Space Tug, Page 2

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  The pressure of three gravities continued. Joe's chest muscles achedwith the exertion of breathing over so long a period. Six gravities forfourteen seconds had been a ghastly ordeal. Three gravities for minutesbuilt up to something nearly as bad. Joe's heart began to feel fatigue,and a man's heart normally simply doesn't ever feel tired. It becamemore and more difficult to see clearly.

  But he had work to do. Important work. The take-off rockets weresolid-fuel jobs, like those which launched the Platform. They werewire-wound steel tubes lined with a very special refractory, withunstable beryllium and fluorine compounds in them. The solid fuel burnedat so many inches per second. The refractory crumbled away and washurled astern at a corresponding rate--save for one small point. Therefractory was not all exactly alike. Some parts of it crumbled awayfaster, leaving a pattern of baffles which acted like a maxim silenceron a rifle, or like an automobile muffler. The baffles set up eddies inthe gas stream and produced exactly the effect of a rocket motor'sthroat. But the baffles themselves crumbled and were flung astern, sothat the solid-fuel rockets had always the efficiency of gas-throatedrocket motors; and yet every bit of refractory was reaction-mass to behurled astern, and even the steel tubes melted and were hurled away witha gain in acceleration to the ship. Every fraction of every ounce ofrocket mass was used for drive. No tanks or pumps or burners rodedeadhead after they ceased to be useful.

  But solid-fuel rockets simply can't be made to burn with absoluteevenness as a team. Minute differences in burning-rates do tend tocancel out. But now and again they reinforce each other and ifuncorrected will throw a ship off course. Gyros can't handle sucheffects. So Joe had to watch his instruments and listen to the tinnyvoice behind him and steer the ship against accidental wobblings as theEarth fell away behind him.

  He battled against the fatigue of continuing to live, and struggled withgyros and steering jets to keep the ship on its hair-line course. Hepanted heavily. The beating of his heart became such a heavy poundingthat it seemed that his whole body shook with it. He had to doinfinitely fine precision steering with hands that weighed pounds andarms that weighed scores of pounds and a body that had an effectiveweight of almost a quarter of a ton.

  And this went on and went on and on for what seemed several centuries.

  Then the voice in the speaker said thickly: "_Everything is in theclear. In ten seconds you can release your rockets. Shall I count?_"

  Joe panted, "Count!"

  The mechanical voice said, "_Seven ... six ... five ... four ... three... two ... one ... cut!_"

  Joe pressed the release. The small, unburnt stubs of the take-offrockets went hurtling off toward emptiness. They consumed themselves asthey went, and they attained an acceleration of fifty gravities oncethey were relieved of all load but their own substance. They had to bereleased lest one burn longer than another. It was also the only way tostop acceleration by solid-fuel rockets. They couldn't be extinguished.They had to be released.

  From intolerably burdensome heaviness, there was abruptly no weight atall in the ship. Joe's laboring heart beat twice with the violence theweight had called for, though weight had ended. It seemed to him thathis skull would crack open during those two heart-beats. Then he laylimply, resting.

  There was a completely incredible stillness, for a time. The four ofthem panted. Haney was better off than Joe, but the Chief was harderhit. Mike's small body had taken the strain best of all, and he woulduse the fact later in shrill argument that midgets were designed bynature to be the explorers of space for their bulkier and lessspaceworthy kindred.

  The ending of the steady, punishing drag was infinitely good, but thenew sensation was hardly pleasant. They had no weight. It felt as ifthey and the ship about them were falling together down an abyss whichmust have a bottom. Actually, they were falling up. But they felt aphysical, crawling apprehension--a cringing from an imaginary imminentimpact.

  They had expected the sensation, but it was not the better for beingunderstood. Joe flexed and unflexed his fingers slowly. He stirred andswallowed hastily. But the feeling persisted. He unstrapped himself fromhis seat. He stood up--and floated to the ceiling of the cabin. Butthere was of course no ceiling. Every way was up and every way was down.His stomach cramped itself in a hard knot, in the instinctive tensity ofsomebody in free fall.

  He fended himself from the ceiling and caught at a hand-line placedthere for just this necessity to grip something. In his absorption, hedid not notice which way his heels went. He suddenly noticed that hiscompanions, with regard to him, were upside down and staring at him withwooden, dazed expressions on their faces.

