Space Platform

by Murray Leinster

  11

  Joe sat on the porch of Major Holt's quarters in the area next to theShed. It was about eight-thirty, and dark, but there was a moon. And Joehad come to realize that his personal disappointment was only hispersonal disappointment, and that he hadn't any right to make a nuisanceof himself about it. Therefore he didn't talk about the thing nearest inhis mind, but something else that was next nearest or farther awaystill. Yet, with the Shed filling up a full quarter of the sky, and agibbous moon new-risen from the horizon, it was not natural for a youngman like Joe to speak purely of earthly things.

  "It'll come," he said yearningly, staring at the moon. "If the Platformgets up day after tomorrow, it's going to take time to ferry up theequipment it ought to have. But still, somebody ought to land on themoon before too long."

  He added absorbedly: "Once the Platform is fully equipped, it won't takemany rocket pay loads to refill a ship's tanks at the Platform, beforeit can head on out."

  Mathematically, a rocket ship that could leave the Platform with fullfuel tanks should have fuel to reach the moon and land on it, and takeoff again and return to the Platform. The mathematical fact had apeculiar nagging flavor. When a dream is subjected to statisticalanalysis and the report is in its favor, a dreamer's satisfaction isalways diluted by a subconscious feeling that the report is only part ofthe dream. Everybody worries a little when a cherished dream shows alikelihood of coming true. Some people take firm steps to stop thingsright there, so a romantic daydream won't be spoiled by transmutationinto prosaic fact. But Joe said doggedly: "Twenty ferry trips to pile upfuel, and the twenty-first ship should be able to refuel and go on out.And then somebody will step out on the moon!"

  He was disappointed now. He wouldn't be the one to do it. But somebodywould.

  "You might try for the ferry service," said Sally uneasily.

  "I will," said Joe grimly, "but I won't be hoping too much. After all,there are astronomers and physics sharks and such things, who'll be gladto learn to run rockets in order to practice their specialties out ofatmosphere."

  Sally said mournfully: "I can't seem to say anything to make you feelbetter!"

  "But you do," said Joe. He added grandiloquently, "But for yourunflagging faith in me, I would not have the courage to bear the burdensof everyday life."

  She stamped her foot.

  "Stop it!"

  "All right." But he said quietly, "You are a good kid, Sally. You know,it's not too bright of me to mourn."

  She drew a deep breath.

  "That's better! Now, I want----"

  There was a gangling figure walking down the concrete path between thetrim, monotonous cottages that were officers' quarters at the Shed.

  Joe said sharply: "That's Haney! What's he doing here?" He called,"Haney!"

  Haney's manner took on purpose. He came across the grass--the lawnsaround the officers' quarters contained the only grass in twenty miles.

  "Hiya," said Haney uncomfortably. He spoke politely to Sally. "Hiya.Uh--you want to get in on the party, Joe?"

  "What kind?"

  "The party Mike was talkin' about," said Haney. "He's set it up. Hewants me to get you and a kinda--uh--undercover tip-off to Major Holt."

  Joe stirred. Sally said hospitably: "Sit down. You've noticed that myfather gave you full security clearance, so you can go anywhere?"

  Haney perched awkwardly on the edge of the porch.

  "Yeah. That's helped with the party. It's how I got here, as far as thatgoes. Mike's on top of the world."

  "Shoot it," said Joe.

  "Y'know he's been pretty bitter about things," said Haney carefully."He's been sayin' that little guys like him ought to be the spacemen.There's half a dozen other little guys been working on the Platform too.They can get in cracks an' buck rivets an' so on. Useful. He's had 'emall hopped up on the fact that the Platform coulda been finished monthsago if it'd been built for them, an' they could get to the moon an' backwhile full-sized guys couldn't an' so on. Remember?"

  "I remember," said Sally.

  "They've all been beefin' about it," explained Haney. "People know howthey feel. So today Mike went and talked to one or two of 'em. An' theystarted actin' mysterious, passin' messages back an' forth an' so on.Little guys, actin' important. Security guys wouldn't notice 'em much.Y'don't take a guy Mike's size serious, unless you know him. Then he'sthe same as anybody else. So the security guys didn't pay any attentionto him. But some other guys did. Some special other guys. They saw thoselittle fellas actin' like they were cookin' up somethin' fancy. An' theybit."

  "Bit?" asked Sally.

  "They got curious. So Mike an' his gang got confidential. An' they'regoing to have help sabotagin' the Platform when the next shift changes.The midgets gettin' even for bein' laughed at, see? They're pretendingtheir plan is that when the Platform's sabotaged--not smashed, but justmessed up so it can't take off--the big brass will let 'em take a ferryrocket up in a hurry, an' get it in orbit, an' use it for a Platformuntil the big Platform can be mended an' sent up. Once they're up there,there's no use tryin' to stop the big Platform. So it can go ahead."

