 CHAPTER VI A GOOD DEAL OF THAT LANDING REMAINED CONFUSED IN JOE'S MIND. While it was going on he was much too busy to be absorbing impressions. When he landed he was as completely exhausted as anybody wants to be. It was only during the next day that he even tried to sort out his recollections. Then he woke up suddenly with a muffled roaring going on all around him. He blinked his eyes open and listened. Presently he realized what the noise was and wondered that he hadn't realized before. It was the roaring of the motors of a multi-engineed plane. He knew, without remembering the details at the moment, that he and the other three were on a plane bound across the Pacific for America. He was in a bunk and he felt extraordinarily heavy. He tried to move and it was an enormous effort to move his arm. He struggled to turn over and found straps holding his body down. He fumbled at them. They had readily releasable clasps and he loosened them easily. For a bit he struggled to sit upright. He was horribly heavy or horribly weak, he couldn't tell which. In each separate muscle in his whole body ached. Twinges of pain accompanied every movement. He sat up, swaying a little with the slow movements of the plane, and gradually things came back. The landing in the ribbon chute. They'd come down somewhere on the west coast of India, not too far from the sea. He remembered crashing into the edge of a thin jungle and finding the chief, and the two of them searching out Haney and stumbling to open ground. After laying out a signal for air-searchers they went off into worn-out slumber while they waited. He remembered that there'd been a patrol of American destroyers in the Arabian Sea, as everywhere under the orbit of the platform. Their radar had reported the destruction of one spaceship and the frantic diving of the other, its division into two parts and then the tiny objects, which flew out from the smaller cabin section, which had descended as only ejection seat parachutes could possibly have done. Two destroyers steamed onward underneath those drifting specks to pick them up when they should have come down, but the other nearby destroyers had other business in hand. The two trailing destroyers reached Goa Harbor within hours of the landing of the four from space. A helicopter found the first three of them within hours after that. They were twenty miles inland and thirty south from Goa. Mike wasn't located until the next day. He'd been shot out of the ship's cabin earlier and higher. He was lighter and he'd floated farther. But things, satisfying things, had happened in the interval, sitting almost dizzily on the bunk in this swiftly roaring plane, while blood began sluggishly to flow through his body. Joe remembered the gleeful, unofficial news passed around on the destroyers. They waited for Mike to be brought in, but they rejoiced, vengefully. The report was quite true, but it never reached the newspapers. Nobody would ever admit it, but the rocket seemed that the returning spaceships had been spotted by Navy radar as they went up from the Arabian Sea. And the ships of the radar patrol couldn't do anything about the rockets, but they could and did converge savagely upon the places from which they had been launched. Plane sped out to spot and bomb. Destroyers arrived. Somewhere there was a Navy department that could write off two modern submarines with rocket launching equipment, last heard from west of India. American navalmen would profess bland ignorance of any such event, but there were acres of dead fish floating on the ocean where depth bombs had hunted down and killed two shapes, much too big to be fish, which didn't float when they were killed and which would never report back how they destroyed two spaceships. There be seagulls feasting over that area, and there be vague tales about the happening in the bazaars of the Hadramat, but nobody would ever admit knowing anything for certain. But Joe knew. He got to his feet, wobbling a bit in the soaring plane. He ached everywhere. His muscles protested the strain of holding him erect. He held fast, summoning strength. Before his little ship broke up, he'd been shaken intolerably, and his body had weighed half a ton. Where his safety belt had held him, his body was one wide bruise. There had been that killing acceleration when the ship split in two. The others, except Mike, were in as bad a case or worse. Haney and the Chief were like men who had been rolled down Mount Everest in a barrel. All of them had slept for fourteen hours straight before they even woke up for food. Even now Joe didn't remember boarding this plane or getting into the bunk. He'd probably been carried in. Joe stood up doggedly until enough strength came to him to justify his sitting down again. He began to dress. It was astonishing how many places about his body were sore to the touch. It was startling how heavy his arms and legs felt, and how much of an effort even sitting erect was. But he began to remember Mike's adventure and managed to grin feebly. It was the only thing worth a smile in all the things that had happened. Because Mike's landing had been quite unlike the others. Joe and the Chief landed near the edge of a jungle. Haney landed in a cane break. But Mike came floating down from the sky, swaying splendidly into the estate of a minor godling. He was relatively unharmed by the shaking up he'd had. The strength of muscles depends on their cross-section, but their weight depends on their volume. The strength of a man depends on the square of his eyes, but his weight on the cube. Joe Mike had taken the deceleration and the murderous vibration almost in his stride. He floated longer and landed more gently than the rest. Joe grinned painfully at the memory of Mike's tail. He'd come on board the rescue destroyer in a towering, explosive rage. When his ribbon parachute let him down out of the sky, it deposited him gently on plowed fields, not far from a small and primitive Hindu village. He'd been seen to descend from the heavens. He was a midget, not as other men, and he was dressed in a spacesuit with glittering metal harness. The pagan villagers greeted him with rapture. When the searching party found Mike, they were just in time to prevent a massacre. By Mike, adoring natives had seized upon him, conveyed him in high state to a red mud temple, seemingly tried to suffocate him with evidences of their pride and joy at his arrival, and dark-skinned maidens were trying hopefully to win his approval of their dancing. But the rescue party found him with a club in his hand and blood in his eye, setting out furiously to change the tone of his reception. Joe still didn't know all the details, but he tried to concentrate on what he did know as he put his uniform on again. He didn't want to think how little it meant now. The silver spaceship badge didn't mean a thing any more. There weren't any more spaceships. The platform wasn't a ship, but a satellite. There'd never been but two ships. Both had ceased to exist. Mike walked painfully forward in the huge, roaring plane. The motors made a constant, humming thunder in his ears. It was not easy to walk. He held on to hand-holds as he moved, but he progressed past the bunk space. And there was Mike, sitting at a table and stuffing himself with good, honest food. There was a glass port beside him, and Joe caught a glimpse of illimitable distances filled with cloud and sky and sea. Mike nodded. He didn't offer to help Joe walk. That wouldn't have been practical. He waited until Joe sank into a seat opposite. Could sleep? Asked Mike. I guess so, said Joe. He added ruefully. It hurts to nod, and I think it would hurt worse to shake my head. What's the matter with me, Mike? I didn't get banged up in the landing. You got banged up before you landed, said Mike. Worse than that, you spent better than six weeks out of gravity, wherein an average day you took less actual exercise than a guy in bed with two broken legs. Joe eased himself back into his chair. He felt about six hundred years old. Somebody poked a head into view and withdrew it. Joe lifted his arm and regarded it. Waity! I guess you're right, Mike. I know I'm right, said Mike. If you spent six weeks in bed, you'd expect to feel wobbly when you tried to walk. Up on the platform, you didn't even use energy to stand up. We didn't realize it, but we were living like invalids. We'll get our strength back, but next time we'll take measures. Ha! Take a trip to Mars in free fall, and by the time a guy got there, his muscles would be so flabby he couldn't stand up in half gravity. Something's got to be done about that, Joe. Joe said somberly. Something's got to be done about spaceships before that comes up again. Somebody appeared with a tray. There was food on it, smoking hot food. Joe looked at it and knew that his appetite, anyhow, was back to earth normal. Thanks! He mumbled appreciatively and attacked the food. Mike drank his coffee. Then he said, Joe, do you know anything about powder metallurgy? Joe shrugged. It hurt. Powder metallurgy? Yes, I've seen it used at my father's plant. They've made small precision parts with it. Why? Do you know if anybody ever made a weld with it?" asked Mike. Joe chewed. Then he said, I think so, yes, at the plant they did. They had trouble getting the surfaces properly cleaned for welding, but they managed it. Why? One more question, said Mike Tensley. How much Portland cement is used to make a cubic yard of concrete? I wouldn't know, admitted Joe. Why? What's all this about? The company and the chief. Those two big apes have been kidding me, as long as they could stay awake, for what happened to me when I landed. Those infernal savages, Mike seathed. They got my clothes off, and they had me smeared all over with butter, and forty-eleven necklaces around my neck and flowers in my hair. They thought I was some kind of heathen god. Hanuman, somebody told me, the Hindu monkey god. He raged. And those two big apes think it's funny. Joe, I never knew I knew all the words for the cussings I gave those heathen before our fellas found me, and Haney and