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

training pilots."
Joe didn't know what a pushpot was, but he didn't ask. He gazed at the Shed, which was the greatest
building ever set up, and had been built merely to house the greatest hope for humanity while that hope
was put together. He'd be hi the Shed, presently. He'd work there, setting up the contents of the crates back
hi the plane's cargo space and finally installing them in the Platform itself.
The pilot said, "Pitot and whig-heaters?"
"Off," said the co-pilot.
"Spark advance?"
Joe didn't listen. It was the before-landing ritual. He looked down at the sprawling small town with white
painted barracks and a business section and obvious, carefully planned recreation areas which nobody
would use. The plane was making a great half circle. The motor noise tended to dim, as Joe became
absorbed hi the pros-
pect of seeing the Space Platform shortly and having a hand hi its building.
The co-pilot said sharply, "Hold everything!"
Joe jerked his head around. The co-pilot had his hand on the landing gear release. His lips were tense.
"It doesn't feel right," he said very, very quietly. "Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm remembering that there was a
sandy haired man who put his hand in the nosewheel well back at that last field. And this doesn't feel
right!"
The plane swept on. The airfield passed below it. The co-pilot very cautiously let go of the wheel release,
which when pulled should let the wheels fall down from their enclosures to lock themselves in landing
position. He moved from his seat. Joe saw his face again. His lips were pinched and tight. He scrabbled at
a metal plate hi the flooring. He lifted it and looked down. A moment later he had a flashlight hi use. Joe
saw the edge of a mirror. There were two mirrors. One could look through both of them into the
wheelwell.
The co-pilot made quite sure. He stood up, leaving the plate off the opening hi the floor.
"There's something down hi the wheelwell," he said in a brittle tone. "It looks to me like a grenade.
There's a string tied to it. At a guess, that sandy haired guy set it up like that saboteur sergeant from Brazil.
Only, it rolled a little; and this one goes off when the wheels go down. I think, too, if we bellyland. Better
go around again, eh?"
The pilot nodded.
"First," he said coldly, "we get word down to the ground about the sandy haired character, so they'll get
him, regardless."
The co-pilot picked up the telephone hanging above and behind his seat. He began to speak into it. The
transport plane made wide, sweeping circles over the desert beyond the airport while the co-pilot
explained that there was a grenade hi the nosewheel well, set to explode if the wheels were let down.
Probably, also, if the ship came in to a belly landing.
Joe found himself astonishingly unafraid. But he was filled with a throbbing rage. He hated the people
who
wanted to smash the pilot gyros because they were essential to the Space Platform. He hated them more
horribly than he'd known he could hate anybody. He was so filled with fury that it did not occur to him
that in any crash or explosive landing that would ruin the gyros, he would automatically be killed.

3
THE PILOT made an examination down the floorplate hole, using a flashlight to see by and two mirrors to
show him the contents he couldn't possibly reach with any instrument. Joe heard his report, made to the
ground by radio.
"It's a grenade," he said coldly. "It took time to fix it the way it is. At a guess, the ship was boobytrapped
at the tune of its last overhaul. Anyhow, it was arranged that the boobytrap's trigger had to be set at a
different place and time. We've been flying two weeks with that grenade in the wheelwell. It was out of
sight. Today, back at the airfield where we landed for a check against damage, a sandy haired man reached