Part 2

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.

Hundreds of millions of miles! "Eric!"

Petrone's voice said, "What?"

But Nils ignored him.

What would it be like to die like that? Would he even know it? Or would he strangle and gasp and shriek? He was sweating heavily now.

Just once, O Lord, just once more. Just to see them.

Well, this was his last plunge, either way. He was going to quit as soon as he had his seventh lion; he had it now, and he was through. One way or another.

"Gotcha!"

It was Petrone's voice. Nils couldn't hear the new cable click into place in his back; but he felt it.

And then he felt the slow and steady pull as he was drawn up out of the depths.