"I think it's the sort of thing, sir, that a professional engineer would
say was a good idea but not practical. He'd mean it would be a lot of
trouble to get working. But I'd like to ask my father. They have done
powder welding at the plant back home, sir."
Major Holt nodded. "Call your father. If it looks promising, I'll pull
what wires I can."
Joe went out, with the others. Mike was sweating. All unconsciously, he
twisted his hands one within the other. He had had many humiliations
because he was small, but lately he had humiliated himself by not
believing in his friends. Now he needed desperately to do something that
would reflect credit on them as well as himself.
Joe made the phone call. As he closed the door of the booth, he heard
the Chief kidding Mike blandly.
"Hey, Einstein," said the Chief. "How about putting that brain of yours
to work on a faster-than-light drive?"
But then he began to struggle with the long distance operator. It took
minutes to get the plant, and then it took time to get to the point,
because his father insisted on asking anxiously how he was and if he was
hurt in any way. Personal stuff. But Joe finally managed to explain that
this call dealt with the desperate need to do something about a space
fleet.
His father said grimly, "Yes. The situation doesn't look too good right
now, Joe."
"Try this on for size, sir," said Joe. He outlined Mike's scheme. His
father interrupted only to ask crisp questions about the mockup of the
tender, already in existence though made of wood. Then he said, "Go on,
son!"
Joe finished. He heard his father speaking to someone away from the
phone. Questions and answers, and then orders. His father spoke to him
direct.
"It looks promising, Joe," said his father. "Right here at the plant
we've got the gang that can do it if anybody can. I'm getting a plane
and coming out there, fast! Get Major Holt to clear things for me. This
is no time for red tape! If he has trouble, I'll pull some wires
myself!"
"Then I can tell Mike it's good stuff?"
"It's not good stuff," said his father. "There are about forty-seven
things wrong with it at first glance, but I know how to take care of one
or two, and we'll lick the rest. You tell your friend Mike I want to
shake him by the hand. I hope to do it tonight!"
He hung up, and Joe went out of the phone booth. Mike looked at him
with yearning eyes. Joe lied a little, because Mike rated it.
"My father's on the way here to help make it work," he told Mike. Then
he added untruthfully: "He said he thought he knew all the big men in
his line, and where've you been that he hasn't heard of you?"
He turned away as the Chief whooped with glee. He hurried back to Major
Holt as the Chief and Haney began zestfully to manhandle Mike in
celebration of his genius.
The major held up his hand as Joe entered. He was using the desk phone.
Joe waited. When he hung up, Joe reported. The major seemed unsurprised.
"Yes, I had Washington on the wire," he said detachedly. "I talked to a
personal friend who's a three-star general. There will be action started
at the Pentagon. When you came in I was arranging with the largest
producers of powder-metallurgy products in the country to send their
best men here by plane. They will start at once. Now I have to get in
touch with some other people."
Joe gaped at him. The major moved impatiently, waiting for Joe to leave.
Joe gulped. "Excuse me, sir, but--my father didn't say it was certain.
He just thinks it can be made to work. He's not sure."
"I didn't even wait for that, something has to turn up to take care of
this situation!" said the Major with asperity. "It has to! This
particular scheme may not work, but if it doesn't, something will come
out of the work on it! You should look at a twenty-five cent piece
occasionally, Joe!"
He moved impatiently, and Joe went out. Sally was smiling in the outer
office. There were whoopings in the corridor beyond. The Chief and Haney
were celebrating Mike's brainstorm with salutary indignity, because if
they didn't make a joke of it he might cry with joy.
"Things look better?"
"They do," said Joe. "If it only works...."
Then he hunted in his pocket. He found a quarter and examined it
curiously. On one side he found nothing the major could have referred
to. On the other side, though, just by George Washington's chin----
He put the quarter away and took Sally's arm.
"It'll be all right," he said slowly.