  Joe said dubiously: "I think I see...."

  "Mike and his gang of little guys are bein' saps--on purpose. Ifanybody's goin' to pull some fast stuff, next shift change--that's thetime everybody's got to! Last chance! Mike and his gang don't knowwhat's gonna happen, but they sure know when! They're invitin' the realsaboteurs to make fools of 'em. And what'll happen?"

  Joe said drily: "The logical thing would be to feel sorry for the bigguys who think they're smarter than Mike."

  "Uh-huh," said Haney, deadly serious. "Mike's story is there's half adozen rocket tubes already loaded. They're goin' to fire those rocketsbetween shifts. The Platform gets shoved off its base an' maybe dented,and so on. Mike's gang say they got the figures to prove they can go upin a ferry rocket an' be a Platform, and the big brass won't have anychoice but to let 'em."

  Sally said: "I don't think they know how the big brass thinks."

  Haney and Joe said together, "No!" and Joe added: "Mike's not crazy! Heknows better! But it's a good story for somebody who doesn't know Mike."

  Haney said in indignation: "I came out here to ask the Major to help us.The Chief's gettin' a gang together, too. There's some Indians of histribe that work here. We can count on them for plenty of rough stuff.And there's Joe and me. The point is that Mike's stunt makes it certainthat everything busts loose at a time we can know in advance. If theMajor gives us a free hand, and then in the last five minutes takes hisown measures--so they can't leak out ahead of time and tip off the gangswe want to get--we oughta knock off all the expert saboteurs who knowthe weak spots in the Platform. For instance those who know thatthermite in the gyros would mess everything up all over again."

  Joe said quietly: "But Major Holt has to be told well in advance aboutall this! That's absolute!"

  "Yeah," agreed Haney. "But also he has got to keep quiet--not tellanybody else! There've been too many leaks already about too manythings. You know that!"

  Joe said: "Sally, see if you can get your father to come here and talk.Haney's right. Not in his office. Right here."

  Sally got up and went inside the house. She came back with an uneasyexpression on her face.

  "He's coming. But I couldn't very well tell him what was wanted,and--I'm not sure he's going to be in a mood to listen."

  When the Major arrived he was definitely not in a mood to listen. He wasa harried man, and he was keyed up to the limit by the multiplied straindue to the imminence of the Platform's take-off. He came back to hishouse from a grim conference on exactly the subject of how to makepreparations against any possible sabotage incidents--and ran into aproposal to stimulate them! He practically exploded. Even if provocationshould be given to saboteurs to lure them into showing their hands, thiswas no time for it! And if it were, it would be security business. Itshould not be meddled in by amateurs!

  Joe said grimly: "I don't mean to be disrespectful, sir, bu
t there's apoint you've missed. It isn't thinkable that you'll be able to preventsomething from being tried at a time the saboteurs pick. They've gotjust so much time left, and they'll use it! But Mike's plan would offerthem a diversion under cover of which they could pull their own stuff!And besides that, you know your office leaks! You couldn't set up atrick like this through security methods. And for a third fact, this isthe one sort of thing no saboteur would expect from your securityorganization! We caught the saboteurs at the pushpot field by guessingat a new sort of thinking for sabotage. Here's a chance to catch thesaboteurs who'll work their heads off in the next twenty-four hours orso, by using a new sort of thinking for security!"

  Major Holt was not an easy man to get along with at any time, and thiswas the worst of all times to differ with him. But he did thinkstraight. He stared furiously at Joe, growing crimson with anger atbeing argued with. But after he had stared a full minute, the angryflush went slowly away. Then he nodded abruptly.

  "There you have a point," he said curtly. "I don't like it. But it is apoint. It would be completely the reverse of anything my antagonistscould possibly expect. So I accept the suggestion. Now--let us make thearrangements."

  He settled down for a quick, comprehensive, detailed plan. In carefulconsultation with Haney, Joe worked it out. The all-important point wasthat the Major's part was to be done in completely unorthodox fashion.He would take measures to mesh his actions with those of Mike, theChief, Haney, and Joe. Each action the Major took and each order he gavehe would attend to personally. His actions would be restricted to thelast five minutes or less before shift-change time. His orders would begiven individually to individuals, and under no circumstances would hetransmit any order through anybody else. In every instance, his orderwould be devised to mean nothing intelligible to its recipient until thetime came for obedience.

