“AND now we wait for the whole world to explode," said Vogel wearily. "Is there any reason why he can't do it?"
Foley rubbed his brow. "It'll take quite a while to open the lamp without smashing it up," he said. "Maybe he will smash it. He'll have to turn it off and work in the dark, and once you get the case off it's a delicate little machine,"
Rawson was listening with half an ear. He thought he heard a vague clanging sound—untraceable. "Listen to that," he said. "Where does it come from?"
The little foreman looked about sharply, then pressed his ear to the metal casing of the peristaltic tube. "Wait a minute," he said. Then he opened his mouth wide and rested his teeth on the tube. "Bone transmission," he explained absently, the words distorted by the configuration of his lips and mouth.
The others followed suit. Rawson almost cried aloud when he heard the regular scrapes and taps from a mile above. Taking up a bit of rock he smashed it against the casing three times. A moment, and the noises ceased; there sounded three regular clinks from the surface.
"They know we're alive now," Foley said tensely. "What will they do?" With disconcerting suddenness the answer came. The warning signal of the peristaltic tube buzzed loudly, and the device went into rumbling squeaking, clanging action. The three men stared as great chunks of rock vanished up the shaft.
They looked at each other. "It was never done before," said Foley, "but —Vogel, you go in first."
Silently the man wedged his shoulders in the mouth of the tube. Systolic and diastolic bands collapsed and swelled, and he was smoothly carried up out of sight. Hastily the two others crammed themselves into the mouth of the device.
Rawson felt the walls of the tube with his hands. They seemed at once slimy and rugged as they weirdly sucked him with irreasistible force to the surface. He tilted his head back and let his lamp lay on the feet of Foley, a few yards above him.
"Any trouble down there?" called back the foreman.
"No," said Rawson grimly, "I was just wondering if we'll reach the surface before Pyle opens his lamp." He gave a sudden cry as an abnormally tight systolic band closed on him. "Are there any more narrow ones up there?" he asked. "I nearly got fractured hip just now."
"That was defective, I think," called down Foley. "I noticed it myself. Keep calm, man. We aren't through yet."
The clanging action of the bands became noisier, and Rawson, though he couldn't be sure, thought that their speed had been increased.
For many long minutes he tried to coordinate his breathing with the rhythmical pulsings of the tube, and again looked up when Foley shouted for his attention. "Vogel says he sees light ahead," called the little roan. "They must have put a lamp in the shaft for us."
"That's good," Rawson tried to say, but he had a little picture brought to mind of the crazed Pyle tinkering at his murderous device far down below in the dark. And the picture included also a boy who looked like his brother, except for the blotched red swellings of the Sickness, and a tiny, furious star that shot swiftly around a calcined and blackened planet.
And then he was out of the tube and in the light of the distant sun.
“CUT IT out!" snapped Foley at the men swarming around with inane congratulations. "There's a maniac loose down there. He's trying to open his lamp and excite the radium in the mine. He'll blow up the planet! Have you got anything to stop him?"
Camp Supervisor Teck stiffened. "Finney," he ordered, "Run for the Chief Engineer. Tell him to rig a blanket wave between frequencies three and three point two." He turned again to Foley. "If he doesn't get it open in the next two minutes we're safe. And if he does . . . we'll never know it. How was it going through the tube?"
"No trouble, except a couple of tight bands. Are you going to send a rescue crew down that way?"
"I think we'd better. If they don't get the blanket wave set up in a hurry we'll have to." Swiftly he detailed a group of eight to the tube. With a great metallic groan the mechanism was reversed, and the men were swallowed down into the crust of the moon.
Teck touched a stethoscope to the struts of the device. "No trouble yet," he announced to the circle of men. "They're telling each other dirty stories." There was a crackle of laughter from the group.
"Now they're coming out at the bottom. Wait—yes, their exciter lamps have gone out." He looked up smiling. "That means the blanket wave is working." Again Teck applied the stethoscope. "I can't hear them now. They had electrics, so I suppose they’ve gone to look for Pyle.” He reversed the tube again, to its normal upward flow, and sat down to wait. A few minutes passed, then—
The tube coughed suddenly. “Something coming up,” said Teck. He speeded up the systole and diastole; it seemed as though the mechanism would tear itself apart with the violence of its drive. Chunks of rock dribbled over the lip of the tube, and then the limp figure of a man was disgorged. “Is this Pyle?” asked the supervisor.
Rawson scanned the lax figures. “Yes. Did they kill him?”
“Just a needle of paralyte, I think. It’ll wear off in a moment.” Swiftly Teck strapped down the arms and legs of the unconscious man. The eyes opened and in them was the stare of madness.
“Pretty hopeless,” said the supervisor, turning away.
“Oh well…One man crazy and seventeen dead. No wonder they cancelled my insurance,” said Rawson.
“What about it?” Foley asked. “They didn’t mean much. Their work did; it meant the chance of living to millions of people.”
“Sure, I know it; I work here, don’t I? And I’m not quitting … But—But let’s get to sleep, I mean. We need it.” They trudged away, were halted in their tracks by a yell from the men around the peristaltic tube. They spun around.
Rocks were pouring from the mouth of the tube. The supervisor picked one up, held it to the distant sun and scanned it. “Ore!” he cried, his words carrying to Rawson and Foley. “And the highest grade stuff I’ve seen in a long time!”
Rawson looked at Foley and smiled; received Foley’s smile in exchange. Then they started off once more for their bunks. It had been a hard shift.