Гарри Гаррисон - The Jupiter Plague

“The circuit breakers blew when the motor overloaded,” Yasumura said.

“It’s good enough.” General Burke stood up. “Now, how do we get the inner door opened? Can we cut through it with the laser?”

“We could — but it wouldn’t do much good. This door is sealed like a bank vault. A motor-powered ring gear inside the door turns pinion gears that drive out three-inch thick bars into sockets in the housing. We can’t cut them one by one.”

“The trouble then,” Sam asked, “is that something is stopping the current from getting to this motor in the door?”

“Yes-”

“Well, couldn’t you cut an opening in the door big enough to reach through and connect the motor to the power pack? Then you could move it as you did the outer door…”

“Sam, you’re wasted in medicine,” Yasumura shouted enthusiastically, “because that’s just what we’re going to do.” He began to draw on the sealed door with a grease pencil. “Here are the bars, the ring gear… and the motor should be about here. If we cut through at this spot we should miss the motor, but be in the central cavity where we can wire into it.”

He threw down the pencil and began to pull the wires from the power pack and to reconnect it. There were more shots from outside, but none of them found the narrow slot of the doorway. The laser buzzed and Yasumura pressed it to the door over the spot he had marked.

It was slow work. The metal of the door was dense and resistant and the laser cut only a fraction of an inch at a time as he worked it in a slow circle the size of a saucer. He finished the circle and went over it again to deepen it. The metal heated and stank. General Burke crawled over to the door, shielded his eyes from the light and tried to see out, then put his gun to his shoulder and fired a burst. He dropped low as the firing was returned and the lock rang like a bell with the impact of the slugs on the massive door.

“They’re bringing up a fire engine with a tower. I scattered them a bit. But they’ll bring it back again or someone will think to use a high-pressure hose and they’ll wash us out of here. How is it coming?”

“I should have cut through by now,” Yasumura gasped, leaning on the laser, “but this metal…” There was a clatter as the plug of metal dropped free.

“Now open it!” Burke snapped and fired another burst through the gap.

It was slow, painful work teasing the plug of metal out of the hole far enough to get a grip on it with a wrench. Sam stood ready, clamped down quickly as soon as he could and pulled the hot cylinder from the hole, throwing it the length of the air lock. Heedless of his smoldering sleeve, Yasumura flashed the light into the opening.

“There it is!” he chortled. “Bang on. Pass me the long-shanked screwdriver and the cables from the power pack.”

Attaching the wires at the bottom of the deep hole was exacting work, made even more difficult by the hot metal that burned into the little engineer’s flesh. Sam could see the angry welts rising on his skin and the way he bit hard on his lip while beads of sweat sprang out on his face.

“Done…” he gasped, and pulled the screwdriver out. “Turn on the power, the motor is hooked up.”

There was an angry whirring buzz from the opening that lasted almost a minute and, when it rose in frequency, Yasumura switched the electricity off. He squinted in through the opening with the light.

“The rods are withdrawn, so let’s see if we can push this thing open!”

They heaved against the door’s unyielding bulk, planting their feet on the deck and straining until their muscles cracked. It didn’t move.

“Once more—” Burke gasped, “and this time give it everything.”

With their lips drawn back from their clenched teeth they strained at the massive door and Haber dragged himself across the floor and struggled up on one leg to add his weight to the effort.

Slowly, with reluctant motion, it moved inward.

“Keep it going…” the general gasped as the gap widened, first a fraction of an inch, then more, until light streamed out and it was big enough to get through. “That’s enough…!”

Sam eased the wounded lieutenant back to the deck as Burke slid cautiously through the gap with his gun pointed before him. He lowered it and laughed brusquely.

“I don’t think it’s much good for shooting germs. Come on, all of you in here and bring the equipment.”

They handed it in through the opening, then Sam helped Haber to his feet and passed him through to Burke before squeezing past the door himself.

“Look at that,” Yasumura said, pointing to a jagged, smoke-stained opening in the wall of the corridor. “That’s where the junction box for the air-lock controls used to be. There must have been a charge of explosive in there — it would have been simple enough for Rand to rig that with a time fuse. But why…?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Burke said. “Haber, you’re not so mobile, so stay here as rear guard and see to it no one gets in to bother us.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dr. Yasumura, I imagine the control room would be the best place to look for anything— will you lead the way?”

“Down this connecting corridor, there’s an elevator that goes directly there.”

He went first and their footsteps echoed loudly in the empty ship. They walked warily, looking into every doorway they passed, cautious although they did not know why.

“Hold it,” Yasumura said, and they stopped instantly, guns swinging to the ready. He pointed to a thick insulated wire that crossed the floor of the corridor before them, emerging from a jagged hole in one wall and vanishing into the other. “That cable, it wasn’t here when the ship left Earth.”

Sam knelt and looked at it closely. “It seems normal enough, from the ship’s supplies I imagine. The ‘Pericles’ was on Jupiter for almost two years; this must be a modification of some kind that they made there.”

“I still don’t like it,” the engineer said, glaring at the heavy wire suspiciously. “There are cableways between decks, they could have run it there. Better not touch it now, I’ll take a closer look at it later.”

The destroyed junction box for the air lock seemed to be the only damage that had been done to the ship: the atomic pile was still in operation, the electrical current was on and the air fresh, though it had the canned odor of constant recycling. When they rang for the elevator its door slid open at once.

“The control room is right up top, in the nose of the ship,” Yasumura said, pressing the button. As the elevator hummed up the shaft the tension increased with every passing instant, a spring being coiled tighter and tighter. When the door slid open both Sam and the general had their guns raised and pointed without being aware of it; they stepped out. Some of the tension ebbed as they saw that the domed chamber was as empty of life — or death — as it had been when they had first looked at it on the phone screen in the air lock.

“What the devil is that?” Yasumura asked, pointing to a foot-square metal box that was welded to the deck against the back wall. “Another new installation since the ship left — I wonder what it is for?”

It was a crude cube made of ragged-edged metal sheets welded together with a wide and irregular bead. Small cables emerged from holes in its sides and a larger, wrist-thick cable came up from the top and vanished through a jagged gash cut into the wall. They traced the smaller cables and found that they ran to the control boards, most of them to the communication equipment. Sam stood in front of the control chairs and faced out into the room.

“That’s interesting,” he said. “I didn’t think I had seen these cables or the box before when I used the phone to look in here — and I didn’t. It may be just an accident, but none of them is visible from where I’m standing — right in front of the pickup for the phone.”