Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen of Space Platform by Murray Leinster. This LibriVox
Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain Space Platform, Chapter thirteen.
Speaker 1: On the day of the take off, there were a
Speaker 1: number of curious side effects from the completion of the
Speaker 1: Space Platform. There was a very small country on the
Speaker 1: other side of the world which determined desperately to risk
Speaker 1: its existence on the success of the platform's flight. It
Speaker 1: had to choose between abject submission to a powerful neighbor
Speaker 1: or the possibility of a revolution in which its neighbor's
Speaker 1: troops would take on the semblance of citizens for street
Speaker 1: fighting purposes. If the Platform got aloft, it could defy
Speaker 1: its neighbor, and in a grim gamble it did. There
Speaker 1: was also a last ditch fight in the United Nations,
Speaker 1: wherein the platform was denounced and a certain block of
Speaker 1: associated countries issued an ultimatum threat to both the international
Speaker 1: organization if the platform went aloft, and again there had
Speaker 1: to be a grim gamble. If the Platform did not
Speaker 1: take the space and so furnish ultimately a guarantee of peace,
Speaker 1: the United Nations would face the alternatives of becoming a
Speaker 1: military alliance for atomic war or something less than an
Speaker 1: international Debating society. Of course, there were less significant results.
Speaker 1: There were already fourteen popular songs ready for broadcast, orchestrated
Speaker 1: and rehearsed with singers ready to saturate the ears of
Speaker 1: the listening public. They ranged from We've got a warship
Speaker 1: in the sky, which was more or less jingoistic, to
Speaker 1: a boy and girl melody entitled We'll have a moon
Speaker 1: just for us two. The latter tune had been stolen
Speaker 1: from a hit of four years before, which in turn
Speaker 1: had been stolen from a head of six years before that,
Speaker 1: and it had been stolen from a still earlier bit
Speaker 1: of bach, so it was a rather pretty melody. And
Speaker 1: of course there was a super colossal motion picture epic
Speaker 1: in color and with musical numbers champing in its film
Speaker 1: cans for simultaneous first run showings at eight different key cities.
Speaker 1: It was titled to the Stars, and three separate endings
Speaker 1: had been filmed, of which the appropriate one would of
Speaker 1: course be used in the eight separate world premieres. One
Speaker 1: ending had the platform failed due to sabotage, and the
Speaker 1: hero played by an actor who had interrupted his seventh
Speaker 1: honeymoon to play the part, splendidly prepared to build it
Speaker 1: all over again. The second ending closed with the platform
Speaker 1: headed for Alpha Centaurus, which was hardly the intention of
Speaker 1: anybody outside of filmdom. The third ending was secret, but
Speaker 1: it was said that hard boiled motion picture executives had
Speaker 1: cried like babies when it was thrown on preview screens. These,
Speaker 1: of course, were merely sidelights. They were not very important.
Speaker 1: In the shed. There work went on at a feverish rate,
Speaker 1: although there was no longer any construction work to be done.
Speaker 1: In theory, therefore, the members of welders and pipe fitters,
Speaker 1: and steel construction, and electrical and other unions should have
Speaker 1: retired gracefully to bootstrap. Members of building maintenance and rigging
Speaker 1: and wrecking and other assorted unions should have been gathered
Speaker 1: together in far cities, screened by security, and brought to
Speaker 1: bootstrap and paid overtime to pull up wood block flooring
Speaker 1: and unbolt and jack out the proper section of the
Speaker 1: shed's eastern wall. But if there had been anything of
Speaker 1: that sort tride, it would have produced bloodshed. The men
Speaker 1: who'd built the platform were going to see it depart
Speaker 1: this earth, or else they'd never have a second chance.
