Мюррей Лейнстер - Space Tug

Drone Two, far ahead and clearly visible, turned from a shining steel speck to a reddish pin–point of light. The red color deepened. It winked out. The sunlight in the ports of the mother–ship turned red. Then it blacked out.

"Shoot the ghosts," said Joe.

The three drone–handlers pushed their buttons. Nothing happened that anybody could see. Actually, though, a small gadget outside the hull began to cough rhythmically. Similar devices on the drones coughed, too. They were small, multiple–barreled guns. Rifle shells fired two–pound missiles at random targets in emptiness. They wouldn't damage anything they hit. They'd go varying distances, explode and shoot small lead shot ahead to check their missile–velocity, and then emit dense masses of aluminum foil. There was no air resistance. The shredded foil would continue to move through emptiness at the same rate as the convoy–fleet. The seven ships had fired a total of eighty–four such objects away into the blackness of Earth's shadow. There were, then, seven ships and eighty–four masses of aluminum foil moving through emptiness. They could not be seen by telescopes.

And radars could not tell ships from masses of aluminum foil.

If enemy radars came probing upward, they reported ninety–one space ships in ragged but coherent formation, soaring through emptiness toward the Platform. And a fleet like that was too strong to attack.

The radar operators had been prepared to forward details of the speed and course of a single ship to waiting rocket–launching submarines half–way across the Pacific. But they reported to Very High Authority instead.

He received the report of an armada—an incredible fleet—in space. He didn't believe it. But he didn't dare disbelieve it.

So the fleet swam peacefully through the darkness that was Earth's shadow, and no attempt at attack was made. They came out into sunlight to look down at the western shore of America itself. With seven ships to get on an exact course, at an exact speed, at an exact moment, time was needed. So the fleet made almost a complete circuit of the Earth before reaching the height of the Platform's orbit.

They joined it. A single man in a space suit, anchored to its outer plates, directed a plastic hose which stretched out impossibly far and clamped to one drone with a magnetic grapple. He maneuvered it to the hull and made it fast. He captured a second, which was worked delicately within reach by coy puffs of steering–rocket vapor.

One by one, the drones were made fast. Then the manned ship went in the lock and the great outer door closed, and the plastic–fabric walls collapsed behind their nets, and air came in.

Lieutenant Commander Brown was the one to come into the lock to greet them. He shook hands all around—and it again seemed strange to all the four from Earth to find themselves with their feet more or less firmly planted on a solid floor, but their bodies wavering erratically to right and left and before and back, because there was no up or down.

"Just had reports from Earth," Brown told Joe comfortably. "The news of your take–off was released to avoid panic in Europe. But everybody who doesn't like us is yelling blue murder. Somebody—you may guess who—is announcing that a fleet of ninety–one war rockets took off from the United States and now hangs poised in space while the decadent American war–mongers prepare an ultimatum to all the world. Everybody's frightened."

"If they'll only stay scared until we get unloaded," said Joe in some satisfaction, "the government back home can tell them how many we were and what we came up for. But we'll probably make out all right, anyhow."

"My crew will unload," said Brown, in conscious thoughtfulness. "You must have gotten pretty well exhausted by that acceleration."

Joe shook his head. "I think we can handle the freight faster. We found out a few things by going back to Earth."

A section of plating at the top of the lock—at least it had been the top when the Platform was built on Earth—opened up as on the first journey here. A face grinned down. But from this point on, the procedure was changed. Haney and Joe went into the cargo–section of the rocketship and heaved its contents smoothly through weightlessness to the storage chamber above. The Chief and Mike stowed it there. The speed and precision of their work was out of all reason. Brown stared incredulously.

The fact was simply that on their first trip to the Platform, Joe and his crew didn't know how to use their strength where there was no weight. By the time they'd learned, their muscles had lost all tone. Now they were fresh from Earth, with Earth–strength muscles—and they knew how to use them.

"When we got back," Joe told Brown, "we were practically invalids. No exercise up here. This time we've brought some harness to wear. We've some for you, too."

They moved out of the airlock, and the ship was maneuvered to a mooring outside, and a drone took its place. Brown's eyes blinked at the unloading of the drone. But he said, "Navy style work, that!"

"Out here," said Joe, "you take no more exercise than an invalid on Earth—in fact, not as much. By now the original crew would have trouble standing up on a trip back to Earth. You'd feel pretty heavy, yourself."

Brown frowned.

"Hm. I—ah—I shall ask for instructions on the matter."

He stood erect. He didn't waver on his feet as the others did. But he wore the same magnetic–soled shoes. Joe knew, with private amusement, that Brown must have worked hard to get a dignified stance in weightlessness.

"Mr. Kenmore," said Brown suddenly. "Have you been assigned a definite rank as yet?"

"Not that I know of," said Joe without interest. "I skipper the ship I just brought up. But―"

"Your ship has no rating!" protested Brown irritably. "The skipper of a Navy ship may be anything from a lieutenant junior grade to a captain, depending on the size and rating of the ship. In certain circumstances even a noncommissioned officer. Are you an enlisted man?"

"Again, not that I know of," Joe told him. "Nor my crew, either."

Brown looked at once annoyed and distressed.

"It isn't regular!" he objected. "It isn't shipshape! I should know whether you are under my command or not! For discipline! For organization! It should be cleared up! I shall put through an urgent inquiry."

Joe looked at him incredulously. Lieutenant Commander Brown was a perfectly amiable man, but he had to have things in a certain pattern for him to recognize that they were in a pattern at all. He was more excited over the fact that he didn't know whether he ranked Joe, than over the much more important matter of physical deterioration in the absence of gravity. Yet he surely understood their relative importance. The fact was, of course, that he could confidently expect exact instructions about the last, while he had to settle matters of discipline and routine for himself.

"I shall ask for clarification of your status," he said worriedly. "It shouldn't have been left unclear. I'd better attend to it at once."

He looked at Joe as if expecting a salute. He didn't get it. He clanked away, his magnetic shoe–soles beating out a singularly martial rhythm. He must have practised that walk, in private.

Joe got out of the airlock as another of the space barges was warped in. Brent, the crew's psychologist, joined him when he went to unload. Brent nodded in a friendly fashion to Joe.

"Quite a change, eh?" he said drily. "Sanford turned out to be a crackpot with his notions of grandeur. I'm not sure that Brown's notions of discipline aren't worse."

Joe said, "I've something rather important to pass on," and told about the newly discovered physical effects of a long stay where there was no gravity. The doctors now predicted that anybody who spent six months without weight would suffer a deterioration of muscle tone which could make a return to Earth impossible without a long preliminary process of retraining. One's heart would adjust to the absence of any need to pump blood against gravity.