"That is bad, nyet" Yuli said, finding his feet. He didn't take his eyes off Brashnikov's floating form. "If the suit shuts itself off now, he will drop to rug and all will be well. But if he floats into wall, and suit shuts off then, there is no accounting for what could happen."
"What are the possibilities?" the ambassador asked. He had not been briefed on the vibration suit's operational details.
"It is possible Brashnikov's body will become permanently stuck in wall. In which case we need only replace wall."
"A minor inconvenience under circumstance."
"The other possibility is nuclear."
"Nuclear!" This came from almost everyone in the room in a single breath.
"If atoms mix," Batenin told them, "they may shatter. The result will be atomic explosion."
The ambassador jumped to his feet. "Quickly. We must evacuate embassy."
"No," Yuli said dully, still looking at the immobile blister face only inches above him. "How far could we get in less than one-half hour? Not enough to clear Washington outskirts. And if there is splitting of atoms, it will be many, many atoms splitting. Too many to count." He shook his head. "No, we are better off here, where our end will be swift and painless. For if
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suit goes dead at wrong time, all of Washington will be obliterated. Perhaps much of eastern seaboard as well."
The embassy staff all looked at one another in white-faced terror. And, as if telepathically inspired, they leapt to their feet and began blowing at the inexorably moving figure with all their combined lung power.
Even Yuli Batenin joined in, although he knew it was futile. But what else was there left for them to do-lie down and die?
It happened just before the tips of Rair Brashnikov's still fingers brushed the wallpaper. Without warning, the blister face constricted. Then it ballooned out. Another contraction. And a rhythm was established.
"He breathes!" Yuli shouted. "Brashnikov! Do you hear me? Turn off suit. Turn off vibration suit!"
Then the fingertips of Brashnikov's left hand disappeared into the wall.
"Oh, God," someone said hoarsely. Batenin's secretary ran from the room screaming.
"Rair ..." Batenin was sobbing now. "The suit! Turn it off. Use your left hand. Please!"
The face membrane respirated. But Rair Brashnikov still floated inertly, his limbs splayed. Then the red light blinked. Batenin's eyes widened in terror. He never saw the vanished fingers of Rair Brashnikov withdraw from the wall as he stiffly attempted to reach his belt rheostat. Batenin's eyes were fixed on that red light whose extinguishing meant their lives.
Then the whole world seemed to fall on Yuli Batenin.
When he woke up in the embassy infirmary later, he was screaming.
"Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!"
The infirmary nurse attempted to calm him.
"Be a man, Comrade Major," the nurse admonished. She was a hulking blond who knew nothing of what had transpired in the office two floors above.
"I live," Yuli breathed. It was more of a prayer than a question.
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"Da. Comrade Brashnikov will survive too. He had a nasty fall. It was fortunate that you were there to throw yourself under him to break it, otherwise he would have been severely injured."
Yuli Batenin turned his head. In the next bed, Rair Brashnikov lay with a white sheet pulled up to his sharp chin. His ferretlike profile was peaceful. He snored contentedly.
Major Batenin's nervous reaction to the sight of Brashnikov was so violent that he had to be sedated.
A calmer Batenin himself debriefed Brashnikov the next morning. Brashnikov's story was disjointed and Batenin did not believe much of it. He was certain that Brashnikov was holding something back. He did not know what. Brashnikov had spent much more time in North Dakota than had been necessary. What had he been doing there? Brashnikov insisted that penetrating underground launch facilities had been very difficult.
Later, Batenin conferred with the technician on staff who maintained the suit.
"He claims he was in North Dakota, making call to this embassy when he was surprised in hotel room," Batenin explained. "He turned on suit. He remembers rushing through dark tunnel. He thought himself dead. The next he knew he crashed to floor of my office. Tell me, how can this be?"
The technician considered.
"This tunnel," he asked, "was it a long straight tunnel?"
"No. He said it twisted and turned."
"Hmmmm. We do not fully understand the suit's many properties," the technician said slowly. "But as you know, when it is on, the atoms of the body are in an unstable state, as are the component protons, neutrons, and electrons."
"Yes, of course. I know all that."
"Electricity is composed of electrons. It is possible
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theoretically possible-that teleportation might have been achieved."
"I do not know that word," Batenin had admitted.
"A theoretical fantasy," the technician supplied. "One that postulates that if it were possible to disassemble a person or an object on the molecular level, it should also be possible to transmit those elements, as electricity is transported through wire or cable, to another place, there to be reconstituted into its original form."
"I fail to-"
"Imagine a fax machine," the technician said. "One which, instead of producing a duplicate copy of a document at another site, transmits the original document, which ceases to exist at the point of origin."
"Are you saying that Brashnikov faxed himself through telephone?"
"I do not think it was intentional. How could he know? As he said, he was talking into an open-line receiver. He turned on the suit. Somehow his free-floating electrons were conducted into the receiver, taking his other atomic particles with them, and transmitted out the other end."
Batenin shuddered at the memory of the incredible white light that had blinded him.
"And the tunnel he described?" Batenin prompted.
"Wire or fiberoptic cables," the technician assured him. "The Americans use both for voice transmission."