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can’t.”
    “Then use someone else; someone you can trust.”
    “No one else has the necessary skill. And Duval is right here with us. And, after all, there is no proof that he isn’t completely loyal.”
    “But if I’m placed near Duval as a male nurse and if I am assigned the task of watching him closely, I will do no good. I won’t know what he’s doing; or whether he’s doing it honestly and correctly. In fact, I tell you that when he opens the skull, I’ll probably pass out.”
    “He won’t open the skull,” said Michaels. “The clot can’t be reached from outside. He’s definite about that.”
    “But, then …”
    “We’ll reach it from the inside.”
    Grant frowned. Slowly, he shook his head. “You know, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    Michaels said, quietly, “Mr. Grant, everyone else engaged in this project knows the score, and understands exactly what he or she is to do. You’re the outsider and it is rather a chore to have to educate you. Still, if I must, I must. I’m going to have to acquaint you with some of the theoretical work done in this institution.”
    Grant’s lip quirked. “Sorry, doctor, but you’ve just said a naughty word. At college, I majored in football with a strong minor in girls. Don’t waste theory on me.”
    “I have seen your record, Mr. Grant, and it is not quite as you say. However, I will not deprive you of your manhood by accusing you of your obvious intelligence and education, even if we are in private. I will not waste theory on you, but will get the nub of the information to you without that. —I assume you have observed our insigne, CMDF.
    “Sure have.”
    “Do you have any idea of what it means?”
    “I’ve made a few guesses. How about Consolidated Martian Dimwits and Fools. I’ve got a better one than that but it’s unprintable.”
    “It happens to stand for Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces.”
    “That makes less sense than my suggestion,” said Grant.
    “I’ll explain. Have you ever heard of the miniaturization controversy?”
    Grant thought a while. “I was in college then. We spent a couple of sessions on it in the physics course.”
    “In between football games?”
    “Yes. In the off-season, as a matter of fact. If I remember it, a group of physicists claimed they could reduce the size of objects to any degree, and it was exposed as a fraud. Well, maybe not a fraud but a mistake anyway. I remember the class ran through several arguments showing why it was impossible to reduce a man to the size of, say, a mouse, and keep him a man.”
    “I’m sure this was done in every college in the land. Do you remember any of the objections?”
    “I think so. If you’re going to reduce size you can do it in one of two ways. You can push the individual atoms ofan object closer together; or you can discard a certain proportion of the atoms altogether. To push the atoms together against the interatomic repulsive forces would take extraordinary pressures. The pressures at the center of Jupiter would be insufficient to compress a man to the size of a mouse. Am I right so far?”
    “You are luminous as the day.”
    “And even if you managed it, the pressure would kill anything alive. Aside from that, an object reduced in size by pushing atoms together would retain all its original mass, and an object the size of a mouse with the mass of a man would be difficult to handle.”
    “Amazing, Mr. Grant. You must have amused your girlfriends for many hours with this romantic talk. And the other method?”
    “The other method is to remove atoms in careful ratio so that the mass and size of an object decreases while the relationship of the parts remains constant. Only if you reduce a man to the size of a mouse you can keep only one atom out of maybe seventy thousand. If you do that to the brain, what is left is scarcely more complicated than the brain of a mouse in the first place. Besides, how do you re-expand the object, as the