Space Family Stone by Robert A. Heinlein

Author:Robert A. Heinlein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

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PHOBOS PORT

Mars has two ready-made space stations, her two tiny, close-in moons -

Phobos and Deimos, the dogs of the War God, Fear and Panic. Deimos is a jagged, ragged mass of rock; a skipper would he hard put to find a place to put down a ship. Phobos was almost spherical and fairly smooth as we found her; atomic power has manicured her into one big landing field all around her equator - a tidying-up that may have been over hasty; by one very plausible theory the Martian ancients used her themselves as a space station. The proof, if such there be, may lie buried under the slag of Phobos port.

The Rolling Stone slid inside the orbit of Deimos, blasted as she approached the orbit of Phobos and was matched in with Phobos, following an almost identical orbit around Mars only a scant five miles from that moon. She was falling now, falling around Mars but falling toward Phobos, for no vector had been included as yet to prevent that. The fall could not be described as a headlong plunge; at this distance, one radius of Phobos, the moon attracted the tiny mass of the spaceship with a force of less than three ten-thousandths of one Earth surface gravity. Captain Stone had ample time in which to calculate a vector which would let him land; it would take the better part of an hour for the Stone to sink to the surface of the satellite.

However, he had chosen to do it the easy way, through outside help. The jet of the Rolling Stone, capable of blasting at six gravities, was almost too much of a tool for the thin gravity field of a ten-mile rock - like swatting a fly with a pile-driver. A few minutes after they had ceased blasting, a small scooter rocket up from Phobos matched with them and anchored to their airlock.

The spacesuited figure who swam in removed his helmet and said,

‘Permission to board, sir? Jason Thomas, port pilot - you asked for pilot-and-tow?’

‘That’s right’ Captain Thomas.’

‘Just call me Jay. Got your mass schedule ready?’

Roger Stone gave it to him; he look it over while they looked him over.

Meade thought privately that he looked more like a bookkeeper than a dashing spaceman - certainly nothing like the characters in Hazel’s show.

Lowell stared at him gravely and said, ‘Are you a Martian, Mister?’

The port pilot answered him with equal gravity. ‘Sort of, son.’

‘Then where’s your other leg?’

Thomas looked startled, but recovered. ‘I guess I’m a cut-rate Martian.’

Lowell seemed doubtful but did not pursue the point. The port official returned the schedule and said, ‘Okay, Captain. Where are your outside control-circuit jacks?’

‘Just forward of the lock. The inner terminals are here on the board.’

‘Be a few minutes.’ He went back outside, moving very rapidly. He was back inside in less than ten minutes.

‘That’s all the time it took you to mount auxiliary rockets?’ Roger Stone asked incredulously.

‘Done it a good many times. Gets to be a routine. Besides, I’ve got good boys working with me.

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