Nobody have gone through the of Joe had that and matter-of-fact. Seeing a man who had more or less killed himself so that he wouldn’t have to kill Joe—for one—had its effect. Knowing that it was possible the man hadn’t killed himself in time had another. Being over for which would that he’d die three or four days, and then learning that no existed, was something of an ordeal. And Sally—of her shouldn’t have been as as his own, but the that she’d been for him some significance. When, on top of all the rest, he into the Space Platform for the time, Joe was definitely up.
But he talked technology. He the skin and its going the temporary entrance. The of the Platform was actually double. The was a meteor-bumper against which of would and without to the skin. They it without a of air. Inside the skin there was a of for insulation. Inside the was a of material the of the of a tank. No under a quarter-inch size to make a puncture, at the forty-five-mile-per-second speed that is the maximum for meteors. And if one did, the would stop the immediately. Joe the protection of the metal skins. He did.
“When a fast enough,” he said absorbedly, “it stops ability. Over a mile a second, impact can’t be from to rear. The end of the thing that has at the place the of can travel to it. It’s like a train in a which doesn’t stop all at once. A the Platform will on itself like the of a train that another at full speed.”
Sally enigmatically.
“So,” said Joe, “the isn’t there. A the Platform won’t punch. It’ll explode. Part of it will turn to vapor—metallic if it’s metal, and if it’s stone. It’ll a in the metal plate. It’ll away as much weight of the skin as it itself. Mass for mass. So that weight for weight, would be just as against as steel.”
Sally said: “Dear me! You must read the newspapers!”
“The out, the are that the Platform won’t an in the twenty thousand years it’s the Earth.”
“Twenty thousand two seventy, Joe,” said Sally. She was trying to him, but her a little of the strain. “I read the magazine articles too. In I sometimes the article around, when they’re to see the Platform.”
Joe a little. Then he wryly.
“That me to size, eh?”
She at him. But they queer. They on into the of the space ship.
“Lots of space,” said Joe. “This could’ve been smaller.”
“It’ll be nine-tenths empty when it goes up,” said Sally. “But you know about that, don’t you?”
Joe did know. The for the of to be from the ground didn’t apply to the Platform. Not with the same urgency, anyhow. Rockets had to their fuel fast to up out of the air near the ground. They had to be to the thick, part of the atmosphere. The Platform didn’t. It wouldn’t climb by itself. It would be necessarily at slow speed up to the point where were most efficient, and then it would be higher until they to be efficient. Only when it was up where air was a very small of ground-level would its own fire. It wouldn’t much by being to cut thin air, and it would a lot. For one thing, the planned for the Platform allowed it to be complete so as its was concerned. Once it got out into its there would be no more worries. There wouldn’t be any on the of a great in a “world.”
The two of them—and the way they felt, it natural for Joe to be helping Sally very through the of the Platform—the two of them came to the engine room. This wasn’t the place where the drive of the Platform was centered. It was where the service and the air-circulation and the were powered. Off the engine room the main were already installed. They waited only for the pilot to them as a engine an Earth ship’s rudder. Joe looked very at the assembly. That was familiar, from the drawings. But he let Sally him on without trying to stop and look closely.
She him the quarters. They in a great open space sixty long and twenty wide and high. There were bookshelves, and two balconies, and chairs. Private opened from it on different levels, but there were no steps to them. Yet there were chairs with so that when a man was he himself in them. There were trays, designed to look like that and nothing else. But would not into them, but would be into them by suction. There was on the and on the ceiling.
“It’s going to queer,” said Sally, quiet, “when all this is out in space, but it will look normal. I think that’s important. This room will look like a big private library more than anything else. One won’t be every second, by he sees, that he’s in a environment. He won’t cramped. If all the rooms were small, a man would as if he were in prison. At least this way he can that are normal.”
Her mind was not on her words. She’d been for Joe. And he was aware of it, he a after-effect himself.
“Normal,” he said drily, “except that he doesn’t anything.”
“I’ve about that,” said Sally. “Sleeping’s going to be a big problem.”
“It’ll take used to,” Joe agreed.
There was a pause. They were looking about the great room. Sally uneasily.
“Tell me what you think,” she said. “You’ve been in an that started to like a plummet. When the Platform is it’ll be like that all the time, only worse. No weight. Joe, if you were in an that to be and and for hours on end—do you think you go to sleep?”
