Speaker 1: Chapter eleven of Space Platform by Murray Leinster. This LibriVox
Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Space Platform, Chapter eleven.
Speaker 1: Joe sat on the porch of Major Holt's quarters, in
Speaker 1: the area next to the shed. It was about eight
Speaker 1: thirty and dark, but there was a moon, and Joe
Speaker 1: had come to realize that his personal disappointment was only
Speaker 1: his personal disappointment, and that he hadn't any right to
Speaker 1: make a nuisance of himself about it. Therefore, he didn't
Speaker 1: talk about the thing nearest in his mind, but something
Speaker 1: else that was next nearest or farther away. Still yet,
Speaker 1: with the shed filling up a full quarter of the
Speaker 1: sky and a gibbous moon new risen from the horizon,
Speaker 1: it was not natural for a young man like Joe
Speaker 1: to speak purely of earthly things. It'll come, he said yearningly,
Speaker 1: staring at the moon. If the platform gets up day
Speaker 1: after tomorrow, it's going to take time to ferry up
Speaker 1: the equipment it ought to have. But still somebody ought
Speaker 1: to land on the moon before too long, he added absorbedly.
Speaker 1: Once the platform is fully equipped, it won't take many
Speaker 1: rocket payloads to refill a ship's tanks at the platform
Speaker 1: before it can head on out. Mathematically, a rocket ship
Speaker 1: that could leave the platform with full fuel tanks should
Speaker 1: have fuel to reach the moon and land on it,
Speaker 1: and take off again and return to the platform. The
Speaker 1: mathematical fact had a peculiar nagging flavor. When a dream
Speaker 1: is subjected to statistical analysis and the report is in
Speaker 1: its favor, a dreamer satisfaction is always deluded by a
Speaker 1: subconscious feeling that the report is only part of the dream.
Speaker 1: Everybody worries a little when a cherished dream shows a
Speaker 1: likelihood of coming true. Some people take firm steps to
Speaker 1: stop things right there, so a romantic day dream won't
Speaker 1: be spoiled by transmutation into prosaic fact. Bud Joe said doggedly.
Speaker 1: Twenty fairy trips to pile up fuel, and the twenty
Speaker 1: first ship should be able to refuel and go on out,
Speaker 1: and then somebody will step out on the moon. He
Speaker 1: was disappointed. Now he wouldn't be the one to do it,
Speaker 1: but somebody would. You might try for the fairy service,
Speaker 1: said Sallie uneasily. I will, said Joe grimly, but I
Speaker 1: won't be hoping too much. After all, there are astronomers
Speaker 1: and physics, sharks and such things who'll be glad to
Speaker 1: learn to run rockets in order to practice their specialties
Speaker 1: out of atmosphere. Sallie said mournfully. I can't seem to
Speaker 1: say anything to make you feel better, but you do,
Speaker 1: said Joe. He added grandiloquently, but for your unflagging faith
Speaker 1: in me, I would not have the courage to bear
Speaker 1: the burdens of every day life. She stamped her foot.
Speaker 1: Stop it all right, but he said quietly. You are
Speaker 1: a good kid, Sallie. You know it's not too bright
Speaker 1: of me to mourn. She drew a deep breath. That's
Speaker 1: better now, I want. There was a gangling figure walking
Speaker 1: down the concrete path between the trim monotonous cottages that
Speaker 1: were officers quarters at the shed. Joe said, sharply, that's Hainy.
Speaker 1: What's he doing here? He called Hainy. Hainey's manner took
Speaker 1: on purpose. He came across the grass. The lawns around
Speaker 1: the officer's quarters contained the only grass in twenty miles.
Speaker 1: Hiah said heiny uncomfortably. He spoke politely to Sallie, hia Ah,
Speaker 1: you want to get in on the party, Joe, what
Speaker 1: kind the party Mike was talking about, said Hainy. He
Speaker 1: set it up. He wants me to get you and
Speaker 1: a kind of undercovered tip off to Major Holt. Joe stirred.
Speaker 1: Sally said, hospitably, sit down. You've noticed that my father
Speaker 1: gave you full security clearance, so you can go anywhere.
Speaker 1: Hainey perched awkwardly on the edge of the porch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's helped with the party. It's how I got here.
Speaker 1: As far as that goes. Mike's on top of the world.
