Pressure Man

by Zach Hughes

  “They read fine,” Doris said.

  “I’ll feel better if they’re checked,” Dom said, swimming as rapidly as possible toward another bulkhead grouping.

  “On my way,” Jensen said.

  “Dom, you’ve used one hour and thirty-nine minutes,” Doris said. “Sixty minutes and counting.”

  “Captain Gordon,” Jensen said, his voice grim, “are you a practicing psychic?”

  “Only a practicing pessimist,” Dom said. “Give it to me.”

  “The hatch locks on the redundant bulkheads are inoperative,” Jensen said. “And the mains would have to take up any strain alone.”

  “The damned things were working when we checked them,” Neil said.

  “They’re not working now,” Jensen said.

  The redundant bulkheads were safety features. Between the hold and the compartments forward and aft were two sets of bulkheads. The inner wall had no hatches or locks. The outer, or redundant, bulkhead was hatched, allowing access to the air space between bulkheads.

  “All readings are normal,” Doris said. “That clever little bit had to be built in.”

  “And something’s happened since we checked,” Neil said.

  “A timed acid charge next to the wiring,” J.J. said. “That would do it.”

  “That means we had Firsters working on the ship,” Dom said. “It would take an instrumentation tech and an electrician working together to install acid vials and an inspector to overlook them.”

  “And how many more?” J.J. asked, his voice seething with frustrated anger.

  “Art, give Paul a hand and get cracking on those hatch controls,” Dom said. “Get them closed and lock them.”

  All of the metal pieces which formed the internal supports had begun to look alike, giving Dom the fear that he had forgotten to move on and was pulling himself, swimming, using his hands for help, over the same girders time after time. He was getting very tired. When you’re tired mistakes come more easily. He didn’t want to overlook some small package, and he didn’t want to have to slow down.

  “Forward hatches closed and locked,” Paul Jensen said. “Moving to the stern.”

  “Roger on that,” Dom said.

  Suddenly he was wishing for Larry. Larry could put himself inside the head of that sonofabitch back there on the moon and it was eighty to twenty that Larry could send searchers to within a hundred feet of the charge. Larry would think it over for a few minutes while telling bad jokes and then he’d say, “Hell, it’s simple.”

  So try to put yourself in Larry’s head, he told himself. Make it simple. What are the factors? A hint that the bomb was in the hold. Sabotaged hatch-closing controls on the safety bulkheads.

  “Hell,” he said aloud, “it is simple.”

  “What’s so simple?” Neil asked.

  “They had to plan this thing well in advance,” Dom said, his voice showing his excitement. Even as he talked he was moving straight down the center of the hold, swimming for the stern bulkhead. “They wanted an explosion and they wanted it to do maximum damage. So they fixed it so that the safety hatches wouldn’t close, so that the explosion, if it didn’t rupture the outer hull, would do maximum internal damage. They want water in the forward quarters and in the engineroom.”

  “Sounds logical,” J. J. said.

  “Neil, you and Ellen stop where you are and swim like hell to the forward bulkhead.”

  “Forty and counting, Flash,” J.J. said. “Are you ready to bet it all on a hunch?”

  “That is affirmative,” Dom said. “Well find it on the stern bulkhead or near it. Just in case they got two charges, I want Neil and Ellen to cover the forward bulkhead. My bet is that they’re aiming at the engine compartment.”

  He pictured it. The main bulkhead ruptured, water pouring into the engine compartment through the open safety hatches. It wouldn’t even have to be a huge charge. A small shaped charge would punch a hole in the bulkhead.

  Neil said, “We’re moving. I think you’re right, Dom, A three-foot hole punched in the bulkhead would do it.”

  “Probably near a seam,” Doris said.

