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

The co-pilot was saying coldly into the microphone, "It shot rockets. Looked like Army issue three point
fives with proximities. They missed, but we're mighty lonely!"
The plane tore on, both pilots watching the cloud-bank below. They moved their bodies as they stared out
the windows, so that by nq possibility would the plane's window mask something that they should see.
As they searched, the co-pilot went on evenly into the transmitter at his lips, "He wouldn't have more than
four rockets, and he's dumping his racks and firing-equipment now. But he might have a friend with him.
Better get here fast if you want to catch him! He'll be the most innocent private pilot you ever saw!"
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Then the pilot grunted. Something was streaking across the cloud formation far, far ahead. Three things.
They were jet fighters, and they seemed not so much to approach as to swell in size. They were coming at
better than five hundred knotsтАФten miles a minuteтАФand the transport was heading for them at its own
topmost speed. The jets and the transport .approached each other at a rate which would have been
alarming if it were not so satisfactory.
The co-pilot said crisply into the hand-phone from above his head, "Silver Messner with red wingtips. The
number beganтАФ"
He gave the letter and first digits of the vanished private plane's designation, without which it could not
take off from or be serviced at any flying-field. Joe heard an insistent "beep-beep-beep-beep" which
would be a
radar on one of the jet fighters. He could not hear what the co-pilot might hear in answer to his crisp
reports.
One of the jets peeled off and sank into the cloud layer. The others came on. They set up great circles
about the transport, crossing before it, above it, around it, with much the effect of flying around an object
which was not moving at all.
The pilot flew on, frowning. The co-pilot said, "Sure! I'm listening!" There was a pause. Then he said,
"Check. Thanks."
He hung the handphone back where it belonged. He thoughtfully mopped his forehead. He looked at Joe.
"Maybe," he observed," you'll believe me now when I say there's a small war on, to keep the Platform
from lifting off."
"Here's the third jet coming up again." It was true. The jet that had dived into the clouds now came up out
of the fleecy stuff with an air of impassive satisfaction, "Did they find the guy?"
"Yeah," said the co-pilot. "He must've picked up my report. He didn't dump his radar. He stayed in the
cloud-bank. When the jet came for him he tried to ram it. So the jet blew him apart. Maybe they'll find out
something from the wreckage."
Joe wet his lips.
"He was trying to smash us!" he protested. "He tried to smash us with rockets! Where'd he get them?"
The co-pilot shrugged.
"Maybe smuggled in. Maybe stolen. They could've been hauled anywhere in a station wagon. The plane
was a private type ship. Plenty of them flying around. It could've been bought easy enough. All they'd
need would be a farm somewhere where it could put down and strap on a rocket rack. The big problem is
information. How'd they know what was on this ship?"
A shadow passed over the transport. A jet shot past from above it. It waggled its wings and changed
course.
"We're to land and be inspected for damage," grunted the pilot. "The jets will show us the wayтАФas if we
needed it!"
Joe pushed himself back into his seat. He still had in
his mind the glamorous and alluring picture of the Space Platform finished and floating grandly in its
orbit, with whitehot sunshine on it and a multitude of stars beyond, envied and admired by all the
strangely shaped lesser satellites sweeping about their lowlevel paths in space.
He'd been concerned with the actual making of essential items in the Platform's equipment, but he'd
thought about the Platform mostly in terms of the drama and the glamour of what it should achieve. Now