"I saw one," said Joe. "When they cleaned up the wreck at the airfield,
they heaved up the crates with a crane. The slings were twisted. Every
crate spun as it rose. But not one wobbled! They found their own centers
of gravity and spun around them!"
The Chief scowled, deep in thought. Then his face went blank.
"By the holy mud turtle!" he grunted. "I get it!"
Joe said, with very great pains not to seem triumphant, "Instead of
spinning the shaft and trimming the rotor, we'll spin the rotor and trim
the shaft. We'll form the shaft around the center of gravity, instead of
trying to move the center of gravity to the middle of the shaft. We'll
spin the rotors on a flexible bearing base. I think it'll work."
Surprisingly, it was Mike the midget who said warmly, "You got it! Yes,
sir, you got it!"
The Chief took a deep breath. "Yeah! And d'you know how I know? The
Plant built a high-speed centrifuge once. Remember?" He grinned with the
triumph Joe concealed. "It was just a plate with a shaft in the middle.
There were vanes on the plate. It fitted in a shaft hole that was much
too big. They blew compressed air up the shaft hole. It floated the
plate up, the air hit the vanes and spun the plate--and it ran as sweet
as honey! Balanced itself and didn't wobble a bit! We'll do something
like that! Sure!"
"Will you work on it with me?" asked Joe. "We'll need a sort of
crew--three or four altogether. Have to figure out the stuff we need. I
can ask for anybody I want. I'm asking for you. You pick the others."
The Chief grinned broadly. "Any objections, Haney? You and Mike and me
and Joe here? Look!"
He pulled a pencil out of his pocket. He started to draw on the plastic
table top, and then took a paper napkin instead.
"Something like this----"
The steaks came, sizzling on the platters they'd been cooked in. The
outside was seared, and the inside was hot and deliciously rare.
Intellectual exercises like the designing of a machine-tool operation
could not compete with such aromas and sights and sounds. The four of
them fell to.
But they talked as they ate. Absorbed and often with their mouths full,
frequently with imperfect articulation, but with deepening satisfaction
as the steaks vanished and the method they'd use took form in their
minds. It wouldn't be wholly simple, of course. When the rotors were
spinning about their centers of gravity, trimming off the shaft would
change the center of gravity. But the change would be infinitely less
than trimming off the rotors' rims. If they spun the rotors and used an
abrasive on the high side of the shaft as it turned....
"Going to have precession!" warned Mike. "Have to have a polishing
surface. Quarter turn behind the cutter. That'll hold it."
Joe only remembered afterward to be astonished that Mike would know gyro
theory. At the moment he merely swallowed quickly to get the words out.
"Right! And if we cut too far down we can plate the bearing up to
thickness and cut it down again----"
"Plate it up with iridium," said the Chief. He waved a steak knife.
"Man! This is gonna be fun! No tolerance you say, Joe?"
"No tolerance," agreed Joe. "Accurate within the limits of measurement."
The Chief beamed. The Platform was a challenge to all of humanity. The
pilot gyro was essential to the functioning of the Platform. To provide
that necessity against impossible obstacles was a challenge to the four
who were undertaking it.
"Some fun!" repeated the Chief, blissfully.
They ate their steaks, talking. They consumed huge slabs of apple pie
with preposterous mounds of ice cream on top, still talking urgently.
They drank coffee, interrupting each other to draw diagrams. They used
up all the paper napkins, and were still at it when someone came heavily
toward the table. It was the stocky man who had fought with Haney on the
Platform that day. Braun.
He tapped Haney on the shoulder. The four at the table looked up.
"We hadda fight today," said Braun in a queer voice. He was oddly pale.
"We didn't finish. You wanna finish?"
Haney growled.
"That was a fool business," he said angrily. "That ain't any place to
fight, up on the job! You know it!"
"Yeah," said Braun in the same odd voice. "You wanna finish it now?"
Haney said formidably: "I'm not dodgin' any fight. I didn't dodge it
then. I'm not dodgin' it now. You picked it. It was crazy! But if you
got over the craziness----"
Braun smiled a remarkably peculiar smile. "I'm still crazy. We finish,
huh?"
