<h2><SPAN name="c8" id="c8"></SPAN><i>8</i></h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The squadron, though, went bumbling upward. In the
manned 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 manned 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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></SPAN></span>
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 space ship designed for maneuvering,
and their experience consisted of a single trip.</p>
<p>The jet stream was higher this time than on that other
journey now two months past. They blundered into it at
36,000 feet. Joe's headphones buzzed tinnily. 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.</p>
<p>The last was not a precision job. On the way up Joe protested,
"Somebody's ship—Number Four—is lagging! Snap it
up!"</p>
<p>Mike said crisply, "Got it, Joe. Coming up!"</p>
<p>"The Shed says three separate ships are getting out of formation.
And we need due east pointing. Check it."</p>
<p>The Chief muttered, "Something whacky here ... come
round, you! Okay, Joe."</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>"<i>You are at 65,000 feet. Your rate-of-climb curve is flattening.
You should fire your jatos when practical. You have some
leeway in rocket power.</i>"</p>
<p>Joe spoke into the extraordinary maze of noise waves and
pressure systems in the air of the cabin.</p>
<p>"We should blast. I'm throwing in the series circuit for
jatos. Try to line up. We want the drones above us and with
a spread, remember! Go to it!"</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Nothing happened. He hadn't expected it. The seven ships
had to keep in formation. They had to start off on one course—with<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></SPAN></span>
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 jatos fire. Then all would blast together.</p>
<p>The pilots in 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. But
gradually they seemed to arrive at an uncertain unanimity.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Roarings and howlings of pushpots. Wobblings and heart-breaking
clumsinesses of the drone-ships. They hung in the
sky while the pushpots used up their fuel.</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The deadline came closer and closer. Joe snapped:</p>
<p>"Take a degree leeway. We've got ten seconds."</p>
<p>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. Mike had both firing
buttons depressed.... The Chief pushed down his second
button, quietly.</p>
<p>There was a monstrous impact. Every jato in every pushpot
about every launching cage fired at once. Joe felt himself<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></SPAN></span>
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 forepart 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.</p>
<p>It was very bad. It seemed to last for centuries.</p>
<p>Then the jatos 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.</p>
<p>There were pantings in the cabin about him. The ship fell.
It happened to be going up, but the sensation and the fact was
free fall. Joe had been through this before, too. He gasped
for breath and croaked, "Drones?"</p>
<p>"Right," said Haney.</p>
<p>Mike panted anxiously, "Four's off course. I'll fix it."</p>
<p>The Chief grunted guttural Mohawk. His hands stirred on
the panel for remote control of the drones he had to handle.</p>
<p>"Crazy!" he growled. "Got it now, Joe. Fire when ready."</p>
<p>"Okay, Mike?"</p>
<p>A half-second pause.</p>
<p>"Okay!"</p>
<p>Joe 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 mother-ship 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.
But Joe was relieved, this time, of the need to report back instrument-readings.
A telemetering device took care of that.</p>
<p>The take-off rockets blasted and blasted and blasted. The
mere matter of staying alive grew very tedious. The ordeal
seemed to last for centuries. Actually it could be measured<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></SPAN></span>
only in minutes. But it seemed millennia before the headphones
said, staccato fashion: "<i>You are on course and will
reach speed in fourteen seconds. I will count for you.</i>"</p>
<p>"Relays for rocket release," panted Joe. "Throw 'em over!"</p>
<p>Three hands moved to obey. Joe could release the drive
rockets on all seven ships at will.</p>
<p>The voice counted:</p>
<p>"<i>Ten ... nine ... eight ... seven ... six ... five
... four ... three ... two ... one ... cut!</i>"</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>There was again no weight.</p>
<p>This time there was no resting. No eager gazing out the
cabin ports. Now they weren't curious. They'd had over a
month in space, and something like sixteen days back on
Earth, and now they were back in space again.</p>
<p>Mike and Haney and the Chief worked doggedly at their
control boards. The radar bowls 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 mother-ship.</p>
<p>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
timed 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....</p>
<p>Joe spoke into the microphone: "Reporting everything all
right so far. But you know it."</p>
<p>The voice from solid ground said, "<i>Report acknowledged.</i>"</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Nothing happened, except that they seemed to be falling
into a bottomless pit and their stomach-muscles knotted and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></SPAN></span>
cramped in purely reflex response to the sensation. Even that
grew tedious.</p>
<p>The headphones said, "<i>You will enter Earth's shadow in
three minutes. Prepare for combat.</i>"</p>
