Part 2

The craft plunged for the surface of the hard ocean, at frightful velocity; struck; penetrated; was under, velocity broken almost in three by the terrific impact. The ship bored down, powerful searchlights playing on swarms of startled fishes. Down, down. The pilot made an exclamation, grinned his triumph. Here, ten miles down, they saw the hulk of the ship that was causing such destruction in the world above.

The pilot signaled one of his subordinates. The man pulled a lever. The craft's entire load of super-explosives sank downward toward the menace.

The pilot sent his ship blasting for the surface. Seconds later he heard and felt the tremendous vibration that, he knew, heralded the end of the menace. He went toward the surface, and when within fifty feet of it, sent a blast of power into his jets.

The ship struck something, like a wall, hard, unyielding, and the pilot and his assistants were thrown against the instrument board. They recovered their senses.

The pilot looked at the other men.

"Ten tons of helio-hydrogen didn't do the trick," he said softly. "What will? You know, I almost forgot. The science of the Martians is way ahead of ours. Naturally, that ship wouldn't be exactly tender...."

He knew it was useless. He had no more explosives. He shoved every atom of power he had into his jets, but the ship could not move more than forty miles an hour under water. For a moment it seemed the blunt nose of the ship was going to penetrate the incredibly tough under-surface of that film, but no....

The pilot said, grinning crookedly, "Say your prayers, boys, and here's hoping they give the Old Duck what he wants--quick."

Two days passed. Three billion people stared into the face of eternity. Rivers, lakes, oceans were full. There were reservoirs of clear, sparkling water, from which laboring pumps could take water, pumping it to homes, making it accessible, forcing it out of faucets.

But it was untouchable. The water came out in impenetrable spheres.

They lay like jewels in the homes of most people. People stood around and stared at them, longingly, yet not daring to touch them. They had heard several stories about people who _had_ touched them.

Within the spheres, the water was clearly visible for what it was; which made it all the harder to resist. The world now knew, by the word of scientists, that nothing but a thin surface of molecules, strengthened by a million times, lay between them and the water their bodies thirsted for. Surface tension, acted upon by a strange force, broadcasted from a mechanism ten miles beneath the surface of the Atlantic.

Another day passed. The mills of industry, working by steam, and the things that depended on water, came to a halt. Power was weak, for it was fed from fast depleting accumulators. The tide machines were useless, for the ocean no longer fell or rose more than a foot in any one place.

Numberless ships were stranded on the oceans, their screws able to turn, but their bows unable to push against the enormous contractile force that the surface of the ocean possessed.

Crowds roved through the streets, aimless, purposeless, their voices dry, racking, their eyes bloodshot, cheeks sunken. Beer and soft drinks, the only drinkable liquids that were not affected, were selling for ten dollars a bottle. The supply was fast dwindling, and the price was being jacked up.

Water was all around them, but they were the children of Tantalus.

Newspapers began to demand, in stringent tones, that the situation be remedied. Crowds gathered outside the World Administration Building, shouting for water, and they were fully willing to go to the extreme of meeting the demands of the Martians to get it.

* * * * *

The Speaker of the Master Conclave, and the Japanese and Spanish sectional governors, stood in a room on the upper floor of the World Administration Building.

The room was a kitchen.

On the floor lay a huge, polished, glistening drop of water.

"That's what it is, gentlemen," said the Speaker. "A drop of water, just what you'd expect if the surface tension of water increased a million times. The surface film acts like a tight skin or jacket surrounding a drop of water, and the jacket contracts down to the least possible area, a sphere. If you put your hands on it--the way I've got my hands on this damned _thing_--you increase the 'coastline,' and the surface film doesn't like that. It tries to decrease the coastline formed by your fingers, so your fingers are crushed together. If you managed to actually penetrate the film, and get your hands wet, the terrific capillary action of the molecules would cause the surface film to literally envelop you, and you'd be inside, and you couldn't get out.... What are we going to do about it?"

His face was drawn and haggard and sunken.

The Spanish Governor said hoarsely, "We couldn't give in, could we?"

"No!" the Japanese Governor lashed out savagely; but in a moment a fleeting smile crossed his face. "Send for Olduk," he said.

Olduk entered the room, unsteadily, supported by two plain-clothesmen. His face was clean of blood, but the little, horrible marks inflicted on him were all too evident.

"You wished to see me?" he said in a hoarse whisper. His eyes were bloodshot.

"Yes. What do you want of Earth, explicitly?"

"Water, honorable sir. Water for my people. As much as we wish, when we wish it, at a reasonable price; and we also desire friendship, so that we may help each other."

The Japanese sucked in his breath, quivering angrily. "You want our friendship. Yet you do this to our people!"

"You do no less to my people, honorable sir. Olduk is sorry, see?" He weaved, caught onto a chair to support himself. His leathery, parchment face seemed more wrinkled and bloodless than ever before. His reddish eyes held a deep, pleading hope.

