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

of approval. Major Holt was not a man anybody could ever feel very close to, and the work he had to
control was not likely to make him popular. But he did think straight and fast. He didn't think "hot" meant
"significant," either. When he hung up the phone he said curtly;
"When will your workcrew get here?"
"Early," said Joe. "But not yet. A couple of hours, I'd think."
"Go with the pilot," said the Major. "You'll recognize what Braun meant as soon as anybody. See what
you see."
Joe stood up.
"You think the tip is straight? It means something?"
- "Before now," said Major Holt detachedly, "a man has been blackmailed into trying sabotage. If he's got
a family somewhere abroad, and they're threatened with death or torture unless he does such-and-such
here, he's in a bad fix. It's happened. He can't tell me. He's watched. But sometimes he finds an out."
Joe was puzzled. His face showed it.
"He can try to do the sabotage," said the Major precisely, "after arranging to be caught at it. If he's caught,
the blackmail threat is no threat at all so long as he keeps his mouth shut. Which he does. AndтАФahтАФyou'd
be surprised how often a man who wasn't born in the United States would rather go to jail for sabotage
than commit it
тАФhere."
Joe blinked.
"If your friend Braun is caught," said the Major, "he will be punished severelyтАФofficially. But privately
someone will tell him that he'll be released from prison just as soon as he thinks it safe. And he will be.
That's all."
He turned to his papers. Joe went out. On the way to meet the plane pilot who'd check on his tip, he
thought
things over. He began to feel a sort of formless but very definite pride. He wasn't quite sure how he'd have
expressed it, but it had something to do with being part of a country that men of wholly different
upbringing could come to feel loyalty to. There can be a lot of things wrong with a nation, but if
somebody from another one comes to feel that he'd rather be punished for a crime against that nation than
commit it, well, it's not too bad a country to belong to.
As he went across the vast interior of the Shed, and past the shimmering growing monster which was the
Space Platform, he had a security guard with him instead of Sally. He went all the way to the great
swinging doors the materials trucks entered by. And there were guards here, and they checked each driver
very carefully before they admitted his truck. But somehow it wasn't irritating. It wasn't scornful
suspicion. There'd be snide and snappy characters in the security force, of course. They'd swagger and
throw their weight about. But even they were guarding something that menтАФsome menтАФfrom very far
away were willing to throw their lives away for.
Joe and his guide reached one of the entrances as a ten-wheeler truck came in with a load of shining metal
plates. Joe's escort went through the opening with him and they went outside. The sun was barely risen. It
looked huge but very far away, and Joe suddenly realized why just this spot had been chosen for the
building of the Platform.
The ground was flat. All the way to the Eastern horizon there wasn't even a minor hillock rising above the
plain. It was bare, arid, sunscorched desert. It was featureless save for sage and mesquite and the tall thin
stalks of yucca blooms. But it was flat. It could be a runway. It was a perfect place for the Platform to start
from. It shouldn't touch ground at all, after it was out of the Shed, but at least it wouldn't run into any
obstacles on its way to the horizon.
A light plane came careening around the great, curved outer surface of the Shed. It landed and taxied up to
the door. It swung smartly around and its sidedoor opened. A bandaged hand waved at Joe. He climbed in.
The pilot
of this light, flimsy plane was the co-pilot of the transport ship of yesterday. He was the man Joe'd helped
dump cargo.