Feeling some shyness at stripping in front of fifty men, she pulled the tabs loose. The air temperature was just above freezing. Shivering, teeth chattering, she again tried to force her way into the thick element. She could not go a centimeter beyond the limit of her original advance.
She bent down to pick up her cloths, noting that she could do so easily. The force acted only in a horizontal direction. After backing away two steps, and feeling the force diminish, she put her cloths back on.
Outside the entrance again, she said, "You try it, Piscator.
"You think I could succeed where you can't? Well, it is worth experimenting.''
Naked, he walked in. To her surprise, she saw that he was not affected by the field. Not, at least, until he had gotten several meters from the curve. Then he called back that he was encountering difficulty.
He moved ever more slowly, struggling, his panting so loud that she could hear it. But he did get to the curve, and there he paused to regain his breath.
He said, "There's an open elevator at the end. It seems to be the only way to get down."
"Can you get to it?" she called.
"I'll try."
Moving like an-actor in a slow-motion film, he plowed ahead. And he was gone around the bend.
A minute passed. Two. Jill went into the corridor as far as she could. "Piscator! Piscator!"
Her voice rang strangely, as if the corridor had peculiar acoustical properties.
There was no answer, though if he were just around the curve, he would be able to hear her.
She shouted again and again. Silence replied.
There was nothing she could do except to return to the entrance and let others try.
The men went in by twos to save time. Some progressed a little further than she; some, not as much. All shed their cloths, but this did not help them at all.
Jill used the walkie-talkie to order the men in the ship to make the attempt. If one out of fifty-two could do it, perhaps one of the forty-one in the ship might succeed.
First, though, everybody except herself had to return to the vessel. They trooped off, phantom figures in the dimly lit fog. She had never felt so lonely in all her life, and she had known many hours of the blackest isolation. The mists pressed wet hands against her face, which seemed to be congealing into a mask of ice. The funeral pyre of Obrenova, Metzing, and the others burned fiercely. And there was Piscator, somewhere around the corner. What situation was he in? Was he unable either to go ahead or to go back? Returning had not been difficult for her or the other men. Why should he not be able to retreat?
But then she did not know what other obstacles there were beyond that grim grey hall.
She muttered to herself Virgil's line, "Facilis descensus Averni." ("It is easy to go down into Hell.")
What was the rest of it? After so many years, she found it difficult to remember. If only this world had books, reference materials.
Now it came back.
It is easy to go down into Hell. Night and day, the gates of Death stand wide. But to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air. There's the rub, the task.
The only real trouble with that quotation was that it was not appropriate. It had been very hard to get to the gates, impossible for all but one. And climbing back-except for one-had been easy.
She switched on the walkie-talkie.
"Cyrano. The captain here."
"Yes, what is it, my captain?"
"Are you cry ing?"
"Yes, but of course. Did I not love Firebrass dearly? I am not ashamed of my grief. I am not a cold Anglo-Saxon."
"Never mind that. Get hold of yourself. We have work to do."
Cyrano sniffled, then said, "I know that. And I am willing and able. You will find me no less a man. What are your orders?"
"You know you're to be relieved by Nikitin. I want you to bring along twenty-five kilograms of plastic explosive."
"Yes. I hear you. But do you intend to blow up the tower?"
"No, just the entranceway."
A half-hour passed. The men in the ship had to come out and those out had to go in. This was a long process, since, for every man that left, one had to go in immediately. Taking turns this way slowed the business but was necessary. Forty-eight leaving all at once would make the ship too buoyant. It would rise, leaving the end of the ladder above the reach of those on the ground.
Finally, she saw their lights and heard their voices. She told them what had happened, though they already knew. Then she told them what they were to do, which they expected.
The result was that no one got anywhere as far as Piscator.
"Very well," Jill said.
The plastic explosive was applied against the exterior of the dome opposite a point halfway down the corridor. She would have liked to have set it at the juncture of the back of the dome and the tower wall. She was afraid that the explosive might blow a hole in the dome. If it did so, it might also kill Piscator.
They retreated to the dirigible and the explosives expert pressed a switch on a transmitter. The blast was deafening, though the plastic had been applied to the side of the dome away from them. They ran to it, then stopped, coughing from the fumes. After the air was cleared, Jill looked at the dome.
It was undamaged.
"I thought so," she said to herself.
She had called in to Piscator that he should not come out until after the explosion. There had been no answer. She had a hunch that he was not in the vicinity, but hunches were not certainties.
Jill went back into the dome as far as she could. There was no force against the long-handled hook she thrust ahead of her. And she could throw a cloth weighted with metal to the end of the corridor. So, the field was no barrier to inanimate objects.
If they had a periscope long enough to reach to the end of the corridor, they could see around it. However, a periscope was not part of the ship's supplies.
She was not defeated by this. There was a very small machinist's shop on the Parse vol. A wheeled device which would go to the end of the corridor could be built. A camera could be attached to its end, and the camera could be activated by a radio transmitter.
The chief machinist's mate thought he could construct the "contraption" in an hour. She told him to do so, and then she ordered three men to stand guard in the dome.
"If Piscator shows, radio me."
Having returned to the ship, she phoned the machinist's shop.
"Can you do your work while we're aloft? The air might be rough."
"No sweat, sir. Well, only a little, anyway."
The process of untying the ship and getting it into the air took fifteen minutes. Nikitin took the Parseval up above the tower and then sent her down toward its base. Radar indicated that the helicopter was now against the base of the tower. Though the sea was not violent, its waves were short and choppy, and it had probably smashed the machine against the tower. However, if they were lucky, the damage could be minimal.
Aukuso radioed Thorn again without success.
Because of the updraft by the tower, it was impossible to bring the dirigible close to the helicopter. Nikitin piloted it down close to the surface and held her against the wind. The belly hatch was opened, and three men in an inflatable boat with an outboard motor were lowered. It headed for the tower, guided by the radarman on the ship.
Boynton, the officer in charge, gave a running report.
"We're alongside the chopper now. It's bumping into the tower, but its pontoons have kept the vanes from being damaged. The pontoons don't seem damaged, either. We're having a hell of a time with this pitching sea. Report back in a minute."