"This is a tool," Ben told them. "I will use it. I will find a door or a crack or a window gasket and I will lever away until I get through to your side: And then all the nice Martian crud germs will come out and eat you. So it is really you, Dr. Thurmond, who has no choice. Or rather a choice of two possibilities. You can kill me or send me back to Mars. Now make up your mind."
Dr. Thurmond's face was drawn with hatred though his voice was calm as ever.
"I won't mention loyalty to you, Duncan, because you have none. But I will tell you that too much money has been spent to jeopardize things now. You will do as ordered."
"I will not!" Ben said, and swung the pinch bar so hard that a chip flew from the plastic surface. This time even Dr. Thurmond winced away.
"Can't you understand that I don't like it here and I am not staying here. And that just for once you have found someone whom you cannot order about. I'll be of immense value on Mars if the crud doesn't knock me over. Use that to convince yourself. But do it quick."
Another chip cracked off the window as he hit it. Dr. Thurmond did not speak but stood rigid. It wasn't until a third chip dropped to the floor that he turned his back suddenly.
"Activate the transmitter," he ordered, then turned off the microphone. The screen went dark. Ben looked at the shimmering surface, then back at the observers.
"Don't make any mistakes, Dr. Thurmond," Ben said. "I know you can have that screen out of sync and can send me through into B-space as a spurt of radiation. And that is that. But I sincerely hope that you are not going to be that wasteful. I won't ask you for any sympathy, since I know it would please you immensely to kill me in that fashion. But I must remind you that others have heard this talk we have had and you must have superiors who will resent the loss of a valuable man like myself, manager-to-be of your Martian settlement. Why I'll bet they could fire you just as fast as you fire your underlings."
Ben started toward the screen, then looked back to face the still silent audience.
"I'll do a good job of running things on Mars. If I live I'll keep on doing the work, so you lose nothing by it. But if I don't do it I imagine you'll find other applicants for the job pretty hard to come by."
Without waiting for an answer he sealed his face mask and stepped into the screen.
Pressure
THE TENSION INSIDE THE SHIP ROSE as the pressure outside increased — and at the same rate. Perhaps it was because Nissim and Aldo had nothing at all to do. They had time to think too much. They would glance at the pressure gauges and then quickly away, reluctantly repeating this action over and over. Aldo knotted his fingers and was uncomfortably aware of the cold dampness of his skin, while Nissim chain-smoked cigarette after cigarette. Only Stan Brandon — the man with the responsibility — stayed calm and alert. While he studied his instruments he appeared complete relaxed, and when he made an adjustment on the controls there was a certain dash to his actions. For some reason this infuriated the other men, though neither would admit it.
"The pressure gauge has failed!" Nissim gasped, leaning forward against the restraint of his safety harness. "It reads zero."
"It's supposed to, Doc, built that way," Stan said, smiling. He reached over and flicked a switch. The needle jumped while the scale reading changed. "Only way to measure these kind of pressures. Chunks of metal and crystal in the outer hull, different compressibilities, and they compress to destruction. So we switch to the next one—"
"Yes, yes, I know all that."
Nissim contained his temper and dragged heavily on his cigarette. Of course he had been told about the gauges during the briefings. For an instant there it had just slipped his mind. The needle once more moved in steady pace up the scale. Nissim looked at it, looked away, thought about what was outside this seamless, windowless metal sphere, then, in spite of himself, glanced back at the dial again and felt the dampness on the palms of his hands. Nissim Ben-Haim, leading physicist at the University of Tel-Aviv, had too much imagination.
So did Aldo Gabrielli and he knew it; he wished that he had something to do besides watch and wait. Dark-haired, swarthy, with a magnificent nose, he looked typically Italian and was an eleventh-generation American. His position in electronic engineering was as secure as Nissim's in physics — if not better. He was considered a genius whose work with the scantron amplifier had revolutionized matter transmitter mechanics. He was scared.
The C. Huygens fell down through the thickening atmosphere of Saturn. That was the ship's official name, but the men who had assembled her at Saturn One called the vehicle simply "the Ball." Essentially that is just what it was, a solid metal sphere with walls ten meters thick, enclosing the relatively minuscule space in its center. The immense, wedge-shaped sections had been cast in the asteroid belt and sent to the Saturn One satellite station for assembly. There, in high orbit, with the unbelievable beauty of the rings and the great bulk of the planet hanging above them, the Ball had taken shape. Molecular welding had joined the sections into a seamless whole, and, just before the final wedge had been slid into place, the MT screen had been carefully placed inside. When the last piece had been joined to the others the only access to the center of the Ball was through the matter transmitter. Once the welders, with their destroying radiation, were through, the final construction could begin. The specially constructed large MT screen had been built under the floor, on which was soon mounted the supplies, atmosphere equipment, and apparatus that made the Ball livable for men. Then the controls were installed, as well as the external tanks and jets that transformed it into an atomic-engined space vessel. This was the ship that would drop down to the surface of Saturn.
Eighty years previously the C. Huygens could not have been built; the pressure-compacted alloys had not yet been developed. Forty-two years earlier it could not have been assembled because molecular welding had not been invented. Ten years ago the unpierced hull could not have been used since that was when atomic differentiation had first been made practical. No wires or wave guides weakened the solidity of the metal hull of the Ball. Instead, areas of differentiation passed through the alloy, chemically and physically the same as the metal around them, yet capable of carrying separate electric impulses. Taken in its entirety, the Ball was a tribute to the expanding knowledge of mankind. Taking the three men to the bottom of Saturn's twenty thousand-mile deep atmosphere it was a sealed prison cell.
All of them had been conditioned against claustrophobia, yet still they felt it.
"Come in control, how do you read me?" Stan said into his microphone, then switched to receive with a quick movement of his jaw against the switch. There was a few seconds' delay as the recording tape clicked out through the MT screen and the return tape rolled back into his receiver.
"One and three," the speaker hissed, a sibilant edge to all the sounds.
"That's the beginning of the sigma effect," Aldo said, his hands still for the first time. He looked deliberately at the pressure gauge. "A hundred thirty-five thousand atmospheres, that's the usual depth where it begins."
"I want to look at the tape that came through," Nissim said, grinding out his cigarette. He reached for his harness release.
"Don't do that, Doc," Stan said, raising a warning hand. "This has been a smooth drop so far but it's sure to get bumpy soon. You know what the winds in this atmosphere must be like. So far we've been in some kind of jet stream and moving laterally with it. That's not going to last forever. I'll have them send another tape through your repeater."
"It will take only a moment," Nissim said, but his hand hesitated on the release.