30 MINUTES TO LIVE!

 Joe Kenmore heard the airlock close with a sickening wheeze and then a clank. In desperation he turned toward Haney. "My God, we've been locked out!"

 Through the transparent domes of their space helmets, Joe could see a look of horror and disbelief pass across Haney's face. But it was true! Joe and his crew were locked out of the Space Platform. 

 Four thousand miles below circled the Earth. Under Joe's feet rested the solid steel hull of his home in outer space. But without tools there was no hope of getting back inside. Joe looked at his oxygen meter. It registered thirty minutes to live. 

 _Space Tug_ by Murray Leinster is an independent sequel to the author's popular _Space Platform_, which is also available in a POCKET BOOK edition. Both books were published originally by Shasta Publishers. 

_Of other books by Murray Leinster, the following are science-fiction:_

[A]SPACE PLATFORM

SIDEWISE IN TIME

MURDER MADNESS

THE LAST SPACE SHIP

THE LAWS OF CHANCE(_anthology_)

GREAT STORIES OF SCIENCE FICTION(_editor_)

 [A] Published in a POCKET BOOK edition. 

_Murray Leinster_

SPACE TUG

_Pocket Books, Inc. __New York, N. Y. _

This Pocket Book includes every word contained in the original, higher-priced edition. It is printed from brand-new plates made fromcompletely reset, clear, easy-to-read type. 

 * * * * *

SPACE TUG

Shasta edition published November, 1953

POCKET BOOK edition published January, 19551st printing November, 1954

All rights reserved. This book, or any part thereof, may not bereproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address: Shasta Publishers, 5525 South BlackstoneAvenue, Chicago 37, Illinois. 

_Copyright, 1953, by Will F. Jenkins. This_ POCKET BOOK _edition ispublished by arrangement with Shasta Publishers. Library of CongressCatalog Card Number: 53-7292. Printed in the U. S. A. _

+--------------------------------------------------------------+| Transcriber's Note || || No evidence has been found that the copyright of this book || has been renewed. || |+--------------------------------------------------------------+

 * * * * *

[Illustration: Pocket Book]

_Notice_: POCKET BOOK editions are published in the United States byPocket Books, Inc. , in Canada by Pocket Books of Canada, Ltd. TradeMarks registered in the United States and British Patent Offices byPocket Books, Inc. , and registered in Canada by Pocket Books of Canada, Ltd. 

_To Joan Patricia Jenkins_

1

To the world at large, of course, it was just another day. A differentsort entirely at different places on the great, round, rolling Earth, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was Tuesday on one side of the DateLine and Monday on the other. It was so-and-so's wedding anniversary andso-and-so's birthday and another so-and-so would get out of jail today. It was warm, it was cool, it was fair, it was cloudy. One looked forwardto the future with confidence, with hope, with uneasiness or with terroraccording to one's temperament and one's geographical location and pasthistory. To most of the human race this was nothing whatever but justanother day. 

But to Joe Kenmore it was a most particular day indeed. Here, it was thegray hour just before sunrise and already there were hints of reddishcolorings in the sky. It was chilly, and somehow the world seemed stilland breathless. To Joe, the feeling of tensity marked this morning offfrom all the other mornings of his experience. 

He got up and began to dress, in Major Holt's quarters back of thatgiant steel half-globe called the Shed, near the town of Bootstrap. Hefelt queer because he felt so much as usual. By all the rules, he shouldhave experienced a splendid, noble resolution and a fiery exaltation, and perhaps even an admirable sensation of humility and unworthiness toaccomplish what was expected of him today. And, deep enough inside, hefelt suitable emotion. But it happened that he couldn't take time tofeel things adequately today. 

He was much more aware that he wanted some coffee rather badly, and thathe hoped everything would go all right. He looked out of the windows atempty, dreary desert under the dawn sky. Today was the day he'd beleaving on a rather important journey. He hoped that Haney and theChief and Mike weren't nervous. He also hoped that nobody had gotten atthe fuel for the pushpots, and that the slide-rule crew that hadcalculated everything hadn't made any mistakes. He was also botheredabout the steering-rocket fuel, and he was uncomfortable about thebusiness of releasing the spaceship from the launching cage. There was, too, cause for worry in the take-off rockets--if the tube linings hadshrunk there would be some rather gruesome consequences--and there couldalways be last-minute orders from Washington to delay or even canceleverything. 

In short, his mind was full of strictly practical details. He didn'thave time to feel noble aspirations or sensations of high destiny. Hehad a very tricky and exacting job ahead of him. 

The sky was growing lighter outside. Stars faded in a paling blue andthe desert showed faint colorings. He tied his necktie. A deep-tonedkeening set up off to the southward, over the sere and dreary landscape. It was a faraway noise, something like the lament of a mountain-sizedcalf bleating for its mother. Joe took a deep breath. He looked, but sawnothing. The noise, though, told him that there'd been no cancellationof orders so far. He mentally uncrossed one pair of fingers. He couldn'tpossibly cross fingers against all foreseeable disasters. There weren'tenough fingers--or toes either. But it was good that so far the scheduleheld. 

He went downstairs. Major Holt was pacing up and down the living room ofhis quarters. Electric lights burned, but already the windows werebrightening. Joe straightened up and tried to look casual. Strictlyspeaking, Major Holt was a family friend who happened also to besecurity officer here, in charge of protecting what went on in the giantconstruction Shed. He'd had a sufficiently difficult time of it in thepast, and the difficulties might keep on in the future. He was also theranking officer here and consequently the immediate boss of Joe'senterprise. Today's affair was still highly precarious. The whole thingwas controversial and uncertain and might spoil the career of somebodywith stars on his collar if it should fail. So nobody in the high brasswanted the responsibility. If everything went well, somebody suitablewould take the credit and the bows. Meanwhile Major Holt was boss bydefault. 

He looked sharply at Joe. "Morning. "

"Good morning, sir, " said Joe. Major Holt's daughter Sally had a sort ofunderstanding with Joe, but the major hadn't the knack of cordiality, and nobody felt too much at ease with him. Besides, Joe was wearing auniform for the first time this morning. There were only eight suchuniforms in the world, so far. It was black whipcord, with an Eisenhowerjacket, narrow silver braid on the collar and cuffs, and a silver rocketfor a badge where a plane pilot wears his wings. It was strictlypractical. Against accidental catchings in machinery, the trousers werenarrow and tucked into ten-inch soft leather boots, and the wide leatherbelt had flat loops for the attachment of special equipment. Its widthwas a brace against the strains of acceleration. Sally had had much todo with its design. 

But it hadn't yet been decided by the Pentagon whether the SpaceExploration Project would be taken over by the Army or the Navy or theAir Corps, so Joe wore no insignia of rank. Technically he was still acivilian. 

The deep-toned noise to the south had become a howl, sweeping closer andtrailed by other howlings. 

"The pushpots are on the way over, as you can hear, " said the majordetachedly, in the curious light of daybreak and electric bulbstogether. "Your crew is up and about. So far there seems to be no hitch. You're feeling all right for the attempt today?"

"If you want the truth, sir, I'd feel better with about ten years'practical experience behind me. But my gang and myself--we've had allthe training we can get without an actual take-off. We're thebest-trained crew to try it. I think we'll manage. "

"I see, " said the major. "You'll do your best. "

"We may have to do better than that, " admitted Joe wrily. 

"True enough. You may. " The major paused. "You're well aware that thereare--ah--people who do not altogether like the idea of the United Statespossessing an artificial satellite of Earth. "

"I ought to know it, " admitted Joe. 

The Earth's second, man-constructed moon--out in space for just sixweeks now--didn't seem nowadays like the bitterly contested achievementit actually was. From Earth it was merely a tiny speck of light in thesky, identifiable for what it was only because it moved so swiftly andserenely from the sunset toward the east, or from night's darkness intothe dawn-light. But it had been fought bitterly before it was launched. It was first proposed to the United Nations, but even discussion in theCouncil was vetoed. So the United States had built it alone. Yet thenations which objected to it as an international project liked it evenless as a national one, and they'd done what they could to wreck it. 

The building of the great steel hull now out there in emptiness had beenfought more bitterly, by more ruthless and more highly trainedsaboteurs, than any other enterprise in history. There'd been twoattempts to blast it with atomic bombs. But it was high aloft, rollinggrandly around the Earth, so close to its primary that its period waslittle more than four hours; and it rose in the west and set in the eastsix times a day. 

Today Joe would try to get a supply ship up to it, a very smallrocket-driven cargo ship named Pelican One. The crew of the Platformneeded food and air and water--and especially the means of self-defense. Today's take-off would be the first attempt at a rocket-lift to space. 

"The enemies of the Platform haven't given up, " said the majorformidably. "And they used spectroscopes on the Platform's rocket fumes. Apparently they've been able to duplicate our fuel. "

Joe nodded. 

Major Holt went on: "For more than a month Military Intelligence hasbeen aware that rockets were under construction behind the Iron Curtain. They will be guided missiles, and they will carry atom bomb heads. Oneor more may be finished any day. When they're finished, you can betthat they'll be used against the Platform. And you will carry up thefirst arms for the Platform. Your ship carries half a dozen long-rangeinterceptor rockets to handle any attack from Earth. It's vitallyimportant for them to be delivered. "

"They'll attack the Platform?" demanded Joe angrily. "That's war!"

"Not if they deny guilt, " said the major ironically, "and if we havenothing to gain by war. The Platform is intended to defend the peace ofthe world. If it is destroyed, we won't defend the peace of the world bygoing to war over it. But while the Platform can defend itself, it isnot likely that anyone will dare to make war. So you have a veryworthwhile mission. I suggest that you have breakfast and report to theShed. I'm on my way there now. "

Joe said, "Yes, sir. "

The major started for the door. Then he stopped. He hesitated, and saidabruptly, "If my security measures have failed, Joe, you'll be killed. If there has been sabotage or carelessness, it will be my fault. "

"I'm sure, sir, that everything anybody could do--"

"Everything anybody can do to destroy you has been done, " said the majorgrimly. "Not only sabotage, Joe, but blunders and mistakes andstupidities. That always happens. But--I've done my best. I suspect I'masking your forgiveness if my best hasn't been good enough. "

Then, before Joe could reply, the major went hurriedly away. 

Joe frowned for a moment. It occurred to him that it must be prettytough to be responsible for the things that other men's lives dependon--when you can't share their danger. But just then the smell of coffeereached his nostrils. He trailed the scent. There was a coffeepotsteaming on the table in the dining-room. There was a note on a plate. 

 _Good luck. I'll see you in the Shed. 

 Sally_

Joe was relieved. Sally Holt had been somewhere around underfoot allhis life. She was a swell girl, but he was grateful that he didn't haveto talk to her just now. 

He poured coffee and looked at his watch. He went to the window. Thefaraway howling was much nearer, and dawn had definitely arrived. Smallcloudlets in a pale blue sky were tinted pinkish by the rising sun. Patches of yucca and mesquite and sage out beyond the officers' quartersarea stretched away to a far-off horizon. They were now visiblydifferent in color from the red-yellow earth between them, and castlong, streaky shadows. The cause of the howling was still invisible. 

But Joe cared nothing for that. He stared skyward, searching. And he sawwhat he looked for. 

There was a small bright sliver of sunlight high aloft. It moved slowlytoward the east. It showed the unmistakable glint of sunshine uponpolished steel. It was the artificial satellite--a huge steelhull--which had been built in the gigantic Shed from whose shadow Joelooked upward. It was the size of an ocean liner, and six weeks sincesome hundreds of pushpots, all straining at once, had gotten it out ofthe Shed and panted toward the sky with it. They'd gotten it twelvemiles high and speeding eastward at the ultimate speed they couldmanage. They'd fired jato rockets, all at once, and so pushed its speedup to the preposterous. Then they'd dropped away and the giant steelthing had fired its own rockets--which made mile-long flames--and swepton out to emptiness. Before its rockets were consumed it was in an orbit4, 000 miles above the Earth's surface, and it hurtled through space atsomething over 12, 000 miles an hour. It circled the Earth in exactlyfour hours, fourteen minutes, and twenty-two seconds. And it wouldcontinue its circling forever, needing no fuel and never descending. Itwas a second moon for the planet Earth. 

But it could be destroyed. 

Joe watched hungrily as it went on to meet the sun. Smoothly, unhurriedly, serenely, the remote and twinkling speck floated on out ofsight. And then Joe went back to the table and ate his breakfastquickly. He wolfed it. He had an appointment to meet that minute specksome 4, 000 miles out in space. His appointment was for a very few hourshence. 

He'd been training for just this morning's effort since before thePlatform's launching. There was a great box swinging in twenty-footgimbal rings over in the Shed. There were motors and projectors and overtwo thousand vacuum tubes, relays and electronic units. It was a spaceflight simulator--a descendant of the Link trainer which once taughtplane pilots how to fly. But this offered the problems and thesensations of rocketship control, and for many hours every day Joe andthe three members of his crew had labored in it. The simulatorduplicated every sight and sound and feeling--all but heavyacceleration--to be experienced in the take-off of a rocketship tospace. The similitude of flight was utterly convincing. Sometimes it wasappallingly so when emergencies and catastrophes and calamities werestaged in horrifying detail for them to learn to respond to. In sixweeks they'd learned how to handle a spaceship so far as anybody couldlearn on solid ground--if the simulator was correctly built. Nobodycould be sure about that. But it was the best training that could bedevised. 

In minutes Joe had finished the coffee and was out of Major Holt'squarters and headed for the Shed's nearest entrance. The Shed was agigantic metal structure rising out of sheer flat desert. There werehills to the westward, but only arid plain to the east and south andnorth. There was but one town in hundreds of miles and that wasBootstrap, built to house the workmen who'd built the Platform and thestill invisible, ferociously howling pushpots and now the small supplyships, the first of which was to make its first trip today. 

The Shed seemed very near because of its monstrous size. When he wasactually at the base of its wall, it seemed to fill half the firmamentand more than half the horizon. He went in, and felt self-conscious whenthe guard's eyes fell on his uniform. There was a tiny vestibule. Thenhe was in the Shed itself, and it was enormous. 

There were acres of wood-block flooring. There was a vast, steel-girdered arching roof which was fifty stories high in the center. All this size had been needed when the Space Platform was being built. Men on the far side were merely specks, and the rows of windows toadmit light usually did no more than make a gray twilight inside. Butthere was light enough today. To the east the Shed's wall was split fromtop to bottom. A colossal triangular gore had been loosened and thrustout and rolled aside, and a doorway a hundred and fifty feet wide let inthe sunshine. Through it, Joe could see the fiery red ball which was thesun just leaving the horizon. 

But there was something more urgent for him to look at. Pelican One hadbeen moved into its launching cage. Only Joe, perhaps, would really haverecognized it. Actually it was a streamlined hull of steel, eighty feetlong by twenty in diameter. There were stubby metal fins--useless inspace, and even on take-off, but essential for the planned method oflanding on its return. There were thick quartz ports in the bow-section. But its form was completely concealed now by the attached, exteriortake-off rockets. It had been shifted into the huge cradle of steelbeams from which it was to be launched. Men swarmed about it and overit, in and out of the launching cage, checking and rechecking everypossible thing that could make for the success of its flight to space. 

The other three crew-members were ready--Haney and Chief Bender and MikeScandia. They were especially entitled to be the crew of this firstsupply ship. When the Platform was being built, its pilot-gyros had beenbuilt by a precision tool firm owned by Joe's father. He'd gone by planewith the infinitely precise apparatus to Bootstrap, to deliver andinstall it in the Platform. And the plane was sabotaged, and the gyroswere ruined. They'd consumed four months in the building, and fourmonths more for balancing with absolute no-tolerance accuracy. ThePlatform couldn't wait so long for duplicates. So Joe had improvised amethod of repair. And with Haney to devise special machine-tool setupsand the Chief to use fanatically fine workmanship, and Mike and Joeaiding according to their gifts, they'd rebuilt the apparatus in animpossibly short time. The original notion was Joe's, but he couldn'thave done the job without the others. 

And there had been other, incidental triumphs by the team of four. Theywere not the only ones who worked feverishly for the glory of havinghelped to build the Earth's first artificial moon, but they hadaccomplished more than most. Joe had even been appointed to be analternate member of the Platform's crew. But the man he was to havesubstituted for recovered from an illness, and Joe was left behind atthe Platform's launching. But all of them had rated some reward, and itwas to serve in the small ships that would supply the man-madesatellite. 

Now they were ready to begin. The Chief grinned exuberantly as Joeducked through the bars of the launching cage and approached the ship. He was a Mohawk Indian--one of that tribe which for two generations hadsupplied steel workers to every bridge and dam and skyscraper job on thecontinent. He was brown and bulky and explosive. Haney looked tense andstrained. He was tall and lean and spare, and a good man in any sort oftrouble. Mike blazed excitement. Mike was forty-one inches high and hewas full-grown. He had worked on the Platform, bucking rivets and makingwelds and inspections in places too small for a normal-sized man toreach. He frantically resented any concessions to his size and he was asgood a man as any. He simply was the small, economy size. 

"Hiya, Joe, " boomed the Chief. "All set? Had breakfast?"

Joe nodded. He began to ask anxious questions. About steering-rocketfuel and the launching cage release and the take-off rockets and thereduction valve from the air tanks--he'd thought of that on the wayover--and the short wave and loran and radar. Haney nodded to somequestions. Mike said briskly, "I checked" to others. 

The Chief grunted amiably, "Look, Joe! We checked everything last night. We checked it again this morning. I even caught Mike polishing theejection seats, because there wasn't anything else to make sure of!"

Joe managed a smile. The ejection seats were assuredly the most unlikelyof all devices to be useful today. They were supposedly life-savingdevices. If the ship came a cropper on take-off, the four of them weresupposed to use ejection-seats like those supplied to jet pilots. Theywould be thrown clear of the ship and ribbon-parachutes might open andmight let them land alive. But it wasn't likely. Joe had objected totheir presence. If a feather dropped to Earth from a height of 600miles, it would be falling so fast when it hit the atmosphere that itwould heat up and burn to ashes from pure air-friction. It wasn't likelythat they could get out of the ship if anything went wrong. 

Somebody marched stiffly toward the four of them. Joe's expression grewrueful. The Space Project was neither Army nor Navy nor Air Corps, butsomething that so far was its own individual self. But the man marchingtoward Joe was Lieutenant Commander Brown, strictly Navy, assigned tothe Shed as an observer. And there were some times when he baffled Joe. Like now. 

He halted, and looked as if he expected Joe to salute. Joe didn't. 

Lieutenant Commander Brown said, formally: "I would like to offer mybest wishes for your trip, Mr. Kenmore. "

"Thanks, " said Joe. 

Brown smiled distantly. "You understand, of course, that I considernavigation essentially a naval function, and it does seem to me that anyship, including a spaceship, should be manned by naval personnel. But Iassuredly wish you good fortune. "

"Thanks, " said Joe again. 

Brown shook hands, then stalked off. 

Haney rumbled in his throat. "How come, Joe, he doesn't wish all of usgood luck?"

"He does, " said Joe. "But his mind's in uniform too. He's been trainedthat way. I'd like to make a bet that we have him as a passenger out tothe Platform some day. "

"Heaven forbid!" growled Haney. 

There was an outrageous tumult outside the wide-open gap in the Shed'swall. Something went shrieking by the doorway. It looked like themagnified top half of a loaf of baker's bread, painted gray and equippedwith an air-scoop in front and a plastic bubble for a pilot. It howledlike a lost baby dragon, its flat underside tilted up and up until itwas almost vertical. It had no wings, but a blue-white flame spurtedout of its rear, wobbling from side to side for reasons best known toitself. It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet planebecause it could not possibly fly. Only it did. It settled down on itsflame-spouting tail, and the sparse vegetation burst into smoky flameand shriveled, and the thing--still shrieking like a fog-horn in atunnel--flopped flat forward with a resounding _clank!_ It was abruptlysilent. 

But the total noise was not lessened. Another pushpot came soaringwildly into view, making hysterical outcries. It touched and bangedviolently to earth. Others appeared in the air beyond the constructionShed. One flopped so hard on landing that its tail rose in the air andit attempted a somersault. It made ten times more noise than before--theflame from its tail making wild gyrations--and flopped back again with acrash. Two others rolled over on their sides after touching ground. Oneended up on its back like a tumble-bug, wriggling. 

They seemed to land by hundreds, but their number was actually indozens. It was not until the last one was down that Joe could makehimself heard. The pushpots were jet motors in frames and metal skin, with built-in jato rocket tubes besides their engines. On the groundthey were quite helpless. In the air they were unbelievably clumsy. Theywere actually balanced and steered by vanes in the blasts of their jets, and they combined the absolute maximum of sheer thrust with theirreducible minimum of flyability. 

Crane-trucks went out to pick them up. Joe said anxiously, "We'd bettercheck our flight plan again. We have to know it absolutely!"

He headed across the floor to the flight data board. He passed the hullof another ship like his own, which was near completion, and the bareskeletons of two others which needed a lot of work yet. They'd beenbegun at distant plants and then hauled here on monstrous trailers forcompletion. The wooden mockup of the design for all the ships--in whichevery possible arrangement of instruments and machinery had been testedout--lay neglected by the Shed wall. 

The four stood before the flight data board. It listed the readingsevery instrument should show during every instant of the flight. Thereadings had been calculated with infinite care, and Joe and the othersneeded to know them rather better than they knew their multiplicationtables. Once they started out, they wouldn't have time to wonder ifeverything was right for the time and place. They needed to know. 

They stood there, soaking up the information the board contained, forming mental pictures of it, making as sure as possible that any oneof them would spot anything wrong the instant it showed up, and wouldinstantly know what had to be done about it. 

A gigantic crane-truck came in through the wide doorway. It dangled apushpot. It rolled over to the launching cage in which the spaceship layand set the unwieldy metal object against that cage. There was a _clank_as the pushpot caught hold of the magnetic grapples. The crane went outagain, passing a second crane carrying a second pushpot. The secondbeetle-like thing was presented to the cage. It stuck fast. The cranewent out for more. 

Major Holt came across the floor of the Shed. It took him a long time towalk the distance from the Security offices to the launching cage. Whenhe got there, he looked impatiently around. His daughter Sally came outof nowhere and blew her nose as if she'd been crying, and pointed to thedata board. The major shrugged his shoulders and looked uneasily at her. She regarded him with some defiance. The major spoke to her sternly. They waited. 

The cranes brought in more pushpots and set them up against the steellaunching cage. The ship had been nearly hidden before by the rockettubes fastened outside its hull. It went completely out of sight behindthe metal monsters banked about it. 

The major looked at his watch and the group about the data board. Theymoved away from it and back toward the ship. Joe saw the major andswerved over to him. 

"I have brought you, " said the major in an official voice, "the invoiceof your cargo. You will deliver the invoice with the cargo and bringback proper receipts. "

"I hope, " said Joe. 

"_We_ hope!" said Sally in a strained tone. "Good luck, Joe!"

"Thanks. "

"There is not much to say to you, " said the major without visibleemotion. "Of course the next crew will start its training immediately, but it may be a month before another ship can take off. It is extremelydesirable that you reach the Platform today. "

"Yes, sir, " said Joe wrily. "I have even a personal motive to get there. If I don't, I break my neck. "

The major ignored the comment. He shook hands formally and marched away. Sally smiled up at Joe, but her eyes were suddenly full of tears. 

"I--do hope everything goes all right, Joe, " she said unsteadily. "I--I'll be praying for you. "

"I can use some of that, too, " admitted Joe. 

She looked at her hand. Joe's ring was on her finger--wrapped withstring on the inside of the band to make it fit. Then she looked upagain and was crying unashamedly. 

"I--will, " she repeated. Then she said fiercely, "I don't care ifsomebody's looking, Joe. It's time for you to go in the ship. "

He kissed her, and turned and went quickly to the peculiar mass ofclustered pushpots, touching and almost overlapping each other. 

He ducked under and looked back. Sally waved. He waved back. Then heclimbed up the ladder into Pelican One's cabin. Somebody pulled theladder away and scuttled out of the cage. 

The others were in their places. Joe slowly closed the door from thecabin to the outer world. There was suddenly a cushioned silence abouthim. Out the quartz-glass ports he could see ahead, out the end of thecage through the monstrous doorway to the desert beyond. Overhead hecould see the dark, girder-lined roof of the Shed. On either side, though, he could see only the scratched, dented, flat undersides of thepushpots ready to lift the ship upward. 

"You can start on the pushpot motors, Haney, " he said curtly. 

Joe moved to his own, the pilot's seat. Haney pushed a button. Throughthe fabric of the ship came the muted uproar of a pushpot enginestarting. Haney pushed another button. Another. Another. More jetengines bellowed. The tumult in the Shed would be past endurance, now. 

Joe strapped himself into his seat. He made sure that the Chief at thesteering-rocket manual controls was fastened properly, and Mike at theradio panel was firmly belted past the chance of injury. 

Haney said with enormous calm, "All pushpot motors running, Joe. "

"Steering rockets ready, " the Chief reported. 

"Radio operating, " came from Mike. "Communications room all set. "

Joe reached to the maneuver controls. He should have been sweating. Hishands, perhaps, should have quivered with tension. But he was too muchworried about too many things. Nobody can strike an attitude or go intoa blue funk while they are worrying about things to be done. Joe heardthe small gyro motors as their speed went up. A hum and a whine and thena shrill whistle which went up in pitch until it wasn't anything at all. He frowned anxiously and said to Haney, "I'm taking over the pushpots. "

Haney nodded. Joe took the over-all control. The roar of engines outsidegrew loud on the right-hand side, and died down. It grew thunderous tothe left, and dwindled. The ones ahead pushed. Then the ones behind. Joenodded and wet his lips. He said: "Here we go. "

There was no more ceremony than that. The noise of the jet motorsoutside rose to a thunderous volume which came even through the littleship's insulated hull. Then it grew louder, and louder still, and Joestirred the controls by ever so tiny a movement. 

Suddenly the ship did not feel solid. It stirred a little. Joe held hisbreath and cracked the over-all control of the pushpots' speed a tinytrace further. The ship wobbled a little. Out the quartz-glass windows, the great door seemed to descend. In reality the clustered pushpots andthe launching cage rose some thirty feet from the Shed floor and hoveredthere uncertainly. Joe shifted the lever that governed the vanes in thejet motor blasts. Ship and cage and pushpots, all together, waveredtoward the doorway. They passed out of it, rocking a little and pitchinga little and wallowing a little. As a flying device, the combination wasa howling tumult and a horror. It was an aviation designer's nightmare. It was a bad dream by any standard. 

But it wasn't meant as a way to fly from one place to another on Earth. It was the first booster stage of a three-stage rocket aimed at outerspace. It looked rather like--well--if a swarm of bumblebees clungfiercely to a wire-gauze cage in which lay a silver minnow wrapped inmatch-sticks; and if the bees buzzed furiously and lifted it in astraining, clumsy, and altogether unreasonable manner; and if theappearance and the noise together were multiplied a good many thousandsof times--why--it would present a great similarity to the take-off ofthe spaceship under Joe's command. Nothing like it could be graceful orneatly controllable or even very speedy in the thick atmosphere near theground. But higher, it would be another matter. 

It _was_ another matter. Once clear of the Shed, and with flat, seredesert ahead to the very horizon, Joe threw on full power to the pushpotmotors. The clumsy-seeming aggregation of grotesque objects began toclimb. Ungainly it was, and clumsy it was, but it went upward at a ratea jet-fighter might have trouble matching. It wobbled, and it swungaround and around, and it tipped crazily, the whole aggregation of jetmotors and cage and burden of spaceship as a unit. But it rose!

The ground dropped so swiftly that even the Shed seemed to shrivel likea pricked balloon. The horizon retreated as if a carpet were hastilyunrolled by magic. The barometric pressure needles turned. 

"Communications says our rate-of-climb is 4, 000 feet a minute and goingup fast, " Mike announced. "It's five. .. . We're at 17, 000 feet . .. 18, 000. We should get some eastward velocity at 32, 000 feet. Our heightis now 21, 000 feet. .. . "

There was no change in the feel of things inside the ship, of course. Sealed against the vacuum of space, barometric pressure outside made nodifference. Height had no effect on the air inside the ship. 

At 25, 000 feet the Chief said suddenly: "We're pointed due east, Joe. Freeze it?"

"Right, " said Joe. "Freeze it. "

The Chief threw a lever. The gyros were running at full operating speed. By engaging them, the Chief had all their stored-up kinetic energyavailable to resist any change of direction the pushpots might produceby minor variations in their thrusts. Haney brooded over the reportsfrom the individual engines outside. He made minute adjustments to keepthem balanced. Mike uttered curt comments into the communicator fromtime to time. 

At 33, 000 feet there was a momentary sensation as if the ship weretilted sharply. It wasn't. The instruments denied any change from levelrise. The upward-soaring complex of flying things had simply risen intoa jet-stream, one of those wildly rushing wind-floods of the upperatmosphere. 

"Eastern velocity four hundred, " said Mike from the communicator. "Nowfour-twenty-five. .. . Four-forty. "

There was a 300-mile-an-hour wind behind them. A tail-wind, west toeast. The pushpots struggled now to get the maximum possible forwardthrust before they rose out of that east-bound hurricane. They added afierce push to eastward to their upward thrust. Mike's cracked voicereported 500 miles an hour. Presently it was 600. 

At 40, 000 feet they were moving eastward at 680 miles an hour. Ajet-motor cannot be rated except indirectly, but there was over 200, 000horsepower at work to raise the spacecraft and build up the highestpossible forward speed. It couldn't be kept up, of course. The pushpotscouldn't carry enough fuel. 

But they reached 55, 000 feet, which is where space begins for humankind. A man exposed to emptiness at that height will die just as quickly asanywhere between the stars. But it wasn't quite empty space for thepushpots. There was still a very, very little air. The pushpots couldstill thrust upward. Feebly, now, but they still thrust. 

Mike said: "Communications says get set to fire jatos, Joe. "

"Right!" he replied. "Set yourselves. "

Mike flung a switch, and a voice began to chatter behind Joe's head. Itwas the voice from the communications-room atop the Shed, now far belowand far behind. Mike settled himself in the tiny acceleration-chairbuilt for him. The Chief squirmed to comfort in his seat. Haney took hishands from the equalizing adjustments he had to make so that Joe's useof the controls would be exact, regardless of moment-to-momentdifferences in the thrust of the various jets. 

"We've got a yaw right, " said the Chief sharply. "Hold it, Joe!"

Joe waited for small quivering needles to return to their properregistrations. 

"Back and steady, " said the Chief a moment later. "Okay!"

The tinny voice behind Joe now spoke precisely. Mike had listened to itwhile the work of take-off could be divided, so that Joe would not bedistracted. Now Joe had to control everything at once. 

The roar of the pushpots outside the ship had long since lost the volumeand timbre of normal atmosphere. Not much sound could be transmitted bythe near-vacuum outside. But the jet motors did roar, and the soundwhich was not sound at such a height was transmitted by the metal cageas so much pure vibration. The walls and hull of the spaceship picked upa crawling, quivering pulsation and turned it into sound. Standing wavesset up and dissolved and moved erratically in the air of the cabin. Joe's eardrums were strangely affected. Now one ear seemed muted by atemporary difference of air pressure where a standing wave lingered fora second or two. Then the other eardrum itched. There were creepingsensations as of things touching one and quickly moving away. 

Joe swung a microphone into place before his mouth. 

"All set, " he said evenly. "Brief me. "

The tinny voice said:

"_You are at 65, 000 feet. Your curve of rate-of-climb is flattening out. You are now rising at near-maximum speed, and not much more forwardvelocity can be anticipated. You have an air-speed relative to surfaceof six-nine-two miles per hour. The rotational speed of Earth at thislatitude is seven-seven-eight. You have, then, a total orbital speed ofone-four-seven-oh miles per hour, or nearly twelve per cent of yourneeded final velocity. Since you will take off laterally and practicallywithout air resistance, a margin of safety remains. You are authorizedto blast. _"

Joe said:

"Ten seconds. Nine . .. Eight . .. Seven . .. Six . .. Five . .. Four . .. Three . .. Two . .. One. .. . "

He stabbed the master jato switch. And a monstrous jato rocket, builtinto each and every one of the pushpots outside, flared chemical fumesin a simultaneous, gigantic thrust. A small wire-wound jato forjet-assisted-take-off will weigh a hundred and forty pounds and delivera thousand pounds of thrust for fourteen seconds. And that is forrockets using nonpoisonous compounds. The jatos of the pushpots used theberyllium-fluorine fuel that had lifted the Platform and that filled thetake-off rockets of Joe's ship. These jatos gave the pushpots themselvesan acceleration of ten gravities, but it had to be shared with the cageand the ship. Still. .. . 

Joe felt himself slammed back into his seat with irresistible, overwhelming force. The vibration from the jets had been bad. Now hedidn't notice it. He didn't notice much of anything but the horriblesensations of six-gravity acceleration. 

It was not exactly pain. It was a feeling as if a completely intolerableand unbearable pressure pushed at him. Not only on the outside, like ablow, but inside too, like nothing else imaginable. Not only his chestpressed upon his lungs, but his lungs strained toward his backbone. Notonly the flesh of his thighs tugged to flatten itself against hisacceleration-chair, but the blood in his legs tried to flow into andburst the blood-vessels in the back of his legs. 

