by Isaac Asimov
Boranova said, "Do you honestly think that this is an optical illusion?"
Morrison was silent and Dezhnev said, "Come, Albert, accept the evidence of your senses. This experiment consumed considerable energy and if you remain unconvinced, our clever administrators will be annoyed with all of us for wasting money. What do you say, then?"
And Morrison, shaking his head in rueful confusion, said, "I don't know what to say."
Boranova said, "Would you lift the cage again, Dr. Morrison?"
Again Morrison hesitated and Boranova said, "The miniaturization field has not left it radioactive or anything like that. The touch of your unminiaturized hand will not affect it, nor will its state of miniaturization affect you. You see?" And she placed her hand, flatly and gently, on top of the cage.
Morrison's hesitation was not proof against that. Gingerly, he placed his hand on either side of the cage and lifted. He exclaimed in surprise, for it could not be much over a kilogram in mass. The cage trembled in his grip and the miniaturized rabbit, alarmed, hopped to one corner of the cage and huddled there in agitation.
Morrison put the cage down and, as nearly as he could estimate, did so in its original position, but Kaliinin walked over and made a small adjustment.
Boranova said, "What do you think, Dr. Morrison?"
"It weighs considerably less. Is there some way you pulled a switch?"
"Pulled a switch? You mean replaced the larger object with a smaller while you were watching, the smaller exactly like the larger in everything but size. Dr. Morrison, please."
Morrison cleared his throat and didn't press the point. It lacked plausibility even to himself.
Boranova said, "Please notice, Dr. Morrison, that not only has the size been decreased, but the mass in proportion. The very atoms and molecules of which the cage and its contents are composed have shrunk in size and mass. Fundamentally, Planck's constant has decreased, so that nothing inside has changed relative to its own parts. To the rabbit, itself, its food, and everything within the cage seems perfectly normal. The outside world has increased in size relative to the rabbit, but, of course, it remains unaware of that."
"But the miniaturization field is gone. Why don't the cage and its contents revert to ordinary size?"
"For two reasons, Dr. Morrison. In the first place, the miniaturized state is metastable. That is one of the great fundamental discoveries that make miniaturization possible. At whatever point we stop in the process, it takes very little energy to maintain it in that state. And secondly, the miniaturization field is not entirely gone. It is merely minimized and drawn inward so that it still keeps the atmosphere within the cage from diffusing outward and normal molecules outside from diffusing inward. It also leaves the walls of the cage touchable by unminiaturized hands. - But we are not finished, Dr. Morrison. Shall we continue?"
Morrison, troubled and unable to deny the direct experience, wondered for a moment if he had somehow been drugged into a kind of super-suggestibility that would make him experience whatever he was told he was experiencing. In a choked way, he said, "You are telling me a great deal."
"Yes, we are, but only superficially. If you repeat this in America, you will probably not be believed and nothing you say will give the slightest hint as to the core of the miniaturization technique." Boranova lifted her hand and Kaliinin again threw the switch.
The whine returned and the cage began once again to shrink. It seemed to be going faster now and Boranova, as though reading Morrison's mind, said, "The further it shrinks, the less mass there is to remove and the more rapidly it shrinks further."
Morrison found himself staring, in a state of near-shock, at a cage that was a centimeter across and still shrinking.
But Boranova raised her hand again and the whine died.
"Be careful, Dr. Morrison. It weighs only a few hundred milligrams now and it is a fragile object indeed to anyone on our scale. Here. Try this."
She handed him a large magnifying glass. Morrison, without saying a word, took it and held it over the tiny cage. He might not have managed to make out what the moving object within it was if he had come upon it without prior knowledge, for his mind would not have accepted such an incredibly tiny rabbit.
He had seen it shrink, however, and he stared at it now with a mixture of confusion and fascination.
He looked up at Boranova and said, "Is this really happening?"
"Do you still suspect an optical illusion or hypnotism or - what else?"
"Drugs?"
"If it were drugs, Dr. Morrison, it would be a greater achievement than miniaturization. Look around you. Doesn't everything else look normal? It would be an unusual drug indeed that would alter your sense perception of a single object in a large room of unchanged miscellany. Come, Doctor, what you've witnessed is real."
"Make it larger," said Morrison breathlessly.
Dezhnev laughed and suppressed in a quick choke. "If I laugh, the wind may well blow away Katinka, whereupon Natasha and Sophia will both strike me with everything else in this room. If you wish it enlarged, you will have to wait."
Boranova said, "Dezhnev is right. You see, Dr. Morrison, you have witnessed a scientific demonstration, not magic. If it were magic, I could snap my finger and the rabbit would be its normal self again in a normal cage - and then you would know you were witnessing an optical illusion. However, it takes considerable energy to decrease Planck's constant to a tiny fraction of its normal value, even over a relatively small volume of the Universe, which is why miniaturization is so expensive a technique. To enlarge Planck's constant once again must result in the production of energy equal to that which had been consumed originally, for the law of conservation of energy holds even in the process of miniaturization. We cannot deminiaturize then any faster than we can dispose of the heat produced, so that it takes considerable time to do it - much more than it took to miniaturize."