But there were times when it seemed in doubt. Joe's father arrived by
plane at sunset of that same day, and he and three men from the Kenmore
Precision Tool Company instantly closeted themselves with Mike in Major
Holt's quarters. The powder metallurgy men turned up an hour later, and
a three-star general from Washington. They joined the highly technical
discussion.
Joe waited around outside, feeling left out of things. He sat on the
porch with Sally while the moon rose over the desert and stars shone
down. Inside, matters of high importance were being battled over with
the informality and heat with which practical men get things settled.
But Joe wasn't in on it. He said annoyedly, "You'd think my father'd
have something to say to me, in all this mess! After all, I have
been--well, I have been places! But all he said was, 'How are you, Son?
Where's this Mike you talked about?'"
Sally said calmly, "I know just how you feel. You've made me feel that
way." She looked up at the moon. "I thought about you all the time you
were gone, and I--prayed for you, Joe. And now you're back and not even
busy! But you don't---- It would be nice for you to think about me for a
while!"
"I am thinking about you!" said Joe indignantly.
"Now what," said Sally interestedly, "in the world could you be thinking
about me?"
He wanted to scowl at her. But he grinned instead.
7
Time passed. Hours, then days. Things began to happen. Trucks appeared,
loaded down with sacks of white powder. The powder was very messily
mixed with water and smeared lavishly over the now waterproofed wooden
mockup of a space ship. It came off again in sections of white plaster,
which were numbered and set to dry in warm chambers that were
constructed with almost magical speed. More trucks arrived, bearing such
diverse objects as loads of steel turnings, a regenerative
helium-cooling plant from a gaswell--it could cool metal down to the
point where it crumbled to impalpable powder at a blow--and assorted
fuel tanks, dynamos, and electronic machinery.
Ten days after Mike's first proposal of concreted steel as a material
for space ship construction, the parts of the first casting of the
mockup were assembled. They were a mold for the hull of a space ship.
There were more plaster sections for a second mold ready to be dried out
now, but meanwhile vehicles like concrete mixers mixed turnings and
filings and powder in vast quantities and poured the dry mass here and
there in the first completed mold. Then men began to wrap the gigantic
object with iron wire. Presently that iron wire glowed slightly, and the
whole huge mold grew hotter and hotter and hotter. And after a time it
was allowed to cool.
But that did not mean a ceasing of activity. The plaster casts had been
made while the concreting process was worked out. The concreting
process--including the heating--was in action while fittings were being
flown to the Shed. But other hulls were being formed by metal-concrete
formation even before the first mold was taken down.
When the plaster sections came off, there was a long, gleaming,
frosty-sheened metal hull waiting for the fittings. It was a replacement
of one of the two shot-down space craft, ready for fitting out some six
weeks ahead of schedule. Next day there was a second metal hull, still
too hot to touch. The day after that there was another.
Then they began to be turned out at the rate of two a day, and all the
vast expanse of the Shed resounded with the work on them. Drills drilled
and torches burned and hammers hammered. Small diesels rumbled. Disk
saws cut metal like butter by the seemingly impractical method of
spinning at 20,000 revolutions per minute. Convoys of motor busses
rolled out from Bootstrap at change-shift time, and there were again
Security men at every doorway, moving continually about.
But it still didn't look too good. There is apparently no way to beat
arithmetic, and a definitely grim problem still remained. Ten days after
the beginning of the new construction program, Joe and Sally looked down
from a gallery high up in the outward-curving wall of the Shed. Acres of
dark flooring lay beneath them. There was a spiral ramp that wound round
and round between the twin skins of the fifty-story-high dome. It led
finally to the Communications Room at the very top of the Shed itself.
Where Joe and Sally looked down, the floor was 300 feet below. Welding
arcs glittered. Rivet guns chattered. Trucks came in the doorways with
materials, and there was already a gleaming row of eighty-foot hulls.
