The ship rocked violently without warning. It swayed heavily and Konev, who had been standing, tottered and caught at the back of his seat.

"What was it?" called out Boranova, clutching with one hand at her own control device.

Kaliinin bent over her computer. "I caught a glimpse, but you can't tell in this light. It may have been a ribosome."

"A ribosome," repeated Morrison in astonishment.

"Why not? They're scattered all over the cell. They're the protein-manufacturing organelles."

"I know what they are," said Morrison indignantly.

"So it landed us a blow. Or rather, as we skimmed along, we landed it a blow. It doesn't matter which way you look at it; we just had a giant piece of Brownian motion."

"Worse than that," said Dezhnev, pointing outward in horror. "We're not getting heat transfer, we're getting field oscillation."

Morrison, staring in despair, recognized the phenomenon he had seen when alone in the cell. The water molecules were expanding and contracting - visibly so.

"Stop it! Stop it!" shouted Konev.

"I'm trying to," said Boranova through tight lips. "Arkady, shut off the jets and make all the power available to me. - Shut off the air-conditioning, lights, everything!"

Boranova bent over the tiny glow that marked her battery-powered computer.

Morrison could see nothing except for the light from Boranova's computer and, in the seat next to him, Kaliinin's. He could not see, in the otherwise total darkness of a cell buried in the interior of a brain, the water molecules swelling and subsiding.

There was no uncertainty about it, however. He could feel the jarring in the pit of his stomach. It was not the water molecules that were oscillating, after all. It was the miniaturization field that was - and the objects that were buried in it - and he himself.

Each time the ship expanded (and the water molecules seemed to contract), the field converted some of its energy to heat and he could feel the flush that swept over him. Then, as Boranova forced energy into the field, squeezing it into contraction, the heat vanished. For a while, he could feel the oscillations slow and subside.

But then they began to grow wilder and he knew that Boranova was failing. She could not fend off the spontaneous deminiaturization that was on the way and, in ten seconds, he knew he would be dead. He - and all of them, and the body in which they were buried - would be an exploding puff of water vapor and carbon dioxide.

He felt dizzy. He was going to faint and, in his pusillanimous way, he would thus anticipate death by a second and his last recognizable emotion would be one of intense shame.

The seconds passed and Morrison didn't faint. He stirred a little. He should be dead by now, shouldn't he? (It was inevitable that the next thought should come: Can there be an afterlife after all? - He dismissed the possibility quickly.)

He was aware of someone sobbing. No! It was harsh breathing.

He opened his eyes (he hadn't realized they were closed) and found himself staring at Kaliinin in the dim light. Since all the energy available was being pumped into the effort to keep the ship from deminiaturizing, he saw her only by the glow of her own computer. He could make out her head bent over it, her hair in disarray and her breath whistling sharply through her parted lips.

He looked around in a sudden renewal of hope and thought and life. The ship's oscillations seemed less extreme. They were settling downward into a kind of peace even as he watched.

And then cautiously, Kaliinin stopped and looked up sidewise at him, her face twitching into a painful smile. "It is done," she said in a hoarse whisper.

The light within the ship brightened slowly, almost tentatively, and Dezhnev uttered a huge shuddering sigh. "If I am not dead now," he said, "I hope to live yet a little while. As my father once said: 'Life would be unbearable if death were not worse yet.' - Thank you, Natasha. You may be my captain forever."

"Not I," said Boranova, her face looking very old - to the point where Morrison would not have been surprised to see white streaks in her black hair. "I simply couldn't pump enough energy into the ship. Was it something you did, Sophia?"

Kaliinin's eyes were closed now, but her breasts were still heaving. She stirred a little, as though reluctant to answer, reluctant to do anything but savor life for a time. Then she said, "I don't know. Maybe."

Boranova said, "What did you do?"

Kaliinin said, "I couldn't just wait for death. I made the ship the electric duplicate of a D-glucose molecule and hoped the cell would do the normal thing and interact with a molecule of ATP - adenosine triphosphate. In doing so, it gained a phosphate group and energy. The energy, I hoped, would go into reinforcing the miniaturization field. I then neutralized the ship and the phosphate group fell off. D-glucose again, another gain in energy, then neutral, and so on, over and over." She stopped to pant a bit. "Over and over. My fingers were working so fast, I didn't know if I were hitting the right keys or not - but I must have. And the ship gained enough energy to stabilize the field."

Boranova said, "How did you come to do that? No one has ever suggested in my hearing that this might -"

"Nor in mine," said Kaliinin. "Nor in mine. I was just wondering this morning before we got on the ship what I would do - or what anyone could do - if spontaneous deminiaturization began. We'd need energy, but if the ship couldn't pump up enough - I thought, Could the cell itself supply the energy? If it did, it would only be through ATP, which every cell has. I didn't know if it would work. I had to spend energy, forcing the electrical pattern on and off the ship, and I knew I might spend more than I got from ATP. Or the energy of the ATP might simply not afFect the ship in such a way as to counter the deminiaturization. It was all such a gamble."

Dezhnev said - softly, almost as though to himself, "As my old father would say: 'If you have nothing to lose, gamble freely.'" Then, briskly, he said, "Thank you, little Sophia. My life is yours from now on. I will give it to you at your need. I will go farther. I will even marry you if that would strike you as convenient."

"A chivalrous offer," said Kaliinin, smiling faintly, "but I wouldn't ask marriage of you. Your mere life - at need - would be quite enough."

Boranova was entirely herself now and she said, "This will be cited in detail in the final report. Your quick thinking and your quick action saved everything."

Morrison couldn't trust himself to make any speech at all. (Unaccountably, he felt near tears. - In gratitude for life? In admiration for Kaliinin?) All he could do was reach for Kaliinin's hand, put it to his lips, and kiss it. Then, after clearing his throat vigorously, he said with extraordinary mildness, "Thank you, Sophia."

She looked embarrassed, but did not draw her hand away immediately. She said, "It might not have worked. I didn't think it would work."

"Had it not," said Dezhnev, "we would be no deader."

Through all this, only Yuri Konev had not said a word and Morrison turned to look at him. He sat as he usually sat, very upright and very much turned away from them.

Morrison, finding his voice suddenly - and his anger - said, "Well, Yuri, what have you to say?"

Konev looked over his shoulder briefly and said, "Nothing."

"Nothing? Sophia saved the expedition."

Konev shrugged, "She did her job."

"Her job? She did much more than her job." Morrison leaned forward and reached wildly for Konev, grabbing his shoulder. "She invented the technique that saved us. And in doing so, she saved your life, you idiot. She's the reason you're still alive. You can at least thank her."