Robert Heinlein - Red Planet

Jim's father came back. This time he was saying, "Into your suits, everybody. Have your respirators on your head. We hope to correct this in a few minutes, but we don't want anybody hurt. Now don't get excited; this building will hold pressure for half an hour at least. There's plenty of time to get ready for thin air, even if it takes a while to correct the trouble."

Other lights sprang up here and there; shortly the passageways throughout the building, if not the rooms, were adequately lighted. The corridors were crowded with dim shapes, struggling into their outdoors suits. Jim and Frank, planning as they were to attempt to go outside, had long been in their suits, armed, and with respirators at the ready. "Maybe this is a good time," suggested Frank.

"Nope," Jim answered. "They're still in the kitchen. I can see a light."

MacRae came down the corridor; Jim stopped him. "Doc, how long do you think it will be until they get the lights on?"

MacRae said, "Are you kidding?"

"What do you mean. Doc?"

"The lights aren't coming on. This is one of Beecher's stunts. He's pulled the switch on us, at the power house."

"Are you sure?"

"There's no failure-we've checked it. I'm surprised Beecher didn't do it hours ago-in his shoes, I would have done it five minutes after we moved in. But don't you birds go blabbing, Jim; your Pop has his hands full keeping the custard heads from blowing thentops." He moved on.

In spite of Captain Marlowe's reassuring words the true state of things was soon common knowledge. The pressure dropped slowly, so slowly that it was necessary to warn everyone to adjust their respirators, lest oxygen starvation sneak up on the unwary. After that it was hardly possible to maintain the fiction that the power loss was temporary, to be corrected any minute now. The temperature in the building fell Slowly;

there was no danger of them freezing in the closed and insulated building-but the night chill penetrated.

Marlowe set up headquarters in the entrance hall in a circle of light cast by a single torch. Jim and Frank loitered there, discreetly back in the shadows, unwilling to miss what might be going on and quite unwilling to go to bed as ordered.... as Frank pointed out to Jim, the only beds they had were occupied, by Mrs. Marlowe, Phyllis, and Oliver. Neither of them had given up the idea of attempting the garbage chute route, but they knew in their hearts that the place was too stirred up to give them the privacy they would require.

Joseph Hartley, one of the colony's hydroponists, came up to Marlowe. His wife was behind him, carrying their baby daughter in a pressurized crib, its supercharger sticking up above the clear plastic shell of it like a chimney. "Mr. Marlowe-I mean Captain Marlowe-"

"Yes?"

"You've got to do something. Our kid can't stand this. She's coming down with croup and we can't get at her to help her."

MacRae crowded forward. "You should have brought her to me, Joe." He looked the baby over, through the plastic, then announced, "The kid seems to be doing all right."

"She's sick, I tell you."

"Hnim-I can't make much of an examination when I can't get at her. Can't take her temperature, but she doesn't seem to be in any real danger."

"You're just trying to soothe me down," Hartley said angrily. "You can't tell anything about it when she is in a sealed crib."

"Sony, son," the doctor answered.

"A fat lot of good it does to be sorry! Somebody's got to do something. This can't-" His wife plucked at his sleeve; he turned away and they went into a huddle. Shortly he turned back. "Captain Marlowe!"

"Yes, Mr. Hartley."

"The rest of you can do as you like. I've had enough. I've got my wife and baby to think about."

"The decision is yours," Marlowe said stiffly and turned away in abrupt dismissal.

"But-" said Hartley and stopped, aware that Marlowe was no longer paying any attention to him. He looked uncertain, like a man who wants someone to argue him out of his resolution. His wife touched has arm; he turned then and they went together to the front entrance.

Marlowe said to MacRae, "What do they expect of me? Miracles?"

MacRae answered, "Exactly, boy. Most people never grow up. They expect papa to get 'em the pretty Moon." The doctor went on, "Just the same, Joe accidentally told the truth. We've got to do something."

"I don't see what we can do until Sutton and Toland get some results."

"You can't wait any longer for them, son. We've got to crush out of here anyway. Theoretically a man can live for days in a respirator. Practically, it won't work and that is what Beecher is counting on. You can't keep several hundred people crouching here in the dark and the cold, wearing masks to stay alive, not indefinitely. You're going to have a panic on your hands."

Marlowe looked weary, even through his mask. "We can't tunnel out. We can't get out at all, except through the doors. And they've got those doors zeroed. It's suicide."

"It's got to be done, son. I'll lead the rush."

Marlowe sighed. "No, I will."

"m a pig's eye! You've got a wife and kids. I've got nobody and I've been living on borrowed time so long I've lost track."

"It's my privilege. That's settles it."

"We'll see."

"I said that settles it, sir!"

The argument was left unfinished; the inner door to the pressure lock opened again and Mrs. Hartley stumbled inside. She was clutching the tiny crib and sobbing wildly.

It was the case of the Pottles and Gibbs all over again. When MacRae was able to make something out of her sobs, it appeared that they had been very cautious, had waited, had shouted their intention to surrender, and had displayed a light. There had been no answer, so they had shouted again, then Hartley had stepped off the threshold with his hands up and his wife shining the light on him.

He had been struck down as soon as he stepped out the door.

MacRae turned her over to the women, then went out to reconnoiter. He came back in almost at once. "Somebody get me a chair," he demanded, and looked around. "You, Jimskedaddle."

"What's up?" asked Marlowe.

"Let you know in a moment. I suspect something."

"Be careful."

"That's why I want the chair."

Jim came back with one; the doctor went through the pressure lock again. He came back in about five minutes later. "It's a booby trap," he stated.

"What do you mean?"

"Beecher didn't try to keep men outdoors all night-at least I don't think so. It's automatic. They've put an electriceye grid across the door. When you break it, a bolt comes across, right where you'd be if you walked through it." He displayed half a dozen deep bums through the chair.

Marlowe examined them. "But that's not the important point," MacRae went on. "It's automatic but it's inflexible. It hits about two feet above the step and about four feet. A man could crawl through it-if his nerves were steady."

Marlowe straightened up. "Show me."

They came back, with the chair still more burned, in a few minutes. "Kelly," Marlowe said briskly, "I want twenty volunteers to make a sortie. Pass the word around."

There were at least two hundred volunteers; the problem was to weed them down. Both Frank and Jim tried to get in on it; Jim's father refused to take any but grown, unmarried men -except himself. MacRae he refused.

The doctor pulled Jim back and whispered to him. "Hold your horses. In a few minutes I'll be boss."

The raiding party started into the lock. Marlowe turned to MacRae. "We'll head for me power plant. If we are gone more than two hours, you are on your own." He went into the lock and closed the door.

As soon as the door was closed, MacRae said, "Okay, twenty more volunteers."

Kelly said, "Aren't you going to wait two hours?"

"You tend to your knitting! When I'm out of here, you're in charge." He turned and nodded to Jim and Frank. "You two come along." MacRae had his party in short order, had apparently selected them in his mind before Marlowe left. They filed into the lock.