'I scorched my hand pretty thoroughly,' he finished, 'and felt around. I found the desk where the hot-dog man balanced up accounts. I found his pencil and wrote a message to him, telling who I was and how I came to be there. Then I attracted his attention by pounding his inkwell on the top of his desk.'
'Luckily, he wasn't just superstitious. He tried to find out what was happening. The radio broadcast had told about my being carried away in the Mole. The hot-dog man took a chance. He put his stove down on the floor, and I balanced myself on one of those earth-shoes and scorched the soles of my own leather shoes. I tried them. And the heat had re-materialized the bottom layer of the leather.
'I could stand on the floor of the hot-dog stand! At last I had some hope to cling to!
'Then I scorched the earth-shoes, too. The hot-dog man could see them, then. And they wouldn't sink through the floor at all. He believed me. I tore off bits of canvas that had been scorched. He could see them, too, and so could I. He put one over his ear as I'd told him to, in writing. One side was rematerialized by the heat. The other wasn't quite scorched and was real to me.
'I shouted at it. My voice vibrated my side of the cloth, and that made his side vibrate. In a little while he made me hear him, too, in the same way. We had to scream at each other, though with the hand I'd scorched I could touch him. It nearly scared him to death the first time I did it. Then he telephoned for me. And I lay down on the earth-shoes on the floor, and waited. The brought a force-field outfit and re-materialized me.
'I nearly keeled over when I saw the world actual about me again.'
Kennedy listened. He had to. But his thoughts were with Gail.
'But Gail-'
'Look at my hands.' said Jack jerkily. He held them out. They quivered. 'I found out something Durran doesn't know. It's a show-down. Either we get Gail back when Durran turns up, or - there's no hope for her at all.'
'What's the matter?'
'Durran's doomed,' said Jack unsteadily. 'He doesn't know it. I do. He told me he was having to run the sustaining screws ten revolutions a minute faster than at the beginning. And Gail's in the Mole. You see what that means?'
'No. What's happened?'
'The sustaining screws hold the Mole up,' replied Jack, puffing nervously, 'because they're coated with thorium. If it wasn't for that and their movement, the ship would drop like a stone. And the thorium plating is wearing off. Durran doesn't realize it, but the Mole's travelled a long way. When he's run it a certain time longer, so much of the plating will have worn off that no speed will enable the sustaining screws to hold the ship up. So we've got to get Gail out of the Mole to-day.' His eyes met the other's evenly.
Kennedy's face was grey and drawn. It went greyer yet. 'What are you going to do?'
'Ransom her,' replied Jack. 'If Durran sees me here, he won't go away leaving me alive. I hope he'll be curious enough to ask me how I escaped. Then I can talk to him. Did you see a plane sweep low across this place early this morning?'
Kennedy shook his head.
'It was supposed to dust the ground all about here,' said Jack jerkily. 'Like they dust crops by plane. That's part of the trick. I have the rest in my pocket. Where's the ransom for New York?'
Kennedy gestured toward half a dozen suitcases. 'Full of currency,' he said indifferently. 'State troopers all around us in a ring a couple of miles across. Durran's been looking over the place, we may be sure. He's probably watching us now.'
Jack nodded. He flung his cigarette away and lighted another.
'I've only about as long as it takes Durran to get here,' he said unsteadily, 'before I get bumped off. I'm hoping - I'm praying I get Gail dear. Only one chance, and that a thin one. But Durran goes, and I think I go with him.'
'But what are you going to do?' demanded Kennedy desperately. 'What -' Then he stopped.
The Mole, a phantom, was rising out of the ground not a dozen yards away. It came fully into view, and the whitish, eerie light of the force field played upon it, diminishing. As it diminished, the Mole solidified. And as it solidified the screws found the earth in which they worked becoming more and more solid and they slowed and then finally stopped for the increased resistance.
The door opened. The ugly muzzle of a machine gun peered out.
'I've scouted pretty thoroughly,' said the voice of Durran harshly, 'and there's no trap here. I hope you didn't plan to have me bombed from the air, Kennedy. I've got your daughter with me.'
'N-no,' said Kennedy. He swallowed. 'I - I arranged to meet you so I could make terms for her ransom. Can I speak to her?'
A pause.
Durran laughed. 'Why not? Go out, my dear, and talk to him. I can take you back any time I please -'
His voice broke off short. He'd recognized Jack.
'Hello, Durran,' said Jack coolly. 'You didn't like the last bargain I made with you. But it still stands as an offered ransom for Gail.'
Gail stepped out of the Mole, deathly white, and suddenly ran into her father's arms. She sobbed in sheer relief as she dung to him. 'Jack isn't dead!'
'Talk to you later, Gail,' said Jack evenly. 'I'm going to make a bargain for you to stay with your father.'
Durran found his voice again. 'The devil!' he said, shaken. 'I thought you were roasted long ago, Hill! I'll make sure you're dead before I leave this time!'
'Perhaps," said Jack. 'I offered you information, while I was in the Mole, in exchange for Gail's safety. Kill me and you don't get it. It's about - this.'
He took a flat package, about the size of a tobacco tin, out of his pocket. The ugly muzzle of the machine gun swung and covered him accurately.
You're covered,' said Durran. 'What's the trick?'
'You can't dematerialize within a certain distance of one of these contrivances,' said Jack. 'They're being turned out in quantity. The result is that if you materialize anywhere these things have been planted, you can't get away and are subject to attack. I'll trade full information, and come with you to give it, for Gail's release. Maybe you can beat them. I doubt it. But you can work out a detector for them, if you know how they work.'
'That's impossible!' snapped Durran.
'So is the Mole.' submitted Jack. 'You can't dematerialize your ship right now. Isn't the secret of that trick worth Gail's release?'
A pause.
Durran's voice sounded suspidous. 'If it's true. That might be a bomb, though. You stay where you are. I'm going to test it out. This machine gun stays trained on you. I turn on the force field. If you lie, I can materialize again fast enough to kill you.'
'But you can't dematerialize,' said Jack. He smiled faintly. 'You're inside the range of this thing.'
Only a grunt came from inside the Mole. Something rumbled within. The sustaining screws stirred. Instantly the ship flashed into the state of co-ordinated atoms, they would whir swiftly, looking like the most tenuous of froth but sustaining the whole weight of the earth-ship.
'If you dare move,5 said Durran harshly, 'I'll kill all three of you!'
Then the Mole flared with eerie, whitish light. It became a phantom.
And it dropped with a headlong swiftness at one and the same instant. One instant there was the Mole, all solid, riveted, bullet-scarred plates of steel. Next instant there was a glowing outline which fell as it glowed. Then there was nothing. No phantom. No outline. Nothing.
Jack smiled very, very faintly. 'I think,' he said softly, 'that's that!'
Gail stared at him. 'Jack! Where's the Mole?
Jack said rather grimly: 'The thorium plating on the sustaining screws has been wearing thin. So this morning I had a plane fly low over this place Durran had appointed. It dusted all the top of the ground with crystals of phosphoric acid. There's been rain lately, and the ground is moist. The acid made a strong solution in all the top soil. And the Mole came swimming through that soil. As long as it was de-materialized, of course, the acid did nothing. But when the Mole materialized, the phosphoric acid dissolved off the remaining thin plating of thorium from the screws. And I persuaded Durran to dematerialize - and there was nothing to hold the ship up. It fell through earth and stone. It's still falling. We'll never see Durran again.'