the chief will drive me crazy if I can't slap them down. Powder metallurgy does the trick from what you told me. That's OK then. He stood up and stalked toward the front of the plane. Joe roused himself with an effort. He turned to look about him. Haney lay slumped in a reclining chair on the other side of the plane cabin. His eyes were closed. The chief laid limply in another chair. He smiled faintly at Joe, but he didn't try to talk. He was too tired. The return to normal gravity bothered him, as it did Joe. Joe looked out the window. In neat, geometric spacing on either side of the transport there were fighter jets. There was another flight above and farther away. Joe saw suddenly a peeling off of planes from the farther formation. They dived down through the clouds. He never knew what they went to look for or what they found. He went groggily back to his bunk in a strange and embarrassing weakness. He woke when the plane landed. He didn't know where it might be. It was, he knew an island, he could see the wide, sun-baked white of the runways. He could see seabirds in clouds over at the edge. The plane trundled and lurched slowly to a stop. A service truck came growling up and somebody led cables from it up into the engines. Somebody watched dials and waved a hand. There was silence. There was stillness. Joe heard voices and footsteps. Presently he heard the dull booming of surf. The plane seemed to wait for a very long time. Then there was a faint, faint, distant whine of jets and a plane came from the east. It was first a dot and then a vague shape and then an infinitely graceful dark object which swooped down and landed at the other end of the strip. It came taxing up alongside the transport ship and stopped. An officer in uniform climbed out, waved his hand and walked over to the transport. Somebody climbed up the ladder and the pilot and the co-pilot followed him. They took their places, the door closed. One by one the jets chugged, then roared to life. The officer talked to the pilot and co-pilot for a moment. Then came down the aisle toward Joe. Mike the midget regarded him suspiciously. The plane stirred. The newly arrived officer said pleasantly, The Navy Department sent me out here, Kenmore, to be briefed on what you know and to do a little briefing in return. The transport plane turned clumsily and began to taxi down the runway. It jolted and bumped over the tarmac, then lifted, and Joe saw that the island was nearly all airfield. There were a few small buildings and distance-dwarfed hangars. Beyond the field proper there was a ring of white surf. That was all. The rest was ocean. I have it much briefing to do, admitted Joe. Then he looked at the briefcase the other man opened. It had sheets and sheets of paper in it, hundreds it seemed. They were filled with questions. He be called on to find answers for most of them, and to admit he didn't know the answers to the rest. When he was through with this questioning every possible useful fact he knew would be on file for future use. Now he rightly recognized that this was part payment for the efficiency and speed with which the Navy had trailed them on their landing, and for the use of a transport plane to take them back to the United States. I'll try to answer what I can, he said cautiously, but what are you to brief me about? That you're not back on earth yet, said the officer curtly, pulling out the first sheaf of questions. Officially you haven't even started back. Ostensibly you're still on the platform. Joe blinked at him. If your return were known, continued the Lieutenant, the public would want to make heroes of you. First, space travelers and so on. They'd want you on television, all of you, telling about your adventures and your return. Inevitably what happened to your ship would leak out. And if the public knew you'd been waylaid and shot down, there'd be demands that the government take violent action to avenge the attack. It'd be something like the tumult over the sinking of the Main, or the Lusitania, or even Pearl Harbor. It's much better for your return to be a secret for now. Joe said, Riley, I don't think any of us want to be ridden around to have ticker-tape dumped on us. That part's all right. I'm sure the others will agree. Good. One more difficulty. We had two spaceships. Now we have none. Our most likely enemies haven't only been building rockets, they've got a space fleet coming along. Intelligence just found out they're nearly ready for trial trips. They've been yelling to High Heaven that we were building a space fleet to conquer the world. We weren't. They were. And it looks very much as if they may have beaten us. The Lieutenant got out the dreary mass of papers intended to call for every conscious or unconscious observation Joe might have made in space. It was the equivalent of the interviews extracted from fliers after a bombing raid, and it was necessary, but Joe was very tired. Wearily, he said, start your questions. I'll try to answer them. They arrived in Bootstrap some forty-six hours after the crashing of their ship. Joe, at least, had slept nearly thirty of those hours. So while he was still wobbly on his feet, and would be for days to come, his disposition was vastly improved. There was nobody waiting on the airfield by the town of Bootstrap, but as they landed a black car came smoothly out and stopped close by the transport. Joe got down and climbed into it. Sally Holt was inside. He took both his hands and cried, and he was horribly embarrassed when the Chief came blundering into the car after him. But the Chief growled, If he didn't kiss you, Sally, I'm going to kick his pants for him. He—he did, said Sally, gulping, and I'm glad you're back, Chief, and Haney and Mike. Mike grinned as he climbed in the back, too. Haney crowded in after him. They filled the rear of the car entirely. It started off swiftly across the field, swerving to the roadway that led to the highway out of Bootstrap to the shed. It sped out that long white concrete ribbon, and the desert was abruptly all around them. Far ahead the great round half-dome of the shed looked like a cherry pit on the horizon. It's good to be back, said the Chief warmly. I feel like I weigh a ton, but it's good to be back. Mike's the only one who is happier out yonder. He figures he belongs there. I've got a story to tell you, Sally. Chief, said Mike fiercely, shut up! Won't, said the Chief, amiably. Sally, this guy, Mike—Mike went pale. You're too big to kill, he said bitterly, but I'll try it. The Chief grunted at him. Quit being modest. Sally, Mike flung himself at the Chief, literally snarling. His small fist hit the Chief's face, and Mike was small, but he was not puny. The crack of the impact was loud in the car. Heaney grabbed. There was a moment's frenzied struggling, then Mike was helplessly wrapped in Heaney's arms, incoherent with fury and shame. Crazy fool, grunted the Chief, feeling his jaw. What's the matter with you? Don't you feel good? He was angry, but he was more concerned. Mike was white and raging. You tell that! He panted shrilly, and so help me. What's got into you? demanded Heaney anxiously. I'd be bragging I would if I'd got a brainstorm like you did. That guy Sanford would've wiped us all out. The Chief said angrily, between unease and puzzlement. I never knew you to go off your nut like this before. What's got into you, anyway? Mike gulped suddenly. Heaney still held firmly, but both Heaney and the Chief were looking at him with worried eyes. And Mike said desperately, You were going to tell Sally! The Chief snorted, Ha! You fool, little runt! No! I was going to tell her about you opening up that airlock when Sanford locked us out. Sure, I kidded you about what you're talking about. Sure. You're going to do it again. But that's amongst us. I don't tell that outside. Heaney made an inarticulate exclamation. He understood, and he was relieved. But he looked disgusted. He released Mike abruptly, rumbling to himself. He stared out the window, and Mike stood upright, an absurd small figure. His face worked a little. OK, said Mike, with a little difficulty. I was dumb. Only Chief, you owe me a sock on the jaw when you feel like it. I'll take it." He swallowed. Sally was watching, wide-eyed. Sally, said Mike bitterly, I'm a bigger fool than I look. I thought the Chief was going to tell you what happened when I landed. I... I floated down in a village over there in India, and those crazy savages had never seen a parachute. They began to yell and make gestures, and the first thing I knew, they had a sort of litter and were piling me in it, and throwing flowers all over me, and there was a procession. Sally listened blankly. Mike told the tale of his shame with the very quintessence of bitter resentment. When he got to his installment in a red-painted mud-temple, and the reverent and forcible removal of his clothes so he could be greased with butter, Sally's lips began to twitch. At the picture of Mike in a red loincloth, squirming furiously while brown-skinned admirers zestfully sang his praises, howling his rage while they celebrated some sort of pious festival in honor of his arrival, Sally broke down and laughed helplessly. Mike stared at her aghast. He felt that he'd hated the Chief when he thought the Chief was going to tell the tale on him as a joke. He told it on himself as a penance, in the place of the blow he'd given the Chief, and which the Chief wouldn't return. To Mike it was still tragedy. It was still an outrage to his dignity. But Sally was laughing. She rocked back and forth next to Joe, helpless with mirth. "'Oh, Mike,' she gasped, "'it's beautiful. They must have been saying such lovely, respectful things while you were calling them names and wanting to kill them. They'd have been bragging to each other about how you were. Visiting them because they'd been such good people, and this was the reward of well-spent lives, and you, you!' She leaned against Joe and shook. The car went on. The Chief chuckled. Haney grinned. Joe watched Mike as this new aspect of his disgrace got into his consciousness. It