Space Tug

hated the rocket and the people who had built it. Joe said between his teeth, "We

ave blue fire at their edges and smell of sulphur. Mike the midget sa

d be probably 200 miles ahead and correspondingly higher. The rocket was accelerating furiously.

r of miles the blast of its atomic warhead would vaporize any substance that could exist. And of course the ship could not turn back. Even the expenditure of all its landing-rockets could not bring twenty t

er could

ect it. But an object in space moves on a course which is the sum of all its previous speeds and courses. Joe's ship was moving eastward above the Earth at so many miles per second. If he drove north-at a right angle to his present cou

merely to foil its makers. At one moment, he was hardly aware of anything but his own fury and the frantic desire to frustrate the rocket at any cost. The next instan

eleration! Steering rockets ready, Chief! Get set to help, Haney! I don't know

feverish haste. The ship was then a quarter of the way to the meeting pl

controls. The little ship spun in emptiness. Its bow turne

s been gaining-altitude maybe-two minutes. It's lighter than when-it st

ld speed up as its fuel burned. It might be accelerating at fifteen gravities now, and have an attained velocity of four miles a seco

Watch out the port! Ar

eyes to watch it. Mike spoke curtly into the microphone broadcasting to ground. He was reporting each action and orde

much nearer, which was the war rocket. Mike made a dot on the screen with a grease pencil wher

ing-which moved inexorably toward the center of the radar screen.

Mike shrilly. "We may m

d Joe. "Landing rockets

g flood of clouds and solidity which was the Earth. The ship plunged downward with all its power. It was intolerable-and ten time

in when he gasped, "Looks-like this does it, Joe!" Seconds later he

instant the flowing confusion which was Earth was blotted out. Then it was visible again. The ship w

-going to turn the ship's head back on our-course. We can't slo

ly back where it had come from. It was the sensation they'd felt when the ship took off from Earth, so long before. But then the cloud masses and the earth beneath had flowed toward

he ship were lighter-or we had more power-

lood engorging his lips and bloating his cheeks. After one instant he closed his eyes fiercely. They felt as if they would pop out of h

y have climbed forward. It was a horrible task to let himself down, with triple

hand-line slipped and he had to sustain the drag of nearly six hundred pounds

e tilted the bow down a little farther, so th

ion chair. He let himself

barked: "What's t

ocket flames," he gasped, "pushed back-wind-splash on

ly sternward despite its rockets, that the rocket flames might be splashed out by the wind. Instead of streaking astern in a lance-like shape, they might be pushed out like a rocket blast when it hits the earth in a guided missile take-off. Such a blast spreads out flat in all directions. Here

ee gravities now. If part of the ship burned or melted or was torn away, the rocket thrust might speed the cabin up

ney proposed. They were due to

30 it began to shake and tremble. At 25 miles high there was as horrible a vibration and as deadly a deceleration as at the air-graze. At 12 miles above the surface of the Earth the hull temperature indicators showed the hind part of the hull at red heat. The ship happened to be traveling backward at several times the speed of sound, an

empty cargo space was instantly filled

ble jerking of the cabin that remained. That fraction of the ship received the full forc

y d

tantly and as peacefully as i

e separation of the ship into two fragments. Radars on the ground are authority for this. Those few seconds were extremely important. The cabin lost an add

as below orbital velocity, and wind-resistance slowed it. Even so, it traveled 47 miles to the east i

an ejection seat, a jet pilot can be shot out of a plane traveling over Mach one, and live to tell about it. This crumpling cabin fell fast, but Joe stuffed Mike in an ejection seat and shot him out. He and the Chief dragged Haney to a seat,

ury because he'd been treated with special favor. The Chief and Joe landed almost together. After a long time, Joe staggered out of

sted, in a canebrake. He hadn't even bothered to d