Speaker 1: It would work. The first time, or it wouldn't work
Speaker 1: at all. So the platform was made ready for its
Speaker 1: takeoff by the men who had made it. A gigantic
Speaker 1: section two full gores of the shed's wall was unbolted
Speaker 1: in two pieces, and each piece thrust outward at the
Speaker 1: top and bottom, so that they were offset from the
Speaker 1: rest of the huge half globe. There were hundreds of
Speaker 1: wheels at their bottom, which for the first time touched
Speaker 1: the sixteen lines of rails laid with unbelievable solidity around
Speaker 1: the outside of the shed. And then the monstrous sections
Speaker 1: were rolled aside. A vast opening resulted, and morning sunlight
Speaker 1: smote for the first time mankind's very first spacecraft. Joe
Speaker 1: saw the sunlight strike, and his first sensation was of disappointment.
Speaker 1: The normal shape of the platform was ungainly, but now
Speaker 1: it was practically hidden by the solid fuel rocket which
Speaker 1: would consume themselves in their firing. Also, the floor of
Speaker 1: the shed looked strange. It was littered with the clumsy
Speaker 1: shapes of pushpots trucked to this place in an unending
Speaker 1: stream all night long. A very young lieutenant from the
Speaker 1: Pushpot Airfield hunted up Joe and assured him that every
Speaker 1: drop of fuel in every pushpot's tanks had been tested twice,
Speaker 1: once in the storage tanks and again in the pushpots.
Speaker 1: Joe thanked him very politely. There was no longer any scaffolding.
Speaker 1: There were no trucks left except two gigantic cranes, which
Speaker 1: could handle the pushpots like so many toys, and the
Speaker 1: effect of sunlight pouring into the shed seemed strange. Indeed,
Speaker 1: outside there were carpenters hammering professionally upon a hasty grandstand
Speaker 1: of timber. Most of the carpenters would have been handier
Speaker 1: with ribbon guns or welding torches, but it would have
Speaker 1: been indiscreet to comment. As fast as a final timber
Speaker 1: was spiked in place, somebody hastily wound it with very
Speaker 1: tawdry bunting. Men were stringing wires to the grand stand,
Speaker 1: and other men were setting up television and movie cameras.
Speaker 1: Two security men grimly stood by each camera amid a
Speaker 1: glittering miscellany of microphones. Joe was lucky, or perhaps Sally
Speaker 1: pulled wires. Anyhow, the two of them had a vantage
Speaker 1: point for which many other people would have paid astonishing sums.
Speaker 1: They waited where the circular ramp between the two skins
Speaker 1: of the shed was broken by the removal of the doorway.
Speaker 1: They were half way up the curve of the shed's
Speaker 1: roof at the edge of the great opening, and they
Speaker 1: could see everything from the push pipe pilots as they
Speaker 1: were checked into their contraptions, to the sedate arrival of
Speaker 1: the big brass at the grand stand below. There was
Speaker 1: a reverberant humming from the shed. Now it might have
Speaker 1: been the humming of wind blowing across its open section.
Speaker 1: Joe and Sally saw a grim knot of security men
Speaker 1: escorting four crew members to a flight of wooden steps
Speaker 1: that led up to a lower air lock door. Joe
Speaker 1: had reason to remember that door and watched them enter
Speaker 1: and close the air lock behind them. Then the security
Speaker 1: men pulled away the wooden stairs and hauled them completely away.
Speaker 1: There were a very few highly trusted men making final
Speaker 1: inspections of the platform's exterior. One of them was nearly
Speaker 1: on a level with Joe and Sally. Other men were
Speaker 1: already lowering themselves down on ropes that they later jerked free.
Speaker 1: But this last man on top did a very human
Speaker 1: thing when he finished his check up to the last
Speaker 1: least detail. He pulled something out of his hip pocket.
Speaker 1: It was a tobacco can full of black paint. There
Speaker 1: was a brush with it. He painted his name on
Speaker 1: the silvery plates of the platform, C. J. Adams Junior,
Speaker 1: and satisfiedly began his descent to the ground. His name
Speaker 1: would go up with the platform and be visible for
Speaker 1: uncounted generations if all went well. He reached the ground
Speaker 1: and walked away contented. The cranes began their task. Each
Speaker 1: one reached down deliberately and picked up a pushpot. They
Speaker 1: swung the pushpots to vertical positions and presented them precisely
Speaker 1: to the platform side. They clung there ridiculously magnetic grapples.
