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Chase heaved himself off the floor of the chamber and dove through the open hatch.  He landed on his knees, turned and reached for the chamber door.  It was heavy, heavier than he remembered.

The creature took a step toward him, and lunged.

Chase swung the door and leaned against it.  He saw a hand reaching for him, growing larger and larger.

The door slammed with a resonant clang.

"Now!" Chase shouted.  "Now!"  He spun the dogging wheel, and a red light blinked on, signaling that the seal was complete.  He felt a thumping against the steel door.

He heard the closet door open, and Amanda's footsteps as she hurried to the control panel.  He had preset the dials; all she had to do was push the buttons.

There was the sound of compressed air rushing into the chamber through a dozen vents.  Cold and dry, when it collided with the warm air already in the chamber, it became fog.

"Take it down," Chase said to Amanda, "as far and as fast as you can."  He moved around to the side of the chamber and looked through the porthole.

*          *          *          *          *

It had abandoned the unyielding steel door, sensing that it had been trapped, searching for an escape.  It saw a hole covered with glass, and drew back a fist to smash the glass.

Pain suddenly assaulted its head, pain such as it had never known, like fire, as if its brain were being crushed into a molten mass.

It pressed its hands to the sides of its head and shrieked.

*          *          *          *          *

Though they could see little through the fog swirling in the chamber, they heard the sound... a piercing yowl of an animal in agony.

"Its ears are going," Chase said.

"No wonder," said Amanda.  "I've pressurized the chamber to two hundred feet in five seconds; its ears can't equalize fast enough.  It's gotta be hurting something fierce."

The shrieking stopped.

"Its eardrums must have busted," said Chase.

"Which means the pain's gone; it's deaf but it's equalized."  Amanda looked at the gauge on the control panel.

Something slammed against the porthole.  Tiny spiderweb cracks appeared in the glass.

"Hurry," Chase said.  "Christ... it wants to break that porthole, and if it does, the chamber'll go off like a bomb."  He turned to Max and Elizabeth, who stood beside Amanda.  "Go outside," he said.  "Fast."

"But..."  Max seemed perplexed.  "Go where?"

"Anywhere... just go!"

The children ran toward the kitchen door.

"It's at three hundred feet," Amanda said.

*          *          *          *          *

As quickly as it had come, the pain had vanished, and now the creature perceived only a dullness in its head.

Though it could not know what was happening to it, it could identify the cause of its pain:  the human staring at it through the glass.  Its focus changed; no longer concerned with survival, now it sought vengeance.

One of its feet struck something hard.  It bend down, picked up the thing, hefted it and lunged at the glass circle.

*          *          *          *          *

It's got a wrench!" Chase shouted, recoiling as the heavy head of the steel tool crashed into the porthole.  New cracks appeared in the glass.

"Six hundred feet," Amanda said.  "Six-fifty."

"We've gotta do it, we've gotta do it now."

"But we don't know—"

"It'll work," Chase said.  "It's got to."  He pressed his face to the porthole and strained to see through the fog.  He saw the creature crouched, its arm cocked, the wrench held in its hand like a club.  "Do it!" he shouted.

"Coming up," Amanda said, and she pushed a series of buttons.  There was a deafening rushing noise, and the fog in the chamber swirled violently and began to dissipate.

Chase saw the creature tense, saw through the gray fog the white of its eyes and the silver gleam of its teeth.

It sprang at the porthole.