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

their work would not end there. Holding it aloft, they'd carry it as far and as high and as fast as their
struggling engines could push it. Then there'd be one last surge of fierce thrusting by oversized Jato
rockets built into each pushpot separately, but all of which would fire at once.
Then the clumsy things would drop off and come bumbling back home, while the Platform's own rockets
flared out their mile-long flames as it headed up for emptiness.
But the building of these devices-тАФthese pushpotsтАФand all the other activities of the Shed would have no
meaning if enemies of the Platform's purpose succeeded hi keeping objects like the pilot gyros from being
delivered in working order.
Joe said restlessly, "Maybe doing anything else is useless, but I've got to find out just what happened to
the gyros I was bringing, Sally!"
Sally said nothing. She turned, and they moved across the long, wide space of woodblock flooring toward
the doorway by which they had entered. And now that he had seen the Space Platform, all of Joe's feeling
of guilt and
despondency came back. It seemed unbearable. They went out through the guarded door, and Sally
surrendered the pass while Joe was again checked carefully before he was allowed to go.
"You don't want me tagging around, do you?" Sally asked suddenly.
Joe hesitated. "You're nice enough, Sally, but if the stuff is really smashed, I'dтАФrather not have anybody
see me. Please don't mind."
"I know," Sally said quietly. "I'll get somebody to drive you over."
She vanished, then she came back with the uniformed man who'd driven Major Holt. She put her hand
momentarily on Joe's arm.
"If it's really bad, Joe, tell me. You won't let yourself cry, but I'll cry for you." She searched his face.
"Really, Joe!"
He grinned feebly and went out to the car.
His feelings on the way to the airfield were not good ones. It was twenty miles from the Shed, but Joe
dreaded what he was going to see, and the ride seemed all too short. The black car bumped up the road. It
turned to the right off the white highway, out the curved shortcut тАФand there was the field.
And there was the wreck of the transport plane, still where it had crashed and burned. There were still
armed guards about it, but there was a truck with a hoist nearby, and men were working on the wreck with
torches. Already much of it was being tagged.
Joe went to the remains of the four crates.
The largest was bent askew, either by the force of the crash or the explosion. The smallest was a twisted
mass of charcoal. Joe gulped and dug into them with borrowed tools. The pilot gyros of the Space
Platform would apply the torque that would make the main gyros shift it to any desired position, or else
hold it absolutely still. They were to act, in a sense, as a sort of steering engine on the takeoff and perform
other useful functions out in space. If a star photograph was to be made, it was essential that the Platform
hold absolutely still while the exposure lasted. If a guided missile was to be launched,
it must be started right, and the pilot gyros were needed. To turn to receive an arriving rocket from Earth
...
The pilot gyros were the steering apparatus of the Space Platform. They had to be more than adequate.
They had to be perfect. On the takeoff alone, they were starkly necessary. The Platform couldn't hope to
reach its orbit without them.
Joe chipped away charred planks, He pulled off flame eaten timbers. He peeled off carbonized wrappings,
but some did not need to be peeled; they crumbled at a touch, and' in twenty minutes he knew the whole
story.
The rotormotors were ruined. The couplersтАФpilot-to-main-gyro connectionsтАФhad been heated redhot and
were no longer hardened steel; their dimensions had changed so they would no longer fit. But these were
not the really disastrous items!
The tragedy was the gyros themselves. On their absolute precision and utterly perfect balance the whole
working of the Platform would depend. And the rotos were gashed in one place, and the shafts were bent.