Project Pegasus
Dr. Gerald Gould, known to the staff as "Gee-Gee," looked more like a
high school football coach than a scientist. His blond hair was cropped
short, and his face was boyish except for a beautifully waxed
military-style mustache. His speech was a remarkable combination of
slang and rocket jargon.
He asked, "Do you know vector analysis?"
Rick shook his head. "No, sir."
"Hmmm. Well, boy-oh, we'll plant you with the electronic cooks in the
spaghetti department. It says in your job application that you've had
plenty of experience in circuit wiring. Roger?"
"Yes, sir." Rick understood that he was to join the technicians in the
wiring department. His eyes kept wandering into the huge shed that
housed the project on which he was to work. He identified rocket
sections, and pretty big ones at that. The rocket was not assembled, but
apparently it would tower several stories into the air when assembly was
complete. One thing puzzled, him, however. One section obviously had
wings. They couldn't be anything else, even though they were tiny and
thin as knives. He hadn't heard anything about rockets with wings.
Dr. Gould saw that he was staring with interest at the activity in the
shed and grinned sympathetically. "Ever see a big rocket before?"
"Only in pictures," Rick replied.
"Well, you'll see plenty of them before we're through here."
Rick hesitated. "Sir, is it okay to ask what this is all about?"
"Sure it's okay. We have three projects underway at present. In the shed
on the left is Orion, which is a two-stage rocket for deep penetration
into the exosphere. It's about ready to shoot. In the shed on the right
is Cetus, a sounding rocket for ionospheric measurements."
Dr. Gould paused. "If you don't get me, speak up and I'll scoop you the
answers. Roger so far?"
Rick nodded. "I'm with you." He understood from the scientist's
explanation that Orion was to travel far into the exosphere, actually
beyond the atmosphere, while Cetus was a smaller, single-stage rocket
for research in the ionosphere, the ionized layer of atmosphere just
beyond the stratosphere. The projects, he realized, were named for
constellations.
"In this shed we have Pegasus."
"Pegasus was a winged horse," Rick commented, "And aren't those airfoils
on that rocket section near the back of the shed? Is that the
connection?"
Dr. Gould chuckled. "Sharp-oh! Those are indeed airfoils. Wings for
Pegasus. Now make with the reason, if you can."
Rick pondered. He knew rockets achieved stability through fins, or
steerable motors, and that wings were no help. Furthermore, there wasn't
enough air for wings to be of use beyond the atmosphere where the big
rockets traveled. He could see no reason for wings, and said so.
"You're not looking far enough ahead," Dr. Gould said severely. "Put on
your spaceman's helmet. Connect up and think. You're on Space Platform
Number One and you want to come home to Terra. What are the wings for?"
Light dawned. Rick's chin dropped on his chest and stayed there. Finally
he gasped, "You mean the wings are to turn the upper section into a
glider in order to land it again?"
Dr. Gould put a hand on his shoulder and nodded gravely. "Ole Gee-Gee is
pleased with you. You have demonstrated something between the ears
besides strawberry Jello. You have just described the objective of
Project Pegasus. We intend to shoot the beast into space and bring the
top stage home again by drone control."
The scientist grew serious. "It's not an easy thing, young Brant. No one
has yet succeeded in getting a big rocket down in one piece. If we can
do it, we'll be one step through the biggest barrier to manned space
flight.
"You will work on wiring in the drone control section. Just remember
that every touch of your soldering iron is critical. Take no chances at
all; everything must be perfect. Do your job and do it well, and someday
you'll be able to say that you made the big horse's wings work when it
really counted. Now come on, and I'll introduce you to Dick Earle and
you can get started."
Dick Earle turned out to be a bigger and darker copy of Gee-Gee. He had
the same crew cut and mustache, but his hair was jet black.
Rick also met Dr. Carleton Bond, a tall, slender man of advanced years
who was a consultant on drone controls, and Frank Miller, a studious,
rather curt young man who was an electronics design engineer.
He began to make some order out of the organization. Gee-Gee Gould was
electronics chief for all three projects. Dick Earle was electronics
chief for Pegasus, under Gould, and there were also electronics chiefs
for Orion and Cetus. Similarly, the projects had air-frame departments,
propulsion departments, instrumentation departments, and administrative
departments.
Each project also had a technical director, who was a sort of
co-ordinator, trouble shooter, and general expert. The technical
directors reported to Dr. John Gordon, on loan from Spindrift, who had
the title of Senior Project Engineer.
Later, Rick explained it to Scotty. "Each project has its own staff, but
there's a top staff that is responsible for all projects. I'm making a
little sense out of it, but people keep showing up that I can't fit into
the organization."
"They're probably support people," Scotty explained. "Seems the base is
divided into two groups; the scientific gang and the support gang. I'm
in support, in the vehicle maintenance section. Lomac runs the whole
support group. Besides transportation, there's the tracking and
monitoring gang--that's what Big Mac and Pancho are in--the machine-shop
gang, and all the housekeeping facilities like the fire department, the
security force, housing and feeding, and so on."
The boys' roommates turned out to be a security officer named Hank
Leeming and one of the janitors, an elderly man of Mexican descent named
Maximilian Rodriguez.
On the second day of work Rick met another interesting character,
although a nonhuman one, and got an additional duty imposed on him.
He was at work installing a tiny servomotor in the drone control unit
when something landed on his head and gripped his hair firmly.
Instinctively he started to swing at it, but Dr. Bond's voice stopped
him in time.
"Easy, Rick! He won't hurt you."