  Dom was gasping. The beam of his light sliced the water ahead. The minutes seemed to race by. When he could see the distinctive contours of the stern bulkhead he slowed and allowed his heart to catch up, gliding forward on inertial momentum. The bulkhead was studded with diamond-shaped reinforcement for strength. He came onto it at the approximate center. It extended up and down and out on all sides, a large area of potential hiding places, and each reinforcement diamond offered multiple planes for planting a charge.

  “We’re under way up here,” Neil said. “Ellen, go to the outer hull and start clockwise. Next to the outer hull would be a good place.”

  “Thirty-one and counting,” Doris said.

  “Paul and Art,” Dom said, “when we find this mother we’ll bring it out the nearest lock, so stand by to get there fast. Paul on lock controls, Art on the nearest outer lock. Everybody in life-support gear now. When we come out, I’ll want a section closed off so that Art can have the outer lock already open. Got that?”

  “Roger,” Art said.

  “Abandon-ship stations in fifteen minutes,” J. J. said.

  “Thirty and counting,” Doris reported.

  Never had minutes seemed to pass so quickly. Dom was moving rapidly over the bulkhead, checking each depression between reinforcing diamonds, running his hands over the reinforcements themselves. Neil and Ellen reported no find.

  The charge on the stern bulkhead was mounted a few inches from the outer hull on a flat surface between two reinforcement diamonds. It filled the space neatly. It was held in place by four gleaming nuts on studs into the bulkhead, itself.

  “Neil,” Dom said, “concentrate on the second row of depressions at six o’clock. I’ve got mine.”

  “Roger,” Neil said.

  “Twenty and counting,” Doris said.

  “Nothing here,” Neil said.

  “Take five more minutes, spend it down low,” Dom said. “Paul, I need a half-inch power spanner and a two-foot repair limpet at the port stern lock. Start the lock cycling now. I’m betting that this thing is rigged to detonate if it’s removed underwater.” He waited near the inner lock door. “They went to too much trouble not to booby-trap it.”

  “The lock is flooded and opening,” Paul said.

  “We’re negative up here,” Neil reported.

  “Roger,” Dom said. “You and Ellen get out.” Dom grabbed the repair limpet and the power wrench as the lock door opened.

  “Sixteen and counting, Dom,” Doris said.

  “No change in orders,” Dom said, as he swam back toward the charge. “Take abandon-ship stations.”

  “Change of orders,” J.J. said. “I’m staying aboard. Well get it off in time, Flash.”

  “This is a matter of safety,” Dom said. “You’re going off, admiral.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” J.J. said bitterly.

  Dom was inflating the repair limpet, pumping water from around the charge. When it was enclosed inside the limpet he inserted his hands and carefully used the in-place cloths to dry the charge and bulkhead around it. He inserted the spanner, activated it, spun off one of the nuts.

  “Fifteen and counting,” Doris said. “Capsules ready for launching.”

  Two nuts were off. A third was coming.

  “Number one launched,” Doris said.

  “Pilot’s capsule launched,” Neil said. “Well expect to be back aboard in a few minutes, Dom.”

  “That’s a hopeful roger,” Dom said, spinning off the last stud and removing the spanner.

  “Standing by,” Paul Jensen said. “It’s just you and me, Dom.”

  He allowed the capsules forty-five seconds to clear the ship, at least by a few hundred feet. Then he pulled on the charge. It came and his heart thumped as he waited for it to blow. It stuck. He used the spanner as a pry and it came off the studs and was in his hand inside the repair limpe
t. He turned it. It was rigged to explode upon contact with water. He closed a watertight bag over the charge and removed it from the limpet, letting the limpet fall away.

  “Stand by to operate the lock, Paul,” he said. He swam into the lock and the door started closing behind him. The explosive device was sophisticated. It was equipped for detonation by radio signal, and it was standard to have the circuits rigged to explode if there was tampering.

  “Four minutes and counting,” Doris said.

  “I’m in the lock and I have the charge,” Dom said. But he knew as well as they that it took five minutes to empty the lock and another few seconds to open the outer door, run down the airless corridor and send the charge into space.

