Fear is the Key

I looked at the grey and stricken and hunted face and looked away again. It wasn't a pretty sight. The time had come to get back, I had found out all I wanted to know, got all the evidence I would ever want. I opened up a circuit box, unbuttoned and repositioned four wires, closed the box again and pulled the first of the four electro-magnetic releases for the lead shot ballast.

It worked. Two clouds of grey pellets showered mistily by the side observation windows and disappeared into the black mud on the seabed. It worked, but the lightening of the weight made no difference, the bathyscaphe didn't budge.

I pulled the second switch, emptied the second pair of containers: still we remained immovable. We were sunk pretty deep into that mud, how deep I didn't know, but this had never happened before on tests. I sat down to work out if there was any factor I had forgotten, and now that the strain was over the pain was back in my shoulder and mouth and I wasn't thinking so well any more. I removed the button from between my teeth and absent-mindedly placed it in a pocket.

"Was — was that cyanide?" Vyland's face was still grey.

"Don't be silly. Antler-horn, best quality." I rose, pulled the other two switches simultaneously. They worked — but again nothing happened. I looked at Vyland and Royale, and saw reflected in their faces the fear that was 'beginning to touch my own mind. God, I thought, how ironic it would be if, after all I had said and done, we were to die down here. There was no point in putting off the moment of decision. I started up both motors, inclined the planes to the maximum upwards elevation, started up the tow-rope motor and at the same moment pressed the switch that jettisoned the two big electric batteries mounted on the outside of the scaphe. They fell simultaneously with a thud that jarred the bathyscaphe, sending up a dark spreading cloud of black viscous-looking mud: for two moments of eternity nothing happened, the bolt was shot, the last hope was gone, when, all in a second, the scaphe trembled, broke suction aft and started to rise. I heard Vyland sobbing with relief and terror.

I switched off the engines and we rose steadily, smoothly, on an even keel, now and again starting the tow-rope motor to take in some slack. We were about a hundred feet up when Royale spoke.

"So it was all a plant, Taltoot You never had any intention of keeping us down there." His voice was an evil whisper, the one good side of his face back to its expressionless normal again.

"That's it," I agreed.

"Why, Talbot?"

"To find out exactly where the treasure was. But that was really secondary, I knew it wasn't far away, a government survey ship could have found it in a day."

"Why, Talbot?" he repeated in the same monotone.

"Because I had to have evidence. I had to have evidence to send you both to the chair. Up till now we had no evidence whatsoever, all along the way your back trail was divided into a series of water-tight compartments with locked doors. Royale locked the doors by killing everybody and anybody who might talk. Incredibly, there wasn't a single solitary thing we could pin on you, there wasn't a person who could split on you for the sufficient reason that all those who could were dead. The locked doors. But you opened them all today. Fear was the key to all the doors."

"You've got no evidence, Talbot," Royale said. "It's only your word against ours — and you won't live to give your word."

"I expected something like that," I nodded. We were at a depth of about 250 feet now. "Getting your courage back, Royale, aren't you? But you don't dare do anything. You can't get this scaphe back to the rig without me, and you know it. Besides, I have some concrete evidence. Taped under my toes is the bullet that killed Jablonsky." They exchanged quick startled looks. "Shakes you, doesn't it? I know it all, I even dug Jablonsky's body up in the kitchen garden. That bullet will match up with your automatic, Royale. That alone would send you to the chair."

"Give it to me, Talbot. Give it to me now." The flat marbled eyes were glistening, his hand sliding for his gun.

"Don't be stupid. What are you going to do with it — throw it out the window? You can't get rid of it, you know it. And even if you could, there's something else that you can never get rid of. The real reason for our trip today, the reason that means you both die."

There was something in my tone that got them. Royale was very still, Vyland still grey, still shaking. They knew, without knowing why, that the end had come.