hadn't occurred to him, until he lost his temper, that Haney and the Chief would ride him mercilessly among themselves, but would not dream of letting anybody outside the gang do so. Presently Mike managed to grin a little. It was a twisty grin, and not altogether mirthful. "'Yeah,' he said wryly. "'I see it. They were crazy, too. I should have had more sense than to get mad.' Then his grin grew a trifle twistier. "'I didn't tell you that the thing that made me maddest was when they wanted to put earrings on me. I grabbed a club then, and, uh, persuaded them I didn't like the idea.' Sally chortled. The picture of the small, truculent Mike in frenzied revolt with a club against the idea being decked with jewelry. Mike turned to the two big men and shoved at them imperiously. "'Move over,' he growled. "'If you two big lume-oxes had dropped in on those crazy goofs instead of me, they'd have thought you were elephants and set you to work hauling logs.'" He squirmed to a seat between them. He still looked ashamed, but it was shame of a different sort. Now he looked as if he wished he hadn't mistrusted his friends even for a moment, and he included Sally. "'Anyhow,' he said suddenly in a different tone, "'maybe it did do some good for me to get all worked up. I got kind of frantic. I figured somebody made a fool of me, and I was going to put something over on you.' "'Mike,' said Sally reproachfully. "'Not like you think, Sally,' said Mike, grinning a little. I made it my mind to beat those lume-oxes at their own game. I asked Joe about my brainstorming the plane. He didn't know what I was driving at, but he said what I hoped was so. So I'm telling you, and,' he added fiercely, "'if it's any good, everybody gets credit for it, because all four of us, even two big apes who try kidding, are responsible for it.'" He glared at them. Joe asked, "'What is it, Mike?' "'I think,' said Mike, "'I think I've got a trick to make spaceships quicker than anybody ever dreamed of. Joe says you can make a weld with powder metallurgy, and I think we can use that trick to make one-piece ships, lighter and stronger and tighter, and fast enough to make your head swim, and you guys are in on it.'" The black car braked by the entrance to the security office as outside the shed. It looked completely deserted. There was only a skeleton force here, since the platform had been launched three months before. There was almost nobody to be seen, but Mike pressed his lips pugnaciously together as they got out of the car and went inside. The four of them, with Sally, went along the empty corridors to the Major's office. He was waiting for them. He shook hands all around, but it was not possible for Major Holt to give an impression of cordiality. "'I'm very glad to see all of you back,' he said curtly. It didn't look like you'd make it. Joe, you will be able to reach your father by long-distance telephone as soon as you finish here. I, um, thought it would not be indiscreet to tell him you had landed safely, though I did ask him to keep the fact to himself. "'Thank you, sir,' said Joe. "'You answered most of the questions you needed to answer on the plane,' added the Major grimly, "'and now you may want to ask some. You know there is no ship for you. You know that the enemies of the Platform copied our rocket fuel. You know they've made rockets with it. You've met them. An intelligence says they're building a fleet of spaceships. Not for space exploration, but simply to smash the Platform and get set for an ultimatum to the United States to backwater or be bombarded from space.' Mike said crisply, "'How long before they can do it?' Major Holt turned uncorjolized upon him. It's anybody's guess. Why?' "'We've been working something out,' said Mike, firmly, but in part untruthfully. He stood sturdily before the Major's desk, which he barely topped. The four of us have been working it out. Joe says they've done powder metallurgy welds, back at his father's plant. Joe and Haney and the Chief and me, we've been working out an idea.' Major Holt waited. His hands moved nervously on his desk. Joe looked at Mike. Haney and the Chief regarded him warily. The Chief cocked his head on one side. "'It'll take a minute to get it across,' said Mike. "'You have to think of concrete first. When you want to make a cubic yard of concrete, you take a cubic yard of gravel. Then you add some sand. Just enough to fill in the cracks between the gravel. Then you put in some cement. It goes in the cracks between the grains of sand. A little bit of cement makes a lot of concrete, see?' Major Holt frowned. But he knew these four. "'I see, but I don't understand. You can weld metals together with powder metallurgy powder at less than red heat. You can take steel filings for sand and steel turnings for gravel and powdered steel for cement.' Joe jolted erect. He looked startily at Haney and the Chief, and Haney's mouth was dropping open. A great dreamy light seemed to be bursting upon him. The Chief regarded Mike with very bright eyes, and Mike, sturdily, forcefully, coldly, made a sort of speech in his small and brittle voice. "'Things could be made of solid steel,' he said sharply, without rolling or milling or die-casting the metal, and without riveting or arc-welding the parts together. The trick was powder metallurgy. Very finely powdered metal, packed tightly and heated to a relatively low temperature, sintered, is the word, becomes a solid mass. Even alloys can be made by mixing powdered metals. The process had been used only for small objects, but there was the analogy to concrete. A very little powder could weld much metal, in the form of turnings and smaller bits, and the result would be solid steel.' Then Mike grew impassioned. There was a wooden mock-up of a spaceship in the shed, he said. It was an absolutely accurate replica, in wood, of the ships that had been destroyed. But one could take castings of it, and use them for molds and fill them with powder and filings and turnings, and heat them not even red-hot, and there would be steel hulls in one piece. Solid steel hulls, needing no riveting nor anything else, and one could do it fast. While the first hull was fitting out, a second could be molded. The chief roared. "'Yo, full little runt,' he bellowed, trying to give us credit for that. You got more sense than any of us. You work that out in your own head!' Haney rubbed his hands together. He said softly, "'I like that. I do like that!' Major Holt turned his eyes to Joe. What's your opinion?' "'I think it's the sort of thing, sir, that a professional engineer would say was a good idea, but not practical. He'd mean it would be a lot of trouble to get working. But I'd like to ask my father. They have done powder-welding at the plant back home, sir.' Major Holt nodded. "'Call your father. If it looks promising, I'll pull what wires I can.' Joe went out with the others. Mike was sweating. All unconsciously he twisted his hands one within the other. He had had many humiliations because he was small, but lately he had humiliated himself by not believing in his friends. Now he needed desperately to do something that would reflect credit on them as well as himself.' Joe made the phone call. As he closed the door of the booth he heard the Chief kidding Mike blandly. "'Hey, Einstein,' said the Chief, how about putting that brain of yours to work on a faster-than-light drive?' But then he began to struggle with the long-distance operator. It took minutes to get the plant, and then it took time to get to the point, because his father insisted on asking anxiously how he was, and if he was heard in any way, personal stuff. But Joe finally managed to explain that his call dealt with the desperate need to do something about a space fleet. His father said grimly, "'Yes, the situation doesn't look too good right now, Joe.' "'Try this on for size, sir,' said Joe. He outlined Mike's scheme. His father interrupted only to ask crisp questions about the mock-up of the tender, already in existence, though made of wood. Then he said, "'Go on, son.' Joe finished. He heard his father speaking to someone away from the phone. Questions and answers, and then orders. His father spoke to him direct. "'It looks promising, Joe,' said his father. "'Right here at the plant, we've got the gang that can do it, if anybody can. I'm getting a plane and coming out there fast. Get Major Holt to clear things for me. This is no time for red tape. If he has trouble, I'll pull some wires myself.' "'Then I can tell Mike it's good stuff?' "'It's not good stuff,' said his father. "'There are about forty-seven things wrong with it, at first glance. But I know how to take care of one or two, and we'll lick the rest. You tell your friend Mike I want to shake him by the hand. I hope to do it tonight.' He hung up, and Joe went out of the phone booth. Mike looked at him with the yearning eyes. Joe lied a little, because Mike rated it. "'My father's on the way here to help make it work,' he told Mike. Then he added, untruthfully. He said he thought he knew all the big men in his line. And where have you been that he hasn't heard of you?' He turned away as the chief whooped with glee. He hurried back to Major Holt as the chief and Haney began zestfully to manhandle Mike in celebration of his genius. The Major held up his hand as Joe entered. He was using the desk phone. Joe waited. When he hung up, Joe reported. The Major seemed unsurprised. "'Yes, I had Washington on the wire,' he said detachedly. I talked to a personal friend, who's a three-star general. There will be action started at the Pentagon. When you came in I was arranging with the largest producers of powder metallurgy products in the country to send their best men here by plane. They will start at once. Now I have to get in touch with some other people.' Joe gaped at him. The Major moved impatiently, waiting for Joe to leave. Joe gulped. "'Excuse me, sir, but my father didn't say it was certain. He just thinks it can be made to work. He's not sure.' "'I didn't even wait for that. Something has to turn up to take care of this situation,' said