He sniffed the damp, cold, still air. Nothing. If the pilot had breathed anything alien to Earth-normal air, it had already dissipated without trace in the organ pipe of the tunnel. He flashed bis light inside the cabin.
The instruments were smashed beyond hope, except for a few at the sides of the capsule. “The pilot had smashed them or rather, his environment had.
Before him in the light of the torch was a heavy, transpar-ent tank of iridescent greenish-brown fluid, with a small figure floating inside it. It had been the tank, which had broken free of its moorings, which had smashed up the rest of the compartment. The pilot was completely enclosed in what looked like an ordinary G-suit, inside the oil; flexible hoses connected to bottles on the ceiling fed him his atmosphere, whatever it was. The hoses hadn’t broken, but something inside the G-suit had; a line of tiny bubbles was rising from somewhere near the pilot’s neck.
He pressed the EEG electrode net against the tank and looked into the Walter goggles. The sheep with the kitten’s faces were still there, somewhat changed in position; but almost all of the color had washed out of the scene.
McDonough grunted involuntarily. There was now an atmosphere about the picture which hit him like a blow, a feeling of intense oppression, of intense distress …
“Marty,” he said hoarsely. “Let’s see if we can’t cut into that tank from the bottom somehow.” He backed down into the tunnel.
“Why? If he’s got internal injuries”
“The suit’s been breached. It’s filling with that oil from the bottom. If we don’t drain the tank, he’ll drown first.”