Space Platform

by Murray Leinster

  4

  For an instant, in mid-air, Joe was incongruously aware of all thenoises in the Shed. The murky, girdered ceiling still three hundred feetabove him. The swelling, curving, glittering surface of steelunderneath. Then he struck. He landed beside the lean man, with his leftarm outstretched to share his impetus with him. Alone, he would have hadmomentum enough to carry himself up the slope down which the man hadbegun to descend. But now he shared it. The two of them toppled forwardtogether. Their arms were upon the flat surface, while their bodiesdangled. The feel of gravity pulling them slantwise and downward waspurest nightmare.

  But then, as Joe's innards crawled, the same stocky man who had knockedthe lean man back was dragging frantically at both of them to pull themto safety.

  Then there were two men pulling. The stocky man's face was gray. Hishorror was proof that he hadn't intended murder. The man who'd put downhis welding torch pulled. The man who'd been climbing the ladder put hisweight to the task of getting them back to usable footing. They reachedsafety. Joe scrambled to his feet, but he felt sick at the pit of hisstomach. The stocky man began to shake horribly. The lanky one advancedfuriously upon him.

  "I didn' mean to keel you, Haney!" the dark one panted.

  The lanky one snapped: "Okay. You didn't. But come on, now! We finishthis----"

  He advanced toward the workman who had so nearly caused his death. Butthe other man dropped his arms to his sides.

  "I don' fight no more," he said thickly. "Not here. You keel me is okay.I don' fight."

  The lanky man--Haney--growled at him.

  "Tonight, then, in Bootstrap. Now get back to work!"

  The stocky man picked up his tools. He was trembling.

  Haney turned to Joe and said ungraciously: "Much obliged. What's up?"

  Joe still felt queasy. There is rarely any high elation after one hasrisked his life for somebody else. He'd nearly plunged two hundred feetto the floor of the Shed with Haney. But he swallowed.

  "I'm looking for Chief Bender. You're Haney? Foreman?"

  "Gang boss," said Haney. He looked at Joe and then at Sally who washolding convulsively to the upright Joe had put her hand on. Her eyeswere closed. "Yeah," said Haney. "The Chief took off today. Some kind ofInjun stuff. Funeral, maybe. Want me to tell him something? I'll see himwhen I go off shift."

  There was an obscure movement somewhere on this part of the Platform. Atiny figure came out of a crevice that would someday be an air lock. Joedidn't move his eyes toward it. He said awkwardly: "Just tell him JoeKenmore's in town and needs him. He'll remember me, I think. I'll hunthim up tonight."

  "Okay," said Haney.

  Joe's eyes went to the tiny figure that had come out from behind theplating. It was a midget in baggy, stained work garments like the restof the men up here. He wore a miniature welding shield pushed back onhis head. Joe could guess his function, of course. There'd be corners anormal-sized man couldn't get into, to buck a rivet or weld a joint.There'd be places only a tiny man could properly inspect. The midgetregarded Joe without expression.

  Joe turned to the hoist to go down to the floor again. Haney waved hishand. The midget lifted his, in grave salutation.

  The hoist dropped down the shaft. Sally opened her eyes.

  "You--saved that man's life, Joe," she said unsteadily. "But you scaredme to death!"

  Joe tried to ignore the remark, but he still seemed to feel slantingmetal under him and a drop of two hundred feet below. It had been anightmarish sensation.

  "I didn't think," he said uncomfortably. "It was a crazy thing to do.Lucky it worked out."

  Sally glanced at him. The hoist still dropped swiftly. Levels ofscaffolding shot upward past them. If Joe had slipped down that rollingcurve of metal, he'd have dropped past all these. It was not good tothink about. He swallowed again. Then the hoist checked in its descent.It stopped. Joe somewhat absurdly helped Sally off to solid ground.

  "It--looks to me," said Sally, "as if you're bound to make me seesomebody killed. Joe, would you mind leading a little bit lessadventurous life for a while? While I'm around?"

  He managed to grin. But he still did not feel right.

  "Nothing I can do until I can look at the plane," he said, changing thesubject, "and I can't find the Chief until tonight. Could we sightsee alittle?"

  She nodded. They went out from under the intricate framework that upheldthe Platform. They went, in fact, completely under that colossalincomplete object. Sally indicated the sidewall.

  "Let's go look at the pushpots. They're fascinating!"

