The waves were gone. The S.S. _Wilcox_ ceased pitching. A sailor came
up and told the captain that although the hole was still there, the
water of the open sea visible through it had seemed to turn into a
rigid surface that wouldn't let the water in. The ship was no longer
sinking.
As far as the eye could see the Atlantic Ocean was a calm smooth
stretch of water, with the inflexible rigidity of glass....
* * * * *
The champion of the world was saved by the bell. His excited,
panic-stricken manager picked up a pitcher of water, and threw the
entire contents in the heavy-weight's face. The entire contents was in
the form of a hard sphere of water. The sphere struck the dazed, almost
unconscious fighter on the forehead. It was the only case on record of
a fighter being knocked out between rounds....
* * * * *
"I am sorry you are not able to drink, when there is so much water
around you. But you must not touch it, see? Olduk must not touch it
either. Tell all your friends. Thank you," Olduk concluded.
He bowed and turned away, leaving the station manager to do the rest.
Then he placed his twelve foot body into a specially made chair, and
waited. The waiting was not long. A knock came on the door, and the
door was thrust open. Five men in civilian clothes stood there.
"You, Olduk," said one in an ugly tone. "You're under arrest."
The five men circled him.
Olduk drew his cape tighter about him. "Very well," he complied, and
led the way out of the room, thinking wistfully of his native planet.
* * * * *
He was taken before the chief of the secret service of the World State.
The Speaker of the Master Conclave, and the Japanese and Spanish
sectional Governors were there. He was forced to a seat.
Olduk's eyes rested on the sphere of the water in the Speaker's hands.
His eyes flickered briefly. The Speaker glared at him wildly.
"The longer I hold this thing," he whispered, panting, "the thirstier I
get. And I can't drink! What will I do?"
Olduk said emotionlessly, "Honorable sir, you will have to hold it
until there is an agreement to give my people water. Now we are all
Tantaluses."
The iron-gray individual who was the chief of the secret service, ran
his tongue around in his dry mouth.
"You did this?" he said huskily.
"Yes," said Olduk.
The man took a paper off his desk, unfolded it in front of Olduk's
eyes.
Olduk read the headline emotionlessly:
WORLD IN TURMOIL;
DRINKING IMPOSSIBLE
"I did that, yes," said Olduk quietly. "Many people will die. Tantalus,
yes? But there is a Tantalus on Mars, too."
The iron-gray man struck him harshly across the mouth.
"How did you do it?" he rasped.
"A water-tight ship lies buried ten miles beneath the surface of the
Atlantic Ocean. A simple radio signal started the mechanism that
eventually released the force."
"What force?"
"The force that will make it impossible for people of Earth to drink,
honorable sir."
"What signal will make the mechanism stop?" Again Olduk was struck
across the face, harshly, brutally. A thin yellow ichor started to run
down Olduk's impassive face.
"The signal is known only to my people on Mars. Thus it was arranged."
"You're a liar, Olduk!"
The man lit a cigar, and while the Speaker turned away, sickened, he
brought it closer to Olduk, meanwhile talking rapidly.
"Liners are stranded in the ocean, unable to move. Their passengers
can't drink. The power house at Niagara is useless; the water comes
over the falls in drops as big as houses. People are beginning to
suffer from thirst. I know a Martian named Olduk who's going to burn
alive if he doesn't tell us how to stop the mechanism."
The cigar contacted, lingered. There was a sulphurous odor.
Tiny muscles on the Martian's face began to tense. Sweat broke out on
his face.
"You cannot harm me," he said steadily. "Can only kill me. If you kill
me, mankind die. We of Mars have then a planet of water to ourselves.
That's my warning. Heed me."
Fifteen minutes passed. Olduk's face was a mass of blood and burns.
Every nerve in his body was quivering. He had answered none of the
questions hurled at him. He had refused to divulge the location of the
buried ship. Finally his muscles relaxed, and his double-lidded eyes
sagged shut.
The chief of the secret service said ragingly, "Throw him into a cell,
the dirty--! We'll work on him later!"
After Olduk was taken away, the iron-gray man looked at the Speaker.
"What do we do now?"
The Speaker looked in horror at the sphere of water in his hand. "We'll
have to give in--"
"Damned if we will," the other snarled, pacing up and down. "If we
could find out where that ship is, we could send a super-tension ship
down and blow it to--" He stopped, his eyes lighting. He wheeled.
"Didn't Olduk say 'ten miles' below the surface? Damn! There aren't
many places that deep--" He snapped his fingers, and reached for a
phone.
