"Well, I did make a small mistake once. A grasshopper got on the plate
when I wasn't looking. I was magnifying an alumino-silicate and a few
seconds after I got the specimen up to size, the grasshopper appeared
in the middle of it. I had to reverse the specimen back to get it out.
Meant picking the crystal off the plate fast, before the insect came
through, but I managed it."
"Was it hurt?"
"The grasshopper? No. A little stunned, maybe. But perfectly well."
I went back to the plates and started another quartz grain. John, Lee
and Burns sat and gabbled to each other.
"If the crystal lattice was expanded to start with...."
"Relative to its size, the crystal would be full of breathing
holes...."
"You could take in nutrient through a lattice as big as that. It would
be relatively porous...."
"... molecular pressure...."
"... shift that battery and move the galvanometer...."
"... take out most of the instruments and fake up the records from the
previous trip...."
"If we weren't being expelled this evening," said John.
They looked at me.
"Are you sure about the grasshopper, Morry?" Burns asked.