the Major with asperity. "'It has to. This particular scheme may not work. But if it doesn't, something will come out of the work on it. You should look at a twenty-five cent piece occasionally, Joe.' He moved impatiently, and Joe went out. Sally was smiling in the outer office. There were whoopings in the corridor beyond. The Chief and Haney were celebrating Mike's brainstorm with salutary indignity, because if they didn't make a joke of it he might cry with joy. "'Things look better? They do,' said Joe, if it only works. Then he hunted in his pocket. He found a quarter, and examined it curiously. On one side he found nothing the Major could have referred to. On the other side, though, just by George Washington's chin. He put the quarter away and took Sally's arm. "'It'll be all right,' he said slowly. But there were times when it seemed in doubt. Joe's father arrived by plane at sunset of that same day, and he and three men from the Kenmore Precision Tool Company instantly closeted themselves with Mike in Major Holt's quarters. The powder metallurgy men turned up an hour later, and a three-star general from Washington. They joined the highly technical discussion. Joe waited around outside, feeling left out of things. He sat on the porch with Sally while the moon rose over the desert and the stars shone down. Inside, matters of high importance were being battled over with the informality and heat with which practical men get things settled. But Joe wasn't in on it. He said, annoyedly, "'You'd think my father'd have something to say to me and all this mess? After all, I have been—well, I have been places. But all he said was, "'How are you, son? Where's this Mike you talked about?' Sally said calmly, "'I know just how you feel. You've made me feel that way.'" She looked up at the moon. "'I thought about you all the time you were gone. And I—prayed for you, Joe. And now you're back and not even busy. But you don't. It would be nice for you to think about me for a while." "'I am thinking about you,' said Joe, indignantly." "'Now what?' said Sally, interestingly. In the world could you be thinking about me?' He wanted to scowl at her. But he grinned instead." CHAPTER VII OF SPACE-TUG by Murray Leinster Read by Mark Nelson This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. SPACE-TUG CHAPTER VII Time passed. Hours then days. Things began to happen. Trucks appeared, loaded down with sacks of white powder. The powder was very messily mixed with water and smeared lavishly over the now waterproofed wooden mock-up of a spaceship. It came off again in sections of white plaster, which were numbered and set to dry in warm chambers that were constructed with almost magical speed. More trucks arrived, bearing such diverse objects as loads of steel turnings, a regenerative helium cooling plant from a gas well, it could cool metal down to the point where it crumbled to impalpable powder at a blow, and assorted fuel tanks, dynamos, and electronic machinery. Some days after Mike's first proposal of concreted steel as a material for spaceship construction, the parts of the first casting of the mock-up were assembled. They were a mold for the hull of a spaceship. There were more plaster sections for a second mold ready to be dried out now, but meanwhile vehicles like concrete mixers, mixed turnings and filings and powder, in vast quantities and poured the dry mass here and there in the first completed mold. Then men began to wrap the gigantic object with iron wire. Presently that iron wire glowed slightly and the whole huge mold grew hotter and hotter and hotter, and after a time it was allowed to cool. But that did not mean a ceasing of activity. The plaster casts had been made while the concreting process was worked out. The concreting process, including the heating, was in action while fittings were being flown to the shed. But other hulls were being formed by metal concrete formation even before the first mold was taken down. When the plaster sections came off there was a long, gleaming, frosty sheen metal hull waiting for the fittings. It was a replacement of one of the two shot-down spacecraft ready for fitting out some six weeks ahead of schedule. Next day there was a second metal hull, still too hot to touch. The day after that there was another. Then they began to be turned out at the rate of two a day, and all the vast expanse of the shed resounded with the work on them. Drills drilled and torches burned and hammers hammered. Small diesels rumbled. Disks saws cut metal-like butter by the seemingly impractical method of spinning at twenty thousand revolutions per minute. Days of motor-buses rolled out from bootstrap at chain-shift time, and there were again security men at every doorway moving continually about. But it still didn't look too good. There is apparently no way to beat arithmetic, and a definitely grim problem still remained. Ten days after the beginning of the new construction program Joe and Sally looked down from a gallery high up in the outward curving wall of the shed. Trees of dark flooring lay beneath them. There was a spiral ramp that wound round and round between the twin skins of the fifty-story high dome. It led, finally, to the communications room at the very top of the shed itself. Where Joe and Sally looked down the floor was three hundred feet below. Welding arcs glittered, rivet guns chattered, trucks came in the doorways with materials, and there was already a gleaming row of eighty foot hulls. There were eleven of them already uncovered, and small trucks ran up to their sides to feed the fitting out-cruise such items as air tanks and gyro-assemblies and steering rocket piping and motors, and short-wave communicators and control boards. Exit doors were being fitted. The last two hulls to be uncovered were being inspected with portable X-ray outfits in search of flaws. And there were still other ungainly white molds which were the other hulls in process of formation. The metals still pouring into the molds in powder form, or being tamped down or being sintered into solidity. Joe leaned on the gallery railing and said, unhappily, I can't help worrying, even though the platform hasn't been shot at since we landed. That wasn't an expression of what he was thinking. He was thinking about matters the enemies of the platform would have liked to know about. Sally knew these matters too, but top secret information isn't talked about by people who know it unless they are actively at work on it. At all other times one pretends even to himself that he doesn't know it. That is the only possible way to avoid leaks. The top secret information was simply that it was still impossible to supply the platform. Ships could be made faster than had ever been dreamed of before, but so long as any ship that went up could be destroyed on the way down, the supply of the platform was impractical. But the ships were being built regardless against the time when a way to get them down again was thought of. As of the moment it hadn't been thought of yet. But building the ships anyhow was unconscious genius because nobody but Americans could imagine anything so foolish. The enemies of the platform and of the United States knew that full-scale production of ships by some fantastic new method was in progress. The fact couldn't be hidden, but nobody in a country where material shortages were chronic could imagine building ships before a way to use them was known. So the platform's enemies were convinced that the United States had something wholly new and very remarkable, and threatened their spies with unspeakable fates if they didn't find out what it was. They didn't find out. The rulers of the enemy nations knew, of course, that if a new, say, space-drive had been invented they would very soon have to change their tune. So there were no more attacks on the platform. It floated serenely overhead, sending down astronomical observations and solar constant measurements and weather maps, while about it floated a screen of garbage and discarded tin cans. But Joe and Sally looked down where the ships were being built while the problem of how to use them was debated. It's a tough nut to crack, said Joe dourly. It haunted him. Ships going up had to have crews. Crews had to come down again because they had to leave supplies at the platform, not consume them there. Getting a ship up to orbit was easier than getting it down again. The Navy's been working on light-guided missiles, said Sally. No good, snapped Joe. It wasn't. They'd been asked for advice. Could a spaceship crew control guided missiles and fight its way back to ground with them? The answer was that it could. But guided missiles used to fight one's way down would have to be carried up first, and they would weigh as much as all the cargo a ship could carry. A ship that carried fighting rockets couldn't carry cargo. Cargo at the platform was the thing desired. All that's needed, said Sally, watching Joe's face, is a slight touch of genius. There's been genius before now, burning your cabin free with landing rocket-flames, Haney's idea, growled Joe desperately. And making more ships in a hurry with metal concrete, Mike did that, said Joe ruefully. But you made the garbage screen for the platform, insisted Sally. Richard had made a wisecrack, said Joe, and it just happened that it made sense that he had noticed. He grimaced. You say something like that now. Sally looked at him with soft eyes. It wasn't really his job, this worrying. The top-level brains of the armed forces were struggling with it. They were trying everything from redesigned rocket-motors to really radical notions. But there wasn't anything promising yet. "'What's really needed,' said Sally regretfully, is a way for ships to go up to the platform, and not have to come back.' "'Sure,' said Joe ironically. Then he said, let's go down.' They started down the long winding ramp which led between the two skins of the shed's wall. It was quite empty, this long, curving, descending corridor. It was remarkably private. In a place like the shed, with frantic activity going on all