Space Tug
. Completely invisible beams of microwaves lanced upward. Atop the Shed, in the communication room, there was the busy quiet of absolute intentness. Signals came down and were translated into visibl
risply into microphones, and thei
ly Holt and Joe's father waited together, watching the sky. Sally w
ll right," said S
f course he will!" But
pen to him now!" s
not," said
to them said abruptl
inned out to nothingness, but its nearest part flared out and flared o
d the speaker harsh
e a crippled plane falling flaming from the
ylight. At three miles the light was unbearably bright. At two, the light winked out
out again. Then it checked. Visibly, its descent was slowed. It
ever, and it went steadily downward, touched the ground, and stayed there spurting terrible incandesce
bulldozer lowered its wide blade some fifty yards from the ship. It pushed a huge mass of earth before it, covering over the scorched and impossibly hot sand about the rocket's
rt opened and Joe s
began to
s quarters. Major Holt was ther
nife and fork again, and to pick food up from
e Platform--" M
t his up to three-quarters gravity. They get tired, wearing the harness. They sleep better. Everything's f
adily, "You'll stay on
ed." He added anxiously, "And, sir-they'll have to take the Moonship off in a spiral orbit. She can't go straight up! That means she's got to pass over enemy territory, and-we've got to have a real escort for her. A fighting escort. It's planned for the space tug t
nough, surely!
oing to take over the Moon. I-can't miss havin
n will be a Navy enterprise. Space Exploration Project facilities are being used to prepar
d startle
ked to go along to the Platform as an auxiliary vessel. For purposes of assisting in the landing of the Moonship at the Platform, you understand. You'll
y unreadable. "I think," he said
vessel. The doctrine of the freedom of space-like the freedom of the seas-will be promulgated. And the United States will say that a United States naval task force is starting off into space on an official mission. T
It's daring somebody to
s to be firm-now that we can back it up. I
just the same," said Joe slowly,
," said
dged out of the trip. They won't like it. But they'd like backing out sti
nge at all, but Joe had an odd feel
ed. "You-you'll have to go aloft once mo
Joe every second. Later, out on the porch of the major's quarter
into that circle stayed in. Most people were kept out. All that anyone outside could discover was that enormous quantities of cryptic material had poured and still were pouring into the Shed. But this time security was genuinely ti
supplied by Security, with ink supplied by Security, and while watched by Security officers. His letter was censored by Major H
wise. They had to pass on data on everything from how to walk to how to drink coffee, how to eat, sleep, why one should wear gravity harness, and the manners and customs of ships in space. They had to show why in space fighting a sh
ut in spite of everything he managed to talk at some length with Sally. He found himself curiously anxious to discuss any
nship would take off for space on the following day. H
ot a base on the Moon, it'll be a good job done. There will be one thing that nobody can stop! Everybody's been livi
at him in t
ome back we can do some serious talking about-well
nd awfully silly, Joe. I know what kind of a career I want!
a letter from his girl. I don't know w
rson! If he'll let me, I'll write to his girl myself and-try to make frie
aid warmly. "You're s
im enigmatically
t seems to escape your
ving men who had ever made a round trip to the Platform and back. But now there was the Moonship to go farther than they'd been allowed. It was even clumsier in
lace the rockets it would burn in this take-off and it could go on out to emptiness.
it came to a fight, and to tow the Moonship to its wharf-the Platform-a
loor of the Shed to the sound
ots. Her second-stage rockets were also of the nonpoisonous variety, because she fired
the third-stage rockets ro
400 miles below and 500 miles behind. When the Moonship crossed Arab
Chief had reloaded the firing racks from inside the ship, and now were intent upon control boards and radar. They pressed buttons. One by one, little puffs of sm
there were more little weapons floating with them. One screen of missiles hurtled on before the space tug, and anot
ship and its attendants went across the Pacific, still rising. Above the longitude of Washington, the space tug left its
astic hoses filled with air. Very, very gently indeed, the great, bulbous Platfo
plunged forward through emptiness, swerved with a remarkable precision, and headed out for emptiness beyond the Platform's orbit. Their function had
dered that they were as far out as they were likely to go, they began to blow up. Spe
form by then. They'd brought up mail fo
ficial world with very few inhabitants. With twenty-five naval ratings about, plus the f
It was three full Earthdays before the stores intended for the journey to the Moon and the maintenance of a base there really bega
e. He was considered to be prepared for command of the Moonship by that experience. So now he turned over command of the Platform
have gotten along in the Navy if he hadn't. He'd tried to do the same thing in the Platform, and it wasn't practical. But he ignored all differences between Joe and himself.
ted Lieutenant Brown without first gently detaching his magnet-soled shoes from the floor. When a man was free, a really snappy salute gave a diverting result. The man's body tilted forward to meet his rising arm, the upward impetus was one-sided, and every man who saluted Brown immediately made a spectacular kowtow which left him rigidly at salute floating somewhere overhead with his back to Lieutenant Bro
utes in weightlessness
s hull alone called for long hours in space suits. During this time Mike floated nearby in a space wagon. One of the Navy men was a trifle overcourageous.
ck. After that ther
he Platform seemed extraordinarily crowded. On the fourteenth day the two ships sealed off and sep
ker signal came across the five-mile interval.
snapped at just the proper instant, that speed alone would have carried the Moonship all the way to its destination. But they couldn't. So the Moonship blasted to increase its orbital speed. It would swing out and out, and as the Earth's pull grew weaker with distance the sa
e its fall against a gravity one-sixth that of E
ing masses of rocket fumes as the s
heavily when the naked eye could no longer pi
t had been overshadowed by himself and Haney and the Chief and Mike. A later achievement always makes an earlie
f and Mike, would still be remembered in a language Joe couldn't speak, in a small vil
Mike stared out the
Chief. "We shoulda been part of the
eeded to be cured of fee
n killed. If we had been killed, Mike wouldn't have figured out the metal-concrete business. But for him, that Moonship wouldn't even be a gleam in anybody's eye. And if the Chief hadn't blown up that manned rocket we fought i
arded him with irony. Mike said, "Yeah. Ha
good and she oughta pick herself out a guy that'll amount to something some day." He hit Joe between the shoulders. "Sure! Just a bum, Jo
o the effect that the inhabitants of the kingdom of Siam were never known to wash their dishes. Haney chimed in, and Mike. They were all very close together, and they were not at all impressive. But it hit Joe very hard, this sudden knowled
od. It fel
ction, was wiped out by news that came bac
cked by visual and radar observation. The computations were done by electronic brains the Moonship could no
which statistics and computations could never have compensated. It was a human error. At the sig
n't matter. After years of planning and working and dreaming,
It would reach the Moon. But it wouldn't land in Aristarchus crater as planned. It would crash. If every rocket remaining mounted on the hull were to be fir
ion ought to be visible from Earth with a fairly good telescope. It w
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