Then he said sharply, "Wait!"

Before stepping to solid ground, he turned and looked past Kaliinin, who was right behind him.

"What is it, Albert?" she asked.

He said, "I was just taking a last look at the ship because I don't intend ever to see it again - not at a distance, not in films, not in any form of reproduction."

Then he was on normal ground again and the others followed. It was with relief that Morrison saw that every one of them was helped down.

There would then have been some sort of impromptu celebration, but it was Boranova who stepped forward, looking distinctly disheveled and much unlike her usual calm, well-cared-for self - all the more so since she was wearing the thin cotton coverall that did very little to hide the mature lines of her body.

"Fellow workers," she said, "I'm sure there will be appropriate ceremonies at some reasonable time to mark this fantastic voyage of ours, but please, we are in no condition to join you now. We must rest and recover from an arduous time and we beg your indulgence."

They were all led off to wild shouts and frantic waving and only Dezhnev had the presence of mind to take a glass offered to him that contained something that was either water or vodka and Morrison, for one, had no doubt as to which of the alternatives was, in fact, the case. The broad smile on Dezhnev's damp face as he sipped made it certain.

Morrison said to Kaliinin, "How long were we on the ship?"

"I think it was over eleven hours," said Kaliinin.

Morrison shook his head. "It seemed more like eleven years."

"I know," she said, smiling slightly, "but clocks lack imagination."

"One of Dezhnev Senior's aphorisms, Sophia?"

"No. One of my own."

"What I want," said Morrison, "is a chance at the bathroom, and a shower, and fresh clothes, and a good dinner, and a chance to shout and scream, and a good night's sleep. In that order, I think, especially with the bathroom coming first."

"You'll have it all," said Kaliinin, "as will the rest of us."

And they did and the dinner seemed to Morrison to be particularly satisfactory. Throughout their stay on the ship, tension had managed to suppress his appetite, but such things are merely deferred and hunger was gnawing with a vengeance once Morrison felt truly safe, truly comfortable, truly clean, and truly clothed.

The main course at the dinner was a roast goose of enormous size which Dezhnev carved, saying, "Be abstemious, my friends, for as my father used to say: 'Eating too much kills more quickly than eating too little.'"

Having said this, he served himself a much larger helping than he served anyone else.

The one outsider present was a very blond tall man, who was introduced as the military commander of the Grotto, something which could be seen at once, since he was in full uniform with a spate of decorations. The others seemed extraordinarily polite to him and extraordinarily uncomfortable at the same time.

Throughout the meal, Morrison felt the tension returning. The commander looked at him often, with unsmiling gravity, but said nothing to him directly. Because of the commander's presence, he felt uable to ask the important question and then, finally, when he might have raised it after the commander's departure, he suddenly found himself too sleepy. He would not be able to argue it out properly if there were any complications.

And when he finally managed to tumble into bed, his last semiconscious thought was that there would be complications.

Breakfast was late and Morrison found that it was for two. Only Boranova joined him.

He was mildly disappointed, for he had looked forward to the presence of Sophia Kaliinin, but when she failed to appear, he decided not to ask after her. There were other questions he would have to ask.

Boranova looked tired, as though she had not had enough sleep, but she looked happy, too. Or perhaps (Morrison thought) "happy" was too strong a word. Contented, rather.

She said, "I had a good talk with the commander last night and there was a two-way video call with Moscow. Carefully shielded. Comrade Rashchin himself spoke with me and was clearly pleased in the highest degree. He is not a demonstrative man but he told me that he had been in touch with events all yesterday and that, during the interval in which we were not in communication with the outside world, he had been unable to eat or to do anything but pace back and forth. That, perhaps, was an exaggeration. He even said he had wept with joy at hearing that we were all safe and that may be true. Undemonstrative men can be emotional when the dam breaks."

"It sounds good for you, Natalya."

"For the whole project. You understand that, according to the tentative schedule under which we had worked, we were not expected to launch a voyage into a living human body for at least five years. To have done so with a grossly inadequate ship and to have come out of it alive is viewed as a great triumph. Even the bureaucracy in Moscow understood the emergency under which we labored."

"I doubt that we really got what we were after."

"You mean Shapirov's thoughts? That was, of course, Yuri's dream. On the whole, it was fortunate that he talked us all into following that dream. We would never have attempted the voyage otherwise. Nor does the failure of the dream dim our feat. Had we failed to return alive, we can be sure that there would have been much criticism of our folly in attempting the matter. As it is, though, we are the first to have entered a living human body and to have returned alive - a Soviet first that will stand forever in history. There will be no non-Soviet feat of the sort for years and our Soviet leadership is well-aware of that and very satisfied. We are assured of the money we will need for a considerable time, I imagine, provided we can come up with a spectacular feat now and then."

She smiled broadly at this and Morrison nodded and smiled politely with her. He cut away at the ham omelet he had requested and said, "Would it have been diplomatic to emphasize that an American was one of the crew? Was I mentioned at all?"

"Come, Albert, don't think so ill of us. Your feat in turning the ship by hand at the risk of your life was mentioned with emphasis."

"And Shapirov's death? That will not be blamed on us, I hope?"

"The death is understood to have been unavoidable. It is well-known that he was kept alive as long as he was by advanced medical methods only. I doubt that it will be mentioned to any great extent in the records."

"In any case," said Morrison, "the nightmare is over."

"The nightmare? Come, give yourself a month or two and it will seem an exciting episode that you'll be glad you experienced."

"I doubt it."

"You'll see. If you live to witness other such voyages, you'll be delighted to say, 'Ah, but I was on the very first,' and you'll never tire of telling the story to your grandchildren."

That's the opening, thought Morrison. Aloud, he said, "I see you assume that I will see my grandchildren someday. What happens to me once we're finished with breakfast, Natalya?"

"It will be out of the Grotto for you and back to the hotel."

"No no, Natalya. I want more than that. What follows that? I warn you that if the miniaturization project is going to go public and if there's a parade in Red Square, I don't intend to be part of it."

"Parades are out of the question, Albert. We're a long way from going public, although we're closer to it by far than we were the day before yesterday. "

"Let me put it baldly then. I want to go back to the United States. Now."

"As soon as possible, certainly. I imagine there will be pressure from your government."

"I should hope so," said Morrison dryly.