Part 17 (1/2)

He watched his direction indicator and the small graphic indicators telling of the drones. The sky outside the ports was dark purple. The launching cage responded sluggishly. Its open end came around toward the east. It wobbled and wavered. It touched the due-east point. Joe stabbed the firing-b.u.t.ton.

Nothing happened. He hadn't expected it. The seven s.h.i.+ps had to keep in formation. They had to start off on one course--with a slight spread as a safety measure--and at one time. So the firing-circuits were keyed to relays in series. Only when all seven firing-keys were down at the same time would any of the jatos fire. Then all would blast together.

The pilots in the c.o.c.kpit-bubbles of the pushpots had an extraordinary view of the scene. At something over twelve miles height, seven aggregations of clumsy black things clung to frameworks of steel, pus.h.i.+ng valorously. Far below there were clouds and there was Earth.

There was a horizon, which wavered and tilted. The pushpots struggled with seeming lack of purpose. One of the seven seemed to drop below the others. They pointed vaguely this way and that--all of them. But gradually they seemed to arrive at an uncertain unanimity.

Joe pushed the firing-b.u.t.ton again as his own s.h.i.+p touched the due-east mark. Again nothing happened. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Haney pressing down both b.u.t.tons. The Chief's finger lifted. Mike pushed down one b.u.t.ton and held off the other.

Roarings and howlings of pushpots. Wobblings and heart-breaking clumsinesses of the drone-s.h.i.+ps. They hung in the sky while the pushpots used up their fuel.

”We've got to make it soon,” said Joe grimly. ”We've got forty seconds.

Or we'll have to go down and try again.”

There was a clock dial with a red sweep-hand which moved steadily and ominously toward a deadline time for firing. Up to that deadline, the pushpots could let the s.h.i.+ps back down to Earth without cras.h.i.+ng them.

After it, they'd run out of fuel before a landing could be made.

The deadline came closer and closer. Joe snapped:

”Take a degree leeway. We've got ten seconds.”

He had the manned s.h.i.+p nearly steady. He held down the firing-b.u.t.ton, holding aim by infinitesimal movements of the controls. Haney pushed both hands down, raised one, pushed again. The Chief had one finger down. Mike had both firing b.u.t.tons depressed.... The Chief pushed down his second b.u.t.ton, quietly.

There was a monstrous impact. Every jato in every pushpot about every launching cage fired at once. Joe felt himself flung back into his acceleration chair. Six gravities. He began the horrible fight to stay alive, while the blood tried to drain from the conscious forepart of his brain, and while every b.u.t.ton of his garments pressed noticeably against him, and objects in his pockets pushed. The sides of his mouth dragged back, and his cheeks sagged, and his tongue strove to sink back into his throat and strangle him.

It was very bad. It seemed to last for centuries.

Then the jatos burned out. There was that ghastly feeling of lunging forward to weightlessness. One instant, Joe's body weighed half a ton.

The next instant, it weighed less than a dust grain. His head throbbed twice as if his skull were about to split open and let his brains run out. But these things he had experienced before.

There were pantings in the cabin about him. The s.h.i.+p fell. It happened to be going up, but the sensation and the fact was free fall. Joe had been through this before, too. He gasped for breath and croaked, ”Drones?”

”Right,” said Haney.

Mike panted anxiously, ”Four's off course. I'll fix it.”

The Chief grunted guttural Mohawk. His hands stirred on the panel for remote control of the drones he had to handle.

”Crazy!” he growled. ”Got it now, Joe. Fire when ready.”

”Okay, Mike?”

A half-second pause.

”Okay!”

Joe pressed the firing-b.u.t.ton for the take-off rockets. And he was slammed back into his acceleration chair again. But this was three gravities only. Pressed heavily against the acceleration cus.h.i.+ons, he could perform the navigation for the fleet. He did. The mother-s.h.i.+p had to steer a true course, regardless of the vagaries of its rockets. The drones had simply to be kept in formation with it. The second task was simpler. But Joe was relieved, this time, of the need to report back instrument-readings. A telemetering device took care of that.

The take-off rockets blasted and blasted and blasted. The mere matter of staying alive grew very tedious. The ordeal seemed to last for centuries. Actually it could be measured only in minutes. But it seemed millennia before the headphones said, staccato fas.h.i.+on: ”_You are on course and will reach speed in fourteen seconds. I will count for you._”

”Relays for rocket release,” panted Joe. ”Throw 'em over!”