Speaker 1: Shoot it, said Joe. You know he's been pretty bitter
Speaker 1: about things, said Hainy, carefully. He's been saying that little
Speaker 1: guys like him ought to be the spaceman. There's half
Speaker 1: a dozen other little guys been working on the platform too.
Speaker 1: They can get in cracks and buck rivets and so on. Useful.
Speaker 1: He's had em all hopped up on the fact that
Speaker 1: the platform have been finished months ago. If it had
Speaker 1: been built for them, and they could get to the
Speaker 1: moon and back while full sized guys couldn't, and so on.
Speaker 1: Remember I remember, said Sally. They've all been beefing about it,
Speaker 1: explained Hainey. People know how they feel. So today Mike
Speaker 1: went and talked to one or two of them, and
Speaker 1: they started acting mysterious, passing messages back and forth and
Speaker 1: so on. Little guys acting important. Security guys wouldn't notice
Speaker 1: him much. You don't take a guy Mike's size serious
Speaker 1: unless you know him. Then he's the same as anybody else.
Speaker 1: So the security guys didn't pay any attention to him.
Speaker 1: But some other guys did, some special other guys they
Speaker 1: saw those little fellows acting like they were cooking up
Speaker 1: something fancy, and they bit bit asked sally. They got curious,
Speaker 1: So Mike and his gang got confidential, and they're going
Speaker 1: to have help sabotage in the platform when the next
Speaker 1: shift changes. The midget's getting even for being laughed at. See,
Speaker 1: they're pretending. Their plan is that when the platform sabotaged,
Speaker 1: not smashed, but just messed up so it can't take off,
Speaker 1: the big brass will let them take a ferry rocket
Speaker 1: up in a hurry and get it in orbit and
Speaker 1: use it for a platform until the big platform can
Speaker 1: be mended and sent up. Once they're up there, there's
Speaker 1: no use trying to stop the big platform, so it
Speaker 1: can go ahead. Joe said dubiously. I think I see
Speaker 1: Mike and his gang of little guys are being SAPs
Speaker 1: on purpose. If anybody's going to pull some fast stuff
Speaker 1: next shift change, that's the time everybody's got to last chance.
Speaker 1: Mike and his gang don't know what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: but they sure know when they're inviting the real saboteurs
Speaker 1: to make fools of them, and what will have happen.
Speaker 1: Joe said dryly. The logical thing would be to feel
Speaker 1: sorry for the big guys who think they're smarter than Mike.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, said Hainy, deadly serious. Mike's story is there's
Speaker 1: half a dozen rocket tubes already loaded. They're going to
Speaker 1: fire those rockets between shifts. The platform gets shoved off
Speaker 1: its base and may be dented and so on. Mike's
Speaker 1: gang say they got the figures to prove they can
Speaker 1: go up in a ferry rocket and be a platform,
Speaker 1: and the big Brass won't have any choice but to
Speaker 1: let them. Sally said, I don't think they know how
Speaker 1: the big brass thinks. Haine and Joe said together no,
Speaker 1: and Joe added, Mike's not crazy, he knows better. But
Speaker 1: it's a good story for somebody who doesn't know Mike
Speaker 1: Haine said, in indignation. I came out here to ask
Speaker 1: the Major to help us the chiefs getting a gang
Speaker 1: together too. There's some Indians of his tribe that work here.
Speaker 1: We can count on them for plenty of rough stuff,
Speaker 1: and there's Joe and me. The point is that Mike
Speaker 1: Stunt makes it certain that everything busts loose at a
Speaker 1: time we can know in advance if the Major gives
Speaker 1: us a free hand, and then in the last five
Speaker 1: minutes takes his own measures so they can't leak out
Speaker 1: ahead of time and tip off the gangs we want
Speaker 1: to get. We ought to knock off all the expert
Speaker 1: saboteurs who know the weak spots in the platform, for instance,
Speaker 1: those who know that thermite in the gyros would mess
Speaker 1: everything up all over again. Joe said quietly. But Major
Speaker 1: Holt has to be told well in advance about all this.
Speaker 1: That's absolute, Yeah, agreed, Heiny. But also he has to
Speaker 1: keep quiet not to tell anybody else. They've been too
Speaker 1: many leaks already about too many things. You know that,
Speaker 1: Joe said, Sally, see if you can get your father
Speaker 1: to come here and talk. Hainy's right, not in his office, right, here.
