The shift had a clean-up job to do. It was only security men took over the work of bosses, and all ordinary labor on the Platform was put until normal operations were again possible. Even that would not have been but for the walkie-talkies the security men wore. As the was out, it was to them, and they the news for the of the of those who under them. No work—no explanation. It produced and satisfactory co-operation all around.
There had been four and to the Platform at the same time. One was, of course, the plan of those who had to help Mike and his win the of by the Platform’s rockets. There were not many of them, and they had heavily. They’d had to the Platform’s vitals. Ultimately the talked freely, if morosely, and that was that.
There had been a particularly attempt to panic in the shift in the rooms where its members were screened to work. Somebody had to complete there by in the crowd, the to through to the and with of to to the Platform with them. The with the had into Major Holt’s security reserve, and they got nowhere. The of panic with were from their shift-mates and more or less up from the screening-room floor—they were in very shape—and off to be up for questioning. The members of this group had been idealists, and besides, some of them had their nerve, as was by the of and in the room and men’s room of the Shed.
The most attempt was, of course, that perfectly planned and co-ordinated which had been out at its original time, without either being or by Mike’s activities. That plan had been contrived, and it would have been successful but for the machine-gun from the and the Joe’s put up the Platform.
The exact when the whole Shed would be most nearly empty had been upon, and three had in perfect timing. There’d been the man in the truck. He’d his from the Shed to the of a second to the doors open at the perfect instant. The explosive-laden trucks had in at the exact second when they were most to the Platform and their cargoes. There’d been a perfect planned for that, too. Smoke and in the rooms had panic, and but for Joe’s order for his group’s walkie-talkies to be off would have every security man on to that spot.
Mike’s trick, then, had some into the open, but had to with the most and well-organized of all. However, it was to his that the Platform was not now a wreck.
There was also another that was coincidence. It was a that not possibly have up save in a of pure induced. Joe had had to in a personal and way to the manner in which his had him. One a man to by instinct, and to turn to fouls—if he does—in only. But Joe’s personal hadn’t a single trick. It was as if he’d of a blow, but only of and mayhem. Joe an toward him.
Joe didn’t himself the most urgent of the injured, when doctors and took up the work of patching, but Sally was there to help, and she when she saw his throat. She him to a doctor. And the doctor looked at Joe and else.
But it wasn’t too serious. The hurt, and the was unpleasant, but Joe was more by the knowledge that Sally was there and for him. When he got up from the table, the doctor to him.
“That was close!” said the doctor. “Whoever you was for your vein, and he was through the when he stopped. A of an more, and he’d have had you!”
“Thanks,” said Joe. His with bandages, and when he to turn his the hurt.
Sally’s hand in his when she him away.
“I didn’t think I’d so much,” said Joe angrily, “as I did that man while he was my throat. We were trying to kill each other, of course, but—confound it, people don’t bite!”
“Did you—kill him?” asked Sally in a voice. “Not that I’ll mind! I would have the ordinarily, but——”
Joe halted. There was a of stretchers—not too long, at that—in the emergency-hospital space. He looked at the man who’d him.
“There he is!” he said irritably. “I him hard. I don’t like to anybody, but the way he fought——”
Sally’s teeth suddenly. She called to one of the security men by the stretchers.
“I—think my—father is going to want to talk to him,” she said unsteadily. “Don’t—let him be taken away to the hospital until Dad knows, please.”
She started away, her dead-white and her hand stone-cold.
“What’s the matter?” Joe.
“S-sabotage,” said Sally in an that had a of heartbreak.
She into her father’s office alone. She came out again with him, and her father looked stricken. Miss Ross, his secretary, was with him, too. Her was like a of marble. She had always been a plain woman, a one, a one. But at the new and look on her Joe his away.
Then Sally was him, and he put his arm around her and let her on his shoulder, puzzled.