around, and even at major holds' quarters, where Sally lived and Joe was a guest, there wasn't often a chance for them to talk in any sort of actual privacy. "'But Joe went on, scowling,' Sally went with him. If she seemed to hang back a little at first, he didn't notice. Presently she shrugged her shoulders and ceased to try to make him notice that nobody else happened to be around. They made a complete circuit of the shed within its wall, Joe staring ahead without words. Then he stopped abruptly. His expression was unbelieving. Sally almost bumped into him. "'What's the matter?' "'You had it, Sally!' He said amazedly, "'You did it! You said it!' "'What?' "'The touch of genius!' He almost babbled. Ships that can go up to the platform and not have to come back. Sally, you did it! You did it!' She regarded him helplessly. He took her by the shoulders as if to shake her into comprehension, but he kissed her exuberantly instead. "'Come on,' he said urgently, "'I've got to tell the gang.' He grabbed her hand and set off at a run for the bottom of the ramp, and Sally, with remarkably mingled emotion showing on her face, was dragged in his wake. He was still pulling her after him when he found the chief and Haney and Mike in the room at security where they were practically self-confined lest their return to earth become too publicly known. Mike was stalking up and down with his hands clasped behind his back, glum as a miniature Napoleon and talking bitterly. The chief was sprawled in a chair. Haney sat upright, regarding his knuckles with a thoughtful air. Joe stepped inside the door. Mike continued without a pause. "'I tell you, if they'll only use little guys like me, the cabin and supplies and crew can be cut down by tons. Even the instruments can be smaller and way less. Four of us in a smaller cabin, less grub and air and water. We'll save tons in cabin weight alone. Why can't you big lummoxes see it?' "'We see it, Mike,' Haney said mildly. "'You're right. But people won't do it. It's not fair, but they won't.' Joe said beaming, "'Besides, Mike, it'd bust up our gang. And Sally's just gotten the real answer. The answer is, for ships to go up to the platform and not come back.' He grinned at them. The chief raised his eyebrows. Haney turned his head to stare. Joe said exuberantly, "'They've been talking about arming ships with guided missiles to fight with. Too heavy, of course. But if we could handle guided missiles, why couldn't we handle drones?' The three of them gaped at him. Haney said, startled, "'But, but Joe, I didn't. We've got plenty of hulls,' said Joe. Somehow he still looked astonished at what he'd made of Sally's perfectly obvious comment. Mike's arranged for that. Make, say, six of them into drones, space barges, remote-controlled ships. Control them from one man-ship, the tug. We'll ride that. Make them up to the platform exactly like a tug-toes barges. The tow-line will be radio beams. We'll have a space-toe up and not bother to bring the barges back. There won't be any landing-rockets. They'll carry double cargo. That's the answer. A space-tug hauling a tow to the platform.' "'But, Joe,' insisted Sally, "'I didn't think of,' the chief heaved himself up. Haney's voice cut through what the chief was about to say. Haney said, dryly, "'Sally, if Joe hadn't kissed you for thinking that up, I would. Makes me feel mighty dumb.' Mike swallowed. Then he said, loyally, "'Yeah, me too. I'd have made a two-ton cargo possible, maybe. But this adds up. What does the Major say?' "'I haven't talked to him. I'd better right away,' Joe grinned. I wanted to tell you first.' The chief grunted. "'Good idea, but hold everything,' he fumbled in his pocket. The arithmetic is easy enough, Joe. Cut out the crew and air, and you save something.' He felt in another pocket. "'Leave off the landing-rockets, and you save plenty more. Count in the cargo you could take anyhow,' he searched another pocket still, and you get forty-two tons of cargo per space barge, delivered at the platform. Six drones, that's two hundred fifty-two tons in one tow. Here!' He found what he wanted. It was a handkerchief. He thrust it upon Joe. Wipe that lipstick off, Joe, before you go talk to the Major. He's Sally's father, and he might not like it.' Joe wiped it his face. Sally, her eyes shining, took the handkerchief from him and finished the job. She displayed that remarkable insensitivity of females in situations productive of both pride and embarrassment. When a girl or a woman is proud, she is never embarrassed. She and Joe went away, and Sally rushed right into her father's office. In fifteen minutes, technical men began to arrive for conferences summoned by telephone. Within forty-five minutes, messengers carried orders out to the shed floor and stopped the installation of certain types of fittings in all but one of the hulls. In an hour and a half, top technical designers were doing the work of foremen and getting things done without benefit of blueprints. The proposal was beautifully simple to put into practice. Guided missile control systems were already in mass production. They could simply be adjusted to take care of drones. Within twelve hours there were truckloads of new sorts of supplies arriving at the shed. Some were Air Force supplies, and some were ordnance, and some were strictly quarter-master. These were not component parts of spaceships. They were freight for the platform. And just forty-eight hours after Joe and Sally looked desperately down upon the floor of the shed, there were seven gleaming hulls in launching cages and the unholy din of landing pushpots outside the shed. They came with hysterical cries from their airfield to the south, and they flopped flat with extravagant crashings on the desert outside the eastern door. By the time the pushpots had been hauled in, one by one, and had attached themselves to the launching cages, Joe and Haney and the Chief and Mike had climbed into the cabin of the one ship which was not a drone. There were now seven cages in all to be hoisted toward the sky. A great double triangular gore had been jacked out and rolled aside to make an exit in the side of the shed. Nearly as many pushpots it seemed were involved in this launching as in the takeoff of the platform itself. The routine test before takeoff set the pushpot motors to roaring inside the shed. The noise was the most sustained and ghastly tumult that had been heard on earth since the departure of the platform. But this launching was not so impressive. It was definitely untidy, imprecise, and unmilitary. There were seven eighty-foot hulls in cages surrounded by clustering, bellowing, preposterous groups of howling objects that looked like oversized black beetles. One of the seven hulls had eyes. The others were blind, but they were equipped with radio and teni. The ship with eyes had several small basket-type radar bowls projecting from its cabin plating. The seven objects rose one by one and went bellowing and blundering out to the open air. At forty and fifty feet above the ground they jockied into some sort of formation with much wallowing and pitching and clumsy maneuvering. Then without preliminary they started up. They rose swiftly. The noise of their going diminished from a bellow to a howl, and from a howl to a moaning noise, and then to a faint, faint, ever dwindling hum. Presently that faded out too. CHAPTER VIII All the sensations were familiar. The small fleet of improbable objects rose and rose. Of all flying objects ever imagined by man, the launching cages supported by pushpots were most irrational. The squadron, though, was bumbling upward. In the man-ship Joe was more tense than on his other take-off, if such a thing was possible. His work was harder this trip. Before he'd had Mike at communications and the Chief at the steering-rockets, while Haney kept the pushpots balanced for thrust. Now Joe flew the man-ship alone. Headphones and a Mike gave him communications with the shed direct, and the pushpots were balanced in groups, which cost efficiency but helped on control. He would have, moreover, to handle his own steering-rockets during acceleration, and when he could, and dared, he should supervise the others. Because each of the other three had two drone-ships to guide. True, they had only to keep their drones in formation, but Joe had to navigate for all. The four of them had been assigned this flight because of its importance. They happened to be the only crew alive who had ever flown a spaceship designed for maneuvering, and their experience consisted of a single trip. The jet stream was higher this time than on the other journey, now two months past. They blundered into it at 36,000 feet. Joe's headphones buzzed tinally. Radar from the ground told him his rate of rise, his ground speed, his orbital speed, and added comments on the handling of the drones. The last was not a precision job. On the way up, Joe protested. Each ship, number four, is lagging. Snap it up! Mike said crisply, Got it, Joe! The shed says three separate ships are getting out of formation, and we need due east pointing. Check it! The chief muttered, Something wack! Joe had no time for reflection. He was in charge of the clumsiest operation ever designed for an exact result. The squadron went wallowing toward the sky. The noise was horrible. A tinny voice in his headphones. You are at 65,000 feet. Your rate of climb curve is flattening. You should fire your Jatoes when practical. You have some leeway in rocket power. Joe spoke into the extraordinary maze of noise waves and pressure systems in the air of the cabin. We should blast. I'm throwing in the series circuit for Jatoes. Try to line up. We want the drones above us and with us spread, remember? Go to it. He watched his direction indicator and the small graphic indicators telling of the drones. The sky outside the ports was dark purple. The launching cage responded sluggishly. Its open end came around toward the east. It wobbled and wavered. It touched the due east point. Joe stabbed the firing button. Nothing happened. He hadn't expected it. The seven ships had to keep in formation. They had to start off on one course, with a slight spread as a safety measure and at one time. So the firing circuits were keyed to relays in series. Only when all seven firing keys were down at the same time would any of the Jatoes fire. Then all would blast together. The pilots and the cockpit bubbles of the pushpots had an extraordinary view of the scene. At something over twelve miles height, seven aggregations of clumsy black things clung to frameworks of steel pushing valorously. Far below there were clouds and there was earth. There was a horizon which wavered and tilted. The pushpots struggled with seeming lack of purpose. One of the seven seemed to drop below the others. They pointed vaguely this way and that, all of them. Gradually they seemed to arrive at an uncertain unanimity. Joe pushed the firing button again as his own ship touched the due east mark. Again nothing happened. