Space Tug

ities for fourteen seconds had been a ghastly ordeal. Three gravities for minutes built up to something nearly as bad. Joe's heart

for one small point. The refractory was not all exactly alike. Some parts of it crumbled away faster, leaving a pattern of baffles which acted like a maxim silencer on a rifle, or like an automobile muffler. The baffles set up eddies in the gas stream and produced exactly the effect of a rocket motor's throat. But the baffles themselves crumbled and were flung astern, so that th

. But now and again they reinforce each other and if uncorrected will throw a ship off course. Gyros can't handle such effects. So Joe had to w

heavily. The beating of his heart became such a heavy pounding that it seemed that his whole body shook with it. He had to do infinitely fine precisi

nt on and on for what s

"Everything is in the clear. In ten seconds

nted,

en ... six ... five ... four ..

and they attained an acceleration of fifty gravities once they were relieved of all load but their own substance. They had to be released lest one

ing heart beat twice with the violence the weight had called for, though weight had ended. It seeme

e Chief was harder hit. Mike's small body had taken the strain best of all, and he would use the fact later in shrill a

eight. It felt as if they and the ship about them were falling together down an abyss which must have a bottom. Actual

hastily. But the feeling persisted. He unstrapped himself from his seat. He stood up-and floated to the ceiling of the cabin. But there was of cours

omething. In his absorption, he did not notice which way his heels went. He suddenly noticed that his compa

rts remained clear. Through one of them he saw the Earth seemingly at arm's length somewhere off. Not up, not down. Simply out from where he was. It filled all the space that the porthole showed. It was a gigant

t moved inward from the edge of his field

the ship had not been aloft nearly as much as half an hour. "Africa's just coming into sight

space, which was not blackness because it was a carpet of jewels. They were infinite in number

were floating rather ridiculously in mid-air with no particular relationship to an

" said Joe, "even though I'v

reat deal of the ultraviolet the sun gave off. But even so, to look at the sun d

he weight of its diaphragm at three gravities. Now it blasted unintell

lantly, "and our speed's okay. We'll reach maximum altitude in an hour and thir

id Joe abs

. It had been reached by just four human beings before them. The tannishness which was t

nd that turned his body-and fumbled wildly. He caught hold of the back as he went by, then held on and found himself turning a grandly dignified somersault. He wound up in a remarkably fool

reenish, but h

augh-not when my stom

very slowly, with his legs floating indecorously in entirely unintended kicks. He

ns," he told Mike as he

y, Mike sw

fly. "We have ended our take-off acceleration. You

e useful, but observations were necessary. He had to report every detail of the condition of his ship and every instrument-reading because anything might go wrong, and at any instant. Anything that

ound that if his mind concentrated fully on something else, it jerked back to panic and the feel of falling. But the crew of the Space Platform-now out i

would be mere patches in a telescope. Their task now was to wait until their orbit curved into accordance with that of the Platform and they kept their rendezvous. The artificial satellite was swinging up behind them, and was only a quarter-circle abou

oice came on t

nite information that more than ten days ago the-ah-enemies of our Space Exploration Project-" even on a tight beam to the small spaceship, Major Holt did not name the nation everybody knew was most desperately resolved to smash space exploration

good," s

of the fumbling uncertainty the others had displayed-but he'd been a member of a midget acrobatic team before he went to work

ry in question that you are on the way up. In that case, if it's even faintly possible

ea," said Joe dourly.

id. "And do you realize that if you can't un

id Joe. "

ere. It would need no power to remain 4,000 miles out from Earth. But it would take power to come down. The take-off rockets had been built to drive the ship with all its contents until it attained that needed orbital veloc

wer it needed to get out to the Platform. And

ir cargo-and they could only unload in the ship-l

"This is all most irreg

ent to overhear. But Mike was zestfully spinning like a pin-wheel in the middle of the air of the control cabin. He was showing the