Speaker 1: Of course, Joe and Sally, at the end of the
Speaker 1: corridor in the wall could see the heads of the
Speaker 1: pushpot pilots in their plastic domes. Music blared from behind
Speaker 1: the grandstand. The seats were being filled, but naturally, the
Speaker 1: least important personages were arriving first. There were women in
Speaker 1: costumes to which they had given infinite thought, and nobody
Speaker 1: looked at them except other women. There was khaki. There
Speaker 1: were gray business suits, slide rulemen. These who had done
Speaker 1: the brain work behind the platform's design. Then black broadcloth
Speaker 1: politicians passed question. There was nothing less impressive from a
Speaker 1: height of two hundred feet than a pot bellied man
Speaker 1: in black broadcloth walking on the ground. There were men
Speaker 1: in uniforms which were not of the United States Armed Forces.
Speaker 1: They ran heavily to medals which glittered. There were more arrivals,
Speaker 1: and more and more. The newsreel and TV cameras nosed around.
Speaker 1: The cranes worked methodically. They dipped and deftly picked up
Speaker 1: a thing shaped like the top half of a loaf
Speaker 1: of bread. They swung that metal thing to the platform side.
Speaker 1: Each time it clung fast, like a snail or slug,
Speaker 1: to the surface on which it crawls. Many pushed pots
Speaker 1: clung even to the rocket tubes, the same tubes that
Speaker 1: would presently burn away and vanish. So Joe and Sally
Speaker 1: saw the pushpots in a new aspect, blunt metal slugs
Speaker 1: with gaping mouths, which were their air scoops. The tinny
Speaker 1: music from below cut off. Somebody began an oration. The
Speaker 1: men who had built the platform were not interested in
Speaker 1: fine phrases. But this event was broadcast everywhere, and some
Speaker 1: people might possibly tune to the channels that carried the
Speaker 1: speakers and their orations, rather than the channels that showed
Speaker 1: the huge, bleak, obscured shape of the monster that was
Speaker 1: headed either for empty space or pure disaster. The speaker stopped,
Speaker 1: and another took his place, then another. One man spoke
Speaker 1: for less than a minute, and the stands went wild.
Speaker 1: But the one who followed made splendid gestures. He talked
Speaker 1: and talked and talked. The cranes cleaned up the last
Speaker 1: of the waiting pushpots, and the platform itself was practically invisible.
Speaker 1: The cranes backed off and went away clanking. The orator
Speaker 1: raised his voice. It made small echoes in the vast
Speaker 1: cavern that was the shed. Somebody plucked the speaker's arm.
Speaker 1: He ended abruptly and sat down, wiping his forehead with
Speaker 1: a huge blue handkerchief. There was a roar. A pushpot
Speaker 1: had started its motor. Another roar, another, One by one,
Speaker 1: the multitude of clustering objects added to the din in
Speaker 1: the open, A single jet was appalling. Here. The noise
Speaker 1: became a sound which was no longer a sound. It
Speaker 1: became a tumult, which, by pure volume, ceased to be
Speaker 1: anything one's ears could understand. It reached a peak and
Speaker 1: held there. Then abruptly all the motors slackened in unison
Speaker 1: and then roared more loudly. The group controls within the
Speaker 1: platform were being tested three four, five times. The tumult
Speaker 1: faded to the merely unbearable and went up to full
Speaker 1: volume again. Joe felt Sally plucking at his arm. He
Speaker 1: turned and saw jet planes underbelly, very close, and it
Speaker 1: swept back wings. It was climbing straight up. Then he
Speaker 1: saw another jet plane streaking for the Great Dome's open door.
Speaker 1: It moved with incredible velocity. It jerked upward and climbed
Speaker 1: over the shed's curve and was gone. But there were others,
Speaker 1: and others and others. These were the fighter ships of
Speaker 1: the Jet Plane Guard. For months on end they had
Speaker 1: flown above the shed, protecting it. Now they were going
Speaker 1: aloft to relieve the present watchers. They were rising to
Speaker 1: spread out as an interceptor screen for hundreds of miles
Speaker 1: in every direction, in case somebody should be so foolish
Speaker 1: as to try again the exploit of the night before,
Speaker 1: they would not see the monster in the shed again.