He didn’t out until later what the trouble was. The man who’d so to kill him was Miss Ross’s fiancé. She had met this man a vacation, as a government secretary, and he was a with an that would have a much more and woman than Miss Ross. They had a romance. He to her his terror of from his native country who might kill him. And of she was more still. When he asked her to him she his proposal. Then, just two her to the Space Platform project, he vanished. Miss Ross was and lovesick.
One day her telephone and his voice told her he’d been abducted, and if she told the police he would be to death. He her not to do anything to him more than was already his.
She’d been trying to keep him alive since. Once, when she couldn’t herself to out an order she’d been given—with of to him if she failed—she’d a in the mail, and a and blood-stained note which out of and her not to him to more.
So Miss Ross, who was Major Holt’s and one of his most assistants, had been to one group of all the while. She was the most security in the whole Platform project.
But her fiancé wasn’t a captive. He was the of that group of saboteurs. He’d love to her and to her to prepare her to supply the he wanted. He needed only to a note, or on a telephone, to what he wanted.
Incidentally, he still had all his when Joe him cold.
Sally had him as the of a she’d once Miss Ross over. Miss Ross had it and told her it was someone she had once loved, now dead. And this that Miss Ross was the security the Major had had a to only have come about through such as Mike had and Haney and the Chief and Joe had organized. But Joe learned those only later.
At the moment, there was still the Platform to be aloft. And there was of work to do. There were two small in the plating, by of the truck. There were some holes. The Platform small at forty-five miles a second, but a high-velocity small-arm it. Those of had to be shut. The of the had to come and the of the had to be affixed. And there was up to be done.
These the shift that came on at the time of the assaults. At the work was ragged. But the policy of the Security men into news well. After all, the Platform was a job and the men who on it were not softies. Most of them had men killed before. Before the shift was over, a work was evident. Men had to take an in the thing they had built, it had been and not destroyed. And the job was almost over.
Sally to her father’s quarters, to try to sleep. Joe in the Shed. His was painful so that he didn’t want to go to until he was tired, and he was up.
Mike the had gone peacefully to sleep again, up in a of the room. His talked among themselves. Presently, to their to battles, two of them out a pack of cards and started a card game while they waited for a bus to take them to Bootstrap.
The Chief’s Indian while waiting for the same busses. Later they would put in for overtime—and it. Haney that he had been from the of action, and was for the presence and and of the machine that had the Platform from being up from below.
It that nothing else would to anybody. But there was one thing more.
That thing just two hours it was time for the shift to once again, and when normal work was in progress in the Shed. Everything and serene. Everything in the Shed had settled down, and nothing had outside.
There was protection, of course, but the outside-guard hadn’t had anything to do for a very long time. Men at screens were and from and silence. Pilots in two miles and five miles and eight miles high had long since of the view them. After all, one can very used to late, moonlight on cloud underneath, and and hostile-seeming overhead.
So the thing was well timed.
A Canadian station noticed the on its screen first. The was puzzled by it. It have been a meteor, and the Canadian at it was. But it wasn’t going fast enough, and it too long. It was traveling six hundred seventy-two miles an hour, and it was south at sixty thousand feet. The speed have been reason—provided it didn’t constant. But it did. There was something traveling south at eleven miles a minute or better. A mile in five-plus seconds. It didn’t slow. It didn’t drop.
The Canadian painfully. He stopped his from the reading of a magazine article about in the home. He him the pip, still south and almost at the limit of this instrument’s range. They the thing dubiously. They to report it.
They had a little trouble the call through. The night long-distance were sleepy. Because of the of making the call, the and on it through. They reported to Ottawa that some object at sixty thousand and six hundred seventy-two miles an hour was Canada for the United States.
There was a time loss. Somebody in authority had to be awakened, and somebody had to decide that a report was justified. Then the had to be accomplished, and a man in a and and said sleepily, “Oh, of you’ll tell the Americans. It’s only neighborly!” and to his to go to sleep again. Then he up and to sweat. He’d that this might be the of war. So he set phone to all over Canada, and to in the darkness.
