There was nobody in the world to the Space Platform was meaningless. To Joe and a great many people like him, it was a long and to and now being a reality. To some it was the of peace and the of a life: children and and a look to the future. Some people prayed for its success, though they have no other in its making. And of there were those men who had into power and not there without ruthlessness. They what the Platform would to their kind. For, once world peace was certain, they would be killed by the people they over. So they sent grubby, men to it at any cost. They were prepared to pay for or to any if the Space Platform be and as the of life on Earth.
And there were the people who were actually doing the building.
Joe a bus into Bootstrap that night with some of them. The middle shift—two to ten o’clock—was off. Fleets of rolled out from the small town twenty miles away, their making a of in the darkness. They rolled into the area and the late shift—ten to six—to be by security and to the Shed. Then, empty, the around to where Joe waited with the shift around him.
The stopped and opened their doors. The waiting men in, zestfully, calling to each other, for seats or themselves be pushed on board. The bus Joe himself on was in seconds. He on to a and didn’t notice. He was in the of his idea for the repair of the pilot gyros. The be replaced easily enough. The of his had been the that be managed but one thing; that the all-important was the only thing that couldn’t be achieved. Getting that accuracy, at the plant, had four months of time. Each of the was four in and five hundred pounds. Each at 40,000 r.p.m. It had to be from a special to that it would not to pieces from force. Each was with a of and it off balance. If the and were not at the center of of the rotors—five hundred of off at 40,000 r.p.m. the devil. They the Platform itself. And “exactly at the center of gravity” meant exactly. There be no error by which the was off center by the thousandth of an inch, or a ten-thousandth, or the tenth of a ten-thousandth. The had to be absolute.
Gloating over the he’d found, Joe have himself. Hanging to a in the waiting bus, he saw another bus start off with a of and a of smoke. It to the and rolled away. Another and another it. Joe’s bus in line. They for Bootstrap in a convoy, a long, long of vehicles one the other.
It was dark outside. The Shed was alone, for security. It was twenty miles from the town where its work slept and ate and merry. That was security too. One shift came off, and through a security check, and that time the Shed was empty save for the security officers who it endlessly, looking for trouble. Sometimes they it. The shift on also passed through a security check. Nobody into the Shed without being past question. The picture-badge stage was long since passed on the Space Platform job. Security was tight!
The long of rolled through the night. Outside was dark desert. Overhead were many stars. Inside the bus were in the aisle, and every seat was filled. There was the of sweat, and oil, and tobacco. Somebody still had on his from lunch. There was the noise of many voices. There was an two seats up the aisle. There was the of the motor, and the of tires. Men had to their voices to be above the din.
A among the more than that by the motion of the bus Joe’s eye. Somebody was his way from the toward the front. The was narrow. Joe to his strap, hard and about the of the gyros. There be no tolerance. It had to be exact. There had to be no at all....
Figures away from him. A hand on his shoulder.
“Hiya.”
He around. It was the man, Haney, he’d from being off the level place two hundred up.
Joe said: “Hello.”
“I you were big brass,” said Haney, in his ear. “But big don’t the busses.”
“I’m going in to try to up the Chief,” said Joe.
Haney grunted. He looked at Joe. His to Joe’s hands. Joe had been into the crates, and he’d up, but packing is hard to off. When mixed with and it signs. Haney relaxed.
“We mostly eat together,” he observed, satisfied that Joe was regular his hands weren’t soft and mechanic’s soap had done an job on them. “The Chief’s a good guy. Join us?”
“Sure!” said Joe. “And thanks.”
A voice around Haney’s knees. Joe looked down, startled. The he’d up on the Platform up at him. He’d through the press in Haney’s wake. He to a little out of pure habit. Joe room for him.
“I’m okay,” said the pugnaciously.
Haney a introduction.
“Mike Scandia.” He at Joe. “Joe Kenmore. He’s with us. Wants to the Chief.”
There had been no to the Joe had in Haney from a two-hundred-foot fall. But now Haney said approvingly: “I wanted to say thanks for your mouth shut. New here?”
Joe nodded. The noise in the bus any of talk difficult. Haney appeared used to it.
“Saw you with—uh—Major Holt’s daughter,” he again. “That’s why I you were brass. Figured one or the other’d tell on Braun. You didn’t, or somebody’d’ve Cain. But I’ll it.”
Braun would be the man Haney had been fighting. If Haney wanted to it his way, it was naturally none of Joe’s business. He said nothing.
“Braun’s a good guy,” said Haney. “Crazy, that’s all. He that fight. Picked it! Up there! Coulda been him off—and I’d ha’ been in a mess! I’ll see him tonight.”