<p>Joe said drily, "We're to prepare for combat."</p>
<p>The Chief growled. "I'd like to do just that!"</p>
<p>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 very ragged formation. Most improbably,
after the long three-gravity acceleration, they were
still within a fifty-mile globe of space. Number Four loitered
behind, but was being brought up by 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.</p>
<p>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 mother-ship turned red. Then it blacked out.</p>
<p>"Shoot the ghosts," said Joe.</p>
<p>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 eighty-four such objects away into the blackness of
Earth's shadow. There were, then, seven ships and eighty-four<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></SPAN></span>
masses of aluminum foil moving through emptiness. They
could not be seen by telescopes.</p>
<p>And radars could not tell ships from masses of aluminum
foil.</p>
<p>If enemy radars came probing upward, they reported ninety-one
space ships in ragged but coherent formation, soaring
through emptiness toward the Platform. And a fleet like that
was too strong to attack.</p>
<p>The radar operators had been prepared to forward details
of the speed and course of a single ship to waiting rocket-launching
submarines half-way across the Pacific. But they
reported to Very High Authority instead.</p>
<p>He received the report of an armada—an incredible fleet—in
space. He didn't believe it. But he didn't dare disbelieve it.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>They joined it. A single man in a space suit, anchored to its
outer plates, directed a plastic hose which stretched out impossibly
far and clamped to one drone with a magnetic grapple.
He 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"Just had reports from Earth," Brown told Joe comfortably.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></SPAN></span>
"The news of your take-off 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 ninety-one 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."</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>"My crew will unload," said Brown, in conscious thoughtfulness.
"You must have gotten pretty well exhausted by that
acceleration."</p>
<p>Joe shook his head. "I think we can handle the freight faster.
We found out a few things by going back to Earth."</p>
<p>A section of plating at the top of the lock—at least it had
been 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 rocketship 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"When we got back," Joe told Brown, "we were practically
invalids. No exercise up here. This time we've brought some
harness to wear. We've some for you, too."</p>
<p>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!"</p>
<p>"Out here," said Joe, "you take no more exercise than an<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></SPAN></span>
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."</p>
<p>Brown frowned.</p>
<p>"Hm. I—ah—I shall ask for instructions on the matter."</p>
<p>He stood erect. He didn't waver on his feet as the others
did. But he wore the same magnetic-soled shoes. Joe knew,
with private amusement, that Brown must have worked hard
to get a dignified stance in weightlessness.</p>
<p>"Mr. Kenmore," said Brown suddenly. "Have you been
assigned a definite rank as yet?"</p>
<p>"Not that I know of," said Joe without interest. "I skipper
the ship I just brought up. But——"</p>
<p>"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 noncommissioned
officer. Are you an enlisted man?"</p>
<p>"Again, not that I know of," Joe told him. "Nor my crew,
either."</p>
<p>Brown looked at once annoyed and distressed.</p>
<p>"It isn't regular!" he objected. "It isn't shipshape! 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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>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 practised that walk, in
private.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"Quite a change, eh?" he said drily. "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."</p>
<p>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 could 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.</p>
<p>"Which," said Joe, "means that you're going to have to be
relieved before too long. But we brought up some gravity-simulator
harness that may help."</p>
<p>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!"</p>
<p>Another drone came in and was unloaded. And another
and another. But the last of them wasn't only unloaded.
Haney took over the Platform's control board and—grinning
to himself—sent faint, especially-tuned short wave 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.</p>
<p>Joe watched out a port as it went hurtling away. The vast<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></SPAN></span>
Earth rolled beneath it. It sped on and vanished. Its fumes
ceased to be visible. Joe told Brent:</p>
<p>"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 sixty 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 short-wave stuff beamed
to it, and repeat it down to Earth. And they can try to jam
that!"</p>
<p>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 nations' 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.</p>
<p>But that was a minor matter, after all. With space ship 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.</p>
<p>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 divers sizes could be attached. They were literally short-range
tow craft for travel in space. They had the stripped,
barren look of farm machinery. So the name "space wagon"
fitted. There were two of them.</p>
<p>"We're putting the pair together," the Chief told Joe.
