Off came the cumbersome space suit; what he needed was speed. Do the job and surrender-better to be a prisoner than to linger in a place as "hot" as this.
He grabbed a ball hammer from the tool rack and got busy, pausing only to switch off the television pick-up. The first bomb bothered him. He started to smash the covet plate of the "brain," then stopped, filled with reluctance. All his life he had prized fine apparatus.
He nerved himself and swung; glass tinkled, metal creaked. His mood changed; he began to feel a shameful pleasure in destruction. He pushed on with enthusiasm, swinging, smashing, destroying!
So intent was he that he did not at first hear his name called. "Dahlquist! Answer me! Are you there?"
He wiped sweat and looked at the TV screen. Towers' perturbed features stared out.
Johnny was shocked to find that he had wrecked only six bombs. Was he going to be caught before he could finish? Oh, no! He had to finish. Stall, son, stall! "Yes, Colonel? You called me?"
"I certainly did! What's the meaning of this?"
"I'm sorry, Colonel."
Towers' expression relaxed a little. "Turn on your pick-up, Johnny, I can't see you. What was that noise?"
"The pick-up is on," Johnny lied. "It must be out of order. That noise-uh, to tell the truth, Colonel, I was fixing things so that nobody could get in here."
Towers hesitated, then said firmly, "I'm going to assume that you are sick and send you to the Medical Officer. But I want you to come out of there, right away. That's an order, Johnny."
Johnny answered slowly. "I can't just yet, Colonel. I came here to make up my mind and I haven't quite made it up. You said to see you after lunch."
"I meant you to stay in your quarters."
"Yes, sir. But I thought I ought to stand watch on the bombs, in case I decided you were wrong."
"It's not for you to decide, Johnny. I'm your superior officer. You are sworn to obey me."
"Yes, sir." This was wasting time; the old fox might have a squad on the way now. "But I swore to keep the peace, too. Could you come out here and talk it over with me? I don't want to do the wrong thing."
Towers smiled. "A good idea, Johnny. You wait there. I'm sure you'll see the light." He switched off.
"There," said Johnny. "I hope you're convinced that I'm a half-wit-you slimy mistake!" He picked up the hammer, ready to use the minutes gained.
He stopped almost at once; it dawned on him that wrecking the "brains" was not enough. There were no spare "brains," but there was a well-stocked electronics shop. Morgan could jury-rig control circuits for bombs. Why, he could himself - not a neat job, but one that would work. Damnation! He would have to wreck the bombs themselves - and in the next ten minutes.
But a bomb was solid chunks of metal, encased in a heavy tamper, all tied in with a big steel gun. It couldn't be done - not in ten minutes.
Damn!
Of course, there was one way. He knew the control circuits; he also knew how to beat them. Take this bomb: if he took out the safety bar, unhooked the proximity circuit, shorted the delay circuit, and cut in the arming circuit by hand - then unscrewed that and reached in there, he could, with just a long, stiff wire, set the bomb off.
Blowing the other bombs and the valley itself to Kingdom Come.
Also Johnny Dahlquist. That was the rub.
All this time he was doing what he had thought out, up to the step of actually setting off the bomb. Ready to go, the bomb seemed to threaten, as if crouching to spring. He stood up, sweating.
He wondered if he had the courage. He did not want to funk - and hoped that he would. He dug into his jacket and took out a picture of Edith and the baby. "Honeychild," he said, "if I get out of this, I'll never even try to beat a red light." He kissed the picture and put it back. There was nothing to do but wait.
What was keeping Towers? Johnny wanted to make sure that Towers was in blast range. What a joke on the jerk! Me sitting here, ready to throw the switch on him. The idea tickled him; it led to a better: why blow himself up - alive?
There was another way to rig it - a "dead man" control. Jigger up some way so that the last step, the one that set off the bomb, would not happen as long as he kept his hand on a switch or a lever or something. Then, if they blew open the door, or shot him, or anything - up goes the balloon!
Better still, if he could hold them off with the threat of it, sooner or later help would come - Johnny was sure that most of the Patrol was not in this stinking conspiracy - and then: Johnny comes marching home! What a reunion! He'd resign and get a teaching job; he'd stood his watch.
All the while, he was working. Electrical? No, too little time. Make it a simple mechanical linkage. He had it doped out but had hardly begun to build it when the loudspeaker called him. "Johnny?"
"That you, Colonel?" His hands kept busy.
"Let me in."
"Well, now, Colonel, that wasn't in the agreement." Where in blue blazes was something to use as a long lever?
"I'll come in alone, Johnny, I give you my word. We'll talk face to face."
His word! "We can talk over the speaker, Colonel." Hey, that was it-a yardstick, hanging on the tool rack.
"Johnny, I'm warning you. Let me in, or I'll blow the door off."
A wire-he needed a wire, fairly long and stiff. He tore the antenna from his suit. "You wouldn't do that, Colonel. It would ruin the bombs."
"Vacuum won't hurt the bombs. Quit stalling."
"Better check with Major Morgan. Vacuum won't hurt them; explosive decompression would wreck every circuit." The Colonel was not a bomb specialist; he shut up for several minutes. Johnny went on working.
"Dahlquist," Towers resumed, "that was a clumsy, lie. I checked with Morgan. You have sixty seconds to get into your suit, if you aren't already. I'm going to blast the door."
"No, you won't," said Johnny. "Ever hear of a 'dead man' switch?" Now for a counterweight-and a sling.
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"I've rigged number seventeen to set off by hand. But I put in a gimmick. It won't blow while I hang on to a strap I've got in my hand. But if anything happens to me - up she goes! You are about fifty feet from the blast center. Think it over."
There was a short silence. "I don't believe you."
"No? Ask Morgan. He'll believe me. He can inspect it, over the TV pickup." Johnny lashed the belt of his space suit to the end of the yardstick.
"You said the pick-up was out of order."
"So I lied. This time I'll prove it. Have Morgan call me."
Presently Major Morgan's face appeared. "Lieutenant Dahlquist?"
"Hi, Stinky. Wait a sec." With great care Dahlquist made one last connection while holding down the end of the yardstick. Still careful, he shifted his grip to the belt, sat down on the floor, stretched an arm and switched on the TV pick-up, "Can you see me, Stinky?"
"I can see you," Morgan answered stiffly. "What is this nonsense?"
"A little surprise I whipped up." He explained it-what circuits he had cut out, what ones had been shorted, just how the jury-rigged mechanical sequence fitted in.
Morgan nodded. "But you're bluffing, Dahlquist. I feel sure that you haven't disconnected the 'K' circuit. You don't have the guts to blow yourself up."
Johnny chuckled. "I sure haven't. But that's the beauty of it. It can't go off, so long as I am alive. If your greasy boss, ex-Colonel Towers, blasts the door, then I'm dead and the bomb goes off. It won't matter to me, but it will to him. Better tell him." He switched off.
Towers came on over the speaker shortly. "Dahlquist?"
"I hear you."