Slingshot, Irving W. Lande [10 best books of all time .TXT] 📗

Paul felt no surprise, only relief at having the trouble located. The reaction to the close call might not come till hours later. "This kind of luck we can do without. Can you patch the holes?"

"Ah can patch the one where it came in, but it musta been explodin' on the way out. There's a hole Ah could stick mah head through."

"That's a good idea." Johnson was not usually very witty, but this was one he couldn't resist.

"Never mind, Guns. A patch that big wouldn't be safe to hold air."

They were about eighty thousand miles out. He set course for Earth at about five and a half mps, which Johnson calculated to bring them in on the station on the "going away" side of its orbit, and settled back for the tedious two hours of free wheeling. For ten or fifteen minutes, the interphone crackled with the gregariousness born of recent peril, and gradually the ship fell silent as each man returned to his own private thoughts.

Paul was wondering about the men on the other ship—whether any of them were still alive. Eighty thousand miles to fall. That was a little beyond the capacity of an emergency rocket—about 2 G's for sixty seconds—even if they had them. What a way to go home! He wondered what he'd do if it happened to him. Would he wait out his time, or just unlock his helmet.

Guns' drawl broke into his reverie. "Say, cap'n, Ah've been readin' in this magazine about a trick they used to use, called skip bombin'. They'd hang a bomb on the bottom of one of these airplanes, and fly along the ground, right at what they wanted to hit. Then they'd let the bomb go and get out of there, and the bomb would sail right on into the target. You s'pose we could fix this buggy up with an A bomb or an H bomb we could let go a few hundred miles out? Stick a proximity fuse on it, and a time fuse, too, in case we missed. Just sittin' half a mile apart and tradin' shots like we did on that last mission is kinda hard on mah nerves, and it's startin' to happen too often."

"Nice work if we could get it. I'm not crazy about those broadside battles myself. You'd think they'd have found something better than these thirty caliber popguns by now, but the odds say we've got to throw as many different chunks of iron as we can, to have a chance of hitting anything, and even then it's twenty to one against us. You wouldn't have one chance in a thousand of scoring a hit with a bomb at that distance, even if they didn't spot it and take off. What you'd need would be a rocket that could chase them, with the bomb for a head. And there's no way we could carry that size rocket, or fire it if we could. Some day these crates will come with men's rooms, and we'll have a place to carry something like that."

"How big would a rocket like that be?"

"Five, six feet, by maybe a foot. Weigh at least three hundred pounds."

It was five minutes before Guns spoke again. "Ah been thinkin', cap'n. With a little redecoratin', Ah think Ah could get a rocket that size in here with me. We could weld a rail to one of the gun mounts that would hold it up to five or six G's. Then after we got away from station, Ah could take it outside and mount it on the rail."

"Forget it, lad. If they ever caught us pulling a trick like that, they'd have us on hydroponic duty for the next five years. They just don't want us playing around with bombs, till the experts get all the angles figured out, and build ships to handle them. And besides, who do you think will rig a bomb like that, without anybody finding out? And where do you think we'd get a bomb in the first place? They don't leave those things lying around. Kovacs watches them like a mother hen. I think he counts them twice a day."

"Sorry, cap'n. Ah just figured if you could get hold of a bomb, Ah know a few of the boys who could rig the thing up for us and keep their mouths shut."

"Well, forget about it. It's not a bad idea, but we haven't any bomb."

"Right, cap'n."

But it was Paul who couldn't forget about it. All the rest of the way back to station, he kept seeing visions of a panel sliding aside in the nose of a sleek and gleaming ship, while a small rocket pushed its deadly snout forward, and then streaked off at tremendous acceleration.

Interrogation was brief. The mission had turned up nothing new. Their kill made eight against seven for Doc Miller's crew, and they made sure Miller and the boys heard about it. They were lightheaded with the elation that followed a successful mission, swapping insults with the rest of the squadron, and reveling in the sheer contentment of being back safe.