  He tried to laugh, and gulped instead. He pulled over to thequartz-glass ports. He did not put his hand into the sunlight, butshifted the glare shutters over those ports which admitted directsunshine. Some ports remained clear. Through one of them he saw theEarth seemingly at arm's length somewhere off. Not up, not down. Simplyout from where he was. It filled all the space that the portholeshowed. It was a gigantic mass of white, fleecy specks and spots whichwould be clouds, and between the whiteness there was a muddy darkgreenish color which would be the ocean. Yet it seemed to slide very,very slowly past the window.

  He saw a tanness between the clouds, and it moved inward from the edgeof his field of view. He suddenly realized what it was.

  "We've just about crossed the Atlantic," he said in a peculiarastonishment. But it was true the ship had not been aloft nearly as muchas half an hour. "Africa's just coming into sight below. We ought to beabout 1,200 miles high and still rising fast. That was the calculation."

  He looked again, and then drew himself across to the opposite porthole.He saw the blackness of space, which was not blackness because it was acarpet of jewels. They were infinite in number and variations inbrightness, and somehow of vastly more colorings than one noticed fromEarth.

  He heard the Chief grunt, and Haney gulp. He was suddenly conscious thathis legs were floating rather ridiculously in mid-air with no particularrelationship to anything. He saw the Chief rise very cautiously, holdingon to the arms of his seat.

  "Better not look at the sun," said Joe, "even though I've put on theglare-shields."

  The Chief nodded. The glare-shields would keep out most of the heat anda very great deal of the ultraviolet the sun gave off. But even so, tolook at the sun directly might easily result in a retinal sunburn whichcould result in blindness.

  The loudspeaker behind Joe's chair clattered. It had seemed muted by theweight of its diaphragm at three gravities. Now it blastedunintelligibly, with no weight at all. Mike threw a switch and took themessage.

  "Communications says radar says we're right on course, Joe," he reportednonchalantly, "and our speed's okay. We'll reach maximum altitude in anhour and thirty-six minutes. We ought to be within calculated distanceof the Platform then."

  "Good," said Joe abstractedly.

  He strained his eyes at the Earth. They were moving at an extraordinaryspeed and height. It had been reached by just four human beings beforethem. The tannishness which was the coast of Africa crept withastonishing slowness toward the center of what he could see.

  Joe headed back to his seat. He could not walk, of course. He floated.He launched himself with a fine air of confidence. He misjudged. He wasfloating past his chair when he reached down--and that turned hisbody--and fumbled wildly. He caught hold of the back as he went by, thenheld on and found himself turning a grandly dignified somersault. Hewound up in a remarkably foolish position with the back of his neck onthe back of the chair, his arms in a highly strained position to holdhim there, and his feet touching the deck of the cabin a good five feetaway.

  Haney looked greenish, but he said hoarsely:

  "Joe, don't make me laugh--not when my stomach feels like this!"

  The feeling of weightlessness was unexpectedly daunting. Joe turnedhimself about very slowly, with his legs floating indecorously inentirely unintended kicks. He was breathing hard when he pulled himselfinto the chai
r and strapped in once more.

  "I'll take Communications," he told Mike as he settled his headphones.

  Reluctantly, Mike switched over.

  "Kenmore reporting to Communications," he said briefly. "We have endedour take-off acceleration. You have our course and velocity. Ourinstruments read--"

  He went over the bank of instruments before him, giving the indicationof each. In a sense, this first trip of a ship out to the Platform hadsome of the aspects of defusing a bomb. Calculations were useful, butobservations were necessary. He had to report every detail of thecondition of his ship and every instrument-reading because anythingmight go wrong, and at any instant. Anything that went wrong could befatal. So every bit of data and every intended action needed to be onrecord. Then, if something happened, the next ship to attempt thisjourney might avoid the same catastrophe.

  Time passed. A lot of time. The feeling of unending fall continued. Theyknew what it was, but they had to keep thinking of its cause to endureit. Joe found that if his mind concentrated fully on something else, itjerked back to panic and the feel of falling. But the crew of the SpacePlatform--now out in space for more weeks than Joe had beenquarter-hours--reported that one got partly used to it, in time. Whenawake, at least. Asleep was another matter.