Speaker 1: Sally got up and went inside the house. She came
Speaker 1: back with an uneasy expression on her face. He's coming,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't very well tell him what was wanted,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure he's going to be in a
Speaker 1: mood to listen. When the major arrived, he was definitely
Speaker 1: not in a mood to listen. He was a harried man,
Speaker 1: and he was keyed up to the limit by the
Speaker 1: multiplied strain due to the imminence of the platform's takeoff.
Speaker 1: He came back to his house from a grim conference
Speaker 1: on exactly the subject of how to make preparation against
Speaker 1: any possible sabotage incidents, and ran into a proposal to
Speaker 1: stimulate them. He practically exploded, even if provocation should be
Speaker 1: given to saboteurs to lure them into showing their hands,
Speaker 1: this was no time for it, and if it were,
Speaker 1: it would be security business. It should not be meddled
Speaker 1: in by amateurs. Said grimly. I don't mean to be disrespectful, sir,
Speaker 1: but there's a point you've missed. It isn't thinkable that
Speaker 1: you'll be able to prevent something from being tried at
Speaker 1: a time the saboteur's pick. They've got just so much
Speaker 1: time left, and they'll use it. But Mike's plan would
Speaker 1: offer them a diversion under cover of which they could
Speaker 1: pull their own stuff. And besides that, you know your
Speaker 1: office leaks. You could set up a trick like this
Speaker 1: through security methods. And for a third fact, this is
Speaker 1: the one sort of thing no saboteur would expect from
Speaker 1: your security organization. We cocked the saboteurs at the pushpot
Speaker 1: field by guessing at a new sort of thinking for sabotage.
Speaker 1: Here's a chance to catch the saboteurs who work their
Speaker 1: heads off in the next twenty four hours or so
Speaker 1: by using a new sort of thinking for security. Major
Speaker 1: Holt was not an easy man to get along with
Speaker 1: at any time, and this was the worst of all
Speaker 1: times to differ with him. But he did think straight.
Speaker 1: He stared furiously at Joe growing Crimson with anger at
Speaker 1: being argued with, But after he had stared a full minute,
Speaker 1: the angry flush went slowly away. Then he nodded abruptly.
Speaker 1: There you have a point, he said curtly. I don't
Speaker 1: like it, but it is a point. It would be
Speaker 1: completely the reverse of anything my antagonist could possibly expect,
Speaker 1: So I accept the suggestion. Now let us make the arrangements.
Speaker 1: He settled down for a quick, comprehensive, detailed plan. In
Speaker 1: careful consultation with Hainy, Joe worked it out. The all
Speaker 1: important point was that the Major's part was to be
Speaker 1: done in completely unorthodox fashion. He would take measures to
Speaker 1: mesh his actions with those of Mike, the Chief, Hainey,
Speaker 1: and Joe. Each action the Major took, and each order
Speaker 1: he gave, he would attend to personally. His actions would
Speaker 1: be restricted to the last five minutes or less before
Speaker 1: shift changed time. His orders would be given individually to individuals,
Speaker 1: and under no circumstances would he transmit any order through
Speaker 1: anybody else. In every instance, his order would be devised
Speaker 1: to mean nothing intelligible to its recipient until the time
Speaker 1: came for obedience. It was not an easy scheme for
Speaker 1: the Major to bind himself to. It ran counter to
Speaker 1: every principle of military thinking, save one, which was that
Speaker 1: it was a good idea to outguess the enemy. At
Speaker 1: the end, he said, detachedly, this is distinctly irregular. It
Speaker 1: is as irregular as anything could possibly be. But that
Speaker 1: is why I have agreed to it. It will be
Speaker 1: at least unexpected coming from me. Then he smiled without mirth,
Speaker 1: and nodded to Joe and to Hainy, and went striding
Speaker 1: away down the concrete walk to where his car waited.
Speaker 1: Hainey left a moment later to carry the list of
Speaker 1: arrangements to the chief and to Mike, and Joe went
Speaker 1: into the shed to do his part. There was little
Speaker 1: difference in the appearance of the shed by night. In
Speaker 1: the daytime, there were long rows of windows in the roof,
Speaker 1: which led in a vague, dusky, inadequate twilight. At night,
Speaker 1: those windows were shuttered. This meant that the shadows were
Speaker 1: a little sharper, and the contrasts of light and shade
Speaker 1: a trifle more abrupt. All other changes that Joe could
Speaker 1: see were the normal ones due to the taking down
Speaker 1: of scaffolding and the fastening up of rocket tubes. It
Speaker 1: was clear that the shape of the platform proper would
Speaker 1: be obscure when all its rocket tubes were fast in place.
