Space Platform Part 18

"No visitors!" he called. "We don't want company!"

One of the men held his hand to his ear, as if not understanding. They came on. They made no threatening gestures.

Then Joe took his hand out of his pocket, the pistol Sally'd given him gripped tightly.

"I mean that!" he said harshly. "Stand back!"

One of the three spoke sharply. On that instant three snub-nosed pistols appeared. Bullets whined as the men hurtled forward. The purpose was not so much murder at this moment as the demoralizing effect of bullets flying overhead while the three a.s.sa.s.sins got close enough to do their b.l.o.o.d.y job with precision.

A stone whizzed by Joe--Haney had thrown it--and the small target rifle in Mike's hands coughed twice. Joe held his fire. He had only six bullets and three targets to hit. With a familiar revolver he'd have started shooting now, but thirty yards is a long range with a strange pistol at a moving target.

One of the three killers stumbled and crashed to the ground. A second seemed suddenly to be grinning widely on one side of his face. A .22 bullet had slashed his cheek. The third ran head on into a rock thrown by Haney. It knocked the breath out of him and his pistol fell from his hand.

Joe fired deliberately at the widely grinning man and saw him spin around. Mike's target rifle spat again and the man Joe had hit wheeled and ran heavily, making incoherent yells. The one who'd tumbled scrambled to his feet and fled, hopping crazily, favoring one leg.

Deserted, the third man turned and ran too, still doubled over and still gasping.

Mike's voice crackled. He was in a towering rage because of the way the target rifle shot. It threw high and to the right. The shooting gallery paid off in cigarettes for high scores--so the guns didn't shoot straight.

Until this moment Joe had been relatively calm, because he had something to do. But just then he heard Sally say "Oh!" in a queer voice. He whirled. Unknown to him, she had not been waiting under cover, but standing with her pistol out and ready. And her face was very white, and she was plucking at her hair. A strand came away in her fingers. A bullet had clipped it just above her shoulder.

Then Joe went sick ... weak ... trembling, and he disgraced himself by half-hysterically grabbing Sally and demanding to know if she was hurt, and raging at her for exposing herself to fire, while his throat tried to close and shut off his breath from horror.

There came loud pop-pop-popping noises. With the peculiar reverberation of sound over water, two motorcycles started from the powerhouse along the crest of the dam. They streaked for the sh.o.r.e carrying five men, one of whom was the Chief, with a red-checked tablecloth about his middle, brandishing a fire axe in default of other weapons.

The danger was over.

But the a.s.sa.s.sins couldn't be followed immediately. They still had at least two pistols. Eight men and a girl, counting Mike, with an armament of only two pistols, a .22 rifle, two shotguns and a fire axe were not a properly equipped posse to hunt down killers. Also by now it was close to sunset.

So the victors did the sensible thing. Joe and Sally and Haney and the Chief--his clothes retrieved--plus Mike headed back for Bootstrap. Joe and Sally rode in the Major's black car, and the other three in the jalopy they'd rented for the afternoon. On the way into the canyon below the dam, they stopped at the parked car their would-be a.s.sa.s.sins had come in. They removed its distributor and fan belt. The other men returned to the powerhouse with their shotguns and the fire axe, and telephoned to Bootstrap. The three gunmen who had planned murder became fugitives, with no means of transportation but their legs. They had a good many thousand square miles of territory to hide in, but it wasn't likely that they had food or any competence to find it in the wilds. Two were certainly hurt. With dogs and planes and organization, it should be possible to catch them handily, come morning.

So Joe and Sally drove back to Bootstrap with the other car following closely through all the miles that had to be covered in the dark.

Halfway back, they met a grim search party in cars, heading for the dam to begin their man hunt in the morning. After that, Joe felt better. But his teeth still tended to chatter every time he thought of Sally's startled, scared expression as she pulled away a lock of her hair that had been severed by a bullet.

When they got back to the Shed, Major Holt looked tired and old. Sally explained breathlessly that her danger was her own fault. Joe'd thought she was safely under cover....

"It was my fault," said the Major detachedly. "I let you go away from the Shed. I do not blame Joe at all."

But he did not look kindly. Joe wet his lips, ready to agree that any disgrace he might be subjected to was justified, since he had caused Sally to be shot at.

"I blame myself a great deal, sir," he said grimly. "But I can promise I'll never take Sally away from safety again. Not until the Platform's up and there's no more reason for her to be in danger."

