Pressure Man

Chapter Eight

A million and one things can go wrong with a collection of complicated components, and the Kennedy was the most complex ship ever constructed. Every system aboard had been tested time and time again, but never in flight with all of them operating to move a huge mass of metal and a cargo of water.

Just in case, the entire backside of the moon was evacuated. Dom said a silent prayer, and he was sure that each of the others aboard were doing the same as Neil, buckled into the pilot’s chair, finished the last preflight checklist and looked over at J.J. and winked. Neil’s blue eyes were squinted and his mouth twisted into a grin which was not amusement, but his way of showing tension.

There was no dramatic countdown. When all systems were ready and all the thousands of little things checked out, J.J. gave a thumbs-up sign and Neil pressed a switch which ignited the preheater. Down in the engineroom Paul Jensen saw the light go on and ran a visual of the automatics. The sound of the preheater was a muffled rumble in Jensen’s ears. There was a tiny vibration which only a trained man would notice. It came up to his senses through the soles of his feet.

“All right, baby,” Neil said. “Do it for old Neil.” When the awesome power began to build there was no loud noise, only a small hum. The sensation of power was there, however, and something in the closed atmosphere of the ship seemed to absorb it, to become alive with it. There was a charge in the air, a tingling which went beyond skin-deep to become a part of the entire sensory system.

Slowly power overcame inertia. Slowly the heavily laden monster of a ship moved, the force which powers the stars building, building, as crew members checked and reported, and it was “Go. Go. Go.”

Dom’s eyes flashed back and forth among an array of instruments which read stress and loading on hull and internal components. Inertial strain registered and was noted, but she had been built well, built with pride and loving care by men who felt that she might be the last of her breed, the last ship they’d ever build.

Acceleration was smooth and more rapid than a conventional rocket. The moon’s gravity was a mere feather of force to be brushed aside by the brute power in Kennedy’s drive.

Up and out she went smoothly. Neil goosed her, and the sudden acceleration pushed the crew against the backs of their seats. She was in position to turn, to assume the stance for the long, hard drive for acceleration which would take her to a rendezvous with Mars. She did it with only a fraction of her available muscle, a creature of free space, proud, beautiful, huge. There she lay as the crew examined her from stem to stern.

Although she handled like a dream and was doing great, Neil Walters was still aware that he was flying an untested ship with a crew aboard. He knew that Kennedy had been a crash project, and he didn’t like flying the results of crash projects. He knew his space history. The first crash construction project produced the Vanguard series of rockets, and he’d seen the old films of Vanguards melting down on the launch pad. Crash programs did that. In the 1950s, the United States had pushed hard to catch up with the Russians, who had put a dog, Laika, into space with a total payload of over one thousand pounds. Up to that point the prestige of the United States had rested on a super job of jury-rigging by a crew under Wernher von Braun. They used spit and scrap wire, antique rockets, a lot of determination and imagination, and placed thirty-point-eight pounds of payload into orbit with a tiny Jupiter C.

Von Braun proved that crash techniques do not always fail, but still there was the Vanguard, which blew with spectacular regularity to prove that if you persist in crash techniques in things as complicated as space hardware you’re going to have a few loud bangs.

The big question in Neil’s mind was this: Was the Kennedy an inspired job of jury-rigging in the von Braun mold, or was she a Vanguard? If she stayed in one piece and performed, future historians would call her a technical miracle. If she blew, or simply fizzled, brought down by the failure of one tiny and relatively insignificant system somewhere deep inside her, they would go back to calling her what she was called in the beginning, Folly.

She checked out. Doris’ computer ticked out, for the automatics, course settings and power settings and thousands of pieces of individual information which formed the word “Go.”

Neil missed the familiar bellow of burning rockets, soundless in space, loud and all-pervasive inside a ship. His eyes squinted again as he activated her and started her on that long, long drive. His voice was professionally calm. His words went to the crew and on a tight beam back to Lunar Control.

“All systems normal, all systems go.”

The next pucker period began, an attempt to get the big bird up to cruising speed without blowing her wide open. It was more than just opening a throttle, but it was handled, in its complexity, by the shipboard computers, matching power to stress, every action monitored in a half-dozen ways, both electronic and visual. The ship hummed with that inaudible energy and began to move, faster and faster, the acceleration creating an artificial gravity pushing the crew members backward in their seats.