Joe hadn’t about it. And he was of Sally, just then, but the idea him.
“It might be hard to to,” he admitted.
“It’ll be hard to to, awake,” said Sally. “But to it asleep should be worse. You’ve up from a that you’re falling?”
“Sure,” said Joe. Then he whistled. “Oh-oh! I see! You’d off to sleep, and you’d be falling. So you’d wake up. Everybody in the Platform will be around the Earth in the Platform’s orbit! Every time they off they’ll be and they’ll wake up!”
He managed to think about it. It was true enough. A man himself that he only and that he was falling, and that there was no danger. But what would when he to sleep? Falling is the a being knows. Everybody in the world has at one time up from a of which he plunged. It is an terror. And no how a man might know in his mind that was normal in emptiness, his mind would go off when he to sleep. A would take over then, and it would not be satisfied. It might wake him at any of until he up from ... or else let him sleep only when produced than slumber.
“That’s a one!” he said disturbedly, and noticed that she still of her distress. “There’s not much to be done about it, either!”
“I something,” said Sally, “and they it in. I it works!” she uncomfortably. “It’s a of with a top that down, and an underside. When a man wants to sleep, he’ll this thing, and it will him in his bunk. It won’t touch his head, of course, and he can move, but it will press against him gently.”
Joe over what Sally had just explained. He noticed that they were close together, but he put his mind on her words.
“It’ll be like a man swimming?” he asked. “One can go to sleep floating. There’s no of weight, but there’s the of pressure all about. A man might be able to sleep if he he were floating. Yes, that’s a good idea, Sally! It’ll work! A man will think he’s floating, than falling!”
Sally a little.
“I of it another way,” she said awkwardly. “When we go to sleep, we go way back. We’re like babies, with all a baby’s and needs. It might like floating. But—I one of those bunks. It like—it of dreamy, as if someone were—holding one safe. It as if one were a and—beautifully secure. But of I haven’t it weightless. I just—hope it works.”
As if embarrassed, she and him the kitchen. Every pan was covered. The top of the was alnico-magnet strips, like the top of a magnetic chuck. Pans would to it. And the had a which Joe not understand.
“It’s a plastic that’s heatproof,” said Sally. “It and the food to the of the pan. They the to eat ready-prepared food. I said that it would be to have to drink out of plastic bottles of glasses. They one of these down, for me, and I and eggs and with the of the pan pointing to the floor. They said the would be while.”
Joe was stirred. He her out of the and said warmly—the more these to the Space Platform came on top of a personal on his own account: “You must be the girl in the world who about in space!”
“Girls will be going into space, won’t they?” she asked, not looking at him. “If there are on the other planets, they’ll have to. And some day—to the stars....”
She still, and Joe wanted to do something about her and the world and the way he felt. The of the Platform was very silent. Somewhere away where the glass-wool was incomplete, the of was audible, but the of the Platform were not resonant. They were with a material to that this was a metal shell, an world that would swim in emptiness. Here and now, Joe and Sally very private and alone, and he a of urgency.
He looked at her yearningly. Her color was a little higher than usual. She was not just a kid, she was swell! And she was good to look at. Joe had noticed that before, but now with the memory of her he’d been in danger, her worry he might have been killed, he of her very but offer to for him.
Joe himself at the ring on his finger. He got it off, and there was some and on it from the work he’d been doing. He that she saw what he was about, but she looked away.
“Look, Sally,” he said awkwardly, “we’ve each other a long time. I’ve—uh—liked you a lot. And I’ve got some to do first, but——” He stopped. He swallowed. She and at him. “Look,” he said desperately, “what’s a good way to ask if you’d like to wear this?”
She nodded, her a little.
“That was a good way, Joe. I’d like it a lot.”
There was an interlude, then, which she very and that he must be more and not his life so much! And then there was a faint, the Platform. It was the of a siren, out in and as it up. Finally its note and it and and wailed.
“That’s the alarm,” Sally. She was still misty-eyed. “Everybody out of the Shed. Come on, Joe.”
They started the way they’d come in. And Sally looked up at Joe and suddenly.
“When I have grandchildren,” she told him, “I’m going to that I was the very girl in all the world to be in a space ship!”
But Joe do anything about the comment, she was out on the stairs, in plain view and going down. So he her.
