Space Tug Part 19

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.

Joe flung a leg over his eccentric, red-painted mount. He clipped his safety-belt, plugged in his suit air-supply to the s.p.a.ce wagon's tanks, and spoke into his helmet transmitter.

"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 s.h.i.+p we rode up. But only if it's practical! Not otherwise!"

The Chief said something in Mohawk. He sounded indignant.

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 s.p.a.ce.

Instead, there came a sharp voice in his helmet-phones. It was Brown.

"_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!_"

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 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:

"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 s.h.i.+p from the Shed and these have to be tested first. Give me ten minutes."

He heard the Chief grumbling to himself. But one tested s.p.a.ce wagon was better than none.

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 s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.s. One brief push of the rockets sent it floating out of the lock. It was in s.p.a.ce. It kept on.

Joe felt a peculiar twinge of panic. n.o.body who is accustomed only to Earth can quite realize at the beginning the conditions of handling vehicles in s.p.a.ce. But Joe cracked the braking rockets. He stopped. He hung seemingly motionless in s.p.a.ce. The Platform was a good half-mile away.

He tried the gyros, and the s.p.a.ce 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.

"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."

The Chief's voice came booming:

"_Right, Joe! Here I come!_"

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 s.p.a.ce, 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.

"Suppose you head toward me, Chief," said Joe absorbedly. "Aim to pa.s.s, 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."

The Chief tried it. He came to a stop a quarter-mile past Joe.

"_I'm heavy-handed_," said his voice disgustedly.

"I'll try to join you," said Joe.

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.

"This takes thinking," said Joe ruefully.

A voice in his headphones, from the Platform, said:

"_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?_"

The Chief growled: "_We won't be any safer there! I want to get the hang of this._" Then his voice changed sharply. "_Joe! D'you get that?_"

Joe heard his own voice, very cold.

"I didn't. I do now. Brown, I'd suggest a guided missile 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."

Brown's voice came very curt and worried. "_Right._"

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:

"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."

He steadied the small red vehicle and pointed it for Earth. He added:

"I'm firing a six-two solid-fuel job, Chief. Counting three.

Three--two--one."

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.

The Platform grew smaller. That was their only proof of motion.

A very, very long time pa.s.sed. 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 pa.s.sing.

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 s.p.a.ce wagons.

Joe said suddenly:

"Chief! I'm going to burn a twelve-two. We've got to match velocities coming back. Join me? Three--two--one."

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 s.p.a.ce 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.

Brown's voice in the headphones said, "_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 wouldn't bet on that," said Joe coldly. "Figure interception data for the Chief and me. Make it fast!"

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.

But nothing happened. And nothing happened. And nothing happened. The two tiny s.p.a.ce wagons were 90 miles from the Platform, which was now merely a glittering speck, hardly brighter than the brightest stars.

There was a flare of light to Earthward. It was brighter than the sun.

The light vanished.

Brown's voice came in the headphones, "_Our missile went off 200 miles short! He sent an interceptor to set it off!_"