She didn’t blow. Neil kept the crew working long hours during that initial period of acceleration. She reached cruise speed sixty-five percent faster than conventional ships and was moving faster than anything man had built. Every system was checked and rechecked, tested in flight.

At last Neil was satisfied. Rotating watches began, and some of the crew had time for a nap. The Kennedy performed as if she’d gone through the most thorough flight testing.

Neil took first watch. Dom, who had the second watch, knew he would be unable to sleep. He stayed near his panel, checking stress and loading. Paul Jensen kept an eye on the powerplant. Only Doris and Art retired to their cabins.

It was J.J. who took the call from Lunar Base. Even before the message was complete, his hand flicked an alarm and the lights flashed and the alarm whooped throughout the ship.

With the crew at emergency quarters, J.J. fed the message from the base into the sound system.

“John F. Kennedy, this is Moon Control.”

“Moon Control, this is J.F.K.”

“J.F.K., Admiral Pinkerton speaking. Please alert your crew. We have received a bomb threat. Repeat, there is a bomb threat directed against the Kennedy.”

“I am now going live to Moon Control,” J.J. said. “Moon Control, this is Kennedy. Details, please.”

“J.F.K., a team of Earthfirsters have seized control station eight-five with its communications intact. We estimate the number of terrorists at five. We are in contact with them. They have made two demands. One, the Kennedy returns moonside. Two, we broadcast, and I quote, ‘our guilt,’ unquote, to the world.”

J.J. shook his head impatiently. “Details on bomb threat, please.”

“Stand by, J.F.K. The following is a recording of our communications with the terrorist in control of station eight-five.”

There was a click and then an excited young voice. “Moon Control, Moon Control, this is the voice of freedom. Listen carefully. We are in control of station eight-five. We are heavily armed. We can resist any attack. Listen carefully. The folly of imperialism, the spaceship you call the John F. Kennedy, will be destroyed unless you meet the following requirements. One, you will order the Kennedy to return to Moon Base immediately. Two, you will broadcast to the world an abject apology for your wastefulness in allowing such a crime to be perpetrated on the people of the Earth, for using materials and money which should have gone to feed our starving millions. Three, you will provide a ship of the Explorer class to transport this group of freedom fighters to a free port Earthside.”

The voice of Admiral Pinkerton was back. “We had them repeat it. He repeated it word for word as if he were reading.”

“Moon Control, did you ask for details about a possible bomb on board the Kennedy.”

“That is affirmative. They merely read the message again.”

Dom cut into the communications. “Admiral, this is Dominic Gordon. Can you patch me into direct contact with the terrorists?”

“That is affirmative, Captain Gordon. In fact, they have the facilities to monitor this channel in station eight-five.”

Dom tended to forget his new rank.

“I want to speak with them direct, admiral,” he said.

“Hold one. You will be notified when we’ve established contact.”

As Dom waited, the others were already in action. The Kennedy was the most instrumented ship ever built, and it was possible to check every inch of her with instruments. Signals were sent. Servos probed and measured. Every gram of material aboard the ship was recorded carefully in Doris’ computer. She worked rapidly. She had the computer check everything aboard, clothing, personal effect, supplies. Every gram aboard was recorded, and two checks did not find even a tiny additional amount of mass. The check was complete before the radio patch was made.

“Dom,” Doris said. “There’s nothing aboard this ship we don’t know about.”

“Unless it was integrated into a structural piece during construction,” Dom said. “Then it would show as a portion of the original mass.”

“My guess is that they’re bluffing,” J. J. said.

“It’s a good possibility, but can we gamble on it?” Dom asked.

“If we give in and take her back, she’ll never leave the moon again. If we make that broadcast to the world it will have the same effect as blowing her up in space,” J.J. said.

“With a small difference,” Neil said. “If we take her back we’ll be alive.”

“Do you think you’d enjoy life as a groundling, Neil?” J.J. asked.

“You’ve got a point,” Neil said.

“Jensen,” Dom said into the communications system, “I want you to go over the engineroom with everything you’ve got, including your fingertips. The rest of us will use portable sniffers. Tune the sniffers to plastique. That’s the material most used by the Firsters. Ellen, you take the food supplies. If there’s a bomb aboard, my best guess is in supplies. If it was built into the ship, then I’d say they’d aim for the engineroom, where it would do the most damage. Doris, run me this problem. Give me a reading on what it would take to make it seem that the Kennedy is decelerating and then turning back to the moon. They might be measuring the strength of our radio transmissions. We want them to think we’re following their orders, at least for a while. Unless they carried it in with them, and it’s unlikely, they don’t have visual equipment in station eight-five.”

