Space Tug | Page 6

him as a passenger out to the Platform some day."
"Heaven forbid!" growled Haney.
There was an outrageous tumult outside the wide-open gap in the Shed's wall. Something
went shrieking by the doorway. It looked like the magnified top half of a loaf of baker's
bread, painted gray and equipped with an air-scoop in front and a plastic bubble for a
pilot. It howled like a lost baby dragon, its flat underside tilted up and up until it was

almost vertical. It had no wings, but a blue-white flame spurted out of its rear, wobbling
from side to side for reasons best known to itself. It was a pushpot, which could not
possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did. It settled down
on its flame-spouting tail, and the sparse vegetation burst into smoky flame and shriveled,
and the thing--still shrieking like a fog-horn in a tunnel--flopped flat forward with a
resounding clank! It was abruptly silent.
But the total noise was not lessened. Another pushpot came soaring wildly into view,
making hysterical outcries. It touched and banged violently to earth. Others appeared in
the air beyond the construction Shed. One flopped so hard on landing that its tail rose in
the air and it attempted a somersault. It made ten times more noise than before--the flame
from its tail making wild gyrations--and flopped back again with a crash. Two others
rolled over on their sides after touching ground. One ended up on its back like a
tumble-bug, wriggling.
They seemed to land by hundreds, but their number was actually in dozens. It was not
until the last one was down that Joe could make himself heard. The pushpots were jet
motors in frames and metal skin, with built-in jato rocket tubes besides their engines. On
the ground they were quite helpless. In the air they were unbelievably clumsy. They were
actually balanced and steered by vanes in the blasts of their jets, and they combined the
absolute maximum of sheer thrust with the irreducible minimum of flyability.
Crane-trucks went out to pick them up. Joe said anxiously, "We'd better check our flight
plan again. We have to know it absolutely!"
He headed across the floor to the flight data board. He passed the hull of another ship like
his own, which was near completion, and the bare skeletons of two others which needed a
lot of work yet. They'd been begun at distant plants and then hauled here on monstrous
trailers for completion. The wooden mockup of the design for all the ships--in which
every possible arrangement of instruments and machinery had been tested out--lay
neglected by the Shed wall.
The four stood before the flight data board. It listed the readings every instrument should
show during every instant of the flight. The readings had been calculated with infinite
care, and Joe and the others needed to know them rather better than they knew their
multiplication tables. Once they started out, they wouldn't have time to wonder if
everything was right for the time and place. They needed to know.
They stood there, soaking up the information the board contained, forming mental
pictures of it, making as sure as possible that any one of them would spot anything wrong
the instant it showed up, and would instantly know what had to be done about it.
A gigantic crane-truck came in through the wide doorway. It dangled a pushpot. It rolled
over to the launching cage in which the spaceship lay and set the unwieldy metal object
against that cage. There was a clank as the pushpot caught hold of the magnetic grapples.
The crane went out again, passing a second crane carrying a second pushpot. The second
beetle-like thing was presented to the cage. It stuck fast. The crane went out for more.

Major Holt came across the floor of the Shed. It took him a long time to walk the distance
from the Security offices to the launching cage. When he got there, he looked impatiently
around. His daughter Sally came out of nowhere and blew her nose as if she'd been
crying, and pointed to the data board. The major shrugged his shoulders and looked
uneasily at her. She regarded him with some defiance. The major spoke to her sternly.
They waited.
The cranes brought in more pushpots and set them up against the steel launching cage.
The ship had been nearly hidden before by the rocket tubes fastened outside its hull. It
went completely out of sight behind the metal monsters banked about it.
The major looked at his watch and the group about the data board. They moved away
from it and back toward the ship. Joe saw the major and swerved over to him.
"I have brought you," said