The Major said remotely: "I shall have to arrange for more than that. I shall put you in touch with your father by telephone. You will explain to him, in detail, exactly how the repair of your apparatus is planned.

I understand that the gyros can be duplicated more quickly by the method you have worked out?"

Joe said: "Yes, sir. The balancing of the gyros can, which was the longest single job. But anything can be made quicker the second time.

The patterns for the castings are all made, and the bugs worked out of the production process."

"You will explain that to your father," said the Major heavily. "Your father's plant will begin to duplicate these--ah--pilot gyros at once.

Meanwhile your--ah--work crew will start to repair the one that is here."

"Yes, sir."

"And," said the Major, "I am sending you to the pushpot airfield. I intend to scatter the targets the saboteurs might aim at. You are one of them. Your crew is another. From time to time you will confer with them and verify their work. If any of them should be--disposed of, you will be able to instruct others."

"It's really the other way about, sir," objected Joe. "The Chief and Haney are pretty good, and Mike's got brains----"

The Major moved impatiently.

"I am looking at this from a security standpoint," he said. "I am trying to make it plainly useless to attack the gyros again. Duplicates will be in production at your father's plant. There will be three men repairing the smashed ones. There will be another man in another place--and this will be you--who can instruct new workmen in the repair procedure if anything should happen. Thus there will have to be three separate successful coups if the pilot gyros are not to be ready when the Platform needs them. Saboteurs might try one. Possibly two. But I think they will look for another weak spot to attack."

Joe did not like the idea of being moved away. He wanted to be on the job repairing the device that was primarily his responsibility. Besides, he had a feeling about Sally. If she were in danger, he wanted to be on hand.

"About Sally, sir----"

"Sally," said the Major tiredly, "is going to have to restrict herself to the point where she'll feel that jail would be preferable. But she will see the need for it. She will be guarded a good deal more carefully than before--and you may not know it, but she has been guarded rather well."

Joe saw Sally smiling ruefully at him. What the Major had said was unpleasant, but he was right. This was one of those arrangements that n.o.body likes, an irritating, uncomfortable, disappointing necessity. But such necessities are a part of every actual achievement. The difference between things that get done and things that don't get done is often merely the difference between patience and impatience with tedious details. This arrangement would mean that Joe couldn't see Sally very often. It would mean that the Chief and Haney and Mike would do the actual work of getting the gyros ready. It would take all the glamour out of Joe's contribution. These deprivations shouldn't be necessary.

But they were.

"All right, sir," said Joe gloomily. "When do I go over to the field?"

"Right away," said the Major. "Tonight." Then he added detachedly: "Officially, the excuse for your presence there will be that you have been useful in uncovering sabotage methods. You have. After all, through you a number of planes that would have been blown up have now had their b.o.o.by traps removed. I know you do not claim credit for the fact, but it is an excuse for keeping you where I want you to be for another reason entirely. So it will be a.s.sumed that you are at the pushpot field for counter-sabotage inspection."

The Major nodded dismissal with an indefinable air of irony, and Joe went unhappily out of his office. He telephoned his father at length.

His father did not share Joe's disappointment at being removed to a place of safety. He undertook to begin the castings for an entire new set of pilot gyros at once.

A little later Sally came out of her father's office.

"I'm sorry, Joe!"

He grinned unhappily.

"So am I. I don't feel very heroic, but if this is what has to be done to get the Platform out of the Shed and on the way up--it's what has to be done. I suppose I can phone you?"

"You can," said Sally. "And you'd better!"

They had talked a long time that afternoon, very satisfyingly and without any cares at all. Neither could have remembered much of what had been said. It probably was not earth-shaking in importance. But now there seemed to be a very great deal of other similar conversation urgently needing to be gone through.

"I'll call you!" said Joe.

Then somebody approached to take him to the pushpot airfield. They separated very formally under the eyes of the impersonal security officer who would drive Joe to his destination.

It was a tedious journey through the darkness. This particular security officer was not companionable. He was one of those conscientious people who think that if they keep their mouths shut it will make up for their inability to keep their eyes open. Socially he treated Joe as if he were a highly suspect person. It could be guessed that he treated everybody that way.

Joe went to sleep in the car.

He was only half-awake when he arrived, and he didn't bother to rouse himself completely when he was shown to a cubbyhole in the officers'

barracks. He went to bed, making a half-conscious note to buy himself some clothes--especially fresh linen--in the morning.