It took Doris three minutes. “I’ve set up an automatic power curve into the radio. The signals will grow slightly weaker at a decelerating ratio and then grow stronger.”

“J.F.K., this is Moon Control. Ready on your radio patch. Go ahead station eight-five.”

“Gordon,” said the young and tense voice, “this is the voice of freedom.”

“The voice of a punk, you mean,” Dom said. “I want you to listen and listen carefully. We’re calling your bluff. We’ve checked every atom of weight aboard this ship, and you’re lying. There is no bomb aboard. We’re heading out and we’ll continue to accelerate. I just wanted the personal satisfaction of telling you, because in about one minute I’m going to order Moon Security to blast station eight-five with one small newk. Burn happily, punk.”

He waited, eyes troubled.

The young voice seemed to be just short of hysteria.

“You’re the punk, Gordon. You’re the one who is robbing the people. You’re the one who’s going to die, you and all the other parasites aboard. We can detonate the bomb from here, or if you use your newk on us it will go off with its own timer. Either way you’re dead. This is your last chance to turn back. You’ll be given a fair trial before a tribunal of the people.”

“Punk,” Dom said, “you have about one minute to live. You don’t seem to understand that we’re wise to you. You’re all mouth. There’s no way you punks could get a bomb aboard. No way. Goodbye, punk. Moon Control, this is Captain Gordon. I order that in exactly one minute you send one small nuclear warhead right down the gut of station eight-five. J.F.K. over and out.”

The next voice was different, low, smooth, unexcited. “Good try, Captain Gordon,” the man’s voice said. “We who love freedom don’t believe in needless shedding of blood, nor in the waste of resources. If we did, I would push the button myself. However, we would like to salvage the Kennedy for scrap to build factories for production of consumer goods for the people.”

“Anyone recognize the voice?” Dom asked, over the intership circuits.

“I assure you, Captain Gordon, that there is a bomb and that it will go off at a time of our choosing. I can guarantee that the Kennedy will be destroyed totally. I can promise you that she’ll burst open like a melon and that all of you will die with her.”

“I’ve got him,” Art said into Dom’s earphones. “He’s service, in charge of loading the water. His name is Bensen.”

“The damned water,” Dom said, throwing aside the phones. “It’s in the damned water. He said we’d burst open like a melon. One small charge wouldn’t burst this ship open unless the force were compressed by a large volume of water. Let’s go.”

“Captain Gordon?” the smooth, calm voice said.

Dom went back to the radio. “Go ahead.”

“I am pleased to note that in spite of your brave talk you are presently decelerating.”

“You have radio scanners, then,” Dom said.

“We do. We estimate full stop and turnaround at 2130 Zulu.”

“Hold one,” Dom said. Then, leaving the communicator open, “Please give me an estimate of turnaround time.”

“2134 Zulu,” Doris said.

“Station eight-five,” Dom said, “turnaround time is 2134 Zulu.”

“Noted,” Bensen said. “And now Admiral Pinkerton will make his broadcast to Earth.”

Dom said, “The broadcast will be made at 2134 Zulu, our turnaround time.”

There was a silence. He could imagine the terrorists consulting among themselves, trying to figure out why he insisted on waiting two hours and forty minutes before making the broadcast. Evidently they decided that the delay could do their cause no harm, since the Kennedy was obeying orders.

“That is agreeable,” Bensen said. “It will give us time to pass the text of the statement to be broadcast to the people of Earth to Moon Control.”

“J.J., take communications,” Dom said. He grinned. Hell, command was not so difficult after all. “Neil, it’s you and me. We have two hours and thirty-nine minutes to find that bomb.”

“I’m with you,” Neil said.

Neil was into his suit before Dom. He had more practice. He checked Dom’s life-support gear and turned to allow Dom to check his backpack. Less than five minutes had elapsed when they entered a lock chamber offering access to the hold, that vast space which made up the main volume of the ship and which was filled with thousands of tons of pure water from Earthside purification plants.

“Any idea where to start?” Dom asked, his internal suit radio on open channel to be broadcast throughout the ship.

“I have estimated that it would take a minimum of five kilos of plastique to blow her,” Doris said. Her voice was cool, professional. “However, with the masses I’m dealing with in the hold I can’t distinguish so small a weight. The problem is compounded by a minor difference in temperature in various hold sections, enough to vary weight per unit of water.”