Speaker 1: Joe went to look at the last pushpots, and they
Speaker 1: were ready to be taken over to their own field
Speaker 1: for their flight test before use. There were extras, anyhow,
Speaker 1: beyond the number needed to lift the platform. He found
Speaker 1: himself considering the obvious fact that after the platform was aloft,
Speaker 1: they would be used to launch the ferry rockets too.
Speaker 1: Then he moved toward the center of the shed. A
Speaker 1: whole level of scaffolding came apart, and its separate elements
Speaker 1: were bundled together. As he watched, slings lowered the bundles
Speaker 1: down to waiting trucks which would carry them. Elsewhere, there
Speaker 1: were mixing trucks still pouring out their white paste for
Speaker 1: the lining of the rocket tubes, and their product went
Speaker 1: up and vanished into the gaping mouths of the giant
Speaker 1: wire wound pipes. Presently, Joe went into the maze of
Speaker 1: piers under the space platform itself. He came to the
Speaker 1: temporary stairs he had reason to remember. He nodded to
Speaker 1: the two guards there. I want to take another look
Speaker 1: at the gadget we installed, he said. One of the
Speaker 1: guards said, good naturedly. Major Holt said to pass you
Speaker 1: any time. He ascended and went along the curious corridor.
Speaker 1: It had hand grips on the walls so a man
Speaker 1: could pull himself along it. When there was no wait,
Speaker 1: and went to the engine room. He heard voices. They
Speaker 1: were speaking a completely unintelligible language, he tensed. Then the
Speaker 1: Chief grinned at him amiably. He was in the engine
Speaker 1: room and with him were no fewer than eight men
Speaker 1: of his own coppery complexion. Here's some friends of mine,
Speaker 1: he explained, and Joe shook hands with the black haired,
Speaker 1: dark skinned men who were named Charlie Spotted Dog, and
Speaker 1: Sam Fatbelly and Luther red Cow and other exotic things.
Speaker 1: The chief said exuberantly. Major Hote told the guards to
Speaker 1: let us pass in some Indian friends. So I took
Speaker 1: my gang on a guided tour of the platform. None
Speaker 1: of them had ever been inside before. And I heard
Speaker 1: you talking Indian, said Joe. You're going to hear some more,
Speaker 1: said the chief, with the first war party of my
Speaker 1: tribe in longer my grandpa would have thought respectable. Joe
Speaker 1: found it difficult to restrain a smile. The Chief took
Speaker 1: him off to one side. Fella, he said, kindly, it
Speaker 1: bothers you this business because it ain't organized. That's what
Speaker 1: this world needs, Joe. Everything figured out by slide rules
Speaker 1: and such. It's civilized, but it ain't human. What everybody
Speaker 1: ought to be is a connoisseur of chaos, like me
Speaker 1: quit worrying and got outside and pick up that security
Speaker 1: guy the Major was going to send to meet you.
Speaker 1: He gave Joe an amiable shove and rejoined his fellow Mohawks,
Speaker 1: each of whom Joe noticed suddenly had somewhere on his
Speaker 1: person a twelve inch Stilson wrench or a reasonable facsimile
Speaker 1: to serve as a substitute tomahawk. They grinned at him
Speaker 1: as he departed. At the bottom of the flight of
Speaker 1: narrow wooden steps, there was a third security man. He
Speaker 1: greeted Joe. Major Holt told me to pick you up,
Speaker 1: he observed. Joe walked to one side with him. Major
Speaker 1: Holt had promised to send us first class man to
Speaker 1: meet Joe at this place, with orders to take instructions
Speaker 1: from Joe. Joe said, curtly, you're to snag as many
Speaker 1: security men as you can, place them more or less
Speaker 1: out of sight under the platform here, and tell them
Speaker 1: to turn off their walkie talkies and wait. No matter
Speaker 1: what happens, They're to wait right here until they're needed
Speaker 1: right here. He looked harassedly around him. The security man
Speaker 1: nodded and moved casually away. This was close timing. Something
Speaker 1: made Joe look up. He saw the catwalk gallery nearly overhead.
Speaker 1: The expected guard was there. Hainy, though, was with him.
