"It just might work," decided MacRae. "We know the Martians have some means of rapid communication, even though we've never known what sort. If our plump friend doesn't forget what he is doing and why he is making the trip..."
Jim took him to the front door. On MacRae's authorization (he guard let them through. Jim checked Willis again while the lock was cycling; the bouncer appeared to be sure of his instructions, although his answers showed his usual mental leapfrog.
Jim hung back in the doorway, out of the line of fire, while Willis rolled off the stoop. The Potties still lay where they had fallen; Willis looked at them curiously, then took up a zig-zag course down the street and disappeared from Jim's view, cut off as he was by the door frame. Jim wished mightily then that he had had the foresight to bring along a mirror to use as a periscope. Finally he screwed up his courage, lay down, and peeked around the edge of the door at the bottommost part.
Willis was well down the street and nothing had happened to him. Far down the street some sort of cover had been set up. Jim stuck his head out an inch farther, trying to see what it was, when the comer of the door frame above him gave off a puff of smoke and he felt the electric tingle of a near miss. He jerked his head hastily back and reentered the lock.
He had an all-gone feeling at the pit of his stomach and a conviction that he would never see Willis again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Don't Shoot!"
THE REST OF the day passed wearily for Jim and Frank. There was nothing they could do about their own plan until after dark. In the meantime discussions were taking place among colonial leaders, but they were held behind closed doors and the boys were definitely not invited.'
Supper was a welcome diversion, both because they were hungry and because it meant that the kitchen would presently be deserted and the way left open to the garbage dump. Or so they thought. They found that, in practice, the womenfolk running the kitchen first took a leisurely time to clean the place up, then seemed disposed to sit around all night, drinking coffee and talking.
The boys found excuses to come into the kitchen, excuses that got thinner every trip and which began to arouse Mrs. Palmer's suspicions.
Finally Jim followed another boy in, wondering what he would say this time, when he heard the other boy say, "Mrs. Palmer, Captain Marlowe sends his regards and wants to know if it would be too much trouble to keep a night watch for coffee and sandwiches for the men on guard."
"Why, no," Jim heard her say, "we'll be glad to do that. Henrietta, will you go out and find some volunteers? I'll take the first stint."
Jim backed out and went to where Frank awaited him. "What's the chances?" asked Frank. "Does it look like they're going to break up any time soon?"
Jim told him what the chances were-or, rather, were not. Frank swore, using a couple of words that Jim had not heard before, and noted down for future use. "What'U we do, Jim?"
"I don't know. Maybe when it's down to just one of them on duty, she'll go out occasionally."
"Maybe we could get her out with some song and dance."
"Maybe. Maybe we could tell her that she's wanted in the headquarters room. That ought to do it."
They were still discussing it when the lights went out.
The place was suddenly completely dark, as dark as the inside of a rock. Worse than that, there was a disturbing utter silence. Jim had just realized that the complete emptiness of sound resulted from the ending of the noise of circulating air, from the stopping of the supercharger on the roof, when a woman began to scream.
She was joined by another, in a higher key. Then there were voices everywhere in the darkness, questioning, complaining, soothing.
Down the hall from where the boys loitered a light sprang out and Jim heard his father's voice. "Quiet, everybody. Don't get excited. It's just a power failure. Be patient."
The light moved toward them, suddenly hit them. "You boys get to bed." Jim's father moved on. Down the passage in the other direction they could hear Doc's bellow, ordering people to shut up and calm down.
Jim's father came back. This time he was saying, "Into your suits, everybody. Have your respirators on your head. We hope to correct this in a few minutes, but we don't want anybody hurt. Now don't get excited; this building will hold pressure for half an hour at least. There's plenty of time to get ready for thin air, even if it takes a while to correct the trouble."
Other lights sprang up here and there; shortly the passageways throughout the building, if not the rooms, were adequately lighted. The corridors were crowded with dim shapes, struggling into their outdoors suits. Jim and Frank, planning as they were to attempt to go outside, had long been in their suits, armed, and with respirators at the ready. "Maybe this is a good time," suggested Frank.
"Nope," Jim answered. "They're still in the kitchen. I can see a light."
MacRae came down the corridor; Jim stopped him. "Doc, how long do you think it will be until they get the lights on?"
MacRae said, "Are you kidding?"
"What do you mean. Doc?"
"The lights aren't coming on. This is one of Beecher's stunts. He's pulled the switch on us, at the power house."
"Are you sure?"
"There's no failure-we've checked it. I'm surprised Beecher didn't do it hours ago-in his shoes, I would have done it five minutes after we moved in. But don't you birds go blabbing, Jim; your Pop has his hands full keeping the custard heads from blowing thentops." He moved on.
In spite of Captain Marlowe's reassuring words the true state of things was soon common knowledge. The pressure dropped slowly, so slowly that it was necessary to warn everyone to adjust their respirators, lest oxygen starvation sneak up on the unwary. After that it was hardly possible to maintain the fiction that the power loss was temporary, to be corrected any minute now. The temperature in the building fell Slowly;
there was no danger of them freezing in the closed and insulated building-but the night chill penetrated.
Marlowe set up headquarters in the entrance hall in a circle of light cast by a single torch. Jim and Frank loitered there, discreetly back in the shadows, unwilling to miss what might be going on and quite unwilling to go to bed as ordered.... as Frank pointed out to Jim, the only beds they had were occupied, by Mrs. Marlowe, Phyllis, and Oliver. Neither of them had given up the idea of attempting the garbage chute route, but they knew in their hearts that the place was too stirred up to give them the privacy they would require.
Joseph Hartley, one of the colony's hydroponists, came up to Marlowe. His wife was behind him, carrying their baby daughter in a pressurized crib, its supercharger sticking up above the clear plastic shell of it like a chimney. "Mr. Marlowe-I mean Captain Marlowe-"
"Yes?"
"You've got to do something. Our kid can't stand this. She's coming down with croup and we can't get at her to help her."
MacRae crowded forward. "You should have brought her to me, Joe." He looked the baby over, through the plastic, then announced, "The kid seems to be doing all right."
"She's sick, I tell you."
"Hnim-I can't make much of an examination when I can't get at her. Can't take her temperature, but she doesn't seem to be in any real danger."
"You're just trying to soothe me down," Hartley said angrily. "You can't tell anything about it when she is in a sealed crib."
"Sony, son," the doctor answered.
"A fat lot of good it does to be sorry! Somebody's got to do something. This can't-" His wife plucked at his sleeve; he turned away and they went into a huddle. Shortly he turned back. "Captain Marlowe!"
"Yes, Mr. Hartley."
"The rest of you can do as you like. I've had enough. I've got my wife and baby to think about."
"The decision is yours," Marlowe said stiffly and turned away in abrupt dismissal.