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

"You saved that man's life, Joe," Sally said unsteadily. "But it scared me to death!"
Joe tried to ignore it, but he still seemed to feel slanting metal under him and a drop of twenty storeys
straight down. It had been a nightmarish sensation.
"I didn't think," he said uncomfortably. "It was a crazy thing to do. Lucky it worked out."
Sally glanced at him. The hoist still dropped swiftly. Levels of scaffolding shot upward past them. II Joe
had slipped down that rolling curve of metal, he'd have dropped past all these. It was not good to think
about. He swallowed again. Then the hoist checked in its descent. It stopped. Joe somewhat absurdly
helped Sally off to solid ground.
"Considering what happened at the airport," said Sally, "and while I was watching just now, it looks to me
as if you're bound to make me see somebody killed. Would youтАФwould you mind leading a little less
adventurous life for a while, Joe? Anyhow while I'm around?"
He managed to grin. But still he didn't feel right.
"There's nothing I can do until I look at the gyros," he said, changing the subject, "And I can't find the
Chief until tonight. Could we sightsee a little?"
She nodded. They went out from under the intricate framework that upheld the Platform. Sally indicated
the sidewalls.
"Let's look at the pushpots. They're fascinating!" She led the way. Again the vastness of the Shed became
evident. There was a catwalk partway up the inwardly curving wall. Someone leaned on its railing and
surveyed the interior of the Shed. It would probably be a Security man. Maybe the fistfight on the
Platform had been seen, or maybe not. The man on the catwalk was hardly more than a speck. It seemed to
Joe that there must be watchers' posts high up on the outer shell, too, where men would search the sunlight
desert outside for signs of things untoward.
But he turned and looked yearningly at the monstrous thing under the scaffolding. He could make out its
shape, now. It was something like an egg, but more like something else he couldn't put a name to. Actually
it was exactly like nothing else in the world but itself, and when it was out in space there would be nothing
left on Earth like it.
It would be, in a fashion, a world in itself and independent of the Earth which made it. There would be -
hydroponic tanks hi which plants would grow to purify its ah and feed its crew. There would be
telescopes, and men hi it would be able to study the stars as could never be done from the bottom of
Earth's turbulent atmosphere. And it would serve Earth.
There would be communicators. There were communication satellites aloft now, but the Platform would
outperform them many tunes over. It would pick up microwave messages and retransmit them to receivers
far around the curve of the planet, or else store them and retransmit them to the other side of the world. It
would store fuel with which men could presently set out for the starsтАФand out to emptiness for nuclear
experiments which must not be made on Earth. Presently it would be armed with deadly atomic missies
which no nation could possibly defy. And so it would keep peace on Earth. But it could not make goodwill
among men. Sally walked on. They reached the mysterious objects being manufactured in a row around
half the sidewall of the Shed. By comparison they were of simple design and not unduly large. The first
were merely frameworks of
metal pipe, which men were welding unbreakably together. They were no bigger than, say, a housetrailer.
A little way on they were filled with intricate arrays of tanks and tubing, and still fartherтАФthere was a
truck and hoist unloading a massive object into placeтАФthere were huge engines fitting precisely into
openings designed to hold them. And there were yet others being plated in, with metallic skins more or
less complete. At the very end of the line a crane was loading a finished one onto a flatbed trailer. As it
swung in the air Joe recognized what it was. It might be called a jet plane, but it was not of any type ever
used before. It looked more like a beetle than anything else. It would not be really useful for anything but
its function at the end of Operation Stepladder.
Then hundreds of the unwieldy objects would cluster upon the Platform's sides, like swarming bees. They
would thrust savagely upward with their separate jet engines. They would lift the Platform from the
foundation on which it had been built. Tugging, straining, panting, they would get it out of the Shed. But