Speaker 1: There was nothing else in sight, not yet, but Hainy
Speaker 1: was on the job. Joe saw a security man step
Speaker 1: out of sight in the scaffolding. He saw his own
Speaker 1: assigned security man speak to another who wandered casually toward
Speaker 1: the platform's base. Minutes passed. Only Joe could have noticed
Speaker 1: because he was watching for it. There were eight or
Speaker 1: nine security men posted within call. They had their walkie
Speaker 1: talkies turned off and would be subject only to his
Speaker 1: orders if an emergency arose. Gongs began to ring all
Speaker 1: around the edge of the shed. They set up a
Speaker 1: horrendous clanging. This was not an alarm, but simply the
Speaker 1: notice of change of shift time. There was a marked
Speaker 1: change in the noises. Overhead. A crane pulled back, hammerings
Speaker 1: dwindled and stopped. There were sounds of pipes combined to
Speaker 1: form the scaffolds being taken apart for removal. A sling
Speaker 1: load of pipe touched the floor and stayed there. The
Speaker 1: crane's internal combustion motor stopped. Its operator stepped down to
Speaker 1: the floor and headed for the exit hoists descended and
Speaker 1: men moved across the floor. Other men scrambled down the ladders.
Speaker 1: The floor became dotted with figures moving toward the doors,
Speaker 1: through which men we went now to get on the
Speaker 1: buses for bootstrap. Nothing happened. More long minutes passed. The
Speaker 1: shift brought out by the buses was going through the
Speaker 1: checkover process in the incoming screen room. Joe knew that
Speaker 1: Major Holt had within the past five minutes gathered together
Speaker 1: a tight knit bunch of armed security men to be
Speaker 1: available for anything that might turn up. The men doing
Speaker 1: the normal shift chain screening were shorthanded. In consequence, the
Speaker 1: floor next to the exits became crowded, but the central
Speaker 1: area of the floor was cleared. One truck was stalled
Speaker 1: at the swing up truck doors. Its driver ground the
Speaker 1: starter insistently. Suddenly there was a high pitched yell away
Speaker 1: up on the platform. Then there was a shot. Its
Speaker 1: echoes rang horribly in the resonant interior of the shed.
Speaker 1: Joe's own special security man hurried to him, his face tense.
Speaker 1: What about that hold everything, say Joe grimly. That's taken
Speaker 1: care of it was that was Mike's gang miniature humans
Speaker 1: popping out of hiding to offer battle with missiles carefully
Speaker 1: prepared beforehand against their alleged associates in sabotage. One of
Speaker 1: the associates had drawn a gun and fired, but Mike's
Speaker 1: gang had help out of small air locks devised to
Speaker 1: make the platform skin accessible to its crew on every side,
Speaker 1: provided they were spacesuits. Dark skinned men appeared. The security
Speaker 1: man's walkie talkie under his shoulder made a buzzing sound.
Speaker 1: He reached for it. Forget it, Snap Joe, that's not
Speaker 1: for you. You've got your orders. Stay here. There was a
Speaker 1: sudden growling uproar where men were crowding to get out
Speaker 1: of the shed. Thick billowing smoke appeared. There was a
Speaker 1: crashing explosion. The men eddied and milled crazily. The motor
Speaker 1: of the stalled truck caught it moved toward the door,
Speaker 1: which opened, swinging up and high. Two trucks came roaring in.
Speaker 1: They raced for the platform, and as they raced inside,
Speaker 1: their camouflaged loads clattered off and men showed instead. The
Speaker 1: guards by the doorway began to shoot. That's what we've
Speaker 1: got to stop, snapped Joe. He began to run his
Speaker 1: pistol out. There was suddenly a small army gathered by
Speaker 1: his orders, which materialized in the dim space under the platform.
Speaker 1: It raced to guard against this evidently well planned invasion.
Speaker 1: The harsh, tearing rattle of a machine gun sounded from
Speaker 1: somewhere high up. Joe knew what it was. Mike's whole
Speaker 1: scheme had been intended to force all sabotage efforts to
Speaker 1: take place at a single instant. Part of the preparation
Speaker 1: was authority for Haini to drag in two machine guns
Speaker 1: from an outer watching post and mount them to cover
Speaker 1: the interior of the shed. When the general attack began,
Speaker 1: those machine guns were shooting at the trucks. Splinters sprang
Speaker 1: up from the wood block floor. Then abruptly, one of
Speaker 1: the trucks vanished in a monstrous, actinic flash of blue
Speaker 1: white flame and a roar so horrible that it was
Speaker 1: not sound but pure concussion. The other truck keeled over
Speaker 1: and crashed from the blast, but it did not explode.