The six-gravity acceleration seemed to endure for centuries. Actually, it lasted for fourteen seconds. In that time it increased the speed ofthe little ship by rather more than half a mile per second, somethingover 1, 800 miles per hour. Before, the ship had possessed an orbitalspeed of a shade over 1, 470 miles an hour. After the jato thrust, it wastraveling nearly 3, 400 miles per hour. It needed to travel somethingover 12, 000 miles per hour to reach the artificial satellite of Earth. 

The intolerable thrust ended abruptly. Joe gasped. But he could allowhimself only a shake of the head to clear his brain. He jammed down thetake-off rocket firing button. There was a monstrous noise and a mightysurging, and Haney panted, "Clear of cage. .. . "

And then they were pressed fiercely against their acceleration chairsagain. The ship was no longer in its launching cage. It was no longerupheld by pushpots. It was free, with its take-off rockets flaming. Itplunged on up and out. But the acceleration was less. Nobody can standsix gravities for long. Anybody can take three--for a while. 

Joe's body resisted movement with a weight of four hundred and fiftypounds, instead of a third as much for normal. His heart had to pumpagainst three times the normal resistance of gravity. His chest felt asif it had a leaden weight on it. His tongue tried to crowd the back ofhis mouth and strangle him. The sensation was that of a nightmare ofimpossible duration. It was possible to move and possible to see. Onecould breathe, with difficulty, and with titanic effort one could speak. But there was the same feeling of stifling resistance to every movementthat comes in nightmares. 

But Joe managed to keep his eyes focused. The dials of the instrumentssaid that everything was right. The tinny voice behind his head, itstimbre changed by the weighting of its diaphragm, said: "_All readingscheck within accuracy of instruments. Good work!_"

Joe moved his eyes to a quartz window. The sky was black. But there werestars. Bright stars against a black background. At the same instant hesaw the bright white disks of sunshine that came in the cabin portholes. Stars and sunshine together. And the sunshine was the sunshine ofspace. Even with the polarizers cutting off some of the glare it wasunbearably bright and hot beyond conception. He smelled overheatedpaint, where the sunlight smote on a metal bulkhead. Stars and super-hotsunshine together. .. . 

It was necessary to pant for breath, and his heart pounded horribly andhis eyes tried to go out of focus, but Joe Kenmore strained in hisacceleration-chair and managed to laugh a little. 

"We did it!" he panted. "In case you didn't notice, we're out of--theatmosphere and--out in space! We're--headed to join the Space Platform!"

2

The pressure of three gravities continued. Joe's chest muscles achedwith the exertion of breathing over so long a period. Six gravities forfourteen seconds had been a ghastly ordeal. Three gravities for minutesbuilt up to something nearly as bad. Joe's heart began to feel fatigue, and a man's heart normally simply doesn't ever feel tired. It becamemore and more difficult to see clearly. 

But he had work to do. Important work. The take-off rockets weresolid-fuel jobs, like those which launched the Platform. They werewire-wound steel tubes lined with a very special refractory, withunstable beryllium and fluorine compounds in them. The solid fuel burnedat so many inches per second. The refractory crumbled away and washurled astern at a corresponding rate--save for one small point. Therefractory was not all exactly alike. Some parts of it crumbled awayfaster, leaving a pattern of baffles which acted like a maxim silenceron a rifle, or like an automobile muffler. The baffles set up eddies inthe gas stream and produced exactly the effect of a rocket motor'sthroat. But the baffles themselves crumbled and were flung astern, sothat the solid-fuel rockets had always the efficiency of gas-throatedrocket motors; and yet every bit of refractory was reaction-mass to behurled astern, and even the steel tubes melted and were hurled away witha gain in acceleration to the ship. Every fraction of every ounce ofrocket mass was used for drive. No tanks or pumps or burners rodedeadhead after they ceased to be useful. 

But solid-fuel rockets simply can't be made to burn with absoluteevenness as a team. Minute differences in burning-rates do tend tocancel out. But now and again they reinforce each other and ifuncorrected will throw a ship off course. Gyros can't handle sucheffects. So Joe had to watch his instruments and listen to the tinnyvoice behind him and steer the ship against accidental wobblings as theEarth fell away behind him. 

He battled against the fatigue of continuing to live, and struggled withgyros and steering jets to keep the ship on its hair-line course. Hepanted heavily. The beating of his heart became such a heavy poundingthat it seemed that his whole body shook with it. He had to doinfinitely fine precision steering with hands that weighed pounds andarms that weighed scores of pounds and a body that had an effectiveweight of almost a quarter of a ton. 

And this went on and went on and on for what seemed several centuries. 

Then the voice in the speaker said thickly: "_Everything is in theclear. In ten seconds you can release your rockets. Shall I count?_"

Joe panted, "Count!"

The mechanical voice said, "_Seven . .. Six . .. Five . .. Four . .. Three. .. Two . .. One . .. Cut!_"

Joe pressed the release. The small, unburnt stubs of the take-offrockets went hurtling off toward emptiness. They consumed themselves asthey went, and they attained an acceleration of fifty gravities oncethey were relieved of all load but their own substance. They had to bereleased lest one burn longer than another. It was also the only way tostop acceleration by solid-fuel rockets. They couldn't be extinguished. They had to be released. 

From intolerably burdensome heaviness, there was abruptly no weight atall in the ship. Joe's laboring heart beat twice with the violence theweight had called for, though weight had ended. It seemed to him thathis skull would crack open during those two heart-beats. Then he laylimply, resting. 

There was a completely incredible stillness, for a time. The four ofthem panted. Haney was better off than Joe, but the Chief was harderhit. Mike's small body had taken the strain best of all, and he woulduse the fact later in shrill argument that midgets were designed bynature to be the explorers of space for their bulkier and lessspaceworthy kindred. 

The ending of the steady, punishing drag was infinitely good, but thenew sensation was hardly pleasant. They had no weight. It felt as ifthey and the ship about them were falling together down an abyss whichmust have a bottom. Actually, they were falling up. But they felt aphysical, crawling apprehension--a cringing from an imaginary imminentimpact. 

They had expected the sensation, but it was not the better for beingunderstood. Joe flexed and unflexed his fingers slowly. He stirred andswallowed hastily. But the feeling persisted. He unstrapped himself fromhis seat. He stood up--and floated to the ceiling of the cabin. Butthere was of course no ceiling. Every way was up and every way was down. His stomach cramped itself in a hard knot, in the instinctive tensity ofsomebody in free fall. 

He fended himself from the ceiling and caught at a hand-line placedthere for just this necessity to grip something. In his absorption, hedid not notice which way his heels went. He suddenly noticed that hiscompanions, with regard to him, were upside down and staring at him withwooden, dazed expressions on their faces. 

He tried to laugh, and gulped instead. He pulled over to thequartz-glass ports. He did not put his hand into the sunlight, butshifted the glare shutters over those ports which admitted directsunshine. Some ports remained clear. Through one of them he saw theEarth seemingly at arm's length somewhere off. Not up, not down. Simplyout from where he was. It filled all the space that the portholeshowed. It was a gigantic mass of white, fleecy specks and spots whichwould be clouds, and between the whiteness there was a muddy darkgreenish color which would be the ocean. Yet it seemed to slide very, very slowly past the window. 

He saw a tanness between the clouds, and it moved inward from the edgeof his field of view. He suddenly realized what it was. 

"We've just about crossed the Atlantic, " he said in a peculiarastonishment. But it was true the ship had not been aloft nearly as muchas half an hour. "Africa's just coming into sight below. We ought to beabout 1, 200 miles high and still rising fast. That was the calculation. "

He looked again, and then drew himself across to the opposite porthole. He saw the blackness of space, which was not blackness because it was acarpet of jewels. They were infinite in number and variations inbrightness, and somehow of vastly more colorings than one noticed fromEarth. 

He heard the Chief grunt, and Haney gulp. He was suddenly conscious thathis legs were floating rather ridiculously in mid-air with no particularrelationship to anything. He saw the Chief rise very cautiously, holdingon to the arms of his seat. 

"Better not look at the sun, " said Joe, "even though I've put on theglare-shields. "

The Chief nodded. The glare-shields would keep out most of the heat anda very great deal of the ultraviolet the sun gave off. But even so, tolook at the sun directly might easily result in a retinal sunburn whichcould result in blindness. 

The loudspeaker behind Joe's chair clattered. It had seemed muted by theweight of its diaphragm at three gravities. Now it blastedunintelligibly, with no weight at all. Mike threw a switch and took themessage. 

"Communications says radar says we're right on course, Joe, " he reportednonchalantly, "and our speed's okay. We'll reach maximum altitude in anhour and thirty-six minutes. We ought to be within calculated distanceof the Platform then. "

"Good, " said Joe abstractedly. 

He strained his eyes at the Earth. They were moving at an extraordinaryspeed and height. It had been reached by just four human beings beforethem. The tannishness which was the coast of Africa crept withastonishing slowness toward the center of what he could see. 

Joe headed back to his seat. He could not walk, of course. He floated. He launched himself with a fine air of confidence. He misjudged. He wasfloating past his chair when he reached down--and that turned hisbody--and fumbled wildly. He caught hold of the back as he went by, thenheld on and found himself turning a grandly dignified somersault. Hewound up in a remarkably foolish position with the back of his neck onthe back of the chair, his arms in a highly strained position to holdhim there, and his feet touching the deck of the cabin a good five feetaway. 

Haney looked greenish, but he said hoarsely:

"Joe, don't make me laugh--not when my stomach feels like this!"

The feeling of weightlessness was unexpectedly daunting. Joe turnedhimself about very slowly, with his legs floating indecorously inentirely unintended kicks. He was breathing hard when he pulled himselfinto the chair and strapped in once more. 

"I'll take Communications, " he told Mike as he settled his headphones. 

Reluctantly, Mike switched over. 

"Kenmore reporting to Communications, " he said briefly. "We have endedour take-off acceleration. You have our course and velocity. Ourinstruments read--"

He went over the bank of instruments before him, giving the indicationof each. In a sense, this first trip of a ship out to the Platform hadsome of the aspects of defusing a bomb. Calculations were useful, butobservations were necessary. He had to report every detail of thecondition of his ship and every instrument-reading because anythingmight go wrong, and at any instant. Anything that went wrong could befatal. So every bit of data and every intended action needed to be onrecord. Then, if something happened, the next ship to attempt thisjourney might avoid the same catastrophe. 

Time passed. A lot of time. The feeling of unending fall continued. Theyknew what it was, but they had to keep thinking of its cause to endureit. Joe found that if his mind concentrated fully on something else, itjerked back to panic and the feel of falling. But the crew of the SpacePlatform--now out in space for more weeks than Joe had beenquarter-hours--reported that one got partly used to it, in time. Whenawake, at least. Asleep was another matter. 

They were 1, 600 miles high and still going out and up. The Earth as seenthrough the ports was still an utterly monstrous, bulging mass, speckedwith clouds above vast mottlings which were its seas and land. Theymight have looked for cities, but they would be mere patches in atelescope. Their task now was to wait until their orbit curved intoaccordance with that of the Platform and they kept their rendezvous. Theartificial satellite was swinging up behind them, and was only aquarter-circle about Earth behind them. Their speed in miles per secondwas, at the moment, greater than that of the Platform. But they wereclimbing. They slowed as they climbed. When their path intersected thatof the Platform, the two velocities should be exactly equal. 

Major Holt's voice came on the Communicator. 

"_Joe_, " he said harshly, "_I have very bad news. A message came fromCentral Intelligence within minutes of your take-off. I--ah--with SallyI had been following your progress. I did not decode the message untilnow. But Central Intelligence has definite information that more thanten days ago the--ah--enemies of our Space Exploration Project_--" evenon a tight beam to the small spaceship, Major Holt did not name thenation everybody knew was most desperately resolved to smash spaceexploration by anybody but itself--"_completed at least one rocketcapable of reaching the Platform's orbit with a pay-load that could bean atomic bomb. It is believed that more than one rocket was completed. All were shipped to an unknown launching station. _"

"Not so good, " said Joe. 

Mike had left his post when Joe took over. Now he made a swooping dartthrough the air of the cabin. The midget showed no signs of the fumblinguncertainty the others had displayed--but he'd been a member of a midgetacrobatic team before he went to work at the Shed. He brought himself toa stop precisely at a hand-hold, grinning triumphantly at the nearlyhelpless Chief and Haney. 

Major Holt said in the headphones: "_It's worse than that. Radar mayhave told the country in question that you are on the way up. In thatcase, if it's even faintly possible to blast the Platform before yourarrival with weapons for its defense, they'll blast. _"

"I don't like that idea, " said Joe dourly. "Anything we can do?"

Major Holt laughed bitterly. "_Hardly!_" he said. "_And do you realizethat if you can't unload your cargo you can't get back to Earth?_"

"Yes, " said Joe. "Naturally!"

It was true. The purpose of the pushpots and the jatos and the ship'sown take-off rockets had been to give it a speed at which it wouldinevitably rise to a height of 4, 000 miles--the orbit of the SpacePlatform--and stay there. It would need no power to remain 4, 000 milesout from Earth. But it would take power to come down. The take-offrockets had been built to drive the ship with all its contents until itattained that needed orbital velocity. There were landing rocketsfastened to the hull now to slow it so that it could land. But just asthe take-off rockets had been designed to lift a loaded ship, thelanding-rockets had been designed to land an empty one. 

The more weight the ship carried, the more power it needed to get out tothe Platform. And the more power it needed to come down again. 

If Joe and his companions couldn't get rid of their cargo--and theycould only unload in the ship-lock of the Platform--they'd stay out inemptiness. 

The Major said bitterly: "_This is all most irregular, but--here'sSally. _"

Then Sally's voice sounded in the headphones Joe wore. He was relievedthat Mike wasn't acting as communications officer at the moment tooverhear. But Mike was zestfully spinning like a pin-wheel in the middleof the air of the control cabin. He was showing the others that even inthe intramural pastimes a spaceship crew will indulge in, a midget wasbetter than a full-sized man. Joe said:

"Yes, Sally?"

She said unsteadily. "_I'm not going to waste your time talking to you, Joe. I think you've got to figure out something. I haven't the faintestidea what it is, but I think you can do it. Try, will you?_"

"I'm afraid we're going to have to trust to luck, " admitted Joeruefully. "We weren't equipped for anything like this. "

"_No!_" said Sally fiercely. "_If I were with you, you wouldn't think oftrusting to luck!_"

"I wouldn't want to, " admitted Joe. "I'd feel responsible. But just thesame--"

"_You're responsible now!_" said Sally, as fiercely as before. "_If thePlatform's smashed, the rockets that can reach it will be duplicated tosmash our cities in war! But if you can reach the Platform and arm itfor defense, there won't be any war! Half the world would be praying foryou, Joe, if it knew! I can't do anything else, so I'm going to start onthat right now. But you try, Joe! You hear me?_"

"I'll try, " said Joe humbly. "Thanks, Sally. "

He heard a sound like a sob, and the headphones were silent. Joe himselfswallowed very carefully. It can be alarming to be the object of anintended murder, but it can also be very thrilling. One can play upsplendidly to a dramatic picture of doom. It is possible to be one's ownaudience and admire one's own fine disregard of danger. But when otherlives depend on one, one has the irritating obligation not to strikeposes but to do something practical. 

Joe said somberly: "Mike, how long before we ought to contact thePlatform?"

Mike reached out a small hand, caught a hand-hold, and flicked his eyesto the master chronometer. 

"Forty minutes, fifty seconds. Why?"

Joe said wrily, "There are some rockets in enemy hands which can reachthe Platform. They were shipped to launchers ten days ago. You figurewhat comes next. "

Mike's wizened face became tense and angry. Haney growled, "They smashthe Platform before we get to it. "

"Uh-uh!" said Mike instantly. "They smash the Platform _when_ we get toit! They smash us both up together. Where'll we be at contact-time, Joe?"

"Over the Indian Ocean, south of the Bay of Bengal, to be exact, " saidJoe. "But we'll be moving fast. The worst of it is that it's going totake time to get in the airlock and unload our guided missiles and getthem in the Platform's launching-tubes. I'd guess an hour. One bombshould get both of us above the Bay of Bengal, but we won't be set tolaunch a guided missile in defense until we're nearly over Americaagain. "

The Chief said sourly, "Yeah. Sitting ducks all the way across thePacific!"

"We'll check with the Platform, " said Joe. "See if you can get themdirect, Mike, will you?"

Then something occurred to him. Mike scrambled back to his communicationboard. He began feverishly to work the computer which in turn wouldswing the tight-beam transmitter to the target the computer worked out, He threw a switch and said sharply, "Calling Space Platform! Pelican Onecalling Space Platform! Come in, Space Platform!. .. " He paused. "CallingSpace Platform. .. . "

Joe had a slide-rule going on another problem. He looked up, hisexpression peculiar. 

"A solid-fuel rocket can start off at ten gravities acceleration, " hesaid quietly, "and as its rockets burn away it can go up a lot higherthan that. But 4, 000 miles is a long way to go straight up. If it isn'tlaunched yet--"

Mike snapped into a microphone: "Right!" To Joe he said, "Space Platformon the wire. "

Joe heard an acknowledgment in his headphones. "I've just had word fromthe Shed, " he explained carefully, "that there may be some guidedmissiles coming up from Earth to smash us as we meet. You're stillhigher than we are, and they ought to be starting. Can you pick upanything with your radar?"

The voice from the Platform said: "_We have picked something up. Thereare four rockets headed out from near the sunset-line in the Pacific. Assuming solid-fuel rockets like we used and you used, they are on acollision course. _"

"Are you doing anything about them?" asked Joe absurdly. 

The voice said caustically: "_Unfortunately, we've nothing to doanything with. _" It paused. "_You, of course, can use thelanding-rockets you still possess. If you fire them immediately, youwill pass our scheduled meeting-place some hundreds of miles ahead ofus. You will go on out to space. You may set up an orbit forty-fivehundred or even five thousand miles out, and wait there for rescue. _"

Joe said briefly: "We've air for only four days. That's no good. It'llbe a month before the next ship can be finished and take off. There arefour rockets coming up, you say?"

"_Yes. _" The voice changed. It spoke away from the microphone. "_What'sthat?_" Then it returned to Joe. "_The four rockets were sent up at thesame instant from four separate launching sites. Probably as manysubmarines at the corners of a hundred-mile square, so an accident toone wouldn't set off the others. They'll undoubtedly converge as theyget nearer to us. _"

"I think, " said Joe, "that we need some luck. "

"_I think_, " said the caustic voice, "_that we've run out of it. _"

There was a click. Joe swallowed again. The three members of his crewwere looking at him. 

"Somebody's fired rockets out from Earth, " said Joe carefully. "They'llcurve together where we meet the Platform, and get there just when wedo. "

The Chief rumbled. Haney clamped his jaws together. Mike's expressionbecame one of blazing hatred. 

Joe's mind went rather absurdly to the major's curious, almostdespairing talk in his quarters that morning, when he'd spoken of aconspiracy to destroy all the hopes of men. The firing of rockets atthe Platform was, of course, the work of men acting deliberately. Butthey were--unconsciously--trying to destroy their own best hopes. Forfreedom, certainly, whether or not they could imagine being free. Butthe Platform and the space exploration project in general meant benefitspast computing for everybody, in time. To send ships into space fornecessary but dangerous experiments with atomic energy was a purposeevery man should want to help forward. To bring peace on Earth wassurely an objective no man could willingly or sanely combat. And theultimate goal of space travel was millions of other planets, circlingother suns, thrown open to colonization by humanity. That prospectshould surely fire every human being with enthusiasm. But something--andthe more one thought about it the more specific and deliberate it seemedto be--made it necessary to fight desperately against men in order tobenefit them. 

Joe swallowed again. It would have been comforting to be dramatic inthis war against stupidity and malice and blindness. Especially sincethis particular battle seemed to be lost. One could send back aneloquent, defiant message to Earth saying that the four of them did notregret their journey into space, though they were doomed to be killed bythe enemies of their country. It could have been a very pretty gesture. But Joe happened to have a job to do. Pretty gestures were not a part ofit. He had no idea how to do it. So he said rather sickishly:

"The Platform told me we could fire our landing-rockets as additionaltake-off rockets and get out of the way. Of course we've got missiles ofour own on board, but we can't launch or control them. Absolutely theonly thing we can choose to do or not do is fire those rockets. I'm opento suggestions if anybody can think of a way to make them useful. "

There was silence. Joe's reasoning was good enough. When one can't dowhat he wants, one tries to make what he can do produce the results hewants. But it didn't look too promising here. They could fire therockets now, or later, or--

An idea came out of the blue. It wasn't a good idea, but it was the onlyone possible under the circumstances. There was just one distinctlyremote possibility. He told the others what it was. Mike's eyes flamed. The Chief nodded profoundly. Haney said with some skepticism, "It's allwe've got. We've got to use it. "

"I need some calculations. Spread. Best time of firing. That sort ofthing. But I'm worried about calling back in the clear. A beam to thePlatform will bounce and might be picked up by the enemy. "

The Chief grinned suddenly. "I've got a trick for that, Joe. There's atribesman of mine in the Shed. Get Charley Red Fox to the phone, guy, and we'll talk privately!"

The small spaceship floated on upward. It pointed steadfastly in thedirection of its motion. The glaring sunshine which at its take-off hadshone squarely in its bow-ports, now poured down slantingly from behind. The steel plates of the ship gleamed brightly. Below it lay the sunlitEarth. Above and about it on every hand were a multitude of stars. Eventhe moon was visible as the thinnest of crescents against the night ofspace. 

The ship climbed steeply. It was meeting the Platform after only half acircuit of Earth, while the Platform had climbed upward for three fullrevolutions. Earth was now 3, 000 miles below and appeared as the mostgigantic of possible solid objects. It curved away and away to mistinessat its horizons, and it moved visibly as the spaceship floated on. 

Invisible microwaves flung arrowlike through emptiness. They traveledfor thousands of miles, spreading as they traveled, and then struck thestrange shape of the Platform. They splashed from it. Some of themrebounded to Earth, where spies and agents of foreign powers trieddesperately to make sense of the incredible syllables. They failed. 

There was a relay system in operation now, from spaceship to Platform toEarth and back again. In the ship Chief Bender, Mohawk and steelmanextraordinary, talked to the Shed and to one Charley Red Fox. Theytalked in Mohawk, which is an Algonquin Indian language, agglutinative, complicated, and not to be learned in ten easy lessons. It was not alanguage which eavesdroppers were likely to know as a matter of course. But it was a language by which computations could be asked for, so thata very forlorn hope might be attempted with the best possible chances ofsuccess. 

Naturally, none of this appeared in the look of things. The small shipfloated on and on. It reached an altitude of 3, 500 miles. The Earth wasvisibly farther away. Behind the ship the Atlantic with its statelycloud-formations was sunlit to the very edge of its being. Ahead, theedge of night appeared beyond India. And above, the Platform appeared asa speck of molten light, quarter-illuminated by the sun above it. 

Spaceship and Platform moved on toward a meeting place. The ship moved atrifle faster, because it was climbing. The speeds would match exactlywhen they met. The small torpedo-shaped shining ship and the bulgingglowing metal satellite floated with a seeming vast deliberation inemptiness, while the most gigantic of possible round objects filled allthe firmament beneath them. They were 200 miles apart. It seemed thatthe huge Platform overtook the shining ship. It did. They were only 50miles apart and still closing in. 

By that time the twilight band of Earth's surface was nearly at thecenter of the planet, and night filled more than a quarter of its disk. 

By that time, too, even to the naked eye through the ports of thesupply-ship the enemy rockets had become visible. They were a thin skeinof threads of white vapor which seemed to unravel in nothingness. Thevapor curled and expanded preposterously. It could just be seen to bejetting into existence from four separate points, two a little ahead ofthe others. They came out from Earth at a rate which seemed remarkablydeliberate until one saw with what fury the rocket-fumes spat out toform the whitish threads. Then one could guess at a three-or evenfour-stage launching series, so that what appeared to be mere pinpointswould really be rockets carrying half-ton atomic warheads with anattained velocity of 10, 000 miles per hour and more straight up. 

The threads unraveled in a straight line aimed at the two metal thingsfloating in emptiness. One was small and streamlined, with inadequatelanding-rockets clamped to its body and with stubby fins that had nopossible utility out of air. The other was large and clumsy to look at, but very, very stately indeed in its progress through the heavens. Theyfloated smoothly toward a rendezvous. The rockets from Earth cameravening to destroy them at the instant of their intersection. 

The little spaceship turned slowly. Its rounded bow had pointedlongingly at the stars. Now it tilted downward. Its direction ofmovement did not change, of course. In the absence of air, it couldtumble indefinitely without any ill effect. It was in a trajectoryinstead of on a course, though presently the trajectory would become anorbit. But it pointed nose-down toward the Earth even as it continued tohurtle onward. 

The great steel hull and the small spaceship were 20 miles apart. Aninfinitesimal radar-bowl moved on the little ship. Tight-beam wavesflickered invisibly between the two craft. The rockets raged towardthem. 

The ship and the Platform were 10 miles apart. The rockets were nowglinting missiles leaping ahead of the fumes that propelled them. 

The ship and the Platform were two miles apart. The rockets rushedupward. .. . There were minute corrections in their courses. Theyconverged. .. . 

Flames leaped from the tiny ship. Its landing-rockets spouted white-hotflame and fumes more thick and coiling than even the smoke of the bombs. The little ship surged momentarily toward the racing monsters. Andthen----

The rockets which were supposed to let the ship down to Earth flewfree--flung themselves unburdened at the rockets which came with deadlyintent to the meeting of the two Earth spacecraft. 

The landing-rockets plunged down at forty gravities or better. They werea dwindling group of infinitely bright sparks which seemed to groupthemselves more closely as they dwindled. They charged upon theattacking robot things. They were unguided, of necessity, but the robotbombs had to be equipped with proximity fuses. No remote control couldbe so accurate as to determine the best moment for detonation at 4, 000miles' distance. So the war rockets had to be devised to explode whennear anything which reflected their probing radar waves. They had to bedesigned to be triggered by anything in space. 

And the loosed landing-rockets plunged among them. 

They did not detonate all at once. That was mathematically impossible. But no human eye could detect the delay. Four close-packed flares ofpure atomic fire sprang into being between the Platform and Earth. Eachwas brighter than the sun. For the fraction of an instant there was nonight where night had fallen on the Earth. For thousands of miles theEarth glowed brightly. 

Then there was a twisting, coiling tumult of incandescent gases, whichwere snatched away by nothingness and ceased to be. 

Then there were just two things remaining in the void. One was thegreat, clumsy, shining Platform, gigantic in size to anything close by. The other was the small spaceship which had climbed to it and fought forit and defended it against the bombs from Earth. 

The little ship now had a slight motion away from the Platform, due tothe instant's tugging by its rockets before they were released. 

It turned about in emptiness. Its steering-rockets spouted smoke. Itbegan to cancel out its velocity away from the Platform, and to swimslowly and very carefully toward it. 

3

Making actual contact with the platform was not a matter for instrumentsand calculations. It had to be done directly--by hand, as it were. Joewatched out the ports and played the controls of the steering jets witha nerve-racked precision. His task was not easy. 

Before he could return to the point of rendezvous, the blinding sunlighton the Platform took on a tinge of red. It was the twilight-zone of thesatellite's orbit, when for a time the sunlight that reached it waslight which had passed through Earth's atmosphere and been bent by itand colored crimson by the dust in Earth's air. It glowed a fiery red, and the color deepened, and then there was darkness. 

They were in Earth's shadow. There were stars to be seen, but no sun. The Moon was hidden, too. And the Earth was a monstrous, incredible, abysmal blackness which at this first experience of its appearanceproduced an almost superstitious terror. Formerly it had seemed adistant but sunlit world, flecked with white clouds and with sprawlingdifferentiations of color beneath them. 

Now it did not look like a solid thing at all. It looked like a hole increation. One could see ten thousand million stars of every imaginabletint and shade. But where the Earth should be there seemed a vastnothingness. It looked like an opening to annihilation. It looked likethe veritable Pit of Darkness which is the greatest horror men have everimagined, and since those in the ship were without weight it seemed thatthey were falling into it. 

Joe knew better, of course. So did the others. But that was the look ofthings, and that was the feeling. One did not feel in danger of death, but of extinction--which, in cold fact, is very much worse. 

Lights glowed on the outside of the Platform to guide the supply ship toit. There were red and green and blue and harsh blue-white electricbulbs. They were bright and distinct, but the feeling of lonelinessabove that awful appearance of the Pit was appalling. No small childalone at night had ever so desolate a sensation of isolation as the fourin the small ship. 

But Joe painstakingly played the buttons of the steering-rocket controlboard. The ship surged, and turned, and surged forward again. Mike, atthe communicator, said, "They say slow up, Joe. "

Joe obeyed, but he was tense. Haney and the Chief were at otherportholes, looking out. The Chief said heavily, "Fellas, I'm going toadmit I never felt so lonesome in my life!"

"I'm glad I've got you fellows with me!" Haney admitted guiltily. 

"The job's almost over, " said Joe. 

The ship's own hull, outside the ports, glowed suddenly in a light-beamfrom the Platform. The small, brief surges of acceleration which sentthe ship on produced tremendous emotional effects. When the Platform wasonly one mile away, Haney switched on the ship's searchlights. Theystabbed through emptiness with absolutely no sign of their existenceuntil they touched the steel hull of the satellite. 

Mike said sharply: "Slow up some more, Joe. "

He obeyed again. It would not be a good idea to ram the Platform afterthey had come so far to reach it. 

They drifted slowly, slowly, slowly toward it. The monstrous Pit ofDarkness which was the night side of Earth seemed almost about to engulfthe Platform. They were a few hundred feet higher than the great metalglobe, and the blackness was behind it. They were a quarter of a mileaway. The distance diminished. 

A thin straight line seemed to grow out toward them. There was a small, bulb-like object at its end. It reached out farther than was at allplausible. Nothing so slender should conceivably reach so far withoutbending of its own weight. But of course it had no weight here. It was aplastic flexible hose with air pressure in it. It groped for thespaceship. 

The four in the ship held their breaths. 

There was a loud, metallic _clank!_

Then it was possible to feel the ship being pulled toward the Platformby the magnetic grapple. It was a landing-line. It was the means bywhich the ship would be docked in the giant lock which had been built toreceive it. 

As they drew near, they saw the joints of the plating of the Platform. They saw rivets. There was the huge, 30-foot doorway with its valvesswung wide. Their searchlight beam glared into it. They saw the metalfloor, and the bulging plastic sidewalls, restrained by nets. They sawthe inner lock-door. It seemed that men should be visible to welcomethem. There were none. 

The airlock swallowed them. They touched against something solid. Therewere more clankings. They seemed to crunch against the metalfloor--magnetic flooring-grapples. Then, in solid contact with thesubstance of the Platform, they heard the sounds of the great outerdoors swinging shut. They were within the artificial satellite of Earth. It was bright in the lock, and Joe stared out the cabin ports at thequilted sides. There was a hissing of air, and he saw a swirling mist, and then the bulges of the sidewall sagged. The air pressure gauge wasspinning up toward normal sea-level air pressure. 

Joe threw the ready lever of the steering rockets to _Off_. "We'relanded. "

There was silence. Joe looked about him. The other three looked queer. It would have seemed natural for them to rejoice on arriving at theirdestination. But somehow they didn't feel that they had. 

Joe said wrily, "It seems that we ought to weigh something, now we'vegot here. So we feel queer that we don't. Shoes, Mike?"

Mike peeled off the magnetic-soled slippers from their place on thecabin wall. He handed them out and opened the door. A biting chill camein it. Joe slipped on the shoe-soles with their elastic bands to holdthem. He stepped out the door. 

He didn't land. He floated until he reached the sidewall. Then he pulledhimself down by the netting. Once he touched the floor, his shoes seemedto be sticky. The net and the plastic sidewalls were, of course, themethod by which a really large airlock was made practical. When thisship was about to take off again, pumps would not labor for hours topump the air out. The sidewalls would inflate and closely enclose theship's hull, and so force the air in the lock back into the ship. Thenthe pumps would work on the air behind the inflated walls--with nets tohelp them draw the wall-stuff back to let the ship go free. The lockcould be used with only fifteen minutes for pumping instead of fourhours. 

The door in the back of the lock clanked open. Joe tried to walk towardit. He discovered his astounding clumsiness. To walk in magnetic-soledshoes in weightlessness requires a knack. When Joe lifted one foot andtried to swing the other forward, his body tried to pivot. When helifted his right foot, he had to turn his left slightly inward. His armstried to float absurdly upward. When he was in motion and essayed topause, his whole body tended to continue forward with a sedate topplingmotion that brought him down flat on his face. He had to put one footforward to check himself. He seemed to have no sense of balance. When hestood still--his stomach queasy because of weightlessness--he foundhimself tilting undignifiedly forward or back--or, with equalunpredictability, sidewise. He would have to learn an entirely newmethod of walking. 