Speaker 1: So in a single line which reached to the horizon,
Speaker 1: they made this roaring run for the one last glimpse,
Speaker 1: which was their right. Joe saw tiny specks come streaking
Speaker 1: down out of the sky to queue up for this
Speaker 1: privileged view of the platform before it rose. Suddenly they
Speaker 1: were gone, and Joe felt that tingling sense of pride
Speaker 1: which never comes from the sensation of sharing in mere
Speaker 1: power or splendor or pompous might, but is so certain
Speaker 1: when the human touch modifies magnificence. And then the roaring
Speaker 1: of the pushpot engines achieved an utterly impossible volume. The
Speaker 1: whole interior of the shed was misty now but shining
Speaker 1: in the morning light, and the platform moved. At first,
Speaker 1: it was a mere stir. It turned ever so slightly
Speaker 1: to one side, pivoting on the ways that had supported
Speaker 1: it during building. It turned back and to the other side.
Speaker 1: The vapor thickened from each jet motor. A blast of
Speaker 1: blue white flame poured down, and the moisturing the earth
Speaker 1: was turning into steam and stray woodblocks into acrid smoke.
Speaker 1: The platform turned precisely and exactly back to its original position,
Speaker 1: and Joe's heart pounded in his throat because he knew
Speaker 1: that the turning had been done with the Gyros, and
Speaker 1: they had been handled by the pilot Gyros, for which
Speaker 1: he was responsible. Then the platform moved again. It lifted
Speaker 1: by inches and swayed forward. It checked and lurched again,
Speaker 1: and went staggering toward the great opening. Before it, a
Speaker 1: part of its base gouged a deep furrow in the
Speaker 1: earthen floor. The noise increased from the incredible to the
Speaker 1: inn conceivable. It seemed as if all the thunder since
Speaker 1: time began had returned to Bellow, because the platform moved,
Speaker 1: and it floated and bumped out of the shed. It
Speaker 1: staggered toward the east. Its keel was perhaps at this
Speaker 1: point as much as three feet above the ground, but
Speaker 1: the jet motors cast up blinding clouds of dust and smoke,
Speaker 1: and even those afoot could not be sure. There was confusion.
Speaker 1: The smoke and vapor splashed out in every possible direction.
Speaker 1: Joe saw frantic movement, and he realized that the uniforms
Speaker 1: and the frock coats were scrambling to escape the fumes.
Speaker 1: The khaki tinted specks, which were men, seemed to run,
Speaker 1: the frock coats ran, The carefully thought out brighter specks,
Speaker 1: which were women ran gasping and choking from the smoke.
Speaker 1: One stout figure toppled, scrambled up, and scuttled frantically for safety.
Speaker 1: But the platform was in motion. Now it was a
Speaker 1: hundred yards behind the shed wall two hundred three. It
Speaker 1: slowly gathered speed. A half mile from the shed, it
Speaker 1: was definitely clear of the ground. It left a trail
Speaker 1: of scorched, burnt desert behind it moved almost swiftly. Now
Speaker 1: two miles from the shed, it was fifteen feet above
Speaker 1: the earth. Three miles and a clear strip of sunlight
Speaker 1: showed beneath it, And it was still accelerating. At four
Speaker 1: miles and five and six it was aloft, climbing with
Speaker 1: seemingly infinite slowness, with all the hundreds of straining, thrusting,
Speaker 1: clumsy pushpots clinging to it and pushing it ever ahead
Speaker 1: and upward. It went smoothly toward the east. It continued
Speaker 1: to gain speed. It did not seem to dip toward
Speaker 1: the horizon at all. It went on and on, dwindling
Speaker 1: from a giant to a spot, and then to a
Speaker 1: little dark speck in the sky that still went on
Speaker 1: and on until Joe could not pretend to himself that
Speaker 1: he still saw it. Even then there was probably a
Speaker 1: tiny droning noise in the air, but nobody who had
Speaker 1: watched the take off could possibly hear it. Then Joe
Speaker 1: looked at Sallie and she at him, and Joe was
Speaker 1: grinning like an ape with excitement and relief and triumph
Speaker 1: which was at once his own and that of all
Speaker 1: his dreams. Sallie's eyes were shining and exultant. She hugged
Speaker 1: him in purest exuberance, crying that the space platform was up,
Speaker 1: was up, was up. At sundown, they were waiting on
Speaker 1: the porch of the Major's quarters behind the shed. The
Speaker 1: Major was there, and Hainy and the Chief and Mike
Speaker 1: and Joe. The Major's whole look had changed. He seemed
Speaker 1: to have shrunk, and he looked more tired than any
Speaker 1: man should ever be allowed to get. But his job
Speaker 1: was done, and the reaction was enough to explain everything.
