Мюррей Лейнстер - Space Tug

" You will fire in ten seconds ," said a crisp voice in Joe's headphones. " Ten … nine … eight … seven … six … five … four …three … two … one … fire! "

Joe crooked his index finger. There was an explosive jolt. Rockets flamed terribly in emptiness. The space tug rushed toward the west. The Platform seemed to dwindle with startling suddenness. It seemed to rush away and become lost in the myriads of stars. The space tug accelerated at four gravities in the direction opposed to its orbital motion.

As the acceleration built up, it dropped toward Earth and home like a tumbled stone.

There was bright sunshine at the Shed, not a single cloud in all the sky. The radar bowls atop the roof—they seemed almost invisibly small compared with its vastness—wavered and shifted and quivered. Completely invisible beams of microwaves lanced upward. Atop the Shed, in the communication room, there was the busy quiet of absolute intentness. Signals came down and were translated into visible records which fed instantly into computers. Then the computers clicked and hummed and performed incomprehensible integrations, and out of their slot–mouths poured billowing ribbons of printed tape. Men read those tapes and talked crisply into microphones, and their words went swiftly aloft again.

Down by the open eastern door of the Shed at the desert's edge, Sally Holt and Joe's father waited together, watching the sky. Sally was white and scared. Joe's father patted her shoulder reassuringly.

"He'll make it, all right," said Sally, dry–throated.

Joe's father nodded. "Of course he will!" But his voice was not steady.

"Nothing could happen to him now!" said Sally fiercely.

"Of course not," said Joe's father.

A loudspeaker close to them said abruptly: " Nineteen miles. "

There was a tiny, straggling thread of white visible in the now. It thinned out to nothingness, but its nearest part flared out and flared out and flared out. It grew larger, came closer with a terrifying speed.

" Twelve miles ," said the speaker harshly. " Rockets firing. "

The downward–hurtling trail of smoke was like a crippled plane falling flaming from the sky, except that no plane ever fell so fast.

At seven miles the white–hot glare of the rocket flames was visible even in broad daylight. At three miles the light was unbearably bright. At two, the light winked out. Sally saw something which glittered come plummeting toward the ground, unsupported.

It fell almost half a mile before rocket fumes flung furiously out again. Then it checked. Visibly, its descent was slowed. It dropped more slowly, and more slowly, and more slowly still….

It hung in mid–air a quarter–mile up. Then there was a fresh burst of rocket fumes, more monstrous than ever, and it went steadily downward, touched the ground, and stayed there spurting terrible incandescent flames for seconds. Then the bottom flame went out. An instant later there were no more flames at all.

Sally began to run toward the ship. She stopped. A procession of rumbling, clanking, earth–moving machinery moved out of the Shed and toward the upright space tug. Prosaically, a bulldozer lowered its wide blade some fifty yards from the ship. It pushed a huge mass of earth before it, covering over the scorched and impossibly hot sand about the rocket's landing place. Other bulldozers began to circle methodically around and around, overturning the earth and burying the hot surface stuff. Water trucks sprayed, and thin steam arose.

But also an exit–port opened and Joe stood in the opening.

Then Sally began to run again.

* * * * *

Joe sat at dinner in the major's quarters. Major Holt was there, and Joe's father, and Sally.

"It feels good," said Joe warmly, "to use a knife and fork again, and to pick food up from a plate where it stays until it's picked up!"

"The crew of the Platform―" Major Holt began.

"They're all right," said Joe, with his mouth full. "They're wearing gravity simulator harness. Brent's got his up to three–quarters gravity. They get tired, wearing the harness. They sleep better. Everything's fine! They can handle the space wagons we left and they've got guided missiles to spare! They're all right!"

Joe's father said unsteadily, "You'll stay on Earth a while now, son?"

Sally moved quickly. She looked up, tense. But Joe said, "They're going to get the Moonship up, sir. We came back—my gang and me—to help train the crew. We only have a week to do it in, but we've got some combat tactics to show them on the training gadget in the Shed." He added anxiously, "And, sir—they'll have to take the Moonship off in a spiral orbit. She can't go straight up! That means she's got to pass over enemy territory, and—we've got to have a real escort for her. A fighting escort. It's planned for the space tug to take off a few minutes after the Moonship and blast along underneath. We'll dump guided missiles out—like drones—and if anything comes along we can start their rockets and fight our way through. And we four have had more experience than anybody else. We're needed!"

"You've done enough, surely!" Sally cried.

"The United States," said Joe awkwardly, "is going to take over the Moon. I—can't miss having a hand in that! Not if it's at all possible!"

"I'm afraid you will miss it, Joe," Major Holt said detachedly. "The occupation of the Moon will be a Navy enterprise. Space Exploration Project facilities are being used to prepare for it, but the Navy won the latest battle of the Pentagon. The Navy takes over the Moon."

Joe looked startled. "But―"

"You're Space Exploration personnel," said the major with the same coolness. "You will be used to instruct naval personnel, and your space tug will be asked to go along to the Platform as an auxiliary vessel. For purposes of assisting in the landing of the Moonship at the Platform, you understand. You'll haul her away from the Platform when she's refueled and supplied, so she can start off for the Moon. But the occupation of the Moon will be strictly Navy."

Joe's expression became carefully unreadable. "I think," he said evenly, "I'd better not comment."

Major Holt nodded. "Very wise—not that we'd repeat anything you did say. But the point is, Joe, that just one day before the Moonship does take off, the United Nations will be informed that it is a United States naval vessel. The doctrine of the freedom of space—like the freedom of the seas—will be promulgated. And the United States will say that a United States naval task force is starting off into space on an official mission. To attack a Space Exploration ship is one thing. That's like a scientific expedition. But to fire on an American warship on official business is a declaration of war. Especially since that ship can shoot back—and will."

Joe listened. He said, "It's daring somebody to try another Pearl Harbor?"

"Exactly," said the major. "It's time for us to be firm—now that we can back it up. I don't think the Moonship will be fired on."

"But they'll need me and my gang just the same," said Joe slowly, "for tugboat work at the Platform?"

"Exactly," said the major.

"Then," Joe said doggedly, "they get us. My gang will gripe about being edged out of the trip. They won't like it. But they'd like backing out still less. We'll play it the way it's dealt—but we won't pretend to like it."

Major Holt's expression did not change at all, but Joe had an odd feeling that the major approved of him.

"Yes. That's right, Joe," his father added. "You—you'll have to go aloft once more, son. After that, we'll talk it over."

Sally hadn't said a word during the discussion, but she'd watched Joe every second. Later, out on the porch of the major's quarters, she had a great deal to say. But that couldn't affect the facts.