  They were 1,600 miles high and still going out and up. The Earth as seenthrough the ports was still an utterly monstrous, bulging mass, speckedwith clouds above vast mottlings which were its seas and land. Theymight have looked for cities, but they would be mere patches in atelescope. Their task now was to wait until their orbit curved intoaccordance with that of the Platform and they kept their rendezvous. Theartificial satellite was swinging up behind them, and was only aquarter-circle about Earth behind them. Their speed in miles per secondwas, at the moment, greater than that of the Platform. But they wereclimbing. They slowed as they climbed. When their path intersected thatof the Platform, the two velocities should be exactly equal.

  Major Holt's voice came on the Communicator.

  "_Joe_," he said harshly, "_I have very bad news. A message came fromCentral Intelligence within minutes of your take-off. I--ah--with SallyI had been following your progress. I did not decode the message untilnow. But Central Intelligence has definite information that more thanten days ago the--ah--enemies of our Space Exploration Project_--" evenon a tight beam to the small spaceship, Major Holt did not name thenation everybody knew was most desperately resolved to smash spaceexploration by anybody but itself--"_completed at least one rocketcapable of reaching the Platform's orbit with a pay-load that could bean atomic bomb. It is believed that more than one rocket was completed.All were shipped to an unknown launching station._"

  "Not so good," said Joe.

  Mike had left his post when Joe took over. Now he made a swooping dartthrough the air of the cabin. The midget showed no signs of the fumblinguncertainty the others had displayed--but he'd been a member of a midgetacrobatic team before he went to work at the Shed. He brought himself toa stop precisely at a hand-hold, grinning triumphantly at the nearlyhelpless Chief and Haney.

  Major Holt said in the headphones: "_It's worse than that. Radar mayhave told the country in question that you are on the way up. In thatcase, if it's even faintly possible to blast the Platform before yourarrival with weapons for its defense, they'll blast._"

  "I don't like that idea," said Joe dourly. "Anything we can do?"

  Major Holt laughed bitterly. "_Hardly!_" he said. "_And do you realizethat if you can't unload your cargo you can't get back to Earth?_"

  "Yes," said Joe. "Naturally!"

  It was true. The purpose of the pushpots and the jatos and the ship'sown take-off rockets had been to give it a speed at which it wouldinevitably rise to a height of 4,000 miles--the orbit of the SpacePlatform--and stay there. It would need no power to remain 4,000 milesout from Earth. But it would take power to come down. The take-offrockets had been built to drive the ship with all its contents until itattained that needed orbital velocity. There were landing rocketsfastened to the hull now to slow it so that it could land. But just asthe take-off rockets had been designed to lift a loaded ship, thelanding-rockets had been designed to land an empty one.

  The more weight the ship carried, the more power it needed to get out tothe Platform. And the more power it needed to come down again.

  If Joe and his companions couldn't get rid of their cargo--and theycould only unload in the ship-lock of the Platform--they'd stay out inemptiness.

  The Major said bitterly: "_This is all most irregular, but--here'sSally._"

  Then Sally's voice sounded in the headphones Joe wore. He was relievedthat Mike wasn't acting as communications officer at the moment tooverhear. But Mike was zestfully spinning like a pin-wheel in the middleof the air of the control cabin. He was showing the others that even inthe intramural pastimes a spaceship crew will indulge in, a midget wasbetter than a full-sized man. Joe said:

  "Yes, Sally?"

  She said unsteadily. "_I'm not going to waste your time talking to you,Joe. I think you've got to figure out something. I haven't the faintestidea what it is, but I think you can do it. Try, will you?_"

  "I'm afraid we're going to have to trust to luck," admitted Joeruefully. "We weren't equipped for anything like this."

  "_No!_" said Sally fiercely. "_If I were with you, you wouldn't think oftrusting to luck!_"

  "I wouldn't want to," admitted Joe. "I'd feel responsible. But just thesame--"

  "_You're responsible now!_" said Sally, as fiercely as before. "_If thePlatform's smashed, the rockets that can reach it will be duplicated tosmash our cities in war! But if you can reach the Platform and arm itfor defense, there won't be any war! Half the world would be praying foryou, Joe, if it knew! I can't do anything else, so I'm going to start onthat right now. But you try, Joe! You hear me?_"

  "I'll try," said Joe humbly. "Thanks, Sally."