Haney pushed back his chair and stood up grimly. "Okay, we finish it!
You coulda killed me. I coulda killed you too, with that fall ready for
either of us."
"Sure! Too bad nobody got killed," said Braun.
"You fellas wait," said Haney angrily to Joe and the rest. "There's a
storeroom out back. Sid'll let us use it."
But the Chief pushed back his chair.
"Uh-uh," he said, shaking his head. "We're watchin' this."
Haney spoke with elaborate courtesy: "You mind, Braun? Want to get some
friends of yours, too?"
"I got no friends," said Braun. "Let's go."
The Chief went authoritatively to the owner of Sid's Steak Joint. He
paid the bill, talking. The owner of the place negligently jerked his
thumb toward the rear. This was not an unparalleled request--for the use
of a storeroom so that two men could batter each other undisturbed.
Bootstrap was a law-abiding town, because to get fired from work on the
Platform was to lose a place in the most important job in history. So it
was inevitable that the settlement of quarrels in private should become
commonplace.
The Chief leading, they filed through the kitchen and out of doors. The
storeroom lay beyond. The Chief went in and switched on the light. He
looked about and was satisfied. It was almost empty, save for stacked
cartons in one corner. Braun was already taking off his coat.
"You want rounds and stuff?" demanded the Chief.
"I want fight," said Braun thickly.
"Okay, then," snapped the Chief. "No kickin' or gougin'. A man's down,
he has a chance to get up. That's all the rules. Right?"
Haney, stripping off his coat in turn, grunted an assent. He handed his
coat to Joe. He faced his antagonist.
It was a curious atmosphere for a fight. There were merely the plank
walls of the storeroom with a single dangling light in the middle and an
unswept floor beneath. The Chief stood in the doorway, scowling. This
didn't feel right. There was not enough hatred in evidence to justify
it. There was doggedness and resolution enough, but Braun was deathly
white and if his face was contorted--and it was--it was not with the
lust to batter and injure and maim. It was something else.
The two men faced each other. And then the stocky, swarthy Braun swung
at Haney. The blow had sting in it but nothing more. It almost looked as
if Braun were trying to work himself up to the fight he'd insisted on
finishing. Haney countered with a roundhouse blow that glanced off
Braun's cheek. And then they bore in at each other, slugging without
science or skill.
Joe watched. Braun launched a blow that hurt, but Haney sent him reeling
back. He came in doggedly again, and swung and swung, but he had no idea
of boxing. His only idea was to slug. He did slug. Haney had been
peevish rather than angry. Now he began to glower. He began to take the
fight to Braun.
He knocked Braun down. Braun staggered up and rushed. A wildly flailing
fist landed on Haney's ear. He doubled Braun up with a wallop to the
midsection. Braun came back, fists swinging.
Haney closed one eye for him. He came back. Haney shook him from head to
foot with a chest blow. He came back. Haney split his lip and loosened a
tooth. He came back.
The Chief said sourly: "This ain't a fight. Quit it, Haney! He don't
know how!"
Haney tried to draw away, but Braun swarmed on him, striking fiercely
until Haney had to floor him again. He dragged himself up and rushed at
Haney--and was knocked down again. Haney stood over him, panting
furiously.
"Quit it, y'fool! What's the matter with you?"
Braun started to get up again. The Chief interfered and held him, while
Haney glared.
"He ain't going to fight any more, Braun," pronounced the Chief firmly.
"You ain't got a chance. This fight's over. You had enough."
Braun was bloody and horribly battered, but he panted: "He's got
enough?"
"Are you out o' your head?" demanded the Chief. "He ain't got a mark on
him!"
"I ain't--got enough," panted Braun, "till he's got--enough!"
His breath was coming in soblike gasps, the result of body blows. It
hadn't been a fight but a beating, administered by Haney. But Braun
struggled to get up.
Mike the midget said brittlely: "You got enough, Haney. You're
satisfied. Tell him so."
"Sure I'm satisfied," snorted Haney. "I don't want to hit him any more.
I got enough of that!"