* * * * *
Three hours later, a bullet-shaped rocket ship, able to withstand
thousands of tons' pressure, and reinforced with an intangible
force-field, fled away from the continent, bound for the Maracot Deep;
for such was the first choice, and, as it happened, it was the last.
High above the ocean, the pilot turned the craft nose-down, and poured
full power into his jets.
The craft plunged for the surface of the hard ocean, at frightful
velocity; struck; penetrated; was under, velocity broken almost
in three by the terrific impact. The ship bored down, powerful
searchlights playing on swarms of startled fishes. Down, down. The
pilot made an exclamation, grinned his triumph. Here, ten miles down,
they saw the hulk of the ship that was causing such destruction in the
world above.
The pilot signaled one of his subordinates. The man pulled a lever. The
craft's entire load of super-explosives sank downward toward the menace.
The pilot sent his ship blasting for the surface. Seconds later he
heard and felt the tremendous vibration that, he knew, heralded the end
of the menace. He went toward the surface, and when within fifty feet
of it, sent a blast of power into his jets.
The ship struck something, like a wall, hard, unyielding, and the pilot
and his assistants were thrown against the instrument board. They
recovered their senses.
The pilot looked at the other men.
"Ten tons of helio-hydrogen didn't do the trick," he said softly.
"What will? You know, I almost forgot. The science of the Martians is
way ahead of ours. Naturally, that ship wouldn't be exactly tender...."
He knew it was useless. He had no more explosives. He shoved every atom
of power he had into his jets, but the ship could not move more than
forty miles an hour under water. For a moment it seemed the blunt nose
of the ship was going to penetrate the incredibly tough under-surface
of that film, but no....
The pilot said, grinning crookedly, "Say your prayers, boys, and here's
hoping they give the Old Duck what he wants--quick."
Two days passed. Three billion people stared into the face of eternity.
Rivers, lakes, oceans were full. There were reservoirs of clear,
sparkling water, from which laboring pumps could take water, pumping it
to homes, making it accessible, forcing it out of faucets.
But it was untouchable. The water came out in impenetrable spheres.
They lay like jewels in the homes of most people. People stood around
and stared at them, longingly, yet not daring to touch them. They had
heard several stories about people who _had_ touched them.
Within the spheres, the water was clearly visible for what it was;
which made it all the harder to resist. The world now knew, by the
word of scientists, that nothing but a thin surface of molecules,
strengthened by a million times, lay between them and the water their
bodies thirsted for. Surface tension, acted upon by a strange force,
broadcasted from a mechanism ten miles beneath the surface of the
Atlantic.
Another day passed. The mills of industry, working by steam, and the
things that depended on water, came to a halt. Power was weak, for
it was fed from fast depleting accumulators. The tide machines were
useless, for the ocean no longer fell or rose more than a foot in any
one place.
Numberless ships were stranded on the oceans, their screws able to
turn, but their bows unable to push against the enormous contractile
force that the surface of the ocean possessed.
Crowds roved through the streets, aimless, purposeless, their voices
dry, racking, their eyes bloodshot, cheeks sunken. Beer and soft
drinks, the only drinkable liquids that were not affected, were selling
for ten dollars a bottle. The supply was fast dwindling, and the price
was being jacked up.
Water was all around them, but they were the children of Tantalus.
Newspapers began to demand, in stringent tones, that the situation be
remedied. Crowds gathered outside the World Administration Building,
shouting for water, and they were fully willing to go to the extreme of
meeting the demands of the Martians to get it.
* * * * *
The Speaker of the Master Conclave, and the Japanese and Spanish
sectional governors, stood in a room on the upper floor of the World
Administration Building.
The room was a kitchen.
On the floor lay a huge, polished, glistening drop of water.
"That's what it is, gentlemen," said the Speaker. "A drop of water,
just what you'd expect if the surface tension of water increased a
million times. The surface film acts like a tight skin or jacket
surrounding a drop of water, and the jacket contracts down to the least
possible area, a sphere. If you put your hands on it--the way I've got
my hands on this damned _thing_--you increase the 'coastline,' and the
surface film doesn't like that. It tries to decrease the coastline
formed by your fingers, so your fingers are crushed together. If you
managed to actually penetrate the film, and get your hands wet, the
terrific capillary action of the molecules would cause the surface film
to literally envelop you, and you'd be inside, and you couldn't get
out.... What are we going to do about it?"
His face was drawn and haggard and sunken.