father purified his water frequently, but here on the ship, with your hands on the controls, you will have your water unpurified."

"We must all go through privations now and then," said Dezhnev, who then downed his water and made a face.

It might have been the taste of the water that caused Kaliinin to fumble between her legs. It took a moment for Morrison to realize that it was her turn to urinate and he turned his head toward the window and waited to see if another collagen fiber might go flying.

Boranova said, "I suppose, strictly speaking, it's lunchtime, but we can do without. Still -"

"Still what?" asked Dezhnev. "A good plate of piping hot borscht with sour cream?"

Boranova said, "What I have smuggled in against regulations are bits of chocolate - high-calorie, zero-fiber."

Kaliinin, who had disposed of her small damp paper towel and was shaking her hands to dry them, said, "It will rot our teeth."

"Not immediately," said Boranova, "and you can rinse your mouth with a little water to reduce the sugar residue. Who wants one?"

Four hands went up, Kaliinin's not the last. Morrison welcomed his gladly. He was fond of chocolate in any case and sucked at it to make it last longer. The taste reminded him poignantly of his boyhood in the outskirts of Muncie.

The chocolate was gone when Konev said to Morrison in a low voice, "Have you sensed anything while we've been skimming past the glial cell?"

"No," said Morrison. (He hadn't.) "Have you?"

"I thought I did. The phrase 'green fields' crossed my mind."

Morrison could not prevent himself from saying "Hmm" and for a while remained lost in thought.

"Well?" said Konev.

Morrison shrugged. "Phrases go through one's mind all the time. You hear something out of the corner of your ear, so to speak, and sometime later it penetrates your consciousness; or some stream-of-consciousness thoughts invade your mind and one phrase surfaces; or you can have an auditory hallucination of some sort."

"It crossed my mind when I was looking at your instrument and concentrating."

"You wanted to be aware of something, I suppose, and something promptly obliged by flitting through your mind in response. You get the same effect in dreams."

"No. This was real."

"How can you tell, Yuri? - I didn't sense any such thing. Did anyone else sense it, do you suppose?"

"They wouldn't. No one else was concentrating on your machine. Perhaps no one else in the ship had a brain sufficiently like yours to sense on your wavelength, so to speak."

"You're just guessing. Besides, what does the phrase mean?"

"Green fields? Shapirov had a house out in the country. He would remember the green fields."

"He might have merely supplied the image. You would supply the words."

Konev frowned, paused a moment, then said in a clearly hostile manner, "Why are you so opposed to the possibility of getting a message?"

Morrison allowed himself to be equally hostile. "Because I've been burned by reporting such sense perceptions. I've been ridiculed long enough and I have become cautious. An image of a woman and two children doesn't tell us anything. Neither does a phrase like 'green fields.' If you report it, how can you possibly tell it from a self-generated image or phrase? Now listen, Yuri, a hint, to be useful, must, however vaguely and indirectly, tie in with the quantum-relativity relationship. That we can report. Anything less than that is not compelling; it won't force belief. It will only succeed in hurting us. I speak from experience."

Konev said, "What, then, if you succeed in hearing something vital, something that bears on our project? Will you perhaps keep it to yourself?"

"Why should I? If I sense something in physics relating to miniaturization, I would lack the background to understand it and keeping it to myself would get me nowhere. If some useful result is shared between us, this computer remains my machine and it is activated by my theory. I am the one who will get the major share of the credit. I won't keep it to myself, Yuri. Both my self-interest and my honor as a scientist will keep me from doing that. - And what about you?"

"Of course I'll share whatever I sense. I have been doing so just now."

"I don't mean 'green fields.' That is nonsense. Suppose you sense something very significant and I don't. Might it not occur to you that the knowledge would be a state secret, as miniaturization itself is? Would you then tell me that knowledge and risk the wrath of your Central Coordinating Committee."

They had been speaking in whispers, heads together, but Boranova's ears picked up the key word. "Politics, gentlemen?" she asked frostily.

Konev said, "We're discussing the possible uses of Albert's instrument, Natalya. If I learn something of importance from Shapirov's skeptic waves and Albert does not, he thinks I will keep it from him under the excuse that it is a state secret."

Boranova said, "It well may be."

Konev said mildly, "We need Albert's cooperation. It is his machine and his program and I am sure he knows how to work it at less than perfect efficiency. If he is not completely assured of our honesty and goodwill, he may arrange to have us sense nothing. I am willing to share anything that I sense if he will do the same."

"The Committee may disapprove, as Albert himself pointed out," said Boranova.

"Let it. I don't concern myself with it," said Konev.

"I'll prove I love you, Yuri," interposed Dezhnev with a chuckle. "I won't quote you."

Kaliinin said, "Natalya, I agree that we should be honest with Albert, since we must ask him to be honest with us. Using his own device with which he has experience, he is far more likely to come up with something useful than we are. A policy of quid pro quo is likely to be far more to our advantage than to his. - Isn't that so, Albert?"

Morrison nodded. "I've been thinking precisely that and would have mentioned it if it looked as though you were going to tell me that it was against government policy to be honest with me."

Boranova said, "Well, let us await events." The tension died down.

Morrison remained busy with his own thoughts, watching his machine only in abstraction.

And then Dezhnev said, "There's another cell just ahead - a kilometer or two. It looks as though it might be larger than the one we've been passing. Is that a neuron, Yuri?"

Konev, who seemed to have been in a brown study of his own, snapped to attention. "Albert, what does your machine say? Is that a neuron?"

Morrison was already handling his device. "It must be," he said. "I've never seen the skeptic waves this sharp."

"Good!" said Dezhnev. "Now what?"