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diff --git a/28156.txt b/28156.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3228dd --- /dev/null +++ b/28156.txt @@ -0,0 +1,864 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Minor Detail, by John Michael Sharkey + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Minor Detail + +Author: John Michael Sharkey + +Release Date: February 23, 2009 [EBook #28156] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MINOR DETAIL *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + _General Webb had a simply magnificent idea for getting ground + forces into the enemy's territory despite rockets and missiles and + things like that. It was a grand scheme, except for one_ + + +MINOR DETAIL + +By JACK SHARKEY + + +The Secretary of Defense, flown in by special plane from the new Capitol +Building in Denver, trotted down the ramp with his right hand +outstretched before him. + +At the base of the ramp his hand was touched, clutched and hidden by the +right hand of General "Smiley" Webb in a hearty parody of a casual +handshake. General Webb did everything in a big way, and that included +even little things like handshakes. + +Retrieving his hand once more, James Whitlow, the Secretary of Defense, +smiled nervously with his tiny mouth, and said, + +"Well, here I am." + +This statement was taken down by a hovering circle of news reporters, +dispatched by wireless and telephone to every town in the forty-nine +states, expanded, contracted, quoted and misquoted, ignored and +misconstrued, and then forgotten; all this in a matter of hours. + +The nation, hearing it, put aside its wonted trepidations, took an extra +tranquilizer or two, and felt secure once more. The government was in +good hands. + + * * * * * + +Leaving the reporters in a disgruntled group beyond the +cyclone-fence-and-barbed-wire barriers surrounding Project W, General +Webb, seated beside Whitlow in the back of his private car, sighed and +folded his arms. + +"You'll be amazed!" he chortled, nudging his companion with a bony +elbow. + +"I--I expect so," said Whitlow, clinging to his brief case with both +hands. It contained, among other things, a volume of mystery stories and +a ham sandwich, neatly packaged in aluminum foil. Whitlow didn't want to +chance losing it. Not, at least, until he'd eaten the sandwich. + +"Of course, you're wondering where I got the idea for my project," said +"Smiley" Webb, adding, for the benefit of his driver, "Keep your eyes on +the road, Sergeant! The WAC barracks will still be there when you get +off duty!" + +"Yes, sir," came a hollow grunt from the front seat. + +"Weren't you?" asked General Webb, gleaming a toothy smile in Whitlow's +direction. + +"Weren't I _what_?" Whitlow asked miserably, having lost the thread of +their conversation due to a surreptitious glance backward at the WAC +barracks in their wake. + +"Wondering about the project!" snapped the general. + +"Yes. We _all_ were," said the Secretary of Defense, appending somewhat +tartly, "That's why they _sent_ me here." + +"To be sure. To be sure," General Webb muttered. He didn't much like +tartness in responses, but the Secretary of Defense, unfortunately, was +hardly a subordinate, and therefore not subject to the general's choler. +Silly little ass! he said to himself. Rather liking the sound of the +words--albeit in his mind--he repeated them over again, adding +embellishments like "pompous" and "mousy" and "squirrel-eyed." After +three or four such thoughts, the general felt much better. + +"_I_ thought the whole thing up, myself," he said, proudly. + +"I wish you'd stop being so ambiguous," Whitlow protested in a small +voice. "Just what _is_ this project? How does it work? Will it help us +win the war?" + +"_Sssh!_" said the general, jerking a quivering forefinger perpendicular +before pursed lips. "Security!" + +He closed one eye in a broad wink and wriggled a thumb in the direction +of the driver. "He's only cleared for Confidential material," said the +general, his tone casting aspersions on the sergeant's patriotism, +ancestry and personal hygiene. "This project is, of course, _Top +Secret_!" He said the words reverently, his face going all noble and +brave. Whitlow half-expected him to remove his hat, but he did not. + + * * * * * + +They drove onward, then, in silence, until they passed by a large field, +in the center of which Whitlow could discern the outlines of an immense +bull's-eye, in front of a tall, somewhat rickety khaki-colored reviewing +stand, draped in tired bunting. + +"What's that?" asked Whitlow, relinquishing his grip on his brief case +long enough to point toward the field. + +"_Ssssh!