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