Speaker 1: Men jumped from it. There must have been screamed orders,
Speaker 1: but Joe could hear nothing at all. He only saw
Speaker 1: men waving their arms, and others seized things from the
Speaker 1: toppled load and rushed toward him, and he began to
Speaker 1: shoot as he ran to meet them. Now belatedly, the
Speaker 1: sirens of the shed screamed their alarm, and choppy yapping
Speaker 1: set up. As the siren whales rose in pitch. Over
Speaker 1: by the exit, pistols cracked. Something fell with a ghastly
Speaker 1: crash not ten feet from where Joe ran. It was
Speaker 1: a man's body toppled from somewhere high up on the
Speaker 1: structure that was the most important man made thing in
Speaker 1: all the world. A barbaric warhoop sounded among the echoes
Speaker 1: of other tumult. A security man shot, and one of
Speaker 1: the running figures toppled and slid his burden, which must
Speaker 1: certainly be a bomb rolling ridiculously. There had been two
Speaker 1: trucks that plunged through the swing updoor. They had raced
Speaker 1: for the spaces under the platform at the exact time
Speaker 1: when the floor would be clear. Because all work had
Speaker 1: stopped under the platform, the trucks were to have been detonated.
Speaker 1: At the very least, they would have rent had torn
Speaker 1: it horribly, they might have broken its back, and surely
Speaker 1: one truck should have made it but there should not
Speaker 1: have been machine guns ready trained to shoot. Now, the
Speaker 1: load of desperate men from the overturned survivor scurried for
Speaker 1: the platform with parts of its cargo. If they could
Speaker 1: fight their way inside the platform, they could blast its
Speaker 1: hull open, or demolish its controls, or shatter its air
Speaker 1: pumps and its gyros and turn its air tanks into sieves.
Speaker 1: Anything that could be damaged would delay the takeoff and
Speaker 1: so expose the platform to further and perhaps more successful attack.
Speaker 1: There were more pistol shots. A group of men fought
Speaker 1: their way out of the incoming screening rooms and raced
Speaker 1: for the center of the shed. Later it would be
Speaker 1: found they had slabs of explosive inside their garments and
Speaker 1: detonation caps to set them off. Somewhere another door opened
Speaker 1: and security men came out with flickering pistols. Major Holt
Speaker 1: leading them He had started out to fight off the
Speaker 1: truck borne attack, but he was bound to be too late.
Speaker 1: Joe's followers were trying to take care of that. The
Speaker 1: scuttling men from the incoming rooms were Major Holt's first prey.
Speaker 1: They were shot as they ran. Joe stumbled and fell,
Speaker 1: and he heard guns crackling. As he scrambled up. He
Speaker 1: pitched into a running figure. It snarled as Joe hid him,
Speaker 1: and then he was fighting for his life. This was
Speaker 1: under the platform and in the middle of confusion many
Speaker 1: times confounded. Joe caught a wrist that held a gun.
Speaker 1: He knew his assailant had a bomb slung over one shoulder,
Speaker 1: and right now had one hand free for combat. Joe
Speaker 1: instinctively tried to batter his enemy with his own pistol.
Speaker 1: Instead of pushing the muzzle against the man's body and
Speaker 1: pulling the trigger, he struck a flailing blow and his
Speaker 1: hand and the weapon struck a metal brace. The blow
Speaker 1: cut his knuckles and paralyzed his fingers. Despairingly, he felt
Speaker 1: the pistol slipping from his grasp. Then his assailant brought
Speaker 1: up his knee viciously, but it hit Joe's thigh instead
Speaker 1: of his groin, and Joe flung his weight furiously forward
Speaker 1: and they toppled to the ground together. There was fighting
Speaker 1: all around him. The machine guns rasped again. There was
Speaker 1: a burst of tracer bullet fire. The men by the
Speaker 1: exit tried to surge out through the swinging doors, but
Speaker 1: the tracers marked a line they must not cross. They checked.
