Murray Leinster (Duke Classic SiFi) (14 page)

Joe dropped to the ground.

"Shoot it," he said.

He was grimly alert, just the same. There were men waiting for them to
start back to the car. These saboteurs were armed, and they intended to
murder Sally and himself. Joe's jaws clamped tautly shut at the grim
ideas that came into his mind.

But Mike was beginning to speak.

"Forget about the Platform a minute," he said, standing up to
gesticulate, because he was only three and a half feet high. "Just
figure on a rocket straight to the moon. With old-style rockets they'd
a' had to have a mass ratio of a hundred and twenty to one. You'd have
to burn a hundred and twenty tons of old-style fuel to land one ton on
the moon. Now it could be done with sixty, and when the Platform's up,
that figure'll drop again! Okay! You're gonna land a man on the moon. He
weighs two hundred pounds. He uses up twenty pounds of food and drink
and oxygen a day. Give him grub and air for two months—twelve hundred
pounds. A cabin seven feet high and ten feet across. Sixteen hundred
pounds, counting insulation an' braces for strength. That makes a pay
load of a ton an' a half, and you'd have to burn a hundred an' eighty
tons of fuel—old-style—to take it to the moon, and another hundred an'
twenty for every ton the rocket ship weighed. You might get a man to the
moon with a twelve-hundred-ton rocket—maybe. That's with the old fuels.
He'd get there, an' he'd live two months, an' then he'd die for lack of
air. With the new fuels you'd need ninety tons of fuel to carry the guy
there, and sixty more for every ton the ship weighed itself. Call it six
hundred tons for the rocket to carry one man to the moon."

Sally nodded absorbedly.

"I've seen figures like that," she agreed.

"But take a guy like me!" said Mike the midget bitterly. "I weigh
forty-five pounds, not two hundred! I use four pounds of food and air a
day. A cabin for me to live in would be four feet high an' five across.
Bein' smaller, it wouldn't need so much bracing. You could do it for two
hundred pounds. Three hundred for grub and air, fifty for me. Me on the
moon supplied for two months would come to five-fifty pounds. Sixteen
tons of fuel to get me to the moon direct! To carry the weight of the
ship—it's smaller!—fifty tons maximum!"

"I—see...," said Sally, frowning.

He looked at her suspiciously, but there was no mockery in her face.

"It'd take a six-hundred-ton rocket to get a full-sized man to the
moon," he said with sudden flippancy, "but a guy my size could do the
same job of stranglin' in a fifty-ton job. Counting how much easier it'd
be to get back, with atmosphere deceleration, I could make a trip, land,
take observations, pick up mineral specimens, and get back—all in a
sixty-ton rocket. That's just ten per cent of what it'd cost to take a
full-sized man one way!"

He stamped his foot. Then he said coldly: "Haney, sittin' still you're a
sittin' duck!"

The comment was just. Joe knew that Sally was on the lakeward side of
this small island, and that there were impenetrable rocks between her
and the mainland. But Haney sat crosslegged where he could watch the
mainland, and he hadn't moved in a long while. If someone did intend to
commit murder from a distance, Haney was offering a chance for a very
fine target. He moved.

"Yeah!" said Mike with fine irony, reverting to his topic. "I could show
you plenty of figures! There are other guys like me! We've got as much
brains as full-sized people! If the big brass had figured on us small
guys, they coulda made the Platform the size of a four-family house an'
it'd ha' been up in the sky right now, with guys like me running it.
Guys my size could man the ferry rockets bringin' up fuel for storage,
and four of us could take a six-hundred-ton rocket an' slide out to Mars
an' be back by springtime—next springtime!—with all the facts and the
photographs to prove 'em! By golly—"

Then he made a raging, helpless gesture.

"But that's just the big picture," he said bitterly. "Right now, right
at this minute, we could make it easy to finish the Platform the way
it's building in the Shed! There are ferry rockets building somewhere
else. You know about them?"

Sally said apologetically: "Yes. I know there'll be smaller rocket ships
going up to the Platform. They'll carry fuel and stores and exchanges
for the crew. Yes, I know there are ferry rockets building."