“Make a note of that,” Dom said. “In future well want to be able to scan the interior of the hold. Right now we have to figure on combing every inch of the hold, right?”

“I’m afraid so,” Doris said.

“Maximum effect would be obtained by placing the charge near the geometric center,” Neil said.

“Good thinking,” Dom said. “Well start from the center bulkheads and work toward bow and stern. I’ll go sternward, Neil. I’d say check the hogging girders and bulkhead supports first. Bensen must be sharp enough to realize that convection currents will be set up in this mass of water, so if he wanted to keep his blast near the center of mass, he’d secure it so that it wouldn’t float around on the currents.”

“That’s a roger,” Neil said.

The lock filled and opened into the hold. Dom could feel the psychological weight of tons of water on him as he moved out into the vastness. The blackness was total. Their lights made lances of brightness into the pit ahead of them. They swam side by side through huge bays of the hold and reached the center after what seemed to Dom to be miles of swimming. They were back to back for a moment, light beams pointing in different directions. Dom moved off, moving his head to direct the light. Reaching the first system of supports, he began a swift but careful search. He noted the time required to completely examine the bulkhead and did a calculation in his head. At that rate the bomb would explode, estimating that the terrorists would act when the turnaround time came and went and no broadcast went out to Earth, before they could cover half of the hold area.

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?”

“Only a practicing pessimist,” Dom said. “Give it to me.”

“The hatch locks on the redundant bulkheads are inoperative,” Jensen said. “And the mains would have to take up any strain alone.”

“The damned things were working when we checked them,” Neil said.

“They’re not working now,” Jensen said.

The redundant bulkheads were safety features. Between the hold and the compartments forward and aft were two sets of bulkheads. The inner wall had no hatches or locks. The outer, or redundant, bulkhead was hatched, allowing access to the air space between bulkheads.

“All readings are normal,” Doris said. “That clever little bit had to be built in.”

“And something’s happened since we checked,” Neil said.

“A timed acid charge next to the wiring,” J.J. said. “That would do it.”

“That means we had Firsters working on the ship,” Dom said. “It would take an instrumentation tech and an electrician working together to install acid vials and an inspector to overlook them.”

“And how many more?” J.J. asked, his voice seething with frustrated anger.

“Art, give Paul a hand and get cracking on those hatch controls,” Dom said. “Get them closed and lock them.”

All of the metal pieces which formed the internal supports had begun to look alike, giving Dom the fear that he had forgotten to move on and was pulling himself, swimming, using his hands for help, over the same girders time after time. He was getting very tired. When you’re tired mistakes come more easily. He didn’t want to overlook some small package, and he didn’t want to have to slow down.

“Forward hatches closed and locked,” Paul Jensen said. “Moving to the stern.”

“Roger on that,” Dom said.

Suddenly he was wishing for Larry. Larry could put himself inside the head of that sonofabitch back there on the moon and it was eighty to twenty that Larry could send searchers to within a hundred feet of the charge. Larry would think it over for a few minutes while telling bad jokes and then he’d say, “Hell, it’s simple.”

So try to put yourself in Larry’s head, he told himself. Make it simple. What are the factors? A hint that the bomb was in the hold. Sabotaged hatch-closing controls on the safety bulkheads.

“Hell,” he said aloud, “it is simple.”

“What’s so simple?” Neil asked.

“They had to plan this thing well in advance,” Dom said, his voice showing his excitement. Even as he talked he was moving straight down the center of the hold, swimming for the stern bulkhead. “They wanted an explosion and they wanted it to do maximum damage. So they fixed it so that the safety hatches wouldn’t close, so that the explosion, if it didn’t rupture the outer hull, would do maximum internal damage. They want water in the forward quarters and in the engineroom.”

“Sounds logical,” J. J. said.

“Neil, you and Ellen stop where you are and swim like hell to the forward bulkhead.”

“Forty and counting, Flash,” J.J. said. “Are you ready to bet it all on a hunch?”

“That is affirmative,” Dom said. “Well find it on the stern bulkhead or near it. Just in case they got two charges, I want Neil and Ellen to cover the forward bulkhead. My bet is that they’re aiming at the engine compartment.”

He pictured it. The main bulkhead ruptured, water pouring into the engine compartment through the open safety hatches. It wouldn’t even have to be a huge charge. A small shaped charge would punch a hole in the bulkhead.