Speaker 1: He sat in an easy chair with a glass beside him,
Speaker 1: and he looked as if nothing on earth could make
Speaker 1: him move a finger, but nevertheless, he was waiting. Salie
Speaker 1: came out with a tray. She gravely passed around the
Speaker 1: glasses and the cakes that went with them. Then she
Speaker 1: sat down on the porch steps beside Joe. She looked
Speaker 1: at him and nodded in friendly fashion, And Joe was
Speaker 1: inorderately approving of Sallie, but he felt awkward at showing
Speaker 1: it too plainly in her father's presence. Mike said defiantly,
Speaker 1: but it still would have been easier to get up
Speaker 1: there if it had been built for guys like me.
Speaker 1: Nobody contradicted him. He was right, anyhow, every one of
Speaker 1: them felt too much relaxed and relieved to enter into argument.
Speaker 1: Hainy said, dreamily. Everything broke right. Everything they got in
Speaker 1: a jet stream like they expected, and they gave them
Speaker 1: three hundred miles extra east speed. They were eight miles
Speaker 1: up when the pushpots fired their jadoes, and twelve miles
Speaker 1: up when the pushpots let go. They must have near
Speaker 1: broke their pilot's Next when they caught their motors again,
Speaker 1: and the platform's rockets fired just rights, making flames a
Speaker 1: mile long, and they were going. Then what were they making?
Speaker 1: Who cares, asked the chief peacefully. Plenty six hundred from
Speaker 1: the pushpots, murmured heiny, frowning, and three hundred from the
Speaker 1: jet stream. And then there was the jadoes that all
Speaker 1: let go at once, and then there was eight hundred
Speaker 1: from the Earth rotating. They had ten percent of their
Speaker 1: rockets on fired when they got into their orbit, said
Speaker 1: Mike authoritatively. They were two thousand miles up when they
Speaker 1: passed over India, and now they're four thousand miles up
Speaker 1: and the orbit stable. This is their third round, isn't
Speaker 1: it will be? Said the Chief. Joe and sadly sat
Speaker 1: watching the west. The space platform went around the Earth
Speaker 1: from west to east, like Earth's natural moon, but because
Speaker 1: of its speed, it would rise in the west and
Speaker 1: set in the east six times in every twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: Major Holt spoke suddenly, the austerity had gone out of
Speaker 1: his manner. With his energy, he said quietly, you four,
Speaker 1: you gave me the worst scare I've ever had in
Speaker 1: my life. But do you realize that that sabotage attempt
Speaker 1: with the two truckloads of explosive Do you realize that
Speaker 1: they'd have gotten the platform if it hadn't been for
Speaker 1: that crazy trick you foreplanned and the precautions we took
Speaker 1: because of it, Joe said, deprecatingly, it was just luck
Speaker 1: that they happened to pick the same time, and that
Speaker 1: Haney was up there with those machine gunners at the
Speaker 1: right moment. It was good luck, but it was luck.
Speaker 1: The Major said effortfully. There are people called accident prones.