There were eleven of them already uncovered, and small trucks ran up to
their sides to feed the fitting-out crews such items as air tanks and
gyro assemblies and steering rocket piping and motors, and short wave
communicators and control boards. Exit doors were being fitted. The last
two hulls to be uncovered were being inspected with portable x-ray
outfits, in search of flaws. And there were still other ungainly white
molds, which were other hulls in process of formation--the metal still
pouring into the molds in powder form, or being tamped down, or being
sintered to solidity.
Joe leaned on the gallery-railing and said unhappily, "I can't help
worrying, even though the Platform hasn't been shot at since we landed."
That wasn't an expression of what he was thinking. He was thinking about
matters the enemies of the Platform would have liked to know about.
Sally knew these matters too. But top secret information isn't talked
about by the people who know it, unless they are actively at work on it.
At all other times one pretends even to himself that he doesn't know it.
That is the only possible way to avoid leaks.
The top secret information was simply that it was still impossible to
supply the Platform. Ships could be made faster than had ever been
dreamed of before, but so long as any ship that went up could be
destroyed on the way down, the supply of the Platform was impractical.
But the ships were being built regardless, against the time when a way
to get them down again was thought of. As of the moment it hadn't been
thought of yet.
But building the ships anyhow was unconscious genius, because nobody but
Americans could imagine anything so foolish. The enemies of the Platform
and of the United States knew that full-scale production of ships by
some fantastic new method was in progress. The fact couldn't be hidden.
But nobody in a country where material shortages were chronic could
imagine building ships before a way to use them was known. So the
Platform's enemies were convinced that the United States had something
wholly new and very remarkable, and threatened their spies with
unspeakable fates if they didn't find out what it was.
They didn't find out. The rulers of the enemy nations knew, of course,
that if a new--say--space-drive had been invented, they would very soon
have to change their tune. So there were no more attacks on the
Platform. It floated serenely overhead, sending down astronomical
observations and solar-constant measurements and weather maps, while
about it floated a screen of garbage and discarded tin cans.
But Joe and Sally looked down where the ships were being built while the
problem of how to use them was debated.
"It's a tough nut to crack," said Joe dourly.
It haunted him. Ships going up had to have crews. Crews had to come down
again because they had to leave supplies at the Platform, not consume
them there. Getting a ship up to orbit was easier than getting it down
again.
"The Navy's been working on light guided missiles," said Sally.
"No good," snapped Joe.
It wasn't. He'd been asked for advice. Could a space ship crew control
guided missiles and fight its way back to ground with them? The answer
was that it could. But guided missiles used to fight one's way down
would have to be carried up first. And they would weigh as much as all
the cargo a ship could carry. A ship that carried fighting rockets
couldn't carry cargo. Cargo at the Platform was the thing desired.
"All that's needed," said Sally, watching Joe's face, "is a slight touch
of genius. There's been genius before now. Burning your cabin free with
landing-rocket flames----"
"Haney's idea," growled Joe dispiritedly.
"And making more ships in a hurry with metal-concrete----"
"Mike did that," said Joe ruefully.
"But you made the garbage-screen for the Platform," insisted Sally.
"Sanford had made a wisecrack," said Joe. "And it just happened that it
made sense that he hadn't noticed." He grimaced. "You say something like
that, now...."
Sally looked at him with soft eyes. It wasn't really his job, this
worrying. The top-level brains of the armed forces were struggling with
it. They were trying everything from redesigned rocket motors to really
radical notions. But there wasn't anything promising yet.
"What's really needed," said Sally regretfully, "is a way for ships to
go up to the Platform and not have to come back."
"Sure!" said Joe ironically. Then he said, "Let's go down!"
They started down the long, winding ramp which led between the two skins
of the Shed's wall. It was quite empty, this long, curving, descending
corridor. It was remarkably private. In a place like the Shed, with
frantic activity going on all around, and even at Major Holt's quarters
where Sally lived and Joe was a guest, there wasn't often a chance for
them to talk in any sort of actual privacy.