"Those ferry rockets," said Mike sardonically, "carry four men, plus two
replacements for the crew. They'll carry air for ten days. But put four
of us small guys in a ferry rocket!
We'd
have air and grub for two
months, almost! Pull out the pay load and put in a hydroponic garden and
communicators and we'd
be
a Platform, right then! Send up another
ferry rocket to join us, and it could bring guided missiles! The ferry
rockets could be finished quicker than the Platform! Send up three ferry
rockets with midgets as crews, an' we could weld 'em together and have a
Space Platform in orbit and working—and what'd be the use of sabotaging
the big Platform then? The job would be done! There'd be no sense
sabotaging the big Platform because the little one could do anything the
big one could! It'd be up there and working! But," he demanded bitterly,
"do you think anybody'll do anything as sensible as that?"

His small features were twisted in angry rebellion. And he was quite
right in all his reasoning. Mankind could have made the journey to the
planets in a hurry, and it could have had its Space Platform in the sky
much more quickly, if only it could have consented to be represented by
people like Mike—who would have represented mankind very valiantly.

Sally said distressedly: "Oh, Mike, it's all true and I'm so sorry!"

And she meant it. Joe liked Sally especially right then, because she
didn't patronize Mike, or try to reason him out of his heartbreak.

Then Haney said abruptly: "Somebody's spotted the Chief."

Joe mentally kicked himself. The Chief had said he was going to swim.
Now—but only now—Joe looked to see what he was doing.

He was far out from shore, swimming unhurriedly to the powerhouse at the
middle of the dam. He would reach it, and swing up the ladder that could
just be seen going down the lake side of the dam's top, and he would
explain the situation on shore. A telephone call to Bootstrap would
bring security men rushing at eighty miles an hour, and parachute
troopers a good deal faster. But even before they arrived the Chief
would lead the powerhouse crew ashore armed with the shotguns they kept
for shooting waterfowl in and out of season.

The men on shore might or might not consider the Chief's swim to be
proof that he knew their intentions. They were probably discussing the
matter in some agitation right now. But they couldn't know that the
party on the semi-island was armed.

Suddenly Mike said crisply: "We're goin' to have visitors."

He lay down carefully on the ground, fifteen feet uphill from Sally,
where he could look over the ridge. He snuggled the .22 target rifle
professionally to his shoulder. He drew a bead.

Three men very casually strolled out of the brushwood on the shore. They
moved nonchalantly toward the strand of rocks that led out to the picnic
spot. They looked like anybody else from Bootstrap. Casual, rough work
clothing.... Haney bent down and picked up four good throwing stones.
His expression was pained.

Joe said: "We've got pistols, Haney, and Sally's a good shot."

The men came on. Their manner was elaborately casual. Joe stepped up
into view.

"No visitors!" he called. "We don't want company!"

One of the men held his hand to his ear, as if not understanding. They
came on. They made no threatening gestures.

Then Joe took his hand out of his pocket, the pistol Sally'd given him
gripped tightly.

"I mean that!" he said harshly. "Stand back!"

One of the three spoke sharply. On that instant three snub-nosed pistols
appeared. Bullets whined as the men hurtled forward. The purpose was not
so much murder at this moment as the demoralizing effect of bullets
flying overhead while the three assassins got close enough to do their
bloody job with precision.

A stone whizzed by Joe—Haney had thrown it—and the small target rifle
in Mike's hands coughed twice. Joe held his fire. He had only six
bullets and three targets to hit. With a familiar revolver he'd have
started shooting now, but thirty yards is a long range with a strange
pistol at a moving target.

One of the three killers stumbled and crashed to the ground. A second
seemed suddenly to be grinning widely on one side of his face. A .22
bullet had slashed his cheek. The third ran head on into a rock thrown
by Haney. It knocked the breath out of him and his pistol fell from his
hand.

Joe fired deliberately at the widely grinning man and saw him spin
around. Mike's target rifle spat again and the man Joe had hit wheeled
and ran heavily, making incoherent yells. The one who'd tumbled
scrambled to his feet and fled, hopping crazily, favoring one leg.
Deserted, the third man turned and ran too, still doubled over and still
gasping.