_" said "Smiley" Webb. "You'll find out in a matter of hours." + +"Many hours?" Whitlow asked, thinking of the ham sandwich. + +General Webb consulted a magnificent platinum timepiece anchored to his +thick hairy wrist by a stout leather strap. + +"In exactly one hour, thirty-seven minutes, and +forty-three-point-oh-oh-nine seconds!" he said, proudly. + +"Thank you," Whitlow sighed. "You're certainly running this +thing--whatever it is--in an efficient manner." + +"Thank _you_!" General Webb glowed. "We like to think so," he added +modestly. + + * * * * * + +Passwords, signs, countersigns, combination-locks and electronic +recognition signals were negotiated one by one, until Whitlow was +despairing of ever getting into the heart of Project W. He said as much +to General Webb, who merely flashed the grin which gave him his +nickname, and opened a final door. + +For a moment, Whitlow thought he was going deaf. The shrill roar of +screeching metal and throbbing dynamos that pounded at his eardrums +began to fuddle his mind, until General Webb handed him a small +cardboard box--also stamped, like every door and wall in the place, "Top +Secret"--in which his trembling fingers located two ordinary rubber +earplugs, which he instantly put to good use. + +"There she is!" said General Webb, proudly, gesturing over the railing +of the small balcony upon which they stood. "The Whirligig!" + +"What?" called Secretary of Defense Whitlow, shaking his head to +indicate he hadn't heard a word. + +Somewhat piqued, but resigned, General Webb leaned his wide mouth nearly +up against Whitlow's small pink plugged ear, and roared the same +information at the top of his lungs. + +Whitlow, a little stunned by the volume despite the plugs, nodded +wearily, to indicate that he'd heard, then asked, in a high, piping +voice, "What's it for?" + +Webb's eyes bulged in their sockets. "Great heavens, man, can't you +_see_?" He gestured down at his creation, his baby, his project, as +though it were self-evident what its function was. + +Whitlow strained his eyes to divine anything that might give a clue as +to just what the government had been pouring money into for the past +eight months. All he saw was what appeared to be a sort of ferris-wheel, +except that it was revolving in a horizontal plane. The structure was +completely enclosed in metal, and was whirling too fast for even the +central shaft to be anything but a hazy, silver-blue blur. + +"I see it," he shouted, squeakily. "But I don't understand it!" + +"Come with me," said General Webb, re-opening the door at their backs. +He was just about to step through when, with a quick blush of +mortification, he remembered the "Top Secret" earplugs. Hastily, +averting his face lest the other man see his embarrassment, he returned +his plugs to their box, and did the same with Whitlow's. + +Whitlow was glad when the door closed behind them. + +"My office is this way," said Webb, striding off in a stiff military +manner. + +Whitlow, with a forlorn shrug, could do nothing but clutch his brief +case and follow. + + * * * * * + +"It's this way," General Webb began, once they were seated uncomfortably +in his office. From a pocket in his khaki jacket, Webb had produced a +big-bowled calabash pipe, and was puffing its noxious gray fumes in all +directions while he spoke. "Up until the late fifties, war was a simple +thing ..." + +Oh, not the March of Science Speech! said Whitlow to himself. He knew it +by heart. It was the talk of the Capitol, and the nightmare of military +strategists. As the general's voice droned on and on, Whitlow barely +listened. The general, Top Secret or no Top Secret, was divulging +nothing that wasn't common knowledge from the ruins of Philadelphia to +the great Hollywood crater ... + +All at once, weapons had gotten _too_ good. That was the whole problem. +Wars, no matter what the abilities of the death-dealing guns, cannon, +rifles, rockets or whatever, needed one thing on the battlefield that +could not be turned out in a factory: Men. + +In order to win a war, a country must be vanquished. In order to +vanquish a country, soldiers must be landed. And that was precisely +wherein the difficulty lay: landing the soldiers. + +Ships were nearly obsolete in this respect. Landing barges could be +blown out of the water as fast as they were let down into it. + +Paratroops were likewise hopeless. The slow-moving troop-carrying planes +daren't even peek above the enemy's horizon without chancing an +onslaught of "thinking" rockets that would stay on their trail until +they were molten cinders falling into the sea. + +So someone invented the supersonic carrier. This was pretty good, +allowing the planes to come in high and fast over the enemy's territory, +as fast as the land-to-air missiles themselves. The only drawback was +that the first men to try parachuting at that speed were battered to +confetti by the slipstream of their own carriers. That would not