For an instant, in mid-air, Joe was aware of all the in the Shed. The murky, still three hundred above him. The swelling, curving, surface of underneath. Then he struck. He the man, with his left arm to his with him. Alone, he would have had to himself up the which the man had to descend. But now he it. The two of them together. Their arms were upon the surface, while their dangled. The of them and was purest nightmare.
But then, as Joe’s crawled, the same man who had the man was at of them to them to safety.
Then there were two men pulling. The man’s was gray. His was proof that he hadn’t murder. The man who’d put his pulled. The man who’d been the put his weight to the of them to footing. They safety. Joe to his feet, but he at the of his stomach. The man to shake horribly. The one upon him.
“I didn’ to you, Haney!” the dark one panted.
The one snapped: “Okay. You didn’t. But come on, now! We this——”
He toward the who had so nearly his death. But the other man his arms to his sides.
“I don’ no more,” he said thickly. “Not here. You me is okay. I don’ fight.”
The man—Haney—growled at him.
“Tonight, then, in Bootstrap. Now to work!”
The man up his tools. He was trembling.
Haney to Joe and said ungraciously: “Much obliged. What’s up?”
Joe still queasy. There is any high after one has his life for somebody else. He’d nearly two hundred to the of the Shed with Haney. But he swallowed.
“I’m looking for Chief Bender. You’re Haney? Foreman?”
“Gang boss,” said Haney. He looked at Joe and then at Sally who was to the Joe had put her hand on. Her were closed. “Yeah,” said Haney. “The Chief took off today. Some of Injun stuff. Funeral, maybe. Want me to tell him something? I’ll see him when I go off shift.”
There was an movement on this part of the Platform. A came out of a that would be an air lock. Joe didn’t move his toward it. He said awkwardly: “Just tell him Joe Kenmore’s in town and needs him. He’ll me, I think. I’ll him up tonight.”
“Okay,” said Haney.
Joe’s to the that had come out from the plating. It was a in baggy, work like the of the men up here. He a pushed on his head. Joe his function, of course. There’d be a normal-sized man couldn’t into, to a or a joint. There’d be places only a man properly inspect. The Joe without expression.
Joe to the to go to the again. Haney his hand. The his, in salutation.
The the shaft. Sally opened her eyes.
“You—saved that man’s life, Joe,” she said unsteadily. “But you me to death!”
Joe to the remark, but he still to metal under him and a of two hundred below. It had been a sensation.
“I didn’t think,” he said uncomfortably. “It was a thing to do. Lucky it out.”
Sally at him. The still swiftly. Levels of past them. If Joe had that of metal, he’d have past all these. It was not good to think about. He again. Then the in its descent. It stopped. Joe helped Sally off to solid ground.
“It—looks to me,” said Sally, “as if you’re to make me see somebody killed. Joe, would you mind leading a little less life for a while? While I’m around?”
He managed to grin. But he still did not right.
“Nothing I can do until I can look at the plane,” he said, the subject, “and I can’t the Chief until tonight. Could we a little?”
She nodded. They out from under the that the Platform. They went, in fact, under that object. Sally the sidewall.
“Let’s go look at the pushpots. They’re fascinating!”
She the way. The of the Shed again evident. There was a part way up the wall. Someone on its and the of the Shed. He would be a security man. Maybe the up on the Platform had been seen, or maybe not. The man on the was more than a speck, and it to Joe that there must be other watchers’ high up on the where men search the for of danger.
But he and looked at the thing under the of scaffolding. For the time he make out its shape. It was something like an egg, but a great more like something he couldn’t put a name to. Actually it was like nothing in the world but itself, and when it was out in space there would be nothing left on Earth like it.
It would be in a fashion a world in itself, of the Earth that it. There would be in which plants would to its air and its crew. There would be with which men would be able to study the as they had been able to do from the of Earth’s of air. But it would Earth.
There would be communicators. They would up and them to around the of the planet, or else store them and them to the other of the world an hour or two hours later.
It would store fuel with which men presently set out for the stars—and out to for that must not be on Earth. And it would be with squat, that no nation possibly defy. And so this Space Platform would keep peace on Earth.
But it not make good will among men.
Sally walked on. They the objects being in a around the of the Shed. They were of design and, by comparison, not large. The objects were of metal pipe, which men were together unbreakably. They were no than—say—half of a six-room house. A little way on, these were with of and piping, and still farther—there was a and a object into place right now—there were into openings designed to them. Others were being in with skins.
At the very end of this line a was a object onto a flat-bed trailer. As it in the air, Joe what it was. It might be called a plane, but it was not of any type used. More than anything else, it looked like a beetle. It would not be useful for anything but its at the end of Operation Stepladder. Then hundreds of these objects would upon the Platform’s sides, like bees. They would up with their engines. They would the Platform from the on which it had been built. Tugging, straining, panting, they would it out of the Shed. But their work would not end there. Holding it aloft, they would start it eastward, effortfully. They would it as and as high and as fast as their work. Then there would be one last of with rockets, into each pushpot, all at once.
