And a full-throated baritone promptly blasted from the speaker overhead as the elevator continued to descend. At least, Pinback thought it was descending. All motion seemed downward to him now.
Straining again, he punched in another button. No effect. Another, and another. He kept punching buttons until he achieved his second concrete result.
The baritone shut up.
More buttons, and then another recording.
“Good for you!” said the sprightly voice in a tone not unlike his mother’s. “You’ve decided to clean the elevator. To clean and service the electromagnetic coils in the bottom, it is necessary to jettison the access plate in the floor. This may be done in slow or rapid sequence, depending on the required speed of cleaning.”
Cursing silently, Pinback was starting to wonder why he had ever wanted to join the Advanced Expeditionary Corps. Something in the back of his mind tried to answer him, but it made no sense, none at all. He shut it off. This was no time for filling one’s head with fog.
“To remove the floor plate for slow-sequence cleaning,” the computer voice continued, “follow procedures indicated in Ship Service Manual SS-forty-six, sections E-thirteen through E-fifty-six.”
“Great. I’ll just whip out my ol’ manual, here,” Pinback muttered sarcastically.
“To remove the floor plate for rapid-sequence cleaning, press button number forty.”
Well, that was more like it! Probably that would release the hidden catches and he could just lift himself completely inside.
He reached up, his hand flailing millimeters away from the indicated button. He grunted, twisted slightly. C’mon, Pinback, just another couple of millimeters boy, and you’ll be safe out of this…
Finally he hit the button, let out a gasp of relief, and sagged back into the grip of the opening. But the relief failed to last.
Something was nagging at him. There was something he half recalled from a cursory restudy of the maintenance manuals. The electromagnetic bolts in the floor panel (electromagnetic bolts? What about the simple catches he’d been thinking of?) were normally released only once a year… slowly. He couldn’t remember anything about rapid-sequence cleaning.
Only that there was some reason why it was rarely, if ever, done. Oh yes, that was it…
His eyes bulged.
“Attention, danger,” said the computer voice sternly. “Attention, danger. Automatic charges will now activate the small, explosive bolts in the plate unit for rapid-sequence cleaning, as slow sequence has not been initiated according to manual procedure directives. The plate will disengage for rapid cleaning in five seconds.”
Pinback shook his head, screamed a silent no!, quite aware that verbalizing it wouldn’t have any effect on the machine anyway. He shoved desperately at the floor plate, but he couldn’t budge it. And it was a little late to be wishing he had spent more time in the exercise room.
Four glowing arrows had appeared in the bottom of the elevator, conveniently identifying the placement of the explosive bolts. Of course, the plate had to be used again, so the explosion couldn’t be too powerful… could it?
He wished he could remember—and it didn’t do much for his state of mind to see that all four arrows were pointing inward, toward him. It seemed somehow significant.
“Please leave the elevator immediately,” the voice re quested.
“I’m trying, I’m trying!”
“Five, four, three…” It occurred to Pinback, then, that the… “two"… elevator was also out to… “one"… get him…
Outside, in the main corridor of the Dark Star, a light flashed on to indicate that the elevator was now opposite the doorway. Little wisps of smoke, which, unlike the light, were not regulation, began to drift from around its corners. Then the double door slid apart.
Pinback staggered out. He was alive, even if he didn’t feel like it. His hair was a bit more rumpled than usual, his clothing a mite more disheveled. Otherwise he was basically the same, if one discounted the dark streaks around his cheeks and neck and the slight scorched look of his tunic around his waist.
A flood of acrid smoke poured out of the elevator behind him. Carbonized cloth, mostly, with a faint aroma of Pinback to it. He had a neat black line under his loose shirt where the severe jolt from the explosion had thrown the metal even tighter against his belly.
Oh, and just above that was a neat square of metal—the floor plate—still tightly wrapped around him.
He tried to slump into a corner, and failed. The plate did not permit easy slumping. Or even sitting. And then he had a very discouraging thought.
It occurred to him that despite all his precautions to preserve his dignity—and nearly killing himself in the bargain—his dilemma might have been revealed to—Doolittle and Boiler anyway, if the explosion had set any tell-tales in the control room or living area. He watched the corridor ahead for long minutes. But no one came down it to laugh at him, and he began to relax a little. If the explosive bolts were part of a standard maintenance sequence, and it was beginning to look that way, then it shouldn’t activate any special alarm anywhere else on board. Talby, Doolittle, and Boiler should still be ignorant of the indignities he had suffered.
There remained the little matter of getting the plate off. Another trip to the crafts room solved that quickly enough. There was a small cutting-and-welding outfit there—the psychometricians had thought of everything, it seemed. It made a neat job of the plate, though a part of him rebelled at the idea of slicing the bottom of the elevator into pieces. At the moment, though, his desire to be rid of the damn thing far outweighed any loyal considerations to preserve and protect the physical integrity of the ship.
Besides, if Boiler could blow holes in the cover to the heating unit for target practice, he could darn well play around with something that was even less integral to the Dark Star’s operation. He could always fix the plate later, and for now there was still plenty of room to stand inside the lift.
But later, not now. Now he had something else to do. He smiled. Something much more important.
Once the plate was free, he made use of the small first-aid kit thoughtfully provided for clumsy craftsmen. That took care of his injured tummy.
Then he made his way purposefully back to the alien-holding room, checking the corridor ahead of him every now and then to make sure the Beachball wasn’t waiting to playfully ambush him, and also to avoid Doolittle and Boiler.
As usual, the luminants rushed instantly to the close side of the cage, but this time they didn’t make him nervous. He didn’t bother to shoo them away.
They had no eyes, no ears, no recognizable features at all. Only perfect, regular, geometric shapes. Yet they always responded to his presence. He wondered momentarily what they thought, if they thought—what they felt, if they felt.
He knew what he felt.
The red box was labeled simply ANESTHETIC GUN. He started to break the seal, then paused thoughtfully and lifted the whole box neatly off its all latch.
Better not load the thing until the last minute. If he ran into any of the others he couldn’t claim he was going target shooting like Boiler. Not with this baby. Nor did he want to go walking around the ship with a loaded gun in hand. Not considering the predilection the Beachball had for dropping on to people without warning.
The way his luck had been running lately, he’d was likely to end up tranquilizing his foot.
But his luck, he told himself grimly, was about to take a forced change. He might have to hunt out the alien all over again, but chances were good that it was still hovering around the open shaft, perhaps waiting for the elevator to descend again. He hoped it was. There were too many hiding places in the rear compartments of the ship for him to search through without eventually coming to the attention of Boiler or Doolittle.