A man came in the lock, and Joe knew who it was. Sanford, the seniorscientist of the Platform's crew. Joe had seen him often enough on thetelevision screen in the Communications Room at the Shed. Now Sanfordlooked nerve-racked, but his eyes were bright and his expressionsardonic. 

"My compliments, " he said, his voice tight with irony, "for a splendidlyfutile job well done! You've got your cargo invoice?"

Joe nodded. Sanford held out his hand. Joe fumbled in his pocket andbrought out the yellow sheet. 

"I'd like to introduce my crew, " said Joe. "This is Haney, and ChiefBender, and Mike Scandia. " He waved his hand, and his whole body wobbledunexpectedly. 

"We'll know each other!" said Sanford sardonically. "Our first job ismore futility--to get the guided missiles you've brought us into thelaunching tubes. A lot of good they'll do!"

A huge plate in the roof of the lock--but it was not up or down or inany particular direction--withdrew itself. A man floated through theopening and landed on the ship's hull; another man followed him. 

"Chief, " said Joe, "and Haney. Will you open the cargo doors?"

The two swaying figures moved to obey, though with erratic clumsiness. Sanford called sharply: "Don't touch the hull without gloves! If itisn't nearly red-hot from the sunlight, it'll be below zero fromshadow!"

Joe realized, then, the temperature effects the skin on his facenoticed. A part of the spaceship's hull gave off heat like that of apanel heating installation. Another part imparted a chill. 

Sanford said unpleasantly, "You want to report your heroism, eh? Comealong!"

He clanked to the doorway by which he had entered. Joe followed, andMike after him. 

They went out of the lock. Sanford suddenly peeled off his metal-soledslippers, put them in his pocket, and dived casually into a four-footmetal tube. He drifted smoothly away along the lighted bore, nottouching the sidewalls. He moved in the manner of a dream, when onefloats with infinite ease and precision in any direction one chooses. 

Joe and Mike did not share his talent. Joe launched himself afterSanford, and for perhaps 20 or 30 feet the lighted aluminum sidewall ofthe tube sped past him. Then his shoulder rubbed, and he found himselfskidding to an undignified stop, choking the bore. Mike thudded intohim. 

"I haven't got the hang of this yet, " said Joe apologetically. 

He untangled himself and went on. Mike followed him, his expression thatof pure bliss. He was a tiny man, was Mike, but he had the longings andthe ambitions of half a dozen ordinary-sized men in his small body. Andhe had known frustration. He could prove by mathematics that spaceexploration could be carried on by midgets at a fraction of the cost andrisk of the same job done by normal-sized men. He was, of course, quiteright. The cabins and air and food supplies for a spaceship's crew ofmidgets would cost and weigh a fraction of similar equipment forsix-footers. But people simply weren't interested in sending midgetsout into space. 

But Mike had gotten here. He was in the Space Platform. There werefull-sized men who would joyfully have changed places with him, forty-one inch height and all. So Mike was blissful. 

The tube ended and Joe bounced off the wall that faced its end. Sanfordwas waiting. He grinned with more than a hint of spite. 

"Here's our communications room, " he said. "Now you can talk down toEarth. It'll be relayed, now, but in half an hour you can reach the Sheddirect. "

He floated inside. Joe followed cautiously. There was another crewmember on duty there. He sat before a group of radar screens, with thighgrips across his legs to hold him in his chair. He turned his head andnodded cheerfully enough. 

"Here!" snapped Sanford. 

Joe clambered awkwardly to the seat the senior crew member pointed out. He made his way to it by handholds on the walls. He fumbled into thechair and threw over the curved thigh grips that would hold him inplace. 

Suddenly he was oriented. He had seen this room before--before thePlatform was launched. True, the man at the radar screens wasupside-down with reference to himself, and Sanford had hooked a kneenegligently around the arm of a firmly anchored chair with his body atright angles to Joe's own, but at least Joe knew where he was and whathe was to do. 

"Go ahead and report, " said Sanford sardonically. "You might tell themthat you heroically destroyed the rockets that attacked us, and thatyour crew behaved splendidly, and that you have landed in the SpacePlatform and the situation is well in hand. It isn't, but it will makenice headlines. "

Joe said evenly, "Our arrival's been reported?"

"No, " said Sanford, grinning. "Obviously the radar down onEarth--shipboard ones on this hemisphere, of course--have reported thatthe Platform still exists. But we haven't communicated since the bombswent off. They probably think we had so many punctures that we lost allour air and are all wiped out. They'll be glad to hear from you that wearen't. "

Joe threw a switch, frowning. This wasn't right. Sanford was the seniorscientist on board and hence in command, because he was best-qualifiedto direct the scientific observations the Platform was making. But therewas something specifically wrong. 

The communicator hummed. A faint voice sounded. It swelled to loudness. "Calling Space Platform! _Calling Space Platform!_ CALLING SPACEPLATFORM!" Joe turned down the volume. He said into the microphone:

"Space Platform calling Earth. Joe Kenmore reporting. We have madecontact with the Platform and completed our landing. Our cargo is nowbeing unloaded. Our landing rockets had to be expended againstpresumably hostile bombs, and we are now unable to return to Earth. Theship and the Platform, however, are unharmed. I am now waiting fororders. Report ends. "

He turned away from the microphone. Sanford said sharply, "Go on! Tellthem what a hero you are!"

"I'm going to help unload my ship, " Joe said shortly. "You report whatyou please. "

"Get back at that transmitter!" shouted Sanford furiously. "Tell 'emyou're a hero! Tell 'em you're wonderful! I'll tell 'em how useless itis!"

Joe saw the other man in the room, the man at the radar screens, shakehis head. He got up and fumbled his way along the wall to the door. Sanford shouted after him angrily. 

Joe went out, found the four-foot tunnel, and floated not down but alongit back to the unloading lock. Wordlessly, he set to work to get thecargo out of the cargo hold of the spaceship. 

Handling objects in weightlessness which on Earth would be heavy was anart in itself. Two men could move tons. It needed only one man to starta massive crate in motion. However, one had either to lift or push anobject in the exact line it was to follow. To thrust hard for a shorttime produced exactly the same effect as to push gently for a longerperiod. Anything floated tranquilly in the line along which it wasmoved. The man who had to stop it, though, needed to use exactly as muchenergy as the man who sent it floating. He needed to check the floatingthing in exactly the same line. If one tried to stop a massive shipmentfrom one side, he would topple into it and he and the crate togetherwould go floundering helplessly over each other. 

The Chief had gone off to help maneuver two-ton guided missiles intolaunching tubes. One crew member remained with Haney, unloading thingsthat would have had to be handled with cranes on Earth. Joe foundhimself needed most in the storage chamber. A crate floated from theship to the crewman. Standing head downward, he stopped its originalmovement, braced himself, and sent it floating to Joe. He bracedhimself, stopped its flight, and very slowly--to move fast with anythingheavy in his hands would pull his feet from the floor--set it on a stackof similar objects which would presently be fastened in place. 

Everything had to be done in slow motion, or one would lose his footing. Joe worked painstakingly. He gradually began to understand the process. But the muscles of his stomach ached because of their continuous, instinctive cramp due to the sensation of unending fall. 

Mike floated through the hatchway from the lock. He twisted about as hefloated, and his magnetized soles clanked to a deft contact with thewall. He said calmly: "That guy Sanford has cracked up. He's potty. Ifthis were jail he'd be stir-crazy. He's yelling into the communicatornow that we'll all be dead in a matter of days, and the rocket missileswe brought up won't help. He's nasty about it, too!"

Haney called from the cargo space of the ship in the lock: "All emptyhere! We're unloaded. "

There were sounds as he closed the cargo doors. Haney, followed by theChief, came into view, floating as Mike had done. But he didn't land asskillfully. He touched the wall on his hands and knees and bounced awayand tried helplessly to swim to a hand-hold. It would have been funnyexcept that Joe was in no mood for humor. 

Mike whipped off his belt and flipped the end of it to Haney. He caughtit and was drawn gently to the wall. Haney's shoes clicked to a hold. The Chief landed more expertly. 

"We need wings here, " he said ruefully. "You reported, Joe?"

Joe nodded. He turned to Brent, the crew member who'd been unloading. Heknew him too, from their two-way video conversations. 

"Sanford does act oddly, " he said uncomfortably. "When he met me in thelock he said our coming was useless. He talked about the futility ofeverything while I reported. He sounds like he sneers at every possibleaction as useless. "

"Most likely it is, " Brent said mildly. "Here, anyhow. It does look asif we're going to be knocked off. But Sanford's taking it badly. Therest of us have let him act as he pleased because it didn't seem tomatter. It probably doesn't, except that he's annoying. "

Mike said truculently, "We won't be knocked off! We've got rockets ofour own up here now! We can fight back if there's another attack!"

Brent shrugged. His face was young enough, but deeply lined. He said asmildly as before: "Your landing rockets set off four bombs on the wayfrom Earth. You brought us six more rocket missiles. How many bombs canwe knock down with them?"

Joe blinked. It was a shock to realize the facts of life in anartificial satellite. If it could be reached by bombs from Earth, thebombs could be reached by guided missiles from the satellite. But itwould take one guided missile to knock down one bomb--with luck. 

"I see, " said Joe slowly. "We can handle just six more bombs fromEarth. "

"Six in the next month, " agreed Brent wrily. "It'll be that long beforewe get more. Somebody sent up four bombs today. Suppose they send eightnext time? Or simply one a day for a week?"

Mike made an angry noise. "The seventh bomb shot at us knocks us out!We're sitting ducks here too!"

Brent nodded. He said mildly:

"Yes. The Platform can't be defended against an indefinite number ofbombs from Earth. Of course the United States could go to war becausewe've been shot at. But would that do us any good? We'd be shot down inthe war. "

Joe said distastefully, "And Sanford's cracked up because he knows he'sgoing to be killed?"

Brent said earnestly. "Oh, no! He's a good scientist! But he's alwayshad a brilliant mind. Poor devil, he's never failed at anything in allhis life until now! Now he _has_ failed. He's going to be killed, and hecan't think of any way to stop it. His brains are the only things he'sever believed in, and now they're no good. He can't accept the idea thathe's stupid, so he has to believe that everything else is. It's anecessity for him. Haven't you known people who had to think everybodyelse was stupid to keep from knowing that they were themselves?"

Joe nodded. He waited. 

"Sanford, " said Brent earnestly, "simply can't adjust to the discoverythat he's no better than anybody else. That's all. He was a nice guy, but he's not used to frustration and he can't take it. Therefore hescorns everything that frustrates him--and everything else, bynecessity. He'll be scornful about getting killed when it happens. Butwaiting for it is becoming intolerable to him. "

He looked at his watch. He said apologetically, "I'm the crewpsychologist. That's why I speak so firmly. In five minutes we're due tocome out of the Earth's shadow into sunshine again. I'd suggest that youcome to watch. It's good to look at. "

He did not wait for an answer. He led the way. And the others followedin a strange procession. Somehow, automatically, they fell into singlefile, and they moved on their magnetic-soled slippers toward a passagetube in one wall. Their slipper soles clanked and clicked in an erraticrhythm. Brent walked with the mincing steps necessary for movement inweightlessness. The others imitated him. Their hands no longer hungnaturally by their sides, but tended to make extravagant gestures withthe slightest muscular impulse. They swayed extraordinarily as theywalked. Brent was a slender figure, and Joe was more thick-set, andHaney was taller, and lean. The burly Chief and the forty-one inchfigure of Mike the midget followed after them. They made a queerprocession indeed. 

Minutes later they were in a blister on the skin of the Platform. Therewere quartz glass ports in the sidewall. Outside the glass were metalshutters. Brent served out dense goggles, almost black, and touched thebuttons that opened the steel port coverings. 

They looked into space. The dimmer stars were extinguished by thegoggles they wore. The brighter ones seemed faint and widely spaced. Beneath their feet as they held to handrails lay the featurelessdarkness of Earth. But before them and very far away there was a vast, dim arch of deepest red. 

It was sunlight filtered through the thickest layers of Earth's air. Itbarely outlined the curve of that gigantic globe. As they stared, itgrew brighter. The artificial satellite required little more than fourhours for one revolution about its primary, the Earth. To those aboardit, the Earth would go through all its phases in no longer a time. Theysaw now the thinnest possible crescent of the new Earth. But inminutes--almost in seconds--the deep red sunshine brightened to gold. The hair-thin line of light widened to a narrow ribbon which describedan eight-thousand-mile half-circle. It brightened markedly at themiddle. It remained red at its ends, but in the very center it glowedwith splendid flame. Then a golden ball appeared, and swam up anddetached itself from the Earth, and the on-lookers saw the breath-takingspectacle of all of Earth's surface seemingly being born of the night. 

As if new-created before their eyes, seas and lands unfolded in thesunlight. They watched flecks of cloud and the long shadows ofmountains, and the strangely different colorings of its fields andforests. 

As Brent had told them, it was good to watch. 

It was half an hour later when they gathered in the kitchen of thePlatform. The man who had been loading launching tubes now brisklyworked to prepare a meal on the extremely unusual cooking-devices of ahuman outpost in interplanetary space. 

The food smelled good. But Joe noticed that he could smell growingthings. Green stuff. It was absurd--until he remembered that there was ahydroponic garden here. Plants grew in it under sunlamps which wereturned on for a certain number of hours every day. The plants purifiedthe Platform's air, and of course provided some fresh and nourishingfood for the crew. 

They ate. The food was served in plastic bowls, with elastic threadcovers through which they could see and choose the particular morselsthey fancied next. The threads stretched to let through the forks theyate with. But Brent used a rather more practical pair of tongs in abusinesslike manner. 

They drank coffee from cups which looked very much like ordinary cups onEarth. Joe remembered suddenly that Sally Holt had had much to do withthe design of domestic science arrangements here. He regarded his cupwith interest. It stayed in its saucer because of magnets in bothplastic articles. The saucer stayed on the table because the table wasmagnetic, too. And the coffee did not float out to mid-air in a hot, round brownish ball, because there was a transparent cover over the cup. When one put his lips to the proper edge, a part of the cover yielded asthe cup was squeezed. The far side of the cup was flexible. One pressed, and the coffee came into one's lips without the spilling of a drop. 

At that moment Joe really thought of Sally for the first time in a goodtwo hours. She'd been anxious that living in the Platform should be asnormal and Earth-like as possible. The total absence of weight would bebad enough. She believed it needed to be countered, as a psychologicalfactor in staying sane, by the effect of normal-seeming chairs andnormal-tasting food, and not too exotic systems for eating. 

Joe asked Brent about it. 

"Oh, yes, " said Brent mildly. "It's likely we'd all have gone off thedeep end if there weren't some familiar things about. To have to drinkfrom a cup that one squeezes is tolerable. But we'd have felt hystericalat times if we had to drink everything from the equivalent of babybottles. "

"Sally Holt, " said Joe, "is a friend of mine. She helped design thisstuff. "

"That girl has every ounce of brains that any woman can be trustedwith!" Brent said warmly. "She thought of things that would never haveoccurred to me! As a psychologist, I could see how good her ideas werewhen she brought them up, but as a male I'd never have dreamed of them. "Then he grinned. "She fell down on just one point. So did everybodyelse. Nobody happened to think of a garbage-disposal system for thePlatform. "

It came into Joe's mind that garbage-disposal was hardly a subject onewould expect to be discussing in interplanetary space. But the Platformwasn't the same thing as a spaceship. A ship could jettison refuse andleave it behind, or store it during a voyage and dump it at either end. But the Space Platform would never land. It could roll on forever. Andif it heaved out its refuse from airlocks--why--the stuff would stillhave the Platform's orbital speed and would follow it tirelessly aroundthe Earth until the end of time. 

"We dry and store it now, " said Brent. "If we were going to live, we'dfigure out some way to turn it to fertilizer for the hydroponic gardens. It's hardly worth while as things are. Even then, though, the problem oftin cans could be hopeless. "

The Chief wiped his mouth deliberately. He had helped load fourguided-missile launching tubes, and he had been brought up to date onthe state of things in the Platform. He growled in a preliminary fashionand said, "Joe. "

Joe looked at him. 

"We brought up six two-ton guided missiles, " said the Chief dourly. "We'll have warning of other bombs coming up. We can send these missilesout to intercept 'em. Six of 'em. They can get close enough to set offtheir proximity fuses, anyhow. But what are we going to do, Joe, ifsomebody flings seven bombs at us? We can manage six--maybe. But what'llwe do with the one that's left over?"

"Have you any ideas?" asked Joe. 

The Chief shook his head. Brent said mildly. "We've worked on that herein the Platform, I assure you. And as Sanford puts it quite soundly, about the only thing we can really do is throw our empty tin cans atthem. "

Joe nodded. Then he tensed. Brent had meant it as a rather mirthlessjoke. But Joe was astonished at what his own brain made of it. Hethought it over. Then he said, "Why not? It ought to be a very goodtrick. "

Brent stared at him incredulously. Haney looked solemnly at him. TheChief regarded Joe thoughtfully out of the corner of his eye. Then Mikeshouted gleefully. The Chief blinked, and a moment later gruntedwrathful unintelligible syllables of Mohawk, and then tried to pound Joeon the back and because of his want of weight went head over heels intothe air between the six walls of the kitchen. 

Haney said disgustedly, "Joe, there are times when a guy wants to murderyou! Why didn't I think of that?"

But Brent was looking at the four of them with a lively, helplesscuriosity. "Will you guys let me in on this?"

They told him. Joe began to explain it carefully, but the Chief broke inwith a barked and impatient description, and then Mike interrupted tosnap a correction. But by that time Brent's expression had changed withastonishing suddenness. 

"I see! I see!" he said excitedly. "All right! Have you got space suitsin your ship? We have them. So we'll go out and pelt the stars withgarbage. I think we'd better get at it right now, too. In under twohours we'll be a fine target for more bombs, and it would be good tostart ahead of time. "

Mike made a gesture and went floating out of the kitchen, air-swimmingto go get space suits from the ship. The grin on his small facethreatened to cut his throat. Joe asked, "Sanford's in command. How'llhe like this idea?"

Brent hesitated. "I'm afraid, " he said regretfully, "he won't like it. If you solve a problem he gave up, it will tear his present adjustmentto bits. He's gone psychotic. I think, though, that he'll allow it to betried while he swears at us for fools. He's most likely to react thatway if you suggest it. "

"Then, " agreed Joe, "I suggest it. Chief----"

The Chief raised a large brown hand. 

"I got the program, Joe, " he said. "We'll all get set. "

And Joe went floating unhappily through passage-tubes to the controlroom. He heard Sanford's voice, sardonic and mocking, as he reached thecommunications room door. 

"What do you expect?" Sanford was saying derisively. "We're claypigeons. We're a perfect target. We've just so much ammunition now. Yousay you may send us more in three weeks instead of a month. I admireyour persistence, but it's really no use! This is all a very stupidbusiness. .. . "

He felt Joe's presence. He turned, and then sharply struck thecommunicator switch with the heel of his hand. The image on thetelevision screen died. The voice cut off. He said blandly: "Well?"

"I want, " said Joe, "to take a garbage-disposal party out on the outsideof the Platform. I came to ask for authority. "

Sanford looked at him in mocking surprise. 

"To be sure it seems as intelligent as anything else the human race hasever done, " he observed. "But why does it appeal to you as something youwant to do?"

"I think, " Joe told him, "that we can make a defense against bombs fromEarth with our empty tin cans. "

Sanford raised his eyebrows. 

"If you happen to have a four-leaf clover with you, " he said in fineirony, "I'm told they're good, too. "

His eyes were bright and scornful. His manner was feverishly derisive. Joe would have done well to let it go at that. But he was nettled. 

"We set off the last bombs, " he said doggedly, "by shooting our landingrockets at them. They didn't collide with the bombs. They simplytouched off the bombs' proximity fuses. If we surround the Platform witha cluster of tin cans and such things, they may do as well. Things wethrow away won't drop to Earth. Ultimately, they'll actually circle us, like satellites themselves. But if we can get enough of them between usand Earth, any bombs that come up will have their proximity fusesdetonated by the floating trash we throw out. "

Sanford laughed. 

"We might ask for aluminum-foil ribbon to come up in the next supplyship, " said Joe. "We could have masses of that, or maybe metallic dustfloating around us. "

"I much prefer used tin cans, " said Sanford humorously. "I'll take thewatch here and let everybody go out with you. By all means we mustdefend ourselves. Forward with the garbage! Go ahead!"

His eyes were almost hysterically scornful as he waited for Joe toleave. Joe did not like it at all, but there was nothing to do but getout. 

He found the Chief with a net bag filled with emptied tin cans. Haneyhad another. There were two more, carried by members of the Platform'sfour-man crew. They were donning their space suits when Joe came uponthem. Mike was grotesque in the cut-down outfit built for him. Actually, the only difference was in the size of the fabric suit and the length ofthe arms and legs. He could carry a talkie outfit with its batteries, and the oxygen tank for breathing as well as anybody, since out hereweight did not count at all. There were plastic ropes, resistant toextremes of temperature. 

Joe got into his own space suit. It was no such self-contained spacecraft in itself as the fantastic story tellers dreamed of. It was notmuch more than an altitude suit, aluminized to withstand the blazingheat of sunshine in emptiness, and with extravagantly insulated soles tothe magnetic boots. In theory, there simply is no temperature in space. In practice, a metal hull heats up in sunshine to very much more thanany record-hot-day temperature on Earth. In shadow, too, a metal hullwill drop very close to minus 250 degrees Centigrade, which is somethinglike 400 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. But mainly the space boots wereinsulated against the almost dull-red-heat temperatures oflong-continued sunshine. 

A crewman named Corey moved into an airlock with one of the bags ofempty tin cans. Brent watched in a routine fashion through a glass inthe lock-door. The pumps began to exhaust the air from the airlock. Corey's space suit inflated visibly. Presently the pump stopped. Coreyopened the outer door. He went out, paying plastic rope behind him. Aninstant later he reappeared and removed the rope. He'd made his linefast outside. He closed the outer lock-door. Air surged into the lockand Haney crowded in. Again the pumping. Then Haney went out, and wasanchored to the Platform not only by his magnetic boots but by a ropefastened to a hand-hold. Brent went out. Mike. Joe came next. 

They stood on the hull of the Space Platform, waiting in the incredibleharsh sunshine of emptiness. The bright steel plates of the hull swelledand curved away on every hand. There were myriads of stars and the vastround bulk of Earth seemed farther away to a man in a space suit than toa man looking out a port. Where shadows cut across the Platform'sirregular surface, there was utter blackness. Also there was horriblefrigidity. Elsewhere it was blindingly bright. The men were specks ofhumanity standing on a shining metal hull, and all about them there wasthe desolation of nothingness. 

But Joe felt strangely proud. The seventh man came out of the lock-door. They tied their plastic ropes together and spread out in a long linewhich went almost around the Platform. The man next to the lock wasanchored to a steel hand-hold. The third man of the line also anchoredhimself. The fifth. The seventh. They were a straggling line of figureswith impossibly elongated shadows, held together by ropes. They werepeculiarly like a party of weirdly costumed mountaineers on a glacier ofgleaming silver. 

But no mountain climbers ever had a background of ten thousand millionstars, peering up from below them as well as from overhead. Nor did anyever have a mottled greenish planet rolling by 4, 000 miles beneaththem, nor a blazing sun glaring down at them from a sky such as this. 

In particular, perhaps, no other explorers ever set out upon anexpedition whose purpose was to throw tin cans and dried refuse at allthe shining cosmos. 

They set to work. The space suits were inevitably clumsy. It was noteasy to throw hard with only magnetism to hold one to his feet. It wasactually more practical to throw straight up with an underhand gesture. But even that would send the tin cans an enormous distance, in time. There was no air to slow them. 

The tin cans twinkled as they left the Platform's steel expanse. Theymoved away at a speed of possibly 20 to 30 miles an hour. They floatedoff in all possible directions. They would never reach Earth, of course. They shared the Platform's orbital speed, and they would circle theEarth with it forever. But when they were thrown away, their orbits weredisplaced a little. Each can thrown downward just now, for example, would always be between the Platform and the Earth on this side of itsorbit. But on the other side of Earth it would be above the Platform. The Platform, in fact, became the center of a swarm, a cluster, a cloudof infinitesimal objects which would always accompany it and always bein motion with regard to it. Together, they should make up a screen noproximity fuse bomb could pierce without exploding. 

Joe heard clankings, transmitted to his body through his feet. 

"What's that?" he demanded sharply. "It sounds like the airlock!"

Voices mingled in his ears. The other walkie-talkies allowed everybodyto speak at once. Most of them did. Then Joe heard someone laugh. It wasSanford's voice. 

Sandford's aluminized, space-suited figure came clanking around thecurve of the small metal world. The antenna of his walkie-talkieglittered above his head. He seemed to swagger against the background ofmany-colored stars. 

Brent spoke quickly, before anyone else could question Sanford. Histone was mild and matter of fact, but Joe somehow knew the tensionbehind it. 

"Hello, Sanford. You came out? Was it wise? Shouldn't there be someoneinside the Platform?"

Sanford laughed again. "It was very wise. We're going to be killed, asyou fellows know perfectly well. It's futile to try to avoid it. So verysensibly I've decided to spare myself the nuisance of waiting to bekilled. I came out. "

There was silence in the ear-phones of Joe's space suit radio. He heardhis own heart beating loudly and steadily in the absolute stillness. 

"Incidentally, " said Sanford with almost hysterical amusement, "I fixedit so that none of us can get back in. It would be useless, anyhow. Everything's futility. So I've put an end to our troubles for good. I'velocked us all out. "

He laughed yet again. And Joe knew that in Sanford's madness it wasperfectly possible for him to have done exactly what he said. 

There were eight human beings on the Platform. All were now outside it, on its outer skin. They wore space suits with from half an hour to anhour's oxygen supply. They had no tools with which to break back intothe satellite. And no help could possibly reach them in less than threeweeks. 

If they couldn't get back inside the Platform, Sanford, laughingproudly, had killed them all. 

4

There was a babbling of angry, strained, tense voices in Joe'sheadphones. Then the Chief roared for silence. It fell, save forSanford's quiet, hysterical chuckling. Joe found himself rather absurdlythinking that Sanford was not actually insane, except as any man may bewho believes only in his own cleverness. Sooner or later it is bound tofail him. On Earth, Sanford's pride in his own intellect had beenuseful. He had been brilliant because he accepted every problem andevery difficulty as a challenge. But with the Platform's situationseemingly hopeless, he'd been starkly unable to face the fact that hewasn't clever or brilliant or intelligent enough. If Joe's solution tothe proximity fuse bombs had been offered before his emotional collapse, he could have accepted it grandly, and in so doing have made it his own. But it was too late for that now. He'd given up and worked up a franticscorn for the universe he could not cope with. For Joe's trick to workwould have made him inferior even to Joe in his own view. And hecouldn't have that! Even to die, with the prospect that others wouldsurvive him, was an intolerable prospect. He had to be smarter thananybody else. 

So he chuckled. The Chief roared wrathfully into his transmitter:"Quiet! This crazy fool's tried to commit suicide for all of us! Howabout it? Why can't we get back in? How many locks----"

Joe found himself thinking hard. He could be angry later. Now therewasn't time. Thirty or forty minutes of breathing. No tools. A steelhull. The airlocks were naturally arranged for the greatest possiblesafety under normal conditions. In every airlock it had naturally beenarranged so that the door to space and the door to the interior couldnot be open at the same time. That was to save lives. To save air, itwould naturally be arranged that the door to space couldn't be openeduntil the lock was pumped empty. 

That in itself could be an answer. Joe said sharply, "Hold it, Chief!Somebody watch Sanford! All we've got to do is find which lock he cameout of. He couldn't get out until he pumped it empty--and that unlocksthe outer door!"

But Sanford laughed once more. He sounded like someone in the highest ofhigh good humor. 

"Heroic again, eh? But I took a compressed air bottle in the lock withme. When the outer door was open, I opened the stopcock and shut thedoor. The air bottle filled the lock behind me. Naturally I'd fasten thedoor after I came out! One must be intelligent!"

Joe heard Brent muttering, "Yes, he'd do that!"

"Somebody check it!" snapped Joe. "Make sure! It might amuse him towatch us die while he knew we could get back in if we were as smart ashe is. "

There were clankings on the hull. Men moved, unfastening the lines whichheld them to the hull to get freedom of movement, but not breaking thelinks which bound them to each other. Joe saw Haney go grimly back tothe task of throwing away the stuff that they had brought out for thepurpose. Then Mike's voice, brittle and cagey: "Haney! Quit it!"

Sanford's voice again, horribly amused. "By all means! Don't throw awayour garbage! We may need it!"

A voice snapped, "This lock's fastened. " Another voice: "And this. .. . "Other voices, with increasing desperation, verified that every airlockwas implacably sealed fast by the presence of air pressure inside thelock itself. 

Time was passing. Joe had never noticed, before, the minute noises ofthe air pressure apparatus strapped to his back. His exhaled breath wentto a tiny pump that forced it through a hygroscopic filter which at onceextracted excess moisture and removed carbon dioxide. The same pumpcarefully measured a volume of oxygen equal to the removed CO_2 andadded it to the air it released. The pump made very small sounds indeed, and the valves were almost noiseless, but Joe could hear theirclickings. 

Something burned him. He had been standing perfectly still while tryingto concentrate on a way out. Sunshine had shone uninterruptedly on oneside of his space suit for as long as five minutes. Despite theinsulation inside, that was too long. He turned quickly to exposeanother part of himself to the sunlight. He knew abstractedly that themetal underfoot would sear bare flesh that touched it. A few yards away, in the shadow, the metal of the hull would be cold enough to freezehydrogen. But here it was fiercely hot. It would melt solder. It might--

Mike was fumbling tin cans out of the net bag from which Haney had beenthrowing them away. He was a singular small figure, standing on shiningsteel, looking at one tin can after another and impatiently putting themaside. 

He found one that seemed to suit him. It was a large can. He knelt withit, pressing a part of it to the hot metal of the satellite's hull. Amoment later he was ripping it apart. The solder had softened. Heunrolled a sort of cylinder, then bent again, using the curved innersurface to concentrate the intolerable sunshine. 

Joe caught his breath at the implication. Concentrated sunshine can beincredibly hot. Starting with unshielded, empty-space sunshine, practically any imaginable temperature is possible with a large enoughmirror. Mike didn't have a concave mirror. He had only a cylindricalone. He couldn't reflect light to a point, but only to a line. Mikecouldn't hope to do more than double or triple the temperature of agiven spot. But considering what he wore on his back--!

Joe made his way clumsily to the spot where Mike now gesticulated toHaney, trying to convey his meaning by gestures since Sanford wouldoverhear any spoken word. 

"I get it, Mike, " said Joe. "I'll help. " He added: "Chief! You watchSanford. The rest of you try to flatten out some tin cans or find somewith flat round ends!"

He reached the spot where Mike bent over the plating. His hand moved tocast a shadow where the light had played. 

"I need more reflectors, " Mike said brusquely, "but we can do it!"

Joe beckoned. There were more, hurried clankings. Space-suited figuresgathered about. 

The Platform rolled on through space. Where it was bright it was very, very bright, and where it was dark it was blackness. Off in emptinessthe many-colored mass of Earth shone hugely, rolling past. Innumerableincurious stars looked on. The sun flamed malevolently. The moon floatedabstractedly far away. 

Mike was bent above a small round airlock door. He had a distortedhalf-cylinder of sheet tin between his space-gloved hands. It reflecteda line of intensified sunlight to the edge of the airlock seal. Haneyripped fiercely at other tin cans. Joe held another strip of polishedmetal. It focused crudely--very crudely--on top of Mike's line ofreflected sunshine. Someone else held the end of a tin can to reflectmore sunshine. Someone else had a larger disk of tin. 

They stood carefully still. It looked completely foolish. There were sixmen in frozen attitudes, trying to reflect sunshine down to a singleblindingly-bright spot on an airlock door. They seemed breathlesslytense. They ignored the glories of the firmament. They were utterlyabsorbed in trying to make a spot of unbearable brightness glow morebrightly still. 

Mike moved his hand to cast a shadow. The steel was a little more thanred-hot for the space of an inch. It would not melt, of course. It couldnot. And they had no tools to bend or pierce the presumably softenedmetal. But Mike said fiercely:

"Keep it hot!"

He squirmed. His space suit was fabric, like the rest, but it had beencut down to permit him to use it. It was bulkier on him than the suitsof the others. He shifted his shoulder pack. The brass valve-nipple bywhich the oxygen tank was filled. .. . 

He jammed a ragged fragment of tin in place. He pressed down fiercely. Ablazing jet of fierce, scintillating, streaking sparks leaped up fromthe spot where the metal glowed brightly. A hollow in the metal plateappeared. The metal disintegrated in gushing flecks of light. .. . 

White-hot iron in pure oxygen happens to be inflammable. Iron is notincombustible at all. Powdered steel, ground fine enough, will burn ifsimply exposed to air. Really fine steel wool will make an excellentblaze if a match is touched to it. White-hot iron, with a jet of oxygenplayed upon it, explodes to steaming sparks. Technically, Mike had usedthe perfectly well-known trick of an oxygen lance to pierce the airlockdoor, let the air out of the lock, and so allow the outer door to beopened. 

