Delilah and the Space-Rigger
Delilah and the Space-Rigger
SURE, WE HAD TROUBLE building Space Station One-but the trouble was people.
Not that building a station twenty-two thousand three hundred miles out in space is a breeze. It was an engineering feat bigger than the Panama Canal or the Pyramids-or even the Susquehanna Power Pile. But “Tiny” Larsen built her and a job Tiny tackles gets built.
I first saw Tiny playing guard on a semi-pro team, working his way through Oppenheimer Tech. He worked summers for me thereafter till he graduated. He stayed in construction and eventually I went to work for him.
Tiny wouldn’t touch a job unless he was satisfied with the engineering. The Station had jobs designed into it that called for six-armed monkeys instead of grown men in space suits. Tiny spotted such boners; not a ton of material went into the sky until the specs and drawings suited him.
But it was people that gave us the headaches. We bad a sprinkling of married men, but the rest were wild kids, attracted by high pay and adventure. Some were busted spacemen. Some were specialists, like electricians and instrument men. About half were deep-sea divers, used to working in pressure suits. There were sandhogs and riggers and welders and ship fitters and two circus acrobats.
We fired four of them for being drunk on the job; Tiny had to break one stiff’s arm before he would stay fired. What worried us was where did they get it? Turned out a ship fitter had rigged a heatless still, using the vacuum around us. He was making vodka from potatoes swiped from the commissary. I hated to let him go, but he was too smart.
Since we were falling free in a 24-hour circular orbit, with everything weightless and floating, you’d think that shooting craps was impossible. But a radioman named Peters figured a dodge to substitute steel dice and a magnetic field. He also eliminated the element of chance, so we fired him.
We planned to ship him back in the next supply ship, the R.S. Half Moon. I was in Tiny’s office when she blasted to match our orbit. Tiny swam to the view port “Send for Peters, Dad,” he said, “and give him the old heave ho. Who’s his relief?”
“Party named G. Brooks McNye,” I told him.
A line came snaking over from the ship. Tiny said, “I don’t believe she’s matched.” He buzzed the radio shack for the ship’s motion relative to the Station. The answer didn’t please him and he told them to call the Half Moon.
Tiny waited until the screen showed the rocket ship.
C.O. “Good morning, Captain. Why have you placed a line on us?”
“For cargo, naturally. Get your hopheads over here. I want to blast off before we enter the shadow.” The Station spent about an hour and a quarter each day passing through Earth’s shadow; we worked two eleven-hour shifts and skipped the dark period, to avoid rigging lights and heating suits.
Tiny shook his head. “Not until you’ve matched course and speed with us.”
“I am matched!”
“Not to specification, by my instruments.”
“Have a heart, Tiny! I’m short on maneuvering fuel. If I juggle this entire ship to make a minor correction on a few lousy tons of cargo, I’ll be so late I’ll have to put down on a secondary field. I may even have to make a dead-stick landing.” In those days all ships had landing wings.
“Look, Captain,” Tiny said sharply, “the only purpose of your lift was to match orbits for those same few lousy tons. I don’t care if you land in Little America on a pogo stick. The first load here was placed with loving care in the proper orbit, and I’m making every other load match. Get that covered wagon into the groove.”
“Very well, Superintendent!” Captain Shields said stiffly. “Don’t be sore, Don,” Tiny said softly. “By the way, you’ve got a passenger for me?”
“Oh, yes, so I have!” Shields’ face broke out in a grin.
“Well, keep him aboard until we unload. Maybe we can beat the shadow yet.”
“Fine, fine! After all, why should I add to your troubles?” The skipper switched off, leaving my boss looking puzzled.