Speaker 1: Accidents happen all around them, and nobody knows why. You four,
Speaker 1: perhaps Joe especially, are not accident prones. You seem to
Speaker 1: be something antithetical to accidents. I would hesitate to credit
Speaker 1: your usefulness to your brains, especially Joe's brains. I have
Speaker 1: known him too long, but Washington does not look at
Speaker 1: it in exactly the same way. Sally touched Joe warningly,
Speaker 1: but her face was very bright and proud. Joe felt queer.
Speaker 1: Joe said, the Major tiredly was an alternate for membership
Speaker 1: in the platform's crew. But for penicillin or something of
Speaker 1: the sort that made a sick man get well quickly,
Speaker 1: Joe would be up there in the platforms or But now,
Speaker 1: his record in the instruction he did take was satisfactory,
Speaker 1: and all four of you were very useful in the
Speaker 1: last stages of the building of the platform. Again, Joe,
Speaker 1: especially his cooperation with higher authorities, has produced very favorable comments,
Speaker 1: so it has felt that he should have some recognition.
Speaker 1: All of you, of course, but Joe especially so. Joe
Speaker 1: felt himself going white. Joe said, the major is to
Speaker 1: be offered an appointment as skipper of a ferry rocket
Speaker 1: carrying supplies and crew reliefs to the platform. His rocket
Speaker 1: will carry a crew of four, including himself. His recommendations
Speaker 1: for membership in his crew will have considerable weight. There
Speaker 1: was a buzzing in Joe's ears. He wanted to cry
Speaker 1: and to dance, and especially right then, he would have
Speaker 1: liked very much to kiss Sallie. It would have been
Speaker 1: the only really appropriate way to express his emotions. Mike said,
Speaker 1: in a fierce, strained voice, Joe, I can do anything
Speaker 1: a big elephant of a guy can do, and I
Speaker 1: only use a quarter of the grub and air. You've
Speaker 1: got to take me, Joe, You've got to the chief
Speaker 1: said benignly. Hum, I'm going to be in charge of
Speaker 1: the engine room and hen you'll b bosun. Let Joe
Speaker 1: try to take off without us, and that don't leave
Speaker 1: you a rating, Mike, unless you're willin to be just
Speaker 1: plain crew. Slowly, Sallie turned her face away from Joe
Speaker 1: and looked up. Then they all saw it a telescope,
Speaker 1: maybe would have shown it as the thing they'd worked
Speaker 1: on and fought for. But it didn't look like that.
Speaker 1: To the naked eye. It was just a tiny speck
Speaker 1: of incandescence, gliding with grave deliberation across the sky. It
Speaker 1: was a sliver of sunlight moving as they watched. There
Speaker 1: were a good many millions of people watching it just then,
Speaker 1: as it floated aloft in emptiness. To some, it meant
Speaker 1: peace and hope, and confidence of a serene old age
Speaker 1: and a life worth living for their children and their
Speaker 1: children's children. To some, it was a fascinating technical achievement.
Speaker 1: To a few, it meant that if wars had ended
Speaker 1: and turmoil was no longer the norm of life on Earth,
Speaker 1: this thing would be their destruction. But it meant something
Speaker 1: to everybody in the world, to the people who had
Speaker 1: been unable to do anything to help it except to
Speaker 1: pray for it. Perhaps it meant most of all, Joe said, quietly,
Speaker 1: We'll be going up there to visit it, all of us.
Speaker 1: He realized that Sallie's hand was tightly clasped in his.
Speaker 1: She said me too, Joe, some day, said Joe, you too.
Speaker 1: He stood up to watch more closely, Sallie stood beside him.
Speaker 1: The others came to look. They made a group on
Speaker 1: the lawn, as people were grouped everywhere in all the
Speaker 1: world to gaze up at it. The Space Platform, A
Speaker 1: tiny sliver of sunshine, an infinitesmal speck of golden light,
Speaker 1: moved sedately across the deepening blue toward the east, toward
Speaker 1: the night. The End of Space Platform by Murray Leinster