There was a rush of vapor. The door was drilled through. Haney pickedMike up bodily, Joe heaved the door open, and Haney climbed into it, practically carrying Mike by the scruff of the neck. Joe panted, "Plugthe hole from the inside. Sit on it if you have to!" and slammed thedoor shut. 

They waited. Sanford's voice came in the ear-phones. It was higher inpitch than it had been. 

"You fools!" he raged. "It's useless! It's stupid to do useless things!It's stupid to do anything at all--"

There were sudden scuffling clankings. Joe swung about. The Chief andSanford were struggling. Sanford flailed his arms about, trying to breakthe Chief's faceplate while he screamed furious things about futility. 

The Chief got exactly the hold he wanted. He lifted Sanford from themetal deck. He could have thrown him away to emptiness, then, but he didnot. 

He set Sanford in mid-space as if upon a shelf. The raging man hung inthe void an exact man-height above the Platform's surface. The Chiefdrew back and left him there, Sanford could writhe there for a centurybefore the Platform's infinitesimal gravity brought him down. 

"Huh!" said the Chief wrathfully. "How's Haney and Mike making out?"

Almost on the instant, twenty yards away, a tiny airlock door thrust outfrom the surface of glittering metal, and helmet and antenna appeared. 

"You guys can come in now, " said Haney's voice in Joe's headphones. "It's all okay. Mike's pumping out the other locks too, so you can comein at any of 'em. "

The space-suited figures clumped loudly to airlock doors. There were adozen or more small airlocks in various parts of the hull, besides thegreat door to admit supply ships. The Chief growled and moved towardSanford now raging like the madman his helplessness made him. 

"No, " said Joe shortly. "He'd fight again. Go inside. That's an order, Chief. "

The Chief grunted and obeyed. Joe went to the nearest airlock andentered the great steel hull. 

Sanford floated in emptiness, two yards from the Space Platform he wouldhave turned into a derelict. He did not move farther away. He did notfall toward it. There was nobody to listen to him. He cried out inblood-curdling fury because other men were smarter than he was. Othermen had solved problems he could not solve. Other men were hissuperiors. He screamed his rage. 

Presently the Platform revolved slowly beneath him. It was turned, ofcourse, by the monster gyros which in turn were controlled by the pilotgyros Joe and Haney and the Chief and Mike had repaired when saboteurssmashed them. 

The Platform rotated sedately. A great gap appeared in it. The door ofthe supply ship lock moved until Sanford, floating helplessly, wasopposite its mouth. 

A rod with a rounded object at its end appeared past the docked supplyship. It reached out and touched Sanford's helmet. It was the magneticgrapple which drew space ships into their dock. 

It drew Sanford, squirming and streaming, into the great lock. The outerdoors closed. Before air was admitted to the inside, Sanford wentsuddenly still. 

When they took him out of his suit he was apparently unconscious. Hecould not be roused. Freed, he drew his knees up to his chin in theposition in which primitive peoples bury their dead. He seemed to sleep. Brent examined him carefully. 

"Catatonia, " he said distastefully. "He spent his life thinking he wassmarter than anybody else--smarter, probably, than all the universe. Hebelieved it. He couldn't face the fact that he was wrong. He couldn'tstay conscious and not know it. So he's blacked out. He refuses to beanything unless he can be smartest. We'll have to do artificial feedingand all that until we can get him down to Earth to a hospital. " Heshrugged. 

"We'd better report this down to Earth, " Joe said. "By the way, betternot describe our screen of tin cans on radio waves. Not even microwaves. It might leak. And we want to see if it works. "

Just forty-two hours later they found out that it did work. A singlerocket came climbing furiously out from Earth. It came from thenight-side, and they could not see where it was launched, though theycould make excellent guesses. They got a single guided missile ready tocrash it if necessary. 

It wasn't necessary. The bomb from Earth detonated 300 miles below theartificial satellite. Its proximity fuse, sending out small radar-typewaves, had them reflected back by an empty sardine can thrown away fromthe Platform by Mike Scandia forty-some hours ago. The sardine can hadbeen traveling in its own private orbit ever since. The effect of Mike'smuscles had not been to send it back to Earth, but to change the centerof the circular orbit in which it floated. Sometimes it floated abovethe Platform--that was on one side of Earth--and sometimes below it. Itwas about 300 miles under the Platform when it reflected urgent, squealing radar frequency waves to a complex proximity fuse in theclimbing rocket. The rocket couldn't tell the difference between asardine can and a Space Platform. 

It exploded with a blast of pure brightness like that of the sun. 

The Platform went on its monotonous round about the planet from which ithad risen only weeks before. Sanford was strapped in a bunk and fedthrough a tube, and on occasion massaged and variously tended to keephim alive. The men on the Platform worked. They made telephoto maps ofEarth. They took highly magnified, long-exposure photographs of Mars, pictures that could not possibly be made with such distinctness from thebottom of Earth's turbulent ocean of air. 

There was a great deal of official business to be done. Weatherobservations of the form and distribution of cloud masses were animportant matter. The Platform could make much more precise measurementsof the solar constant than could be obtained below. The flickering radarwas gathering information for studies of the frequency and size ofmeteoric particles outside the atmosphere. There was the extremelyimportant project for securing and sealing in really good vacua invarious electronic devices brought up by Joe and his crew in the supplyship. 

But sometimes Joe managed to talk to Sally. 

It was very satisfying to see her on the television screen in personalconversation. Their talk couldn't be exactly private, because it couldbe picked up elsewhere. It probably was. But she told Joe how she felt, and she wanted to read him the newspaper stories based on the reportsBrent had sent down. Brent was in command of the Platform now thatSanford lay in a resolute coma in his bunk. But Joe discouraged suchwaste of time. 

"How's the food?" asked Sally. "Are you people getting any freshvegetables from the hydroponic garden?"

They were, and Joe told her so. The huge chamber in which sun-lampsglowed for a measured number of hours in each twenty-four producedincredibly luxuriant vegetation. It kept the air of the ship breathable. It even changed the smell of it from time to time, so that there was nofeeling of staleness. 

"And the cooking system's really good?" she wanted to know. Sally waspartly responsible for that, too. "And how about the bunks?"

"I sleep now, " Joe admitted. 

That had been difficult. It was possible to get used to weightlessnesswhile awake. One would slip, sometimes, and find himself suddenly tenseand panicky because he'd abruptly noticed all over again that he wasfalling. But--and yet again Sally was partly responsible--the bunks weredesigned to help in that difficulty. Each bunk had an inflatable topblanket. One crawled in and settled down, and turned the petcock thatinflated the cover. Then it held one quite gently but reassuringly inplace. It was possible to stir and to turn over, but the feeling ofbeing held fast was very comforting. With a little care about what onethought of before going to sleep, one could get a refreshing eighthours' rest. The bunks were luxury. 

Sally said: "The date and time's a secret, of course, because it mightbe overheard, but there'll be another ship up before too long. It'sbringing landing rockets for you to come back with. "

"That's good!" said Joe. It would feel good to set foot on solid groundagain. He looked at Sally and said eagerly, "We've got a date theevening I get back?"

"We've got a date, " she said, nodding. 

But it couldn't very well be a definite date. There were people withideas that ran counter to plans for Joe to get back to Earth and a datewith Sally Holt. The Space Platform was not admired uniformly by all thenations of Earth. The United States had built it because the UnitedNations couldn't, and one of the attractions of the idea had been thatonce it got out to space and was armed, peace must reign upon Earthbecause it could smack down anybody who made war. 

The trouble was that it wasn't armed well enough. Six guided missilescouldn't defend it indefinitely. It looked as helpless as isolatedBerlin did before the first airlift proved what men and planes could doin the way of transport. And the Platform's enemies didn't intend for itto be saved by a rocketlift. They would try to smash it before such alift could get started. 

A week after Joe got to it with the guided missiles, three rocketsattacked. They went up from somewhere in the middle of the Pacific. Oneblew up 250 miles below the Platform. Another detonated 190 miles away. For safety's sake the third was crashed--at the cost of one guidedmissile--when it had come within 50 miles. 

The screen of tin cans worked, but it wasn't thick enough. The occupantsof the Platform went about hunting for sheet metal that could be spared. They pulled out minor partitions here and there, and went out on thesurface and threw away thousands of small glittering scraps of metal inall directions. 

Two weeks later, there was another attack. It could be calculated thatJoe couldn't have carried up more than six guided missiles. There mightbe as few as two of them left. So eight rockets came up together--andthe first of them went off 400 miles from the Platform. Only one got asclose as 200 miles. No guided missiles were expended in defense. 

The Platform's enemies tried once more. This time the rockets arched upabove the Platform's orbit and dived on the satellite from above. Therewere two of them. They went off at 180 and 270 miles from the Platform. Joe's trash screen would not work on Earth, but in space it was anadequate defense against anything equipped with proximity fuses. Itcould be assumed that in a full-scale space-war nuts, bolts, rusty nailsand beer bottle caps would become essential military equipment. 

Three days after this last attack, a second supply ship took off fromEarth. Lieutenant Commander Brown was a passenger. Its start was justlike the one Joe's ship had made. Pushpots lifted it, jatos hurled iton, and then the furious, flaming take-off rockets drove it valiantlyout toward the stars. 

Joe's ship had been moved out of the landing lock and was moored againstthe Platform's hull. The second ship made contact in two hours andseventeen minutes from take-off. It arrived with its own landing rocketsintact, and it brought a set of forty-foot metal tubes for Joe's ship toget back to Earth with. But those landing rockets and LieutenantCommander Brown constituted all its payload. It couldn't bring upanything else. 

And Lieutenant Commander Brown called a very formal meeting in the hugeliving space at the Platform's center. He stood up grandly in fulluniform--and had to hook his feet around a chair leg to keep fromfloating absurdly in mid-air. This detracted slightly from the dignityof his stance, but not from the official voice with which he read twodocuments aloud. 

The first paper detached Lieutenant Commander Brown from his regularnaval duties and assigned him pro tem to service with the SpaceExploration Project. The second was an order directing him to takecommand and assume direction of the Space Platform. 

Having read his orders, he cleared his throat and said cordially, "I amhonored to serve here with you. Frankly, I expect to learn much from youand to have very few orders to give. I expect merely to exercise suchauthority as experience at sea has taught me is necessary for a tightand happy ship. I trust this will be one. "

He beamed. Nobody was impressed. It was perfectly obvious that he'dsimply been sent up to acquire experience in space for later naval use, and that he'd been placed in command because it was unthinkable that heserve under anyone without official rank and authority. And he quitehonestly believed that his coming, with experience in command, was ablessing to the Platform. In fact, there was no danger that thiscommander of the Platform would crack up under stress as Sanford had. 

But it was too bad that he hadn't brought some long-range guidedmissiles with him. 

Joe's ship had brought up twenty tons of cargo and twenty tons oflanding rockets. The second ship brought up twenty tons of landingrockets for Joe, and twenty tons of landing rockets for itself. That wasall. The second trip out to the Space Platform was a rescue mission andnothing else. Arithmetic wouldn't let it be anything else. And therecouldn't be any idea of noble self-sacrifice and staying out at thePlatform, either, because only four ships like Joe's had been begun, andonly two were even near completion. Joe's had taken off the instant itwas finished. The second had done the same. The second pair ofspaceships wouldn't be ready for two months or more. The ships thatcould be used had to be used. 

So, only thirty-six hours after the arrival of the second rocketship atthe Platform, the two of them took off together to return to Earth. Joe's ship left the airlock first. Sanford was loaded in the cabin ofthe other ship as cargo. Lieutenant Commander Brown stayed out at thePlatform to replace him. 

Obviously, in order to get back to Earth they headed away from it infleet formation. They pointed their rounded noses toward the Milky Way. 

The upward course was an application of the principle that made thescreen of tin cans and oddments remain about the Platform. Each ofthose small objects had had the Platform's own velocity and orbit. Thrown away from it, the centers of their orbits changed. In theory, the center of the Platform's orbit was the center of Earth. But thecenters of the orbits of the thrown-away objects were pushed a fewmiles--twenty--fifty--a hundred--away from the center of Earth. 

The returning space ships also had the orbit and speed of the Platform. They wanted to shift the centers of their orbits by very nearly 4, 000miles, so that at one point they would just barely graze Earth'satmosphere, lose some speed to it, and then bounce out to empty spaceagain before they melted. Cooled off, they'd make another grazingbounce. After eight such bounces they'd stay in the air, and the stubbyfins would give them a sort of gliding angle and controllability, whilethe landing rockets would let them down to solid ground. Or so it washoped. 

Meanwhile they headed out instead of in toward Earth. They went out ontheir steering-rockets only, using the liquid fuel that had not beenneeded for course correction on the way out. At 4, 000 miles up, theforce of gravity is just one-fourth of that at the Earth's surface. Itstill exists; it is merely canceled out in an orbit. The ships couldmove outward at less cost in fuel than they could move in. 

So they went out and out on parallel courses, and the Platform dwindledbehind them. Night flowed below until the hull of the artificialsatellite shone brightly against a background of seeming sheernothingness. 

The twilight zone of Earth's shadow reached the Platform. It glowedredly, glowed crimson, glowed the deepest possible color that could beseen, and winked out. The ships climbed on, using their tiny steeringrockets. 

Nothing happened. The ships drew away from each other for safety. Theywere 50, then 60 miles apart. One glowed red and vanished in the shadowof the Earth. The other was extinguished in the same way. Then they wenthurtling through the blackness of the night side of Earth. Microwavesfrom the ground played upon them--radar used by friend and foealike--and the friendly radar guided tight-beam communicator waves tothem with comforting assurance that their joint course and height andspeed were exactly the calculated optimum. But they could not be seen atall. 

When they appeared again they were still farther out from Earth than thePlatform's orbit, but no farther from each other. And they weredescending. The centers of their orbits had been displaced very, veryfar indeed. 

Going out, naturally, the ships had lost angular speed as they gainedin height. Descending, they gained in angular velocity as they lostheight. They were not quite 30 miles apart as they sped with increasing, headlong speed and rushed toward the edge of the world's disk. When theywere only 2, 000 miles high, the Earth's surface under them moved muchfaster than it had on the way up. When they were only 1, 000 miles high, the seas and continents seemed to flow past like a rushing river. At 500miles, mountains and plains were just distinguishable as they raced pastunderneath. At 200 miles there was merely a churning, hurtling surfaceon which one could not focus one's eyes because of the speed of itsmovement. 

They missed the solid surface of Earth by barely 40 miles. They weremoving at a completely impossible speed. The energy of their position4, 000 miles high had been transformed into kinetic energy of motion. Andat 40 miles there is something very close to a vacuum, compared tosea-level. But compared to true emptiness, and at the speed of meteors, the thin air had a violent effect. 

A thin humming sound began. It grew louder. The substance of the shipwas responding to the impact of the thin air upon it. The sound rose toa roar, to a bellow, to a thunderous tumult. The ship quivered andtrembled. It shook. A violent vibration set up and grew more and moresavage. The whole ship shook with a dreadful persistence, each vibrationmore monstrous, more straining, more ominous than before. 

The four in the space ship cabin knew torture. Weight returned to them, weight more violent than the six gravities they had known for a barefourteen seconds at take-off. But that, at least, had been smoothlyapplied. This was deceleration at a higher figure yet, and accompaniedby the shaking of bodies which weighed seven times as much as everbefore--and bodies, too, which for weeks past had been subject to noweight at all. 

They endured. Nothing at all could be done. At so many miles per secondno possible human action could be determined upon and attempted in timeto have any effect upon the course of the ship. Joe could see out aquartzite port. The ground 40 miles below was merely a blur. There wasa black sky overhead, which did not seem to stir. But cloud-massesrushed at express-train speed below him, and his body weighed more thanhalf a ton, and the ship made the sound of innumerable thunders andshook, and shook and shook. .. . 

And then, when it seemed that it must fly utterly to pieces, the thunderdiminished gradually to a bellow, and the bellow to a roar, and theroaring. .. . And the unthinkable weight oppressing him grew less. 

The Earth was farther away and moving farther still. They were 100 mileshigh. They were 200 miles high. .. . 

There was no longer any sound at all, except their gaspings for breath. Their muscles had refused to lift their chests at all during the mostbrutal of the deceleration period. 

Presently Joe croaked a question. He looked at the hull-temperatureindicators. They were very, very high. He found that he was bruisedwhere he had strapped himself in. The places where each strap had heldhis heavy body against the ship's vibrations were deeply black-and-blue. 

The Chief said thickly: "Joe, somehow I don't think this is going towork. When do we hit again?"

"Three hours plus or minus something, " said Joe, dry-throated. "We'llhear from the ground. "

Mike said in a cracked voice: "Radar reports we went a little bit toolow. They think we weren't tilted up far enough. We didn't bounce assoon as we should. "

Joe unstrapped himself. 

"How about the other ship?"

"It did better than we did, " said Mike. "It's a good 200 miles ahead. Down at the Shed, they're recalculating for us. We'll have to land withsix grazes instead of eight. We lost too much speed. "

Joe went staggering, again weightless, to look out a port for the othership. He should have known better. One does not spot an eighty-footspace ship with the naked eye when it is 200 miles away. 

But he saw something, though for seconds he didn't know what it was. 

Now the little ship was 300 miles high and still rising. Joe was dazedand battered by the vibration of the ship in the graze just past. Thesister space ship hadn't lost speed so fast. It would be travelingfaster. It would be leaving him farther behind every second. It wasrising more sharply. It would rise higher. 

Joe stared numbly out of a port, thinking confusedly that his hull wouldbe dull red on its outer surface, though the heating had been so fastthat the inner surfaces of the plating might still be cold. He saw thevast area which was the curve of the edge of the world. He saw thesunlight upon clouds below and glimpses of the surface of the Earthitself. 

And he saw something rising out of the mists at the far horizon. It wasa thread of white vapor. The other rocketship was a speck, a mote, invisible because of its size and distance. This thread of vapor wasalready 100 miles long, and it expanded to a column of whiteness half amile across before it seemed to dissipate. It rose and rose, as iffollowing something which sped upward. It was a rocket trail. Theviolence of its writhings proved the fury with which the rocket climbed. 

It was on its way to meet the other space ship. 

It did. Joe saw the thread of vapor extend and grow until it was higherthan he was. He never saw the other ship, which was too small. But hesaw the burst of flame, bright as the sun itself, which was theexplosion of a proximity fuse bomb. He knew, then, that nothing butincandescent, radioactive gas remained of the other ship and its crew. 

Then he saw the trail of the second rocket. It was rising to meet him. 

5

The four of them watched through the ports as the thread of vapor spedupward. They hated the rocket and the people who had built it. Joe saidbetween his teeth, "We could spend our landing-rockets and make itchase us, but it'll have fuel for that!"

The Chief muttered in Mohawk. The words sounded as if they ought to haveblue fire at their edges and smell of sulphur. Mike the midget saidcrackling things in his small voice. Haney stared, his eyes burning. 

Their ship was a little over 400 miles up, now. The rocket was 100 orbetter. The rendezvous would be probably 200 miles ahead andcorrespondingly higher. The rocket was accelerating furiously. It hadfarther to travel, but its rate of climb was already enormous and itincreased every second. 

The ship could swing to right or left on steering rockets, but the warrocket could swerve also. It was controlled from the ground. It did notneed to crash the small ship from space. Within a limited number ofmiles the blast of its atomic warhead would vaporize any substance thatcould exist. And of course the ship could not turn back. Even theexpenditure of all its landing-rockets could not bring twenty tons ofship to a halt. They could speed it up, so it would pass the calculatedmeeting place ahead of the war rocket. But the bomb would simply followin a stern chase. In any case, the ship could not stop. 

But neither could the rocket. 

Joe never knew how he saw the significance of that fact. On land or sea, of course, an automobile or a ship moves in the direction in which it ispointed. Even an airplane needs to make only minor corrections for aircurrents which affect it. But an object in space moves on a course whichis the sum of all its previous speeds and courses. Joe's ship was movingeastward above the Earth at so many miles per second. If he drovenorth--at a right angle to his present course--the ship would not ceaseto move to the east. It would simply move northward in addition tomoving east. If the rocket from Earth turned north or east it wouldcontinue to move up and merely add the other motion to its verticalrise. 

Joe stared at the uncoiling thread of vapor which was the murderrocket's trail. He hated it so fiercely that he wanted to escape iteven at the cost of destruction, merely to foil its makers. At onemoment, he was hardly aware of anything but his own fury and the franticdesire to frustrate the rocket at any cost. The next instant, somehow, he was not angry at all. Because somehow his brain had dredged up thefact that the war rocket could no more turn back than he could--and hesaw its meaning. 

"Mike!" he snapped sharply. "Get set! Report what we do! Everybody setfor acceleration! Steering rockets ready, Chief! Get set to help, Haney!I don't know whether we'll get out of this alive, but we'd better getinto our space suits. "

Then he literally dived back to his acceleration chair and strapped inin feverish haste. The ship was then a quarter of the way to the meetingplace and the rocket had very much farther to go. But it was risingfaster. 

The ship's gyros whined and squealed as Joe jammed on their controls. The little ship spun in emptiness. Its bow turned and pointed down. Thesteering rockets made their roarings. 

Joe found himself panting. "The--rocket's rising faster--than we are. It's been gaining--altitude maybe--two minutes. It's lighter thanwhen--it started but--it can't stop--less than a minute, anyhow so weduck under it----"

He did not make computations. There was no time. The war rocket mighthave started at four or five gravities acceleration, but it would speedup as its fuel burned. It might be accelerating at fifteen gravitiesnow, and have an attained velocity of four miles a second and stillincreasing. If the little ship ducked under it, it could not kill thatrate-of-climb in time to follow in a stern chase. 

"Haney!" panted Joe. "Watch out the port! Are we going to make it?"

Haney crawled forward. Joe had forgotten the radar because he'd seen therocket with his own eyes. It seemed to need eyes to watch it. Mike spokecurtly into the microphone broadcasting to ground. He was reporting eachaction and order as it took place and was given. There was no time toexplain anything. But Mike thought of the radar. He watched it. 

It showed the vast curve of Earth's surface, 400 miles down. It showed amoving pip, much too much nearer, which was the war rocket. Mike made adot on the screen with a grease pencil where the pip showed. It moved. He made another dot. The pip continued to move. He made other dots. 

They formed a curving line--curved because the rocket wasaccelerating--which moved inexorably toward the center of the radarscreen. The curve would cut the screen's exact center. That meantcollision. 

"Too close, Joe!" said Mike shrilly. "We may miss it, but not enough!"

"Then hold fast, " yelled Joe. "Landing rockets firing, three--two--one!"

The bellowing of the landing-rockets smote their ears. Weight seizedupon them, three gravities of acceleration toward the rushing flood ofclouds and solidity which was the Earth. The ship plunged downward withall its power. It was intolerable--and ten times worse because they hadbeen weightless so long and were still shaken and sore and bruised fromthe air-graze only minutes back. 

Mike took acceleration better than the others, but his voice was thinwhen he gasped, "Looks--like this does it, Joe!" Seconds later he gaspedagain, "Right! The rocket's above us and still going away!"

The gyros squealed again. The ship plunged into vapor which was thetrail of the enemy rocket. For an instant the flowing confusion whichwas Earth was blotted out. Then it was visible again. The ship wasplunging downward, but its sidewise speed was undiminished and muchgreater than its rate of fall. 

"Mike, " panted Joe. "Get the news out. What we did--and why. I'm--goingto turn the ship's head back on our--course. We can't slow enoughbut--I'd rather crash on Earth than let them blast us----"

The ship turned again. It pointed back in the direction from which ithad come. With the brutal sternward pressure produced by thelanding-rockets, it felt as if it were speeding madly back where it hadcome from. It was the sensation they'd felt when the ship took off fromEarth, so long before. But then the cloud masses and the earth beneathhad flowed toward the ship and under it. Now they flowed away. Theappearance was that of an unthinkably swift wake left behind by a shipat sea. The Earth's surface fled away and fled away from them. 

"Crazy, this!" Joe muttered thickly. "If the ship were lighter--or wehad more power--we could land! I'm sorry, but I'd rather----"

Haney turned his head from where he clung near the bow-ports. Hisfeatures changed slowly as he talked because of acceleration-drivenblood engorging his lips and bloating his cheeks. After one instant heclosed his eyes fiercely. They felt as if they would pop out of hishead. He gasped, "Yes! Get down to air-resistance. A chance--not goodbut a chance--ejection seats--with space suits--might make it. .. . "

He began to let himself back toward his acceleration chair. He could notpossibly have climbed forward. It was a horrible task to let himselfdown, with triple his normal weight pulling at him and after the beatingtaken a little while ago. 

Sweat stood out on his skin as he lowered himself sternward. Once hisgrip on a hand-line slipped and he had to sustain the drag of nearly sixhundred pounds by a single hand and arm. It would not be a good idea tofall at three gravities. 

The landing rockets roared and roared, and Joe tilted the bow down alittle farther, so that the streaming flood of clouds drew nearer. 

Haney got to his acceleration chair. He let himself into it and his eyesclosed. 

Mike's sharp voice barked: "What's the chance, Haney?"

Haney's mouth opened, and closed, and opened again. "Rocket flames, " hegasped, "pushed back--wind--splash on hull--may melt--lightenweight--hundred to one against----"

The odds were worse than that. The ship couldn't land because itsmomentum was too great for the landing rockets to cancel out. If it hadweighed five tons instead of twenty, landing might have been possible. Haney was saying that if the ship were to be lowered into air whilerushing irresistibly sternward despite its rockets, that the rocketflames might be splashed out by the wind. Instead of streaking astern ina lance-like shape, they might be pushed out like a rocket blast when ithits the earth in a guided missile take-off. Such a blast spreads outflat in all directions. Here the rocket flames might be spread by winduntil they played upon the hull of the ship. If they did, they mightmelt it as they melted their own steel cases in firing. Andthree-fourths or more of the hull might be torn loose from the cabin bowsection. So much was unlikely, but it was possible. 

The impossible odds were that the four could survive even if the cabinwere detached. They were decelerating at three gravities now. If part ofthe ship burned or melted or was torn away, the rocket thrust mightspeed the cabin up to almost any figure. And there is a limit to thenumber of gravities a man can take, even in an acceleration chair. 

Nevertheless, that was what Haney proposed. They were due to be killedanyhow. Joe tried it. 

He dived into atmosphere. At 60 miles altitude a thin wailing seemed todevelop without reason. At 40 miles, the ship had lost more than twomiles per second of its speed since the landing-rockets were ignited, and there was a shuddering in all its fabric--though because of the lossof speed it was not as bad as the atmosphere-graze. At 30 it began toshake and tremble. At 25 miles high there was as horrible a vibrationand as deadly a deceleration as at the air-graze. At 12 miles above thesurface of the Earth the hull temperature indicators showed the hindpart of the hull at red heat. The ship happened to be traveling backwardat several times the speed of sound, and air could not move away frombefore it. It was compressed to white heat at the entering surface, andthe metal plating went to bright red heat at that point. But the hulljust aft of the rocket mouths was hotter still. There the splashingrocket flames bathed it in intolerable incandescence. Hull plates, braces and beams glared white----

The tip of the tail caved in. The ship's empty cargo space wasinstantly filled with air at intolerable pressure and heat. 

The hull exploded outward where the rocket flames played. There was amonstrous, incredible jerking of the cabin that remained. That fractionof the ship received the full force of the rocket thrust. They coulddecelerate it at a rate of fifteen gravities or more. 

They did. 

Joe lost consciousness as instantly and as peacefully as if he had beenhit on the jaw. 

An unknown but brief time later, he found himself listening with apeculiar astonishment. The rockets had burned out. They had lasted onlyseconds after the separation of the ship into two fragments. Radars onthe ground are authority for this. Those few seconds were extremelyimportant. The cabin lost an additional half-mile per second ofvelocity, which was enough to make the difference between the cabinheating up too, and the cabin being not quite destroyed. 

The cabin remnant was heavy, of course, but it was an irregular object, some twenty feet across. It was below orbital velocity, andwind-resistance slowed it. Even so, it traveled 47 miles to the east infalling the last 10 miles to Earth. It hit a hillside and dug itself a70-foot crater in the ground. 

But there was nobody in it, then. A little over a month before, it hadseemed to Joe that ejection seats were the most useless of all possiblepieces of equipment to have in a space ship. He'd been as much mistakenas anybody could be. With an ejection seat, a jet pilot can be shot outof a plane traveling over Mach one, and live to tell about it. Thiscrumpling cabin fell fast, but Joe stuffed Mike in an ejection seat andshot him out. He and the Chief dragged Haney to a seat, and then theChief shoved Joe off--and the four of them, one by one, were flung outinto a screaming stream of air. But the ribbon-parachutes did not burst. They nearly broke the necks of their passengers, but they let them downalmost gently. 

And it was quite preposterous, but all four landed intact. Mike, beinglightest and first to be ejected, came down by himself in a fury becausehe'd been treated with special favor. The Chief and Joe landed almosttogether. After a long time, Joe staggered out of his space suit andharness and tried to help the Chief, and they held each other up as theystumbled off together in search of Haney. 

When they found him he was sleeping heavily, exhausted, in a canebrake. He hadn't even bothered to disengage his parachute harness or take offhis suit. 

6

A good deal of that landing remained confused in Joe's mind. While itwas going on he was much too busy to be absorbing impressions. When helanded, he was as completely exhausted as anybody wants to be. It wasonly during the next day that he even tried to sort out hisrecollections. 

Then he woke up suddenly, with a muffled roaring going on all about him. He blinked his eyes open and listened. Presently he realized what thenoise was, and wondered that he hadn't realized before. It was theroaring of the motors of a multi-engined plane. He knew, withoutremembering the details at the moment, that he and the other three wereon a plane bound across the Pacific for America. He was in a bunk--andhe felt extraordinarily heavy. He tried to move, and it was an enormouseffort to move his arm. He struggled to turn over, and found strapsholding his body down. 

He fumbled at them. They had readily releasable clasps, and he loosenedthem easily. After a bit he struggled to sit upright. He was horriblyheavy or horribly weak. He couldn't tell which. And each separate musclein his whole body ached. Twinges of pain accompanied every movement. Hesat up, swaying a little with the slow movements of the plane, andgradually, things came back. 

The landing in the ribbon-chute. They'd come down somewhere on the westcoast of India, not too far from the sea. He remembered crashing intothe edge of a thin jungle and finding the Chief, and the two of themsearching out Haney and stumbling to open ground. After laying out asignal for air searchers, they went off into worn-out slumber while theywaited. 

He remembered that there'd been a patrol of American destroyers in theArabian Sea, as everywhere under the orbit of the Platform. Their radarhad reported the destruction of one space ship and the frantic diving ofthe other, its division into two parts, and then the tiny objects, whichflew out from the smaller cabin section, which had descended as onlyejection-seat parachutes could possibly have done. Two destroyerssteamed onward underneath those drifting specks, to pick them up whenthey should come down. But the other nearby destroyers had otherbusiness in hand. 

The two trailing destroyers reached Goa harbor within hours of thelanding of the four from space. A helicopter found the first three ofthem within hours after that. They were twenty miles inland and thirtysouth from Goa. Mike wasn't located until the next day. He'd been shotout of the ship's cabin earlier and higher; he was lighter, and he'dfloated farther. 

But things--satisfying things--had happened in the interval. Sittingalmost dizzily on the bunk in the swiftly roaring plane while bloodbegan sluggishly to flow through his body, Joe remembered the gleeful, unofficial news passed around on the destroyers. They waited for Mike tobe brought in. But they rejoiced vengefully. 

The report was quite true, but it never reached the newspapers. Nobodywould ever admit it, but the rockets aimed at the returning space shipshad been spotted by Navy radar as they went up from the Arabian Sea. Andthe ships of the radar patrol couldn't do anything about the rockets, but they could and did converge savagely upon the places from which theyhad been launched. Planes sped out to spot and bomb. Destroyers arrived. 

Somewhere there was a navy department that could write off two modernsubmarines with rocket-launching equipment, last heard from west ofIndia. American naval men would profess bland ignorance of any suchevent, but there were acres of dead fish floating on the ocean wheredepth-bombs had hunted down and killed two shapes much too big to befish, which didn't float when they were killed and which would neverreport back how they'd destroyed two space ships. There'd be seagullsfeasting over that area, and there'd be vague tales about the happeningin the bazaars of Hadhramaut. But nobody would ever admit knowinganything for certain. 

But Joe knew. He got to his feet, wobbling a little bit in the soaringplane. He ached everywhere. His muscles protested the strain of holdinghim erect. He held fast, summoning strength. Before his little shipbroke up he'd been shaken intolerably, and his body had weighed half aton. Where his safety-belt had held him, his body was one wide bruise. There'd been that killing acceleration when the ship split in two. Theothers--except Mike--were in as bad a case or worse. Haney and the Chiefwere like men who'd been rolled down Mount Everest in a barrel. All ofthem had slept for fourteen hours straight before they even woke up forfood. Even now, Joe didn't remember boarding this plane or getting intothe bunk. He'd probably been carried in. 