The Shed was emptying. The wood-block was with moving toward the security exit. There was no hurry, security men were that this was not an but a measure, and there was no need for haste. Each security man had been by the walkie-talkie he wore. By it every be told anything he needed to know, either on the of the Shed, or on the or in the Platform itself.
Trucks up in fashion to go out the swing-up doors. Men came from the after their in proper between-shifts positions—for and inspection—and other men were from the line. Except for the object in the middle, and for the that every man was in work clothes, the was like the waiting room of a very large station, with people moving here and there.
“No hurry,” said Joe, the word from a security man as he passed it on. “I’ll go see what my out.”
The trio—Haney and Mike and the Chief—were just by the of but now wreckage. Sally so when she saw the Chief Joe’s ring on her finger.
“Rest of the day off, huh?” said the Chief. “Look! We most of the we need. They’re give us a shop to work in. We’ll move this there. We’re have to a false on the we picked, an’ then cut out the plate to let the fit in the chucks. Mount it so the is in the right line.”
That would be with the of the to the of the earth. Joe nodded.
“We’ll be able to set up in the mornin’,” added Haney, “and started. You got the parts list off to the plant for your to on?”
Sally said quickly: “He’s sending that by now. Then——”
The Chief in mockery. “What you goin’ to do after that, Joe? If we got the of the day off——?”
Sally said hurriedly: “We were—he was going off on a with me. To Red Canyon Lake. Do you need to talk business—all afternoon?”
The Chief laughed. He’d Sally, at least by sight, at the Kenmore plant.
“No, ma’am!” he told her. “Just askin’. I on that Red Canyon job, years back. That that the lake. It ought to be right around there now. Okay, Joe. See you as soon as work up. In the mornin’, most likely.”
Joe started away with Sally. Mike the called hoarsely: “Joe! Just a minute!”
Joe back. The midget’s was very earnest. He said in his odd voice: “Here’s something to think about. Somebody hard to keep you from those here. They might work hard to keep them from repaired. That’s why we asked for a special shop to work in. It’s to me that a good way to stop these repairs would be to stop us. Not would’ve out how to this thing. You me?”
“Sure!” said Joe. “You three had look out for yourselves.”
Mike at him and grimaced.
“You don’t it,” he said brittlely. “All right. I may be crazy, at that.”
Joe Sally. The idea of a was new to him, but he of it completely. They to the small that to the security building. They were admitted. There was and here, though had been by the need to stop all work. As they toward Major Holt’s office, Joe somebody in a matter-of-fact voice: “... this attempt at was the Shed, but it had a of success. Geiger would have any attempt to material into the Shed....”
Joe at Sally.
“That’s for a release?” he asked.
She nodded.
“It’s true, too. Nothing goes in or out of the Shed without close to a Geiger counter. Even radium-dial up, though they don’t set the to screaming.”
Joe said: “I’ll my order for new parts off on the machine.”
But he had to Major Holt’s to him where to in the list. It would go east to the nearest receiver, and then be by special messenger to the plant. Miss Ross set the machine and the which was part of the document. It through the and came out again.
“You and Sally,” Sally’s father’s with a sigh, “can go and this afternoon. But there’s no for Major Holt. Or for me.”
Joe said unhopefully: “I’m sure Sally’d be if you came with us.”
Major Holt’s plain, her head.
“I haven’t had a day off since the work here,” she said frowning. “The Major on me. Nobody else do what I do! You’re going to Red Canyon Lake?”
“Yes,” Joe. “Sally it might be pleasant.”
“It’s and here,” said Miss Ross sadly. “That’s the only of water in a hundred miles or more. I it’s there. I’ve it.”
She Joe his original from the machine. An exact copy of his list, in his handwriting, was now in more than fifteen hundred miles away, and would arrive at the Kenmore Precision Tool plant a of hours. There be no question of errors in transmission! It had to be right!
Sally came out, at her father’s secretary, and Joe to the entrance.
“I have the car,” she said cheerfully, “and there’ll be a waiting for us at the house. I that the was too cold for swimming, though. It is. Snow water it. But it’s to look at.”
They out the door, and the on the Platform were just to into the waiting of busses. But the black car was waiting, too. Joe opened the door and Sally him the key. She the men on the busses.
“There’ll be all over Bootstrap,” she observed, “saying that Braun to dust-bomb the Shed. They’ll say that he may have the about with him, and so he may have other people—in a restaurant, a movie theater, anywhere—while he was the and without it. So everybody’s to report to the hospital for a check-up for burns. Some people may have them. But Dad thinks that since you weren’t burned, Braun didn’t it around. If anyone is burned, it’ll be the person who the here to give him. And—well—he’ll turn up does, and he’s he’ll be asked of questions.”
