Pressure Man

Chapter Two

J.J. Barnes was no angel. He never had been and, unless he did a lot of changing, he never would be. Precise, calm, methodical, overbearing, yes. Angelic, no. Tall, graying at the temples, eyes cold gray behind functional rimless glasses, he towered over the world, his face just as remembered, smooth-shaven, masculine, almost handsome. But he was not an angel.

All this was evident in a slow swim upward into awareness. The world was J.J.’s face, and it was a burning world, and there was a stench of burning garbage gas.

His feet hurt. He lifted his head and looked down his body. His feet were bandaged.

“It isn’t too bad,” J.J. said. “It’s painful, I know, but the damage is minor. That sore spot you feel on your ass is the only place they had to take skin for grafting.”

He turned his head and saw a hospital table with water pitcher, pill tray, glass, and a small vase of roses.

“Are you with me, Flash?” J.J. asked.

The use of his old nickname helped him bring his eyes into full focus. “I think so,” he said.

“That bastard had passed a double screening,” J.J. said. “Are you ready to hear about it, or do you want to let your head clear a bit more?”

“Water,” he said.

“Sure.” J.J. poured and he took the glass, almost letting it slide through his fingers.

“Thanks,” he said. He felt a twinge of soreness on his left buttock. The world tilted a little, then stabilized. He drank, and J.J. took the glass. “OK,” he said.

“Flash, we can’t keep all of them out. No matter how we try we can’t screen all of them out. There are too many of them. They’ve been infiltrating too long, and some of them are damned smart.”

“Why me?” he asked.

“Probably because you had a DOSE decal on your auto,” J.J. said. “Working for DOSE is reason enough.”

He was looking at his feet. They were bandaged from the calves downward. He wiggled a toe and it moved and there was only a small pain. He could feel the motion, but he couldn’t see it through the bandages.

“They’ve got the pain senders blocked off,” J.J. said.

“Yeah. I’ve been burned before.”

“They’re not as bad as you might think. One spot on the right instep had to have a graft. With these new methods you’ll be on your feet in no time.”

“I know about burns,” he said. “What I don’t know is why the administrator of DOSEWEX is taking time to hold my hand personally. And I don’t quite buy your reasoning why some yoyo tried to kill me. I can’t quite see it as an accidental selection, based on my being in a DOSE vehicle. And while I’m wondering, I wonder why said administrator of DOSEWEX pulled me away from my first ground leave in two years to come out into the desert to be almost burned to death.”

J.J. chuckled.

“Dammit, J.J.,” he said. “I want to know what’s going on.”

“My old ball-carrying buddy,” J.J. said, shaking his head with an uncharacteristic expression of kindliness on his face. “Just take it easy. Eat, drink, and rest. You’ll be walking in a couple of days.”

He turned his head to try to see the sore spot on his rump. It, too, was bandaged. “When you went back to pass, I should have let those cadets cream you,” he said.

“If you had, who would have spread your fame as the man who pulled the Army game out of the fire, excuse the reference, in oh-6? Now you take a nap like a good little aging running back and I’ll see you in two days.”

“J.J., you didn’t send for me just to pay me compliments,” Dom said. “What’s going on?”

J.J. put his hands behind his ears and looked around the room. Dom got the message. The hospital room had not been swept. The walls could have ears.

“There’ll be a couple of base investigators in here shortly,” J.J. said. “Just tell them the truth about what happened. Tell them you were coming to DOSEWEX on the invitation of your old friend, the administrator, to talk over old times and have a drink or two. Tell them you have no idea why you were singled out as a target for terrorists.”

“Just the truth,” Dom said.

“When you’re up and around I’m sure you’ll enjoy our friendly little visit.”

Dom sighed wearily. “I was invited by my old classmate, who kissed ass and got promotions. I have no idea why I was attacked. That last, at least, is the truth.”

J.J.’s look was serious. “Just cool it, Dom.”

Two uniformed security men stood beside his bed and asked the same questions repeatedly, getting the same answers repeatedly. Just the facts. Dominic Gordon, Fleet Engineer, DOSE Spacearm, arrived from Mars five days past for ground leave in the Los Angeles conclave. Dominic Gordon was to visit DOSEWEX upon the invitation of J.J. Barnes, administrator of that facility. Dominic Gordon had no information regarding possible reasons for his being attacked. He gave a minute and detailed account of the events beginning with his overtaking the convoy of construction vehicles. He did not see his assailant’s face, only his legs and hands.

Any friend of J.J. Barnes was treated with great politeness. A friend of the administrator’s could even ask questions. No, they had not been able to question the assailant. A passing patrol had seen him deliberately ignite the fuel, and to simplify matters, they zapped the fellow, putting seven slugs into his chest in one-tenth of a second, covering him and the burning vehicle with fire foam split seconds later.