Joe stood up, doggedly, until enough strength came to him to justify hissitting down again. He began to dress. It was astonishing how manyplaces about his body were sore to the touch. It was startling how heavyhis arms and legs felt, and how much of an effort even sitting erectwas. But he began to remember Mike's adventure, and managed to grinfeebly. It was the only thing worth a smile in all the things that hadhappened. 

Because Mike's landing had been quite unlike the others. Joe and theChief landed near the edge of a jungle. Haney landed in a canebrake. ButMike came floating down from the sky, swaying splendidly, into theestate of a minor godling. 

He was relatively unharmed by the shaking-up he'd had. The strength ofmuscles depends on their cross-section, but their weight depends ontheir volume. The strength of a man depends on the square of his size, but his weight on the cube. So Mike had taken the deceleration and themurderous vibration almost in his stride. He floated longer and landedmore gently than the rest. 

Joe grinned painfully at the memory of Mike's tale. He'd come on boardthe rescue destroyer in a towering, explosive rage. When hisribbon-parachute let him down out of the sky, it deposited him gently onploughed fields not far from a small and primitive Hindu village. He'dbeen seen to descend from the heavens. He was a midget--not as othermen--and he was dressed in a space suit with glittering metal harness. 

The pagan villagers greeted him with rapture. 

When the searching-party found Mike, they were just in time to prevent amassacre--by Mike. Adoring natives had seized upon him, conveyed him inhigh state to a red mud temple, seemingly tried to suffocate him withevidences of their pride and joy at his arrival, and dark-skinnedmaidens were trying hopefully to win his approval of their dancing. Butthe rescue-party found him with a club in his hand and blood in his eye, setting out furiously to change the tone of his reception. 

Joe still didn't know all the details, but he tried to concentrate onwhat he did know as he put his uniform on again. He didn't want to thinkhow little it meant, now. The silver space ship badge didn't mean athing, any more. There weren't any more space ships. The Platform wasn'ta ship, but a satellite. There'd never been but two ships. Both hadceased to exist. 

Joe walked painfully forward in the huge, roaring plane. The motors madea constant, humming thunder in his ears. It was not easy to walk. Heheld on to handholds as he moved. But he progressed past the bunk space. And there was Mike, sitting at a table and stuffing himself with goodhonest food. There was a glass port beside him, and Joe caught a glimpseof illimitable distances filled with cloud and sky and sea. 

Mike nodded. He didn't offer to help Joe walk. That wouldn't have beenpractical. He waited until Joe sank into a seat opposite. 

"Good sleep?" asked Mike. 

"I guess so, " said Joe. He added ruefully, "It hurts to nod, and I thinkit would hurt worse to shake my head. What's the matter with me, Mike? Ididn't get banged up in the landing!"

"You got banged up before you landed, " said Mike. "Worse than that, youspent better than six weeks out of gravity, where in an average day youtook less actual exercise than a guy in bed with two broken legs!"

Joe eased himself back into his chair. He felt about 600 years old. Somebody poked a head into view and withdrew it. Joe lifted his arm andregarded it. 

"Weighty! I guess you're right, Mike. "

"I know I'm right!" said Mike. "If you spent six weeks in bed you'dexpect to feel wobbly when you tried to walk. Up on the Platform youdidn't even use energy to stand up! We didn't realize it, but we wereliving like invalids! We'll get our strength back, but next time we'lltake measures. Huh! Take a trip to Mars in free fall, and by the time aguy got there his muscles'd be so flabby he couldn't stand up inhalf-gravity! Something's got to be done about that, Joe!"

Joe said sombrely, "Something's got to be done about space ships beforethat comes up again!"

Somebody appeared with a tray. There was food on it. Smoking hot food. Joe looked at it and knew that his appetite, anyhow, was back to Earthnormal. 

"Thanks!" he mumbled appreciatively, and attacked the food. 

Mike drank his coffee. Then he said, "Joe, do you know anything aboutpowder metallurgy?"

Joe shrugged. It hurt. "Powder metallurgy? Yes, I've seen it used, at myfather's plant. They've made small precision parts with it. Why?"

"D'you know if anybody ever made a weld with it?" asked Mike. 

Joe chewed. Then he said:

"I think so. Yes. At the plant they did. They had trouble getting thesurfaces properly cleaned for welding. But they managed it. Why?"

"One more question, " said Mike tensely. "How much Portland cement isused to make a cubic yard of concrete?"

"I wouldn't know, " admitted Joe. "Why? What's all this about?"

"Haney and the Chief. Those two big apes have been kidding me--as longas they could stay awake--for what happened to me when I landed. Thoseinfernal savages--" Mike seethed. "They got my clothes off and they hadme smeared all over with butter and forty-'leven necklaces around myneck and flowers in my hair! They thought I was some kind of heathengod! Hanuman, somebody told me. The Hindu monkey-god!" He raged. "Andthose two big apes think it's funny! Joe, I never knew I _knew_ all thewords for the cussings I gave those heathen before our fellas found me!And Haney and the Chief will drive me crazy if I can't slap 'em down!Powder metallurgy does the trick, from what you told me. That's okay, then. "

He stood up and stalked toward the front of the plane. Joe rousedhimself with an effort. He turned to look about him. Haney lay slumpedin a reclining chair, on the other side of the plane cabin. His eyeswere closed. The Chief lay limply in another chair. He smiled faintly atJoe, but he didn't try to talk. He was too tired. The return to normalgravity bothered him, as it did Joe. 

Joe looked out the window. In neat, geometric spacing on either side ofthe transport there were fighter jets. There was another flight aboveand farther away. Joe saw, suddenly, a peeling-off of planes from thefarther formation. They dived down through the clouds. He never knewwhat they went to look for or what they found. He went groggily back tohis bunk in a strange and embarrassing weakness. 

He woke when the plane landed. He didn't know where it might be. It was, he knew, an island. He could see the wide, sun-baked white of therunways. He could see sea-birds in clouds over at the edge. The planetrundled and lurched slowly to a stop. A service-truck came growlingup, and somebody led cables from it up into the engines. Somebodywatched dials, and waved a hand. 

There was silence. There was stillness. Joe heard voices and footsteps. Presently he heard the dull booming of surf. 

The plane seemed to wait for a very long time. Then there was a faint, faint distant whine of jets, and a plane came from the east. It wasfirst a dot and then a vague shape, and then an infinitely graceful darkobject which swooped down and landed at the other end of the strip. Itcame taxiing up alongside the transport ship and stopped. 

An officer in uniform climbed out, waved his hand, and walked over tothe transport. He climbed up the ladder and the pilot and co-pilotfollowed him. They took their places. The door closed. One by one, thejets chugged, then roared to life. 

The officer talked to the pilot and co-pilot for a moment. He came downthe aisle toward Joe. Mike the midget regarded him suspiciously. 

The plane stirred. The newly arrived officer said pleasantly, "The NavyDepartment's sent me out here, Kenmore, to be briefed on what you knowand to do a little briefing in turn. "

The transport plane turned clumsily and began to taxi down the runway. It jolted and bumped over the tarmac, then lifted, and Joe saw that theisland was nearly all airfield. There were a few small buildings anddistance-dwarfed hangars. Beyond the field proper there was a ring ofwhite surf. That was all. The rest was ocean. 

"I haven't much briefing to do, " admitted Joe. 

Then he looked at the briefcase the other man opened. It had sheets andsheets of paper in it--hundreds, it seemed. They were filled withquestions. He'd be called on to find answers for most of them, and toadmit he didn't know the answers to the rest. When he was through withthis questioning, every possible useful fact he knew would be on filefor future use. And now he wrily recognized that this was part paymentfor the efficiency and speed with which the Navy had trailed them ontheir landing, and for the use of a transport plane to take them back tothe United States. 

"I'll try to answer what I can, " he said cautiously. "But what're you tobrief me about?"

"That you're not back on Earth yet, " said the officer curtly, pullingout the first sheaf of questions. "Officially you haven't even startedback. Ostensibly you're still on the Platform. "

Joe blinked at him. 

"If your return were known, " continued the lieutenant, "the public wouldwant to make heroes of you. First space travelers, and so on. They'dwant you on television--all of you--telling about your adventures andyour return. Inevitably, what happened to your ship would leak out. Andif the public knew you'd been waylaid and shot down there'd be demandsthat the government take violent action to avenge the attack. It'd besomething like the tumult over the sinking of the _Maine_, or the_Lusitania_--or even Pearl Harbor. It's much better for your return tobe a secret for now. "

Joe said wrily: "I don't think any of us want to be ridden around tohave ticker-tape dumped on us. That part's all right. I'm sure theothers will agree. "

"Good! One more difficulty. We had two space ships. Now we have none. Our most likely enemies haven't only been building rockets, they've gota space fleet coming along. Intelligence just found out they're nearlyready for trial trips. They've been yelling to high heaven that we werebuilding a space fleet to conquer the world. We weren't. They were. Andit looks very much as if they may have beaten us. "

The lieutenant got out the dreary mass of papers, intended to call forevery conscious or unconscious observation Joe might have made in space. It was the equivalent of the interviews extracted from fliers after abombing raid, and it was necessary, but Joe was very tired. 

Wearily, he said, "Start your questions. I'll try to answer them. "

They arrived in Bootstrap some forty-six hours after the crashing oftheir ship. Joe, at least, had slept nearly thirty of those hours. Sowhile he was still wobbly on his feet and would be for days to come, his disposition was vastly improved. 

There was nobody waiting on the airfield by the town of Bootstrap, butas they landed a black car came smoothly out and stopped close by thetransport. Joe got down and climbed into it. Sally Holt was inside. Shetook both his hands and cried, and he was horribly embarrassed when theChief came blundering into the car after him. But the Chief growled, "Ifhe didn't kiss you, Sally, I'm going to kick his pants for him. "

"He--he did, " said Sally, gulping. "And I'm glad you're back, Chief. AndHaney. And Mike. "

Mike grinned as he climbed in the back too. Haney crowded in after him. They filled the rear of the car entirely. It started off swiftly acrossthe field, swerving to the roadway that led to the highway out ofBootstrap to the Shed. It sped out that long white concrete ribbon, andthe desert was abruptly all around them. Far ahead, the great roundhalf-dome of the Shed looked like a cherry-pit on the horizon. 

"It's good to be back!" said the Chief warmly. "I feel like I weigh aton, but it's good to be back! Mike's the only one who was happier outyonder. He figures he belongs there. I got a story to tell you, Sally----"

"Chief!" said Mike fiercely. "Shut up!"

"Won't, " said the Chief amiably. "Sally, this guy Mike----"

Mike went pale. "You're too big to kill, " he said bitterly, "but I'lltry it!"

The Chief grunted at him. "Quit being modest. Sally----"

Mike flung himself at the Chief, literally snarling. His small fist hitthe Chief's face--and Mike was small but he was not puny. The "crack" ofthe impact was loud in the car. Haney grabbed. There was a moment'sfrenzied struggling. Then Mike was helplessly wrapped in Haney's arms, incoherent with fury and shame. 

"Crazy fool!" grunted the Chief, feeling his jaw. "What's the matterwith you? Don't you feel good?"

He was angry, but he was more concerned. Mike was white and raging. 

"You tell that, " he panted shrilly, "and so help me----"

"What's got into you?" demanded Haney anxiously. "I'd be bragging, Iwould, if I'd got a brainstorm like you did! That guy Sanford wouldawiped us all out----"

The Chief said angrily, between unease and puzzlement:

"I never knew you to go off your nut like this before! What's got intoyou, anyway?"

Mike gulped suddenly. Haney still held him firmly, but both Haney andthe Chief were looking at him with worried eyes. And Mike saiddesperately: "You were going to tell Sally----"

The Chief snorted. 

"Huh! You fool little runt! No! I was going to tell her about youopening up that airlock when Sanford locked us out! Sure I kidded youabout what you're talking about! Sure! I'm going to do it again! Butthat's amongst us! I don't tell that outside!"

Haney made an inarticulate exclamation. He understood, and he wasrelieved. But he looked disgusted. He released Mike abruptly, rumblingto himself. He stared out the window. And Mike stood upright, an absurdsmall figure. His face worked a little. 

"Okay, " said Mike, with a little difficulty. "I was dumb. Only, Chief, you owe me a sock on the jaw when you feel like it. I'll take it. "

He swallowed. Sally was watching wide-eyed. 

"Sally, " said Mike bitterly, "I'm a bigger fool than I look. I thoughtthe Chief was going to tell you what happened when I landed. I--Ifloated down in a village over there in India, and those crazy savages'dnever seen a parachute, and they began to yell and make gestures, andfirst thing I knew they had a sort of litter and were piling me in it, and throwing flowers all over me, and there was a procession----"

Sally listened blankly. Mike told the tale of his shame with the veryquintessence of bitter resentment. When he got to his installation in ared-painted mud temple, and the reverent and forcible removal of hisclothes so he could be greased with butter, Sally's lips began totwitch. At the picture of Mike in a red loincloth, squirming furiouslywhile brown-skinned admirers zestfully sang his praises, howling hisrage while they celebrated some sort of pious festival in honor of hisarrival, Sally broke down and laughed helplessly. 

Mike stared at her, aghast. He felt that he'd hated the Chief when hethought the Chief was going to tell the tale on him as a joke. He'd toldit on himself as a penance, in the place of the blow he'd given theChief and which the Chief wouldn't return. To Mike it was still tragedy. It was still an outrage to his dignity. But Sally was laughing. Sherocked back and forth next to Joe, helpless with mirth. 

"Oh, Mike!" she gasped. "It's beautiful! They must have been saying suchlovely, respectful things, while you were calling them names and wantingto kill them! They'd have been bragging to each other about how youwere--visiting them because they'd been such good people, and--this wasthe reward of well-spent lives, and you--you----"

She leaned against Joe and shook. The car went on. The Chief chuckled. Haney grinned. Joe watched Mike as this new aspect of his disgrace gotinto his consciousness. It hadn't occurred to Mike, before, that anybodybut himself had been ridiculous. It hadn't occurred to him, until helost his temper, that Haney and the Chief would ride him mercilesslyamong themselves, but would not dream of letting anybody outside thegang do so. 

Presently Mike managed to grin a little. It was a twisty grin, and notaltogether mirthful. 

"Yeah, " he said wrily. "I see it. They were crazy too. I should've hadmore sense than to get mad. " Then his grin grew a trifle twistier. "Ididn't tell you that the thing that made me maddest was when they wantedto put earrings on me. I grabbed a club then and--uh--persuaded them Ididn't like the idea. "

Sally chortled. The picture of the small, truculent Mike in frenziedrevolt with a club against the idea of being decked with jewelry. .. . Mike turned to the two big men and shoved at them imperiously. 

"Move over!" he growled. "If you two big lummoxes had dropped in onthose crazy goofs instead of me, they'd've thought you were elephantsand set you to work hauling logs!"

He squirmed to a seat between them. He still looked ashamed, but it wasshame of a different sort. Now he looked as if he wished he hadn'tmistrusted his friends for even a moment. And he included Sally. 

"Anyhow, " he said suddenly in a different tone, "maybe it did do somegood for me to get all worked up! I got kind of frantic. I figuredsomebody'd made a fool of me, and I was going to put something over onyou. "

"Mike!" said Sally reproachfully. 

"Not like you think, Sally, " said Mike, grinning a little. "I made up mymind to beat these lummoxes at their own game. I asked Joe about mybrainstorm in the plane. He didn't know what I was driving at, but hesaid what I hoped was so. So I'm telling you--and, " he added fiercely, "if it's any good everybody gets credit for it, because all of usfour--even two big apes who try kidding--are responsible for it!"

He glared at them. Joe asked. "What is it, Mike?"

"I think, " said Mike, "I think I've got a trick to make space shipsquicker than anybody ever dreamed of. Joe says you can make a weld withpowder metallurgy. And I think we can use that trick to make one-pieceships--lighter and stronger and tighter--and fast enough to make yourhead swim! And you guys are in on it!"

The black car braked by the entrance to the Security offices outside theShed. It looked completely deserted. There was only a skeleton forcehere since the Platform had been launched three months before. There wasalmost nobody to be seen, but Mike pressed his lips pugnaciouslytogether as they got out of the car and went inside. 

The four of them, with Sally, went along the empty corridors to themajor's office. He was waiting for them. He shook hands all around. Butit was not possible for Major Holt to give an impression of cordiality. 

"I'm very glad to see all of you back, " he said curtly. "It didn't looklike you'd make it. Joe, you will be able to reach your father bylong-distance telephone as soon as you finish here. I--ah--thought itwould not be indiscreet to tell him you had landed safely, though I didask him to keep the fact to himself. "

"Thank you, sir, " said Joe. 

"You answered most of the questions you needed to answer on the plane, "added the major, grimly, "and now you may want to ask some. You knowthere is no ship for you. You know that the enemies of the Platformcopied our rocket fuel. You know they've made rockets with it. You'vemet them! And Intelligence says they're building a fleet of spaceships--not for space exploration, but simply to smash the Platform andget set for an ultimatum to the United States to backwater or bebombarded from space. "

Mike said crisply: "How long before they can do it?"

Major Holt turned uncordial eyes upon him. "It's anybody's guess. Why?"

"We've been working something out, " said Mike, firmly but in partuntruthfully. He stood sturdily before the major's desk, which he barelytopped. "The four of us have been working it out. Joe says they've donepowder metallurgy welds, back at his father's plant. Joe and Haney andthe Chief and me, we've been working out an idea. "

Major Holt waited. His hands moved nervously on his desk. Joe looked atMike. Haney and the Chief regarded him warily. The Chief cocked his headon one side. 

"It'll take a minute to get it across, " said Mike. "You have to think ofconcrete first. When you want to make a cubic yard of concrete, you takea cubic yard of gravel. Then you add some sand--just enough to fill inthe cracks between the gravel. Then you put in some cement. It goes inthe cracks between the grains of sand. A little bit of cement makes alot of concrete. See?"

Major Holt frowned. But he knew these four. "I see, but I don'tunderstand. "

"You can weld metals together with powder-metallurgy powder at less thanred heat. You can take steel filings for sand and steel turnings forgravel and powdered steel for cement--"

Joe jolted erect. He looked startledly at Haney and the Chief. AndHaney's mouth was dropping open. A great, dreamy light seemed to bebursting upon him. The Chief regarded Mike with very bright eyes. AndMike sturdily, forcefully, coldly, made a sort of speech in his smalland brittle voice. 

Things could be made of solid steel, he said sharply, without rolling ormilling or die-casting the metal, and without riveting or arc-weldingthe parts together. The trick was powder metallurgy. Very finelypowdered metal, packed tightly and heated to a relatively lowtemperature--"sintered" is the word--becomes a solid mass. Even alloyscan be made by mixing powdered metals. The process had been used onlyfor small objects, but--there was the analogy to concrete. A very littlepowder could weld much metal, in the form of turnings and smaller bits. And the result would be solid steel!

Then Mike grew impassioned. There was a wooden mockup of a space ship inthe Shed, he said. It was an absolutely accurate replica, in wood, ofthe ships that had been destroyed. But one could take castings of it, and use them for molds, and fill them with powder and filings andturnings, and heat them not even red-hot and there would be steel hullsin one piece. Solid steel hulls! Needing no riveting nor anythingelse--and one could do it fast! While the first hull was fitting out asecond could be molded----

The Chief roared: "You fool little runt!" he bellowed. "Tryin' to giveus credit for that! You got more sense than any of us! You worked thatout in your own head----"

Haney rubbed his hands together. He said softly, "I like that! I do likethat!"

Major Holt turned his eyes to Joe. "What's your opinion?"

"I think it's the sort of thing, sir, that a professional engineer wouldsay was a good idea but not practical. He'd mean it would be a lot oftrouble to get working. But I'd like to ask my father. They have donepowder welding at the plant back home, sir. "

Major Holt nodded. "Call your father. If it looks promising, I'll pullwhat wires I can. "

Joe went out, with the others. Mike was sweating. All unconsciously, hetwisted his hands one within the other. He had had many humiliationsbecause he was small, but lately he had humiliated himself by notbelieving in his friends. Now he needed desperately to do something thatwould reflect credit on them as well as himself. 

Joe made the phone call. As he closed the door of the booth, he heardthe Chief kidding Mike blandly. 

"Hey, Einstein, " said the Chief. "How about putting that brain of yoursto work on a faster-than-light drive?"

But then he began to struggle with the long distance operator. It tookminutes to get the plant, and then it took time to get to the point, because his father insisted on asking anxiously how he was and if he washurt in any way. Personal stuff. But Joe finally managed to explain thatthis call dealt with the desperate need to do something about a spacefleet. 

His father said grimly, "Yes. The situation doesn't look too good rightnow, Joe. "

"Try this on for size, sir, " said Joe. He outlined Mike's scheme. Hisfather interrupted only to ask crisp questions about the mockup of thetender, already in existence though made of wood. Then he said, "Go on, son!"

Joe finished. He heard his father speaking to someone away from thephone. Questions and answers, and then orders. His father spoke to himdirect. 

"It looks promising, Joe, " said his father. "Right here at the plantwe've got the gang that can do it if anybody can. I'm getting a planeand coming out there, fast! Get Major Holt to clear things for me. Thisis no time for red tape! If he has trouble, I'll pull some wiresmyself!"

"Then I can tell Mike it's good stuff?"

"It's not good stuff, " said his father. "There are about forty-seventhings wrong with it at first glance, but I know how to take care of oneor two, and we'll lick the rest. You tell your friend Mike I want toshake him by the hand. I hope to do it tonight!"

He hung up, and Joe went out of the phone booth. Mike looked at himwith yearning eyes. Joe lied a little, because Mike rated it. 

"My father's on the way here to help make it work, " he told Mike. Thenhe added untruthfully: "He said he thought he knew all the big men inhis line, and where've you been that he hasn't heard of you?"

He turned away as the Chief whooped with glee. He hurried back to MajorHolt as the Chief and Haney began zestfully to manhandle Mike incelebration of his genius. 

The major held up his hand as Joe entered. He was using the desk phone. Joe waited. When he hung up, Joe reported. The major seemed unsurprised. 

"Yes, I had Washington on the wire, " he said detachedly. "I talked to apersonal friend who's a three-star general. There will be action startedat the Pentagon. When you came in I was arranging with the largestproducers of powder-metallurgy products in the country to send theirbest men here by plane. They will start at once. Now I have to get intouch with some other people. "

Joe gaped at him. The major moved impatiently, waiting for Joe to leave. Joe gulped. "Excuse me, sir, but--my father didn't say it was certain. He just thinks it can be made to work. He's not sure. "

"I didn't even wait for that, something has to turn up to take care ofthis situation!" said the Major with asperity. "It has to! Thisparticular scheme may not work, but if it doesn't, something will comeout of the work on it! You should look at a twenty-five cent pieceoccasionally, Joe!"

He moved impatiently, and Joe went out. Sally was smiling in the outeroffice. There were whoopings in the corridor beyond. The Chief and Haneywere celebrating Mike's brainstorm with salutary indignity, because ifthey didn't make a joke of it he might cry with joy. 

"Things look better?"

"They do, " said Joe. "If it only works. .. . "

Then he hunted in his pocket. He found a quarter and examined itcuriously. On one side he found nothing the major could have referredto. On the other side, though, just by George Washington's chin----

He put the quarter away and took Sally's arm. 

"It'll be all right, " he said slowly. 

But there were times when it seemed in doubt. Joe's father arrived byplane at sunset of that same day, and he and three men from the KenmorePrecision Tool Company instantly closeted themselves with Mike in MajorHolt's quarters. The powder metallurgy men turned up an hour later, anda three-star general from Washington. They joined the highly technicaldiscussion. 

Joe waited around outside, feeling left out of things. He sat on theporch with Sally while the moon rose over the desert and stars shonedown. Inside, matters of high importance were being battled over withthe informality and heat with which practical men get things settled. But Joe wasn't in on it. He said annoyedly, "You'd think my father'dhave something to say to me, in all this mess! After all, I havebeen--well, I have been places! But all he said was, 'How are you, Son?Where's this Mike you talked about?'"

Sally said calmly, "I know just how you feel. You've made me feel thatway. " She looked up at the moon. "I thought about you all the time youwere gone, and I--prayed for you, Joe. And now you're back and not evenbusy! But you don't---- It would be nice for you to think about me for awhile!"

"I am thinking about you!" said Joe indignantly. 

"Now what, " said Sally interestedly, "in the world could you be thinkingabout me?"

He wanted to scowl at her. But he grinned instead. 

7

Time passed. Hours, then days. Things began to happen. Trucks appeared, loaded down with sacks of white powder. The powder was very messilymixed with water and smeared lavishly over the now waterproofed woodenmockup of a space ship. It came off again in sections of white plaster, which were numbered and set to dry in warm chambers that wereconstructed with almost magical speed. More trucks arrived, bearing suchdiverse objects as loads of steel turnings, a regenerativehelium-cooling plant from a gaswell--it could cool metal down to thepoint where it crumbled to impalpable powder at a blow--and assortedfuel tanks, dynamos, and electronic machinery. 

Ten days after Mike's first proposal of concreted steel as a materialfor space ship construction, the parts of the first casting of themockup were assembled. They were a mold for the hull of a space ship. There were more plaster sections for a second mold ready to be dried outnow, but meanwhile vehicles like concrete mixers mixed turnings andfilings and powder in vast quantities and poured the dry mass here andthere in the first completed mold. Then men began to wrap the giganticobject with iron wire. Presently that iron wire glowed slightly, and thewhole huge mold grew hotter and hotter and hotter. And after a time itwas allowed to cool. 

But that did not mean a ceasing of activity. The plaster casts had beenmade while the concreting process was worked out. The concretingprocess--including the heating--was in action while fittings were beingflown to the Shed. But other hulls were being formed by metal-concreteformation even before the first mold was taken down. 

When the plaster sections came off, there was a long, gleaming, frosty-sheened metal hull waiting for the fittings. It was a replacementof one of the two shot-down space craft, ready for fitting out some sixweeks ahead of schedule. Next day there was a second metal hull, stilltoo hot to touch. The day after that there was another. 

Then they began to be turned out at the rate of two a day, and all thevast expanse of the Shed resounded with the work on them. Drills drilledand torches burned and hammers hammered. Small diesels rumbled. Disksaws cut metal like butter by the seemingly impractical method ofspinning at 20, 000 revolutions per minute. Convoys of motor bussesrolled out from Bootstrap at change-shift time, and there were againSecurity men at every doorway, moving continually about. 

But it still didn't look too good. There is apparently no way to beatarithmetic, and a definitely grim problem still remained. Ten days afterthe beginning of the new construction program, Joe and Sally looked downfrom a gallery high up in the outward-curving wall of the Shed. Acres ofdark flooring lay beneath them. There was a spiral ramp that wound roundand round between the twin skins of the fifty-story-high dome. It ledfinally to the Communications Room at the very top of the Shed itself. 

Where Joe and Sally looked down, the floor was 300 feet below. Weldingarcs glittered. Rivet guns chattered. Trucks came in the doorways withmaterials, and there was already a gleaming row of eighty-foot hulls. There were eleven of them already uncovered, and small trucks ran up totheir sides to feed the fitting-out crews such items as air tanks andgyro assemblies and steering rocket piping and motors, and short wavecommunicators and control boards. Exit doors were being fitted. The lasttwo hulls to be uncovered were being inspected with portable x-rayoutfits, in search of flaws. And there were still other ungainly whitemolds, which were other hulls in process of formation--the metal stillpouring into the molds in powder form, or being tamped down, or beingsintered to solidity. 

Joe leaned on the gallery-railing and said unhappily, "I can't helpworrying, even though the Platform hasn't been shot at since we landed. "

That wasn't an expression of what he was thinking. He was thinking aboutmatters the enemies of the Platform would have liked to know about. Sally knew these matters too. But top secret information isn't talkedabout by the people who know it, unless they are actively at work on it. At all other times one pretends even to himself that he doesn't know it. That is the only possible way to avoid leaks. 

The top secret information was simply that it was still impossible tosupply the Platform. Ships could be made faster than had ever beendreamed of before, but so long as any ship that went up could bedestroyed on the way down, the supply of the Platform was impractical. But the ships were being built regardless, against the time when a wayto get them down again was thought of. As of the moment it hadn't beenthought of yet. 

But building the ships anyhow was unconscious genius, because nobody butAmericans could imagine anything so foolish. The enemies of the Platformand of the United States knew that full-scale production of ships bysome fantastic new method was in progress. The fact couldn't be hidden. But nobody in a country where material shortages were chronic couldimagine building ships before a way to use them was known. So thePlatform's enemies were convinced that the United States had somethingwholly new and very remarkable, and threatened their spies withunspeakable fates if they didn't find out what it was. 

They didn't find out. The rulers of the enemy nations knew, of course, that if a new--say--space-drive had been invented, they would very soonhave to change their tune. So there were no more attacks on thePlatform. It floated serenely overhead, sending down astronomicalobservations and solar-constant measurements and weather maps, whileabout it floated a screen of garbage and discarded tin cans. 

But Joe and Sally looked down where the ships were being built while theproblem of how to use them was debated. 

"It's a tough nut to crack, " said Joe dourly. 

It haunted him. Ships going up had to have crews. Crews had to come downagain because they had to leave supplies at the Platform, not consumethem there. Getting a ship up to orbit was easier than getting it downagain. 

"The Navy's been working on light guided missiles, " said Sally. 

"No good, " snapped Joe. 

It wasn't. He'd been asked for advice. Could a space ship crew controlguided missiles and fight its way back to ground with them? The answerwas that it could. But guided missiles used to fight one's way downwould have to be carried up first. And they would weigh as much as allthe cargo a ship could carry. A ship that carried fighting rocketscouldn't carry cargo. Cargo at the Platform was the thing desired. 

"All that's needed, " said Sally, watching Joe's face, "is a slight touchof genius. There's been genius before now. Burning your cabin free withlanding-rocket flames----"

"Haney's idea, " growled Joe dispiritedly. 

"And making more ships in a hurry with metal-concrete----"

"Mike did that, " said Joe ruefully. 

"But you made the garbage-screen for the Platform, " insisted Sally. 

"Sanford had made a wisecrack, " said Joe. "And it just happened that itmade sense that he hadn't noticed. " He grimaced. "You say something likethat, now. .. . "

Sally looked at him with soft eyes. It wasn't really his job, thisworrying. The top-level brains of the armed forces were struggling withit. They were trying everything from redesigned rocket motors to reallyradical notions. But there wasn't anything promising yet. 

"What's really needed, " said Sally regretfully, "is a way for ships togo up to the Platform and not have to come back. "

"Sure!" said Joe ironically. Then he said, "Let's go down!"

They started down the long, winding ramp which led between the two skinsof the Shed's wall. It was quite empty, this long, curving, descendingcorridor. It was remarkably private. In a place like the Shed, withfrantic activity going on all around, and even at Major Holt's quarterswhere Sally lived and Joe was a guest, there wasn't often a chance forthem to talk in any sort of actual privacy. 

But Joe went on, scowling. Sally went with him. If she seemed to hangback a little at first, he didn't notice. Presently she shrugged hershoulders and ceased to try to make him notice that nobody else happenedto be around. They made a complete circuit of the Shed within its wall, Joe staring ahead without words. 

Then he stopped abruptly. His expression was unbelieving. Sally almostbumped into him. 

"What's the matter?"

"You had it, Sally!" he said amazedly. "You did it! You said it!"

"What?"

"The touch of genius!" He almost babbled. "Ships that can go up to thePlatform and not have to come back! Sally, you did it! You did it!"

She regarded him helplessly. He took her by the shoulders as if to shakeher into comprehension. But he kissed her exuberantly instead. 

"Come on!" he said urgently. "I've got to tell the gang!"

He grabbed her hand and set off at a run for the bottom of the ramp. AndSally, with remarkably mingled emotions showing on her face, was draggedin his wake. 

He was still pulling her after him when he found the Chief and Haney andMike in the room at Security where they were practically self-confined, lest their return to Earth become too publicly known. Mike was stalkingup and down with his hands clasped behind his back, glum as a miniatureNapoleon and talking bitterly. The Chief was sprawled in a chair. Haneysat upright regarding his knuckles with a thoughtful air. 

Joe stepped inside the door. Mike continued without a pause: "I tellyou, if they'll only use little guys like me, the cabin and supplies andcrew can be cut down by tons! Even the instruments can be smaller andweigh less! Four of us in a smaller cabin, less grub and air andwater--we'll save tons in cabin-weight alone! Why can't you big lummoxessee it?"

"We see it, Mike, " Haney said mildly. "You're right. But people won't doit. It's not fair, but they won't. "

Joe said, beaming, "Besides, Mike, it'd bust up our gang! And Sally'sjust gotten the real answer! The answer is for ships to go up to thePlatform and not come back!"

He grinned at them. The Chief raised his eyebrows. Haney turned his headto stare. Joe said exuberantly: "They've been talking about arming shipswith guided missiles to fight with. Too heavy, of course. But--if wecould handle guided missiles, why couldn't we handle drones?"