But Joe went on, scowling. Sally went with him. If she seemed to hang
back a little at first, he didn't notice. Presently she shrugged her
shoulders and ceased to try to make him notice that nobody else happened
to be around. They made a complete circuit of the Shed within its wall,
Joe staring ahead without words.
Then he stopped abruptly. His expression was unbelieving. Sally almost
bumped into him.
"What's the matter?"
"You had it, Sally!" he said amazedly. "You did it! You said it!"
"What?"
"The touch of genius!" He almost babbled. "Ships that can go up to the
Platform and not have to come back! Sally, you did it! You did it!"
She regarded him helplessly. He took her by the shoulders as if to shake
her into comprehension. But he kissed her exuberantly instead.
"Come on!" he said urgently. "I've got to tell the gang!"
He grabbed her hand and set off at a run for the bottom of the ramp. And
Sally, with remarkably mingled emotions showing on her face, was dragged
in his wake.
He was still pulling her after him when he found the Chief and Haney and
Mike in the room at Security where they were practically self-confined,
lest their return to Earth become too publicly known. Mike was stalking
up and down with his hands clasped behind his back, glum as a miniature
Napoleon and talking bitterly. The Chief was sprawled in a chair. Haney
sat upright regarding his knuckles with a thoughtful air.
Joe stepped inside the door. Mike continued without a pause: "I tell
you, if they'll only use little guys like me, the cabin and supplies and
crew can be cut down by tons! Even the instruments can be smaller and
weigh less! Four of us in a smaller cabin, less grub and air and
water--we'll save tons in cabin-weight alone! Why can't you big lummoxes
see it?"
"We see it, Mike," Haney said mildly. "You're right. But people won't do
it. It's not fair, but they won't."
Joe said, beaming, "Besides, Mike, it'd bust up our gang! And Sally's
just gotten the real answer! The answer is for ships to go up to the
Platform and not come back!"
He grinned at them. The Chief raised his eyebrows. Haney turned his head
to stare. Joe said exuberantly: "They've been talking about arming ships
with guided missiles to fight with. Too heavy, of course. But--if we
could handle guided missiles, why couldn't we handle drones?"
The three of them gaped at him. Sally said, startled, "But--but, Joe, I
didn't----"
"We've got plenty of hulls!" said Joe. Somehow he still looked
astonished at what he'd made of Sally's perfectly obvious comment.
"Mike's arranged for that! Make--say--six of 'em into drones--space
barges. Remote-controlled ships. Control them from one manned ship--the
tug! We'll ride that! Take 'em up to the Platform exactly like a tug
tows barges. The tow-line will be radio beams. We'll have a space-tow
up, and not bother to bring the barges back! There won't be any landing
rockets! They'll carry double cargo! That's the answer! A space tug
hauling a tow to the Platform!"
"But, Joe," insisted Sally, "I didn't think of----"
The Chief heaved himself up. Haney's voice cut through what the Chief
was about to say. Haney said drily: "Sally, if Joe hadn't kissed you for
thinking that up, I would. Makes me feel mighty dumb."
Mike swallowed. Then he said loyally, "Yeah. Me too. I'd've made a
two-ton cargo possible--maybe. But this adds up. What does the major
say?"
"I--haven't talked to him. I'd better, right away." Joe grinned. "I
wanted to tell you first."
The Chief grunted. "Good idea. But hold everything!" He fumbled in his
pocket. "The arithmetic is easy enough, Joe. Cut out the crew and air
and you save something." He felt in another pocket. "Leave off the
landing rockets, and you save plenty more. Count in the cargo you could
take anyhow"---- he searched another pocket still----"and you get
forty-two tons of cargo per space barge, delivered at the Platform. Six
drones--that's 252 tons in one tow! Here!" He'd found what he wanted. It
was a handkerchief. He thrust it upon Joe. "Wipe that lipstick off, Joe,
before you go talk to the major. He's Sally's father and he might not
like it."
