"I don"t like that idea," said Joe dourly. "Anything we can do?"
Major Holt laughed bitterly. "_Hardly!_" he said. "_And do you realize that if you can"t unload your cargo you can"t get back to Earth?_"
"Yes," said Joe. "Naturally!"
It was true. The purpose of the pushpots and the jatos and the ship"s own take-off rockets had been to give it a speed at which it would inevitably rise to a height of 4,000 miles--the orbit of the s.p.a.ce Platform--and stay there. It would need no power to remain 4,000 miles out from Earth. But it would take power to come down. The take-off rockets had been built to drive the ship with all its contents until it attained that needed orbital velocity. There were landing rockets fastened to the hull now to slow it so that it could land. But just as the take-off rockets had been designed to lift a loaded ship, the landing-rockets had been designed to land an empty one.
The more weight the ship carried, the more power it needed to get out to the Platform. And the more power it needed to come down again.
If Joe and his companions couldn"t get rid of their cargo--and they could only unload in the ship-lock of the Platform--they"d stay out in emptiness.
The Major said bitterly: "_This is all most irregular, but--here"s Sally._"
Then Sally"s voice sounded in the headphones Joe wore. He was relieved that Mike wasn"t acting as communications officer at the moment to overhear. But Mike was zestfully spinning like a pin-wheel in the middle of the air of the control cabin. He was showing the others that even in the intramural pastimes a s.p.a.ceship crew will indulge in, a midget was better than a full-sized man. Joe said:
"Yes, Sally?"
She said unsteadily. "_I"m not going to waste your time talking to you, Joe. I think you"ve got to figure out something. I haven"t the faintest idea what it is, but I think you can do it. Try, will you?_"
"I"m afraid we"re going to have to trust to luck," admitted Joe ruefully. "We weren"t equipped for anything like this."
"_No!_" said Sally fiercely. "_If I were with you, you wouldn"t think of trusting to luck!_"
"I wouldn"t want to," admitted Joe. "I"d feel responsible. But just the same--"
"_You"re responsible now!_" said Sally, as fiercely as before. "_If the Platform"s smashed, the rockets that can reach it will be duplicated to smash our cities in war! But if you can reach the Platform and arm it for defense, there won"t be any war! Half the world would be praying for you, Joe, if it knew! I can"t do anything else, so I"m going to start on that right now. But you try, Joe! You hear me?_"
"I"ll try," said Joe humbly. "Thanks, Sally."
He heard a sound like a sob, and the headphones were silent. Joe himself swallowed very carefully. It can be alarming to be the object of an intended murder, but it can also be very thrilling. One can play up splendidly to a dramatic picture of doom. It is possible to be one"s own audience and admire one"s own fine disregard of danger. But when other lives depend on one, one has the irritating obligation not to strike poses but to do something practical.
Joe said somberly: "Mike, how long before we ought to contact the Platform?"
Mike reached out a small hand, caught a hand-hold, and flicked his eyes to the master chronometer.
"Forty minutes, fifty seconds. Why?"
Joe said wrily, "There are some rockets in enemy hands which can reach the Platform. They were shipped to launchers ten days ago. You figure what comes next."
Mike"s wizened face became tense and angry. Haney growled, "They smash the Platform before we get to it."
"Uh-uh!" said Mike instantly. "They smash the Platform _when_ we get to it! They smash us both up together. Where"ll we be at contact-time, Joe?"
"Over the Indian Ocean, south of the Bay of Bengal, to be exact," said Joe. "But we"ll be moving fast. The worst of it is that it"s going to take time to get in the airlock and unload our guided missiles and get them in the Platform"s launching-tubes. I"d guess an hour. One bomb should get both of us above the Bay of Bengal, but we won"t be set to launch a guided missile in defense until we"re nearly over America again."
The Chief said sourly, "Yeah. Sitting ducks all the way across the Pacific!"
"We"ll check with the Platform," said Joe. "See if you can get them direct, Mike, will you?"
Then something occurred to him. Mike scrambled back to his communication board. He began feverishly to work the computer which in turn would swing the tight-beam transmitter to the target the computer worked out, He threw a switch and said sharply, "Calling s.p.a.ce Platform! Pelican One calling s.p.a.ce Platform! Come in, s.p.a.ce Platform!..." He paused. "Calling s.p.a.ce Platform...."
Joe had a slide-rule going on another problem. He looked up, his expression peculiar.
"A solid-fuel rocket can start off at ten gravities acceleration," he said quietly, "and as its rockets burn away it can go up a lot higher than that. But 4,000 miles is a long way to go straight up. If it isn"t launched yet--"
Mike snapped into a microphone: "Right!" To Joe he said, "s.p.a.ce Platform on the wire."
