"Is that a permanent repair?" I wanted to know.
"Are you kidding? It just shows the follow-up man where to weld."
"Show him a flexible joint," Knowles directed.
"Coming up." We paused half-way down the tunnel and Konski pointed to a ring segment that ran completely around the tubular tunnel. "We put in a flex joint every hundred feet. It's glass cloth, gasketed onto the two steel sections it joins. Gives the tunnel a certain amount of springiness."
"Glass cloth? To make an airtight seal?" I objected.
"The cloth doesn't seal; it's for strength. You got ten layers of cloth, with a silicone grease spread between the layers. It gradually goes bad, from the outside in, but it'll hold five years or more before you have to put on another coat."
I asked Konski how he liked his job, thinking I might get some story. He shrugged. "It's all right. Nothing to it. Only one atmosphere of pressure. Now you take when I was working under the Hudson-"
"And getting paid a tenth of what you get here," put in Knowles.
"Mr. Knowles, you grieve me," Konski protested. "It ain't the money; it's the art of the matter. Take Venus. They pay as well on Venus and a man has to be on his toes. The muck is so loose you have to freeze it. It takes real caisson men to work there. Half of these punks here are just miners; a case of the bends would scare 'em silly."
"Tell him why you left Venus, Fatso."
Konski expressed dignity. "Shall we examine the movable shield, gentlemen?" he asked.
We puttered around a while longer and I was ready to go back. There wasn't much to see, and the more I saw of the place the less I liked it. Konski was undogging the door of the airlock leading back when something happened.
I was down on my hands and knees and the place was pitch dark. Maybe I screamed-I don't know. There was a ringing in my ears. I tried to get up and then stayed where I was. It was the darkest dark I ever saw, complete blackness. I thought I was blind.
A torchlight beam cut through it, picked me out, and then moved on. "What was it?" I shouted. "What happened? Was it a quake?"
"Stop yelling," Konski's voice answered me casually. "That was no quake, it was some sort of explosion. Mr. Knowles-you all right?"
"I guess so." He gasped for breath. "What happened?"
"Dunno. Let's look around a bit." Konski stood up and poked his beam around the tunnel, whistling softly. His light was the sort that has to be pumped; it flickered.
"Looks tight, but I hear-Oh, oh! Sister!" His beam was focused on a part of the flexible joint, near the floor.
The "tag-along" balloons were gathering at this spot. Three were already there; others were drifting in slowly. As we watched, one of them burst and collapsed in a sticky mass that marked the leak.
The hole sucked up the burst balloon and began to hiss. Another rolled onto the spot, joggled about a bit, then it, too, burst. It took a little longer this time for the leak to absorb and swallow the gummy mass.
Konski passed me the light. "Keep pumping it, kid." He shrugged his right arm out of the suit and placed his bare hand over the spot where, at that moment, a third bladder burst.
"How about it, Fats?" Mr. Knowles demanded.
"Couldn't say. Feels like a hole as big as my thumb. Sucks like the devil."
"How could you get a hole like that?"
"Search me. Poked through from the outside, maybe."
"You got the leak checked?"
"I think so. Go back and check the gage. Jack, give him the light."
Knowles trotted back to the airlock. Presently he sang out, "Pressure steady!"
"Can you read the vernier?" Konski called to him.
"Sure. Steady by the vernier."
"How much we lose?"
"Not more than a pound or two. What was the pressure before?"
"Earth-normal."
"Lost a pound four tenths, then."
"Not bad. Keep on going, Mr. Knowles. There's a tool kit just beyond the lock in the next section. Bring me back a number three patch, or bigger."
"Right." We heard the door open and clang shut, and we were again in total darkness. I must have made some sound for Konski told me to keep my chin up.
Presently we heard the door, and the blessed light shone out again. "Got it?" said Konski.
"No, Fatso. No..." Knowles' voice was shaking. "There's no air on the other side. The other door wouldn't open."
"Jammed, maybe?"
"No, I checked the manometer. There's no pressure in the next section."
Konski whistled again. "Looks like we'll wait till they come for us. In that case-- Keep the light on me, Mr. Knowles. Jack, help me out of this suit."
"What are you planning to do?"
"If I can't get a patch, I got to make one, Mr. Knowles. This suit is the only thing around." I started to help him-a clumsy job since he had to keep his hand on the leak.
"You can stuff my shirt in the hole," Knowles suggested.
"I'd as soon bail water with a fork. It's got to be the suit; there's nothing else around that will hold the pressure." When he was free of the suit, he had me smooth out a portion of the back, then, as he snatched his hand away, I slapped the suit down over the leak. Konski promptly sat on it. "There," he said happily, "we've got it corked. Nothing to do but wait."
I started to ask him why he hadn't just sat down on the leak while wearing the suit; then I realized that the seat of the suit was corrugated with insulation-he needed a smooth piece to seal on to the sticky stuff left by the balloons.
"Let me see your hand," Knowles demanded.
"It's nothing much." But Knowles examined it anyway. I looked at it and got a little sick. He had a mark like a stigma on the palm, a bloody, oozing wound. Knowles made a compress of his handkerchief and then used mine to tie it in place.
"Thank you, gentlemen," Konski told us, then added, "we've got time to kill. How about a little pinochle?"
"With your cards?" asked Knowles.
"Why, Mr. Knowles! Well-never mind. It isn't right for paymasters to gamble anyhow. Speaking of paymasters, you realize this is pressure work now, Mr. Knowles?"
"For a pound and four tenths differential?"
"I'm sure the union would take that view-in the circumstances."
"Suppose I sit on the leak?"
"But the rate applies to helpers, too."
"Okay, miser-triple-time it is."
"That's more like your own sweet nature, Mr. Knowles. I hope it's a nice long wait."
"How long a wait do you think it will be, Fatso?"
"Well, it shouldn't take them more than an hour, even if they have to come all the way from Richardson."
"Hmm ... what makes you think they will be looking for us?"
"Huh? Doesn't your office know where you are?"
"I'm afraid not. I told them I wouldn't be back today."
Konski thought about it. "I didn't drop my time card. They'll know I'm still inside."
"Sure they will-tomorrow, when your card doesn't show up at my office."
"There's that lunkhead on the gate. He'll know he's got three extra inside."
"Provided he remembers to tell his relief. And provided he wasn't caught in it, too."
"Yes, I guess so," Konski said thoughtfully. "Jack-better quit pumping that light. You just use up more oxygen."
We sat there in the darkness for quite a long time, speculating about what had happened. Konski was sure it was an explosion; Knowles said that it put him in mind of a time when he had seen a freight rocket crash on take off. When the talk started to die out, Konski told some stories. I tried to tell one, but I was so nervous-so afraid, I should say-that I couldn't remember the snapper. I wanted to scream.