"Bends!" Geedeh said again. "Haynes had a worse case of bends than any deep-sea diver ever experienced."
The flood had almost stopped, now, outside the cage. We waited. Vengeance was complete. And it wasn't quite as satisfying as I might once have thought.
Presently they were with us. Irene. And old Art—proving that the Haynes name was still great, even though one who bore it had soiled it some. We emerged from our sealed cage, after the pressure around us was gradually lowered to normal.
"I didn't think it was Norman who was guilty," old Art breathed sadly when he spoke to us. "I knew he was high-handed, but I didn't realize it was as bad as it was. I guess Norman got what he deserved," he finished, and there were tears in his heavy voice.
We went to the surface in the elevator. We needed space suits again, up there, with the air as expanded as it was. A lot of the atmosphere was leaking away from 487, being held down only by the tiny natural gravity. But there was nothing that couldn't be repaired and replaced.
"We must have pumps rigged to draw the water out of the vault, so that we can dry and repair the gravity machinery, and start it again," Geedeh stated.
We started again, almost as we had done at the first, for quite a bit of the air and water had been whisked into space. We lived in space-suits for days, rebuilding and repairing the damaged machinery. Then with the aid of Art Haynes, and with extended credit now that our plans were made fully known and approved, we imported machinery to pump the water from the vault.
We hired specialists to come in, each of them with a trained crew of men to do the work that our old crews lacked the technical skill to do. Slowly, our planet of hope grew again, and there were bulletins sent through the asteroid belt that workers were wanted again on Paradise Asteroid.
The specialists left, replaced by the crews that had worked on the asteroid before. With unlimited credit, our great freighting ships piled materials in regular formation, and the returning crews set their ships down on the landing fields, the men pouring eagerly forth, ready to set up the buildings that would be the nucleus of another Earth in space.
With our old crews returned, it took about a hundred hours to accomplish this. Asteroid 487 was almost the same as before the final trouble with Norman Haynes, now, except that the air was a little thinner. But that could be quickly taken care of. Pa Mavrocordatus was working with his vineyards and trees, and his tomato and cabbage patches, again. The big trouble was all finished, now. The dream was coming true. A little Earth, fresh and green, for tired miners of the Path of Minor Planets. Space madness could never be so common now. And cheap, fresh products would be theirs.