Zach Hughes - Pressure Man

He had never liked being underwater. He was a creature of the openness of space. He wanted space around him, the reach of interplanetary distance, not the oppressive weight of a liquid. He fought the urge to swim upward, although there was no up, to reach for the surface and for air. Even in the smallest ships he had never felt so confined as he did by the dark weight of the water in the hold. He forced himself to breathe evenly, for he tended to pant. He swam onward toward the next set of girders.

“I spent too much time at that first bulkhead,” he said.

“Roger,” Neil answered. “And ditto.”

“And if we just hit the most likely places we could miss the mother,” Dom said. “There’s no choice. We just have to search carefully and hope that he put it near the center so that well find it before turnaround time.”

“Captain Gordon,” Ellen Overman said, “I am qualified for life-support-system work.”

“Do you remember from your indoctrination how the internal supports are constructed?” Dom asked.

“Roger,” Ellen said.

“Suit up, then,” Dom said. “Come in through lock four and move toward the bow. If you see anything don’t try to handle it yourself.”

“I am also qualified to handle explosives,” Ellen said.

“Dom,” Art said, “I can suit up, too.”

“Not a chance,” Dom said. “Not with your lungs.”

“I can handle it,” Art said.

“Stay where you are, and that’s an order,” Dom said.

“You’ve been down fifteen minutes,” Doris said. “Two hours and twenty-four minutes to turnaround.”

“They might give us a few extra minutes,” Dom said.

“Don’t count on it,” J.J. said. “We’d better figure them to panic when we don’t start that broadcast on time. By that time that bomb had better be in free space a long way from the hull. If Bensen and his nuts get the idea we’re trying to be tricky they’ll push the button without a moment’s hesitation.”

“I can’t figure why they want the Kennedy to return to the moon anyhow,” Paul Jensen said. “It would be to their advantage to blow her up in space. Then they could be sure she’d never fly again.”

“That’s the way I had it figured,” Dom said, “when I told them we wouldn’t broadcast until we were turned. I figured they’d blow the bomb the minute the broadcast was over. I just didn’t want to worry anyone with my private fears.”

“You two are little rays of sunshine,” Neil said.

Dom was swimming around and through a maze of hogging girders. His light picked up dozens of little angles which would offer excellent spots to plant a bomb.

“I think we can figure it that way,” J.J. said. “The minute the broadcast is finished, they bust the button.”

“My God,” Ellen Overman said, as she emerged from the lock into the hold. “It’s big.”

“There are no sharks,” Dom said. “That’s in our favor. Move forward. You’ll make visual contact with a girder system.”

“Got it,” Ellen said, “Don’t worry about me. I just felt lonely there for a second.”

“Twenty-five minutes,” Doris said.

The pattern was set and would continue with mounting tension for the next two hours. Doris called out the time used at five-minute intervals, and Dom began to match his movements to five-minute units.

By turnaround time just over half of the hull supports would have been examined.

At the end of the first hour Dom began to fear that he had bet the lives of his crew and the existence of the ship on a snap judgment that the terrorists would have tried for maximum force by placing the charge near the center of mass. Doubts made him sweat inside his suit, and the fluid reclamation system had to work hard. He and Neil continued to work away from each other, moving away from the center. Ellen was forward, working in the same direction as Neil. At the end of one and a half hours, Neil reached bulkhead seven-three, where Ellen had begun her search. He resisted an urge to check behind her. If she missed it, she missed it. It was all a guessing game anyhow. There was always the chance that the charge was not even in the hold, but elsewhere in the ship. He swam rapidly and caught up to Ellen within a few minutes.

“Nice to have company,” she said.

“We’ll try it together and see if we get in each other’s way,” Neil said. “You go port on the next bulkhead.”

They moved faster than Dom, who was still working alone. J.J. announced the passage of one hour and fifteen minutes. The huge central area of the ship seemed endlessly long.

“I have a very interesting phenomenon,” Doris said. “Your movements send energy impulses against the hull. I got faint readings when all of you were swimming alone, and now with Neil and Ellen close together the force generated by their movements is strong enough to register well.”

“So?” Dom asked.

“Nothing, really,” Doris said. “But based on the readings I’d say that the hull could take an explosion of just under one and a half kilos of Dupont XP without rupture.”

“That might be encouraging if we knew that the explosive is merely Dupont XP and not more than one and a half kilos,” J.J. said.

“They had the new German stuff in the Gulfport raid last month,” Art said. “It’s twenty-five percent more potent.”

“Yeah, leave it to the Germans,” Dom said.

“Dupont XP is the standard explosive used on the moon,” Doris said.

“Let’s not clutch at straws,” Dom said. “I think our only chance is to find the charge and get it off the ship.”

“What if time runs out?” J. J. asked.

“Evacuate the ship,” Dom said. “J.J. and Doris in capsule one. Art and Ellen in the pilot’s capsule with Neil. I’ll go with Paul in the stern capsule, but I’m going to ask you to be prepared to stay longer than the others, Paul, to give me all the possible time down here.”

“Allowing two minutes for emergency capsule launch and enough time to allow the capsule to clear, you’ll have to start out the locks no later than fifteen minutes to zero,” Doris said.

“I can pop out the stern lock,” Dom said. “Well be launching away from the direction of thrust, so we’ll cover distance faster with the ship pulling away. I can take an extra five minutes.”

“That’s cutting it too close,” Doris said.

“No heroes on this trip, Flash,” J.J. said. “I want you in that capsule at no less than zero minus twelve minutes.”

“Roger,” Dom said.

“Well start a countdown at zero minus forty,” J.J. said. “At zero minus fifteen, all aboard the capsule except Dom and Paul. At zero minus twelve, Dom and Paul board and launch. We rendezvous in the capsules on my signal on band seven-oh-three.”

“This may be a stupid question,” Paul said, “but how about opening the hold and letting the water out into space? We could search it in a fraction of the time.”

“Good thinking,” Dom said. “But if we vented through all loading hatches it would take five and a half hours.”

“Sorry,” Jensen said. “I’ll stick to the powerplant.”

“As a matter of fact, Paul,” Dom said. “I want you to leave the powerplant now and run a visual and manual on the compartment bulkheads. If we have to abandon ship there’s a chance she’ll survive a small explosion. Be sure they’re all closed.”

“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?”