Rick reached up carefully and his hands met fur. He lifted the little
creature down and stared at it, his lips slowly parting in a grin. It
was a tiny monkey no larger than a squirrel, with soft brown fur and
tufted ears. The little animal pulled free, jumped onto Rick's shoulder
and kissed him ecstatically, making happy chirrupy noises.
"What on earth is a monkey doing here?"
Dr. Bond smiled. "Prince Machiavelli is more than a monkey," he replied.
"Actually, he is a true marmoset of the genus _Callithrix_. He is also a
genuine spacemonk."
"A what?"
The elderly scientist smiled. "Spacemonk. The simian equivalent of
spaceman. The Prince has been into space twice now. Fortunately, the
nose section was parachuted down intact both times, so he survived.
Other spacemonks have been less fortunate. He will be our surrogate for
Project Pegasus."
Rick stared at the little creature with increased interest. The marmoset
was to substitute, then, for human occupants of the big rocket. His life
would depend on their ability to get the winged nose section down in one
piece. He stroked the tiny spacemonk gently, and got a contented series
of chirps in response.
Dick Earle walked in and smiled as the monkey snuggled down happily in
Rick's cupped hands. "Looks as if you've made a friend, Rick. Good. In
addition to your other duties you can take over as the monk's keeper. He
won't be any trouble. Sometimes I think he has better manners than some
of the staff." Earle turned and walked out again.
Rick stared after him. "What was that last crack about?"
Dr. Bond smiled. "Dick has his problems. I won't gossip, but you'll soon
see what I mean."
The elderly consultant's prediction came true in short order. The next
day, Rick ran headlong into an unwarranted and particularly nasty
dressing down at the hands of Frank Miller. Rick, annoyed with himself
for having done a rather poor job of connecting up the servomotor, was
busily ripping it out when Miller came over to see what he was doing.
Without waiting for an explanation, the design engineer launched into a
tirade. Rick's face slowly reddened and his temper grew frayed. It was
so completely unjust that he was on the verge of swinging at the
engineer when Dick Earle walked in.
Earle asked crisply, "What's this all about?"
Miller turned on him. "You're supposed to be in charge here, but you let
sloppy work like this go on! What good does it do for me to design
circuits if--"
Earle cut him off. "Shut up, Frank. Rick, what's your story?"
Rick clenched his hands. "I installed this servo, and didn't do a clean
job of it. It was pretty sloppy. So I pulled it out to do it over again.
I won't settle for anything less than perfect work. But he came along
and jumped on me without letting me explain what I was doing."
Earle nodded. "All right. Go ahead with your work. Frank, you are not
this boy's supervisor. Let him alone."
Miller glared at the electronics chief, then turned on his heel and
stalked out of the shop. Earle watched him go, his pleasant face sober.
"I'm sorry, Rick. Frank is like that, and I don't know why. I suspect he
has troubles of some sort and takes it out on us. Try to overlook it,
because he's an extremely competent engineer. We'd have great trouble
replacing him."
Rick nodded. "Yes, sir."
The work progressed smoothly. Rick finished the part he was working on
and was assigned another. He met other members of the project, including
Phil Sherman and Charlie Kassick who, like himself, were technicians at
work on wiring and assembly. He met Cliff Damon, chief of the
instrumentation section, who showed him the intricate devices used to
track the big rockets and to record just about everything that went on
inside them.
It was pleasant and exciting, and only the incident with Frank Miller
marred the contentment Rick felt at being a part of Pegasus. Then, near
the end of his first week on the job, Miller dropped in and watched Rick
at work for a moment. The boy tensed, but said nothing beyond a civil
good morning.
Miller cleared his throat. "Brant, I want to apologize."
Rick looked up in surprise.
"I'm known as a crank, and I guess I deserve the reputation. But just
because I feel rotten doesn't mean I have to take it out on you. I'm
sorry."
Rick looked at the engineer thoughtfully. Miller was apparently sincere.
"That's all right," he said. "Why do you feel rotten, if you don't mind
my asking?"
"Ulcers. The doctor says the only way to cure them is to get out of this
business, and go into something with less stress and strain. But I
can't. I've been a rocketeer ever since I graduated from college, and I
can't leave. So if I snap at you, please forget it."
Rick nodded. "I'll play it that way if you say so."
"Thanks." Miller turned and walked out.
The design engineer was polite enough after that, and Rick discounted
the few times when he appeared too curt. So, with pleasant working
conditions all around, the work fell into an exciting routine. The days
passed and the drone control began to shape up as a complete unit.
Meanwhile, other sections of the big rocket were readied, and the first
two stages, now completely assembled, were loaded on their special
trucks and taken to the firing area.
In the next shed, Orion was almost ready. The rocket stages were trucked
to the firing pad assigned to the project and the staff vanished from
next door. They had moved their base of operation to the blockhouse and
the pad. Time for the Orion shoot was only two days off.
Rick saw little of Scotty. His pal was at work in the vehicle
maintenance shed, and making friends of his own. The two met only at
night, usually at bedtime, because the entire base was working overtime.
The work was so absorbing that Rick actually forgot for long periods the
reason for his presence on the base. To be sure, he heard much about the
mysterious Earthman, but it was all a rehash of the earlier sabotage
attempts, mixed with pretty wild speculation. Scotty reported that among
the mechanics, machinists, and housekeeping staffs, the Earthman was
regarded with considerable fear and superstition.
Then, with shattering impact, the Earthman returned from the realm of
legend to stark reality!