Space Platform, Murray Leinster [primary phonics books .TXT] 📗

“Who cares?” asked the Chief peacefully. “Plenty!”

“Six hundred from the pushpots,” murmured Haney, frowning, “an’ three hundred from the jet stream, and then there was the jatos that all let go at once, an’ then there was eight hundred from the earth rotatin’——”

“They had ten per cent of their rockets unfired when they got into their orbit,” said Mike authoritatively. “They were two thousand miles up when they passed over India and now they’re four thousand miles up and the orbit’s stable. This is their third round, isn’t it?”

“Will be,” said the Chief.

Joe and Sally sat watching the west. The Space Platform went around the Earth from west to east, like Earth’s natural moon, but because of its speed it would rise in the west and set in the east six times in every twenty-four hours.

Major Holt spoke suddenly. The austerity had gone out of his manner with his energy. He said quietly: “You four—you gave me the worst scare I’ve ever had in my life. But do you realize that that sabotage attempt with the two truck-loads of explosive—do you realize that they’d have gotten the Platform if it hadn’t been for that crazy trick you four planned, and the precautions we took because of it?”

Joe said depreciatingly: “It was just luck that they happened to pick the same time, and that Haney was up there with those machine-gunners at the right moment. It was good luck, but it was luck.”

The Major said effortfully: “There are people called accident prones. Accidents happen all around them, and nobody knows why. You four—perhaps Joe especially—are not accident prones. You seem to be something antithetic to accidents. I would hesitate to credit your usefulness to your brains. Especially Joe’s brains. I have known him too long. But—ah—Washington does not look at it in exactly the same way.”

Sally touched Joe warningly. But her face was very bright and proud. Joe felt queer.

“Joe,” said the Major tiredly, “was an alternate for membership in the Platform’s crew. But for penicillin, or something of the sort that made a sick man get well quickly, Joe would be up there in the Platform’s orbit now. His—ah—record in the instruction he did take was satisfactory. And—ah—all four of you were very useful in the last stages of the building of the Platform. Again Joe especially. His—ah—co-operation with higher authorities has produced—ah—very favorable comments. So it is felt that he should have some recognition. All of you, of course, but Joe especially. So——”

Joe felt himself going white.

“Joe,” said the Major, “is to be offered an appointment as skipper of a ferry rocket, carrying supplies and crew reliefs to the Platform. His rocket will carry a crew of four, including himself. His—ah—recommendations for membership in his crew will have considerable weight.”

There was a buzzing in Joe’s ears. He wanted to cry and to dance, and especially right then he would have liked very much to kiss Sally. It would have been the only really appropriate way to express his emotions.

Mike said in a fierce, strained voice: “Joe! I can do anything a big elephant of a guy can do, and I only use a quarter of the grub and air! You’ve got to take me, Joe! You’ve got to!”

The Chief said benignly: “H’m.... I’m gonna be in charge of the engine room, an’ Haney’ll be bos’n—let Joe try to take off without us!—an’ that don’t leave you a rating, Mike, unless you’re willin’ to be just plain crew!”

Slowly Sally turned her face away from Joe and looked up.

Then they all saw it. A telescope, maybe, would have shown it as the thing they’d worked on and fought for. But it didn’t look like that to the naked eye. It was just a tiny speck of incandescence gliding with grave deliberation across the sky. It was a sliver of sunlight, moving as they watched.

There were a good many millions of people watching it, just then, as it floated aloft in emptiness. To some it meant peace and hope and confidence of a serene old age and a life worth living for their children and their children’s children. To some it was a fascinating technical achievement. To a few it meant that if wars had ended, and turmoil was no longer the norm of life on earth, this thing would be their destruction. But it meant something to everybody in the world. To the people who had been unable to do anything to help it except to pray for it, perhaps it meant most of all.

Joe said quietly: “We’ll be going up there to visit it. All of us.”

He realized that Sally’s hand was tightly clasped in his. She said: “Me too, Joe?”

“Some day,” said Joe, “you too.”

He stood up to watch more closely. Sally stood beside him. The others came to look. They made a group on the lawn, as people were grouped everywhere in all the world to gaze up at it.

The Space Platform, a tiny sliver of sunshine, an infinitesimal speck of golden light, moved sedately across the deepening blue toward the east. Toward the night.