  He heard a sound like a sob, and the headphones were silent. Joe himselfswallowed very carefully. It can be alarming to be the object of anintended murder, but it can also be very thrilling. One can play upsplendidly to a dramatic picture of doom. It is possible to be one's ownaudience and admire one's own fine disregard of danger. But when otherlives depend on one, one has the irritating obligation not to strikeposes but to do something practical.

  Joe said somberly: "Mike, how long before we ought to contact thePlatform?"

  Mike reached out a small hand, caught a hand-hold, and flicked his eyesto the master chronometer.

  "Forty minutes, fifty seconds. Why?"

  Joe said wrily, "There are some rockets in enemy hands which can reachthe Platform. They were shipped to launchers ten days ago. You figurewhat comes next."

  Mike's wizened face became tense and angry. Haney growled, "They smashthe Platform before we get to it."

  "Uh-uh!" said Mike instantly. "They smash the Platform _when_ we get toit! They smash us both up together. Where'll we be at contact-time,Joe?"

  "Over the Indian Ocean, south of the Bay of Bengal, to be exact," saidJoe. "But we'll be moving fast. The worst of it is that it's going totake time to get in the airlock and unload our guided missiles and getthem in the Platform's launching-tubes. I'd guess an hour. One bombshould get both of us above the Bay of Bengal, but we won't be set tolaunch a guided missile in defense until we're nearly over Americaagain."

  The Chief said sourly, "Yeah. Sitting ducks all the way across thePacific!"

  "We'll check with the Platform," said Joe. "See if you can get themdirect, Mike, will you?"

  Then something occurred to him. Mike scrambled back to his communicationboard. He began feverishly to work the computer which in turn wouldswing the tight-beam transmitter to the target the computer worked out,He threw a switch and said sharply, "Calling Space Platform! Pelican Onecalling Space Platform! Come in, Space Platform!..." He paused. "CallingSpace Platform...."

  Joe had a slide-rule going on another problem. He looked up, hisexpression peculiar.

  "A solid-fu
el rocket can start off at ten gravities acceleration," hesaid quietly, "and as its rockets burn away it can go up a lot higherthan that. But 4,000 miles is a long way to go straight up. If it isn'tlaunched yet--"

  Mike snapped into a microphone: "Right!" To Joe he said, "Space Platformon the wire."

  Joe heard an acknowledgment in his headphones. "I've just had word fromthe Shed," he explained carefully, "that there may be some guidedmissiles coming up from Earth to smash us as we meet. You're stillhigher than we are, and they ought to be starting. Can you pick upanything with your radar?"

  The voice from the Platform said: "_We have picked something up. Thereare four rockets headed out from near the sunset-line in the Pacific.Assuming solid-fuel rockets like we used and you used, they are on acollision course._"

  "Are you doing anything about them?" asked Joe absurdly.

  The voice said caustically: "_Unfortunately, we've nothing to doanything with._" It paused. "_You, of course, can use thelanding-rockets you still possess. If you fire them immediately, youwill pass our scheduled meeting-place some hundreds of miles ahead ofus. You will go on out to space. You may set up an orbit forty-fivehundred or even five thousand miles out, and wait there for rescue._"

  Joe said briefly: "We've air for only four days. That's no good. It'llbe a month before the next ship can be finished and take off. There arefour rockets coming up, you say?"

  "_Yes._" The voice changed. It spoke away from the microphone. "_What'sthat?_" Then it returned to Joe. "_The four rockets were sent up at thesame instant from four separate launching sites. Probably as manysubmarines at the corners of a hundred-mile square, so an accident toone wouldn't set off the others. They'll undoubtedly converge as theyget nearer to us._"

  "I think," said Joe, "that we need some luck."

  "_I think_," said the caustic voice, "_that we've run out of it._"

  There was a click. Joe swallowed again. The three members of his crewwere looking at him.

  "Somebody's fired rockets out from Earth," said Joe carefully. "They'llcurve together where we meet the Platform, and get there just when wedo."

  The Chief rumbled. Haney clamped his jaws together. Mike's expressionbecame one of blazing hatred.

