its reel mounted on the cargo bay walls, attached the cable to a ring on the left side of his MMU, then maneuvered back into open space and headed for the object floating in the distance.
It was the first time Seedeck had seen it, except of course for photographs and mock-ups. It was a huge steel square, resembling some sort of massive POP-art decoration suspended in space. Each side of the square was a hundred-foot-long, fifteen-foot-square tube. One large rectangular radar antenna, two thousand square feet in area, was mounted on each of two Opposite sides of the square, pointing earthward. Mounted on transmission dish antennas, one Pointing earthward, the Other one Of the other two sides of the square were two smaller data r pointing spaceward. On the remaining side was an eighteeninch diameter cylinder twelve feet long with a large glass eye at one end, also pointing to Earth. Enclosed within heavily armored containers on the four sides of the square were fuel cells, rocket fuel tanks, fuel lines, and other connectors and control units running throughout the steel frame.
Mounted in the center of the square was a huge cylinder, seventy feet in diameter and thirty feet long, armored and covered in shiny aluminum-Atlantis had to move its position now and then to keep the brilliant reflection of the sun from MP ruining its cameras. The spaceward end was closed, but the earthward side had a removable armor cover that revealed five shining, polished walls inside, all empty.
fifteen-foot-diameter tubes, earthlight reflecting around the This was Ice Fortress.
n all the articles, presentations, and drawings, it looked like a Rube Goldberg tinker-toy contraption, but out here in position it looked awesome and as mean as hell. The two large radar antennas, Seedeck knew, were target-tracking radars searching for sea- or land-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles. The smaller dish antennas were data-link antennas, one for transmitting steering signals from the platform, the other for receiving target tracking data from surveillance satellites at higher orbits around earth. The large cylinder with the glass eye was an infrared detector and tracker designed to search and follow the exhaust of an I.C.B.M in the boost phase.
The radars could track warhead carriers, 'busses,' in the midphase or even individual reentering warheads as they plunged through the atmosphere, and it could even differentiate between decoy warheads and the real thing.
The large center cylinder was the 'projectile' container, which housed the launch tubes for Ice Fortress' weapons. The entire station was armored in heat-resistant carbon-carbon steel, and smooth surfaces and critical components like the missile cylinder covers and fuel tanks were also covered in reflective aluminum film. Seedeck had heard rumors about all these strange additions to Ice Fortress, but that wasn't his concern.
Seedeck's job today was to make Ice Fortress operational for the first time.
The station was almost a military unit unto itself, Seedeck thought as he completed his inspection of Ice Fortress. The station received missile-launch detection information from orbiting surveillance satellites that would tell Ice Fortress where to look for the missiles.
The station could use either its radars or its heat-sensing infrared detectors to locate and track the rockets as they rose through the atmosphere. Ice Fortress would then launch its 'projectiles' against I.C.B.Ms heading toward North America.
Projectiles. Weird name for Ice Fortress weapons, Seedeck thought.
Ice Fortress carried five X-ray laser satellites. The satellites consisted of a main reaction chamber and fifteen lead pulse rods encasing a zinc lasing wire surrounding it, like knitting needles in a bag Of yarn — The reaction chamber was, in essence, a twenty kiloton uranium bomb-roughly equal to the destructive power of the first atom bomb that exploded over Hiroshima, Ice Fortress sensors would track any attacking intercontinental ballistic missiles and eject the X-ray laser satellites toward them. When the satellite approached the missiles, Ice Fortress would detonate the nuclear warhead within the satellite.
The nuclear explosion would create a massive wave of X-rays that would be focused and concentrated through the Pulse rods. The X-ray energy would create an extremely powerful laser burst that would travel down the rods and out in all directions. Any object within a hundred miles of the satellite would be bombarded into oblivion in milliseconds.
The explosion, would, Of course, destroy the satellite, but the awesome power of the X-ray laser blast would decimate dozens, Perhaps hundreds, of I.C.B.Ms or warheads at on time-a very potent and, if nothing else, cost- effective device.
