"Not quite. But being in the good new days does not mean we're in heaven. There is still residual suspicion and there are still attempts to take a giant step forward before someone else does. Maybe it's even a good thing. If we're driven by selfish motives of aggrandizement, as long as that doesn't lead to war, we may make more rapid progress. To stop trying to steal a march on neighbors and friends might reduce us to indolence and decay."

"So if I go and am eventually in a position to assure you, authoritatively, that the Soviets are drilling a dry hole or that they are indeed making progress of such and such a nature, then I will be helping not only the United States, but the whole world, to remain vigorous and progressiveeven including the Soviet Union."

Rodano nodded. "That's a good way to look at it."

Morrison said, "I have to give you people credit. You're clever con artists. However, I don't fall for it. I favor cooperation among nations and I'm not going to play these dangerous twentieth-century games in the rational twenty-first. I told Dr. Boranova I wasn't going and I'm telling you I'm not going."

"Do you understand that it is your government that is asking this of you."

"I understand that you are asking me and I'm refusing you. But if it happens that you actually represent the government's views in this, then I am prepared to refuse the government as well."

Morrison sat there, flushed, chin up. His heart was beating rapidly and he felt heroic.

Nothing can make me change my mind, he thought. What can they do? Throw me in jail? What for? They have to have a charge.

He waited for anger from the other. For a threat.

Rodano merely looked at him with an expression of quiet bemusement.

"Why do you refuse, Dr. Morrison?" he asked. "Have you no feelings of patriotism?"

"Patriotism, yes. Insanity, no."

"Why insanity?"

"Do you know what they plan to do with me?"

"Tell me."

"They intend to miniaturize me and place me in a human body to investigate the neurophysical state of a brain cell from the inside."

"Why should they want you to do that?"

"They imply it's to help me with my research, which they claim will also help them, but I certainly don't intend to submit to such an experiment."

Rodano scratched lightly at his fluffy hair, put it into a mild disarray, and quickly flattened it again as though anxious not to show too much pink skin.

He said, "You can't possibly be concerned over this. You tell me that miniaturization is flatly impossible - in which case, they can't miniaturize you whatever their intentions or desires."

"They'll perform some sort of experiment on me. They say they have miniaturization, which means they are either liars or mad, and in either case I won't have them playing games with me - either to do them pleasure, or to do you pleasure, or to do the whole American government pleasure."

"They're not mad," said Rodano, "and whatever their intentions, they know very well we'd hold them responsible for the well-being of an American citizen invited by them to their country."

"Thank you! Thank you! How would you hold them responsible? Send them a stiff note? Hold one of their citizens in reprisal? Besides, who says they'll execute me publicly in Red Square? What if they decide they don't want me to return and talk about their work on miniaturization? They'll have what they want of me - whatever that may be - and they'll decide that the American government need not benefit in their turn from any knowledge I may have gained from them. So they arrange a small accident. So sorry! So sorry! And they, of course, will pay reparations to my sorrowing family and send back a flag-draped coffin. No, thank you. I'm not the type for a suicide mission."

Rodano said, "You dramatize. You'll be a guest. You will help them if you can and you needn't be ostentatious about learning things. We're not asking you to be a spy; we will be grateful for anything you may pick up more or less unavoidably. What's more, we will have people there who will keep an eye on you if they can. We intend to see to it that you get back safely -"

"If you can," interposed Morrison.

"If we can," agreed Rodano. "We can't promise you miracles. Would you believe us if we did?"

"Do what you will, this is not a job for me. I'm not that courageous. I'm not planning to become a pawn in some crazy chess game, with my life very possibly at stake, just because you - or the government - ask me to."

"You frighten yourself unnecessarily."

"Not so. Fright has its proper role; it keeps one cautious and alive. There's a trick to staying alive when you're someone like me; it's called cowardice. It may not be admirable to be a coward if someone has the muscles and mind of an ox, but it's no crime for a weakling to be one. I am not so great a coward, however, that I can be forced to take on a suicide role, simply because I fear revealing my weakness. I reveal it gladly. I am not brave enough for the role. Now, please leave."

Rodano sighed, half-shrugged, half-smiled, and rose slowly to his feet. "That's it, then. We can't force you to serve your country if you don't wish to."

He moved toward the door, his feet dragging a little, and then, even with his hand reaching for the doorknob, he turned and said, "Still, it upsets me a little. I'm afraid I was wrong and I hate to be wrong."

"Wrong? What did you do? Bet someone five bucks I'd jump at the chance to give my life for my country?"

"No, I thought you would jump at the chance to advance your career. After all, you're not getting anywhere as things are. Your ideas are not listened to; your papers are no longer published. Your appointment at your university is not likely to be renewed. Tenure? Forget it. Government grants? Never. Not after you have refused our request. After this year, you will have no income and no status. And yet you will not go to the Soviet Union, as I was sure you would as the one way of salvaging your career. Failing that, what will you do?"

"My problem."

"No. Our problem. The name of the game in this good new world of ours is technological advance: the prestige, the influence, the abilities that come with being able to do what other powers cannot. The game is between the two chief contestants and their respective allies; we and they, the U.S. and the S.U. For all our circumspect friendship, we still compete. The counters in the game are scientists and engineers and any disgruntled counter might conceivably be used by the other side. You are a disgruntled counter, Dr. Morrison. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I understand that you're about to be offensive."

"We have your statement that Dr. Boranova invited you to visit the Soviet Union. Did she, really? May she not have invited you to stay in the United States and work for the Soviet Union in return for support for your ideas?"

"I was right. You are offensive."

"It's my job to be so - if I must. What if I'm right after all and you would jump at the chance of advancing your career. Only this is the way you intend to do it - stay here and accept Soviet money or backing in return for giving them whatever information you can."

"That is wrong. You have no evidence suggesting that and you cannot prove it."

"But I can suspect it and so can others. We will then make it our business to keep you under constant surveillance. You will not be able to do science. Your professional life will be over - entirely. - And you can avoid all that, simply by doing as we ask and going to the Soviet Union."

Morrison's lips tightened and he said, out of a dry throat, "You're threatening me in a crude attempt at blackmail and I won't capitulate. I'll take my chances. My theories on the brain's thinking center are correct and that will someday be recognized - whatever you or anyone does."