It didn’t take him terribly long to override his embarrassment at being found like this. That was preferable to being found dead at the bottom of the shaft. Boiler would probably get a laugh out of that, too, he thought grimly.
It gave him more strength to hang on. He still had a pretty good grip on the bar, but he couldn’t hang like this indefinitely. What were Boiler and Doolittle doing, anyway? Somebody ought to have missed him by now.
No, that was wishful thinking in the extreme. Privacy being the precious commodity it was on the Dark Star, no one would bother another unless there was work to be done that required his presence. Boiler and Doolittle might wonder at his absence, but they wouldn’t think anything was wrong.
Eventually it looked like he was going to have to judge the elevator’s lowest point of descent and drop free… and hope the impact wouldn’t be too damaging. That still left him with the interesting problem of what to do if the elevator then decided to descent all the way. He might survive the drop in fine shape, only to be squashed flat at the bottom of the shaft.
That didn’t seem likely, though. So far the elevator had shown no signs of dropping closer than twenty meters from the bottom.
But it was still too impressive a fall for Pinback to risk it, except as a last resort. He looked upward, examined the base of the lift his gaze settled on a small plate just to the right center of the elevator floor. It seemed to protrude slightly from the rest of the metal.
Four simple wing nuts were all that held it in place. Of course—emergency access hatch!
Damning himself for being a complete idiot, he braced himself for the long reach. Then, hanging on with one arm, he swung free and batted awkwardly at the first nut. A few twists and it was free. It clattered hollowly down the shaft.
He couldn’t hang like that for very long. It took a moment of holding on with both arms before he felt strong enough to try again.
Tightening his arm, he swung over and worked at the second nut. It came free with gratifying speed.
The elevator was rising again. His left arm felt like an old section of tire. No way he could hang on much longer. He tried the third nut. It moved halfway down the screw—and stopped. He had to get back on the bar again.
He wasn’t going to be able to do it. But the fourth nut flew off with a single swing of his hand. The plate was hanging loosely from one nut now. He let go, resolutely gripped the last obstacle, and turned it by hand once, twice… the nut came free, followed immediately by the plate, which clattered off his head and shoulder and almost knocked him loose.
A deep breath—he had just about enough strength left to try this once—and he swung free on his right arm. The other reached up and in, getting an unbreakable grip inside the elevator. A minute later and he had both arms inside—inside the warm, comforting, familiar elevator.
He was saved.
Pushing down on the floor, he brought his upper torso all the way in. He rested like that for a few seconds, catching his breath without fear of falling, and then pushed again—with no result.
His eyes widened slightly.
He was stuck.
He twisted and pushed, pushed and heaved, but either his arms were now so weak they couldn’t force him through or, more likely, his hips were so fat that no amount of shoving and grunting was going to break him free.
No, he as securely trapped—unless, of course, he wanted to sneak his fingers between belly and gap and pull himself down, and start all over again.
Not much chance of that. Better stuck half in than falling whole. At least he was safe. He could relax and think his way out of this. Plenty of time, now.
Unless, he remembered again, the lift suddenly did decide to descend all the way. He wouldn’t fall, but he’d have both legs neatly pulverized. It might also break him free, but the odds were not inviting. He thought of having his legs slowly knuckled up beneath him, cracking like chopsticks, and he looked around wildly.
There ought to be—yes, there it was, a red phone receiver on the interior wall, over by the foredoorway. The receiver was set just this side of a control panel; and lower down than seemed reasonable. For once it looked like things had been planned with his troubles in mind.
Leaning until it felt like the metal floor was going to cut him in half, he strained to reach it. Strained, grunted, struggling for each millimeter.
The phone stayed just out of his reach.
Meanwhile, the elevator continued its Carrollian jaunts up and down the shaft. It had been terrifying to hang by his arms, expecting to go crashing to the bottom at any second. Now his body was safe and only his mind was shaky. Since he couldn’t see below anymore, he had no way of knowing if he was within meters or millimeters of being crushed against the shaft floor.
Taking a deep breath and trying to get his internal organs on a vertical line, he somehow coaxed another centimeter or so out of the trap—just enough to fumble and knock the receiver off its latch. Breathing was difficult now.
But he had the phone. As he brought it near he thought once more of Doolittle and Boiler and their reaction when he buzzed them.
He could make up some kind of excuse. It shouldn’t be necessary to let on that he had let the alien escape. Might not sound too logical but, by God, he’d make it work! Yes, he would be cool and reasonable and just properly aloof about it all, and they would accept his explanation.
That would come later. Right now he was still quivering in abject terror. There was the familiar click; he could feel the elevator descending and now visualized his legs as a mass of compound fractures. The “Help!” he screamed into the receiver was loud.
Unexpectedly, there came an immediate reply. But it was not the one Pinback was hoping for.
“I’m sorry,” confessed a mechanical voice that was like but yet subtly different from the central computer’s. “This phone is out of order. Please use an alternate ship phone until the damage has been repaired. Alternate ship phones are located at…”
Pinback’s emotions rapidly ran the gamut from shock to hopelessness to outrage. Here he was trying to be the best member of the crew, and he found himself balked at every turn by sheer flight inefficiency. There was a conspiracy on this ship to hinder his efficiency.
Right now it was trying to render him not only inefficient, but inoperative.
He threw the phone receiver against the wall, watched it swing pendulumlike back and forth. “Please report the damage at once,” the phone concluded.
Sure, he thought wildly. I’ll just call it in through the nearest phone.
The control board! Fifty closely spaced buttons which would make the elevator do everything but return independently to Earth. They were set into the wall near the unmentionable receiver, but slightly farther away. That was one reason why he hadn’t tried them first.
The other reason was that he could not remember what any button but number one did. Number one started and stopped the elevator. And strain as he might, there was no way he was going to be able to reach that farthest bit of plastic.
Now he wished he had taken the time to learn the function of the other forty-nine. Or had he? If he had, he couldn’t remember them now.
Leaning toward the board, fighting at the constricting metal at his waist, aware that he might be only centimeters from smashing into the bottom of the shaft, he fought to reach the panel.
His finger fluttered over the ranked plastic, jabbed arbitrarily at one. Number forty-five. He felt it give under his finger.
There was a pause, then another voice began smoothly, “For your listening enjoyment, we now present excerpts from the Barber of Seville, by Gioacchino Rossini.”