What was keeping Towers? Johnny wanted to make sure that Towers was in blast range. What a joke on the jerk! Me sitting here, ready to throw the switch on him. The idea tickled him; it led to a better: why blow himself up – alive?
There was another way to rig it – a “dead man” control. Jigger up some way so that the last step, the one that set off the bomb, would not happen as long as he kept his hand on a switch or a lever or something. Then, if they blew open the door, or shot him, or anything – up goes the balloon!
Better still, if he could hold them off with the threat of it, sooner or later help would come – Johnny was sure that most of the Patrol was not in this stinking conspiracy – and then: Johnny comes marching home! What a reunion! He’d resign and get a teaching job; he’d stood his watch.
All the while, he was working. Electrical? No, too little time. Make it a simple mechanical linkage. He had it doped out but had hardly begun to build it when the loudspeaker called him. “Johnny?”
“That you, Colonel?” His hands kept busy.
“Let me in.”
“Well, now, Colonel, that wasn’t in the agreement.” Where in blue blazes was something to use as a long lever?
“I’ll come in alone, Johnny, I give you my word. We’ll talk face to face.”
His word! “We can talk over the speaker, Colonel.” Hey, that was it-a yardstick, hanging on the tool rack.
“Johnny, I’m warning you. Let me in, or I’ll blow the door off.”
A wire-he needed a wire, fairly long and stiff. He tore the antenna from his suit. “You wouldn’t do that, Colonel. It would ruin the bombs.”
“Vacuum won’t hurt the bombs. Quit stalling.”
“Better check with Major Morgan. Vacuum won’t hurt them; explosive decompression would wreck every circuit.” The Colonel was not a bomb specialist; he shut up for several minutes. Johnny went on working.
“Dahlquist,” Towers resumed, “that was a clumsy, lie. I checked with Morgan. You have sixty seconds to get into your suit, if you aren’t already. I’m going to blast the door.”
“No, you won’t,” said Johnny. “Ever hear of a ‘dead man’ switch?” Now for a counterweight-and a sling.
“Eh? What do you mean?”
“I’ve rigged number seventeen to set off by hand. But I put in a gimmick. It won’t blow while I hang on to a strap I’ve got in my hand. But if anything happens to me – up she goes! You are about fifty feet from the blast center. Think it over.”
There was a short silence. “I don’t believe you.”
“No? Ask Morgan. He’ll believe me. He can inspect it, over the TV pickup.” Johnny lashed the belt of his space suit to the end of the yardstick.
“You said the pick-up was out of order.”
“So I lied. This time I’ll prove it. Have Morgan call me.”
Presently Major Morgan’s face appeared. “Lieutenant Dahlquist?”
“Hi, Stinky. Wait a sec.” With great care Dahlquist made one last connection while holding down the end of the yardstick. Still careful, he shifted his grip to the belt, sat down on the floor, stretched an arm and switched on the TV pick-up, “Can you see me, Stinky?”
“I can see you,” Morgan answered stiffly. “What is this nonsense?”
“A little surprise I whipped up.” He explained it-what circuits he had cut out, what ones had been shorted, just how the jury-rigged mechanical sequence fitted in.
Morgan nodded. “But you’re bluffing, Dahlquist. I feel sure that you haven’t disconnected the ‘K’ circuit. You don’t have the guts to blow yourself up.”
Johnny chuckled. “I sure haven’t. But that’s the beauty of it. It can’t go off, so long as I am alive. If your greasy boss, ex-Colonel Towers, blasts the door, then I’m dead and the bomb goes off. It won’t matter to me, but it will to him. Better tell him.” He switched off.
Towers came on over the speaker shortly. “Dahlquist?”
“I hear you.”
“There’s no need to throw away your life. Come out and you will be retired on full pay. You can go home to your family. That’s a promise.”