Мюррей Лейнстер - Space Tug

He floated inside. Joe followed cautiously. There was another crew member on duty there. He sat before a group of radar screens, with thigh grips across his legs to hold him in his chair. He turned his head and nodded cheerfully enough.

"Here!" snapped Sanford.

Joe clambered awkwardly to the seat the senior crew member pointed out. He made his way to it by handholds on the walls. He fumbled into the chair and threw over the curved thigh grips that would hold him in place.

Suddenly he was oriented. He had seen this room before—before the Platform was launched. True, the man at the radar screens was upside–down with reference to himself, and Sanford had hooked a knee negligently around the arm of a firmly anchored chair with his body at right angles to Joe's own, but at least Joe knew where he was and what he was to do.

"Go ahead and report," said Sanford sardonically. "You might tell them that you heroically destroyed the rockets that attacked us, and that your crew behaved splendidly, and that you have landed in the Space Platform and the situation is well in hand. It isn't, but it will make nice headlines."

Joe said evenly, "Our arrival's been reported?"

"No," said Sanford, grinning. "Obviously the radar down on Earth—shipboard ones on this hemisphere, of course—have reported that the Platform still exists. But we haven't communicated since the bombs went off. They probably think we had so many punctures that we lost all our air and are all wiped out. They'll be glad to hear from you that we aren't."

Joe threw a switch, frowning. This wasn't right. Sanford was the senior scientist on board and hence in command, because he was best–qualified to direct the scientific observations the Platform was making. But there was something specifically wrong.

The communicator hummed. A faint voice sounded. It swelled to loudness. "Calling Space Platform! Calling Space Platform! CALLING SPACE PLATFORM!" Joe turned down the volume. He said into the microphone:

"Space Platform calling Earth. Joe Kenmore reporting. We have made contact with the Platform and completed our landing. Our cargo is now being unloaded. Our landing rockets had to be expended against presumably hostile bombs, and we are now unable to return to Earth. The ship and the Platform, however, are unharmed. I am now waiting for orders. Report ends."

He turned away from the microphone. Sanford said sharply, "Go on! Tell them what a hero you are!"

"I'm going to help unload my ship," Joe said shortly. "You report what you please."

"Get back at that transmitter!" shouted Sanford furiously. "Tell 'em you're a hero! Tell 'em you're wonderful! I'll tell 'em how useless it is!"

Joe saw the other man in the room, the man at the radar screens, shake his head. He got up and fumbled his way along the wall to the door. Sanford shouted after him angrily.

Joe went out, found the four–foot tunnel, and floated not down but along it back to the unloading lock. Wordlessly, he set to work to get the cargo out of the cargo hold of the spaceship.

Handling objects in weightlessness which on Earth would be heavy was an art in itself. Two men could move tons. It needed only one man to start a massive crate in motion. However, one had either to lift or push an object in the exact line it was to follow. To thrust hard for a short time produced exactly the same effect as to push gently for a longer period. Anything floated tranquilly in the line along which it was moved. The man who had to stop it, though, needed to use exactly as much energy as the man who sent it floating. He needed to check the floating thing in exactly the same line. If one tried to stop a massive shipment from one side, he would topple into it and he and the crate together would go floundering helplessly over each other.

The Chief had gone off to help maneuver two–ton guided missiles into launching tubes. One crew member remained with Haney, unloading things that would have had to be handled with cranes on Earth. Joe found himself needed most in the storage chamber. A crate floated from the ship to the crewman. Standing head downward, he stopped its original movement, braced himself, and sent it floating to Joe. He braced himself, stopped its flight, and very slowly—to move fast with anything heavy in his hands would pull his feet from the floor—set it on a stack of similar objects which would presently be fastened in place.

Everything had to be done in slow motion, or one would lose his footing. Joe worked painstakingly. He gradually began to understand the process. But the muscles of his stomach ached because of their continuous, instinctive cramp due to the sensation of unending fall.

Mike floated through the hatchway from the lock. He twisted about as he floated, and his magnetized soles clanked to a deft contact with the wall. He said calmly: "That guy Sanford has cracked up. He's potty. If this were jail he'd be stir–crazy. He's yelling into the communicator now that we'll all be dead in a matter of days, and the rocket missiles we brought up won't help. He's nasty about it, too!"

Haney called from the cargo space of the ship in the lock: "All empty here! We're unloaded."

There were sounds as he closed the cargo doors. Haney, followed by the Chief, came into view, floating as Mike had done. But he didn't land as skillfully. He touched the wall on his hands and knees and bounced away and tried helplessly to swim to a hand–hold. It would have been funny except that Joe was in no mood for humor.

Mike whipped off his belt and flipped the end of it to Haney. He caught it and was drawn gently to the wall. Haney's shoes clicked to a hold. The Chief landed more expertly.

"We need wings here," he said ruefully. "You reported, Joe?"

Joe nodded. He turned to Brent, the crew member who'd been unloading. He knew him too, from their two–way video conversations.

"Sanford does act oddly," he said uncomfortably. "When he met me in the lock he said our coming was useless. He talked about the futility of everything while I reported. He sounds like he sneers at every possible action as useless."

"Most likely it is," Brent said mildly. "Here, anyhow. It does look as if we're going to be knocked off. But Sanford's taking it badly. The rest of us have let him act as he pleased because it didn't seem to matter. It probably doesn't, except that he's annoying."

Mike said truculently, "We won't be knocked off! We've got rockets of our own up here now! We can fight back if there's another attack!"

Brent shrugged. His face was young enough, but deeply lined. He said as mildly as before: "Your landing rockets set off four bombs on the way from Earth. You brought us six more rocket missiles. How many bombs can we knock down with them?"

Joe blinked. It was a shock to realize the facts of life in an artificial satellite. If it could be reached by bombs from Earth, the bombs could be reached by guided missiles from the satellite. But it would take one guided missile to knock down one bomb—with luck.

"I see," said Joe slowly. "We can handle just six more bombs from Earth."

"Six in the next month," agreed Brent wrily. "It'll be that long before we get more. Somebody sent up four bombs today. Suppose they send eight next time? Or simply one a day for a week?"

Mike made an angry noise. "The seventh bomb shot at us knocks us out! We're sitting ducks here too!"

Brent nodded. He said mildly:

"Yes. The Platform can't be defended against an indefinite number of bombs from Earth. Of course the United States could go to war because we've been shot at. But would that do us any good? We'd be shot down in the war."

Joe said distastefully, "And Sanford's cracked up because he knows he's going to be killed?"

Brent said earnestly. "Oh, no! He's a good scientist! But he's always had a brilliant mind. Poor devil, he's never failed at anything in all his life until now! Now he has failed. He's going to be killed, and he can't think of any way to stop it. His brains are the only things he's ever believed in, and now they're no good. He can't accept the idea that he's stupid, so he has to believe that everything else is. It's a necessity for him. Haven't you known people who had to think everybody else was stupid to keep from knowing that they were themselves?"