“Your main problem,” a nurse told Dom later, after a nap, “is that you inhaled some of the fumes from the foam. You’ll have sore lungs for a couple of days.”

The nurse was a buxom, motherly, gray-haired lady with infinitely tender hands. He fell in love with her and, on the morning of the third day, walking rather well considering his bandages, he kissed her on the cheek and promised to bring her a carbocrystal next trip back from Mars.

Outside of his room he was met by one of the policemen who had questioned him. They walked down a long corridor in silence, boarded an elevator, exited the elevator. The security man guiding Dom boarded a tube car, and zipped at back-snapping speed to an unknown destination underground where Dom was left to wait in J.J.’s outer office. He passed the time by looking at the left profile of the receptionist. It was a very nice profile and he was in the midst of some interesting speculation when she rose, smiled, and told him that Mr. Barnes would see him now.

J.J. indicated a chair in front of his desk. Dom sat down, leaning his crutch on the chair. There was a hiss and a low rumble as a Wockshield closed down around the desk area, putting the two of them in an impenetrable shell.

“You have problems even here?” Dom asked.

“I’m often accused of being overcautious,” J.J. said, “but the last time I visited the White House the media had the details of the discussion before I was back at my hotel.”

“Name dropper,” Dom said. He wiggled, trying to ease the weight off his sore rear.

“Flash,” J.J. said, “you’re just in from Mars. What was your cargo?”

“Phosphates,” Dom said. He knew that J.J. was aware of his ship’s cargo, but J.J. had to work up to things. He’d always been methodical.

“Agricultural phosphates,” J.J. said.

“Right.”

“And the trip before this one?”

“The same.”

“Do you ever think about that?” J.J. asked.

“Not a helluva lot,” Dom said.

“Why not a cargo of carbocrystals?” J.J. asked. “Or refined platinum? Or gold, or radioactives, or even petroleum?”

“I don’t place orders for cargo,” Dom said. “If you’re trying to give me a lesson in the dynamics of supply and demand, I know why we carry water out to Mars and carry phosphates back. Mars doesn’t have enough water and you don’t have enough food. You’ve let the topsoil wash into the oceans and you’ve ruined what’s left by force farming.”

“I don’t like your choice of pronouns,” J.J. said. “You. You, yourself, had nothing to do with using up Earth’s resources?”

“I voted for forced family planning in ’90,” Dom said. “That was the first time I was old enough to vote. I had common sense even at such a tender age. The rest of you didn’t.”

“I won’t bother to claim kinship by telling you that I, too, voted for family planning,” J.J. said. “It’s enough to say that the rest of the world didn’t.” He looked at Dom thoughtfully. “The man who tried to burn you was a Publicrat, of course.”

“Worldsaver?”

“Party affiliation is public record. Membership in radical and terrorist organizations is not. I would guess either Worldsaver or Earthfirster. The latter, I suspect, since they’re becoming a bit more bloody lately.”

“Which party leader was he registered under?” Dom asked.

“Our own lovable senator. The gentleman from New Mexico.”

“Do you have any ideas yet why he selected me?”

“Not officially. There’s nothing on paper to connect you with me or any aspect of DOSE other than the Spacearm. However, in the eyes of the Earthfirsters, any man coming into DOSEWEX is a high-priority target. It’s likely that the DOSE vehicle was enough to make you a target. They’re getting less and less selective. Just being a spacer is enough to get you killed.”

“I know that. I’m used to spending my time in a guarded enclave while I’m on dear old mother Earth.”

“And all you want to do is get back into space,” J.J. said.

“You know it.”

“It’s going to take a while,” J.J. said. “You’re being pulled off Spacearm duty and assigned here.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Dom said.

Barnes unlocked a desk drawer and put a player on the top of the desk. “I guess it’s time,” he said. “We’ve edited out the time lapse between dialogue.” He pushed a button.

The sound of deep space filled the room. There was the familiar hiss and crackle of the big emptiness and a wave of homesickness hit Dom as he leaned forward. The voices were calm and professional, the voices of spacers, good at their work, a long way from home, linked to Earth only by fragile radio waves.

“Houston Control, this is Callisto Explorer. Zero-nine-three-five hours CSET. Do you read?”

“Go ahead Callisto Explorer.”

“Houston, request check of vehicles in area 1-77-343. Repeat. Request check of all vehicles in area 1-77-343.”

“Hold one, Callisto Explorer. Stand by, Callisto Explorer. V.K. ship Queen Anne is nearest you, beyond your instruments at 186 degrees relative reference point two-seven-Baker. V.S.S.R. exploration ship Khrushchev relative your position 313 degrees reference point two-nine-Baker.”