  It was not an easy scheme for the Major to bind himself to. It rancounter to every principle of military thinking save one, which was thatit was a good idea to outguess the enemy. At the end he said detachedly:"This is distinctly irregular. It is as irregular as anything couldpossibly be! But that is why I have agreed to it. It will be atleast--unexpected--coming from me!"

  Then he smiled without mirth and nodded to Joe and to Haney, and wentstriding away down the concrete walk to where his car waited.

  Haney left a moment later to carry the list of arrangements to the Chiefand to Mike. And Joe went into the Shed to do his part.

  There was little difference in the appearance of the Shed by night. Inthe daytime there were long rows of windows in the roof, which let in avague, dusky, inadequate twilight. At night those windows wereshuttered. This meant that the shadows were a little sharper and thecontrasts of light and shade a trifle more abrupt. All other changesthat Joe could see were the normal ones due to the taking down ofscaffolding and the fastening up of rocket tubes. It was clear that theshape of the Platform proper would be obscure when all its rocket tubeswere fast in place.

  Joe went to look at the last pushpots, and they were ready to be takenover to their own field for their flight test before use. There wereextras, anyhow, beyond the number needed to lift the Platform. He foundhimself considering the obvious fact that after the Platform was aloft,they would be used to launch the ferry rockets, too.

  Then he moved toward the center of the Shed. A whole level ofscaffolding came apart and its separate elements were bundled togetheras he watched. Slings lowered the bundles down to waiting trucks whichwould carry them elsewhere. There were mixing trucks still pouring outtheir white paste for the lining of the rocket tubes, and their productwent up and vanished into the gaping mouths of the giant wire-woundpipes.

  Presently Joe went into the maze of piers under the Space Platformitself. He came to the temporary stairs he had reason to remember. Henodded to the two guards there.

  "I want to take another look at that gadget we installed," he said.

  One of the guards said good-naturedly: "Major Holt said to pass you anytime."

  He ascended and went along the curious corridor--it had handgrips on thewalls so a man could pull himself along it when there was no weight--andwent to the engine room. He heard voices. They were speaking acompletely unintelligible language. He tensed.

  Then the Chief grinned at him amiably. He was in the engine room andwith him were no fewer than eight men of his own coppery complexion.

  "Here's some friends of mine," he explained, and Joe shook hands withblack-haired, dark-skinned men who were named Charley Spotted Dog andSam Fatbelly and Luther Red Cow and other exotic things. The Chief saidexuberantly, "Major Holt told the guards to let me pass in some Indianfriends, so I took my gang on a guided tour of the Platform. None of 'emhad ever been inside before. And----"

  "I heard you talking Indian," said Joe.

  "You're gonna hear some more," said the Chief. "We're the first warparty of my tribe in longer'n my grandpa woulda thought respectable!"

  Joe found it difficult to restrain a smile. The Chief took him off toone side.

  "Fella," he said kindly, "it bothers you, this business, because itain't organized. That's what this world needs, Joe. Everything figuredout by slide rules an' such--it's civilized, but it ain't human! Whateverybody oughta be is a connoisseur of chaos, like me. Quit worryin'an' get outside and pick up that security guy the Major was gonna sendto meet you!"

  He gave Joe an amiable shove and rejoined his fellow Mohawks, each ofwhom, Joe noticed suddenly, had somewhere on his person a twelve-inchStillson wrench or a reasonable facsimile to serve as a substitutetomahawk. They grinned at him as he departed.

  At the bottom of the flight of narrow wooden steps there was a thirdsecurity man. He greeted Joe.

  "Major Holt told me to pick you up," he observed.

  Joe walked to one side with him. Major Holt had promised to send afirst-class man to meet Joe at this place, with orders to takeinstructions from Joe. Joe said curtly: "You're to snag as many Securitymen as you can, place them more or less out of sight under the Platformhere, and tell them to turn off their walkie-talkies and wait. No matterwhat happens, they're to wait right here until they're needed, righthere!"

  He looked harassedly around him. The Security man nodded and movedcasually away. This was close timing. Something made Joe look up. He sawthe catwalk gallery nearly overhead. The expected guard was there.Haney, though, was with him. There was nothing else in sight. Not yet.But Haney was on the job. Joe saw a Security man step out of sight inthe scaffolding. He saw his own assigned security man speak to another,who wandered casually toward the Platform's base.

  Minutes passed. Only Joe could have noticed, because he was watching forit. There were eight or nine Security men posted within call. They hadtheir walkie-talkies turned off and would be subject only to his ordersif an emergency arose.

  Gongs began to ring all around the edge of the Shed. They set up ahorrendous clanging. This was not an alarm, but simply the notice ofchange-of-shift time.