  Joe's mind went rather absurdly to the major's curious, almostdespairing talk in his quarters that morning, when he'd spoken of aconspiracy to destroy all the hopes of men. The firing of rockets atthe Platform was, of course, the work of men acting deliberately. Butthey were--unconsciously--trying to destroy their own best hopes. Forfreedom, certainly, whether or not they could imagine being free. Butthe Platform and the space exploration project in general meant benefitspast computing for everybody, in time. To send ships into space fornecessary but dangerous experiments with atomic energy was a purposeevery man should want to help forward. To bring peace on Earth wassurely an objective no man could willingly or sanely combat. And theultimate goal of space travel was millions of other planets, circlingother suns, thrown open to colonization by humanity. That prospectshould surely fire every human being with enthusiasm. But something--andthe more one thought about it the more specific and deliberate it seemedto be--made it necessary to fight desperately against men in order tobenefit them.

  Joe swallowed again. It would have been comforting to be dramatic inthis war against stupidity and malice and blindness. Especially sincethis particular battle seemed to be lost. One could send back aneloquent, defiant message to Earth saying that the four of them did notregret their journey into space, though they were doomed to be killed bythe enemies of their country. It could have been a very pretty gesture.But Joe happened to have a job to do. Pretty gestures were not a part ofit. He had no idea how to do it. So he said rather sickishly:

  "The Platform told me we could fire our landing-rockets as additionaltake-off rockets and get out of the way. Of course we've got missiles ofour own on board, but we can't launch or control them. Absolutely theonly thing we can choose to do or not do is fire those rockets. I'm opento suggestions if anybody can think of a way to make them useful."

  There was silence. Joe's reasoning was good enough. When one can't dowhat he wants, one tries to make what he can do produce the results hewants. But it didn't look too promising here. They could fire therockets now, or later, or--

  An idea came out of the blue. It wasn't a good idea, but it was the onlyone possible under the circumstances. There was just one distinctlyremote possibility. He told the others what it was. Mike's eyes flamed.The Chief nodded profoundly. Haney said with some skepticism, "It's allwe've got. We've got to use it."

  "I need some calculations. Spread. Best time of firing. That sort ofthing. But I'm worried about calling back in the clear. A beam to thePlatform will bounce and might be picked up by the enemy."

  The Chief grinned suddenly. "I've got a trick for that, Joe. There's atribesman of mine in the Shed. Get Charley Red Fox to the phone, guy,and we'll talk privately!"

  The small spaceship floated on upward. It pointed steadfastly in thedirection of its motion. The glaring sunshine which at its take-off hadshone squarely in its bow-ports, now poured down slantingly from behind.The steel plates of the ship gleamed brightly. Below it lay the sunlitEarth. Above and about it on every hand were a multitude of stars. Eventhe moon was visible as the thinnest of crescents against the night ofspace.

  The ship climbed steeply. It was meeting the Platform after only half acircuit of Earth, while the Platform had climbed upward for three fullrevolutions. Earth was now 3,000 miles below and appeared as the mostgigantic of possible solid objects. It curved away and away to mistinessat its horizons, and it moved visibly as the spaceship floated on.

  Invisible microwaves flung arrowlike through emptiness. They traveledfor thousands of miles, spreading as they traveled, and then struck thestrange shape of the Platform. They splashed from it. Some of themrebounded to Earth, where spies and agents of foreign powers trieddesperately to make sense of the incredible syllables. They failed.

  There was a relay system in operation now, from spaceship to Platform toEarth and back again. In the ship Chief Bender, Mohawk and steelmanextraordinary, talked to the Shed and to one Charley Red Fox. Theytalked in Mohawk, which is an Algonquin Indian language, agglutinative,complicated, and not to be learned in ten easy lessons. It was not alanguage which eavesdroppers were likely to know as a matter of course.But it was a language by which computations could be asked for, so thata very forlorn hope might be attempted with the best possible chances ofsuccess.

  Naturally, none of this appeared in the look of things. The small shipfloated on and on. It reached an altitude of 3,500 miles. The Earth wasvisibly farther away. Behind the ship the Atlantic with its statelycloud-formations was sunlit to the very edge of its being. Ahead, theedge of night appeared beyond India. And above, the Platform appeared asa speck of molten light, quarter-illuminated by the sun above it.

