"Do you see him, Newcomb?" Nils asked.
"Not yet," came the cheerful reply.
"He's a big one," Kerr said.
Forty-five minutes to go. Well, at least there was a big air lion down
there, if he hadn't been frightened off by Kerr's shot, and maybe he
would still be down there when Nils made his plunge. So there was a
chance, not a big one but a chance all the same, that Nils could pick
up his seventh lion today.
But even if the lion was down there, it wasn't at all positive that
Nils would get him. That went without saying. After all, when you went
down every weekday for six months and got only six lions, then it was
pretty obvious that you couldn't always bag one when you wanted it.
There were--how many now?--twenty-four men on the raft, and so far
they'd got only forty pelts. About one every four days. Sometimes weeks
went by without a catch.
"I think I see him now," said Newcomb. "He _is_ a big fellow. I don't
think I've ever seen a bigger one."
"Can you get a shot at him?" Nils asked.
"I'll try," Newcomb said. "He's coming straight for me. Lord, what a
monster. I think I--No, damn it, I missed. Here, let me--Damn it!
He's--" And then came that peculiar deadness in Nils's eardrums that
meant the radio wire had been severed. Nils jumped to his feet and
waved wildly to the crew at the drums. They began frantically to pull
Newcomb up. Soon he broke surface and was helped up the ladder. He
stood, bewildered, until one of the men led him into the bubble.
"His radio wire snapped," Nils explained to Kerr.
They wouldn't send Newcomb down again today--not after a narrow shave
like that. His nerve would be gone.
Nils stood up. "I'm going down after that baby," he told the crewmen.
He began to work his way out of the complicated radio equipment, which
snapped on over his helmet to take advantage of the built-in radio in
his suit. "Petrone, you take the radio."
* * * * *
Petrone came lumbering over and accepted the rig. Nils sat on the
ready bench and let the other crewmen adjust the equipment he needed.
The rope hooked into the back of his suit; the air hose was connected
to the suit oxygenerator, which was strong enough to support a man in
airlessness but could not stand the pressure of the Uranian atmosphere
and thus needed assistance from the powerful pump on the raft; and the
radio wire attached to his light helmet rig.
And then he was going over the side. He went down--way, way down--and
then he saw Kerr.
"How is it?" Nils asked.
Kerr gestured. "He's off that way. He took a swipe at me, and I tried
to get a shot at him. I think I took his ear off, but that's all.
Anyway, he lit out like a jet. I expect he'll be back, though; probably
he's too mad to think straight."
They watched. While they watched, the harpoon was lowered to them.
Minutes passed, dragging by with interminable slowness while their
eyes searched the murky depths, the headlamps making strange patterns,
looking for the air lion.
And then Nils spotted him--too late. "Look out behind you!" he shouted
desperately.
But he was too late. The air lion's powerful flippers forced him
through the atmosphere with astonishing speed, and he struck Kerr with
tremendous force and impact before the other diver could even turn
around.
"God!" Nils muttered into his mouthpiece, horrified, as the lines
snapped with the lion's onslaught and Kerr began to hurtle down toward
the bottom of the sea of atmosphere, down to where the Uranian air was
frozen solid.
"Did it get him?" Petrone's voice sounded in the earphones.
"Cut him off like a knife," Nils said.
"We're going to pull you up. That baby's too rough to handle."
"I'm staying down," Nils said. And the tone of his voice showed that he
meant it.
"Well, we'll send Newcomb down again," Petrone said.
"Let him get his rest," Nils said. "I just got here."
The lion, meanwhile, had seen Nils with his weak eyes and was coming
toward him. Nils held up his pistol and took steady aim. He waited
until he could quite easily see that the lion did, in fact, lack an
ear. And then he pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
This occasionally occurred. The pistols were very intricate mechanisms,
designed so that none of the liquid atmosphere could get into them
at the same time that the bullet got out. And like all intricate
mechanisms, occasionally they went wrong.
The air lion was coming closer, hurtling through the liquid air now
with strong beats of his powerful flippers.
Nils pulled the trigger again. And again nothing happened. He could
feel the sweat running down his face.
The lion was looming larger now; it was almost upon him. Nils could see
the creature's ugly, yellow eyes.
He pulled the trigger a third time. One of the eyes suddenly
disappeared, to be replaced by a hole, from which a yellow fluid poured.
But the impact of the bullet had not stopped the momentum of the lion.
The body fell into Nils with a sudden jerk.
Nils dropped suddenly, then stopped with a wrenching snap.
"What's the matter?" Petrone said in his earphones.
Nils assessed the damage.
"I've broken my cable," he said. "I've still got the air hose and radio
wire."
Petrone swore softly in Italian.
Nils changed the subject. "Get the harpoon about four feet lower,
quick. I don't want to lose this baby."
The harpoon came down within his grasp, and he impaled the dead air
lion on it.
"Okay," Nils said "haul him up."
* * * * *
The pale shape of the lion began to rise above him. The idea came to
him of attempting to grab hold of the lion so as to be pulled up with
it. One of the men in his predicament had tried that once; the harpoon
cable had broken and both man and lion had been lost. No, there was
nothing to do but wait--and pray.
Nils dangled there, in the atmosphere, like a marionette on a single
string. Well, he thought, this may be the end. He tried to puzzle out
why he wasn't frightened. Was it because he was still full of triumph
from getting that seventh lion? Perhaps. But more likely it was because
there was still a chance that he could be saved, and a man never gives
up hope until he thinks that there isn't a chance any more.
"Hold on, Nils," Petrone's voice said. "Everything's coming all right.
We have to put a new cable on Kerr's drum, too, you know. But we'll
have 'em both ready at about the same time, so that won't slow us down."
"I think I'll drop my gun," Nils said. "It doesn't weigh very much, but
it may make a difference."
"And lose the company five hundred smackers?" Petrone asked. "Okay it's
your salary they'll dock. I'd rather let the air lions get me."
Nils chuckled. He worked the gun loose from his gauntleted hand--rather
an awkward process, for the guns were designed to be held securely by
heavy gloves. Then he released it and watched it plunge down.
Down.
Would he be following it? Would his last plunge end that way?
For the first time he began to feel a twinge of fear. The sweat started
out on his forehead, and he could feel it under his arms.
He loved his wife and every one of those seven kids. He wished he could
see just one of those kids again. Especially Eric. His memory showed
him Eric's grinning face, and he bit back a sob.
But to die out here, millions of miles--hundreds of millions of
miles!--away from them, so that they wouldn't even know it for months:
that was too much.
"We're ready to start," Petrone said. "I'm coming down myself to get
you."
Nils didn't answer. He was thinking. How long have I been here already?
How much longer can I hold out?
"Nils?"
"I'm okay," he managed to mutter.
What would it be like? How fast would you go? And what would you see,
down there on the bottom of the liquid layer of the Uranian atmosphere?
There would probably be more of those funny brittle yellow plants that
sometimes floated even this high; but no man had ever explored the
floor of the liquid air. Would it be smooth, like a ball?
Kerr would be down there to keep him company.
Damn it, he'd liked Kerr.
Was it his imagination, or was he really starting to slip? The trouble
was that there wasn't anything he could use to measure by, no fixed
point to tell whether he was already going down or not.
But once the air line broke, he'd be dead like that. He'd never see the
bottom even when he got there.