  There was a marked change in the noises overhead. A crane pulled back.Hammerings dwindled and stopped. There were the sounds of pipes,combined to form the scaffolds, being taken apart for removal. Asling-load of pipe touched the floor and stayed there. The crane'sinternal-combustion motor stopped. Its operator stepped down to thefloor and headed for the exit. Hoists descended and men moved across thefloor. Other men scrambled down ladders. The floor became dotted withfigures moving toward the doors through which men went out to get on thebusses for Bootstrap.

  Nothing happened. More long minutes passed. The shift brought out by thebusses was going through the check-over process in the incoming screenroom. Joe knew that Major Holt had, within the past five minutes,gathered together a tight-knit bunch of armed security men to beavailable for anything that might turn up. The men doing the normalshift-change screening were shorthanded in consequence.

  The floor next to the exits became crowded, but the central area of thefloor was cleared. One truck was stalled at the swing-up truck doors.Its
driver ground the starter insistently.

  Suddenly there was a high-pitched yell away up on the Platform. Thenthere was a shot. Its echoes rang horribly in the resonant interior ofthe Shed. Joe's own special security man hurried to him, his face tense.

  "What about that?"

  "Hold everything," said Joe grimly. "That's taken care of."

  It was. That was Mike's gang--miniature humans popping out of hiding tooffer battle with missiles carefully prepared beforehand against theiralleged associates in sabotage. One of the associates had drawn a gunand fired. But Mike's gang had help. Out of small air locks devised tomake the Platform's skin accessible to its crew on every side--providedthey wore space suits--dark-skinned men appeared.

  The security man's walkie-talkie under his shoulder made a buzzingsound. He reached for it.

  "Forget it!" snapped Joe. "That's not for you! You've got your orders!Stay here!"

  There was a sudden growling uproar where men were crowding to get out ofthe Shed. Thick, billowing smoke appeared. There was a crashingexplosion. The men eddied and milled crazily.

  The motor of the stalled truck caught. It moved toward the door, whichopened, swinging up and high. Two trucks came roaring in. They raced forthe Platform. And as they raced inside, their camouflaged loadsclattered off and men showed instead. The guards by the doorway began toshoot.

  "That's what we've got to stop!" snapped Joe.

  He began to run, his pistol out. There was suddenly a smallarmy--gathered by his orders--which materialized in the dim space underthe Platform. It raced to guard against this evidently well-plannedinvasion.

  The harsh, tearing rattle of a machine gun sounded from somewhere highup. Joe knew what it was. Mike's whole scheme had been intended to forceall sabotage efforts to take place at a single instant. Part of thepreparation was authority for Haney to drag in two machine guns from anouter watching-post and mount them to cover the interior of the Shedwhen the general attack began.

  Those machine guns were shooting at the trucks. Splinters sprang up fromthe wood-block floor. Then, abruptly, one of the trucks vanished in amonstrous, actinic flash of blue-white flame and a roar so horrible thatit was not sound but pure concussion. The other truck keeled over andcrashed from the blast, but did not explode. Men jumped from it. Theremust have been screamed orders, but Joe could hear nothing at all. Heonly saw men waving their arms, and others seized things from thetoppled load and rushed toward him, and he began to shoot as he ran tomeet them.

  Now, belatedly, the sirens of the Shed screamed their alarm, and choppyyappings set up as the siren wails rose in pitch. Over by the exitpistols cracked. Something fell with a ghastly crash not ten feet fromwhere Joe ran. It was a man's body, toppled from somewhere high up onthe structure that was the most important man-made thing in all theworld. A barbaric war whoop sounded among the echoes of other tumult.

  A Security man shot, and one of the running figures toppled and slid,his burden--which must certainly be a bomb--rolling ridiculously. Therehad been two trucks that plunged through the swing-up door. They hadraced for the spaces under the Platform at the exact time when the floorwould be clear, because all work had stopped. Under the Platform, thetrucks were to have been detonated. At the very least, they would haverent and torn it horribly. They might have broken its back. And surelyone truck should have made it. But there should not have been machineguns ready trained to shoot. Now the load of desperate men from theoverturned survivor scurried for the Platform with parts of its cargo.If they could fight their way inside the Platform, they could blast itshull open, or demolish its controls or shatter its air pumps and itsgyros and turn its air tanks into sieves. Anything that could be damagedwould delay the take-off and so expose the Platform to further andperhaps more successful attack.

