Read Online Earthbound (Winston Science Fiction Book 1) by Milton Lesser - Free Book Online

orbit, sir.”
    “That’s ridiculous, Hodges. It’s a good orbit you’ve plotted; it’s the orbit they’ll use. I’m not an orbiteer, but I know a fast orbit when I see one. You’ve given them the best, and they want speed this trip.”
    “Five-forty five on the nose!” sang the radio voice.
    “Check,” Pete said. Then, “I can’t tell you why, Captain, but it’s important.”
    Captain Saunders shook his head. “I don’t understand you, Hodges. You’re still an apprentice, however, and you may consider this an order. The orbit is to be maintained as originally plotted.”
    Pete shrugged, called into the radio, “Check remote control.”
    “Okay, tower. You’ve got us perfectly. When you press that little button of yours, we’ll be off — in, um-m-m-m, one minute and fifteen seconds.”
    “I never realized this before,” Big Pete said, sitting in a chair at the far end of the room, “but the situation in the tower is just as tense as that which you find in the ship itself. Maybe more, because at blast-off they don’t really do any work. It’s completely up to the tower, and you have about one minute to settle this little argument.”
    “It’s already settled,” Captain Saunders told him. “I don’t know why your son wants to be ornery. Well, whatever his reason is, it doesn’t matter; we’re keeping this orbit.”
    “Forty seconds!” the radio voice barked. “Lord, it will be good to clear orbits again.”
    Sure , Pete thought , it will he good — right into a pirate trap. . . . A spaceship orbit, an ellipse with one focal point in the sun. Draw that other focal point wherever you like — except that one particular point will lead to piracy. And I have no choice!
    “Ten seconds, tower!”
    Pete flipped over the standby switch, heard a loud beep from the ship outside, signifying that the tower had control.
    “Four seconds! Three! Two — one —”
    Mechanically, Pete pressed the firing stud. A short wave radio beam on precisely the right frequency pulled the safeties out of the Crape Ring ’s controlled atomic pile. There was a deep-throated roar and the light of a dozen suns burned in through the tower’s glare-proof windows.
    Slowly, majestically, the Crape Ring soared skyward, balancing with perfect grace atop a pillar of flame. Accelerating, the shaft of fire streaked higher and higher. The Crape Ring became a tiny dot reflecting the crimson of the newly risen sun.
    It disappeared.
    For several moments after that, Pete could see the streak of flame high up in the sky. Then it, too, was gone, leaving only a black line in the crisp early-morning blue.
    “Whew!” Big Pete mopped his brow, “When I was a kid out there I used to think the tower boys had it easy.”
    “They don’t,” Captain Saunders explained with a smile. “You can’t plot any orbit any old way. A slight miscalculation will send a ship streaking out of the solar system altogether, and while it could correct the mistake with its own power, so much fuel probably would be exhausted that it wouldn’t have enough left to brake for a landing.”
    Pete stood up. “I think I’ll go home and take a nice long nap.”
    His father chuckled softly. “I’d say you need one, son!
     
    Two days later, Garr rushed into the tower excitedly. “Pete! Hey, Pete —”
    “What’s up?”
    “I just got my orders, that’s what. They don’t give you much time!”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’re sending a ship off at sundown tonight, aren’t you? Out to the asteroids, the long way, past the sun?”
    Pete nodded.
    “Well,” Garr said, “I’ll be on it. Me, I’ll be on it! I’m going to space at last,” He shook Pete’s hand wildly, then, as if he had forgotten all about it, shook hands again. “I’m going to space.”
    Then he danced a crazy jig, balancing his tall, lanky frame first on one foot, then the other. He cavorted madly about the tower, singing the Spaceman’s Chant in a high falsetto. After a time,