The Last Plunge

The Last Plunge by S. J. Sackett - Granting the need for money, a man will do any dangerous job that comes along; Borgmann was such a man; air lion diving off Uranus—the job!

When you are only about ninety degrees from absolute zero, it is not hot, despite the fact that the sun is shining down on you twenty-four hours a day. The answer to this riddle is that you are on Uranus, in the arctic circle, where the sun is a bright star almost directly overhead. And what are you doing on Uranus? You need the money.

Nils Borgmann, however, was sweating. And the reason was that the heating unit on his space suit, like the heating units on almost all space suits, was not functioning properly. The breathing mechanism was in good shape, however, and the oxygenerator on the raft pumped in fresh air in satisfying amounts.

Nils needed money badly, for he had a wife and seven children. So he said, "Let me down a little farther." For he saw a big, white shape dimly through the murk—an air lion.

Up on the raft, where they heard the message, the drum went round and paid out another twenty feet of the cable by which Nils Borgmann was suspended in the Uranian atmosphere. Borgmann took aim and fired.

The shape kept moving. An air lion's hide is so tough that you have to hit it right under the ribs or through the eye in order to kill it, and Nils could not see that one clearly enough, despite the headlamp on his helmet.

"Get it?" came the voice in his earphones.

"I'll tell you when I've got one," Nils said.

"We're sending down Petrone."

"How about running the harpoon down to where I am?"

"Okay, Nils. Sorry," the voice said.

The radio was very comforting to Nils Borgmann. Through it he felt close to the surface, as if he had friends ready to help him at any moment. It made him forget the real dangers of his situation.