It wasn't until he got back to his stall, and started to write his father a long overdue letter, that he remembered he had heard Kovacs say he was going on leave.

When he finished the letter, he opened the copy of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" he had borrowed from Rodriguez's limited but colorful library. He couldn't keep his mind on it. He kept thinking of the armament officer.

Kovacs was a quiet, intelligent kid, devoted to his work. Coulter wasn't too intimate with him. He wasn't a spaceman, for one thing. One of those illogical but powerful distinctions that sub-divided the men of the station. And he was a little too polite to be easy company.

Paul remembered the time he had walked into the Muroc Base Officer's Club with Marge Halpern on his arm. The hunger that had lain undisguised on Kovacs' face the moment he first saw them. Marge was a striking blonde with a direct manner, who liked men, especially orbit station men. He hadn't thought about the incident since then, but the look in Kovacs' eyes kept coming back to him as he tried to read.

He wasn't sure how he got there, or why, when he found himself walking into Colonel Silton's office to ask for the leave he'd passed up at his fiftieth mission. He'd considered taking it several times, but the thought of leaving the squadron, even for a couple of weeks, had made him feel guilty, as though he were quitting.

Once he had his papers, he started to get excited about it. As he cleaned up his paper work and packed his musette, his hands were fumbling, and his mind was full of Sylvia.

The vastness of Muroc Base was as incredible as ever. Row on uncounted row of neat buildings, each resting at the top of its own hundred-yard deep elevator shaft. A pulsing, throbbing city, dedicated to the long slow struggle to get into space and stay there. The service crew eyed them with studied indifference, as they writhed out of the small hatch and stepped to the ground. They drew a helijet at operations, and headed immediately for Los Angeles.

Kovacs had been impressed when Paul asked if he'd care to room together while they were on leave. He was quiet on the flight, as he had been on the way down, listening contentedly, while Paul talked combat and women with Bob Parandes, another pilot going on leave.

They parked the helijet at Municipal Field and headed for the public PV booths, picking up a coterie of two dogs and five assorted children on the way. The kids followed quietly in their wake, ecstatic at the sight of their uniforms.

Paul squared his shoulders, as befitted a hero, and tousled a couple of uncombed heads as they walked. The kids clustered around the booths, as Kovacs entered one to locate a hotel room, and Paul another, to call Sylvia.

"Honey, I've been so scared you weren't coming back. Where are you? When will I see you? Why didn't you write?..." She sputtered to a stop as he held up both hands in defense.

"Whoa, baby. One thing at a time. I'm at the airport. You'll see me tonight, and I'll tell you the rest then. That is, if you're free tonight. And tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that. Are you free?"

Her hesitation was only momentary. "Well, I was going out—with a girl friend. But she'll understand. What's up?"

He took a deep breath. "I'd like to get out of the city for a few days, where we can take things easy and be away from the crowds. And there is another guy I'd like to bring along."

"We could take my helijet out to my dad's cottage at—What did you say?"

It was a ticklish job explaining about Kovacs, but when she understood that he just wanted to do a friend a favor, and she'd still have Paul all to herself, she calmed down. They made their arrangements quickly, and switched off.

He hesitated a minute before he called Marge. She was quite a dish to give up. Once she'd seen him with Sylvia, he'd be strictly persona non grata—that was for sure. It was an unhappy thought. Well, maybe it was in a good cause. He shrugged and called her.

She nearly cut him off when she first heard his request, but he did some fast talking. The idea of several days at the cottage intrigued her, and when he described how smitten Kovacs had been, she brightened up and agreed to come. He switched off, adjusted the drape of his genuine silk scarf, and stepped out of the booth.

Kovacs and the kids were waiting. The armament officer had apparently been telling them of Paul's exploits. They glowed with admiration. The oldest boy, about eleven, had true worship in his eyes. He hesitated a moment, then asked gravely: "Would you tell us