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

SPACE TUG
A BELMONT BOOKтАФAugust 1965
Second printingтАФNovember 1963




SPACE TUG
Published by Belmont Productions, Inc.
1116 First Ave., New York, N.Y. 10021
┬й 1953, 3965, by Will F. Jenkins. All rights reserved.
PRINTED IN CANADA COVER PRINTED IN U.S.A.




1
TO THE WORLD at large it was, of course, just another day. A different sort entirely at different places on
the great, round, rolling Earth, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was Tuesday on one side of the date line
and Monday on the other. It was so-and-so's wedding anniversary and so-and-so's birthday and another so-
and-so would get out of jail today. It was warm, it was cool, it was fair, it was cloudy. One looked to the
future with confidence, with hope, with uneasiness or with terror according to one's temperament and
geographical location and past history. But to most of the human race it was nothing remarkable. It was
just another day.
To Joe Kenmore, though, it was a most particular day indeed. Where he was, it was the gray hour just
before sunrise, and already there were hints of reddish colorings in the sky. It was chilly, and somehow the
world seemed still and breathless. To Joe, the feeling of tensity marked this morning off from all the other
mornings of his experience.
He got up and began to dress, in Major Holt's quarters back of that giant steel half-globe called the Shed,
near the town of Bootstrap. He felt queer because he felt much as usual. By all the rules he should have
experienced a splendid, noble sensation of high resolve and fiery exaltation. Perhaps he should have felt a
praiseworthy sense of humility and unworthiness to accomplish what would presently be expected of him.
And as a matter of fact he did feel suitable emotions very far deep down inside him. But it happened that
he couldn't spare the time for appropriate reactions today.
He was definitely aware that he wanted coffee, and that he hoped everything would go all right. He looked
out a window at empty, dreary desert under the dawn sky. Today was the day he'd be leaving on a rather
important journey. He hoped Haney and the chief and Mike weren't nervous. He also hoped that nobody
had gotten at the fuel for the pushpots, and that the sHderule wielders had calculated everything correctly.
He was also bothered about the steering rocket fuel, and he was uncomfortable about breaking clear of the
launching cage. There was cause for worry in the takeoff rockets. If the tube linings had shrunk the
consequences would be gruesome. And there could always be last minute orders from Washington to
postpone or even cancel everything.
In short, his mind was full of strictly practical details. He didn't have time for suitably heroic sensations or
sensations of high destiny. He had a very tricky and exacting job ahead of him.
The sky was growing lighter outside. Stars faded in a paling blue and the desert showed faint colorings.
He tied his necktie. A deep-toned keening set up to the southward. It was a faraway noise, something like
the lament of a mountain-sized calf bleating for its mother. Joe took a deep breath. He searched for the
source of the sound, but saw nothing. The noise, though, told him that at least there'd been no cancellation
of orders so far. He mentally uncrossed two fingers. But he couldn't have enough fingers crossed against
all foreseeable disasters. There weren't enough fingers. Or toes. But it was good that so far the schedule