“Houston, Callisto Explorer. Request check bearing relative our position zero-nine-seven, reference point three-three-Charlie. Do you copy?”

“Got you, Callisto. Hold one. Nothing there but empty space.”

“Houston, unless your computer is fouled up, there’s a bogie out there.”

“Callisto Explorer, repeat please.”

“Houston, we’ve got a bogie. Closing on the orbit of Jupiter. Estimated speed one hundred thousand miles per second. Repeat, estimated speed one hundred thousand miles per second. Mass estimated at three-zero-zero-zero tons. Repeat, three-zero-zero-zero tons. Houston, we are tracking. Bogie on collision course with planetary mass. E.T.A, outer atmosphere four hours twenty-three minutes.”

“Callisto Explorer, are you filming?”

“That is affirmative. We are filming. Is that you, Paul? Listen, this thing is really something. Hold it. Hold one. Yes, we now have visual. Whats that, Dell? Let me see. Jesus, that bastard is big. Houston? Put this baby on the ground and you could lay your football fields inside her length. Estimated length, four-zero-zero yards. Profile cylindrical, tapered at both ends. No visible blast. Possible thrusters at rear. She’s closing fast.”

“Callisto Explorer, where is your bogie now?”

“She’s going to pass behind the planet relative to us in approximately five minutes, Houston. Hold it. Dell, did you see what I saw? Houston, there was some sort of activity aboard the bogie. A glow. It showed on our visual and on the heat scopes. Front and relative the planet. Possible braking activity. Yes, she’s slowed slightly. Houston, she slowed faster than is possible. She took off fifty percent of her speed in ten seconds. We’re losing her now, Houston. She’s getting fuzzy because of the atmosphere. She’s not going straight in, but is approaching in an orbital posture. She’s fading now and we’re getting nothing but the planet.”

Dom was sitting on the edge of his chair. He felt an atavistic crawling at the nape of his neck as his hair tried to stand up in an age-old response to the unknown. His pulse rate was up and he was breathing fast.

“Interesting?” J.J. asked, with a wry smile.

“What’s a bogie?” Dom asked, not familiar with the term but knowing without doubt that it had been used to refer to an unidentified ship of gargantuan proportions.

“It’s antique slang used by some of the exploration ships,” J.J. said. “It goes all the way back to the wars of the last century. I looked it up once. There was a fellow named Bogart who played bad men in filmed melodramas. They called him Bogie. In the air wars an enemy fighter was a bad guy, a bogie.”

“This ship out there, how do you know it’s a bogie, a bad guy?”

“We don’t. Later on in time the term came to be applied to any unidentified flying object.”

“And is this one still unidentified?” Dom asked.

“Yes.”

“It went into the atmosphere of Jupiter?”

“Yes. Two months ago Callisto Explorer was pulled off her mission and sent into Jupiter orbit, closer than we’ve been before. It was almost too close. They used too much fuel getting out of the gravity well and we had to send a rescue ship from Mars. We’ll get them, but they’re still in space.”

“The ship came from outside the system,” Dom said.

“Without a doubt.”

“And it’s lost.”

“Not necessarily,” Barnes said, tenting his hands under his chin.

“Quit playing games, J.J.,” Dom said.

“Listen.” J.J. pushed the play button on the machine. Dom heard the great flare of sound which is the background noise of Jupiter. “We have to listen closely,” J.J. said.

He heard it then, a thin, weak series of pulses, repeated in the same pattern at intervals of a few seconds. It was difficult to imagine the power of a transmitter which could make itself heard through the great rush of Jupiter’s radio output, the crushing radiations of a failed sun.

“Impossible,” Dom said. “She’d go right on down toward the core, into a pressure of one hundred thousand atmospheres. Nothing could withstand such pressure.”

“We’ve run this series of pulses through every computer in the world,” J.J. said. “We’ve got the best men in the world working on it, but there’s not enough. If someone who didn’t speak our language picked up one of our ships sending Mayday he’d be as helpless as we are to figure out what the ship was saying. But we know the signal is amazingly powerful. It has to be to be heard over Jupe’s noise. That makes us think she’s orbiting just inside the atmosphere. After a careful study of Callisto Explorer’s film it seems that the ship went in at the right angle and the right speed to establish a stable orbit.”

“How deep?” Dom asked.

“Remember that diving hull you designed?”

“It was good to forty thousand feet of ocean,” Dom said. “Over a thousand atmospheres of pressure.”

“You’ll have to more than double those specifications.”

“No,” Dom said, shaking his head. “You quickly get into the area of diminishing returns.”

“We’re talking about three thousand atmospheres,” J.J. said.

“No way.”