Joe heard an acknowledgment in his headphones. "I"ve just had word from the Shed," he explained carefully, "that there may be some guided missiles coming up from Earth to smash us as we meet. You"re still higher than we are, and they ought to be starting. Can you pick up anything with your radar?"
The voice from the Platform said: "_We have picked something up. There are four rockets headed out from near the sunset-line in the Pacific.
a.s.suming solid-fuel rockets like we used and you used, they are on a collision course._"
"Are you doing anything about them?" asked Joe absurdly.
The voice said caustically: "_Unfortunately, we"ve nothing to do anything with._" It paused. "_You, of course, can use the landing-rockets you still possess. If you fire them immediately, you will pa.s.s our scheduled meeting-place some hundreds of miles ahead of us. You will go on out to s.p.a.ce. You may set up an orbit forty-five hundred or even five thousand miles out, and wait there for rescue._"
Joe said briefly: "We"ve air for only four days. That"s no good. It"ll be a month before the next ship can be finished and take off. There are four rockets coming up, you say?"
"_Yes._" The voice changed. It spoke away from the microphone. "_What"s that?_" Then it returned to Joe. "_The four rockets were sent up at the same instant from four separate launching sites. Probably as many submarines at the corners of a hundred-mile square, so an accident to one wouldn"t set off the others. They"ll undoubtedly converge as they get nearer to us._"
"I think," said Joe, "that we need some luck."
"_I think_," said the caustic voice, "_that we"ve run out of it._"
There was a click. Joe swallowed again. The three members of his crew were looking at him.
"Somebody"s fired rockets out from Earth," said Joe carefully. "They"ll curve together where we meet the Platform, and get there just when we do."
The Chief rumbled. Haney clamped his jaws together. Mike"s expression became one of blazing hatred.
Joe"s mind went rather absurdly to the major"s curious, almost despairing talk in his quarters that morning, when he"d spoken of a conspiracy to destroy all the hopes of men. The firing of rockets at the Platform was, of course, the work of men acting deliberately. But they were--unconsciously--trying to destroy their own best hopes. For freedom, certainly, whether or not they could imagine being free. But the Platform and the s.p.a.ce exploration project in general meant benefits past computing for everybody, in time. To send ships into s.p.a.ce for necessary but dangerous experiments with atomic energy was a purpose every man should want to help forward. To bring peace on Earth was surely an objective no man could willingly or sanely combat. And the ultimate goal of s.p.a.ce travel was millions of other planets, circling other suns, thrown open to colonization by humanity. That prospect should surely fire every human being with enthusiasm. But something--and the more one thought about it the more specific and deliberate it seemed to be--made it necessary to fight desperately against men in order to benefit them.
Joe swallowed again. It would have been comforting to be dramatic in this war against stupidity and malice and blindness. Especially since this particular battle seemed to be lost. One could send back an eloquent, defiant message to Earth saying that the four of them did not regret their journey into s.p.a.ce, though they were doomed to be killed by the enemies of their country. It could have been a very pretty gesture.
But Joe happened to have a job to do. Pretty gestures were not a part of it. He had no idea how to do it. So he said rather sickishly:
"The Platform told me we could fire our landing-rockets as additional take-off rockets and get out of the way. Of course we"ve got missiles of our own on board, but we can"t launch or control them. Absolutely the only thing we can choose to do or not do is fire those rockets. I"m open to suggestions if anybody can think of a way to make them useful."
There was silence. Joe"s reasoning was good enough. When one can"t do what he wants, one tries to make what he can do produce the results he wants. But it didn"t look too promising here. They could fire the rockets now, or later, or--
An idea came out of the blue. It wasn"t a good idea, but it was the only one possible under the circ.u.mstances. There was just one distinctly remote possibility. He told the others what it was. Mike"s eyes flamed.
The Chief nodded profoundly. Haney said with some skepticism, "It"s all we"ve got. We"ve got to use it."
"I need some calculations. Spread. Best time of firing. That sort of thing. But I"m worried about calling back in the clear. A beam to the Platform will bounce and might be picked up by the enemy."
The Chief grinned suddenly. "I"ve got a trick for that, Joe. There"s a tribesman of mine in the Shed. Get Charley Red Fox to the phone, guy, and we"ll talk privately!"
The small s.p.a.ceship floated on upward. It pointed steadfastly in the direction of its motion. The glaring sunshine which at its take-off had shone squarely in its bow-ports, now poured down slantingly from behind.
The steel plates of the ship gleamed brightly. Below it lay the sunlit Earth. Above and about it on every hand were a mult.i.tude of stars. Even the moon was visible as the thinnest of crescents against the night of s.p.a.ce.