Joe wiped at his face. Sally, her eyes shining, took the handkerchief
from him and finished the job. She displayed that remarkable
insensitivity of females in situations productive of both pride and
embarrassment. When a girl or a woman is proud, she is never
embarrassed.
She and Joe went away, and Sally rushed right into her father's office.
In fifteen minutes technical men began to arrive for conferences,
summoned by telephone. Within forty-five minutes, messengers carried
orders out to the Shed floor and stopped the installation of certain
types of fittings in all but one of the hulls. In an hour and a half,
top technical designers were doing the work of foremen and getting
things done without benefit of blueprints. The proposal was beautifully
simple to put into practice. Guided-missile control systems were already
in mass production. They could simply be adjusted to take care of
drones.
Within twelve hours there were truck-loads of new sorts of supplies
arriving at the Shed. Some were Air Force supplies and some were
Ordnance, and some were strictly Quartermaster. These were not component
parts of space ships. They were freight for the Platform.
And, just forty-eight hours after Joe and Sally looked dispiritedly down
upon the floor of the Shed, there were seven gleaming hulls in launching
cages and the unholy din of landing pushpots outside the Shed. They came
with hysterical cries from their airfield to the south, and they flopped
flat with extravagant crashings on the desert outside the eastern door.
By the time the pushpots had been hauled in, one by one, and had
attached themselves to the launching cages, Joe and Haney and the Chief
and Mike had climbed into the cabin of the one ship which was not a
drone. There were now seven cages in all to be hoisted toward the sky. A
great double triangular gore had been jacked out and rolled aside to
make an exit in the side of the Shed. Nearly as many pushpots, it
seemed, were involved in this launching as in the take-off of the
Platform itself.
The routine test before take-off set the pushpot motors to roaring
inside the Shed. The noise was the most sustained and ghastly tumult
that had been heard on Earth since the departure of the Platform.
But this launching was not so impressive. It was definitely untidy,
imprecise, and unmilitary. There were seven eighty-foot hulls in cages
surrounded by clustering, bellowing, preposterous groups of howling
objects that looked like over-sized black beetles. One of the seven
hulls had eyes. The others were blind--but they were equipped with radio
antennae. The ship with eyes had several small basket-type radar bowls
projecting from its cabin plating.
The seven objects rose one by one and went bellowing and blundering out
to the open air. At 40 and 50 feet above the ground, they jockeyed into
some sort of formation, with much wallowing and pitching and clumsy
maneuvering.
Then, without preliminary, they started up. They rose swiftly. The noise
of their going diminished from a bellow to a howl, and from a howl to a
moaning noise, and then to a faint, faint, ever-dwindling hum.
Presently that faded out, too.
8
All the sensations were familiar, the small fleet of improbable objects
rose and rose. Of all flying objects ever imagined by man, the launching
cages supported by pushpots were most irrational.
The squadron, though, went bumbling upward. In the manned ship, Joe was
more tense than on his other take-off--if such a thing was possible. His
work was harder this trip. Before, he'd had Mike at communications and
the Chief at the steering rockets while Haney kept the pushpots balanced
for thrust. Now Joe flew the manned ship alone. Headphones and a mike
gave him communications with the Shed direct, and the pushpots were
balanced in groups, which cost efficiency but helped on control. He
would have, moreover, to handle his own steering rockets during
acceleration and when he could--and dared--he should supervise the
others. Because each of the other three had two drone-ships to guide.
True, they had only to keep their drones in formation, but Joe had to
navigate for all. The four of them had been assigned this flight because
of its importance. They happened to be the only crew alive who had ever
flown a space ship designed for maneuvering, and their experience
consisted of a single trip.
The jet stream was higher this time than on that other journey now two
months past. They blundered into it at 36,000 feet. Joe's headphones
buzzed tinnily. Radar from the ground told him his rate-of-rise, his
ground speed, his orbital speed, and added comments on the handling of
the drones.
The last was not a precision job. On the way up Joe protested,
"Somebody's ship--Number Four--is lagging! Snap it up!"