do. + +Next, someone thought of the capsules. Each man was packed into a +break-proof, shock-proof, water-proof, wind-proof plastic capsule, and +ejected safely beyond the slipstream area of the carriers, at which +point, each capsule sprouted a silken chute that lowered the enclosed +men gently down into range of the enemy's rocket-fire ... + +This plan was scrapped like the others. + +And so, things were at a stalemate. There hadn't been a really good +skirmish for nearly five years. War was hardly anything but a memory, +what with both sides practically omnipotent. Unless troops could be +landed, war was downright impossible. And, no one could land troops, so +there was no war. + +As a matter of fact, Whitlow _liked_ the state of affairs. To be +Secretary of Defense during a years-long peace was a soft job to top all +soft jobs. And Whitlow didn't much like war. He'd rather live peacefully +with his mystery stories and ham sandwiches. + +But the Capitol, under the relentless lobbying of the munitions +interests, was trying to find a way to get a war started. + +They _had_ tried simply bombing the other countries, but it hadn't +worked out too well: the other countries had bombed back. + +This plan had been scrapped as too dangerous. + +And then, just when all seemed lost, when it looked as though mankind +was doomed to eternal peace ... + +Along came General "Smiley" Webb. + +"Land troops?" he'd said, confidently, "nothing easier. With the +government's cooperation, I can have our troops in any country in the +world, safely landed, within the space of one year!" + +Congress had voted him the money unanimously, and off he'd gone to work +at Project W. No one knew _quite_ what it was about, but the general had +seemed so self-assured that-- Well, they'd almost forgotten about him +until some ambitious clerk, trying to balance at least _part_ of the +budget, had discovered a monthly expenditure to an obscure base in the +southwest totalling some millions of dollars. Perfunctory checking had +brought out the fact that "Smiley" Webb had been drawing this money +every month, and hadn't as much as mailed in a single progress report. + +There'd been swift phone-calls from Denver to Project W, and, General +Webb informed them, not only was all the money to be accounted for, but +so was all the time and effort: the project was completed, and about to +be tested. Would someone like to come down and watch? + +Someone would. + + * * * * * + +And thus it was that James Whitlow, with mystery stories and ham +sandwich, had taken the first plane from the Capitol ... + +"... when all at once, I thought: Speed! Endurance! _That_ is the +problem!" said Webb, breaking in on Whitlow's reverie. + +"I beg your pardon?" said the Secretary of Defense. + +Webb whacked the dottle out of his pipe into a meaty palm, tossed the +smoking cinders rather carelessly into a waste-basket, and leaned +forward to confront the other man face to face, their noses almost +nudging. + +"Why are parachutes out?" he snapped. + +"They go too slow," said Whitlow. + +"Why do we use parachutes at all?" + +"To keep the men from getting killed by the fall." + +"Why does a fall kill the men?" + +"It-- It breaks their bones and stuff." + +"_Bah!_" Webb scoffed. + +"Bah?" reiterated Whitlow. "Bah?" + +"Certainly bah!" said the general. "All it takes is a little training." + + * * * * * + +"All _what_ takes?" said Whitlow, helplessly. + +"Falling, man, falling!" the general boomed. "If a man can fall safely +from ten feet-- Why not from ten times ten feet!?" + +"Because," said Whitlow, "increasing height accelerates the _rate_ of +falling, and--" + +"_Poppycock!_" the general roared. + +"Yes, sir," said Whitlow, somewhat cowed. + +"Muscle-building. That's the secret. Endurance. Stress. Strain. +Tension." + +"If-- If you say so ..." said Whitlow, slumping lower and lower in his +chair as the general's massive form leaned precariously over him. +"But--" + +"Of _course_ you are puzzled," said the general, suddenly chummy. +"Anyone would be. Until they realized the use to which I've put the +Whirligig!" + +"Yes. Yes, I suppose so ..." said Whitlow, thinking longingly of his ham +sandwich, and its crunchy, moist green smear of pickle relish. + +"The first day--" said General Webb, "it revolved at _one_ gravity! They +withstood it!" + +"What did? Who withstood? When?" asked Whitlow, with much confusion. + +"The men!" said the general, irritably. "The men in the Whirligig!" + +Whitlow jerked bolt upright. "There are _men_ in that thing?" It's not +possible, he thought. + +"Of course," said Webb, soothingly. "But they're all right. They've been +in there for thirty days, whirling around at one gravity more each day. +We have constant telephone communication with them. They're all feeling +fine, just fine." + +"But--" Whitlow