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Haney pressing down both buttons. The chief's finger lifted. Mike pushed down one button and held off the other. Roarings and howlings of pushpots, wobblings and heartbreaking clumsinesses of the drone ships. They hung in the sky while the pushpots used up their fuel. We've got to make it soon, said Joe Grimly. We've got forty seconds, or we'll have to go down and try again. There was a clock dial with a red sweep-hand which moved steadily and ominously toward a deadline time for firing. Up to that deadline the pushpots could let the ships back down to earth without crashing them. After it they'd run out of fuel before a landing could be made. The deadline came closer and closer. Joe snapped, Take a degree leeway. We've got ten seconds. He had the manned ship nearly steady. He held down the firing button holding aim by infinitesimal movements of the controls. Haney pushed both hands down, raised one, pushed again. The chief had one finger down. Jake had both firing buttons depressed. The chief pushed down his second button quietly. There was a monstrous impact. Every jato in every pushpot, about every launching-cage, fired at once. Joe felt himself flung back into his acceleration chair. Six gravities. He began the horrible fight to stay alive, while the blood tried to drain from the conscious four part of his brain, and while every button of his garments pressed noticeably against him, and objects in his pockets pushed, the sides of his mouth dragged back and his cheeks sagged, and his tongue strove to sink back into his throat and strangle him. It was very bad. It seemed a last for centuries. Then the jatoes burned out. There was that ghastly feeling of lunging forward to weightlessness. One instant Joe's body weighed half a ton. The next instant it weighed less than a dust grain. His head throbbed twice as if his skull were about to split open and let his brains run out. But these things he had experienced before. There were pantings in the cabin about him. The ship fell. It happened to be going up, but the sensation and the fact was freefall. Joe had been through this before, too. He gasped for breath and croaked, "'Drones?' "'Right,' said Haney. Mike panted anxiously. "'Force off course. I'll fix it.' The chief grunted guttural mohawk. His hand stirred on the panel for remote control of the drones he had to handle. "'Crazy,' he growled. "'Got it now, Joe. Fire went ready.' "'OK, Mike?' A half-second pause. He pressed the firing button for the take-off rockets. And he was slammed back into his acceleration chair again. But this was three gravities only. Pressed heavily against the acceleration cushions, he could perform the navigation for the fleet. He did. The mothership had to steer a true course, regardless of the vagaries of its rockets. The drones had simply to be kept in formation with it. The second task was simpler. Joe was relieved this time of the need to report back instrument readings. A telemetering device took care of that. The take-off rockets blasted and blasted and blasted. The mere matter of staying alive grew very tedious. The ordeals seemed to last for centuries. Actually, it could be measured only in minutes. But it seemed millennia before the headphone said, staccato fashion, you are on course and will reach a speed in 14 seconds. I will count for you. Relays for rocket release, panted Joe, throw him over. Three hands moved to obey. Joe could release the drive rockets on all seven ships at will. The voice counted. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three. Joe pressed the master key. The remnants of the solid fuel take-off rockets let go. They flashed off into nothingness at unbelievable speed, consuming themselves as they went. There was again no weight. This time there was no resting, no eager gazing out the cabin ports. Now they weren't curious. They had over a month in space and something like 16 days back on Earth and now they were back in space again. Mike and Haney and the chief worked doggedly at their control boards. The radar bulls outside the cabin shifted and moved and quivered. The six drone ships showed on the screens but they also had telemetering apparatus. They faithfully reported their condition and the direction in which their bows pointed. The radars plotted their position with relation to each other and the mothership. Presently Joe cast a glance out of a port and saw that the dark line of sunset was almost below. The take-off had been time to get the ships into Earth's shadow above the area from which war rockets were most likely to rise. It wouldn't prevent bombing, of course, but there was a gadget. Joe spoke into the microphone. Reporting everything all right so far, but you know it. The voice from solid ground said, The ships went on and on and on. The chief muttered to himself and made very minute adjustments of the movement of one of his drones. Mike fussed with his. Haney regarded the controls of his drones with a profound calm. Nothing happened except that they seemed to be falling into a bottomless pit and their stomach muscles knotted and cramped in purely reflex response to the sensation. Even that grew tedious. The headphone said, You will enter Earth's shadow in three minutes. Prepare for combat. Joe said dryly, Where to prepare for combat? The chief growled, I'd like to do just that. The phrasing, of course, was intentional in case enemy ears were listening. Actually the small fleet was to use a variant on the tin can shield which protected the platform. It would be most effective if visual observation was impossible. The fleet was seven ships in a very ragged formation. Most improbably after the long three gravity acceleration they were still within a 50 mile globe of space. Number four loitered behind but was being brought up by the judicious bursts of steering rocket fire. Number two was some distance ahead. The others were simply scattered. They went floating on like a group of meteors. Out the ports two of them were visible. The others might be picked out by the naked eye but it wasn't likely. Drone two far ahead and clearly visible turned from a shining steel speck to a reddish pin point of light. The red color deepened. It winked out. The sunlight in the ports of the mothership turned red. Then it blacked out. Shoot the ghosts, said Joe. The three drone handlers pushed their buttons. Nothing happened that anybody could see. Actually though a small gadget outside the hull began to cough rhythmically. Similar devices on the drones coughed too. They were small multiple-barreled guns. Rifle shells fired two pound missiles at random targets in emptiness. They wouldn't damage anything they hit. They'd go varying distances, explode and shoot small lead shot ahead to check their missile velocity and then emit dense masses of aluminum foil. There was no air resistance. The shredded foil would continue to move through emptiness at the same rate as the convoy fleet. The seven ships had fired a total of 84 such objects away into the blackness of Earth's shadow. There were then seven ships and 84 masses of aluminum foil moving through emptiness. They could not be seen by telescopes. And radars could not tell ships from masses of aluminum foil. If enemy radars came probing upward they reported 91 spaceships in ragged but coherent formation, soaring through emptiness toward the platform. And a fleet like that was too strong to attack. The radar operators had been prepared to forward details of the speed and course of a single ship to wading rocket launching submarines halfway across the Pacific. But they reported to very high authority instead. He received the report of an armada, an incredible fleet in space. He didn't believe it, but he didn't dare disbelieve it. So the fleet swam peacefully through the darkness that was Earth's shadow and no attempt at attack was made. They came out into sunlight to look down at the western shore of America itself. With seven ships to get on an exact course at an exact speed, at an exact moment, time was needed. So the fleet made almost a complete circuit of the Earth before reaching the height of the platform's orbit. They joined it. A single man in a spacesuit anchored to its outer plates directed a plastic hose which stretched out impossibly far and clamped to one drone with a magnetic grapple. It maneuvered it to the hull and made it fast. He captured a second which was worked delicately within reach by coy puffs of steering rocket vapor. One by one the drones were made fast. Then the manned ship went in the lock and the great outer door closed and the plastic fabric walls collapsed behind their nets and air came in. Lieutenant Commander Brown was the one to come into the lock to greet them. He shook hands all around and it again seemed strange to all the four from Earth to find themselves with their feet more or less firmly planted on a solid floor but their bodies wavering erratically to right and left and before and back because there was no up or down. Just had reports from Earth, Brown told Joe comfortably. The news of your takeoff was released to avoid panic in Europe but everybody who doesn't like us is yelling