The three of them gaped at him. Sally said, startled, "But--but, Joe, Ididn't----"

"We've got plenty of hulls!" said Joe. Somehow he still lookedastonished at what he'd made of Sally's perfectly obvious comment. "Mike's arranged for that! Make--say--six of 'em into drones--spacebarges. Remote-controlled ships. Control them from one manned ship--thetug! We'll ride that! Take 'em up to the Platform exactly like a tugtows barges. The tow-line will be radio beams. We'll have a space-towup, and not bother to bring the barges back! There won't be any landingrockets! They'll carry double cargo! That's the answer! A space tughauling a tow to the Platform!"

"But, Joe, " insisted Sally, "I didn't think of----"

The Chief heaved himself up. Haney's voice cut through what the Chiefwas about to say. Haney said drily: "Sally, if Joe hadn't kissed you forthinking that up, I would. Makes me feel mighty dumb. "

Mike swallowed. Then he said loyally, "Yeah. Me too. I'd've made atwo-ton cargo possible--maybe. But this adds up. What does the majorsay?"

"I--haven't talked to him. I'd better, right away. " Joe grinned. "Iwanted to tell you first. "

The Chief grunted. "Good idea. But hold everything!" He fumbled in hispocket. "The arithmetic is easy enough, Joe. Cut out the crew and airand you save something. " He felt in another pocket. "Leave off thelanding rockets, and you save plenty more. Count in the cargo you couldtake anyhow"---- he searched another pocket still----"and you getforty-two tons of cargo per space barge, delivered at the Platform. Sixdrones--that's 252 tons in one tow! Here!" He'd found what he wanted. Itwas a handkerchief. He thrust it upon Joe. "Wipe that lipstick off, Joe, before you go talk to the major. He's Sally's father and he might notlike it. "

Joe wiped at his face. Sally, her eyes shining, took the handkerchieffrom him and finished the job. She displayed that remarkableinsensitivity of females in situations productive of both pride andembarrassment. When a girl or a woman is proud, she is neverembarrassed. 

She and Joe went away, and Sally rushed right into her father's office. In fifteen minutes technical men began to arrive for conferences, summoned by telephone. Within forty-five minutes, messengers carriedorders out to the Shed floor and stopped the installation of certaintypes of fittings in all but one of the hulls. In an hour and a half, top technical designers were doing the work of foremen and gettingthings done without benefit of blueprints. The proposal was beautifullysimple to put into practice. Guided-missile control systems were alreadyin mass production. They could simply be adjusted to take care ofdrones. 

Within twelve hours there were truck-loads of new sorts of suppliesarriving at the Shed. Some were Air Force supplies and some wereOrdnance, and some were strictly Quartermaster. These were not componentparts of space ships. They were freight for the Platform. 

And, just forty-eight hours after Joe and Sally looked dispiritedly downupon the floor of the Shed, there were seven gleaming hulls in launchingcages and the unholy din of landing pushpots outside the Shed. They camewith hysterical cries from their airfield to the south, and they floppedflat with extravagant crashings on the desert outside the eastern door. 

By the time the pushpots had been hauled in, one by one, and hadattached themselves to the launching cages, Joe and Haney and the Chiefand Mike had climbed into the cabin of the one ship which was not adrone. There were now seven cages in all to be hoisted toward the sky. Agreat double triangular gore had been jacked out and rolled aside tomake an exit in the side of the Shed. Nearly as many pushpots, itseemed, were involved in this launching as in the take-off of thePlatform itself. 

The routine test before take-off set the pushpot motors to roaringinside the Shed. The noise was the most sustained and ghastly tumultthat had been heard on Earth since the departure of the Platform. 

But this launching was not so impressive. It was definitely untidy, imprecise, and unmilitary. There were seven eighty-foot hulls in cagessurrounded by clustering, bellowing, preposterous groups of howlingobjects that looked like over-sized black beetles. One of the sevenhulls had eyes. The others were blind--but they were equipped with radioantennae. The ship with eyes had several small basket-type radar bowlsprojecting from its cabin plating. 

The seven objects rose one by one and went bellowing and blundering outto the open air. At 40 and 50 feet above the ground, they jockeyed intosome sort of formation, with much wallowing and pitching and clumsymaneuvering. 

Then, without preliminary, they started up. They rose swiftly. The noiseof their going diminished from a bellow to a howl, and from a howl to amoaning noise, and then to a faint, faint, ever-dwindling hum. 

Presently that faded out, too. 

8

All the sensations were familiar, the small fleet of improbable objectsrose and rose. Of all flying objects ever imagined by man, the launchingcages supported by pushpots were most irrational. 

The squadron, though, went bumbling upward. In the manned ship, Joe wasmore tense than on his other take-off--if such a thing was possible. Hiswork was harder this trip. Before, he'd had Mike at communications andthe Chief at the steering rockets while Haney kept the pushpots balancedfor thrust. Now Joe flew the manned ship alone. Headphones and a mikegave him communications with the Shed direct, and the pushpots werebalanced in groups, which cost efficiency but helped on control. Hewould have, moreover, to handle his own steering rockets duringacceleration and when he could--and dared--he should supervise theothers. Because each of the other three had two drone-ships to guide. True, they had only to keep their drones in formation, but Joe had tonavigate for all. The four of them had been assigned this flight becauseof its importance. They happened to be the only crew alive who had everflown a space ship designed for maneuvering, and their experienceconsisted of a single trip. 

The jet stream was higher this time than on that other journey now twomonths past. They blundered into it at 36, 000 feet. Joe's headphonesbuzzed tinnily. Radar from the ground told him his rate-of-rise, hisground speed, his orbital speed, and added comments on the handling ofthe drones. 

The last was not a precision job. On the way up Joe protested, "Somebody's ship--Number Four--is lagging! Snap it up!"

Mike said crisply, "Got it, Joe. Coming up!"

"The Shed says three separate ships are getting out of formation. And weneed due east pointing. Check it. "

The Chief muttered, "Something whacky here . .. Come round, you! Okay, Joe. "

Joe had no time for reflection. He was in charge of the clumsiestoperation ever designed for an exact result. The squadron went wallowingtoward the sky. The noise was horrible. A tinny voice in his headphones:

"_You are at 65, 000 feet. Your rate-of-climb curve is flattening. Youshould fire your jatos when practical. You have some leeway in rocketpower. _"

Joe spoke into the extraordinary maze of noise waves and pressuresystems in the air of the cabin. 

"We should blast. I'm throwing in the series circuit for jatos. Try toline up. We want the drones above us and with a spread, remember! Go toit!"

He watched his direction indicator and the small graphic indicatorstelling of the drones. The sky outside the ports was dark purple. Thelaunching cage responded sluggishly. Its open end came around toward theeast. It wobbled and wavered. It touched the due-east point. Joe stabbedthe firing-button. 

Nothing happened. He hadn't expected it. The seven ships had to keep information. They had to start off on one course--with a slight spread asa safety measure--and at one time. So the firing-circuits were keyed torelays in series. Only when all seven firing-keys were down at the sametime would any of the jatos fire. Then all would blast together. 

The pilots in the cockpit-bubbles of the pushpots had an extraordinaryview of the scene. At something over twelve miles height, sevenaggregations of clumsy black things clung to frameworks of steel, pushing valorously. Far below there were clouds and there was Earth. There was a horizon, which wavered and tilted. The pushpots struggledwith seeming lack of purpose. One of the seven seemed to drop below theothers. They pointed vaguely this way and that--all of them. Butgradually they seemed to arrive at an uncertain unanimity. 

Joe pushed the firing-button again as his own ship touched the due-eastmark. Again nothing happened. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Haneypressing down both buttons. The Chief's finger lifted. Mike pushed downone button and held off the other. 

Roarings and howlings of pushpots. Wobblings and heart-breakingclumsinesses of the drone-ships. They hung in the sky while the pushpotsused up their fuel. 

"We've got to make it soon, " said Joe grimly. "We've got forty seconds. Or we'll have to go down and try again. "

There was a clock dial with a red sweep-hand which moved steadily andominously toward a deadline time for firing. Up to that deadline, thepushpots could let the ships back down to Earth without crashing them. After it, they'd run out of fuel before a landing could be made. 

The deadline came closer and closer. Joe snapped:

"Take a degree leeway. We've got ten seconds. "

He had the manned ship nearly steady. He held down the firing-button, holding aim by infinitesimal movements of the controls. Haney pushedboth hands down, raised one, pushed again. The Chief had one fingerdown. Mike had both firing buttons depressed. .. . The Chief pushed downhis second button, quietly. 

There was a monstrous impact. Every jato in every pushpot about everylaunching cage fired at once. Joe felt himself flung back into hisacceleration chair. Six gravities. He began the horrible fight to stayalive, while the blood tried to drain from the conscious forepart of hisbrain, and while every button of his garments pressed noticeably againsthim, and objects in his pockets pushed. The sides of his mouth draggedback, and his cheeks sagged, and his tongue strove to sink back into histhroat and strangle him. 

It was very bad. It seemed to last for centuries. 

Then the jatos burned out. There was that ghastly feeling of lungingforward to weightlessness. One instant, Joe's body weighed half a ton. The next instant, it weighed less than a dust grain. His head throbbedtwice as if his skull were about to split open and let his brains runout. But these things he had experienced before. 

There were pantings in the cabin about him. The ship fell. It happenedto be going up, but the sensation and the fact was free fall. Joe hadbeen through this before, too. He gasped for breath and croaked, "Drones?"

"Right, " said Haney. 

Mike panted anxiously, "Four's off course. I'll fix it. "

The Chief grunted guttural Mohawk. His hands stirred on the panel forremote control of the drones he had to handle. 

"Crazy!" he growled. "Got it now, Joe. Fire when ready. "

"Okay, Mike?"

A half-second pause. 

"Okay!"

Joe pressed the firing-button for the take-off rockets. And he wasslammed back into his acceleration chair again. But this was threegravities only. Pressed heavily against the acceleration cushions, hecould perform the navigation for the fleet. He did. The mother-ship hadto steer a true course, regardless of the vagaries of its rockets. Thedrones had simply to be kept in formation with it. The second task wassimpler. But Joe was relieved, this time, of the need to report backinstrument-readings. A telemetering device took care of that. 

The take-off rockets blasted and blasted and blasted. The mere matter ofstaying alive grew very tedious. The ordeal seemed to last forcenturies. Actually it could be measured only in minutes. But it seemedmillennia before the headphones said, staccato fashion: "_You are oncourse and will reach speed in fourteen seconds. I will count for you. _"

"Relays for rocket release, " panted Joe. "Throw 'em over!"

Three hands moved to obey. Joe could release the drive rockets on allseven ships at will. 

The voice counted:

"_Ten . .. Nine . .. Eight . .. Seven . .. Six . .. Five . .. Four . .. Three. .. Two . .. One . .. Cut!_"

Joe pressed the master-key. The remnants of the solid-fuel take-offrockets let go. They flashed off into nothingness at unbelievable speed, consuming themselves as they went. 

There was again no weight. 

This time there was no resting. No eager gazing out the cabin ports. Nowthey weren't curious. They'd had over a month in space, and somethinglike sixteen days back on Earth, and now they were back in space again. 

Mike and Haney and the Chief worked doggedly at their control boards. The radar bowls outside the cabin shifted and moved and quivered. Thesix drone ships showed on the screens. But they also had telemeteringapparatus. They faithfully reported their condition and the direction inwhich their bows pointed. The radars plotted their position withrelation to each other and the mother-ship. 

Presently Joe cast a glance out of a port and saw that the dark line ofsunset was almost below. The take-off had been timed to get the shipsinto Earth's shadow above the area from which war rockets were mostlikely to rise. It wouldn't prevent bombing, of course. But there was agadget. .. . 

Joe spoke into the microphone: "Reporting everything all right so far. But you know it. "

The voice from solid ground said, "_Report acknowledged. _"

The ships went on and on and on. The Chief muttered to himself and madevery minute adjustments of the movement of one of his drones. Mikefussed with his. Haney regarded the controls of his drones with aprofound calm. 

Nothing happened, except that they seemed to be falling into abottomless pit and their stomach-muscles knotted and cramped in purelyreflex response to the sensation. Even that grew tedious. 

The headphones said, "_You will enter Earth's shadow in three minutes. Prepare for combat. _"

Joe said drily, "We're to prepare for combat. "

The Chief growled. "I'd like to do just that!"

The phrasing, of course, was intentional--in case enemy ears werelistening. Actually, the small fleet was to use a variant on the tin canshield which protected the Platform. It would be most effective ifvisual observation was impossible. The fleet was seven ships in veryragged formation. Most improbably, after the long three-gravityacceleration, they were still within a fifty-mile globe of space. NumberFour loitered behind, but was being brought up by judicious bursts ofsteering-rocket fire. Number Two was some distance ahead. The otherswere simply scattered. They went floating on like a group of meteors. Out the ports, two of them were visible. The others might be picked outby the naked eye--but it wasn't likely. 

Drone Two, far ahead and clearly visible, turned from a shining steelspeck to a reddish pin-point of light. The red color deepened. It winkedout. The sunlight in the ports of the mother-ship turned red. Then itblacked out. 

"Shoot the ghosts, " said Joe. 

The three drone-handlers pushed their buttons. Nothing happened thatanybody could see. Actually, though, a small gadget outside the hullbegan to cough rhythmically. Similar devices on the drones coughed, too. They were small, multiple-barreled guns. Rifle shells fired two-poundmissiles at random targets in emptiness. They wouldn't damage anythingthey hit. They'd go varying distances, explode and shoot small lead shotahead to check their missile-velocity, and then emit dense masses ofaluminum foil. There was no air resistance. The shredded foil wouldcontinue to move through emptiness at the same rate as the convoy-fleet. The seven ships had fired a total of eighty-four such objects away intothe blackness of Earth's shadow. There were, then, seven ships andeighty-four masses of aluminum foil moving through emptiness. Theycould not be seen by telescopes. 

And radars could not tell ships from masses of aluminum foil. 

If enemy radars came probing upward, they reported ninety-one spaceships in ragged but coherent formation, soaring through emptiness towardthe Platform. And a fleet like that was too strong to attack. 

The radar operators had been prepared to forward details of the speedand course of a single ship to waiting rocket-launching submarineshalf-way across the Pacific. But they reported to Very High Authorityinstead. 

He received the report of an armada--an incredible fleet--in space. Hedidn't believe it. But he didn't dare disbelieve it. 

So the fleet swam peacefully through the darkness that was Earth'sshadow, and no attempt at attack was made. They came out into sunlightto look down at the western shore of America itself. With seven ships toget on an exact course, at an exact speed, at an exact moment, time wasneeded. So the fleet made almost a complete circuit of the Earth beforereaching the height of the Platform's orbit. 

They joined it. A single man in a space suit, anchored to its outerplates, directed a plastic hose which stretched out impossibly far andclamped to one drone with a magnetic grapple. He maneuvered it to thehull and made it fast. He captured a second, which was worked delicatelywithin reach by coy puffs of steering-rocket vapor. 

One by one, the drones were made fast. Then the manned ship went in thelock and the great outer door closed, and the plastic-fabric wallscollapsed behind their nets, and air came in. 

Lieutenant Commander Brown was the one to come into the lock to greetthem. He shook hands all around--and it again seemed strange to all thefour from Earth to find themselves with their feet more or less firmlyplanted on a solid floor, but their bodies wavering erratically to rightand left and before and back, because there was no up or down. 

"Just had reports from Earth, " Brown told Joe comfortably. "The news ofyour take-off was released to avoid panic in Europe. But everybody whodoesn't like us is yelling blue murder. Somebody--you may guess who--isannouncing that a fleet of ninety-one war rockets took off from theUnited States and now hangs poised in space while the decadent Americanwar-mongers prepare an ultimatum to all the world. Everybody'sfrightened. "

"If they'll only stay scared until we get unloaded, " said Joe in somesatisfaction, "the government back home can tell them how many we wereand what we came up for. But we'll probably make out all right, anyhow. "

"My crew will unload, " said Brown, in conscious thoughtfulness. "Youmust have gotten pretty well exhausted by that acceleration. "

Joe shook his head. "I think we can handle the freight faster. We foundout a few things by going back to Earth. "

A section of plating at the top of the lock--at least it had been thetop when the Platform was built on Earth--opened up as on the firstjourney here. A face grinned down. But from this point on, the procedurewas changed. Haney and Joe went into the cargo-section of the rocketshipand heaved its contents smoothly through weightlessness to the storagechamber above. The Chief and Mike stowed it there. The speed andprecision of their work was out of all reason. Brown staredincredulously. 

The fact was simply that on their first trip to the Platform, Joe andhis crew didn't know how to use their strength where there was noweight. By the time they'd learned, their muscles had lost all tone. Nowthey were fresh from Earth, with Earth-strength muscles--and they knewhow to use them. 

"When we got back, " Joe told Brown, "we were practically invalids. Noexercise up here. This time we've brought some harness to wear. We'vesome for you, too. "

They moved out of the airlock, and the ship was maneuvered to a mooringoutside, and a drone took its place. Brown's eyes blinked at theunloading of the drone. But he said, "Navy style work, that!"

"Out here, " said Joe, "you take no more exercise than an invalid onEarth--in fact, not as much. By now the original crew would have troublestanding up on a trip back to Earth. You'd feel pretty heavy, yourself. "

Brown frowned. 

"Hm. I--ah--I shall ask for instructions on the matter. "

He stood erect. He didn't waver on his feet as the others did. But hewore the same magnetic-soled shoes. Joe knew, with private amusement, that Brown must have worked hard to get a dignified stance inweightlessness. 

"Mr. Kenmore, " said Brown suddenly. "Have you been assigned a definiterank as yet?"

"Not that I know of, " said Joe without interest. "I skipper the ship Ijust brought up. But----"

"Your ship has no rating!" protested Brown irritably. "The skipper of aNavy ship may be anything from a lieutenant junior grade to a captain, depending on the size and rating of the ship. In certain circumstanceseven a noncommissioned officer. Are you an enlisted man?"

"Again, not that I know of, " Joe told him. "Nor my crew, either. "

Brown looked at once annoyed and distressed. 

"It isn't regular!" he objected. "It isn't shipshape! I should knowwhether you are under my command or not! For discipline! Fororganization! It should be cleared up! I shall put through an urgentinquiry. "

Joe looked at him incredulously. Lieutenant Commander Brown was aperfectly amiable man, but he had to have things in a certain patternfor him to recognize that they were in a pattern at all. He was moreexcited over the fact that he didn't know whether he ranked Joe, thanover the much more important matter of physical deterioration in theabsence of gravity. Yet he surely understood their relative importance. The fact was, of course, that he could confidently expect exactinstructions about the last, while he had to settle matters ofdiscipline and routine for himself. 

"I shall ask for clarification of your status, " he said worriedly. "Itshouldn't have been left unclear. I'd better attend to it at once. "

He looked at Joe as if expecting a salute. He didn't get it. He clankedaway, his magnetic shoe-soles beating out a singularly martial rhythm. He must have practised that walk, in private. 

Joe got out of the airlock as another of the space barges was warped in. Brent, the crew's psychologist, joined him when he went to unload. Brentnodded in a friendly fashion to Joe. 

"Quite a change, eh?" he said drily. "Sanford turned out to be acrackpot with his notions of grandeur. I'm not sure that Brown's notionsof discipline aren't worse. "

Joe said, "I've something rather important to pass on, " and told aboutthe newly discovered physical effects of a long stay where there was nogravity. The doctors now predicted that anybody who spent six monthswithout weight would suffer a deterioration of muscle tone which couldmake a return to Earth impossible without a long preliminary process ofretraining. One's heart would adjust to the absence of any need to pumpblood against gravity. 

"Which, " said Joe, "means that you're going to have to be relievedbefore too long. But we brought up some gravity-simulator harness thatmay help. "

Brent said desolately: "And I was so pleased! We all had trouble withinsomnia, at first, but lately we've all been sleeping well! Now I seewhy! Normally one sleeps because he's tired. We had trouble sleepinguntil our muscles got so weak we tired anyhow!"

Another drone came in and was unloaded. And another and another. But thelast of them wasn't only unloaded. Haney took over the Platform'scontrol board and--grinning to himself--sent faint, especially-tunedshort wave impulses to the steering-rockets of the drone. Theliquid-fuel rockets were designed to steer a loaded ship. With theairlock door open, the silvery ship leaped out of the dock like afrightened horse. The liquid-fuel rocket had a nearly empty hull toaccelerate. It responded skittishly. 

Joe watched out a port as it went hurtling away. The vast Earth rolledbeneath it. It sped on and vanished. Its fumes ceased to be visible. Joetold Brent:

"Another nice job, that! We sent it backward, slowing it a little. It'llhave a new orbit, independent of ours and below it. But come sixty hoursit will be directly underneath. We'll haul it up and refuel it. And ourfriends the enemy will hate it. It's a radio repeater. It'll pick upshort-wave stuff beamed to it, and repeat it down to Earth. And they cantry to jam that!"

It was a mildly malicious trick to play. Behind the Iron Curtain, broadcasts from the free world couldn't be heard because of stationsbuilt to emit pure noise and drown them out. But the jamming stationswere on the enemy nations' borders. If radio programs came down fromoverhead, jamming would be ineffective at least in the center of thenations. Populations would hear the truth, even though their governmentsobjected. 

But that was a minor matter, after all. With space ship hulls cominginto being by dozens, and with one convoy of hundreds of tons ofequipment gotten aloft, the whole picture of supply for the Platform hadchanged. 

Part of the new picture was two devices that Haney and the Chief wereassembling. They were mostly metal backbone and a series of tanks, withrocket motors mounted on ball and socket joints. They looked like hugered insects, but they were officially rocket recovery vehicles, andJoe's crew referred to them as space wagons. They had no cabin, butsomething like a saddle. Before it there was a control-board completewith radar-screens. And there were racks to which solid-fuel rockets ofdivers sizes could be attached. They were literally short-range towcraft for travel in space. They had the stripped, barren look of farmmachinery. So the name "space wagon" fitted. There were two of them. 

"We're putting the pair together, " the Chief told Joe. "Looks kindapeculiar. "

"It's only for temporary use, " said Joe. "There's a bigger and betterone being built with a regular cabin and hull. But some experience withthese two will be useful in running a regular space tug. "

The Chief said with a trace too much of casualness: "I'm kind of lookingforward to testing this. "

"No, " said Joe doggedly. "I'm responsible. I take the first chance. Butwe should all be able to handle them. When this is assembled you canstand by with the second one. If the first one works all right, we'lltry the second. "

The Chief grimaced, but he went back to the assembly of the spiderydevice. 

Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses. He showed Brent how theyworked. Brown hadn't official instructions to order their use, but Joeput one on himself, set for full Earth-gravity simulation. He couldn'timitate actual gravity, of course. Only the effect of gravity on one'smuscles. There were springs and elastic webbing pulling one's shouldersand feet together, so that it was as much effort to stand extended--withone's legs straight out--as to stand upright on Earth. Joe felt betterwith a pull on his body. 

Brent was upset when he found that to him more than a tenth of normalgravity was unbearable. But he kept it on at that. If he increased thepull a very little every day, he might be able to return to Earth, intime. Now it would be a very dangerous business indeed. He went off toput the other members of the crew in the same sort of harness. 

After ten hours, a second drone broadcaster went off into space. By thattime the articulated red frameworks were assembled. They looked morethan ever like farm machinery, save that their bulging tanks made themlook insectile, too. They were actually something between smalltow-boats and crash-wagons. A man in a space suit could climb into thesaddle of one of these creations, plug in the air-line of his suit tothe crash-wagon's tanks, and travel in space by means of the spacewagon's rockets. These weird vehicles had remarkably powerful magneticgrapples. They were equipped with steering rockets as powerful as thoseof a ship. They had banks of solid-fuel rockets of divers power andlength of burning. And they even mounted rocket missiles, small guidedrockets which could be used to destroy what could not be recovered. Theywere intended to handle unmanned rocket shipments of supplies to thePlatform. There were reasons why the trick should be economical, if itshould happen to work at all. 

When they were ready for testing, they seemed very small in the greatspace lock. Joe and the Chief very carefully checked an extremely longlist of things that had to work right or nothing would work at all. Thatpart of the job wasn't thrilling, but Joe no longer looked for thrills. He painstakingly did the things that produced results. If a sense ofadventure seemed to disappear, the sensations of achievement more thanmade up for it. 

They got into space suits. They were in an odd position on the Platform. Lieutenant Commander Brown had avoided Joe as much as possible since hisarrival. So far he'd carefully avoided giving him direct orders, becauseJoe was not certainly and officially his subordinate. Lacking exactinformation, the only thing a conscientious rank-conscious naval officercould do was exercise the maximum of tact and insistently ask authorityfor a ruling on Joe's place in the hierarchy of rank. 

Joe flung a leg over his eccentric, red-painted mount. He clipped hissafety-belt, plugged in his suit air-supply to the space wagon's tanks, and spoke into his helmet transmitter. 

"Okay to open the lock. Chief, you keep watch. If I make out all right, you can join me. If I get in serious trouble, come after me in the shipwe rode up. But only if it's practical! Not otherwise!"

The Chief said something in Mohawk. He sounded indignant. 

The plastic walls of the lock swelled inward, burying and overwhelmingthem. Pumps pounded briefly, removing what air was left. Then the wallsdrew back, straining against their netting, and Joe waited for the doorto open to empty space. 

Instead, there came a sharp voice in his helmet-phones. It was Brown. "_Radar says there's a rocket on the way up! It's over at what is theedge of the world from here. Three gravities only. Better not go out!_"

Joe hesitated. Brown still issued no order. But defense against a singlerocket would be a matter of guided missiles--Brown's business--if thetin can screen didn't handle it. Joe would have no part in it. Hewouldn't be needed. He couldn't help. And there'd be all the elaboratebusiness of checking to go through again. He said uncomfortably:

"It'll be a long time before it gets here--and three gravities is low!Maybe it's a defective job. There have been misfires and so on. It won'ttake long to try this wagon, anyhow. They're anxious to send up a robotship from the Shed and these have to be tested first. Give me tenminutes. "

He heard the Chief grumbling to himself. But one tested space wagon wasbetter than none. 

The airlock doors opened. Huge round valves swung wide. Bright, remote, swarming stars filled the opening. Joe cracked the control of hisforward liquid-fuel rockets. The lock filled instantly with swirlingfumes. And instantly the tiny space wagon moved. It did not have to liftfrom the lock floor. Once the magnetic clamps were released it was freeof the floor. But it did have mass. One brief push of the rockets sentit floating out of the lock. It was in space. It kept on. 

Joe felt a peculiar twinge of panic. Nobody who is accustomed only toEarth can quite realize at the beginning the conditions of handlingvehicles in space. But Joe cracked the braking rockets. He stopped. Hehung seemingly motionless in space. The Platform was a good half-mileaway. 

He tried the gyros, and the space wagon went into swift spinning. Hereversed them and straightened out--almost. The vastness of all creationseemed still to revolve slowly about him. The monstrous globe which wasEarth moved sedately from above his head to under his feet and continuedthe slow revolution. The Platform rotated in a clockwise direction. Hewas drifting very slowly away. 

"Chief, " he said wrily, "you can't do worse than I'm doing, and we'rerushed for time. You might come out. But listen! You don't run yourrockets! On Earth you keep a motor going because when it stops, you do. But out here you have to use your motor to stop, but not to keep ongoing. Get it? When you do come out, don't burn your rockets more thanhalf a second at a time. "

The Chief's voice came booming:

"_Right, Joe! Here I come!_"

There was a billowing of frantically writhing fumes, which darted madlyin every direction until they ceased to be. The Chief in his insect-likecontraption came bolting out of the hole which was the airlock. He was agood half-mile away. The rocket fumes ceased. He kept on going. Joeheard him swear. The Chief felt the utterly helpless sensation of a manin a car when his brakes don't work. But a moment later the brakingrockets did flare briefly, yet still too long. The Chief was not onlystopped, but drifting backwards toward the Platform. He evidently triedto turn, and he spun as dizzily as Joe had done. But after a moment hestopped--almost. There were, then, two red-painted things in space, somewhat like giant water-spiders floating forlornly in emptiness. Theyseemed very remote from the great bright steel Platform and thatgigantic ball which was Earth, turning very slowly and filling a goodfourth of all that could be seen. 

"Suppose you head toward me, Chief, " said Joe absorbedly. "Aim to pass, and remember that what you have to estimate is not where I am, but whereyou have to put on the brakes to stop close by. That's where you useyour braking-rockets. "

The Chief tried it. He came to a stop a quarter-mile past Joe. 

"_I'm heavy-handed_, " said his voice disgustedly. 

"I'll try to join you, " said Joe. 

He did try. He stopped a little short. The two weird objects driftedalmost together. The Chief was upside down with regard to Joe. Presentlyhe was sidewise on. 

"This takes thinking, " said Joe ruefully. 

A voice in his headphones, from the Platform, said:

"_That rocket from Earth is still accelerating. Still at threegravities. It looks like it isn't defective. It might be carrying a man. Hadn't you better come in?_"

The Chief growled: "_We won't be any safer there! I want to get the hangof this. _" Then his voice changed sharply. "_Joe! D'you get that?_"

Joe heard his own voice, very cold. 

"I didn't. I do now. Brown, I'd suggest a guided missile at that rocketcoming up. If there's a man in it, he's coming up to take over guidedmissiles that'll overtake him, and try to smash the Platform by directcontrol, since proximity fuses don't work. I'd smash him as far away aspossible. "

Brown's voice came very curt and worried. "_Right. _"

There was an eruption of rocket fumes from the side of the Platform. Something went foaming away toward Earth. It dwindled with incrediblerapidity. Then Joe said:

"Chief, I think we'd better go down and meet that rocket. We'll learn tohandle these wagons on the way. I think we're going to have a fight onour hands. Whoever's in that rocket isn't coming up just to shake handswith us. "

He steadied the small red vehicle and pointed it for Earth. He added:

"I'm firing a six-two solid-fuel job, Chief. Counting three. Three--two--one. "

His mount vanished in rocket fumes. But after six seconds at twogravities acceleration the rocket burned out. The Chief had fired amatching rocket. They were miles apart, but speeding Earthward on verynearly identical courses. 

The Platform grew smaller. That was their only proof of motion. 

A very, very long time passed. The Chief fired his steering rockets tobring him closer to Joe. It did not work. He had to aim for Joe and firea blast to move noticeably nearer. Presently he would have to blastagain to keep from passing. 

Joe made calculations in his head. He worried. He and the Chief werespeeding Earthward--away from the Platform--at more than four miles aminute, but it was not enough. The manned rocket was accelerating at agreat deal more than that rate. And if the Platform's enemies down onEarth had sent a manned rocket up to destroy the Platform, the man in itwould have ways of defending himself. He would expect guidedmissiles--but he probably wouldn't expect to be attacked by spacewagons. 

Joe said suddenly:

"Chief! I'm going to burn a twelve-two. We've got to match velocitiescoming back. Join me? Three--two--one. "

He fired a twelve-two. Twelve seconds burning, two gravitiesacceleration. It built up his speed away from the Platform to a ratewhich would have been breathless, on Earth. But here there was nosensation of motion, and the distances were enormous. Things whichhappen in space happen with insensate violence and incredible swiftness. But long, long, long intervals elapse between events. The twelve-tworocket burned out. The Chief had matched that also. 

Brown's voice in the headphones said, "_The rocket's cut acceleration. It's floating up, now. It should reach our orbit fifty miles behind us. But our missile should hit it in forty seconds. _"

"I wouldn't bet on that, " said Joe coldly. "Figure interception data forthe Chief and me. Make it fast!"

He spotted the Chief, a dozen miles away and burning his steeringrockets to close, again. The Chief had the hang of it, now. He didn'ttry to steer. He drove toward Joe. 

But nothing happened. And nothing happened. And nothing happened. Thetwo tiny space wagons were 90 miles from the Platform, which was nowmerely a glittering speck, hardly brighter than the brightest stars. 

There was a flare of light to Earthward. It was brighter than the sun. The light vanished. 

Brown's voice came in the headphones, "_Our missile went off 200 milesshort! He sent an interceptor to set it off!_"

"Then he's dangerous, " said Joe. "There'll be war rockets coming up anysecond now for him to control from right at hand. We won't be fightingrockets controlled from 4, 000 miles away! They've found proximity fusesdon't work, so he's going to work in close. Give us our course and data, quick! The Chief and I have got to try to smash things!"

The two tiny space wagons--like stick-insects in form, absurdly painteda brilliant red--seemed inordinately lonely. It was hardly possible topick out the Platform with the naked eyes. The Earth was thousands ofmiles below. Joe and the Chief, in space suits, rode tiny metalframeworks in an emptiness more vast, more lonely, more terrible thaneither could have imagined. 

Then the war rockets started up. There were eight of them. They came outto do murder at ten gravities acceleration. 

9

But even at ten gravities' drive it takes time to travel 4, 000 miles. Atthree, and coasting a great deal of the way, it takes much longer. ThePlatform circled Earth in four hours and a little more. Anythingintending interception and rising straight up needed to start skywardlong before the Platform was overhead. A three-g rocket would startwhile the Platform was still below the western horizon from itslaunching-spot. Especially if it planned to coast part of itsjourney--and a three-gravity rocket would have to coast most of the way. 