Neil said, “We’re moving. I think you’re right, Dom, A three-foot hole punched in the bulkhead would do it.”

“Probably near a seam,” Doris said.

Dom was gasping. The beam of his light sliced the water ahead. The minutes seemed to race by. When he could see the distinctive contours of the stern bulkhead he slowed and allowed his heart to catch up, gliding forward on inertial momentum. The bulkhead was studded with diamond-shaped reinforcement for strength. He came onto it at the approximate center. It extended up and down and out on all sides, a large area of potential hiding places, and each reinforcement diamond offered multiple planes for planting a charge.

“We’re under way up here,” Neil said. “Ellen, go to the outer hull and start clockwise. Next to the outer hull would be a good place.”

“Thirty-one and counting,” Doris said.

“Paul and Art,” Dom said, “when we find this mother we’ll bring it out the nearest lock, so stand by to get there fast. Paul on lock controls, Art on the nearest outer lock. Everybody in life-support gear now. When we come out, I’ll want a section closed off so that Art can have the outer lock already open. Got that?”

“Roger,” Art said.

“Abandon-ship stations in fifteen minutes,” J. J. said.

“Thirty and counting,” Doris reported.

Never had minutes seemed to pass so quickly. Dom was moving rapidly over the bulkhead, checking each depression between reinforcing diamonds, running his hands over the reinforcements themselves. Neil and Ellen reported no find.

The charge on the stern bulkhead was mounted a few inches from the outer hull on a flat surface between two reinforcement diamonds. It filled the space neatly. It was held in place by four gleaming nuts on studs into the bulkhead, itself.

“Neil,” Dom said, “concentrate on the second row of depressions at six o’clock. I’ve got mine.”

“Roger,” Neil said.

“Twenty and counting,” Doris said.

“Nothing here,” Neil said.

“Take five more minutes, spend it down low,” Dom said. “Paul, I need a half-inch power spanner and a two-foot repair limpet at the port stern lock. Start the lock cycling now. I’m betting that this thing is rigged to detonate if it’s removed underwater.” He waited near the inner lock door. “They went to too much trouble not to booby-trap it.”

“The lock is flooded and opening,” Paul said.

“We’re negative up here,” Neil reported.

“Roger,” Dom said. “You and Ellen get out.” Dom grabbed the repair limpet and the power wrench as the lock door opened.

“Sixteen and counting, Dom,” Doris said.

“No change in orders,” Dom said, as he swam back toward the charge. “Take abandon-ship stations.”

“Change of orders,” J.J. said. “I’m staying aboard. Well get it off in time, Flash.”

“This is a matter of safety,” Dom said. “You’re going off, admiral.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” J.J. said bitterly.

Dom was inflating the repair limpet, pumping water from around the charge. When it was enclosed inside the limpet he inserted his hands and carefully used the in-place cloths to dry the charge and bulkhead around it. He inserted the spanner, activated it, spun off one of the nuts.

“Fifteen and counting,” Doris said. “Capsules ready for launching.”

Two nuts were off. A third was coming.

“Number one launched,” Doris said.

“Pilot’s capsule launched,” Neil said. “Well expect to be back aboard in a few minutes, Dom.”

“That’s a hopeful roger,” Dom said, spinning off the last stud and removing the spanner.

“Standing by,” Paul Jensen said. “It’s just you and me, Dom.”

He allowed the capsules forty-five seconds to clear the ship, at least by a few hundred feet. Then he pulled on the charge. It came and his heart thumped as he waited for it to blow. It stuck. He used the spanner as a pry and it came off the studs and was in his hand inside the repair limpet. He turned it. It was rigged to explode upon contact with water. He closed a watertight bag over the charge and removed it from the limpet, letting the limpet fall away.

“Stand by to operate the lock, Paul,” he said. He swam into the lock and the door started closing behind him. The explosive device was sophisticated. It was equipped for detonation by radio signal, and it was standard to have the circuits rigged to explode if there was tampering.

“Four minutes and counting,” Doris said.

“I’m in the lock and I have the charge,” Dom said. But he knew as well as they that it took five minutes to empty the lock and another few seconds to open the outer door, run down the airless corridor and send the charge into space.

“Dom,” J.J. said. “Moon Control is on. They have been warned that if the broadcast does not start exactly on time the charge will be detonated.”

“J.J., goddammit, you’re supposed to be off the ship.”

“Put me on report,” J.J. said. “You’ll make it.”