  “Dom,” J.J. said. “Moon Control is on. They have been warned that if the broadcast does not start exactly on time the charge will be detonated.”

  “J.J., goddammit, you’re supposed to be off the ship.”

  “Put me on report,” J.J. said. “You’ll make it.”

  “Stall them. Tell them to stall somehow. All we need is another couple of minutes,” Dom said. The water was being pumped out of the lock with a terrifying slowness. The heavy charge in his hands seemed so inert, but it was death, not only for him but for the ship.

  “Three minutes, Flash. Moon Control says stalling is out. They’ve been warned against it.”

  “All right,” Dom said. “Tell them to start the broadcast on time. It should last a couple of minutes, at least. That just might give us time.”

  The water was only down a couple of feet from the ceiling on the lock. Seconds ticked off his wrist chronometer.

  “Those miserable bastards,” J. J. said. “Those mucking, murdering bastards. Dom, it has been decided at the top level that the service will not appease the terrorists. They will not start the broadcast. We have two minutes and—fifty seconds.”

  Dom was feeling panic, but his mind worked, envisioning the layout of the ship. The hold lock and the outer hull lock were almost opposite each other across the narrow walkway alongside the hold, nothing more than a tunnel connecting the forward compartments with the engine areas.

  “Paul,” Dom yelled. “Can you override the safeties on the hold lock?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Do it. Outer hull lock open?”

  “I’m in vacuum. Affirmative.”

  “When I give the word, brace yourself in somewhere and blow the door to this lock. Don’t get in the way. A lot of water will be sucked out.”

  “I’ve got you,” Jensen said. “Take a minute.”

  “You have just over that,” J.J. said.

  “Safety off,” Jensen said. “Clumsy. It will take a little repair.”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Dom said. “Blow this door as fast as you can, right now.”

  He placed himself against the door, the charge in its watertight bag held down toward the deck. When the door started up, the vacuum in the corridor and all the space would suck the water out of the lock with tremendous force.

  “Here we go,” Jensen said.

  The door started upward. There was a roaring hiss as explosive decompression started in the lock, sucking water under the door opening so rapidly that Dom almost went with it, catching himself with one hand on a support as the force tore at him. The charge was ripped from his hand. It banged against the rising door and then shot out and then with the same suddenness with which it began decompression was complete and there was silence. Dom closed his eyes and waited for the explosion. The lock door continued to rise. He looked out into the tunnel and saw Jensen still clinging to supports. If there was another charge it would go about now.

  He did not hear the explosion when it came, for it came in the vacuum of space fifty yards away and slightly astern of the open outer lock. The blast which would have been so deadly in the filled hold was puny in the emptiness of space. Later, an examination showed a few pinpoints of damage on the skin of the hull.

  “Mr. Jensen,” Dom said, very formally and very softly, “you may close hull.”

  He went forward to discover that each member of the crew was in his or her place, that the reported launchings of the escape capsules had been faked for his benefit. He was both angered by having his orders disobeyed and touched to know that each of them had risked his life to stay and do whatever was possible to save the ship.

  “What can I say?” J.J. asked. “ ‘Good work’ would be a feeble way to express it.”

  “You can have your say when I put you on report for ignoring a ship captain’s order,” Dom said.

  He felt a sudden weakness in his knees and sat down. Doris handed him a cup of steaming coffee.

  “I think I’ve created a monster,” J.J. said. “Give a junior officer a bit of authority and it goes to his head.”

  “Save it,” Dom said. “You’ll need the energy. We’re going to go over this ship. I don’t want any more little surprises. I want every circuit, every component, every inch of her checked.”

  Doris was watching his face, a strange little smile on her lips.

  “And you,” he said. “I thought you were safe in the capsule.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t. There were several reasons.”

  “Dom,” Neil said, “there was no way any of us were going to let this ship die and go back to the moon on a rescue vessel.”

  Dom was thinking about those several reasons Doris had for staying on the ship as long as he was there and in danger.