  Spaceship and Platform moved on toward a meeting place. The ship moved atrifle faster, because it was climbing. The speeds would match exactlywhen they met. The small torpedo-shaped shining ship and the bulgingglowing metal satellite floated with a seeming vast deliberation inemptiness, while the most gigantic of possible round objects filled allthe firmament beneath them. They were 200 miles apart. It seemed thatthe huge Platform overtook the shining ship. It did. They were only 50miles apart and still closing in.

  By that time the twilight band of Earth's surface was nearly at thecenter of the planet, and night filled more than a quarter of its disk.

  By that time, too, even to the naked eye through the ports of thesupply-ship the enemy rockets had become visible. They were a thin skeinof threads of white vapor which seemed to unravel in nothingness. Thevapor curled and expanded preposterously. It could just be seen to bejetting into existence from four separate points, two a little ahead ofthe others. They came out from Earth at a rate which seemed remarkablydeliberate until one saw with what fury the rocket-fumes spat out toform the whitish threads. Then one could guess at a three-or evenfou
r-stage launching series, so that what appeared to be mere pinpointswould really be rockets carrying half-ton atomic warheads with anattained velocity of 10,000 miles per hour and more straight up.

  The threads unraveled in a straight line aimed at the two metal thingsfloating in emptiness. One was small and streamlined, with inadequatelanding-rockets clamped to its body and with stubby fins that had nopossible utility out of air. The other was large and clumsy to look at,but very, very stately indeed in its progress through the heavens. Theyfloated smoothly toward a rendezvous. The rockets from Earth cameravening to destroy them at the instant of their intersection.

  The little spaceship turned slowly. Its rounded bow had pointedlongingly at the stars. Now it tilted downward. Its direction ofmovement did not change, of course. In the absence of air, it couldtumble indefinitely without any ill effect. It was in a trajectoryinstead of on a course, though presently the trajectory would become anorbit. But it pointed nose-down toward the Earth even as it continued tohurtle onward.

  The great steel hull and the small spaceship were 20 miles apart. Aninfinitesimal radar-bowl moved on the little ship. Tight-beam wavesflickered invisibly between the two craft. The rockets raged towardthem.

  The ship and the Platform were 10 miles apart. The rockets were nowglinting missiles leaping ahead of the fumes that propelled them.

  The ship and the Platform were two miles apart. The rockets rushedupward.... There were minute corrections in their courses. Theyconverged....

  Flames leaped from the tiny ship. Its landing-rockets spouted white-hotflame and fumes more thick and coiling than even the smoke of the bombs.The little ship surged momentarily toward the racing monsters. Andthen----

  The rockets which were supposed to let the ship down to Earth flewfree--flung themselves unburdened at the rockets which came with deadlyintent to the meeting of the two Earth spacecraft.

  The landing-rockets plunged down at forty gravities or better. They werea dwindling group of infinitely bright sparks which seemed to groupthemselves more closely as they dwindled. They charged upon theattacking robot things. They were unguided, of necessity, but the robotbombs had to be equipped with proximity fuses. No remote control couldbe so accurate as to determine the best moment for detonation at 4,000miles' distance. So the war rockets had to be devised to explode whennear anything which reflected their probing radar waves. They had to bedesigned to be triggered by anything in space.

  And the loosed landing-rockets plunged among them.

  They did not detonate all at once. That was mathematically impossible.But no human eye could detect the delay. Four close-packed flares ofpure atomic fire sprang into being between the Platform and Earth. Eachwas brighter than the sun. For the fraction of an instant there was nonight where night had fallen on the Earth. For thousands of miles theEarth glowed brightly.

  Then there was a twisting, coiling tumult of incandescent gases, whichwere snatched away by nothingness and ceased to be.

  Then there were just two things remaining in the void. One was thegreat, clumsy, shining Platform, gigantic in size to anything close by.The other was the small spaceship which had climbed to it and fought forit and defended it against the bombs from Earth.

  The little ship now had a slight motion away from the Platform, due tothe instant's tugging by its rockets before they were released.

  It turned about in emptiness. Its steering-rockets spouted smoke. Itbegan to cancel out its velocity away from the Platform, and to swimslowly and very carefully toward it.