The said something in his and voice.
The bus rolled and rolled and rolled. It was a long twenty miles to Bootstrap. The the bus was black and featureless, but once a of trucks passed, going to the Shed.
Presently, though, lights in the night. Again the bus slowed, in with the others. Then there were buildings, each other, and then there was a and the was with light. The up to the and stopped, and was in a great to out, unnecessarily, and Joe let himself be along by the crowd.
He himself on the with up and the street. He was in the of the which was the middle shift released. It and without to lessen. Most of the in were men. There were very, very women. The that here one beer, and that this was Fred’s Place, and that was Sid’s Steak Joint. Bowling. Pool. A store—still open for this shift’s trade—sold and practical work and of personal adornment. A movie house. A second. A third. Somewhere a record shop music to the night air. There was movement and and jostling, but the middle of the was almost empty save for the busses. There were some bicycles, but no other traffic. After all, Bootstrap was a security town. A man he chose, but there were formalities, and personal weren’t practical.
“Chief’ll be yonder,” said Haney in Joe’s ear. “Come along.”
They their way along the sidewalk. The passers-by were of a type—construction men. Somebody here had taken part in the of every and and put up in Joe’s lifetime. They have been away from the Space Platform job only by a by security to let them be hired.
Haney and Joe moved toward Sid’s Steak Joint, with Mike the them. Men to them as they passed. Joe in his mind what he was going to tell the Chief. He had a for the pilot gyros. A of would them, and they had been through a plane crash and a fire and explosions, but his would do, in ten days or less, what the plant home had needed four months to accomplish. The was something to over.
Into Sid’s Steak Joint. A box was playing. Over in a booth, four men ate hungrily, with a TV machine in the them matches out in San Francisco. A waiter a from which steam and arose.
There was the Chief, dark and to look at, with his black in the light. He was a Mohawk, and he and his had taken to work a long time back. They were good. There were not many big jobs on which the Chief’s were not to be working. Forty of them had died together in the accident in history, when a on its way to in the making, but there were a dozen or more at work on the Space Platform now. The Chief had machine-tool work at the Kenmore plant, and he’d been good. He’d on the plant team, and he’d in the church choir, but there had been nobody else around who talked Indian, and he’d lonely. At that, though, he’d left the Space Platform and wild couldn’t have him away from a job like that!
He’d a table for Haney and Mike, but his when he saw Joe. Then he and almost the table to up and him.
“Son-of-a-gun!” he said warmly. “What you doin’ here?”
“Right now,” said Joe. “I’m looking for you. I’ve got a job for you.”
The Chief, still grinning, his head.
“Not me, I’m here till the Platform’s done.”
“It’s on the job,” said Joe. “I’ve got to a together to repair something I out here today and that got in the landing.”
The four of them sat down. Mike’s was above the table top. The Chief to a waiter. “Steaks all around!” he bellowed. Then he toward Joe. “Shoot it!”
Joe told his story. Concisely. The pilot gyros, which had to be perfect, had been at by saboteurs. An attack with possibly proximity-fused rockets. The plane was booby-trapped, and somebody at an had had a to the trap. So it was wreckage. Crashed and on landing.
The Chief growled. Haney pressed his together. The of Mike were burning.
“Plenty of that stuff,” the Chief. “Hard to catch the so-and-sos. Smash the and the take-off’d have to wait till new ones got made—and that’s more time for more sabotage.”
Joe said carefully: “I think it can be licked. Listen a minute, will you?”
The Chief his upon him.
“The have to be rebalanced,” said Joe. “They have to on their own center of gravity. At the plant, they set them up, them, and which was heavy. They took metal off till it ran at five hundred r.p.m. Then they it at a thousand. It vibrated. They that was too small to up before. They that. They it up. And so on. They to make the center of the center of the by off the weight that put the center of else. Right?”
The Chief said irritably: “No other way to do it! No other way!”
“I saw one,” said Joe. “When they up the at the airfield, they up the with a crane. The were twisted. Every as it rose. But not one wobbled! They their own of and around them!”
The Chief scowled, in thought. Then his blank.
“By the turtle!” he grunted. “I it!”
Joe said, with very great pains not to triumphant, “Instead of the and the rotor, we’ll the and the shaft. We’ll the around the center of gravity, of trying to move the center of to the middle of the shaft. We’ll the on a base. I think it’ll work.”
Surprisingly, it was Mike the who said warmly, “You got it! Yes, sir, you got it!”