So there was time. Coasting, the rising manned rocket would be losingspeed. If it planned to go no higher than the Platform's orbit, itsupward velocity would be zero there. If it were intercepted 500 milesdown, it would be rising at an almost leisurely rate, and Joe and theChief could check their Earthward plunge and match its rising rate. 

This they did. But what they couldn't do was match its orbital velocity, which was zero. They had the Platform's eastward speed to startwith--over 200 miles a minute. No matter how desperately they firedbraking-rockets, they couldn't stop and maneuver around the risingcontrol-ship. Inevitably they would simply flash past it in the fractionof an instant. To fire their tiny guided missiles on ahead would bealmost to assure that they would miss. Also, the enemy ship was manned. It could fight back. 

But Joe had been on the receiving end of one attack in space. It wasn'tmuch experience, but it was more than anybody but he and his own crewpossessed. 

"Chief, " said Joe softly into his helmet-mike, as if by speaking softlyhe could keep from being overheard, "get close enough to me to see whatI do, and do it too. I can't tell you more. Whoever's running thisrocket might know English. "

There was a flaring of vapor in space. The Chief was using hissteering-rockets to draw near. 

Joe spun his little space wagon about, so that it pointed back in thedirection from which he had come. He had four guided missiles, demolition type. Very deliberately, he fired the four of themastern--away from the rising rocket. They were relatively low-speedmissiles, intended to blow up a robot ship that couldn't be hooked onto, because it was traveling too much faster or slower than the Platform itwas intended to reach. The missiles went away. Then Joe faced aboutagain in the direction of his prospective target. The Chief fumed--Joeheard him--but he duplicated Joe's maneuver. He faced his own eccentricvessel in the direction of its line of flight. 

Then his fuming suddenly ceased. Joe's headphones brought his explosivegrunt when he suddenly saw the idea. 

"_Joe! I wish you could talk Indian! I could kiss you for this trick!_"

Brown's voice said anxiously: "_I'm going to let that manned rocket havea couple more shots. _"

"Let us get by first, " said Joe. "Then maybe you can use them on thebombs coming up. "

He could see the trails of war-rockets on the way out from Earth. Theywere infinitesimal threads of vapor. They were the thinnest possiblefilaments of gossamer white. But they enlarged as they rose. They wereclimbing at better than two miles per second, now, and still increasingtheir speed. 

But the arena in which this conflict took place was so vast thateverything seemed to take place in slow motion. There was time to reasonout not only the method of attack from Earth, but the excuse for it. Ifthe Platform vanished from space, no matter from what cause, its enemieswould announce vociferously that it had been destroyed by its ownatomic bombs, exploding spontaneously. Even in the face of proof ofmurder, enemy nations would stridently insist that bombs intended forthe enslavement of humanity--in the Platform--had providentiallydetonated and removed that instrument of war-mongering scoundrellyimperialists from the skies. There might be somebody, somewhere, whowould believe it. 

Joe and the Chief were steadied now nearly on a line to intercept therising manned rocket. They had already fired their missiles, whichtrailed them. They went into battle, not prepared to shoot, but withtheir ammunition expended. For which there was excellent reason. 

Something came foaming toward them from the nearby man-carrying rocket. It seemed like a side-spout from the column of vapor rising from Earth. Actually it was a guided missile. 

"Now we dodge, " said Joe cheerfully. "Remember the trick of thismaneuvering business!"

It was simple. Speeding toward the rising assassin, and with hismissiles rushing toward them, the relative speeds of the wagons and themissiles were added together. If the space wagons dodged, the missileoperator had less time to swing his guided rockets to match the changeof target course. And besides, the attacker hadn't made a single turn inspace. Not yet. He might know that a rocket doesn't go where it'spointed, as a matter of theory. He might even know intellectually thatthe final speed and course of a rocket is the sum of all its previousspeeds and courses. But he hadn't used the knowledge Joe and the Chiefhad. 

Something rushed at them. They went into evasive action. And they didn'tmerely turn the noses of their space wagons. They flung them aboutend-for-end, and blasted. They used wholly different accelerations atodd angles. Joe shot away from Earth on steering rocket thrust, andtouched off a four-three while he faced toward Earth's north pole, andhalfway along that four-second rush he flipped his craft in a somersaultand the result was nearly a right-angled turn. When the four-threeburned out he set off a twelve-two, and halfway through its burningfired a three-two with it, so that at the beginning he had two gravitiesacceleration, then four gravities for three seconds, and then two again. 

With long practice, a man might learn marksmanship in space. But all aman's judgment of speeds is learned on Earth, where things always, always, always move steadily. Nobody making his first space-flight couldpossibly hit such targets as Joe and the Chief made of themselves. Theman in the enemy rocket was making his first flight. Also, Joe and theChief had an initial velocity of 200 miles a minute toward him. Themarksman in the rising rocket hadn't a chance. He fired four moremissiles and tried desperately to home them in. But----

They flashed past his rising course. And then they were quite safe fromhis fire, because it would take a very long time indeed for anything heshot after them to catch up. But their missiles had still to passhim--and Joe and the Chief could steer them without any concern abouttheir own safety or anything else but a hit. 

They made a hit. 

Two of the eight little missiles flashed luridly, almost together, wherethe radar-pips showed the rocket to be. Then there were two parts to therocket, separating. One was small and one was fairly large. Anotherdemolition-missile hit the larger section. Still another exploded asthat was going to pieces. The smaller fragment ceased to be important. The explosions weren't atomic bombs, of course. They were onlydemolition-charges. But they demolished the manned rocket admirably. 

Brown's voice came in the headphones, still tense. "_You got it! Howabout the others?_"

Joe felt a remarkable exhilaration. Later he might think about the poordevil--there could have been only one--who had been destroyed some 3, 700miles above the surface of the Earth. He might think unhappily of thatman as a victim of hatred rather than as a hater. He might becomeextremely uncomfortable about this, but at the moment he felt merelythat he and the Chief had won a startling victory. 

"I think, " he said, "that you can treat them with silent contempt. Theywon't have proximity fuses. Those friends of ours who want so badly tokill us have found that proximity fuses don't work. Unless one is on acollision course I don't think you need to do anything about them. "

The Chief was muttering to himself in Mohawk, twenty miles away. Joesaid:

"Chief, how about getting back to the Platform?"

The Chief growled. "_My great-grandfather would disown me! Winning afight and no scalp to show! Not even counting coup! He'd disown me!_"

But Joe saw his rockets flare, away off against the stars. 

The war rockets were very near, now. They still emitted monstrousjettings of thick white vapor. They climbed up with incredible speed. One went by Joe at a distance of little more than a mile, and its fumeseddied out to half that before they thinned to nothingness. They went onand on and on. .. . 

They burned out somewhere. It would be a long time before they fell backto Earth. Hours, probably. Then they would be meteors. They'd vaporizebefore they touched solidity. They wouldn't even explode. 

But Joe and the Chief rode back to the Platform. It was surprising howhard it was to match speed with it again, to make a good entrance intothe giant lock. They barely made it before the Platform made its plungeinto that horrible blackness which was the Earth's shadow. And Joe wasvery glad they did make it before then. He wouldn't have liked to bemerely astride a skinny framework in that ghastly darkness, with themonstrous blackness of the Abyss seeming to be trying to devour him. 

Haney met them in the airlock. He grinned. 

"Nice job, Joe! Nice job, Chief!" he said warmly. "Uh--the LieutenantCommander wants you to report to him, Joe. Right away. "

Joe cocked an eyebrow at him. 

"What for?"

Haney spread out his hands. The Chief grunted. "That guy bothers me. I'll bet, Joe, he's going to explain you shouldn't've gone out when hedidn't want you to. Me, I'm keeping away from him!"

The Chief shed his space suit and swaggered away, as well as anyonecould swagger while walking on what happened to be the ceiling, fromJoe's point of view. Joe put his space gear in its proper place. He wentto the small cubbyhole that Brown had appropriated for the office of thePlatform Commander. Joe went in, naturally without saluting. 

Brown sat in a fastened-down chair with thigh grips holding him inplace. He was writing. On Joe's entry, he carefully put the pen down ona magnetized plate that would hold it until he wanted it again. Otherwise it could have floated anywhere about the room. 

"Mr. Kenmore, " said Brown awkwardly, "you did a very nice piece of work. It's too bad you aren't in the Navy. "

Joe said: "It did work out pretty fortunately. It's lucky the Chief andI were out practicing, but now we can take off when a rocket's reported, any time. "

Brown cleared his throat. "I can thank you personally, " he saidunhappily, "and I do. But--really this situation is intolerable! How canI report this affair? I can't suggest commendation, or a promotion, or--anything! I don't even know how to refer to you! I am going to askyou, Mr. Kenmore, to put through a request that your status beclarified. I would imagine that your status would mean a rank--hm--aboutequivalent to a lieutenant junior grade in the Navy. "

Joe grinned. 

"I have--ah--prepared a draft you might find helpful, " said Brownearnestly. "It's necessary for something to be done. It's urgent! It'simportant!"

"Sorry, " said Joe. "The important thing to me is getting ready to loadup the Platform with supplies from Earth. Excuse me. "

He went out of the office. He made his way to the quarters assignedhimself and his crew. Mike greeted him with reproachful eyes. Joe wavedhis hand. 

"Don't say it, Mike! The answer is yes. See that the tanks are refilled, and new rockets put in place. Then you and Haney go out and practice. But no farther than ten miles from the Platform. Understand?"

"No!" said Mike rebelliously. "It's a dirty trick!"

"Which, " Joe assured him, "I commit only because there's a robot shipfrom Bootstrap coming up any time now. And we'll need to pick it up andtow it here. "

He went to the control-room to see if he could get a vision connectionto Earth. 

He got the beam, and he got Sally on the screen. A report of the attackon the Platform had evidently already gone down to Earth. Sally'sexpression was somehow drawn and haunted. But she tried to talk lightly. 

"Derring-do and stuff, Joe?" she asked. "How does it feel to be avictorious warrior?"

"It feels rotten, " he told her. "There must have been somebody in therocket we blew up. He felt like a patriot, I guess, trying to murder us;But I feel like a butcher. "

"Maybe you didn't do it, " she said. "Maybe the Chief's bombs----"

"Maybe, " said Joe. He hesitated. "Hold up your hand. "

She held it up. His ring was still on it. She nodded. "Still there. Whenwill you be back?"

He shook his head. He didn't know. It was curious that one wantedso badly to talk to a girl after doing something that wasblood-stirring--and left one rather sickish afterward. This business ofspace travel and even space battle was what he'd dreamed of, and hestill wanted it. But it was very comforting to talk to Sally, who hadn'thad to go through any of it. 

"Write me a letter, will you?" he asked. "We can't tie up this beam verylong. "

"I'll write you all the news that's allowed to go out, " she assured him. "Be seeing you, Joe. "

Her image faded from the screen. And, thinking it over, he couldn't seethat either of them had said anything of any importance at all. But hewas very glad they'd talked together. 

The first robot ship came up some eight hours later--two revolutionsafter the television call. Mike was ready hours in advance, fidgeting. The robot ship started up while the Platform was over the middle of thePacific. It didn't try to make a spiral approach as all other ships haddone. It came straight up, and it started from the ground. No pushpots. Its take-off rockets were monsters. They pushed upward at ten gravitiesuntil it was out of atmosphere, and then they stepped up to fifteen. Much later, the robot turned on its side and fired orbital speed rocketsto match velocity with the Platform. 

There were two reasons for the vertical rise, and the high acceleration. If a robot ship went straight up, it wouldn't pass over enemy territoryuntil it was high enough to be protected by the Platform. And--it costsfuel to carry fuel to be burned. So if the rocketship could get up speedfor coasting to orbit in the first couple of hundred miles, it needn'thaul its fuel so far. It was economical to burn one's fuel fast and getan acceleration that would kill a human crew. Hence robots. 

The landing of the first robot ship at the Platform was almost asmatter-of-fact as if it had been done a thousand times before. From thePlatform its dramatic take-off couldn't be seen, of course. It firstappeared aloft as a pip on a radar screen. Then Mike prepared to go outand hook on to it and tow it in. He was in his space suit and in thelanding lock, though his helmet faceplate was still open. A loudspeakerboomed suddenly in Brown's voice: "_Evacuate airlock and prepare to takeoff!_"

Joe roared: "Hold that!"

Brown's voice, very official, came: "_Withhold execution of that order. You should not be in the airlock, Mr. Kenmore. You will please make wayfor operational procedure. _"

"We're checking the space wagon, " snapped Joe. "That's operationalprocedure!"

The loudspeaker said severely: "_The checking should have been doneearlier!_"

There was silence. Mike and Joe, together, painstakingly checked overthe very many items that had to be made sure. Every rocket had to haveits firing circuit inspected. The tanks' contents and pressure verified. The air connection to Mike's space suit. The air pressure. The devicethat made sure that air going to Mike's space suit was neither as hotas metal in burning sunlight, nor cold as the chill of a shadow inspace. 

Everything checked. Mike straddled his red-painted mount. Joe left thelock and said curtly:

"Okay to pump the airlock. Okay to open airlock doors when ready. Goahead. "

Mike went out, and Joe watched from a port in the Platform's hull. Thedrone from Earth was five miles behind the Platform in its orbit, andtwenty miles below, and all of ten miles off-course. Joe saw Mike scootthe red space wagon to it, stop short with a sort of cockyself-assurance, hook on to the tow-ring in the floating space-barge'snose, and blast off back toward the Platform with it in tow. 

Mike had to turn about and blast again to check his motion when hearrived. And then he and Haney--Haney in the other space wagon--nudgedat it and tugged at it and got it in the great spacelock. They went inafter it and the lock doors closed. 

Neither Mike nor Haney were out of their space suits when Kent broughtJoe a note. A note was an absurdity in the Platform. But this was aformal communication from Brown. 

 "_From: Lt. Comdr. Brown

 To: Mr. Kenmore

 Subject: Cooperation and courtesy in rocket recovery vehicle launchings. 

 1. There is a regrettable lack of coordination and courtesy in the launching of rocket-recovery vehicles (space wagons) in the normal operation of the Platform. 

 2. The maintenance of discipline and efficiency requires that the commanding officer maintain overall control of all operations at all times. 

 3. Hereafter when a space vehicle of any type is to be launched, the commanding officer will be notified in writing not less than one hour before such launching. 

 4. The time of such proposed launching will be given in such notification in hours and minutes and seconds, Greenwich Mean Time. 

 5. All commands for launching will be given by the commanding officer or an officer designated by him. _"

Joe received the memo as he was in the act of writing a painstakingreport on the maneuver Mike had carried out. Mike was radiant as hediscussed possible improvements with later and better equipment. Afterall, this had been a lucky landing. For a robot to end up no more than30 miles from its target, after a journey of 4, 000 miles, and with adifference in velocity that was almost immeasurable--such good fortunecouldn't be expected as a regular thing. The space wagons were tiny. Ifthey had to travel long distances to recover erratic ships coming upfrom Earth----

Joe forgot all about Lieutenant Commander Brown and his memo when themail was distributed. Joe had three letters from Sally. He read them inthe great living compartment of the Platform with its sixty-foot lengthand its carpet on floor and ceiling, and the galleries without stairsoutside the sleeping cabins. He sat in a chair with thigh grips to holdhim in place, and he wore a gravity simulation harness. It wasnecessary. The regular crew of the Platform, by this time, couldn't havehandled space wagons in action against enemy manned rockets. Joe meantto stay able to take acceleration. 

It was just as he finished his mail that Brent came in. 

"Big news!" said Brent. "They're building a big new ship of newdesign--almost half as big as the Platform. With concreted metal theycan do it in weeks. "

"What's it for?" demanded Joe. 

"It'll be a human base on the Moon, " said Brent relievedly. "Anexpedition will start in six weeks, according to plan. As long as we'rethe only American base in space, we're going to be shot at. But a baseon the Moon will be invulnerable. So they're going ahead with it. "

Joe said hopefully:

"Any orders for me to join it?"

Brent shook his head. "We're to be loaded up with supplies for the Moonexpedition. We're to be ready to take a robot ship every round. Actually, they can't hope to send us more than two a day for a while, but even that'll be eighty tons of supplies to be stored away. "

The Chief grumbled, but somehow his grumbling did not sound genuine. "They're going to the Moon--and leave us here to do stevedore stuff?"His tone was odd. He looked at a letter he'd been reading and gave uppretense. He said self-consciously: "Listen, you guys. .. . My tribe's gotall excited. I just got a letter from the council. They've been havingan argument about me. Wanna hear?"

He was a little amused, and a little embarrassed, but something hadhappened to make him feel good. 

"Let's have it, " said Joe. Mike was very still in another chair. Hedidn't look up, though he must have heard. Haney cocked an interestedear. 

The Chief said awkwardly, "You know--us Mohawks are kinda proud. We gotsomething to be proud of. We were one of the Five Nations, when that wasa sort of United Nations and all Europe was dog-eat-dog. My tribe had abig pow-wow about me. There's a tribe member that's a professor ofanthropology out in Chicago. He was there. And a couple of guys that doelectronic research, and doctors and farmers and all sorts of guys. AllMohawks. They got together in tribal council. "

He stopped and flushed under his dark skin. "I wouldn't tell you, onlyyou guys are in on it. "

Still he hesitated. Joe found a curious picture forming in his mind. He'd known the Chief a long time, and he knew that part of the tribelived in Brooklyn, and individual members were widely scattered. Butstill there was a certain remote village which to all the tribesmen washome. Everybody went back there from time to time, to rest from thestrangeness of being Indians in a world of pale-skinned folk. 

Joe could almost imagine the council. There'd be old, old men who couldnearly remember the days of the tribe's former glory, who'd heardstories of forest warfare and zestful hunts, and scalpings and heroicdeeds from their grandfathers. But there were also doctors and lawyersand technical men in that council which met to talk about the Chief. 

"It's addressed to me, " said the Chief with sudden clumsiness, "in theWorld-by-itself Canoe. That's the Platform here. And it says--I'll haveto translate, because it's in Mohawk. " He took a deep breath. "It says, 'We your tribesmen have heard of your journeyings off the Earth wheremen have never traveled before. This has given us great pride, that oneof our tribe and kin had ventured so valiantly. '" The Chief grinnedabashedly. He went on. "'In full assembly, the elders of the tribe haveheld counsel on a way to express their pride in you, and in the friendsyou have made who accompanied you. It was proposed that you be given anew name to be borne by your sons after you. It was proposed that thetribe accept from each of its members a gift to be given you in the nameof the tribe. But these were not considered great enough. Therefore thetribe, in full council, has decreed that your name shall be named atevery tribal council of the Mohawks from this day to the end of time, asone the young braves would do well to copy in all ways. And the names ofyour friends Joe Kenmore, Mike Scandia, and Thomas Haney shall also benamed as friends whose like all young braves should strive to seek outand to be. '"

The Chief sweated a little, but he looked enormously proud. Joe wentover to him and shook hands warmly. The Chief almost broke his fingers. It was, of course, as high an honor as could be paid to anybody by thepeople who paid it. 

Haney said awkwardly, "Lucky they don't know me like you do, Chief. Butit's swell!"

Which it was. But Mike hadn't said a word. The Chief said exuberantly:

"Did you hear that, Mike? Every Mohawk for ten thousand years is gonnabe told that you were a swell guy! Crazy, huh?"

Mike said in an odd voice: "Yeah. I didn't mean that, Chief. It's fine!But I--I got a letter. I--never thought to get a letter like this. "

He looked unbelievingly at the paper in his hands. 

"Mash note?" asked the Chief. His tone was a little bit harsh. Mike wasa midget. And there were women who were fools. It would be unbearable ifsome half-witted female had written Mike the sort of gushing letterthat some half-witted females might write. 

Mike shook his head, with an odd, quick smile. 

"Not what you think, Chief. But it is from a girl. She sent me herpicture. It's a--swell letter. I'm--going to answer it. You can look ather picture. She looks kind of--nice. "

He handed the Chief a snapshot. The Chief's face changed. Haney lookedover his shoulder. He passed the picture to Joe and said ferociously:"You Mike! You doggoned Don Juan! The Chief and me have got to warn herwhat kinda guy you are! Stealing from blind men! Fighting cops----"

Joe looked at the picture. It was a very sweet small face, and the eyesthat looked out of the photograph were very honest and yearning. And Joeunderstood. He grinned at Mike. Because this girl had the distinctivelook that Mike had. She was a midget, too. 

"She's--thirty-nine inches tall, " said Mike, almost stunned. "She's justtwo inches shorter than me. And--she says she doesn't mind being amidget so much since she heard about me. I'm going to write her. "

But it would be, of course, a long time before there was a way for mailto get down to Earth. 

It was a long time. Now it was possible to send up robot rockets to thePlatform. They came up. When the second arrived, Haney went out to pullit in. Joe forgot to notify Brown, in writing, an hour before launchinga rocket recovery vehicle (space wagon) according to paragraph 3 of theformal memo, nor the time of launching in hours, minutes, etc. , byGreenwich Mean Time (paragraph 4), nor was the testing of all equipmentmade before moving it into the airlock. This was because the testingequipment was in the airlock, where it belonged. And the commands forlaunching were not given by Brown or an officer designated by him, because Joe forgot all about it. 

Brown made a stormy scene about the matter, and Joe was honestlyapologetic, but the Chief and Haney and Mike glared venomously. 

The result was completely inconclusive. Joe had not been put underBrown's command. He and his crew were the only people on the Platformphysically in shape to operate the space wagons, considering theacceleration involved. Brent and the others were wearing gravitysimulators, and were building back to strength. But they weren't up topar as yet. They'd been in space too long. 

So there was nothing Brown could do. He retreated into icily correct, outraged dignity. And the others hauled in and unloaded rockets as theyarrived. They came up fast. The processes of making them had beenimproved. They could be made faster, heated to sintering temperaturefaster, and the hulls cooled to usefulness in a quarter of the formertime. The production of space ship hulls went up to four a day, whilethe molds for the Moonship were being worked even faster. The Moonship, actually, was assembled from precast individual cells which then werewelded together. It would have features the Platform lacked, because itwas designed to be a base for exploration and military activities inaddition to research. 

But only twenty days after the recovery and docking of the first robotship to rise, a new sort of ship entirely came blindly up as a robot. The little space wagons hauled it to the airlock and inside. Theyunloaded it--and it was no longer a robot. It was a modified hulldesigned for the duties of a tug in space. It could carry a crew offour, and its cargohold was accessible from the cabin. It had anairlock. More, it carried a cargo of solid-fuel rockets which could beshifted to firing racks outside its hull. Starting from the platform, where it had no effective weight, it was capable of direct descent tothe Earth without spiralling or atmospheric braking. To make thatdescent it would, obviously, expend four-fifths of its loaded weight inrockets. And since it had no weight at the Platform, but only mass, itwas capable of far-ranging journeying. It could literally take off fromthe Platform and reach the Moon and land on it, and then return to thePlatform. 

But that had to wait. 

"Sure we could do it, " agreed Joe, when Mike wistfully pointed out thepossibility. "It would be good to try it. But unfortunately, spaceexploration isn't a stunt. We've gotten this far because--somebodywanted to do something. But----" Then he said, "It could be done and theUnited Nations wouldn't do it. So the United States had to, or--somebodyelse would have. You can figure who that would be, and what use they'dmake of space travel! So it's important. It's more important than stuntflights we could make!"

"Nobody could stop us if we wanted to take off!" Mike said rebelliously. 

"True, " Joe said. "But we four can stand three gravities accelerationand handle any more manned rockets that start out here. We've livedthrough plenty more than that! But Brent and the others couldn't put upa fight in space. They're wearing harness now, and they're coming backto strength. But we're going to stay right here and do stevedoring--andfighting too, if it comes to that--until the job is done. "

And that was the way it was, too. Of stevedoring there was plenty. Tworobot ships a day for weeks on end. Three ships a day for a time. Four. Sometimes things went smoothly, and the little space wagons could go outand bring back the great, rocket-scarred hulls from Earth. But once inthree times the robots were going too fast or too slow. The space wagonscouldn't handle them. Then the new ship, the space tug, went out andhooked onto the robot with a chain and used the power it had to bringthem to their destination. And sometimes the robots didn't climbstraight. At least once the space tug captured an erratic robot 400miles from its destination and hauled it in. It used some heavysolid-fuel rockets on that trip. 

The Platform had become, in fact, a port in space, though so far it hadhad only arrivals and no departures. Its storage compartments almostbulged with fuel stores and food stores and equipment of everyimaginable variety. It had a stock of rockets which were enough to landit safely on Earth, though there was surely no intention of doing so. Ithad food and air for centuries. It had repair parts for all its ownequipment. And it had weapons. It contained, in robot hulls anchored toits sides, enough fissionable material to conduct a deadly war--whichwas only stored for transfer to the Moon base when that should beestablished. 

And it had communication with Earth of high quality. So far the actualmail was only a one-way service, but even entertainment came up, andnews. Once there was a television shot of the interior of the Shed. Itwas carefully scrambled before transmission, but it was a hearteningsight. The Shed on the TV screen appeared a place of swarming activity. Robot hulls were being made. They were even improved, fined down to tentons of empty weight apiece, and their controls were assembly lineproducts now. And there was the space flight simulator with menpracticing in it, although for the time being only robots were takingoff from Earth. And there was the Moonship. 

It didn't look like the Platform, but rather like something a childmight have put together out of building blocks. It was built up out ofwelded-together cells with strengthening members added. It was 60 feethigh from the floor and twice as long, and it did not weigh nearly whatit seemed to. Already it was being clad in that thick layer of heatinsulation it would need to endure the two-week-long lunar night. Itcould take off very soon now. 

The pictured preparations back on Earth meant round-the-clock drudgeryfor Joe and the others. They wore themselves out. But the storage spaceon the Platform filled up. Days and weeks went by. Then there came atime when literally nothing else could be stored, so Joe and his crewmade ready to go back to Earth. 

They ate hugely and packed a very small cargo in their ship. They pickedup one bag of mail and four bags of scientific records and photographswhich had only been transmitted by facsimile TV before. They got intothe space tug. It floated free. 

"_You will fire in ten seconds_, " said a crisp voice in Joe'sheadphones. "_Ten . .. Nine . .. Eight . .. Seven . .. Six . .. Five . .. Four. .. Three . .. Two . .. One . .. Fire!_"

Joe crooked his index finger. There was an explosive jolt. Rocketsflamed terribly in emptiness. The space tug rushed toward the west. ThePlatform seemed to dwindle with startling suddenness. It seemed to rushaway and become lost in the myriads of stars. The space tug acceleratedat four gravities in the direction opposed to its orbital motion. 

As the acceleration built up, it dropped toward Earth and home like atumbled stone. 

10

There was bright sunshine at the Shed, not a single cloud in all thesky. The radar bowls atop the roof--they seemed almost invisibly smallcompared with its vastness--wavered and shifted and quivered. Completelyinvisible beams of microwaves lanced upward. Atop the Shed, in thecommunication room, there was the busy quiet of absolute intentness. Signals came down and were translated into visible records which fedinstantly into computers. Then the computers clicked and hummed andperformed incomprehensible integrations, and out of their slot-mouthspoured billowing ribbons of printed tape. Men read those tapes andtalked crisply into microphones, and their words went swiftly aloftagain. 

Down by the open eastern door of the Shed at the desert's edge, SallyHolt and Joe's father waited together, watching the sky. Sally was whiteand scared. Joe's father patted her shoulder reassuringly. 

"He'll make it, all right, " said Sally, dry-throated. 

Joe's father nodded. "Of course he will!" But his voice was not steady. 

"Nothing could happen to him now!" said Sally fiercely. 

"Of course not, " said Joe's father. 

A loudspeaker close to them said abruptly: "_Nineteen miles. _"

There was a tiny, straggling thread of white visible in the now. Itthinned out to nothingness, but its nearest part flared out and flaredout and flared out. It grew larger, came closer with a terrifying speed. 

"_Twelve miles_, " said the speaker harshly. "_Rockets firing. _"

The downward-hurtling trail of smoke was like a crippled plane fallingflaming from the sky, except that no plane ever fell so fast. 

At seven miles the white-hot glare of the rocket flames was visible evenin broad daylight. At three miles the light was unbearably bright. Attwo, the light winked out. Sally saw something which glittered comeplummeting toward the ground, unsupported. 

It fell almost half a mile before rocket fumes flung furiously outagain. Then it checked. Visibly, its descent was slowed. It dropped moreslowly, and more slowly, and more slowly still. .. . 

It hung in mid-air a quarter-mile up. Then there was a fresh burst ofrocket fumes, more monstrous than ever, and it went steadily downward, touched the ground, and stayed there spurting terrible incandescentflames for seconds. Then the bottom flame went out. An instant laterthere were no more flames at all. 

Sally began to run toward the ship. She stopped. A procession ofrumbling, clanking, earth-moving machinery moved out of the Shed andtoward the upright space tug. Prosaically, a bulldozer lowered its wideblade some fifty yards from the ship. It pushed a huge mass of earthbefore it, covering over the scorched and impossibly hot sand about therocket's landing place. Other bulldozers began to circle methodicallyaround and around, overturning the earth and burying the hot surfacestuff. Water trucks sprayed, and thin steam arose. 

But also an exit-port opened and Joe stood in the opening. 

Then Sally began to run again. 

 * * * * *

Joe sat at dinner in the major's quarters. Major Holt was there, andJoe's father, and Sally. 

"It feels good, " said Joe warmly, "to use a knife and fork again, and topick food up from a plate where it stays until it's picked up!"

"The crew of the Platform----" Major Holt began. 

"They're all right, " said Joe, with his mouth full. "They're wearinggravity simulator harness. Brent's got his up to three-quarters gravity. They get tired, wearing the harness. They sleep better. Everything'sfine! They can handle the space wagons we left and they've got guidedmissiles to spare! They're all right!"

Joe's father said unsteadily, "You'll stay on Earth a while now, son?"

Sally moved quickly. She looked up, tense. But Joe said, "They're goingto get the Moonship up, sir. We came back--my gang and me--to help trainthe crew. We only have a week to do it in, but we've got some combattactics to show them on the training gadget in the Shed. " He addedanxiously, "And, sir--they'll have to take the Moonship off in a spiralorbit. She can't go straight up! That means she's got to pass over enemyterritory, and--we've got to have a real escort for her. A fightingescort. It's planned for the space tug to take off a few minutes afterthe Moonship and blast along underneath. We'll dump guided missilesout--like drones--and if anything comes along we can start their rocketsand fight our way through. And we four have had more experience thananybody else. We're needed!"

"You've done enough, surely!" Sally cried. 

"The United States, " said Joe awkwardly, "is going to take over theMoon. I--can't miss having a hand in that! Not if it's at all possible!"

"I'm afraid you will miss it, Joe, " Major Holt said detachedly. "Theoccupation of the Moon will be a Navy enterprise. Space ExplorationProject facilities are being used to prepare for it, but the Navy wonthe latest battle of the Pentagon. The Navy takes over the Moon. "

Joe looked startled. "But----"

"You're Space Exploration personnel, " said the major with the samecoolness. "You will be used to instruct naval personnel, and your spacetug will be asked to go along to the Platform as an auxiliary vessel. For purposes of assisting in the landing of the Moonship at thePlatform, you understand. You'll haul her away from the Platform whenshe's refueled and supplied, so she can start off for the Moon. But theoccupation of the Moon will be strictly Navy. "

Joe's expression became carefully unreadable. "I think, " he said evenly, "I'd better not comment. "

Major Holt nodded. "Very wise--not that we'd repeat anything you didsay. But the point is, Joe, that just one day before the Moonship doestake off, the United Nations will be informed that it is a United Statesnaval vessel. The doctrine of the freedom of space--like the freedom ofthe seas--will be promulgated. And the United States will say that aUnited States naval task force is starting off into space on an officialmission. To attack a Space Exploration ship is one thing. That's like ascientific expedition. But to fire on an American warship on officialbusiness is a declaration of war. Especially since that ship can shootback--and will. "

Joe listened. He said, "It's daring somebody to try another PearlHarbor?"

"Exactly, " said the major. "It's time for us to be firm--now that we canback it up. I don't think the Moonship will be fired on. "

"But they'll need me and my gang just the same, " said Joe slowly, "fortugboat work at the Platform?"

"Exactly, " said the major. 

"Then, " Joe said doggedly, "they get us. My gang will gripe about beingedged out of the trip. They won't like it. But they'd like backing outstill less. We'll play it the way it's dealt--but we won't pretend tolike it. "

Major Holt's expression did not change at all, but Joe had an oddfeeling that the major approved of him. 

"Yes. That's right, Joe, " his father added. "You--you'll have to goaloft once more, son. After that, we'll talk it over. "

Sally hadn't said a word during the discussion, but she'd watched Joeevery second. Later, out on the porch of the major's quarters, she had agreat deal to say. But that couldn't affect the facts. 

The world at large, of course, received no inkling of the events inpreparation. The Shed and the town of Bootstrap and all the desert fora hundred-mile circle round about, were absolutely barred to allvisitors. Anybody who came into that circle stayed in. Most people werekept out. All that anyone outside could discover was that enormousquantities of cryptic material had poured and still were pouring intothe Shed. But this time security was genuinely tight. Educated guessescould be made, and they were made; but nobody outside the closed-in areasave a very few top-ranking officials had any real knowledge. The worldonly knew that something drastic and remarkable was in prospect. 

