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They contained the pilot gyros for the most important object then being built on Earth, and it wouldn't work properly without them. It was Joe's job to take that highly specialized, magnificently precise machinery to its destination, help to install it, and see to its checking after it was installed. He felt uneasy.
A swaying among the crowded figures more pronounced than that caused by the motion of the bus caught Joe's eye. Somebody was crowding his way from the back toward the front. The aisle was narrow. Joe clung to his strap, thinking hard and happily about the rebalancing of the gyros. There could be no tolerance. It had to be exact. There had to be no vibration at all.... A hand on his shoulder.
They rose sky-high, it seemed more flames than forty-five minutes of gasoline should have produced. As he looked, something blew up shatteringly, and fire raged even more furiously. Of course in such heat the delicately adjusted gyros would be warped and ruined even if the crash hadn't wrecked them beforehand. Joe made thick, incoherent sounds of rage.
No tanks or pumps or burners rode deadhead after they ceased to be useful. But solid-fuel rockets simply can't be made to burn with absolute evenness as a team. Minute differences in burning-rates do tend to cancel out. But now and again they reinforce each other and if uncorrected will throw a ship off course. Gyros can't handle such effects.
Joe pulled his thoughts back from satisfied imagining. It hadn't occurred to him that it was remarkable that he should be allowed to accompany the gyros from the plant to their destination. His family firm had built them, so it had seemed natural to him. He wasn't used to the idea that everybody looked suspicious to a security officer concerned with the safety of the Platform. "Connections?
Then it steadied again as the gyros damped out the vibrations. "Wow!" Bud heaved a sigh of relieved tension. Then he dashed from the compartment and up the nearest ladder for a quick look at the rocket as it disappeared into the blue. Tom watched the recovery missile intently on the radarscope. "Nice going, son," said Mr. Swift quietly.
As Connel and Tom watched tensely, the space torpedo loomed large and menacing on the scanner, and then, as they held their breaths, it whistled past the silvery hull of the ship, with less than two feet to spare! Sighing deeply, Tom brought the ship back to level flight. "We're O.K. now, sir," he said. "Her gyros are out. She won't come back." "By the craters of Luna!" Connel suddenly exploded.
Mike took acceleration better than the others, but his voice was thin when he gasped, "Looks like this does it, Joe!" Seconds later he gasped again, "Right! The rocket's above us and still going away!" The gyros squealed again. The ship plunged into vapor which was the trail of the enemy rocket. For an instant the flowing confusion which was Earth was blotted out. Then it was visible again.
Joe drank his coffee, trying to make himself believe that he'd known all along he wasn't going to make the crew. He'd started late to learn the things a crew member ought to know. He'd stopped at the most crucial part of his training to work on the gyros, which were more crucial still. He'd slept a day and a half. The platform would take off in forty-eight hours.
It was where the service motors and the air-circulation system and the fluid pumps were powered. Off the engine room the main gyros were already installed. They waited only for the pilot gyros to control them as a steering engine controls an Earth ship's rudder. Joe looked very thoughtfully at the gyro assembly. That was familiar, from the working drawings.
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