  She led the way. The enormous spaciousness of the Shed again becameevident. There was a catwalk part way up the inward curving wall.Someone leaned on its railing and surveyed the interior of the Shed. Hewould probably be a security man. Maybe the fist fight up on thePlatform had been seen, or maybe not. The man on the catwalk was hardlymore than a speck, and it occurred to Joe that there must be otherwatchers' posts high up on the outer shell where men could search thesunlit desert outside for signs of danger.

  But he turned and looked yearningly back at the monstrous thing underthe mist of scaffolding. For the first time he could make out its shape.It was something like an egg, but a great deal more like something hecouldn't put a name to. Actually it was exactly like nothing in theworld but itself, and when it was out in space there would be nothingleft on Earth like it.

  It would be in a fashion a world in itself, independent of the Earththat made it. There would be hydroponic tanks in which plants would growto purify its air and feed its crew. There would be telescopes withwhich men would be able to study the stars as they had never been ableto do from the bottom of Earth's ocean of turbulent air. But it wouldserve Earth.

  There would be communicators. They would pick up microwave messages andretransmit them to destinations far around the curve of the planet, orelse store them and retransmit them to the other side of the world anhour or two hours later.

  It would store fuel with which men could presently set out for thestars--and out to emptiness for nuclear experiments that must not bemade on Earth. And finally it would be armed with squat, deadly atomicmissiles that no nation could possibly defy. And so this Space Platformwould keep peace on Earth.

  But it could not make good will among men.

  Sally walked on. They reached the mysterious objects being manufacturedin a row around half the sidewall of the Shed. They were of simpledesign and, by comparison, not unduly large. The first objects weremerely frameworks of metal pipe, which men were welding togetherunbreakably. They were no bigger than--say--half of a six-room house. Alittle way on, these were filled with intricate arrays of tanks andpiping, and still farther--there was a truck and hoist unloading amassive object into place right now--there were huge engines fittingprecisely into openings designed to hold them. Others were being platedin with metallic skins.

  At the very end of this assembly line a crane was loading a finishedobject onto a flat-bed trailer. As it swung in the air, Joe realizedwhat it was. It might be called a jet plane, but it was not of any typeever before used. More than anything else, it looked like a beetle. Itwould not be really useful for anything but its function at the end ofOperation Stepladder. Then hundreds of these ungainly objects wouldcluster upon the Platform's sides, like swarming bees. They would thrustsavagely up with their separate jet engines. They would lift thePlatform from the foundation on which it had been built. Tugging,straining, panting, they would get it out of the Shed. But their workwould not end there. Holding it aloft, they would start it eastward,lifting effortfully. They would carry it as far and as high and as fastas their straining engines could work. Then there would be one lastsurge of fierce thrusting with oversize jato rockets, built separatelyinto each pushpot, all firing at once.

  Finally the clumsy things would drop off and come bumbling back home,while the Platform's own rockets flared out their mile-long flames--andit headed up for emptiness.

  But the making of these pushpots and all the other multitu
dinousactivities of the Shed would have no meaning if the contents of fourcrates in the wreckage of a burned-out plane could not be salvaged andput to use again.

  Joe said restlessly: "I want to see all this, Sally, and maybe anythingelse I do is useless, but I've got to find out what happened to thegyros I was bringing here!"

  Sally said nothing. She turned, and they moved across the long, longspace of wood-block flooring toward the doorway by which they hadentered. And now that he had seen the Space Platform, all of Joe'sfeeling of guilt and despondency came back. It seemed unbearable. Theywent out through the guarded door, Sally surrendered the pass, and Joewas again checked carefully before he was free to go.

  Then Sally said: "You don't want me tagging around, do you?"

  Joe said honestly: "It isn't exactly that, Sally, but if the stuff isreally smashed, I'd--rather not have anybody see me. Please don't beangry, but--"

  Sally said quietly: "I know. I'll get somebody to drive you over."

  She vanished. She came back with the uniformed man who'd driven MajorHolt. She put her hand momentarily on Joe's arm.

  "If it's really bad, Joe, tell me. You won't let yourself cry, but I'llcry for you." She searched his eyes. "Really, Joe!"

  He grinned feebly and went out to the car.

  The feeling on the way to the airfield was not a good one. It wastwenty-odd miles from the Shed, but Joe dreaded what he was going tosee. The black car burned up the road. It turned to the right off thewhite highway, onto the curved short cut--and there was the field.

  And there was the wreck of the transport plane, still where it hadcrashed and burned. There were still armed guards about it, but men wereworking on the wreck, cutting it apart with torches. Already some of itwas dissected.

  Joe went to the remains of the four crates.

