Morrison saw almost nothing. The ship, he felt, was sliding along - or through - a complex protein molecule and then he noticed the formation of a concavity, as when the ship had first entered the first neuron.

Konev had unclasped himself so that he could stand up. (Quite obviously, he was too excited to feel this was something he could do sitting down.)

He said, almost stuttering, "Now, according to the Nastiaspenskaya hypothesis, the filtering out of the important thoughts is most evident immediately after the synapse. Once the cell body is approached, the difference fades. So once we are in the neighboring dendrite, open your minds. Be ready for anything. Say whatever you hear out loud. Describe any images. I'll record everything. You, too, Arkady. Albert, you, too. - We're in now. Begin!"

Chapter 15. Alone!

Morrison watched what followed with a certain detachment. He did not intend to participate actively. If something forced itself into his mind, he would respond and report it. It would be unscientific not to.

Kaliinin, at his left, looked grim and her fingers were idle. He leaned toward her and whispered, "Have you got us back as L-glucose?"

She nodded.

He said, "Are you aware of this Nastiaspenskaya hypothesis?"

She said, "It's not in my field. I've never heard of it."

"Do you believe it?"

But Kaliinin was not to be trapped. She said, "I'm not qualified either to believe or disbelieve, but he believes it. - Because he wants to."

"Do you sense anything?"

"Nothing more than before."

Dezhnev was, of course, silent. Boranova occasionally produced a crisp word or two, which, however, seemed to Morrison's ears to lack conviction.

Only Konev seemed to maintain enthusiasm. At one point, he cried out, "Did anyone get that? Anyone? 'Circular rhythm.' 'Circular rhythm.'"

There was no direct answer and, after a while, Morrison said, "What does that mean, Yuri?"

Konev did not answer. - And even he grew quiet after a while and was reduced to staring blankly ahead as the ship moved onward in the fluid stream.

Boranova asked, "Well, Yuri?"

Konev said rather hoarsely, "I do not understand it."

Dezhnev said, "Yuri, little son, it may be this is a bad neuron and isn't doing much thinking. We'll have to try another and maybe another. The first one may have been simply beginner's luck."

Konev looked at him angrily. "We don't work with single cells. We're in a group of cells - a million of them or more - that are a center of creative thought by Albert's theory. What one of them thinks, they all think - with minor variations."

Morrison said, "That's what I believe I have shown."

Dezhnev said, "Then we don't go looking from cell to cell?"

"It would be no use," said Morrison.

"Good," said Dezhnev heavily, "because we don't have the time and we don't have the energy. So what do we do now?"

In the silence that followed, Konev said again, "I do not understand it. Nastiaspenskaya could not be wrong."

And now Kaliinin, with great deliberation, unclasped herself and stood up.

She said, "I want to say something and I don't want to be interrupted. Natalya, listen to me. We have gone far enough. This is an experiment that perhaps had to be done, even though, in my opinion, it was sure to fail. Well, it has failed."

She pointed a slim finger briefly at Konev, without looking at him. "Some people want to alter the Universe to their liking. Whatever is not so, they would make so by sheer force of will - except that the Universe is beyond any person's will, squeeze he ever so hard.

"I don't know if Nastiaspenskaya is correct or not. I don't know if Albert's theories are correct or not. But this I know-what they think, and what any neuroscientist thinks about the brain generally, must be about a reasonably normal brain. Academician Shapirov's brain is not reasonably normal. Twenty percent of it is nonfunctioning-dead. The rest must be distorted in consequence and the fact that he has been in a coma for weeks shows that.

"Any reasonable human being would realize that Shapirov cannot be thinking in normal fashion. His brain is an army in - in disarray. It is a factory in which all the equipment has been jarred loose. It is sparking randomly, emitting broken thoughts, scattered pieces, splinters of memory. Some men" - she pointed again - "won't admit it because they believe that if they only insist loudly enough and strongly enough, the obvious will retreat and the impossible will somehow come into being."

Konev had now also unclasped and was also standing. He turned slowly and looked at Kaliinin. (Morrison was astonished. Konev was actually looking at her. And on his face there was no visible sign of anger or hatred or contempt. It was a hangdog look, with a touch of self-contempt in it. Morrison felt sure of this.)

Yet Konev's voice was steady and hard as he looked away from Kaliinin and turned to Boranova, addressing her.

"Natalya, was this point made before we embarked on this voyage?"

"If you mean, Yuri, did Sophia say all this to me before this moment? She did not."

"Is there any reason we should be plagued with crew members who have no faith in our work? Why should such a person have agreed to come on this voyage?"

"Because I am a scientist," shot back Kaliinin and she, too, addressed Boranova. "Because I wanted to test the effect of artificial electrical patterns on biochemical interaction. That has been done, so that for me the voyage was a success, and for Arkady, since the ship has handled as it should, and for Albert, since the evidence for his theories is stronger now, I gather, than it was before we came here, and for you, Natalya, since you brought us down here and, presumably, will bring us back safely again. But for one" - pointing at Konev - "it has been a failure and the mental stability of he who has failed would be greatly helped by the frank admission of that failure."

(She's getting back at him with a vengeance, thought Morrison.)

But Konev did not crumple under Kaliinin's forceful attack. He remained surprisingly calm and he said, still to Boranova, "That is not so. That is the reverse of what is true. It was clear from the start that we could not expect Shapirov to think as he did when he was in full health. It was entirely likely we would get bits and pieces of meaning intermingled with meaninglessness and trivialities. That we did. I was hoping to get a higher percentage of meaning in this new neuron immediately past the synapse. There we failed. That makes the task before us more difficult, but not impossible.

"We've got well over a hundred phrases and images we've salvaged from Shapirov's thinking. Don't forget 'nu times c equals m sub s,' which must be significant. There's no possible reason to think of that simply as a triviality."

Boranova said, "Have you thought, Yuri, that it is possible that that fragment of a mathematical expression represents something Shapirov tried and found wanting?"

"I have thought of it, but why should it stick in his mind, in that case? It is certainly worth investigating. And how much of what seems to be trivial or meaningless would not be so if even one phrase or image gave us a necessary hint. With each step forward, other things might more easily fall into place. We certainly have no reason as yet to declare this voyage a failure - or any part in it."

Boranova nodded slightly. "Well, let's hope you're right, Yuri, but, as Arkady has already asked, what do we do now? What, in your opinion, ought we to do now?"