Operation: Outer Space

Operation: Outer Space, by
William Fitzgerald

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Fitzgerald Jenkins
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Title: Operation: Outer Space
Author: William Fitzgerald Jenkins

Release Date: May 10, 2006 [eBook #18361]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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OUTER SPACE***
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OPERATION: OUTER SPACE
by
MURRAY LEINSTER
CHAPTER ONE
Jed Cochrane tried to be cynical as the helicab hummed softly through
the night over the city. The cab flew at two thousand feet, where lighted
buildings seemed to soar toward it from the canyons which were streets.
There were lights and people everywhere, and Cochrane sardonically
reminded himself that he was no better than anybody else, only he'd
been trying to keep from realizing it. He looked down at the trees and
shrubbery on the roof-tops, and at a dance that was going on atop one
of the tallest buildings. All roofs were recreation-spaces nowadays.
They were the only spaces available. When you looked down at a city
like this, you had cynical thoughts. Fourteen million people in this city.
Ten million in that. Eight in another and ten in another still, and twelve
million in yet another ... Big cities. Swarming millions of people, all
desperately anxious--so Cochrane realized bitterly--all desperately
anxious about their jobs and keeping them.
"Even as me and I," said Cochrane harshly to himself. "Sure! I'm
shaking in my shoes right along with the rest of them!"
But it hurt to realize that he'd been kidding himself. He'd thought he
was important. Important, at least, to the advertising firm of Kursten,
Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe. But right now he was on the way--like a
common legman--to take the moon-rocket to Lunar City, and he'd been
informed of it just thirty minutes ago. Then he'd been told casually to
get to the rocket-port right away. His secretary and two technical men
and a writer were taking the same rocket. He'd get his instructions from
Dr. William Holden on the way.
A part of his mind said indignantly, "Wait till I get Hopkins on the
phone! It was a mixup! He wouldn't send me off anywhere with the
Dikkipatti Hour depending on me! He's not that crazy!" But he was on

his way to the space-port, regardless. He'd raged when the message
reached him. He'd insisted that he had to talk to Hopkins in person
before he obeyed any such instructions. But he was on his way to the
space-port. He was riding in a helicab, and he was making adjustments
in his own mind to the humiliation he unconsciously foresaw. There
were really three levels of thought in his mind. One had adopted a
defensive cynicism, and one desperately insisted that he couldn't be as
unimportant as his instructions implied, and the third watched the other
two as the helicab flew with cushioned booming noises over the dark
canyons of the city and the innumerable lonely lights of the rooftops.
There was a thin roaring sound, high aloft. Cochrane jerked his head
back. The stars filled all the firmament, but he knew what to look for.
He stared upward.
One of the stars grew brighter. He didn't know when he first picked it
out, but he knew when he'd found it. He fixed his eyes on it. It was a
very white star, and for a space of minutes it seemed in no wise
different from its fellows. But it grew brighter. Presently it was very
bright. It was brighter than Sirius. In seconds more it was brighter than
Venus. It increased more and more rapidly in its brilliance. It became
the brightest object in all the heavens except the crescent moon, and the
cold intensity of its light was greater than any part of that. Then
Cochrane could see that this star was not quite round. He could detect
the quarter-mile-long flame of the rocket-blast.
It came down with a rush. He saw the vertical, stabbing pencil of light
plunge earthward. It slowed remarkably as it plunged, with all the
flying aircraft above the city harshly lighted by its glare. The space-port
itself showed clearly. Cochrane saw the buildings, and the other
moon-rockets waiting to take off in half an hour or less.
The white flame hit the ground and splashed. It spread out in a wide
flat disk of intolerable brightness. The sleek hull of the ship which still
rode the flame down