Omi threw an agonizing glance at Marten. Marten grunted and moved beside the gunman, watching the deep gauge and heat-meter. Deep-Core personnel were intensely trained for five years before they dared go down. Psychological tests weeded out over three-quarters of the personnel. Many often cracked after a little more than a week in the deep station. Not that any human could withstand one hundred thousand atmospheres. That was impossible.
Omi tapped the depth gauge.
Marten nodded.
They left the Earth’s crust and entered the mantle.
A solid layer of rock circled the outer Earth, its crust. On the ocean floor, the crust could be as little as sixteen kilometers thick. On the continents, the crust reached a thickness of forty kilometers. Basalt composed the ocean floor, a combination of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, magnesium and iron. The continental mass was mostly granite. Granite was of lower density than basalt. Thus, the continental granite plates floated on the basalt. The entire crust floated on the mantle.
Twenty-nine hundred kilometers thick, the mantle was composed of molten olivine rock: iron and magnesium combined with silicon and oxygen. Overall, the mantle was solid, but under these terrific pressures, it behaved like a plastic. Under the slow, steady pressure the material flowed like extra-thick molasses, but sudden changes in pressure would cause it to snap and fragment like glass.
Beneath the mantle pulsed the outer core. The Earth’s inner core was solid. Both halves were constituted mainly of iron in an alloy form with a small amount of sulfur or oxygen. Because of the heat and pressure, the outer core was molten iron, hot to a degree almost unimaginable.
Heat and pressure of such extremes prevented the use of any known material in shaft construction.. Magnetic force alone formed the walls of the long narrow mine sunk deep into the Earth. Incredibly powerful magnetic shields shoved against the unrelenting pressure of crust, mantle and outer core. The terrible heat from the Earth itself powered these shields, and everything livable had to stay within them. Generators of brutal efficiency and power cooled the temperature inside the shaft. A breech anywhere along the line would destroy the entire deep-core mine. This core heat provided Greater Sydney and much of Australian Sector with its energy needs.
Therefore, the main safety feature was already built into the deep-core. The only way lava could possibly geyser up the mine and onto the surface was to send a tiny plug of it, like a man spitting—a little spurt of molten metal would destroy the magnetic tube behind it as it went. But such was the Earth’s ability to spit that Sydney and everything around it for fifty kilometers would be annihilated. The design and safety features of the mine ensured that process could only be triggered at the deepest section of human habitation, the bottom core station, which hung just above the Earth’s outer core.
The bottom core station was the elevator’s destination.
For a time, Omi and Marten watched the gauges. Suddenly Marten trembled. The psychological weight around him became more than he could bear. He staggered to a cot conveniently provided and slumped upon it. He shut his eyes and his breathing grew even. Exhaustion claimed him. He dreamed of being crushed to death, of Major Orlov sitting on his chest and smothering his mouth with a rag. He clawed against her brawny forearms to no avail. Then, sluggishly, with infinite slowness, he grew aware that he dreamed and fought to wake up. His eyelids unglued and his vision swam in blurry confusion. He groaned, but couldn’t hear himself. Nausea burned the back of his throat with threatened vomit. He concentrated, swung his legs off the cot and rubbed his eyes. A horrible headache pounded. He squinted. The blurs wouldn’t go away. A bolt of fear stabbed him. He bent his head between his knees and told himself to relax, to breathe deeply. He did, and he found that if he pressed his hands on either side of his head that he could focus.
Turbo lay sprawled on the floor, drool spilling from his open mouth. He stared glazed-eyed at the wall. Stick squeezed his eyes closed with ferocious intensity and breathed in and out as if he were a bellows. Omi kept jerking the slide to his assault carbine open and shut, open and shut. Fifty cartridges lay at his feet, but he seemed oblivious to them.
Marten willed himself to his feet, but found that he couldn’t move. Weird gusts of air puffed his cheeks. He frowned. Then he realized that he brayed moronic laughter minus the sound, or the elevator was too noisy to let him hear his own laughter. He slapped a hand over his mouth. Then, after he’d settled himself, he put his hands to his knees and slowly rose to his feet. Systematically he lurched to the depth gauge. The others ignored him. He positioned himself before it and concentrated with everything he had. It swam into view: 2850 kilometers. Just as slowly, he realized they were almost there. It seemed impossible that the pressure could affect them, no matter how terrific, when kept at bay by technology. Maybe man wasn’t conditioned to take it, or maybe some sixth sense felt the world’s weight. Millions of pounds of pressure per square inch… or maybe the awareness of being buried alive more horribly than any dream was too much for the human psyche. Only a superior will could stand it, only a stubborn mule of a man.
There was something just on the edge of Marten’s awareness. It could help him, he knew, but he couldn’t think of it. Oh! Yes, of course. He dug the medkit out of his jacket and pressed it against his arm. The red light flashed and stopped. He hadn’t felt anything. Was it broken? Then a wave of cool relief flooded through him.
He laughed, normally, although still without sound. He stepped beside Omi and put his hand over the gunman’s, the one working the slide. Omi squinted at him, but it didn’t seem that he saw Marten. So Marten pressed the medkit to Omi’s arm. No red light winked. Nothing. Marten checked the medkit and found that it was empty, or empty of whatever drug could help the gunman.
Marten shook Omi.
Omi scowled, but there still wasn’t any focus in his eyes.
Marten went to each of them in turn. It was as if they were in cocoons, in their own worlds. He didn’t know the deep-core term for their condition, although he was sure there was one. One thing seemed to make sense, if they had gone schizoid then surely some of the red-suits had too—he hoped.
Marten also hoped the drug in his bloodstream would last long enough so he could do the job. He readied his assault carbine. And on impulse, he went and pried the vibroblade out of Stick’s grip, sliding it in his boot. Then he went back to the depth gauge and watched.
In time, the noise level lowered. He shouted, and was rewarded with a new sound: his voice. That made his heart pound. Here it was—savior of Sydney or just another loser to Social Unity. Marten didn’t know it, but a vicious snarl twisted his lips.
The elevator pinged.
Marten staggered to the door. It was like wading through gel, slow, difficult work. He had to concentrate to move.
A hand on his shoulder caused him to whip his head around. Omi glared at him, a death’s head grin exposing his teeth.
“Do it,” hissed Omi.
The box shuddered to a halt, the doors slid open and Marten Kluge waded alone into the deep-core station.
18.
The floor of the deep-core station thrummed. A prickly sensation scratched at Marten’s nerves. He’d heard before from a news show or a spy video, he couldn’t remember which, that the discharges of magnetic force off the molten metal created strange electrical currents within the station. It felt as if spiders with sandpaper feet scurried across him. He kept rubbing his arms and rolling his shoulders. And he kept a sharp lookout for red-suits.