But there was only one object in the sky. Over the Dakotas it higher. It to seventy thousand feet, and then eighty. How this was managed is not known, there are still some of that that have been explained. But at some point, and the object ninety thousand where a would be useless. And then, almost certainly, once more and well south of the Dakotas it started in a like that of an shell, but with higher speed than most achieve.
It was at about this time that the in the Shed its choppy, series of warm-up notes. The news from Canada arrived, as a of fact, some thirty after the outer-perimeter screen around the Platform gave its warning. Then there was no or at all. Men were already out of at three airfields, and their would properly. Then the the Shed itself up the moving speck. And small blue-white to from the ground and go away in the in numbers.
The of the at the top of the Shed aside. Miles away, skyward, and newly looked at their night-fighting and at the speed they were told the object was making. The gave their they take, but it didn’t look good.
The of the over the Shed stopped and sprinted. And they were the only ones likely to in of the object in time.
Inside the Shed, the and all the Security men were snapping: “Radar alarm! All out! Radar alarm! All out!”
And men were moving fast, too. Some came from the Platform on hoists, with speed to the level. Some didn’t wait for a turn at that. They one upright, around the on the level below, and another pipe. For a minute or more it looked as if the black which its pipes. But the were men. The and with for its exits.
The its and its noise and in until it was a that to and ceased. Then there was no but the men moving to out of the Shed. There were trucks, too. Those that had been with for the doors to out and away. Some men jumped on as they passed. The doors up to let them go.
But it was very in the Shed, at that. There was no noise but a trucks, and the which was the voices of the Security men the work out. There was less to than on ordinarily. And it was a long across the of the Shed.
Joe with his absurdly. This only be an air attack. An air attack only an atom-bomb attack. And if there was an bomb on the Shed, there’d be no use outside. It wouldn’t be a bomb. It would be a bomb—a bomb which used the of bomb that Hiroshima only as a for the explosive. Nobody to the of its it hit!
Joe himself raging. He’d of Sally. She’d be in the range of annihilation, too. And Joe such and hatred—because of Sally—that he else.
He didn’t run. He couldn’t escape. He couldn’t back. But he hated, he had to do something to defy.
He himself moving toward the Platform, his clenched. It was pure, blind, defiance.
He was not the only one to have that reaction. Men toward the to out of from their running. They slowed. Presently they stopped. They and raged, like Joe. Some of them looked with up at the of the Shed, though their on it. The security repeated, “Radar alarm! All out! Radar alarm! All out!”
Someone snarled, “Nuts to that!”
Joe saw a man walking in the same direction as himself. He was walking to the Platform. Somebody else was too....
Very peculiarly, almost all the men on the had to run. They to in little groups. They was useless. They talked briefly. Profanely. Here and there men started toward the Platform. Their moved in of scorn. Their was of themselves.
There was a of men about the of the that still the Platform. They to outward, angrily, and to their fists.
Then somebody started an engine. A man to climb to where he had been at work. Quite unreasonably, other men him.
Hammers and to sound.
The work in the Shed and to work. A was set up that was almost the normal noise. It was the only possible way in which those men the they for those who would the thing they on.
But there were some other men who do more. There were three of above the Shed, and they dive. The one got to the line along which the from an unknown place was toward the Shed. That plane on a and let go its of rockets. It off and got out of the way. Seconds later the others from the were arriving. A of proximity-fused toward the thing from the heights.
Other and yet others came to the line their for them. There were more rockets....
The black-painted thing with more than the speed of an into a of rockets. They viciously. Half a dozen—a dozen—explosions that were pure futility.
Then there was an that was not. Nobody saw it, its was out in a of such that the paint on still miles away was and instantly. The light of that was for hundreds of miles. The sound—later on—was still. And the miles the bomb of when the came.
But the thing from the north was vaporized, utterly, some forty-five miles from its target. The it did was negligible.
The work on the for the Platform’s take-off on. When the all-clear the Shed, nobody paid any attention. They were too busy.