"Looks kinda peculiar."</p>
<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>The Chief said with a trace too much of casualness: "I'm
kind of looking forward to testing this."</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>The Chief grimaced, but he went back to the assembly of
the spidery device.</p>
<p>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 pulling one's shoulders and
feet together, so that it was as much effort to stand extended—with
one's legs straight out—as to stand upright on Earth. Joe
felt better with a pull on his body.</p>
<p>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 a 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.</p>
<p>After ten 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 space suit could climb into the saddle
of one of these creations, plug in the air-line 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 divers 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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></SPAN></span>
to the Platform. There were reasons why the trick should
be economical, if it should happen to work at all.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>They got into space suits. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"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!"</p>
<p>The Chief said something in Mohawk. He sounded indignant.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Instead, there came a sharp voice in his helmet-phones. It
was Brown. "<i>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!</i>"</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></SPAN></span>
would have no part in it. He wouldn't be needed. He couldn't
help. And there'd be all the elaborate business of checking to
go through again. He said uncomfortably:</p>
<p>"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 won'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."</p>
<p>He heard the Chief grumbling to himself. But one tested
space wagon was better than none.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"Chief," he said wrily, "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."</p>
<p>The Chief's voice came booming:<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"<i>Right, Joe! Here I come!</i>"</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>The Chief tried it. He came to a stop a quarter-mile past
Joe.</p>
<p>"<i>I'm heavy-handed</i>," said his voice disgustedly.</p>
<p>"I'll try to join you," said Joe.</p>
<p>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 sidewise on.</p>
<p>"This takes thinking," said Joe ruefully.</p>
<p>A voice in his headphones, from the Platform, said:</p>
<p>"<i>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?</i>"</p>
<p>The Chief growled: "<i>We won't be any safer there! I want to
get the hang of this.</i>" Then his voice changed sharply. "<i>Joe!
D'you get that?</i>"</p>
<p>Joe heard his own voice, very cold.</p>
<p>"I didn't. I do now. Brown, I'd suggest a guided missile<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></SPAN></span>
at that rocket coming up. If there's a man in it, he's coming
up 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."</p>
<p>Brown's voice came very curt and worried. "<i>Right.</i>"</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>"Chief, I think we'd 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."</p>
<p>He steadied the small red vehicle and pointed it for Earth.
He added:</p>
<p>"I'm firing a six-two solid-fuel job, Chief. Counting three.
Three—two—one."</p>
<p>His mount vanished in rocket fumes. But after six seconds
at two gravities acceleration the rocket burned out. The
Chief had fired a matching rocket. They were miles apart, but
speeding Earthward on very nearly identical courses.</p>
<p>The Platform grew smaller. That was their only proof of
motion.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Joe said suddenly:</p>
<p>"Chief! I'm going to burn a twelve-two. We've got to
match velocities coming back. Join me? Three—two—one."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>He fired a twelve-two. Twelve seconds burning, two gravities
acceleration. It built up his 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.</p>
<p>Brown's voice in the headphones said, "<i>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>"</p>
<p>"I wouldn't bet on that," said Joe coldly. "Figure interception
data for the Chief and me. Make it fast!"</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But nothing happened. And nothing happened. And nothing
happened. The two tiny space wagons were 90 miles from
the Platform, which was now merely a glittering speck, hardly
brighter than the brightest stars.</p>
<p>There was a flare of light to Earthward. It was brighter than
the sun. The light vanished.</p>
<p>Brown's voice came in the headphones, "<i>Our missile went
off 200 miles short! He sent an interceptor to set it off!</i>"</p>
<p>"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 4,000
miles away! They've 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!"</p>
<p>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 space suits, rode tiny metal frameworks in an emptiness
more vast, more lonely, more terrible than either could
have imagined.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Then the war rockets started up. There were eight of
them. They came out to do murder at ten gravities acceleration.</p>
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