blue murder. Somebody, you may guess who, is announcing that a fleet of 91 war rockets took off from the United States and now hangs poised in space while the decadent American war mongers prepare an ultimatum to all the world. Everybody's frightened. If they'll only stay scared until we get unloaded, said Joe in some satisfaction, the government back home can tell them how many we were and what we came up for but we'll probably make out all right anyhow. My crew will unload, said Brown, in conscious thoughtfulness. You must have gotten pretty well exhausted by that acceleration. Joe shook his head. I think we can handle the freight faster. We found out a few things by going back to Earth. A section of plating at the top of the lock, at least it had been at the top when the platform was built on Earth, opened up as on the first journey here. A face grinned down, but from this point on the procedure was changed. Haney and Joe went into the cargo section of the rocket ship and heaved its contents smoothly through weightlessness to the storage chamber above. The chief and Mike stowed it there. The speed and precision of their work was out of all reason. Brown stared incredulously. The fact was simply that on their first trip to the platform Joe and his crew didn't know how to use their strength where there was no weight. By the time they'd learned, their muscles had lost all tone. Now they were fresh from Earth, with Earth strength muscles, and they knew how to use them. When we got back, Joe told Brown, we were practically invalids. No exercise up here. This time we brought some harness to wear. We've some for you too. They moved out of the airlock and the ship was maneuvered to a mooring outside and a drone took its place. Brown's eyes blinked at the unloading of the drone. But he said, Navy-style work that. Out here, said Joe, you take no more exercise than an invalid on Earth. In fact, not as much. By now the original crew would have trouble standing up on a trip back to Earth. You'd feel pretty heavy yourself. Brown frowned. I shall ask for instructions on the matter. He stood erect. He didn't waver on his feet as the others did, but he wore the same magnetic sole shoes. Joe knew, with private amusement, that Brown must have worked hard to get a dignified stance in weightlessness. Mr. Kenmore, said Brown suddenly, have you been assigned a definite rank as yet? Not that I know of, said Joe without interest. I skipper the ship I just brought up, but your ship has no rating, protested Brown irritably. The skipper of a Navy ship may be anything from a Lieutenant Junior grade to a captain, depending on the size and rating of the ship. In certain circumstances, even a non-commissioned officer. Are you an enlisted man? Again, not that I know of, Joe told him, nor my crew either. Brown looked at once annoyed and distressed. It isn't regular, he objected. It isn't ship shape. I should know whether you are under my command or not. For discipline, for organization, it should be cleared up. I shall put through an urgent inquiry. Joe looked at him incredulously. Lieutenant Commander Brown was a perfectly amiable man, but he had to have things in a certain pattern for him to recognize that they were in a pattern at all. He was more excited over the fact that he didn't know whether he ranked Joe than over the much more important matter of physical deterioration in the absence of gravity. Yet, he surely understood their relative importance. The fact was, of course, that he could confidently expect exact instructions about the last while he had to settle matters of discipline and routine for himself. I shall ask for clarification of your status, he said, worriedly. It shouldn't have been left unclear. I'd better attend to it at once. He looked at Joe as if expecting a salute. He didn't get it. He clanked away, his magnetic shoe soles beating out a singularly martial rhythm. He must have practiced that walk in private. Joe got out of the airlock as another of the space barges was warped in. Brent, the crew's psychologist, joined him when he went to unload. Brent nodded in a friendly fashion to Joe. Quite a change, eh? He said, dryly. Sanford turned out to be a crackpot with his notions of grandeur. I'm not sure that Brown's notions of discipline aren't worse. Joe said, I've something rather important to pass on, and told about the newly discovered physical effects of a long stay where there was no gravity. The doctors now predicted that anybody who spent six months without weight would suffer a deterioration of muscle tone, which would make a return to earth impossible without a long preliminary process of retraining. One's heart would adjust to the absence of any need to pump blood against gravity. Which, said Joe, means that you're going to have to be relieved before too long, but we brought up some gravity simulation harnesses that may help. Brent said desolately, and I was so pleased. We all had trouble with insomnia at first, but lately we've all been sleeping well. Now I see why. Normally one sleeps because he's tired. We had trouble sleeping until our muscles got so weak we tired anyhow. Another drone came in and was unloaded, and another, and another, but the last of them wasn't only unloaded. Haney took over the Platforms Control Board and, grinning to himself, sent faint, especially tuned shortwave impulses to the steering rockets of the drone. The liquid fuel rockets were designed to steer a loaded ship. With the airlock door open, the silvery ship leaped out of the dock like a frightened horse. The liquid fuel rocket had a nearly empty hull to accelerate. It responded skittishly. Joe watched out a port as it went hurtling away. The vast earth rolled beneath it. It sped on and vanished. Its fumes ceased to be visible. Joe told Brent, Another nice job that. We sent it backward, slowing it a little. It'll have a new orbit independent of ours and below it. But come 60 hours it will be directly underneath. We'll haul it up and refuel it. And our friends the enemy will hate it. It's a radio repeater. It'll pick up shortwave stuff beam to it and repeat it down to earth. And they can try to jam that. It was a mildly malicious trick to play. Behind the iron curtain broadcasts from the free world couldn't be heard because of stations built to emit pure noise and drown them out. But the jamming stations were on the enemy nation's borders. If radio programs came down from overhead, jamming would be ineffective, at least in the center of the nations. Populations would hear the truth, even though their governments objected. But that was a minor matter after all. With spaceship hulls coming into being by dozens and with one convoy of hundreds of tons of equipment gotten aloft, the whole picture of supply for the platform had changed. Part of the new picture was two devices that Haney and the Chief were assembling. They were mostly metal backbone and a series of tanks with rocket motors mounted on ball and socket joints. They looked like huge red insects, but they were officially rocket recovery vehicles. And Joe's crew referred to them as space wagons. They had no cabin, but something like a saddle. Before it, there was a control board complete with radar screens. And there were racks to which solid fuel rockets of diverse sizes could be attached. They were literally short-range towcraft for travel in space. They had the stripped, barren look of farm machinery. So the name space wagon fitted. There were two of them. We're putting the pair together, the Chief told Joe, looks kinda peculiar. It's only for temporary use, said Joe. There's a bigger and better one being built with a regular cabin and hull. But some experience with these two will be useful in running a regular space tug. The Chief said with a trace of too much casualness, I'm kind of looking forward to testing this. No, said Joe doggedly. I'm responsible. I take the first chance. But we should all be able to handle them. When this is assembled, you can stand by with the second one. If the first one works all right, we'll try the second. The Chief grimaced, but he went back to the assembly of the spidery device. Joe got out the gravity simulator harnesses. He showed Brent how they worked. Brown hadn't official instructions to order their use, but Joe put one on himself, set for full earth gravity simulation. He couldn't imitate actual gravity, of course, only the effect of gravity on one's muscles. There were springs and elastic webbing that pulled one's shoulders and feet together, so that it was as much effort to stand extended with one's legs straightened out as to stand upright on earth. Joe felt better with a pull on his body. Brent was upset when he found that to him more than a tenth of normal gravity was unbearable. But he kept it on at that. If he increased the pull of very little every day, he might be able to return to earth in time. Now it would be a very dangerous business indeed. He went off to put the other members of the crew in the same sort of harness. After 10 hours, a second drone broadcaster went off into space. By that time, the articulated red frameworks were assembled. They looked more than ever like farm machinery, save that their bulging tanks made them look insectile too. They were actually something between small tow boats and crash wagons. A man in a spacesuit could climb into the saddle of one of these creations, plug in the airline of his suit to the crash wagon's tanks, and travel in space by means of the space wagon's rockets. These weird vehicles had remarkably powerful magnetic grapples. They were equipped with steering rockets as powerful as those of a ship. They had banks of solid fuel rockets of diverse power and length of burning. And they even mounted rocket missiles, small guided rockets which could be used to destroy what could not be recovered. They were intended to handle unmanned rocket shipments of supplies to the platform. There were reasons why the trick should be economical, if it should happen to work at all. When they were ready for testing, they seemed very small in the great space lock. Joe