"Murray Leinster - Space Tug" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

Crane trucks went out to pick them up. Joe said anxiously, "We'd better go over 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. There were the bare skeletons of two others which still needed a lot of work. They'd
been begun at distant plants and hauled here on gigantic trailers for completion. The wooden mockup of
the design for all of them lay neglected by the Shed wall, though it had been useful for trying every
possible arrangement of the control cabin part of the ship.
The four stood before the data board. It listed the readings every instrument should show during every
second 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 off, they wouldn't
have time to wonder if everything were right for the time and place. They'd need to know.
They stood there, soaking up the information the board contained, forming mental pictures of it, making as
sure as surety that any one of them would spot anything wrong the instant it happened, and would
instantly know what to do about it.
A crane truck came in, dangling a pushpot. It rolled over to the launching cage in which the supply ship
lay. It set the pushpot against that cage. There was a clanking as the pushpot caught hold by magnetic
grapples. The crane went out again, passing another crane on the way in with another pushpot. The second
beetlelike thing was presented to the cage. That crane went out for another.
Major Holt approached. It took him a long time to reach the data board. When he got there he looked
about impatiently. His daughter Sally came out of nowhere and blew her nose as if she'd been crying. He
spoke to her with some sternness.
The cranes brought in more pushpots and set them up against the steel cage. The ship had been nearly
hidden before by the rocket tubes fastened outside its hull. It was completely blanked out by the clumsy
objects that now began to wall it in.
The major looked at his watch. Joe and the others left the data board. Joe saw the major and went to bun.
"I've brought you," said the major in an official voice, "the invoice of your cargo. You'll deliver it and
bring back proper receipts." "I hope," said Joe.
"We hope!" said Sally in a strained voice. "Good luck, Joe!"
"Thanks."
"There isn't much to add," said the major, without visible emotion. "The next crew will start training
immediately, but it may be a month before another ship is ready for them. It's extremely necessary for you
to reach the Platform."
"Yes, sir," said Joe. "I've even a personal motive to use my best efforts. If I don't, I break my neck."
The major ignored the comment. He shook hands formally and marched away. Sally smiled up at Joe, but
her eyes were suddenly full of tears.
"I—do hope everything goes all right, Joe," she said unsteadily. "I'll—I'll be praying for you."
"I can use some of that, too," admitted Joe.
She looked at her hand. Joe's ring was on her finger. Then she looked up again, and was crying
unashamedly.
"I—will," she repeated. Then she said fiercely, "I don't care if somebody's looking, Joe. It's time for you to
go in the ship."
He kissed her quickly and went to the peculiar mass of clustered pushpots which touched and almost
overlapped each other.
He ducked under and looked back. Sally waved. He waved in return. Then he climbed up the ladder into
the little supply ship's cabin. Somebody removed the ladder.
The others were in their places. Joe closed the door from the cabin to the outer world. There was suddenly
a cushioned silence all about him. Out the quartz glass ports he could see beyond the end of the cage and
through the monstrous door to the desert beyond. Overhead he could see the dark, girder-lined roof of the
Shed. At either side, though, he could see only the scratched, dented, flat undersides of the pushpots ready
to lift the ship upward.