The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

But then she did not know what other obstacles there were beyond that grim grey hall.

She muttered to herself Virgil’s line, “Facilis descensus Averni.” (“It is easy to go down into Hell.”)

What was the rest of it? After so many years, she found it difficult to remember. If only this world had books, reference materials.

Now it came back.

It is easy to go down into Hell. Night and day, the gates of Death stand wide. But to climb back again, to retrace one’s steps to the upper air. There’s the rub, the task.

The only real trouble with that quotation was that it was not appropriate. It had been very hard to get to the gates, impossible for all but one. And climbing back-except for one-had been easy.

She switched on the walkie-talkie.

“Cyrano. The captain here.”

“Yes, what is it, my captain?”

“Are you cry ing?”

“Yes, but of course. Did I not love Firebrass dearly? I am not ashamed of my grief. I am not a cold Anglo-Saxon.”

“Never mind that. Get hold of yourself. We have work to do.”

Cyrano sniffled, then said, “I know that. And I am willing and able. You will find me no less a man. What are your orders?”

“You know you’re to be relieved by Nikitin. I want you to bring along twenty-five kilograms of plastic explosive.”

“Yes. I hear you. But do you intend to blow up the tower?”

“No, just the entranceway.”

A half-hour passed. The men in the ship had to come out and those out had to go in. This was a long process, since, for every man that left, one had to go in immediately. Taking turns this way slowed the business but was necessary. Forty-eight leaving all at once would make the ship too buoyant. It would rise, leaving the end of the ladder above the reach of those on the ground.

Finally, she saw their lights and heard their voices. She told them what had happened, though they already knew. Then she told them what they were to do, which they expected.

The result was that no one got anywhere as far as Piscator.

“Very well,” Jill said.

The plastic explosive was applied against the exterior of the dome opposite a point halfway down the corridor. She would have liked to have set it at the juncture of the back of the dome and the tower wall. She was afraid that the explosive might blow a hole in the dome. If it did so, it might also kill Piscator.

They retreated to the dirigible and the explosives expert pressed a switch on a transmitter. The blast was deafening, though the plastic had been applied to the side of the dome away from them. They ran to it, then stopped, coughing from the fumes. After the air was cleared, Jill looked at the dome.

It was undamaged.

“I thought so,” she said to herself.

She had called in to Piscator that he should not come out until after the explosion. There had been no answer. She had a hunch that he was not in the vicinity, but hunches were not certainties.

Jill went back into the dome as far as she could. There was no force against the long-handled hook she thrust ahead of her. And she could throw a cloth weighted with metal to the end of the corridor. So, the field was no barrier to inanimate objects.

If they had a periscope long enough to reach to the end of the corridor, they could see around it. However, a periscope was not part of the ship’s supplies.

She was not defeated by this. There was a very small machinist’s shop on the Parse vol. A wheeled device which would go to the end of the corridor could be built. A camera could be attached to its end, and the camera could be activated by a radio transmitter.

The chief machinist’s mate thought he could construct the “con­traption” in an hour. She told him to do so, and then she ordered three men to stand guard in the dome.

“If Piscator shows, radio me.”

Having returned to the ship, she phoned the machinist’s shop.