The gasp from Sammy Birkett was mingled with an explosive hiss which hurt Jerome’s ears. He turned and saw Birkett, some thirty paces along the tunnel, doubling over like a man who had been shot in the midriff. The slab of rock, which he had been carrying alone, was still executing a low-gravity tumble on the floor.
“You…idiot!” Jerome ran towards Birkett, hampered by his suit, watching him sink to his knees.
“I’m sorry, Mister Jerome.” Birkett’s words were faint articulated sobs. “I guess…I guess I…
“Get in here, Glevdane,” Jerome shouted. Belatedly remembering that radio contact had been lost, he tried visualizing a red triangle—the Dorrinian work symbol of an emergency—then decided it was superfluous. A man who was asphyxiating, as Birkett appeared to be doing, was bound to be telepathically conspicuous on his own. Drawing closer, Jerome saw that Birkett was clutching his left arm and was doubled over it. Judging by the quantities of crimson emergency sealant visible the material of his vacuum suit had split from the wrist to above the elbow.
Birkett looked up at Jerome and the light from a white overhead globe penetrated his face plate, revealing contorted features. His lips were moving, but so little air remained in his suit that he was producing no sound for his radio to transmit, and a second later he lost consciousness. Jerome caught the slumping body and eased it to the floor.
“Where are you, Glevdane?” he called in panic. “We need air in here!”
He unbuckled his equipment belt and, working clumsily because of his gloves, bound it around Birkett’s upper arm with the intention of constraining the oxygen which would still be trickling from the fallen man’s tank. The slick plastic material of the belt was difficult to knot tightly. He cast about him in desperation and noticed a fist-sized blob of mastic still adhering to the slab of rock. Swearing savagely all the while, he scooped up the dark grey mass, smeared it thickly around the upper end of the split in the suit’s fabric and clamped down on it with both hands. He was now almost certain that Birkett’s suit was airtight again and that he was in no danger as regards a supply of oxygen, but he had a grim suspicion that the principal threat lay in the complete absence of atmospheric pressure. What happened to human tissue when all external pressure was removed from it?
Jerome’s alarm and feelings of helplessness grew as he realized he was dealing with a subject upon which he was quite ignorant. Were vital cells in Birkett’s body invisibly rupturing? Was his blood already beginning to boil?
My God, Jerome thought strickenly, don’t tell me I’m going to have to watch the same man die twice.
He fixed his gaze on the door of Lock 17, willing it to open or give some indication that air was being returned to his section of the tunnel. The Dorrinians had a pathological fear of vacuum and he expected them to be sluggish in reacting to a situation which involved emergency opening of any of the tunnel’s multiple airlocks, but not as slow as this. Minutes were going by and there was no sign of help arriving.
Perhaps nobody is going to come! The idea was patently ridiculous, but in Jerome’s state of mind it was enough to make him glance anxiously at his own oxygen meter. There was sufficient for almost forty mirds, approximately one Terran hour, so there was no real reason to fear for his own life. It was, however, hard to feel any reassurance.
On a far-off morning back in Whiteford he had taken what appeared to be a minor decision—to visit the Starzynski home in person—and it had proved to be the most unfortunate action of his life. It would be quite in keeping with the pattern of events since then if he were to be unlucky enough to die as the result of an entirely avoidable accident in the tunnel which had offered his only hope of a return to Earth. The fact that the Quicksilver was due to touch down in only another twenty-two days, and only a few hundred metres from his present location, seemed a final and entirely appropriate touch of irony…
A wrinkle appeared in the taut material covering Jerome’s forearm, signifying that air was at last being bled into the tunnel section.
He had been staring at it for several seconds, cautiously withholding a sigh of relief, when it occurred to him that his improvised repair of Birkett’s suit was now depriving the unconscious man of air. He released his grip and with mastic-covered fingers gently released the clamps on Birkett’s face plate, at the same time becoming aware of a roaring sound from the valves of Lock 17. Birkett’s suit almost immediately lost its collapsed appearance and a moment later his limbs began to twitch. His eyes opened, fixing Jerome with the bright amiable stare of a small baby.
“Sammy?” Jerome spoke uncertainly. “Are you all right?”
“I thought Doctor Bob was my friend,” Birkett whispered. “He shouldn’t have tricked me…shouldn’t have done this to me…he just shouldn’t…
“I think he was your friend,” Jerome said, less concerned with defending Pitman than with reassuring Birkett. “I’m sure he wanted to help you.”
“But I’m a gardener. Mister Jerome, do you really believe we’re up in the sky somewhere? On Mars or some place like that?”
“I’m afraid there’s no doubt that this is Mercury.” Jerome, suddenly aware of the depths of Birkett’s confusion, felt a pang of compassion. He had been feeling sorry for himself, but at least he had the consolation of being able to understand all that had happened to him and of knowing exactly where he was in the physical universe. It had not occurred to him that Sammy Birkett, blinkered by limited intellect, was little better off than a Dark Ages peasant for whom the translation to Mercury would have been a prolonged trip to hell.
Birkett’s gaze drifted over the tunnel ceiling. “I sure hate this place.”
“So do I, Sammy.” Jerome forced confidence and optimism into his voice. “But some day we’ll be going back to Whiteford.”
“Is that the truth, Mister Jerome?”
Jerome nodded vigorously. “Why don’t we make a definite arrangement to see each other every week in Cordner’s and put away a pitcher or two?”
“That would be great!” Birkett struggled up to a sitting position and dabbed at a trickle of blood which appeared at his nose. “You and me can sit in Cordner’s front bar and talk about old times.”
“That’s a date, but I think you’d better rest until…” Jerome broke off and got to his feet as the door of Lock 17 swung open. Glevdane, distinguished by his supervisor’s blue helmet, came through the opening, followed by the others of the work party. He looked down at Birkett and the nearby slab of rock, then turned to Jerome.
“This is a serious incident,” he said, his face hard and unfriendly. “I hope you have a good excuse.”
“I’ve had plenty of time to think of one,” Jerome snapped. “Where the hell were you?”
“We returned as quickly as possible.”
“The door of Lock 16 was jammed,” said a Terran member of the group, Urban Pedersen. “We had a job getting through, and the air supply in any section can only be controlled from an adjoining section. If you ask me the whole system is…
“Nobody is asking you, Pedersen,” Glevdane cut in, then turned back to Jerome. “Now…what is the great practical engineer’s excuse for almost letting this poor fool kill himself?”
“Who are you callin’ a fool?” Birkett stood up, nearly fell and was restrained by two other workers.