Mike, though, was able to write a letter to the girl who'd written him. Major Holt arranged it. Mike wrote his letter on paper supplied bySecurity, with ink supplied by Security, and while watched by Securityofficers. His letter was censored by Major Holt himself, and it did notreveal that Mike was back on Earth. But it did invite a reply--and Mikesweated as he waited for one. 

The others had plenty to sweat about. Joe and Haney and the Chief wereacting as instructors to the Moonship's crew. They taught practicalspace navigation. At first they thought they hadn't much to pass on, butthey found out otherwise. They had to pass on data on everything fromhow to walk to how to drink coffee, how to eat, sleep, why one shouldwear gravity harness, and the manners and customs of ships in space. They had to show why in space fighting a ship might send missiles onbefore it, but would really expect to do damage with those it leftbehind. They had to warn of the dangers of unshielded sunshine, and theequal danger of standing in shadow for more than five minutes, and----

They had material for six months of instruction courses, but there wasbarely a week to pass it on. Joe was run ragged, but in spite ofeverything he managed to talk at some length with Sally. He foundhimself curiously anxious to discuss any number of things with hisfather, too, who suddenly appeared to be much more intelligent than Joehad ever noticed before. 

He was almost unhappy when it was certain that the Moonship would takeoff for space on the following day. He talked about it with Sally thenight before take-off. 

"Look, " he said awkwardly. "As far as I'm concerned this has turned outa pretty sickly business. But when we have got a base on the Moon, it'llbe a good job done. There will be one thing that nobody can stop!Everybody's been living in terror of war. If we hold the Moon the coldwar will be ended. You can't kick on my wanting to help end that!"

Sally smiled at him in the moonlight. 

"And--meanwhile, " said Joe clumsily, "well--when I come back we can dosome serious talking about--well--careers and such things. Untilthen--no use. Right?"

Sally's smile wavered. "Very sensible, " she agreed wrily. "And awfullysilly, Joe. I know what kind of a career I want! What other fascinatingtopic do you know to talk about, Joe?"

"I don't know of any. Oh, yes! Mike got a letter from his girl. I don'tknow what she said, but he's walking on air. "

"But it isn't funny!" said Sally indignantly. "Mike's a person! A fineperson! If he'll let me, I'll write to his girl myself and--try to makefriends with her so when you come back I--maybe I can be a sort ofmatch-maker. "

"That, I like!" Joe said warmly. "You're swell sometimes, Sally!"

Sally looked at him enigmatically in the moonlight. 

"There are times when it seems to escape your attention, " she observed. 

 * * * * *

The next morning she cried a little when he left her, to climb in thespace tug which was so small a part of today's activity. Joe and hiscrew were the only living men who had ever made a round trip to thePlatform and back. But now there was the Moonship to go farther thanthey'd been allowed. It was even clumsier in design than the Platform, though it was smaller. But it wasn't designed to stay in space. It wasto rest on the powdery floor of a ring-mountain's central plain. 

Let it get off into space, and somehow get to the Platform to reload. Then let it replace the rockets it would burn in this take-off and itcould go on out to emptiness. It would make history as the firstserious attempt by human beings to reach the Moon. 

Joe and his followers would go along simply to handle guided missiles ifit came to a fight, and to tow the Moonship to its wharf--thePlatform--and out into midstream again when it resumed its journey. Andthat was all. 

The Moonship lifted from the floor of the Shed to the sound of hundredsof pushpot engines. 

Then the space tug roared skyward. Her take-off rockets here substitutedfor the pushpots. Her second-stage rockets were also of the nonpoisonousvariety, because she fired them at a bare 60, 000 feet. They weresubstitutes for the jatos the pushpots carried. 

She was out in space when the third-stage rockets roared dully outsideher hull. 

When the Moonship crossed the west coast of Africa, the space tug was400 miles below and 500 miles behind. When the Moonship crossed Arabia, the difference was 200 miles vertically and less than 100 in line. 

Then the Moonship released small objects, steadied by gyroscopes andflung away by puffs of compressed air. The small objects spread out. Haney and Mike and the Chief had reloaded the firing racks from insidethe ship, and now were intent upon control boards and radar. Theypressed buttons. One by one, little puffs of smoke appeared in space. They had armed the little space missiles, setting off tiny flares whichhad no function except to prove that each missile was ready for use. 

By the time the two space craft floated toward India, above an area fromwhich war rockets had been known to rise, there were more little weaponsfloating with them. One screen of missiles hurtled on before the spacetug, and another behind. Anything that came up from Earth wouldinstantly be attacked by dozens of midget ships bent upon suicide. 

Radar probed the space formation, but enemies of the fleet and thePlatform very wisely did no more than probe. The Moonship and itsattendants went across the Pacific, still rising. Above the longitude ofWashington, the space tug left its former post and climbed, nudging theMoonship this way and that. And from behind, the Platform came floatingsplendidly. 

Tiny figures in space suits extended the incredibly straight lines whichwere plastic hoses filled with air. Very, very gently indeed, the great, bulbous Platform and the squat, flat Moonship came together and touched. They moored in contact. 

And then the inert small missiles that had floated below, all the wayup, flared simultaneously. Their rockets emitted smoke. In finealignment, they plunged forward through emptiness, swerved with aremarkable precision, and headed out for emptiness beyond the Platform'sorbit. Their function had been to protect the Moonship on its way out. That function was performed. There were too many of them to recover, sothey went out toward the stars. 

When their rockets burned out they vanished. But a good hour later, whenit was considered that they were as far out as they were likely to go, they began to blow up. Specks of flame, like the tiniest of new stars, flickered against the background of space. 

But Joe and the others were in the Platform by then. They'd brought upmail for the crew. And they were back on duty. 

The Platform seemed strange with the Moonship's crew aboard. It had beena gigantic artificial world with very few inhabitants. With twenty-fivenaval ratings about, plus the four of its regular crew, plus the spacetug's complement, it seemed excessively crowded. 

And it was busy. There were twenty-five new men to be guided as theyapplied what they'd been taught aground about life in space. It wasthree full Earthdays before the stores intended for the journey to theMoon and the maintenance of a base there really began to move. The tugand the space wagons had to be moored outside and reached only by spacesuits through small personnel airlocks. 

And there was the matter of discipline. Lieutenant Commander Brown hadbeen put in command of the Platform for experience in space. He wasconsidered to be prepared for command of the Moonship by thatexperience. So now he turned over command of the Platform to Brent--hemade a neat ceremony of it--and took over the ship that would go out tothe Moon. He made another ceremony out of that. 

In command of the Moonship, his manner to Joe was absolutely correct. Hefollowed regulations to the letter--to a degree that left Joe blanklyuncomprehending. But he wouldn't have gotten along in the Navy if hehadn't. He'd tried to do the same thing in the Platform, and it wasn'tpractical. But he ignored all differences between Joe and himself. Hemade no overtures of friendship, but that was natural. Unintentionally, Joe had defied him. He now deliberately overlooked all that, and Joeapproved of him--within limits. 

But Mike and Haney and the Chief did not. They laid for him. And theyconsidered that they got him. When he took over the Moonship, LieutenantCommander Brown naturally maintained naval discipline and requiredsnappy, official naval salutes on all suitable occasions, even in thePlatform. And Joe's gang privately tipped off the noncommissionedpersonnel of the Moonship. Thereafter, no enlisted man ever salutedLieutenant Brown without first gently detaching his magnet-soled shoesfrom the floor. When a man was free, a really snappy salute gave adiverting result. The man's body tilted forward to meet his rising arm, the upward impetus was one-sided, and every man who saluted Brownimmediately made a spectacular kowtow which left him rigidly at salutefloating somewhere overhead with his back to Lieutenant Brown. With alittle practice, it was possible to add a somersault to the otherfeatures. On one historic occasion, Brown walked clanking into astoreroom where a dozen men were preparing supplies for transfer to theMoonship. A voice cried, "Shun!" And instantly twelve men went floatingsplendidly about the storeroom, turning leisurely somersaults, allrigidly at salute, and all wearing regulation poker faces. 

An order abolishing salutes in weightlessness followed shortly after. 

It took four days to get the transfer of supplies properly started. Ittook eight to finish the job. Affixing fresh rockets to the outside ofthe Moonship's hull alone called for long hours in space suits. Duringthis time Mike floated nearby in a space wagon. One of the Navy men wasa trifle overcourageous. He affected to despise safety lines. Completingthe hook-on of a landing rocket, he straightened up too abruptly andwent floating off toward the Milky Way. 

Mike brought him back. After that there was less trouble. 

Even so, the Moonship and the Platform were linked together for thirteenfull days, during which the Platform seemed extraordinarily crowded. Onthe fourteenth day the two ships sealed off and separated. Joe and hiscrew in the space tug hauled the Moonship a good five miles from thePlatform. 

The space tug returned to the Platform. A blinker signal came across thefive-mile interval. It was a very crisp, formal, Navy-like message. 

Then the newly-affixed rockets on the Moonship's hull spurted theirfumes. The big ship began to move. Not outward from Earth, of course. That was where it was going. But it had the Platform's 12, 000 miles perhour of orbital speed. If the bonds of gravitation could have beensnapped at just the proper instant, that speed alone would have carriedthe Moonship all the way to its destination. But they couldn't. So theMoonship blasted to increase its orbital speed. It would swing out andout, and as the Earth's pull grew weaker with distance the same weightof rockets would move the same mass farther and farther toward the Moon. The Moonship's course would be a sort of slowly flattening curve, receding from Earth and becoming almost a straight line where Earth'sand the Moon's gravitational fields cancelled each other. 

From there, the Moonship would have only to brake its fall against agravity one-sixth that of Earth, and reaching out a vastly shorterdistance. 

Joe and the others watched the roiling masses of rocket fumes as theship seemed to grow infinitely small. 

"We should've been in that ship, " said Haney heavily when the naked eyecould no longer pick it out. "We could've beat her to the Moon!"

Joe said nothing. He ached a little inside. But he reflected that themen who'd guided the Platform to its orbit had been overshadowed byhimself and Haney and the Chief and Mike. A later achievement alwaysmakes an earlier one look small. Now the four of them would beforgotten. History would remember the commander of the Moonship. 

Forgotten? Yes, perhaps. But the names of the four of them, Joe andHaney and the Chief and Mike, would still be remembered in a languageJoe couldn't speak, in a small village he couldn't name, on thoseoccasions when the Mohawk tribe met in formal council. 

The Chief grumbled. Mike stared out the port with bitter envy. 

"It was a dirty trick, " growled the Chief. "We shoulda been part of thefirst gang ever to land on the Moon!"

Joe grimaced. His crew needed to be cured of feeling the same way hedid. 

"I wouldn't say this outside of our gang, " said Joe carefully, "but ifit hadn't been for us four that ship wouldn't be on the way at all. Haney figured the trick that got us back to Earth the first time, orelse we'd have been killed. If we had been killed, Mike wouldn't havefigured out the metal-concrete business. But for him, that Moonshipwouldn't even be a gleam in anybody's eye. And if the Chief hadn't blownup that manned rocket we fought in the space wagons, there wouldn't beany Platform up here to reload and refuel the Moonship. So they left usbehind! But just among the four of us I think we can figure that if ithadn't been for us they couldn't have made it!"

Haney grinned slowly at Joe. The Chief regarded him with irony. Mikesaid, "Yeah. Haney, and me, and the Chief. We did it all. "

"Uh-huh, " said the Chief sardonically. "Us three. Just us three. Joedidn't do anything. Just a bum, he is. We oughta tell Sally he's no goodand she oughta pick herself out a guy that'll amount to something someday. " He hit Joe between the shoulders. "Sure! Just a bum, Joe! That'sall! But we got a weakness for you. We'll let you hang around with usjust the same! Come on, guys! Let's get something to eat!"

The four of them marched down a steel-floored corridor, theirmagnetic-soled shoes clanking on the plates. Their progress wasuncertain and ungainly and altogether undignified. Suddenly the Chiefbegan to bawl a completely irrelevant song to the effect that theinhabitants of the kingdom of Siam were never known to wash theirdishes. Haney chimed in, and Mike. They were all very close together, and they were not at all impressive. But it hit Joe very hard, thissudden knowledge that the others didn't really care. It was the firsttime it had occurred to him that Haney and Mike and the Chief wouldrather be left behind with him, as a gang, than go on to individual highachievement in a first landing on the Moon. 

It felt good. It felt _real_ good. 

 * * * * *

But that, and all other sources of satisfaction, was wiped out by newsthat came back from the Moonship a bare six hours later. 

The Moonship was in trouble. The sequence and timing of its rocketblasts were worked out on Earth, and checked by visual and radarobservation. The computations were done by electronic brains theMoonship could not possibly have carried. And everything worked out. Theship was on course and its firings were on schedule. 

But then the unexpected happened. It was an error which no machine couldever have predicted, for which statistics and computations could neverhave compensated. It was a _human_ error. At the signal for the finalacceleration blast, the pilot of the Moonship had fired the wrong set ofrockets. 

Inexperience, stupidity, negligence, excitement--the reason didn'tmatter. After years of planning and working and dreaming, one humanfinger had made a mistake. And the mistake was fatal!

When the mistake was realized, they'd had sense enough to cut loose thestill-firing rockets. But the damage had been done. The ship was stillplunging on. It would reach the Moon. But it wouldn't land inAristarchus crater as planned. It would crash. If every rocket remainingmounted on the hull were to be fired at the best possible instant, theMoonship would hit near Copernicus, and it would land with a terminalvelocity of 800 feet per second--540 miles an hour. 

It could even be calculated that when the Moonship landed, the explosionought to be visible from Earth with a fairly good telescope. It was dueto take place in thirty-two hours plus or minus a few minutes. 

11

The others got the space tug into the platform's lock and did things toit, in the way of loading, that its designers never intended, while Joewas calling Earth for calculations. The result was infuriating. TheMoonship had taken off for the Moon on the other side of the Platform'sorbit, when it had a velocity of more than 12, 000 miles an hour in thedirection it wished to go. The Platform and of course the space tug wasnow on the reverse side of the Platform's orbit. And of course they nowhad a velocity of more than 12, 000 miles per hour away from thedirection in which it was urgently necessary for the space tug to go. They could wait for two hours to take off, said Earth, or waste the timeand fuel they'd need to throw away to duplicate the effect of waiting. 

"But we can't wait!" raged Joe. Then he snapped. "Look here! Suppose wetake off from here, dive at Earth, make a near-graze, and let itsgravity curve our course! Like a cometary path! Figure that! That's whatwe've got to do!"

He kicked off his magnetic-soled shoes and went diving down to theairlock. Over his shoulder he panted an order for the radar-duty man torelay anything from Earth down to him there. He arrived to find Haneyand Mike in hot argument over whether it was possible to load on anextra ton or two of mass. He stopped it. They would. 

"Everything's loaded?" he demanded. "Okay! Space suits! All set? Let'sget out of this lock and start blasting!"

He drove them into the space tug. He climbed in himself. He closed theentrance port. The plastic walls of the lock bulged out, pulled backfast, and the steering rockets jetted. The space tug came out of thelock. It spun about. It aimed for Earth and monstrous bursts ofrocket-trail spread out behind it. It dived. 

Naturally! When a ship from the Platform wanted to reach Earth foratmosphere-deceleration, it was more economical to head away from it. Now that it was the most urgent of all possible necessities to get awayfrom Earth, in the opposite direction to the space tug's present motion, it was logical to dive toward it. The ship would plunge toward Earth, and Earth's gravity would help its rockets in the attainment of frenziedspeed. But the tug still possessed its orbital speed. So it would notactually strike the Earth, but would be carried eastward past its disk, even though aimed for Earth's mid-bulge. Yet Earth would continue topull. As the space tug skimmed past, its path would be curved by thepull of gravity. At the nearest possible approach to Earth, the tugwould fire its heaviest rockets for maximum acceleration. And it wouldswing around Earth's atmosphere perhaps no more than 500 mileshigh--just barely beyond the measurable presence of air--and come out ofthat crazy curve a good hour ahead of the Platform for a correspondingposition, and with a greater velocity than could be had in any otherway. Traced on paper, the course of the tug would be a tight parabola. 

The ship dived. And it happened that it had left the Platform andplunged deep in Earth's shadow, so that the look and feel of things wasthat of an utterly suicidal plunge into oblivion. There was the seemingof a vast sack of pure blackness before the nose of the space tug. Shestarted for it at four gravities acceleration, and Joe got hisheadphones to his ears and lay panting while he waited for the figuresand information he had to have. 

He got them. When the four-gravity rockets burned out, the tug's crewpainstakingly adjusted the ship's nose to a certain position. They flungthemselves back into the acceleration chairs and Joe fired a six-gblast. They came out of that, and he fired another. The three blastsgave the ship a downward speed of a mile and a half a second, andEarth's pull added to it steadily. The Earth itself was drawing themdown most of a 4, 000-mile fall, which added to the speed their rocketsbuilt up. 

Down on Earth, radar-bowls wavered dizzily, hunting for them to feedthem observations of position and data for their guidance. Back on thePlatform, members of the crew feverishly made their own computations. When the four in the Space tug were half-way to Earth, they weretraveling faster than any humans had ever traveled before, relative tothe Earth or the Platform itself. When they were a thousand miles fromEarth, it was certain they would clear its edge. Joe proposed andreceived an okay to fire a salvo of Mark Tens to speed the ship stillmore. When they burned to the release-point and flashed away past theports, the Chief and Haney panted up from their chairs and made theirway aft. 

"Going to reload the firing-frames, " gasped the Chief. 

They vanished. The space tug could take rockets from its cargo and setthem outside its hull for firing. No other ship could. 

Haney and the Chief came back. There was dead silence in the ship, savefor a small, tinny voice in Joe's headphones. 

"We'll pass Earth 600 miles high, " said Joe in a flat voice. "Maybecloser. I'm going to try to make it 450. We'll be smack over enemyterritory, but I doubt they could hit us. We'll be hitting better thansix miles a second. If we wanted to, we could spend some more rocketsand hit escape velocity. But we want to stop, later. We'll ride it out. "

Silence. Stillness. Speed. Out the ports to Earthward there was purestblackness. On the other side, a universe of stars. But the blacknessgrew and grew and grew until it neatly bisected the cosmos itself, andhalf of everything that was, was blackness. Half was tiny colored stars. 

Then there was a sound. A faint sound. It was a moan. It was a howl. Itwas a shriek. .. . And then it was a mere thin moan again. Then it wasnot. 

"We touched air, " said Joe calmly, "at six and a quarter miles persecond. Pretty thin, though. At that, we may have left a meteor-trailfor the populace to admire. "

Nobody said anything at all. In a little while there was light ahead. There was brightness. Instantly, it seemed, they were out of night andthere was a streaming tumult of clouds flashing past below--but theywere 800 miles up now--and Joe's headphones rattled and he said:

"Now we can give a touch of course-correction, and maybe a trace ofspeed. .. . "

Rockets droned and boomed and roared outside the hull. The Earth fellaway and away and presently it was behind. And they were plunging onafter the Moonship which was very, very, very far on before them. 

It was actually many hours before they reached it. They couldn't affordto overtake it gradually, because they had to have time to work in aftercontact. But overtaking it swiftly cost extra fuel, and they hadn't toomuch. So they compromised, and came up behind the Moonship at betterthan 2, 000 feet per second difference in speed--they approached it asfast as most rifle-bullets travel--and all creation was blotted out bythe fumes of the rockets they fired for deceleration. 

Then the space tug came cautiously close to the Moonship. Mike climbedout on the outside of the tug's hull, with the Chief also in spaceequipment, paying out Mike's safety-line. Mike leaped across two hundredyards of emptiness with light-years of gulf beneath him. His metal solesclanked on the Moonship's hull. 

Then the vision-screen on the tug lighted up. Lieutenant Commander Brownlooked out of it, quietly grim. Joe flicked on his own transmitter. Henodded. 

"_Mr. Kenmore_, " said Brown evenly, "_I did not contact you beforebecause I was not certain that contact could be made. How manypassengers can you take back to the Platform?_"

Joe blinked at him. 

"I haven't any idea, " he said. "But I'm going to hitch on and use ourrockets to land you. "

"_I do not think it practicable_, " said Brown calmly. "_I believe theonly result of such a course will be the loss of both ships with allhands. I will give you a written authorization to return on my order. But since all my crew can't return, how many can you take? I have tenmarried men aboard. Six have children. Can you take six? Or all ten?_"Then he said without a trace of emphasis, "_Of course, none of them willbe officers. _"

"If I tried to turn back now, I think my crew would mutiny, " Joe saidcoldly. "I'd hate to think they wouldn't, anyhow! We're going to hook onand play this out the way it lies!"

There was a pause. Then Brown spoke again. "_Mr. Kenmore, I washoping you'd say that. Actually--er--not to be quoted, youunderstand--actually, intelligent defiance has always been in thetraditions of the Navy. Of course, you're not in the Navy, Kenmore, butright now it looks like the Navy is in your hands. Like a battleship inthe hands of a tug. Good luck, Kenmore. _"

Joe flicked off the screen. "You know, " he said, winking at Mike, "Iguess Brown isn't such a bad egg after all. Let's go!"

In minutes, the space tug had a line made fast. In half an hour, the twospace craft were bound firmly together, but far enough apart for therocket blasts to dissipate before they reached the Moonship. Mikereturned to the tug. A pair of the big Mark Twenty rockets burnedfrenziedly in emptiness. 

The Moonship was slowed by a fraction of its speed. The deceleration washardly perceptible. 

There were more burnings. Back on Earth there were careful measurements. A tight beam tends to attenuate when it is thrown a hundred thousandmiles. It tends to! When speech is conducted over it, the lag betweencomment and reply is perceptible. It's not great--just over half asecond. But one notices it. That lag was used to measure the speed anddistance of the two craft. The prospect didn't look too good. 

The space tug burned rocket after rocket after rocket. There was noeffect that Joe could detect, of course. It would have been likenoticing the effect of single oar-strokes in a rowboat miles from shore. But the instruments on Earth found a difference. They made very, very, very careful computations. And the electronic brains did thecalculations which battalions of mathematicians would have needed yearsto work out. The electronic calculations which could not make a mistakesaid--that it was a toss-up. 

The Moon came slowly to float before the two linked ships. It grewslowly, slowly larger. The word from Earth was that considering therockets still available in the space tug, and those that should havebeen fired but weren't on the Moonship, there must be no more blastsjust yet. The two ships must pass together through the neutral-pointwhere the gravities of Earth and Moon exactly cancel out. They must falltogether toward the Moon. Forty miles above the lunar surfacesuch-and-such rockets were to be fired. At twenty miles, such-and-suchothers. At five miles the Moonship itself must fire its remainingfuel-store. With luck, it was a toss-up. Safety or a smash. 

But there was a long time to wait. Joe and his crew relaxed in the spacetug. The Chief looked out a port and observed:

"I can see the ring-mountains now. Naked-eye stuff, too! I wonder ifanybody ever saw that before!"

"Not likely, " said Joe. 

Mike stared out a port. Haney looked, also. 

"How're we going to get back, Joe?"

"The Moonship has rockets on board, " Joe told him. "Only they can'tstick them in the firing-racks outside. They're stowed away, allshipshape, Navy fashion. After we land, we'll ask politely for rocketsto get back to the Platform with. It'll be a tedious run. Mostlycoasting--falling free. But we'll make it. "

"If everything doesn't blow when we land, " said the Chief. 

Joe said uncomfortably: "It won't. Not that somebody won't try. " Then hestopped. After a moment he said awkwardly: "Look! It's necessary that wehumans get to the stars, or ultimately we'll crowd the Earth until wewon't be able to stay human. We'd have to have wars and plagues and suchthings to keep our numbers down. It--it seems to me, and I--think it'sbeen said before, that it looks like there's something, somewhere, that's afraid of us humans. It doesn't want us to reach the stars. Itdidn't want us to fly. Before that it didn't want us to learn how tocure disease, or have steam, or--anything that makes men different fromthe beasts. "

Haney turned his head. He listened intently. 

"Maybe it sounds--superstitious, " said Joe uneasily, "but there's alwaysbeen somebody trying to smash everything the rest of us wanted. Asif--as if something alien and hateful went around whisperinghypnotically into men's ears while they slept, commanding themirresistibly to do things to smash all their own hopes. "

The Chief grunted. "Huh! D'you think that's new stuff, Joe?"

"N-no, " admitted Joe. "But it's true. Something fights us. You can makewild guesses. Maybe--things on far planets that know that if ever wereach there. .. . There's something that hates men and it tries to make usdestroy ourselves. "

"Sure, " said Haney mildly. "I learned about that in Sunday School, Joe. "

"Maybe I mean that, " said Joe helplessly. "But anyhow there's somethingwe fight--and there's Something that fights with us. So I think we'regoing to get the Moonship down all right. "

Mike said sharply: "You mean you think this is all worked out inadvance. That we'd be here, we'd get here----"

The Chief said impatiently, "It's figured out so we can do it if we gotthe innards. We got the chance. We can duck it. But if we duck it, it'sbad, and somebody else has to have the chance later. I know what Joe'ssaying. Us men, we got to get to the stars. There's millions of 'em, andwe need the planets they've got swimming around 'em. "

Haney said, "Some of them have planets. That's known. Yeah. "

"Those planets ain't going to go on forever with nobody using 'em, "grunted the Chief. "It don't make sense. And things in general do makesense. All but us humans, " he finished with a grin. "And I like us, anyhow. Joe's right. We'll get by this time. And if we don't--some otherguys'll have to do the job of landing on the Moon. But it'll bedone--as a starter. "

"I can see lots of mountains down there. Plain, " Mike said quietly. 

"What's the radar say?"

Joe looked. Back at the Platform it had shown the curve of the surfaceof Earth. Here a dim line was beginning to show on the vertical-planescreen. It was the curve of the surface of the Moon. 

"We might as well get set, " said Joe. "We've got time but we might aswell. Space suits on. I'll tighten up the chain. Steering rockets'll dothat. Then we'll take a last look. All firing racks loaded outside?"

"Yeah, " said Haney. He grinned wrily. "You know, Joe, I know what Iknow, but still I'm scared. "

"Me, too, " said Joe. 

But there were things to do. They took their places. They watched outthe ports. The Moon had seemed a vast round ball a little while back. Now it appeared to be flattening. Its edges still curved away beyond asurprisingly nearby horizon. The ring-mountains were amazingly distinct. There were incredibly wide, smooth spaces with mottled colorings. Butthe mountains. .. . 

When the ships were 40 miles high the space tug blasted valorously, andall the panorama of the Moon's surface was momentarily hidden by theracing clouds of mist. The rockets burned out. 

Haney and the Chief replaced the burned-out rockets. They were gigantic, heavy-bore tubes which they couldn't have stirred on Earth. Now theyloaded them into the curious locks which conveyed them outside the hullinto firing position. 

The ring-mountains were gigantic when they blasted again! They were only20 miles up, then, and some of the peaks rose four miles from theirinner crater floors. 

The ships were still descending fast. Joe spoke into his microphone. 

"Calling Moonship! Calling----" He stopped and said matter-of-factly, "I suggest we fire our last blast together. Shall I give the word?Right!"

The surface of the Moon came toward them. Craters, cracks, frozenfountains of stone, swelling undulations of ground interrupted withoutrhyme or reason by the gigantic splashings of missiles from the sky ahundred thousand million years ago. The colorings were unbelievable. There were reds and browns and yellows. There were grays and dustydeep-blues and streaks of completely impossible tints in combination. 

But Joe couldn't watch that. He kept his eyes on a very special gadgetwhich was a radar range-finder. He hadn't used it about the Platformbecause there were too many tin cans and such trivia floating about. Itwouldn't be dependable. But it did measure the exact distance to thenearest solid object. 

"Prepare for firing on a count of five, " said Joe quietly. "Five . .. Four . .. Three . .. Two . .. One . .. Fire!"

The space tug's rockets blasted. For the first time since they overtookthe Moonship, the tug now had help. The remaining rockets outside theMoonship's hull blasted furiously. Out the ports there was nothing buthurtling whitenesses. The rockets droned and rumbled and roared. .. . 

The main rockets burned out. The steering rockets still boomed. Joe hadthrown them on for what good their lift might do. 

"Joe!" said Haney in a surprised tone. "I feel weight! Not much, butsome! And the main rockets are off!"

Joe nodded. He watched the instruments before him. He shifted a control, and the space tug swayed. It swayed over to the limit of the tow-chainit had fastened to the Moonship. Joe shifted his controls again. 

There was a peculiar, gritty contact somewhere. Joe cut the steeringrockets and it was possible to look out. There were more gritty noises. The space tug settled a little and leaned a little. It was still. Thenthere was no noise at all. 

"Yes, " said Joe. "We've got some weight. We're on the Moon. "

They went out of the ship in a peculiarly solemn procession. About themreared cliffs such as no man had ever looked on before save in dreams. Above their heads hung a huge round greenish globe, with a white polarice-cap plainly visible. It hung in mid-sky and was four times the sizeof the Moon as seen from Earth. If one stood still and looked at it, itwould undoubtedly be seen to be revolving, once in some twenty-fourhours. 

Mike scuffled in the dust in which he walked. Nobody had emerged fromthe Moonship yet. The four of them were literally the first human beingsever to set foot on the surface of the Moon. But none of them mentionedthe fact, though all were acutely aware of it. Mike kicked up dust. Itrose in a curiously liquid-like fashion. There was no air to scatter it. It settled deliberately back again. 

Mike spoke with an odd constraint. "No green cheese, " he said absurdly. 

"No, " agreed Joe. "Let's go over to the Moonship. It looks all right. Itcouldn't have landed hard. "

They went toward the bulk of the ship from Earth, which now was a basefor the military occupation of a globe with more land-area than allEarth's continents put together--but not a drop of water. The Moonshipwas tilted slightly askew, but it was patently unharmed. There werefaces at every port in the hull. 

The Chief stopped suddenly. A sizable boulder rose from the dust. TheChief struck it smartly with his space-gloved hand. 

"I'm counting coup on the Moon!" he said zestfully "Tie that, you guys!"

Then he joined the others on their way to the Moonship's main lock. 

"Shall we knock?" asked Mike humorously. "I doubt they've got adoor-bell!"

But the lock-door was opening to admit them. They crowded inside. 

Commander Brown was waiting for them with an out-stretched hand. "Gladto have you aboard. " And there was a genuine smile creeping across hisface. 

 * * * * *

Joe talked with careful distinctness into a microphone. His voice took alittle over a second to reach its destination. Then there was a pause ofthe same length before the first syllable of Sally's reply came to himfrom Earth. 

"I've reported to your father, " said Joe carefully, "and the Moonshiphas reported to the Navy. In a couple of hours Haney and the Chief andMike and I will be taking off to go back to the Platform. We got rocketsfrom the stores of the Moonship. "

Sally's voice was surprisingly clear. It wavered a little, but there wasno sound of static to mar reception. 

"Then what, Joe?"

"I'm bringing written reports and photographs and first specimens ofgeology from the Moon, " Joe told her. "I'm a mailman. It'll probably besixty hours back to the Platform--free fall most of the way--and thenwe'll refuel and I'll come down to Earth to deliver the reports andsuch. "

Pause. One second and a little for his voice to go. Another second andsomething over for her voice to return. 

"And then?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out, " said Joe. "What day is today?"

"Tuesday, " said Sally after the inevitable pause. "It's ten o'clockTuesday morning at the Shed. "

Joe made calculations in his mind. Then he said:

"I ought to land on Earth some time next Monday. "

Pause. 

"Yes?" said Sally. 

"I wondered, " said Joe. "How about a date that night?" Another pause. Then Sally's voice. She sounded glad. 

"It's a date, Joe. And--do you know, I must be the first girl in theworld to make a date with the Man in the Moon?"

 COMBAT MISSION!

 _Joe Kenmore's mission was as dangerous as it sounded simple:_

 "DELIVER SUPPLIES AND ATOMIC WEAPONS TO THE SPACE PLATFORM. THEN PREPARE FOR MAN'S FIRST EXPEDITION TO THE MOON. "

 Joe had helped launch the first Space Platform--that initial rung in man's ladder to the stars. But the enemies who had ruthlessly tried to destroy the space station before it left Earth were still at work. They were plotting to stop Joe's mission!

 Cover painting by Robert Schulz

+--------------------------------------------------------------+| Transcriber's Note || || The chemical symbol for carbon dioxide has been shown as || CO_2 to depict a subscript 2. || || In the following words, the hyphen has been removed to || conform to majority use in text. || brain-storm || loud-speaker || || The following words with and without a hyphen were left as || such because of equal prevalence of both forms: || half-way halfway || pay-load payload || rocket-lift rocketlift || sun-lamps sunlamps || hand-hold handhold || pin-points pinpoints || || "overall" and "over-all" were left as such since the writers || are different (The narrator and a character). || || The following typos have been corrected: || Adorning Adoring || level lever || runing running || shed Shed || thiry-nine thirty-nine || |+--------------------------------------------------------------+