  There were more pistol shots. A group of men fought their way out of theincoming screening rooms and raced for the center of the Shed. (Later,it would be found they had slabs of explosive inside their garments, anddetonation caps to set them off.) Somewhere another door opened, andSecurity men came out with flickering pistols, Major Holt leading them.He had started out to fight off the truck-borne attack, but he was boundto be too late. Joe's followers were trying to take care of that. Thescuttling men from the incoming rooms were Major Holt's first prey. Theywere shot as they ran.

  Joe stumbled and fell and he heard guns crackling. As he scrambled up hepitched into a running figure that snarled as Joe hit him. And then hewas fighting for his life.

  This was under the Platform and in the middle of confusion many timesconfounded. Joe caught a wrist that held a gun. He knew his assailanthad a bomb slung over one shoulder and right now had one hand free forcombat. Joe instinctively tried to batter his enemy with his own pistol,instead of pushing the muzzle against the man's body and pulling thetrigger. He struck a flailing blow, and his hand and the weapon struck ametal brace. The blow cut his knuckles and paralyzed his fingers.Despairingly he felt the pistol slipping from his grasp. Then hisassailant brought up his knee viciously, but it hit Joe's thigh insteadof his groin, and Joe flung his weight furiously forward and theytoppled to the ground together.

  There was fighting all around him. The machine guns rasped again--therewas a burst of tracer-bullet fire. The panicked men by the exit tried tosurge out through the swinging doors. But the tracers marked a line theymust not cross. They checked. Once a gun flashed so close by Joe's eyesthat it blinded him. And once somebody fell over both himself and hisantagonist, who writhed like an eel possessed of desperate strength pastbelief.

  Joe could really know only his private part in the struggle down in themurky tangle of the scaffold base. But there was fighting up on thePlatform itself. A savagely grinning Mohawk wrestled furiously with aman on one of the rocket tubes. An incendiary device in the saboteur'spocket ignited, and it flamed red-hot and he screamed as it burned itsway out of his garments. The Mohawk flung the man fiercely clear, tocrash horribly on the far-distant floor, and then kicked the incendiaryoff. It fell after the man and hit and burst, and it was thermite whichsurrounded itself with a column of acrid smoke from seared wood blocks.

  There was fighting by the exit doors. There was an ululating uproar inthe incoming screening room, and a war whoop from the top of thePlatform. A saboteur tried to crawl into an air-lock entrance, and hegot his head and shoulders in, but a copper-skinned Indian held hisforehead still and chopped down with the side of his hand on that man'sneck. Underneath the Platform was panting chaos, with pistol shots andhand-to-hand struggles everywhere. The force Joe had gathered foughtvaliantly, but four invaders got to the foot of the wooden steps, wherethere were two guards. Then there were only two saboteurs left toscramble desperately up the steps over the dead guards' bodies and headtoward the Platform door, but the Chief appeared swinging a twelve-inchStillson. He let it go, precisely like a skillfully flung tomahawk, andleaped down sixteen steps squarely onto the body of the other man. A gunflashed, but then there was only squirming struggle on the floor.

  Mike the midget, inside the Platform, found one bloodied, panting,sobbing man who somehow had gotten inside. And Mike brought down aspanner from a ladder step, and swarmed upon his half-conscious victim,and hit him again, and then stayed on guard until somebody arrived whowas big enough to carry the saboteur away.

  And all this while, Joe struggled with only one man. It was a horriblestruggle, because the man had a bomb and he might manage to set it offor it might go off of itself. It was a ghastly struggle, because the manhad the strength and desperation of a maniac--and practiced the tactics.Joe pounded the hand that held the gun upon the floor, and it hitsomething and exploded smokily and fell clear. But that made thingsworse. While struggling to kill Joe with the revolver, his antagonisthad had only five fingers with which to gouge out Joe's eyes or tearaway his ears or rend his flesh. But with no pistol he had ten, and hefought like a wild beast. He even breathed like an animal. He began topant--thick, guttural pantings that had the quality of hellish hate. Andthen ther
e was a surging of bodies--Major Holt's reserve was arrivingvery late in the center of the Shed--and then a struggling grouptrampled all over the pair who squirmed and fought on the ground, and aheavy boot jammed down Joe's head and he felt teeth sink in his throat.They dug into his flesh, worrying and tearing....

  Joe used his knee in a frenzy of revulsion--used his knee as the otherman had tried to use his in the first instant of battle. The man beneathhim screamed as an animal would scream, and Joe jerked his bleedingthroat free. In hysterical horror he pounded his antagonist's head onthe floor until the man went limp....

  And then he heard a grim voice saying: "Quit it or you get your headblown off! Quit it----" And Joe panted: "It's about time you guys gothere! This man came in on that truck. Watch out for that bomb he's gotslung on him...."