For a while, Morrison was silent. He found the explanation involving conservation of energy more convincing than the demonstration itself. Charlatans would not have been so meticulous about obeying the constraints of physics.
He said, "It seems to me, then, that your miniaturization process can scarcely be a practical device. At most it would only serve as a tool, perhaps, to broaden and expand quantum theory."
Boranova said, "Even that would be enough, but don't judge a technique by its initial phase. We can hope that we will learn how to circumvent these large energy changes, how to find methods of miniaturization and deminiaturization that will be more efficient. Does all the energy-change have to pass from electromagnetic fields into miniaturization and then into heat on deminiaturization? Might not deminiaturization be somehow inveigled into releasing energy as electromagnetic fields again. That would be easier to handle, perhaps."
"Have you repealed the second law of thermodynamics?" asked Morrison with exaggerated politeness.
"Not at all. We don't expect an impossible 100 percent conversion. If we can convert 75 percent of the derniniaturization energy into an electromagnetic field - or even only 25 percent - that would be an improvement over the present situation. However, there is hope of a technique even more subtle and far more efficient and that is where you come in."
Morrison's eyes widened. "I? I know nothing about this. Why pick me out for your salvation? You would have done as well with a child out of kindergarten."
"Not so. We know what we are doing. Come, Dr. Morrison, you and I shall go to my office while Sophia and Arkady begin the tedious process of restoring Katinka. I will there show you that you know quite enough to help us make miniaturization efficient and therefore a commercially practical venture. In fact, you will see quite clearly that you are the only person who can help us."
Chapter 5. Coma
Life is pleasant Death is peaceful. It is the transition that is troublesome.
— Dezhnev Senior
19.
"This," said Natalya Boranova, "is my own portion of the Grotto."
She sat down in a rather battered armchair that (Morrison imagined) she found perfectly comfortable, having molded it to her body over the years.
He sat down in another chair, smaller and more austere, with a satin-covered seat that was less comfortable than it looked. He glanced over the surroundings with a sharp sensation of homesickness. There were ways in which it reminded him of his own office. There was the computer outlet and the large screen. (Boranova's was far more ornate than his own - the Soviet style tended toward the curlicue and Morrison felt a momentary curiosity as to the reason and then put that aside as a trivial matter.)
There was also the same trend toward disorder in the piles of printouts, the same distinct odor they gave rise to, the same occasional old-fashioned book in among the film cassettes. Morrison tried to read the title of one that was too far off and too worn to be made out. (Books always had an ancient appearance, even when they were new.) He had the impression it was an English-language book, which would not have surprised him. He himself had several Russian classics in his laboratory for an occasional brushup of the language.
Boranova said, "We are quite private here. We will not be overheard and we will not be disturbed. Later we can have lunch brought in."
"You are kind," said Morrison, trying not to sound sardonic.
Boranova seemed to take it at face value. "Not at all. And now, Dr. Morrison, I can't help having noticed that Arkady is on a first-name basis with you. He is, of course, to a certain extent an uncultured individual and is apt to presume. Still, may I ask again if, despite the conditions that brought you here, we might be pleasant and informal with each other?"
Morrison hesitated. "Well, call me Albert, then. But it will be merely a convenience and no sign of friendship. I am not likely to dismiss my kidnapping."
Boranova cleared her throat. "I did try to persuade you to come of your own free will. If necessity had not driven us so hard, we would have gone no farther than that."
"If you are embarrassed by what you have done, then return me to the United States. Send me back now and I will be willing to forget this episode and will make no complaint to my government."
Slowly Boranova shook her head. "You know that cannot be done. Necessity still drives. You will see what I mean, shortly. But meanwhile, Albert, let us talk together, without nonsense, as part of the global family of science that rises superior to questions of nationality and other artificial distinctions among human beings. - Surely by now you have accepted the reality of miniaturization."
"I must accept it." Morrison shook his head, almost regretfully.
"And you see our problem?"
"Yes. It is far too expensive in energy."
"Imagine, however, if we lower the energy cost drastically. Imagine if we can bring about miniaturization by plugging a wire into a wall socket and consuming no more energy than we would if we were heating a toaster oven."
"Of course - but apparently it can't be done. Or, at any rate, your people cannot do it. Why all the secrecy, then? Why not publish the findings you have already made and welcome the contributions of the rest of the family of science? Secrecy seems to imply the possibility that the Soviet Union is planning to use miniaturization as a weapon of some kind, one powerful enough to make it possible for your country to find it feasible to break the mutual understanding that has led to peace and cooperation throughout the world for the last two generations."
"That is not so. The Soviet Union is not trying to establish a world hegemony."
"I hope not. Still, if the Soviet Union seeks secrecy, it is understandable that other units of the global alliance would begin to wonder if it seeks conquest."
"The United States has its secrets, has it not?"