  “All right,” he said. “I suppose I’m supposed to be grateful. I am, personally, but as captain of this ship I want it to be known that this is the last mutiny. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” J.J. said, grinning.

  “Admiral,” Dom said. “Let’s get started. You, sir, can start with the heads.”

  And even the heads were checked during the next few exhausting days before they were satisfied that the Kennedy held no more unpleasant surprises for them. The guess that the circuits to the hatches in the redundant bulkheads had been burned with a delayed acid bomb was correct. The damage was minor. Within hours after the explosion of the bomb in space the men who had seized station eight-five on the moon were dead. Meanwhile, as the check of the ship continued, Mars grew from a star to a small globe on the viewscreens, and the unimpressive red disc grew rapidly as the shipboard activities settled into a routine.

  Chapter Nine

  In deep space a ship becomes a small world. While there is radio contact with the moon and with the more powerful stations at Houston and DOSEWEX, that contact is limited to official and functional communications. Radio messages from the Kennedy should have been less limited than those of an ordinary ship, for the Kennedy had as much computer power as either of the two main control stations. But since anyone on Earth with a powerful receiver could monitor ship channels, the Kennedy was limited in the information she could safely send.

  Still when things settled down and the watches became long and boring, a favorite form of entertainment was to listen to traffic between ships in space and the home control stations.

  To be in deep space was to be cut off from any accurate knowledge of affairs on Earth, for the daily broadcasts to spacers were from government-controlled stations. Much of the news content of such programs was shameless puffs of current Publicrat policies, promises of the Utopia to come. There was no mention of the attempt to destroy the Kennedy or of the death of the terrorists on the moon.

  In the early days, when a few brave men were the focus of the attention of the world, nothing was too good for spacemen. On the first Mars flights the hours of boredom were partially dispelled by broadcasts on a special channel, news, music, and even long chats with relatives and friends of the men who were riding the ship through a long, tedious flight. Now, in the name of economy, broadcasts were limited and consisted mostly of propaganda.

  No one aboard the Kennedy bothered to listen to the government stations. The ship carried a sizable film library and g
ood music tapes. Because power was unlimited, there was a decent library of real books, plus a larger one of microfilm. Still, one of the favorite forms of passing time was to listen to the cool, professional voices of spacers sending reports to Houston.

  For essential communications, the Kennedy was equipped with a squirter, a device which compacted voice messages into a split-second burst of energy and beamed the messages down to DOSEWEX, where they were recorded, stretched, and decoded. Messages were received in the same way, and only J.J. had access to the decoder. He held briefings on important communications. He was concerned by a new, all-out attack on the space program. Budget cutting in Congress was only one symptom. There was nothing definite as yet, but the FBI reported an apparent lessening of competition among the various radical groups. One indication was an attack on the DOSE communications station during which both Earthfirsters and Worldsavers had been killed.

  One of the persistent questions sent by J.J. asked who had made the decision, at the last minute, to reverse a continuing policy of appeasement in dealing with terrorists.

  “It is very strange,” he said, “because for years I’ve advocated a get-tough policy. I have always said that it would be best, in the long run, to sacrifice a few lives by refusing ransom demands. Sure, it would be rough on the victims, but it would save lives over the long period. For years I’ve been overruled from the political side. A gang of terrorists takes a hostage and demands the release of imprisoned terrorists, or money, or some political objective. In the past the bleeding hearts have forced us to give in in the name of saving the life of the hostage. Then, all of a sudden, when there’s more at stake than there ever has been, when the Kennedy herself is the pawn, when the last hope for space is the prize, we embark on a new policy of non-negotiation.”

  “A political decision?” Dom suggested. “Because the politicians really wanted the Kennedy to be destroyed?”

  “I’ve asked repeatedly,” J.J. said. “I get no answers. My main question is this. How did the Earthsiders find out about the situation when the moon was blocked off from any communications?”