Space Tug | Page 8

of a three-stage rocket aimed at outer space. It looked rather like--well--if a
swarm of bumblebees clung fiercely to a wire-gauze cage in which lay a silver minnow
wrapped in match-sticks; and if the bees buzzed furiously and lifted it in a straining,
clumsy, and altogether unreasonable manner; and if the appearance and the noise together
were multiplied a good many thousands of times--why--it would present a great similarity
to the take-off of the spaceship under Joe's command. Nothing like it could be graceful or
neatly controllable or even very speedy in the thick atmosphere near the ground. But
higher, it would be another matter.
It was another matter. Once clear of the Shed, and with flat, sere desert ahead to the very
horizon, Joe threw on full power to the pushpot motors. The clumsy-seeming aggregation
of grotesque objects began to climb. Ungainly it was, and clumsy it was, but it went
upward at a rate a jet-fighter might have trouble matching. It wobbled, and it swung
around and around, and it tipped crazily, the whole aggregation of jet motors and cage
and burden of spaceship as a unit. But it rose!
The ground dropped so swiftly that even the Shed seemed to shrivel like a pricked
balloon. The horizon retreated as if a carpet were hastily unrolled by magic. The
barometric pressure needles turned.
"Communications says our rate-of-climb is 4,000 feet a minute and going up fast," Mike
announced. "It's five.... We're at 17,000 feet ... 18,000. We should get some eastward
velocity at 32,000 feet. Our height is now 21,000 feet...."
There was no change in the feel of things inside the ship, of course. Sealed against the
vacuum of space, barometric pressure outside made no difference. Height had no effect
on the air inside the ship.
At 25,000 feet the Chief said suddenly: "We're pointed due east, Joe. Freeze it?"
"Right," said Joe. "Freeze it."
The Chief threw a lever. The gyros were running at full operating speed. By engaging
them, the Chief had all their stored-up kinetic energy available to resist any change of
direction the pushpots might produce by minor variations in their thrusts. Haney brooded
over the reports from the individual engines outside. He made minute adjustments to keep
them balanced. Mike uttered curt comments into the communicator from time to time.
At 33,000 feet there was a momentary sensation as if the ship were tilted sharply. It
wasn't. The instruments denied any change from level rise. The upward-soaring complex
of flying things had simply risen into a jet-stream, one of those wildly rushing
wind-floods of the upper atmosphere.

"Eastern velocity four hundred," said Mike from the communicator. "Now
four-twenty-five.... Four-forty."
There was a 300-mile-an-hour wind behind them. A tail-wind, west to east. The pushpots
struggled now to get the maximum possible forward thrust before they rose out of that
east-bound hurricane. They added a fierce push to eastward to their upward thrust. Mike's
cracked voice reported 500 miles an hour. Presently it was 600.
At 40,000 feet they were moving eastward at 680 miles an hour. A jet-motor cannot be
rated except indirectly, but there was over 200,000 horsepower at work to raise the
spacecraft and build up the highest possible forward speed. It couldn't be kept up, of
course. The pushpots couldn't carry enough fuel.
But they reached 55,000 feet, which is where space begins for humankind. A man
exposed to emptiness at that height will die just as quickly as anywhere between the stars.
But it wasn't quite empty space for the pushpots. There was still a very, very little air.
The pushpots could still thrust upward. Feebly, now, but they still thrust.
Mike said: "Communications says get set to fire jatos, Joe."
"Right!" he replied. "Set yourselves."
Mike flung a switch, and a voice began to chatter behind Joe's head. It was the voice from
the communications-room atop the Shed, now far below and far behind. Mike settled
himself in the tiny acceleration-chair built for him. The Chief squirmed to comfort in his
seat. Haney took his hands from the equalizing adjustments he had to make so that Joe's
use of the controls would be exact, regardless of moment-to-moment differences in the
thrust of the various jets.
"We've got a yaw right," said the Chief sharply. "Hold it, Joe!"
Joe waited for small quivering needles to return to their proper registrations.
"Back and steady," said the Chief a moment later. "Okay!"
The tinny voice behind Joe now spoke precisely. Mike had listened to it while the work
of take-off could be divided, so that Joe would not be distracted. Now Joe had to control
everything at once.
The roar of the pushpots outside the ship had long since lost the volume and timbre of
normal atmosphere. Not much sound could be