Free Murray Leinster (Duke Classic SiFi) by Space Platform Page A

spun as it rose. But not one wobbled! They found their own centers
of gravity and spun around them!"
    The Chief scowled, deep in thought. Then his face went blank.
    "By the holy mud turtle!" he grunted. "I get it!"
    Joe said, with very great pains not to seem triumphant, "Instead of
spinning the shaft and trimming the rotor, we'll spin the rotor and trim
the shaft. We'll form the shaft around the center of gravity, instead of
trying to move the center of gravity to the middle of the shaft. We'll
spin the rotors on a flexible bearing base. I think it'll work."
    Surprisingly, it was Mike the midget who said warmly, "You got it! Yes,
sir, you got it!"
    The Chief took a deep breath. "Yeah! And d'you know how I know? The
Plant built a high-speed centrifuge once. Remember?" He grinned with the
triumph Joe concealed. "It was just a plate with a shaft in the middle.
There were vanes on the plate. It fitted in a shaft hole that was much
too big. They blew compressed air up the shaft hole. It floated the
plate up, the air hit the vanes and spun the plate—and it ran as sweet
as honey! Balanced itself and didn't wobble a bit! We'll do something
like that! Sure!"
    "Will you work on it with me?" asked Joe. "We'll need a sort of
crew—three or four altogether. Have to figure out the stuff we need. I
can ask for anybody I want. I'm asking for you. You pick the others."
    The Chief grinned broadly. "Any objections, Haney? You and Mike and me
and Joe here? Look!"
    He pulled a pencil out of his pocket. He started to draw on the plastic
table top, and then took a paper napkin instead.
    "Something like this—"
    The steaks came, sizzling on the platters they'd been cooked in. The
outside was seared, and the inside was hot and deliciously rare.
Intellectual exercises like the designing of a machine-tool operation
could not compete with such aromas and sights and sounds. The four of
them fell to.
    But they talked as they ate. Absorbed and often with their mouths full,
frequently with imperfect articulation, but with deepening satisfaction
as the steaks vanished and the method they'd use took form in their
minds. It wouldn't be wholly simple, of course. When the rotors were
spinning about their centers of gravity, trimming off the shaft would
change the center of gravity. But the change would be infinitely less
than trimming off the rotors' rims. If they spun the rotors and used an
abrasive on the high side of the shaft as it turned....
    "Going to have precession!" warned Mike. "Have to have a polishing
surface. Quarter turn behind the cutter. That'll hold it."
    Joe only remembered afterward to be astonished that Mike would know gyro
theory. At the moment he merely swallowed quickly to get the words out.
    "Right! And if we cut too far down we can plate the bearing up to
thickness and cut it down again—"
    "Plate it up with iridium," said the Chief. He waved a steak knife.
"Man! This is gonna be fun! No tolerance you say, Joe?"
    "No tolerance," agreed Joe. "Accurate within the limits of measurement."
    The Chief beamed. The Platform was a challenge to all of humanity. The
pilot gyro was essential to the functioning of the Platform. To provide
that necessity against impossible obstacles was a challenge to the four
who were undertaking it.
    "Some fun!" repeated the Chief, blissfully.
    They ate their steaks, talking. They consumed huge slabs of apple pie
with preposterous mounds of ice cream on top, still talking urgently.
They drank coffee, interrupting each other to draw diagrams. They used
up all the paper napkins, and were still at it when someone came heavily
toward the table. It was the stocky man who had fought with Haney on the
Platform that day. Braun.
    He tapped Haney on the shoulder. The four at the table looked up.
    "We hadda fight today," said Braun in a queer voice. He was oddly pale.
"We didn't finish. You wanna finish?"
    Haney growled.
    "That was a fool business," he said angrily. "That ain't any place to
fight, up on the job! You know