The gravity winked off suddenly—reaching the low of practically nothing, here at the center of this tiny world, whose normal attraction, even at the surface, was very small. We struggled to our feet, in a muddy swirl that was now a yard in depth. But before we could take advantage of our sudden lightness, and leap clear, the gravity machines gave a last gasp of power, and we were pulled down again, smothering. Then, with a grating roar, the apparatus stopped. The bedlam ceased, except for a low whine of expanding atmosphere, and screams from Haynes and his men.
Presently, I felt all hell stabbing through me. My ears rang as with the after effects of some colossal explosion. My whole body ached. I clutched at Geedeh, who seemed on the point of collapse. Pa Mavrocordatus managed to help me....
But strained by gravity vastly stronger than that of Mars, and now facing a circumstance even more dangerous, tough little Geedeh still had his wits, fortunately for us all. He pointed to an airtight crystal cage at one edge of the chamber. The cage was necessary in routine testing of the machinery here, which called for variations in the output of the gravity generators, and consequent great variations in air pressure.
"Inside the cage—all of us!" Geedeh squeaked. "Quickly! Bends!..."
Do you know what the air pressure is, at the bottom of a ten-mile shaft, even at normal Earth gravity? Yeah, something pretty high! Then you can imagine what it had just been like, here, at six or seven gravities! But when the generators had quit entirely, there had been that sudden loss of weight in the air, sudden expansion, thinning, loss of pressure!
The three of us got inside the cage, and sealed the door. I spun valves. There was a hiss of entering atmosphere, and the pressure rose again, far above the norm of sea-level, on Earth. I felt better at once, but I knew it had been a close call.
We looked out at Norman Haynes and his henchmen. They weren't drowning, now. Tottering, they stood with their heads well above the flood. It was something else that was killing them. Not suffocation, either. Their faces were bloated and congested in the glow of illuminators. Their bodies seemed to swell.
Norman Haynes raised his blast tube, as did several of the others, trying to fire at the crystal shelter where we had taken refuge. Norman Haynes must have known his failure, then. Why had it happened. How we had won. It may be that he even realized some justice in his hideous punishment. He had tried to obstruct progress and fair play.
The blast tube dropped from his fingers. He opened his mouth to shriek in his agony. But dark blood gushed forth, and, with his henchmen, he toppled back into the water.