said, weakly. + +General Webb had him firmly by the arm, and was leading him out of the +office. "We must get to the stands, man. Operation Human Bomb in ten +minutes." + +"Bomb?" Whitlow squeaked, scurrying alongside Webb as the larger man +strode down the echoing corridor. + +"A euphemism, of course," said Webb. "Because they will fall much like a +bomb does. But they will not explode! No, they will land, rifles in +hand, ready to take over the enemy territory." + +"Without parachutes?" Whitlow marveled. + +"Exactly," said the general, leading the way out into the blinding +desert sunlight. "You see," he remarked, as they strolled toward the +heat-shimmering outlines of the reviewing stand, its bunting hanging +limp and faded in the dry, breezeless air, "it's really so simple I'm +astonished the enemy didn't think of it first. Though, of course, I'm +glad they didn't-- Ha! ha!" He oozed self-appreciation. + +"Ha ha," repeated Whitlow, with little enthusiasm. + +"When one is whirled at one gravity, you see, the wall--the outside +rim--of the Whirligig, becomes the floor for the men inside. Each day, +they have spent up to ten hours doing nothing but deep knee-bends, and +eating high protein foods. Their legs will be able to withstand _any_ +force of landing. If they can do deep knee-bends at thirty +gravities--during which, of course, each of them weighed nearly three +tons--they can jump from any height and survive. Good, huh?" + + * * * * * + +Whitlow was worried as they clambered up into the stands. There seemed +to be no one about but the two of them. + +"Who else is coming?" he asked. + +"Just us," said Webb. "I'm the only one with a clearance high enough to +watch this. You're only here because you're _my_ guest." + +"But--" said Whitlow, observing the heat-baked wide-open spaces +extending on all sides of the reviewing stand and bull's-eye, "the men +on this base can surely watch from almost anywhere not beyond the +horizon." + +"They'd _better_ not!" was the general's only comment. + +"Well," said Whitlow, "what happens now?" + +"The men that were in that Whirligig have--since you and I went to my +office to chat--been transported to the airfield, from which point they +were taken aloft--" he consulted his watch, "five minutes, and +fifty-five-point-six seconds ago." + +"And?" asked Whitlow, casually unbuckling the straps of his brief case +and slipping out his sandwich. + +"The plane will be within bomb vector of this target in just ten +seconds!" said Webb, confidently. + +Whitlow listened, for the next nine seconds, then, right on schedule, he +heard the muted droning of a plane, high up. Webb joggled him with an +elbow. "They'll fall faster than any known enemy weapon can track them," +he said, smugly. + +"That's fortunate," said Whitlow, munching desultorily at his sandwich. +"Bud dere's wud thig budduhs bee." + +"Hmmf?" asked the general. + +Whitlow swallowed hastily. "I say, there's one thing bothers me." + +"What's that?" asked the general. + +"Well, it's just that gravity is centripetal, you know, and the +Whirligig is centrifugal. I wondered if it might not make some sort of +difference?" + +"Bah!" said General Webb. "Just a minor detail." + +"If you say so," Whitlow shrugged. + +"There they come!" shouted the general, jumping to his feet. + +Whitlow, despite his misgivings, found that he, too, was on his feet, +staring skyward at the tiny dots that were detaching themselves from the +shining bulk of the carrier plane. As he watched, his heart beating +madly, the dots grew bigger, and soon, awfully soon, they could be +distinguished as man-shaped, too. + +"There's-- There's something wrong!" said the general. "What's that +they're all shouting? It _should_ be 'Geronimo' ..." + +Whitlow listened. "It sounds more like 'Eeeeeyaaaaa'," he said. + +And it was. + +The sound grew from a distant mumble to a shrieking roar, and the next +thing, each man had landed upon the concrete-and-paint bull's-eye before +the reviewing stand. + +Whitlow sighed and re-buckled his brief case. + +The general moaned and fainted. + +And the men of the Whirligig, all of whom had landed on the target +head-first, did nothing, their magnificently muscled legs waving idly in +a sudden gentle gust of desert breeze. + + +THE END + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ November 1959. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and + typographical errors have been corrected without note. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Minor Detail, by John Michael Sharkey + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MINOR DETAIL *** + +***** This file should be named 28156.txt or 28156.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/1/5/28156/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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