  The largest was bent askew by the force of the crash or an explosion,Joe didn't know which. The smallest was a twisted mass of charcoal. Joegulped, and dug into them with borrowed tools.

  The pilot gyros of the Space Platform would apply the torque that wouldmake the main gyros shift it to any desired position, or else hold itabsolutely still. They were to act, in a sense, as a sort of steeringengine on the take-off and keep a useful function out in space. If astar photograph was to be made, it was essential that the Platform holdabsolutely still while the exposure lasted. If a guided missile was tobe launched, it must be started right, and the pilot gyros were needed.To turn to receive an arriving rocket from Earth....

  The pilot gyros were the steering apparatus of the Space Platform. Theyhad to be more than adequate. They had to be perfect! On the take-offalone, they were starkly necessary. The Platform couldn't hope to reachits orbit without them.

  Joe chipped away charred planks. He pulled off flame-eaten timbers. Hepeeled off carbonized wrappings--but some did not need to be peeled:they crumbled at a touch--and in twenty minutes he knew the whole story.The rotor motors were ruined. The couplers--pilot-to-main-gyroconnections--had been heated red hot and were no longer hardened steel;their dimensions had changed and they would no longer fit. But thesewere not disastrous items. They were serious, but not tragic.

  The tragedy was the gyros themselves. On their absolute precision andutterly perfect balance the whole working of the Platform would depend.And the rotors were gashed in one place, and the shafts were bent. Beingbent and nicked, the precision of the apparatus was destroyed. Itsprecision lost, the whole device was useless. And it had taken fourmonths' work merely to get it perfectly balanced!

  It had been the most accurate piece of machine work ever done on Earth.It was balanced to a microgram--to a millionth of the combined weight ofthree aspirin tablets. It would revolve at 40,000 revolutions perminute. It had to balance perfectly or it would vibrate intolerably. Ifit vibrated at all it would shake itself to pieces, or, failing that,send aging sound waves through all the Platform's substance. If itvibrated by the least fraction of a ten-thousandth of an inch, it wouldwear, and vibrate more strongly, and destroy itself and possibly thePlatform. It needed the precision of an astronomical telescope'slenses--multiplied! And it was bent. It was exactly as useless as if ithad never been made at all.

  Joe felt as a man might feel if the mirror of the greatest telescope onearth, in his care, had been smashed. As if the most priceless picturein the world, in his charge, had been burned. But he felt worse. Whetherit was his fault or not--and it wasn't--it was destroyed.

  A truck rolled up and was stopped by a guard. There was talk, and theguard let it through. A small crane lift came over from the hangars. Itsnormal use was the lifting of plane motors in and out of their nacelles.Now it was to pick up the useless pieces of equipment on which the bestworkmen and the best brains of the Kenmore Precision Tool Company hadworked unceasingly for eight calendar months, and which now was junk.

  Joe watched, numbed by disaster, while the crane hook went down toposition above the once-precious objects. Men shored up the heavy thingsand ran planks under them, and then deftly fitted rope slings for themto be lifted by. It was late afternoon by now. Long shadows wereslanting as the crane truck's gears whined, and the slack took up, andthe first of the four charred objects lifted and swung, spinning slowly,to the truck that had come from the Shed.

  Joe froze, watching. He watched the second. The third did not spin. Itmerely swayed. But the fourth.... The lines up to the crane hook weretwisted. As the largest of the four crates lifted from its bed, ittwisted the lines toward straightness. It spun. It spun more and morerapidly, and then more and more slowly, and stopped, and began to spinback.

  Then Joe caught his breath. It seemed that he hadn't breathed inminutes. The big crate wasn't balanced. It was spinning. It wasn'tvibrating. It spun around its own center of gravity, unerringly revealedby its flexible suspension.

  He watched until it was dropped into the truck. Then he went stifflyover to the driver of the car that had brought him.

  "Everything's all right," he said, feeling a queer astonishment at hisown words. "I'm going to ride back to the Shed with the stuff I brought.It's not hurt too much. I'll be able to fix it with a man or two I canpick up out here. But I don't want anything else to happen to it!"

  So he rode back out to the Shed on the tailboard of the truck thatcarried the crates. The sun set as he rode. He was smudged anddisheveled. The reek of charred wood and burnt insulation and scorchedwrappings was strong in his nostrils. But he felt very much inclined tosing.

  It occurred to Joe that he should have sent Sally a message that shedidn't need to cry as a substitute for him. He felt swell! He knew howto do the job that would let the Space Platform take off! He'd tell her,first chance.

  It was very good to be alive.