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surface."
     
         Rita said, "When he returns, Jack. Then Nunes will execute him." To himself Nicholas thought, And the hell of it is, I probably won't even get back.
     
         Jorgenson, with clear, sincere reluctance, reached into the jacket of his work overalls, brought out a small object, flat like a cigarette case.
     
         "Mr. President," he said huskily, in a formal, dignified tone, that of an official bearer of tidings, "Do you know what this is?"
     
         _Sure_, Nicholas thought. _It's a shop-made bomb. And, if I don't go, and go today, you'll wire it somewhere here in my cubby or my office, set it timewise or booby-trap it wirewise and it'll go off and blow me to bits and also probably my wife and perhaps even my kid brother and his wife or whoever is in my office with me at the time, if it's in my office. And you men--enough of you, anyhow--are electricians; professional wirers and component-assemblers, as we all are to a certain extent. . . you'll know how to do it so it'll have a one hundred percent chance of success. Therefore, he realized, if I don't go to the surface your committee absolutely and for sure will destroy me--plus perhaps innocent others around me--and if I do go, Nunes will be tipped off by some stooge among the fifteen hundred citizens of the tank and he'll shoot me when I'm approximately half-way up the chute on my illegal-and this is wartime and military law obtains-- journey to the surface_.
     
         Flanders said, "President, listen; I know you think you're going to have to try to make it up the chute, with those leadies always or nearly always hanging around up there with a damaged leady to drop down . . . but _listen_."
     
         "A tunnel," Nicholas said.
     
         "Yes. We bored it this morning early, as soon as the autofac power-supply came on to drown out the noise of the scoop and the other junk we had to use. It's absolutely vertical. A masterpiece."
     
         Jorgenson said, "It takes off from the roof of room BAA on floor one; a storeroom for reduction gears for type II leadies. A chain goes up it and is staked--securely, I guarantee; I swear--at the surface, hidden among some--"
     
         "Lies," Nicholas said.
     
         Blinking, Jorgenson said, "No, honest--"
     
         "You couldn't bore a vertical tube to the surface in two hours," Nicholas said. "What's the truth?"
     
         After a long, disheartened pause, Flanders mumbled, "We got the tunnel started. We got up about forty feet. The portable scoop is secured there. We figured we'd get you in the tunnel, with oxygen equipment, and then seal it off at the bottom, to deaden the vibrations and noise."
     
         "And," Nicholas said, "I'd lodge myself there in the tunnel and scoop away until I emerged. How long had you calculated it'd take me, working alone and with only that small portable scoop, none of the big gear?"
     
         After an interval someone among the committee murmured. "Two days. We've got food and water already, in fact one of those selfcontained spaceman suits they used to use when there were flights to Mars. Compensation for moisture, waste-material----everything. It still beats trying to make it up the chute, with those leadies up there."
     
         "And Nunes," Nicholas said, "at the bottom."
     
         "Nunes will be breaking up the fight on floor--"
     
         "Okay," Nicholas said. "I'll do it."
     
         They gaped at him.
     
         Rita, half to herself, let out a sob, a cry of despair.
     
         To her, Nicholas said, "It beats being blown to bits. They mean it." He indicated the small flat packet which Jorgenson held. _Ipse dixit_, he said to himself; I know _that_ much foreign language. An assertion made but not proved. And in this case I don't want to see it proved; even our pol-com, Commissioner Nunes, would be appalled by what that device can do when triggered off.
     
         He went into the