Slowly the chattering passengers took their places in the comfortable chairs. After the yard-thick door had swung ponderously shut, and the outside bar had been thrust home, Randall cautioned the passengers to keep their seats, then found his own place.
There came a sudden breathless drop as the upper lock opened, and the steel arms released the Vator upon the cushioning column of air above the next lower lock. A sibilant hiss sounded through the room as twelve people fought for breath when the Vator floor tried to drop from beneath them.
Two women screamed in high thin voices that tore at the agent's ears. The fat traveling salesman from New Orleans clapped his plump hands to his throat, and his eyes looked like pale blue marbles. The bronzed big game hunter looked as if he were face to face with a lion crouched for attack. The white-haired professional gentleman colored as if he had swallowed a chameleon.
Slowly the falling sensation faded, and a vast sigh of relief sounded through the room. Then a second chorus of gasps arose from eleven throats. The young engineer on his way to the uranium mines in Borneo rasped out in a choked voice: "Just—passing through the lower lock—into—near vacuum!"
Randall nodded with effort and waited breathlessly until finally the Vator had attained an almost constant acceleration.
When the eleven passengers had lost a little of their pallor, and a few had even begun to laugh and talk among themselves, Randall arose and strolled around the room.
He quietly examined the massive door which could be opened only from the outside. Then he turned and strolled about the room, carefully but covertly scrutinizing every person aboard.
There were four middle-aged school teachers who were trying to recover the vicarious thrills of vanished youth.
A young couple with the obvious devotion of honeymooners occupied the lounge across the room.
A reserved old gentleman with a mane of white hair and a professional mien sat in the big Morris chair to the right of the newlyweds. Randall immediately catalogued him as a doctor, or perhaps a scientist of some sort.