Seedeck knew a lot about the X-ray laser satellites that would be used with Ice Fortress-the Atlantis carried five of them in her cargo bay, and it would be Seedeck's job to load them into the launch cylinder on Ice Fortress.
Seedeck now attached the cable to the front of the central launch cylinder and turned back toward Atlantis. While Seedeck had been inspecting Ice Fortress, Bates had been putting on his own spacesuit and was just emerging from the airlock when Seedeck completed his inspection.
'Seedeck to Atlantis. The inventory appears OK.No damage. We'll be ready to proceed at any time.'
'COPY,' Woods replied.
'This is Bates. I copy. 'Bates had moved into Atlantis, cargo bay and had begun to unlock the canisters containing the partially disassembled Ice Fortress satellites. His job would be to remove the mountains of packing material from the satellites, then reassemble the component parts. It would not and it would become an actual nuclear device until reassembly, not even be possible to arm it until it was installed in its launch tube on Ice Fortress.
Meanwhile, Seedeck had returned to Atlantis. He maneuvered over to the cable reel and activated its motor, tightening the cable. He double-checked the controls. To avoid breaking the cable, a friction clutch device would keep the cable tight during small shifts in distance or motion between Atlantis and Ice Fortress and an emergency disconnect button would open the pawl on Ice Fortress and release the cable. The release could be activated by Bates from the cargo bay, by Seedeck from Ice Fortress, or by Woods inside Atlantis. Seedeck then attached a plastic saddle onto the cable that rode along it on a Teflon track.
'Guide ready, Atlantis,' Seedeck reported. He carefully maneuvered closer above Bates, who was putting the finishing touches on the first X-ray laser satellite. The satellite, its leadzinc rods folded along its sides, was well over ten feet in diameter and, at least on earth, weighed over a ton; Bates handled the massive object like a beachball.
'Ready,' Bates said, and unhooked the remaining strap holding the huge satellite from its stowage cradle in the cargo bay. Using a hydraulic lift on the cradle, Bates raised the cradle a few inches, then suddenly stopped it. The satellite continued to float up out of the cargo bay and right into Seedeck's waiting arms.
Seedeck grabbed a handhold on the satellite and steered it easily toward the saddle. As if he had been doing this procedure all his life, he expertly clamped the cylindrical satellite onto the saddle and steadied it along the cable.
Although the satellite was weightless, Seedeck was careful not to forget that the thing still had two thousand pounds' worth of mass to corral-it was hard to get it to stop moving once it got going. He attached a safety line between the saddle and the satellite, and the satellite was secured.
'Heading toward the inventory with number one,' Seedeck reported.
Despite himself, Bates had to chuckle at the sight.
Seedeck had maneuvered over the satellite and had sat down on top of it, as if he were sitting on a huge tom-tom drum. He was gripping the satellite with his boots and knees, riding atop five hundred pounds of high explosives and ninety-eight pounds of uranium. One tiny nudge on his right-hand MMU control, and he and the satellite slid along the two-thousand-foot-long cable toward Ice Fortress.
It turned out to be a very efficient way of getting the X-ray laser satellite to the platform. In two minutes, Seedeck and his mount eased their way toward Ice Fortress, carefully slowing to a stop with gradual spurts of the MMU's nitrogen-gas thrusters. As Woods and the crew of Atlantis watched through telephoto closed-circuit cameras, Seedeck jetted away from the satellite, maneuvered underneath it, unhooked the safety strap and latch, and slid the satellite away from the saddle.
Seedeck gave the saddle a push, and it skittered back down the cable to Atlantis.
Using a set of utility arms mounted on the MMU, Seedeck guided the satellite toward the open center launcher. With the ease acquired from several days practicing the maneuver in the huge NASA training pool in Texas, Seedeck guided the device straight into the launcher. Once the laser satellite was inserted a few feet into the tube, a pair of fingerlike clips latched onto the satellite and pulled it back into the tube. Seedeck waited until he