Joe on the starter. Then he pressed the and the car forward.
They stopped at the house in the officers’-quarters area on the other of the Shed. Sally up the that her father’s had packed on instructions. They away.
Red Canyon was eighty miles from the Shed, and the only way to there was through Bootstrap, the only away from the Shed to that small, town. It was irritating, though they had no schedule, to that the long line of was ahead of them on that twenty-mile stretch. The ran nose to and the road for a half-mile or more. It was not possible to pass so long a of close-packed vehicles. There was just traffic in the opposite direction to make that impracticable.
They had to the line of as as Bootstrap and through the streets. Once the town they came to a security stop. Here Sally’s pass was good. Then they on and on through an empty, arid, sun-baked toward the to the west. It looked lonely. Joe for the time about gas. He looked at the fuel gauge. Sally her head.
“Don’t worry. Plenty of gas. Security takes of that. When I said where we were going and that I wanted the car, Dad had checked. If I live through this, I’ll I a about all my life!”
Joe said distastefully: “I it everybody. Mike—the midget, you know—called me just now to that the people who to the might try to the four of us to their repair!”
“It’s not just foolishness,” Sally admitted. “The is bad, when you know things. You’ve noticed that Dad’s gray. That’s strain. And Miss Ross is about as tense. Things out in the most way—and Dad can’t out how. Once there was a case of and he have that nobody had the that permitted it but himself and Miss Ross. She had hysterics. She that she wanted to be locked up so she couldn’t be of telling anything. She’d tomorrow if she could. It’s ghastly.” Then she and faintly: “In fact, so Dad wouldn’t worry about me this afternoon——”
He took his off the road to at her.
“What?”
“I promised we wouldn’t go and——” Then she said awkwardly: “There are two pistols in the compartment. Dad you. So I promised you’d put one in your pocket up at the lake.”
Joe a breath. She opened the and him a pistol. He looked at it: .38, hammerless. A good safe weapon. He it in his pocket. But he frowned.
“I was looking to—not for a while,” he said wryly. “But now I’ll have to to keep looking over my all the time!”
“Maybe,” said Sally, “you can look over my and I’ll look over yours, and we can at each other occasionally.”
She laughed, and he managed to smile. But the of a on his forehead.
Joe and and drove. Once they came to a very small town. It may have a hundred people. There were and a restaurant and two or three stores, which were too many for the permanent residents. But there were cow the stores, and were also in view. The ground here was rolling. The had to good-sized against the sky. Joe the single street, out once to a dog sleeping in an area for traffic.
Finally they came to the foothills, and then the road and as it among them. And two hours from Bootstrap they Red Canyon. They saw the from downstream. It was a of masonry, alone in the mountains. From its top a of water out.
“The dam’s for irrigation,” said Sally professionally, “and the Shed all its power from here. One of Dad’s is that somebody may up this and Bootstrap and the Shed without power.”
Joe said nothing. He on up the as it the in slants. It was driving. But then, suddenly, they the top of the and the top of the and the level of the at once. Here there was a of water that among the for miles and miles. It out of sight. There were small on its surface, and at its edge. There were trees. The was a small in the middle of the dam. Not a person was visible anywhere.
“Here we are,” said Sally, when Joe stopped the car.
He got out and around to open the door for her. But she was already out with the in her hand when he arrived. He for it, and she on, and they moved away from the car the them.
“There’s a place,” said Sally, pointing.
A small of out into the lake, and rose, and spread, and what was almost a some fifty across. There were some trees on it. Sally and Joe the and out the that it with the shore.
Sally let the box on a and laughed for no at all as the wind her hair. It was a wind from over the water. And Joe with a of that the air different and different when it over open water like this. Up to now he hadn’t of the of the air in Bootstrap and the Shed.
The was a little. Joe it up and settled it more solidly. Then he said: “Hungry?”
There was nothing on his mind at the moment but the luxurious, satisfied of being off with and a and Sally, and a good part of the to away. It good. So he the of the basket.
There was a there. It was the other one from the of the car. Sally hadn’t left it behind. Joe it and said ironically: “Happy, youth—that’s us! Which are the sandwiches, Sally?”
