Holding it away from him, Forster hurried into the office, then dumped the box into a metal wastebasket. Then he went to a cabinet and pulled out a Geiger counter, carried it over to the wastebasket. As he pointed the probe at the box the familiar slow clicking reassured him, and feeling a little foolish he put the instrument back on its shelf.
In his pressurized chamber, Forster read the startling message.
Hurriedly, he went through his mail; there was nothing in it referring to the package. Then he called the classified filing section; nobody there knew anything about it either.
For some reason he couldn't explain to himself, he wasn't even surprised.
He stared into the wastebasket. The clumsily etched instructions glinted up at him: "To be opened as soon as possible...."
He picked up the phone and called the decompression chamber building.
There was no valid reason why he should have been self-conscious as he talked to the lab attendant in charge of the decompression tank. He used it a dozen times a month for tests and experiments, yet when he gave his instructions his voice was labored and strained.
"Some genius in Washington sent this thing down without any covering instructions, but it has to be opened in a hurry in a thin atmosphere. Er—I'd like you to stay on the intercom for a while in case it blows up in my face or something." He tried to laugh, but all that came out was a croak.