Speaker 1: Once a gun flashed so close by Joe's eyes that
Speaker 1: it blinded him, And once somebody fell over both himself
Speaker 1: and his antagonist, who writhed like an eel possessed of
Speaker 1: desperate strength past belief, Joe could really know only his
Speaker 1: private part in the struggle down in the murky tangle
Speaker 1: of the scaffold bass. But there was fighting up on
Speaker 1: the platform itself. A savagely grinning mohawk wrestled furiously with
Speaker 1: a man on one of the rocket tubes. An incendiary
Speaker 1: device in the saboteur's pocket ignited, and it flamed red hot,
Speaker 1: and he screamed as it burned its way out of
Speaker 1: his garments. The mohawk flung the man fiercely clear to
Speaker 1: crash horribly on the far distant floor and then kick
Speaker 1: the incendiary off. It fell after the man and hit
Speaker 1: and burst, and it was thermite, which surrounded itself with
Speaker 1: a column of acrid smoke from seared woodblocks. There was
Speaker 1: fighting by the exit doors. There was an ullulating uproar
Speaker 1: in the incoming screening room, and a war whoop from
Speaker 1: the top of the platform. A saboteur tried to crawl
Speaker 1: into an airlock entrance, and he got his head and
Speaker 1: shoulders in, but a copper skinned Indian held his forehead
Speaker 1: still and chopped down with the side of his hand
Speaker 1: on that man's neck. Underneath the platform was panting chaos,
Speaker 1: with pistol shots and hand to hand struggles everywhere. The
Speaker 1: force Joe had gathered fought valiantly, but four invaders got
Speaker 1: to the foot of the wooden steps, where there were
Speaker 1: two guards. Then there were only two saboteurs left to
Speaker 1: scramble desperately up the steps over the dead guard's bodies
Speaker 1: and head toward the platform door. But the chief appeared
Speaker 1: swinging a twelve inch stilson. He let it go precisely
Speaker 1: like a skillfully flung tomahawk, and leaped down sixteen steps
Speaker 1: squarely onto the body of the other man. A gun flashed,
Speaker 1: but then there was only squirming struggle on the floor. Mike,
Speaker 1: the midget inside the platform, found one bloodied, panting, sobbing
Speaker 1: man who somehow had gotten inside, and Mike brought down
Speaker 1: a spanner from a ladder step and swarmed upon his
Speaker 1: half conscious victim and hit him again, and then stayed
Speaker 1: on guard until somebody arrived who was big enough to
Speaker 1: carry the saboteur away, And all this while Joe struggled
Speaker 1: with only one man. It was a horrible struggle because
Speaker 1: the man had a bomb, and he might manage to
Speaker 1: set it off, or it might go off of itself.
Speaker 1: It was a ghastly struggle because the man had the
Speaker 1: strength and desperation of a maniac and practiced the tactics.
Speaker 1: Joe pounded the hand that held the gun upon the floor,
Speaker 1: and it hit something and exploded smokily and fell clear,
Speaker 1: but that made things worse. While struggling to killed Joe
Speaker 1: with the revolver, his antagonist had had only five fingers
Speaker 1: with which to gouge out Joe's eyes, or tear away
Speaker 1: his ears, or rend his flesh. But with no pistol,
Speaker 1: he had ten, and he fought like a wild beast.
Speaker 1: He even breathed like an animal. He began to pant thick,
Speaker 1: gottural pantings that had the quality of hellish hate. And
Speaker 1: then there was a surging of bodies. Major Holt's reserve
Speaker 1: was arriving very late in the center of the shed,
Speaker 1: and then a struggling group trampled all over the pair,
Speaker 1: who squirmed and fought on the ground, and a heavy
Speaker 1: boot jammed down Joe's head and he felt teeth sink
Speaker 1: in his throat. They dug into his flesh, worrying and tearing.
Speaker 1: Joe used his knee in a frenzy of revulsion, used
Speaker 1: his knee as the other man had tried to use
Speaker 1: his in the first instant of battle. The man beneath
Speaker 1: him screamed as an animal would scream, and Joe jerked
Speaker 1: his bleeding throat free. In his ercle horror, he pounded
Speaker 1: his antagonist's head on the floor until the man went limp,
Speaker 1: and then he heard a grim voice saying, quit it,
Speaker 1: or you get your head blown off. Quit it, and
Speaker 1: Joe panted, It's about time you guys got here. This
Speaker 1: man came in on that truck. Watch out for that
Speaker 1: bomb he's got slung on him. End of chapter eleven.