Humanity is engaged in two major colonization efforts: of the moon and of the ocean depths. When an accident on the moon raises the possibility that its funding will be cut off, the lunar safety expert heads to the other colony to sabotage it.
This was originally written to be an outline for a movie, but written Asimov’s way and not the way the people making the movie wanted. Not surprisingly, they didn’t buy it so Asimov sold it to Galaxy instead.
Frankly, the story starts out well enough. The undersea colony is well-realized, I think, and the characters are interesting. The problem here is the ending, where Stephen Demerest is talked out of his terrible deed. Granted, he didn’t really want to commit it in the first place, but still I found his turnaround sudden, forced, and unbelievable.