“There is a way,” J.J. said. His eyes were serious. “There is a way because there’s an alien ship down there inside Jupe’s atmosphere which is withstanding the pressure.”

“If Callisto Explorer’s observations were accurate,” Dom said, “it’s faster and bigger than anything we’ve got, or anything we’ve got on the drawing boards. It came from outside the system. That means it has either traveled a long, long time, or they’ve beaten the constant. Either way that puts them far ahead of us.”

“Dom, what would be the benefit if we could lift a hundred million people off the Earth and establish them on a life-zone planet of Centauri?”

“If Centauri has a life-zone planet.”

“A couple of hundred million more for each new planet discovered,” J.J. said.

“It’s an old, old dream,” Dom said. “And without a sublight drive, that’s all it is, a dream.”

“What if there’s a sublight drive on that alien ship?”

Dom shook his head, thinking of the impossibility of construction of a hull to resist three thousand atmospheres of pressure.

“Do you know how bad it is?” J.J. asked. “We’re losing. We’re keeping Earth alive by spending the last of our resources flying back fertilizer from Mars so that we can grow just enough food to keep billions of people just above the starvation level. You and I know that space should be more, that it’s our last hope, but those hungry people don’t see it that way. They look at the space budget and they say that the money could be better spent on Earth researching ways to grow more food, to farm the oceans, to develop the last of the tropical rain forests and to irrigate the deserts. We’ve been fighting the budget cutters since before the first moon landing. They cut and they slash, and they will win in the end. Every second that passes sees a few more mouths to feed. The Earthfirsters have already put China out of space, and Japan has only a token program. The U.K. is about ready to cave in and give them what they want. Even Russia is having problems. We’re fighting now just to hold the current budget, and there’s not a chance that we’ll win. We’re outnumbered. The budget will be cut, and that means an end to exploration and development. All we’ll be able to do is make the fertilizer runs. The Publicrats have an absolute majority in both houses, and the President is a Publicrat.”

“I don’t see—” Dom began.

J.J. waved him into silence. “The President is a good man. Secretly, he’s on our side, but he can’t fight public opinion. This is an inevitable fact. They’re going to cut our budget. First we lost exploration, then development of new programs. The Canaveral site will be the first to be closed, sure as hell. There will be no more building of ships. There’s even a move under way to close the Academy, to consolidate it with West Point to save money. You know what that means. They say it’s partly for the safety of the students.”

“I heard about the last incident,” Dom said. “Those kids should have stayed in the campus enclave.”

“They didn’t, and the Firsters got six of them,” J.J. said. “And that seemed to be the first incident in a new wave of terrorism. The bleeding hearts say we can stop the bloodshed by getting out of space. Leave the useless, empty planets alone. Come home to Earth and work together to make it livable. But we’re a little late for that. We’ve used her up, and she’s just a shell. We’ve given her too much of a human load to carry. Too many people, not enough common sense. Do you know that one of the latest terrorist groups kills lumber cutters in the name of freedom for trees?”

J.J. snorted and continued. “Trees, for Christ’s sake. Trees have rights. Trees have as much right to live as we. I don’t know what they expect us to use to replace the products of the forests, which is the only area where man ever was worth a damn in competition with nature, in that he figured out how to grow trees faster than nature. But they want us to quit killing trees. They say it’s murder and against the individual freedom acts.”

“Sounds like the crowded-rat syndrome to me,” Dom said.

“We can see that,” J.J. said. “They can’t. Space is our last hope. We’re going to lose that hope unless we can go down into the atmosphere of Jupiter and bring that ship back with us.”

“Uh,” Dom grunted.

“Dom, you’re the best hull man in the service, and, therefore, the best in the world. You’re a pressure man. If you can design a hull for a thousand atmospheres, you can design one for three thousand.”

“There’s the matter of power,” Dom said. “We get into impossible figures just trying to furnish enough power for such a ship.”

“We’ve got a power plant. It’s new and it’s untested, but we’ve got it.”

“The newk?” Dom asked.

“It will be like riding an exploding bomb.”

“Whee.”

“You’re the man, Flash,” J.J. said. “You’re on the spot. You can pull in anyone you want to work with you.”

“Art Donald.”

“He’s already here.”

“Doris and Larry Gomulka.”

“Doris is on the way. Larry is finishing a project and will be here within a week.”

“That’s a good start,” Dom said.

“The team you used to develop the deepwater hull.”

“Will there be budget problems?”

“Not on this one, Flash. We’re going to shoot the works.”

“Good, I’ll start by charging some work clothes at the company store.”

“They’ll be deducted from your pay.”

“You’re all heart,” Dom said.

“Oh, we’re very generous here in DOSEWEX,” J J. said.