, Sa

ou, Joe. I think you've got to figure out something. I haven't the

t to luck," admitted Joe ruefully. "We

f I were with you, you wouldn

tted Joe. "I'd feel respon

ted to smash our cities in war! But if you can reach the Platform and arm it for defense, there won't be any war! Half the world would

d Joe humbly. "

rder, but it can also be very thrilling. One can play up splendidly to a dramatic picture of doom. It is possible to be one's own audience and admire on

how long before we ought

aught a hand-hold, and flicked h

es, fifty se

ds which can reach the Platform. They were shipped t

d angry. Haney growled, "They smash

latform when we get to it! They smash us both u

take time to get in the airlock and unload our guided missiles and get them in the Platform's launching-tubes. I'd guess an hour. One bomb sh

eah. Sitting ducks all th

," said Joe. "See if you can g

in turn would swing the tight-beam transmitter to the target the computer worked out, He threw a switch and said sharply, "Ca

n another problem. He looked

quietly, "and as its rockets burn away it can go up a lot higher than that.

ne: "Right!" To Joe he said,

efully, "that there may be some guided missiles coming up from Earth to smash us as we meet. You're

our rockets headed out from near the sunset-line in the Pacific. Assuming s

thing about them?"

kets you still possess. If you fire them immediately, you will pass our scheduled meeting-place some hundreds of miles ahead of us.

good. It'll be a month before the next ship can be finish

re sent up at the same instant from four separate launching sites. Probably as many submarines at the corners of a hundre

Joe, "that we

caustic voice, "that

ed again. The three members of

Joe carefully. "They'll curve together where we

his jaws together. Mike's express

they could imagine being free. But the Platform and the space exploration project in general meant benefits past computing for everybody, in time. To send ships into space for necessary but dangerous experiments with atomic energy was a purpose every man should want to help forward. To bring peace on Earth was surely an objective no man could willingly or sanely combat

could send back an eloquent, defiant message to Earth saying that the four of them did not regret their journey into space, though they were doomed to be killed by the enemies of their

rse we've got missiles of our own on board, but we can't launch or control them. Absolutely the only thing we can cho

wants, one tries to make what he can do produce the results he wants. But it

nces. There was just one distinctly remote possibility. He told the others what it was. Mike's eyes flame

of thing. But I'm worried about calling back in the clear. A bea

Joe. There's a tribesman of mine in the Shed. Get Char

ne squarely in its bow-ports, now poured down slantingly from behind. The steel plates of the ship gleamed brightly. Below it lay the sunlit Ear

bed upward for three full revolutions. Earth was now 3,000 miles below and appeared as the most gigantic of possible

aveled, and then struck the strange shape of the Platform. They splashed from it. Some of them rebounded to Earth,

ey Red Fox. They talked in Mohawk, which is an Algonquin Indian language, agglutinative, complicated, and not to be learned in ten easy lessons. It was not a language which eavesdroppers were

was visibly farther away. Behind the ship the Atlantic with its stately cloud-formations was sunlit to the very edge of its being. Ahead, t

o-shaped shining ship and the bulging glowing metal satellite floated with a seeming vast deliberation in emptiness, while the most gigantic of possible round objects filled a

ace was nearly at the center of the planet, an

could just be seen to be jetting into existence from four separate points, two a little ahead of the others. They came out from Earth at a rate which seemed remarkably deliberate until one saw with what fury the rocket-fumes spat out to form the whitis

mped to its body and with stubby fins that had no possible utility out of air. The other was large and clumsy to look at, but very, very stately indeed in its p

not change, of course. In the absence of air, it could tumble indefinitely without any ill effect. It was in a trajectory instead of on a co

nfinitesimal radar-bowl moved on the little ship. Tight-beam waves fli

t. The rockets were now glinting missiles le

The rockets rushed upward.... There were minute

flame and fumes more thick and coiling than even the smoke of the bombs.

flew free-flung themselves unburdened at the rockets which cam

he attacking robot things. They were unguided, of necessity, but the robot bombs had to be equipped with proximity fuses. No remote control could be so accurate as to determine the best moment for deton

anding-rockets p

cked flares of pure atomic fire sprang into being between the Platform and Earth. Each was brighter than the sun. For the fra

t of incandescent gases, which were snat

ing Platform, gigantic in size to anything close by. The other was the small spaceship

from the Platform, due to the instant's tug

smoke. It began to cancel out its velocity away from the