The Chief took a breath. “Yeah! And d’you know how I know? The Plant a high-speed once. Remember?” He with the Joe concealed. “It was just a plate with a in the middle. There were on the plate. It in a that was much too big. They air up the hole. It the plate up, the air the and the plate—and it ran as sweet as honey! Balanced itself and didn’t a bit! We’ll do something like that! Sure!”
“Will you work on it with me?” asked Joe. “We’ll need a of crew—three or four altogether. Have to out the we need. I can ask for I want. I’m for you. You the others.”
The Chief broadly. “Any objections, Haney? You and Mike and me and Joe here? Look!”
He a pencil out of his pocket. He started to on the plastic table top, and then took a paper instead.
“Something like this——”
The came, on the they’d been in. The was seared, and the was and rare. Intellectual like the of a machine-tool operation not with such and and sounds. The four of them to.
But they talked as they ate. Absorbed and often with their mouths full, with articulation, but with as the and the method they’d use took in their minds. It wouldn’t be simple, of course. When the were about their of gravity, off the would the center of gravity. But the would be less than off the rotors’ rims. If they the and used an on the high of the as it turned....
“Going to have precession!” Mike. “Have to have a surface. Quarter turn the cutter. That’ll it.”
Joe only to be that Mike would know theory. At the moment he to the out.
“Right! And if we cut too we can plate the up to and cut it again——”
“Plate it up with iridium,” said the Chief. He a knife. “Man! This is be fun! No you say, Joe?”
“No tolerance,” Joe. “Accurate the limits of measurement.”
The Chief beamed. The Platform was a challenge to all of humanity. The pilot was to the of the Platform. To provide that against was a challenge to the four who were it.
“Some fun!” the Chief, blissfully.
They ate their steaks, talking. They of apple with of ice on top, still talking urgently. They coffee, each other to diagrams. They used up all the paper napkins, and were still at it when someone came toward the table. It was the man who had with Haney on the Platform that day. Braun.
He Haney on the shoulder. The four at the table looked up.
“We today,” said Braun in a voice. He was pale. “We didn’t finish. You finish?”
Haney growled.
“That was a business,” he said angrily. “That ain’t any place to fight, up on the job! You know it!”
“Yeah,” said Braun in the same odd voice. “You it now?”
Haney said formidably: “I’m not dodgin’ any fight. I didn’t it then. I’m not dodgin’ it now. You it. It was crazy! But if you got over the craziness——”
Braun a smile. “I’m still crazy. We finish, huh?”
Haney pushed his chair and up grimly. “Okay, we it! You killed me. I killed you too, with that for either of us.”
“Sure! Too nobody got killed,” said Braun.
“You wait,” said Haney to Joe and the rest. “There’s a out back. Sid’ll let us use it.”
But the Chief pushed his chair.
“Uh-uh,” he said, his head. “We’re watchin’ this.”
Haney spoke with courtesy: “You mind, Braun? Want to some friends of yours, too?”
“I got no friends,” said Braun. “Let’s go.”
The Chief to the owner of Sid’s Steak Joint. He paid the bill, talking. The owner of the place his thumb toward the rear. This was not an request—for the use of a so that two men each other undisturbed. Bootstrap was a law-abiding town, to from work on the Platform was to a place in the most job in history. So it was that the settlement of in private should commonplace.
The Chief leading, they through the and out of doors. The beyond. The Chief in and on the light. He looked about and was satisfied. It was almost empty, save for in one corner. Braun was already taking off his coat.
“You want and stuff?” the Chief.
“I want fight,” said Braun thickly.
“Okay, then,” the Chief. “No kickin’ or gougin’. A man’s down, he has a to up. That’s all the rules. Right?”
Haney, off his in turn, an assent. He his to Joe. He his antagonist.
It was a for a fight. There were the of the with a single light in the middle and an beneath. The Chief in the doorway, scowling. This didn’t right. There was not in to it. There was and enough, but Braun was white and if his was contorted—and it was—it was not with the to and and maim. It was something else.
The two men each other. And then the stocky, Braun at Haney. The had in it but nothing more. It almost looked as if Braun were trying to work himself up to the he’d on finishing. Haney with a that off Braun’s cheek. And then they in at each other, without science or skill.
Joe watched. Braun a that hurt, but Haney sent him back. He came in again, and and swung, but he had no idea of boxing. His only idea was to slug. He did slug. Haney had been than angry. Now he to glower. He to take the to Braun.
He Braun down. Braun up and rushed. A on Haney’s ear. He Braun up with a to the midsection. Braun came back, swinging.