"I don't know. The American government does not confide in me. If it does have secrets - and actually I suppose it does - I disapprove of that, too. But tell me why there is any necessity for secrets? What does it matter if you develop miniaturization, or we, or both of us in combination - or the Africans, for that matter? We Americans invented the airplane and the telephone, but you have both. We were the first to reach the moon, but you enjoy your full share of the lunar settlements. You, on the other hand, were the first to crack the problem of fusion power and the first to build a solar power station in space and we participate fully in both."
Boranova said, "All that you say is true. Nevertheless, for over a century, the world has taken it for granted that American technology is superior to Soviet technology. That is a constant irritant to us, and if, in something as basic and as thoroughly revolutionary as miniaturization, it is clearly established that the Soviet Union led the way, then that would be most desirable for us."
"And the global family of science that you appeal to? Are you a member of that or are you merely a Soviet scientist?"
"I am both," said Boranova with a touch of anger. "If it were my decision, then perhaps I would open our discoveries to the world. However, I do not make the decision. My government does and I owe them loyalty. Nor do you Americans make it easy for us to do otherwise. Your constant loud American assumption of superiority drives us into a defensive posture."
"But won't it spoil Soviet pride in their accomplishment to have to call upon an American such as myself to help out?"
"Well, yes, it does sour the milk a bit, but it will at least give the United States a share in the achievement, which we shall acknowledge, Albert. You will be showing yourself a true American patriot and will improve your own reputation if you help us."
Morrison smiled bitterly. "A bribe?"
Boranova shrugged. "If that is how you interpret it, I cannot stop you. But let us talk in a friendly manner and see what will come of it."
"In that case, start by giving me some information. Now that I am forced to believe that miniaturization is possible, can you tell me the basic physics behind it? I am curious."
"You know better than that, Albert. It would be dangerous for you to learn too much. How would we, then, be able to let you go back to your country? - Besides, although I can operate the miniaturization system, even I don't know the basics. If I did, our government could scarcely risk having me visit the United States."
"You mean we might kidnap you as you kidnapped me. Do you think the United States engages in kidnapping?"
"I am absolutely certain it would when necessity drove sufficiently."
"And who are the people who do know the basics of miniaturization?"
"That also is not something that, in general, it is safe for you to know. However, I can lift the curtain just a bit in this matter. Pyotor Shapirov is one of them."
"Crazy Peter," said Morrison, smiling. "Somehow I'm not surprised."
"You shouldn't be. I am sure you say 'crazy' only as one of your jokes, but it was he who first worked out the basic rationale behind miniaturization. Of course," she added thoughtfully, "it may very well be that that required a certain insanity - or, at any rate, a certain idiosyncracy of thought. It is also Shapirov who first suggested a method of achieving miniaturization with a minimum expenditure of energy."
"How? The conversion of derniniaturization into an electromagnetic field?"
Boranova made a face. "I was merely giving you an example. Shapirov's method is far more subtle."
"Can it be explained?"
"Only roughly. Shapirov points out that the two great aspects of the unified theory of the Universe - the quantum aspect and the relativistic aspect - each depends on a constant that sets a limit. In quantum theory it is Planck's constant, which is very tiny but not zero. In relativity, it is the speed of light, which is very great but not infinite. Planck's constant sets a lower limit to the size of energy transfer and the speed of light sets an upper limit to the speed of information transmission. Shapirov maintains, furthermore, that the two are related. In other words, if Planck's constant is decreased, the speed of light would increase. If Planck's constant were reduced to zero, then the speed of light would be infinite."
Morrison
said at once, "In which case, the Universe would be Newtonian in its properties."
Boranova nodded. "Yes. According to Shapirov, then, the reason for the enormous energy consumption of miniaturization is that the two limits are uncoupled, that Planck's constant is decreased without the speed of light being increased. If the two were coupled, then energy would flow from the speed-of-light limit into the Planck's constant limit during miniaturization and in the other direction during deminiaturization, so that the speed of light would go up as miniaturization proceeded and down again during deminiaturization. The efficiency should be nearly a hundred percent. Very little energy would then be required to miniaturize and re-expansion could take place very quickly."
Morrison said, "Does Shapirov know how miniaturization and deminiaturization can be carried through with the two limits coupled?"
"He said he did."
"Said? Past tense? Does that mean he has changed his mind?"
"Not exactly."
"Then what has he done?"
Boranova hesitated. "Albert," she said almost pleadingly, "do not go too fast. I want you to think. You know that miniaturization works. You know that it is possible, but not practical. You know that it would be a boon for humanity and I have assured you that it is not meant for destructive or warlike use. Once we know that our national precedence is recognized, which we want for psychological reasons I have presented to you quite frankly, I am sure we will share miniaturization with all divisions of the globe."
"Really, Natalya? Would you and your nation trust the United States if the situation were reversed?"
"Trust!" said Boranova and sighed heavily. "It doesn't come naturally to anyone. It is the weakness of humanity that we constantly read the worst into others. Yet trust must begin somewhere or the fragile mood of cooperation we have enjoyed for so long will shatter and we will be back to the twentieth century with all its horrors. Since the United States feels so strongly that it is the stronger and more advanced nation, should it not be the first to risk the act of trusting?"