Zach Hughes - Pressure Man

The Kennedy became, in that sudden silence, a dinosaur. She had no purpose.

“Check equipment,” Dom ordered.

“All check,” Doris said.

“Check manual,” Dom said. “Hold this position.”

He himself ran a manual check on the receiver. It was operational. A radio check with the picket ship confirmed that the signal from the alien had suddenly ceased.

“Damn,” Dom said. “We were halfway there.” That was in distance, not in pressure. “Well hold here for a few hours. Maybe it will start up again.”

Four hours passed, during which the ship functioned perfectly. There was no break of the radio silence from the alien ship.

“Maybe he heard us coming and doesn’t want company?” Doris asked.

“No, it just went dead,” J.J. said. “It’s a damned miracle it has lasted so long. The ship’s still there.”

“For all the good it does,” Dom said.

“We have its position,” I.J. said. “We can lower down right on top of it.”

“Not likely,” Neil said. “Even under power these winds move us around. Without the signal it would be only a guess to put us within a hundred miles of her.”

“The descent is predicted on the computer,” J.J. said. “We can estimate corrections. We can get within a few miles and do a search.”

“We might find her if we had a hundred years to look,” Dom said.

“All we have is time,” J.J. said. “We have the power. We have air and supplies.”

“J.J., we built this ship for staying a limited time in three thousand atmospheres,” Dom said. “After ten days I wouldn’t want to bet against metal fatigue in the mush bondings.”

“All right, we have ten days,” J.J. said. “We can at least use it.”

“We can at least gather some interesting data,” Art said.

“I want to point out that we will be exposing this ship and her crew to unnecessary danger,” Neil said. “It is my opinion that going deeper into the atmosphere is now useless. If I were in her alone I’d take her down to three thousand atmospheres just to test the design, but I’m not alone. It’s one thing to risk the life of a professional test pilot in experimentation, another to risk the lives of a crew.”

“We hold for one more hour,” Dom said.

It was a tense hour, and when it was over J.J. paced the control room fretfully. Dom had spent the hour with Doris, directing her through some calculations.

“J.J.,” he said, “if we had one chance in a thousand of finding the ship I’d take her down, but I’ve run it through and the odds are a billion to one against finding her. I’ve also done some calculations on the length of stay at three thousand atmospheres. After eight days, the chances of failure increase to a point of risk. I think we’re worth more alive, and the ship is worth something for the Mars run. In short, I’m giving the order to take her up and out.”

“Then I am forced to ask you to relinquish your command,” J.J. said.

“No,” Dom said quietly. “I am in command. I built her and I know her limitations.”

“You have no choice,” J.J. said. “As your superior officer, I hereby inform you that I am taking command. Mr. Walters, make preparations to take her down to three thousand atmospheres.”

“With all due respect, sir, I decline,” Neil said. “I don’t agree that Captain Gordon should be removed from command.”

J.J. was facing them, his hands behind his back. He looked down at his feet, turned slowly, hands still clasped behind his back. He stood there, his back to them, for a long time, and then he turned quickly, his hand moving to point a small but deadly splatter gun at them. The weapon was designed for close-in killing in delicate areas. The blast of multiple projectiles could be fatal to anyone within a few feet, but there was not enough force behind the projectiles to, for example, hole the hull of a ship.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” J.J. said. “But we’re going to do the job we came out here to do.”

“Not this way,” Dom said.

“You leave me no choice.”

“You’re one against six,” Neil said. “You can’t stay awake forever.”

“J.J.,” Dom said, “put that thing away. If you’re so convinced that we should go down, we’ll go down. We came out here together. Well go down together.”

“You have my sincere thanks,” J.J. said.

“Gun or no gun, we’ll stay down no longer than seven days. Is that clear?” Dom asked.

“I agree,” J.J. said.

“Is everyone in agreement?” Dom asked. “We take the ship down to do what she was designed to do instead of risking someone’s getting killed if we try to overpower J.J.?”

“I am shocked,” Doris said, “but I’m for going down.”

The others agreed.

“Stations,” Dom said. “We’re going down. We won’t come up with anything but a few million cubic feet of Jovian atmosphere in the hold, but I intend to see that we do come up.”

They did it slowly and carefully. The crew worked smoothly, the incident with J.J. seemingly forgotten. Dom had to admit to himself that he’d wanted to go down all along. Fully alive, moving into an area where man had never been, he could almost feel the pressure on the hull as he rode herd on his instruments and the ship sank, buffeted by winds of hundreds of miles per hour, only the brute power of the drive holding the Kennedy against them. Only once did the ship drop down a wind sheer before the automatics compensated.

The hull sensors told of the changing atmosphere. Frozen ammonia became liquid ammonia, and then they were in the zone of the yellow compounds. Always, inexorably, the pressure built. At two thousand atmospheres the air inside the ship seemed to be sticky, heavy, oppressive. But the ship reacted sweetly to the incredible forces, the mush-bonded seams compressing, folding, the instruments recording within the limits of safety on all hull areas.

Signals went out from the ship, seeking, searching. They found nothing but increasing density of atmosphere. The danger below was beyond imagination. The distance traveled, as the ship orbited, matching the speed of rapid rotation, was not a factor. The winds of Jupiter blew against them with a solid force. And her gravity tugged on them, always ready to seize them, should the power fail, and pull them toward the core of the planet.

The living compartments of the ship were now between two pressures, the outside weight of atmosphere and the compressed bulk of Jovian atmosphere inside the hold. Kennedy had multiplied her weight by taking in the Jovian gases, but the power plant was not even strained.

At three thousand atmospheres Neil began a search, swinging the ship back and forth at the same altitude.

Preliminary analysis of the atmosphere at three thousand atmospheres showed an interesting array of hydrogen and carbon compounds, confirming advance theory that such matter made up the bulk of the yellow layers of Jupiter. In order to obtain pure samples of the yellow layer, the hold was bled and cleaned of the noxious ammonia taken in at the upper levels.

The search continued without success. J.J. took a personal interest in venting the poisonous gases and liquids from the hull, leaving only material collected under maximum pressure in the yellow zone. He seemed to be much too cheerful for conditions, for the search for the alien had produced nothing. When he was satisfied that the huge hold contained only yellow-layer material he came into the control room with a pleased grin on his face.

“Flash, you can take her home anytime you’re ready,” he said.

It had taken three Earth days to vent and fill the hold. “We’ve got a few days left,” Dom said.

“We’ve got what we came for,” J. J. said.