"We are children of Tantalus, all," he whispered. "It is not right that we live in a mythical Hades, see, honorable sirs? Give my people water--"

He pitched forward on his face. The Speaker started toward him, his eternal sphere of water in his hands, but the Japanese stopped him, held him back from the sprawling, twelve-foot figure.

He said, "Have you ever studied Martian psychology?"

"N-no," said the Speaker, puzzled.

"The theory is that they are incapable of dishonesty, and therefore they do not believe it exists. Of course, it's only a theory, and nobody believes it, but why couldn't we try it out?"

The Speaker was startled. "You mean we should give them our word, and then back out on it?"

"Yes," the Japanese sucked in his breath. He saw the hesitation on the Speaker's face, and said with icy, mocking disdain, "Are you going to give water to a race whose sole purpose will be to increase their population so they can conquer Earth? Think, fool! Do you want to hold that sphere of water in your hands forever?" He smirked. "In the interval of peace, we can go to the Maracot Deep, lift that sunken ship out without having to worry about a surface film. We can take it to dry land, and with a little work, cut the ship open, destroy the mechanism. With that destroyed--"

His contempt, and his reference to the maddening sphere of water the Speaker held, wilted the Speaker.

"We'll do it," he said slowly, casting an uneasy look at the sprawled Martian.

* * * * *

Thirty minutes later, the three men watched the sphere of water in the Speaker's hands. A radiogram had been sent across 126,000,000 miles to Mars. Mars' answer, if it was affirmative and entirely trusting, would come not in the form of a radiogram but in the immediate return of Earth to its natural fluid state.

They watched the rigid sphere in fascination. Even now, the radio signal that would cause the mechanism to cease might be winging its way across space between two planets.

When the sphere broke, if it did, three billion thirsty human beings would drink with the maddening impatience of Tantalus himself, released from his eternal doom.

... The sphere seemed to quiver. Suddenly it sagged, flattened out without a sound, its sphericity gone. The Speaker uttered a cry, and dashed his hands to his face, gulping in as much of the precious stuff as he could before it dribbled away from his hands. The Japanese and Spanish Governors turned rapidly to faucets, and the water, clear, sparkling, normal, streamed out....

For a short time the three of them were like animals. Then, gradually, they stopped drinking, and stood back, slightly ashamed.

The Spanish Governor said, suggestively, "We'd better get that ship fished out before the Martians realize they are not going to get water after all. Otherwise--"

The Speaker nodded. He turned away, to go into his study, when he stumbled over the prone body of Olduk, the Martian. A twinge of guilt assailed him. He stooped and turned Olduk over.

Olduk's double-lidded eyes were open. Olduk's skin was as dry as his native sands. Olduk was either dead or dying.

The Speaker troubledly called a doctor. The doctor made a brief examination, handling the body distastefully. Suddenly he stifled an exclamation.

"I can't believe this!" he said hoarsely. He got to his feet, stared first at the Speaker, then at Olduk again.

"Do you know what he died from?" he stammered. "Do you know, gentlemen!"

And the Speaker knew.

* * * * *

The Master Conclave was again assembled, for the fourth and last day, its members well-watered, and well satisfied with themselves.

The Speaker said, standing on the rostrum where Olduk had stood four days before, "I want to make a short talk, and call for a standing vote.

"Earth has water again. We acquired it by a simple trick, that of dishonesty. I was fully to blame. Men are now at work in the Maracot Deep, in super-tension ships raising the Martian ship to the surface. There is no reason to doubt that a means to destroy the mechanism that caused so much trouble will be found. We won't have to keep our agreement with the Martians. I want to know if this action of mine meets with your approval."

The entire body stood to its feet.

"We were forced to it," the Japanese Governor said to the assembly at large.

The Speaker waved them to their seats again. "I did not call for a standing vote, yet. I have more to say before I ask for your filial decision."

He resumed carefully, giving each word its proper significance.

"The Old Duck was a Martian--but in body he was not a Martian. He told us that. He had been changed with 'sundry operations,' so that he could live in this climate, so different from that of Mars. Air pressure, oxygen content, moisture, content gravity. To each he was acclimated by surgical operations.

"Yes," continued the Speaker, something catching in his voice, "he was changed in such a way that the terrific amount of moisture in the atmosphere of the Earth could be taken care of by his body. In order to make that possible, _his twelve-foot body was given a capacity for water proportionately three times greater than that of any Terrestrial_!

"Gentlemen," said the Speaker, while an air of startled tenseness grew in the tiered seats, "Olduk died of thirst."

He was silent.

He said strainedly, "I wanted to know if my action of deceit met with your approval. I require a standing vote."

The Japanese Governor rose slowly. He had to. He sent a look at the Spanish Governor. The Spanish Governor kept his seat.

The Japanese Governor stood alone, like a monument to the thoughtless guilt of the others.

* * * * *

The Speaker sat that night before his desk, drinking a glass of water.

He said to the shadows, "I drink with you, Olduk!"

He slowly wrote out a treasury requisition, and in the space marked REASON FOR APPLICATION wrote: "For the free transportation of a gift of ten million gallons of water to the Martians, as a gesture of friendship from Earth."