Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Minor Detail by Sharkey Jack
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 98 lines and 6217 words, and 2 pages
"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?" reiterated Whitlow. "Bah?"
"Certainly bah!" said the general. "All it takes is a little training."
"Falling, man, falling!" the general boomed. "If a man can fall safely from ten feet-- Why not from ten times ten feet!?"
"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--"
"Yes. Yes, I suppose so ..." said Whitlow, thinking longingly of his ham sandwich, and its crunchy, moist green smear of pickle relish.
"What did? Who withstood? When?" asked Whitlow, with much confusion.
"The men!" said the general, irritably. "The men in the Whirligig!"
"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.
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.
"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."
"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.
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.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page