Haney closed one for him. He came back. Haney him from to with a blow. He came back. Haney his lip and a tooth. He came back.
The Chief said sourly: “This ain’t a fight. Quit it, Haney! He don’t know how!”
Haney to away, but Braun on him, until Haney had to him again. He himself up and at Haney—and was again. Haney over him, furiously.
“Quit it, y’fool! What’s the with you?”
Braun started to up again. The Chief and him, while Haney glared.
“He ain’t going to any more, Braun,” the Chief firmly. “You ain’t got a chance. This fight’s over. You had enough.”
Braun was and battered, but he panted: “He’s got enough?”
“Are you out o’ your head?” the Chief. “He ain’t got a mark on him!”
“I ain’t—got enough,” Braun, “till he’s got—enough!”
His was in gasps, the result of blows. It hadn’t been a but a beating, by Haney. But Braun to up.
Mike the said brittlely: “You got enough, Haney. You’re satisfied. Tell him so.”
“Sure I’m satisfied,” Haney. “I don’t want to him any more. I got of that!”
Braun panted: “Okay! Okay!”
The Chief let him to his feet. He to his coat. He to put himself into it. Mike Joe’s and meaningfully. Joe helped Braun into the coat. There was silence, save for Braun’s heavy, breathing.
He moved toward the door. Then he stopped.
“Haney,” he said effortfully, “I don’t say I’m sorry for you today. I first. But now I say I am sorry. You are good guy, Haney. I was crazy. I—got reason.”
He out of the door and was gone. The four who were left at each other.
“What’s the with him?” Haney blankly.
“He’s nuts,” said the Chief. “If he was apologize——”
Mike his head.
“He wouldn’t apologize,” he said brittlely, “because he you might think he was scared. But when he’d proved he wasn’t of a beating—then he say he was sorry.” He paused. “I’ve I liked a less than him.”
Haney put on his coat, frowning.
“I don’t it,” he rumbled. “Next time I see him——”
“You won’t,” Mike. “None of us will. I’ll on it.”
But he was wrong. The others out of the and into Sid’s Steak Joint, and the Chief thanked the for the of his for a private fight. Then they out into the neon-lighted of Bootstrap.
“What do we do now?” asked Joe.
“Where you sleeping?” asked the Chief hospitably. “I can you a room at my place.”
“I’m out at the Shed,” Joe told him awkwardly. “My family’s Major Holt a long time. I’m at his house the Shed.”
Haney his but said nothing.
“Better out there then,” said the Chief. “It’s midnight, and they might want to lock up. There’s your bus.”
A bus was waiting by the curb. Its doors were open, but it was empty of passengers. Single ran out to the Shed now and then, but they ran in at shift-change time. Joe over and the bus.
“We’ll turn up early,” said the Chief. “This won’t be a shift job. We’ll look over and out what we want and then to work, eh?”
“Right,” said Joe. “And thanks.”
“We’ll be there with our in braids,” said Mike, in his voice. “Now a of and so to bed. ’Night.”
Haney his hand. The three of them off, the two of Haney and the Chief, with Mike them, than their knees. They were with all the many-tinted upon them. They into a diner.
Joe sat in the bus, alone. The driver was off somewhere. The of Bootstrap were by night. Footsteps, and the of bells, and voices, and a radio and a record-shop loud-speaker else, and a of noise of festivity.
There was a on the by Joe’s window. He started and looked out. Braun—battered, and from the of his mouth—motioned urgently for him to come to the door of the bus. Joe went.
Braun up at him in a new fashion. Now he was neither to look at. Despite the he’d taken, he and somehow tranquil. He looked like somebody who has come to the end of and is past any but that of from suffering.
“You—” said Braun. “That girl you were with today. Her is Major Holt, eh?”
Joe frowned, and said that he was.
“You tell her pop,” said Braun detachedly, “this is tip. Hot tip. Look two north of Shed tomorrow. He something bad. Hot! You tell him. Two kilometers.”
“Y-yes,” said Joe, his increasing. “But look here——”
“Be sure say hot,” Braun.
Rather incredibly, he smiled. Then he and walked away.
Joe to his seat in the empty bus, and sat there and waited for it to start, and to out what the message meant. Since it was for Major Holt, it had something to do with security. And security meant defense against sabotage. And “hot” might significant, or—in these days—it might something else. In fact, it might something to make your on end when of in with the Space Platform.
Joe waited for the bus to take off. He that Braun’s use of the word “hot” did not “significant.” The other meaning was what he had in mind.
Joe’s teeth to chatter.
He didn’t let them.