Finally the would off and come home, while the Platform’s own out their mile-long flames—and it up for emptiness.
But the making of these and all the other of the Shed would have no meaning if the of four in the of a burned-out plane not be and put to use again.
Joe said restlessly: “I want to see all this, Sally, and maybe anything else I do is useless, but I’ve got to out what to the I was here!”
Sally said nothing. She turned, and they moved across the long, long space of wood-block toward the by which they had entered. And now that he had the Space Platform, all of Joe’s of and came back. It unbearable. They out through the door, Sally the pass, and Joe was again he was free to go.
Then Sally said: “You don’t want me around, do you?”
Joe said honestly: “It isn’t that, Sally, but if the is smashed, I’d—rather not have see me. Please don’t be angry, but—”
Sally said quietly: “I know. I’ll somebody to drive you over.”
She vanished. She came with the man who’d Major Holt. She put her hand on Joe’s arm.
“If it’s bad, Joe, tell me. You won’t let cry, but I’ll for you.” She his eyes. “Really, Joe!”
He and out to the car.
The on the way to the was not a good one. It was twenty-odd miles from the Shed, but Joe what he was going to see. The black car up the road. It to the right off the white highway, onto the cut—and there was the field.
And there was the of the transport plane, still where it had and burned. There were still about it, but men were on the wreck, it with torches. Already some of it was dissected.
Joe to the of the four crates.
The largest was by the of the crash or an explosion, Joe didn’t know which. The smallest was a of charcoal. Joe gulped, and into them with tools.
The pilot of the Space Platform would apply the that would make the main shift it to any position, or else it still. They were to act, in a sense, as a of engine on the take-off and keep a useful out in space. If a star photograph was to be made, it was that the Platform still while the lasted. If a was to be launched, it must be started right, and the pilot were needed. To turn to an from Earth....
The pilot were the of the Space Platform. They had to be more than adequate. They had to be perfect! On the take-off alone, they were necessary. The Platform couldn’t to its without them.
Joe away planks. He off flame-eaten timbers. He off wrappings—but some did not need to be peeled: they at a touch—and in twenty minutes he the whole story. The were ruined. The couplers—pilot-to-main-gyro connections—had been red and were no longer steel; their had and they would no longer fit. But these were not items. They were serious, but not tragic.
The was the themselves. On their and perfect the whole of the Platform would depend. And the were in one place, and the were bent. Being and nicked, the of the was destroyed. Its lost, the whole device was useless. And it had taken four months’ work to it perfectly balanced!
It had been the most piece of machine work done on Earth. It was to a microgram—to a of the weight of three tablets. It would at 40,000 minute. It had to perfectly or it would intolerably. If it at all it would shake itself to pieces, or, that, send through all the Platform’s substance. If it by the least of a ten-thousandth of an inch, it would wear, and more strongly, and itself and possibly the Platform. It needed the of an telescope’s lenses—multiplied! And it was bent. It was as as if it had been at all.
Joe as a man might if the of the on earth, in his care, had been smashed. As if the most picture in the world, in his charge, had been burned. But he worse. Whether it was his fault or not—and it wasn’t—it was destroyed.
A rolled up and was stopped by a guard. There was talk, and the let it through. A small came over from the hangars. Its normal use was the of plane in and out of their nacelles. Now it was to up the pieces of on which the best and the best of the Kenmore Precision Tool Company had for eight months, and which now was junk.
Joe watched, by disaster, while the to position above the once-precious objects. Men up the and ran under them, and then rope for them to be by. It was late by now. Long were as the truck’s whined, and the took up, and the of the four objects and swung, slowly, to the that had come from the Shed.
Joe froze, watching. He the second. The third did not spin. It swayed. But the fourth.... The lines up to the were twisted. As the largest of the four from its bed, it the lines toward straightness. It spun. It more and more rapidly, and then more and more slowly, and stopped, and to back.
Then Joe his breath. It that he hadn’t in minutes. The big wasn’t balanced. It was spinning. It wasn’t vibrating. It around its own center of gravity, by its suspension.
He until it was into the truck. Then he over to the driver of the car that had him.
“Everything’s all right,” he said, a at his own words. “I’m going to to the Shed with the I brought. It’s not too much. I’ll be able to it with a man or two I can up out here. But I don’t want anything else to to it!”
So he out to the Shed on the of the that the crates. The sun set as he rode. He was and disheveled. The of and and was in his nostrils. But he very much to sing.
It to Joe that he should have sent Sally a message that she didn’t need to as a for him. He swell! He how to do the job that would let the Space Platform take off! He’d tell her, chance.
It was very good to be alive.