“Stall them. Tell them to stall somehow. All we need is another couple of minutes,” Dom said. The water was being pumped out of the lock with a terrifying slowness. The heavy charge in his hands seemed so inert, but it was death, not only for him but for the ship.

“Three minutes, Flash. Moon Control says stalling is out. They’ve been warned against it.”

“All right,” Dom said. “Tell them to start the broadcast on time. It should last a couple of minutes, at least. That just might give us time.”

The water was only down a couple of feet from the ceiling on the lock. Seconds ticked off his wrist chronometer.

“Those miserable bastards,” J. J. said. “Those mucking, murdering bastards. Dom, it has been decided at the top level that the service will not appease the terrorists. They will not start the broadcast. We have two minutes and—fifty seconds.”

Dom was feeling panic, but his mind worked, envisioning the layout of the ship. The hold lock and the outer hull lock were almost opposite each other across the narrow walkway alongside the hold, nothing more than a tunnel connecting the forward compartments with the engine areas.

“Paul,” Dom yelled. “Can you override the safeties on the hold lock?”

“Affirmative.”

“Do it. Outer hull lock open?”

“I’m in vacuum. Affirmative.”

“When I give the word, brace yourself in somewhere and blow the door to this lock. Don’t get in the way. A lot of water will be sucked out.”

“I’ve got you,” Jensen said. “Take a minute.”

“You have just over that,” J.J. said.

“Safety off,” Jensen said. “Clumsy. It will take a little repair.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Dom said. “Blow this door as fast as you can, right now.”

He placed himself against the door, the charge in its watertight bag held down toward the deck. When the door started up, the vacuum in the corridor and all the space would suck the water out of the lock with tremendous force.

“Here we go,” Jensen said.

The door started upward. There was a roaring hiss as explosive decompression started in the lock, sucking water under the door opening so rapidly that Dom almost went with it, catching himself with one hand on a support as the force tore at him. The charge was ripped from his hand. It banged against the rising door and then shot out and then with the same suddenness with which it began decompression was complete and there was silence. Dom closed his eyes and waited for the explosion. The lock door continued to rise. He looked out into the tunnel and saw Jensen still clinging to supports. If there was another charge it would go about now.

He did not hear the explosion when it came, for it came in the vacuum of space fifty yards away and slightly astern of the open outer lock. The blast which would have been so deadly in the filled hold was puny in the emptiness of space. Later, an examination showed a few pinpoints of damage on the skin of the hull.

“Mr. Jensen,” Dom said, very formally and very softly, “you may close hull.”

He went forward to discover that each member of the crew was in his or her place, that the reported launchings of the escape capsules had been faked for his benefit. He was both angered by having his orders disobeyed and touched to know that each of them had risked his life to stay and do whatever was possible to save the ship.

“What can I say?” J.J. asked. “ ‘Good work’ would be a feeble way to express it.”

“You can have your say when I put you on report for ignoring a ship captain’s order,” Dom said.

He felt a sudden weakness in his knees and sat down. Doris handed him a cup of steaming coffee.

“I think I’ve created a monster,” J.J. said. “Give a junior officer a bit of authority and it goes to his head.”

“Save it,” Dom said. “You’ll need the energy. We’re going to go over this ship. I don’t want any more little surprises. I want every circuit, every component, every inch of her checked.”

Doris was watching his face, a strange little smile on her lips.

“And you,” he said. “I thought you were safe in the capsule.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t. There were several reasons.”

“Dom,” Neil said, “there was no way any of us were going to let this ship die and go back to the moon on a rescue vessel.”

Dom was thinking about those several reasons Doris had for staying on the ship as long as he was there and in danger.

“All right,” he said. “I suppose I’m supposed to be grateful. I am, personally, but as captain of this ship I want it to be known that this is the last mutiny. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” J.J. said, grinning.

“Admiral,” Dom said. “Let’s get started. You, sir, can start with the heads.”

And even the heads were checked during the next few exhausting days before they were satisfied that the Kennedy held no more unpleasant surprises for them. The guess that the circuits to the hatches in the redundant bulkheads had been burned with a delayed acid bomb was correct. The damage was minor. Within hours after the explosion of the bomb in space the men who had seized station eight-five on the moon were dead. Meanwhile, as the check of the ship continued, Mars grew from a star to a small globe on the viewscreens, and the unimpressive red disc grew rapidly as the shipboard activities settled into a routine.