and the chief very carefully checked an extremely long list of things that had to work right, or nothing would work at all. That part of the job wasn't thrilling, but Joe no longer looked for thrills. He painstakingly did the things that produced results. If a sense of adventure seemed to disappear, the sensations of achievement more than made up for it. They got into spacesuits. They were in an odd position on the platform. Lieutenant Commander Brown had avoided Joe as much as possible since his arrival. So far he'd carefully avoided giving him direct orders, because Joe was not certainly and officially his subordinate. Lacking exact information, the only thing a conscientious, rank conscious naval officer could do was exercise the maximum of tact and insistently ask authority for a ruling on Joe's place in the hierarchy of rank. Joe flung a leg over his eccentric, red-painted mount. He clipped his safety belt, plugged in his suit air supply to the space wagon's tanks, and spoke into his helmet transmitter. Okay, to open the lock. Chief, you keep watch. If I make out all right, you can join me. If I get in serious trouble, come after me in the ship we rode up, but only if it's practical, not otherwise. The chief said something in Mohawk. He sounded indignant. The plastic walls of the lock swelled inward, burying and overwhelming them. Pumps pounded briefly, removing what air was left. Then the walls drew back, straining against their netting, and Joe waited for the door to open to empty space. Instead, there came a sharp voice in his helmet phones. It was Brown. Radar says there's a rocket on the way up. It's over at what is the edge of the world from here. Three gravities only. Better not go out. Joe hesitated. Brown still issued no order. But defense against a single rocket would be a matter of guided missiles, Brown's business, if the tin can screen didn't handle it. Joe would have no part in it. He wouldn't be needed. He couldn't help. And there'd be all of the elaborate business of checking to go through again. He said, uncomfortably, it'll be a long time before it gets here, and three gravities is low. Maybe it's a defective job. There have been misfires and so on. It wouldn't take long to try this wagon anyhow. They're anxious to send up a robot ship from the shed, and these have to be tested first. Give me ten minutes. He heard the chief grumbling to himself, but one tested space wagon was better than none. The airlock doors opened. Huge round valves swung wide. Bright, remote, swarming stars filled the opening. Joe cracked the control of his forward liquid fuel rockets. The lock filled instantly with swirling fumes, and instantly the tiny space wagon moved. It did not have to lift from the lock floor. Once the magnetic clamps were released, it was free of the floor. But it did have mass. One brief push of the rockets sent it floating out of the lock. It was in space. It kept on. Joe felt a peculiar twinge of panic. Nobody who is accustomed only to Earth can quite realize at the beginning the conditions of handling vehicles in space. But Joe cracked the braking rockets. He stopped. He hung seemingly motionless in space. The platform was a good half mile away. He tried the gyros, and the space wagon went into swift spinning. He reversed them and straightened out, almost. The vastness of all creation seemed still to revolve slowly about him. The monstrous globe which was Earth moved sedately from above his head to under his feet and continued the slow revolution. The platform rotated in a clockwise direction. He was drifting very slowly away. Chief, he said, wryly, you can't do worse than I'm doing, and we're rushed for time. You might come out. But listen, you don't run your rockets. On Earth, you keep a motor going because when it stops, you do. But out here, you have to use your motor to stop, but not to keep on going, get it? When you do come out, don't burn your rockets more than half a second at a time. The chief's voice came booming. There was a billowing of frantically writhing fumes which darted madly in every direction until they ceased to be. The chief, in his insect-like contraption, came bolting out of the hole which was the airlock. He was a good half mile away. The rocket fumes ceased. He kept on going. Joe heard him swear. The chief felt the utterly helpless sensation of a man in a car when his brakes don't work. But a moment later the braking rockets did flare briefly, yet still too long. The chief was not only stopped, but drifting backwards toward the platform. He evidently tried to turn, and he spun as dizzily as Joe had done. But after a moment he stopped, almost. There were then two red-painted things in space, somewhat like giant water spiders floating forlornly in emptiness. They seemed very remote from the great bright steel platform and that gigantic ball which was earth, turning very slowly and filling a good fourth of all that could be seen. "'Suppose you head toward me, chief,' said Joe, absorbedly, "'Aim to pass and remember that what you have to estimate is not where I am, but where you have to put on the brakes to stop close by. That's where you use your braking rockets.'" The chief tried it. He came to a stop a quarter-mile past Joe. "'I'm heavy-handed,' said his voice, disgustedly. "'I'll try to join you,' said Joe. He did try. He stopped a little short. The two weird objects drifted almost together. The chief was upside down with regard to Joe. Presently, he was side-wise on. "'This takes thinking,' said Joe, ruefully. A voice in his headphones from the platform said, "'That rocket from earth is still accelerating, still at three gravities. It looks like it isn't defective. It might be carrying a man. Hadn't you better come in?' The chief growled, "'We won't be any safer there. I want to get the hang of this.'" Then his voice changed sharply. "'Joe, do you get that?' Joe heard his own voice, very cold. "'I didn't. I do now. Brown, I'd suggest a guided missile at that rocket coming up. If there's a man in it, he's coming to take over guided missiles that'll overtake him and try to smash the platform by direct control, since proximity fuses don't work. I'd smash him as far away as possible.'" Brown's voice came very curt and worried. "'Right!' There was an eruption of rocket fumes from the side of the platform. Something went foaming away toward earth. It dwindled with incredible rapidity. Then Joe said, "'Chief, I think we better go down and meet that rocket. We'll learn to handle these wagons on the way. I think we're going to have a fight on our hands. Whoever's in that rocket isn't coming up just to shake hands with us.'" He steadied the small red vehicle and pointed it for earth. He added, "'I'm firing a six-two solid fuel job, Chief. Counting three. Three. Two. One.'" His mount vanished in rocket fumes, but after six seconds at two gravity's acceleration the rocket burned out. The Chief had fired a matching rocket. They were miles apart, but speeding earthward on very nearly identical courses. The platform grew smaller. That was their only proof of motion. A very, very long time passed. The Chief fired his steering rockets to bring him closer to Joe. It did not work. He had to aim for Joe and fire a blast to move noticeably nearer. Presently he would have to blast again to keep from passing. Joe made calculations in his head. He worried. He and the Chief were speeding earthward away from the platform at more than four miles a minute, but it was not enough. The manned rocket was accelerating at a great deal more than that rate, and if the platform's enemies down on earth had sent a manned rocket up to destroy the platform the man in it would have ways of defending himself. He would expect guided missiles, but he probably wouldn't expect to be attacked by space wagons. Joe said suddenly, Chief, I'm going to burn a twelve-two. We've got to match velocities coming back. Join me? Three, two, one. He fired a twelve-two. Twelve seconds burning, two gravities acceleration. It built up a speed away from the platform to a rate which would have been breathless on earth, but here there was no sensation of motion, and the distances were enormous. Things which happen in space happen with insensate violence and incredible swiftness. But long, long, long intervals elapse between events. The twelve-two rocket burned out. The Chief had matched that also. Brown's voice in the headphone said, The rocket's cut acceleration. It's floating up now. It should reach our orbit fifty miles behind us, but our missile should hit it in forty seconds. I wouldn't bet on that, said Joe coldly. Figure interception data for the Chief and me. Make it fast. He spotted the Chief a dozen miles away and burning his steering rockets to close again. The Chief had the hang of it now. He didn't try to steer. He drove toward Joe. But nothing happened. And nothing happened. And nothing happened. The two tiny space wagons were ninety miles from the platform, which was now merely a glittering speck, hardly brighter than the brightest stars. There was a flare of light to earthward. It was brighter than the sun. The light vanished. Brown's voice came in the headphones. Our missile went off two hundred miles short. He sent an interceptor to set it off. Then he's dangerous, said Joe. There'll be war rockets coming up any second now for him to control from right at hand. We won't be fighting rockets controlled from four thousand miles away. They found proximity fuses don't work, so he's going to work in close. Give us our course and data quick. The Chief and I have got to try to smash things. The two tiny space wagons, like stick insects in form, absurdly painted a brilliant red, seemed inordinately lonely. It was hardly possible to pick out the platform with the naked eyes. The earth was thousands of miles below. Joe and the Chief, in spacesuits, rode tiny metal frameworks in an emptiness more vast, more lonely, more terrible than either could have imagined. Then the war rockets started up. There were eight of them. They came out to do murder at ten gravities acceleration. End of Chapter 8