Mike's voice crackled. He was in a towering rage because of the way the
target rifle shot. It threw high and to the right. The shooting gallery
paid off in cigarettes for high scores—so the guns didn't shoot
straight.

Until this moment Joe had been relatively calm, because he had something
to do. But just then he heard Sally say "Oh!" in a queer voice. He
whirled. Unknown to him, she had not been waiting under cover, but
standing with her pistol out and ready. And her face was very white, and
she was plucking at her hair. A strand came away in her fingers. A
bullet had clipped it just above her shoulder.

Then Joe went sick ... weak ... trembling, and he disgraced himself by
half-hysterically grabbing Sally and demanding to know if she was hurt,
and raging at her for exposing herself to fire, while his throat tried
to close and shut off his breath from horror.

There came loud pop-pop-popping noises. With the peculiar reverberation
of sound over water, two motorcycles started from the powerhouse along
the crest of the dam. They streaked for the shore carrying five men, one
of whom was the Chief, with a red-checked tablecloth about his middle,
brandishing a fire axe in default of other weapons.

The danger was over.

But the assassins couldn't be followed immediately. They still had at
least two pistols. Eight men and a girl, counting Mike, with an armament
of only two pistols, a .22 rifle, two shotguns and a fire axe were not a
properly equipped posse to hunt down killers. Also by now it was close
to sunset.

So the victors did the sensible thing. Joe and Sally and Haney and the
Chief—his clothes retrieved—plus Mike headed back for Bootstrap. Joe
and Sally rode in the Major's black car, and the other three in the
jalopy they'd rented for the afternoon. On the way into the canyon below
the dam, they stopped at the parked car their would-be assassins had
come in. They removed its distributor and fan belt. The other men
returned to the powerhouse with their shotguns and the fire axe, and
telephoned to Bootstrap. The three gunmen who had planned murder became
fugitives, with no means of transportation but their legs. They had a
good many thousand square miles of territory to hide in, but it wasn't
likely that they had food or any competence to find it in the wilds. Two
were certainly hurt. With dogs and planes and organization, it should be
possible to catch them handily, come morning.

So Joe and Sally drove back to Bootstrap with the other car following
closely through all the miles that had to be covered in the dark.
Halfway back, they met a grim search party in cars, heading for the dam
to begin their man hunt in the morning. After that, Joe felt better. But
his teeth still tended to chatter every time he thought of Sally's
startled, scared expression as she pulled away a lock of her hair that
had been severed by a bullet.

When they got back to the Shed, Major Holt looked tired and old. Sally
explained breathlessly that her danger was her own fault. Joe'd thought
she was safely under cover....

"It was my fault," said the Major detachedly. "I let you go away from
the Shed. I do not blame Joe at all."

But he did not look kindly. Joe wet his lips, ready to agree that any
disgrace he might be subjected to was justified, since he had caused
Sally to be shot at.

"I blame myself a great deal, sir," he said grimly. "But I can promise
I'll never take Sally away from safety again. Not until the Platform's
up and there's no more reason for her to be in danger."

The Major said remotely: "I shall have to arrange for more than that. I
shall put you in touch with your father by telephone. You will explain
to him, in detail, exactly how the repair of your apparatus is planned.
I understand that the gyros can be duplicated more quickly by the method
you have worked out?"

Joe said: "Yes, sir. The balancing of the gyros can, which was the
longest single job. But anything can be made quicker the second time.
The patterns for the castings are all made, and the bugs worked out of
the production process."

"You will explain that to your father," said the Major heavily. "Your
father's plant will begin to duplicate these—ah—pilot gyros at once.
Meanwhile your—ah—work crew will start to repair the one that is
here."

"Yes, sir."

"And," said the Major, "I am sending you to the pushpot airfield. I
intend to scatter the targets the saboteurs might aim at. You are one of
them. Your crew is another. From time to time you will confer with them
and verify their work. If any of them should be—disposed of, you will
be able to instruct others."

"It's really the other way about, sir," objected Joe. "The Chief and
Haney are pretty good, and Mike's got brains—"