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and utterly peaceful and rested, and it seemed to him very much like the way he had often felt on a new spring morning. It was very, very good!

Then he smelled coffee and became ravenous.

There were the others in the Platformā€™s kitchen, sitting in the chairs that had straps on them so the crew neednā€™t float about because of weightlessness. There was an argument in progress. The Chief grinned at Joe. Mike the midget looked absorbed. Haney was thinking something out, rather painfully. Sally was busy at the Platformā€™s very special stove. She had ham and eggs and pancakes ready for Joe to eat.

ā€œGentlemen,ā€ she said, ā€œyou are about to eat the first meal ever cooked in a space shipā€”and like it!ā€

She served them and sat companionably down with them all. But her eyes were very warm when she looked at Joe.

ā€œLeavinā€™ aside what we were arguinā€™ about,ā€ said the Chief blissfully, ā€œSally hereā€”mind if I call you Sally, maā€™am?ā€”she says the slide-rule guys have given our job the works and they say itā€™s a better job than they designed. Take a bow, Joe.ā€

Sally said firmly: ā€œWhen the technical journals are through talking about the job you did, youā€™ll all four be famous for precision-machining technique and improvements on standard practices.ā€

ā€œWhich,ā€ said the Chief sarcastically, ā€œis gonna make us feel fine when weā€™re back to welding and stuff!ā€

ā€œNo more welding,ā€ Sally told him. ā€œNot on this job. The Platformā€™s closed in. Theyā€™ve started to take down the scaffolding.ā€

The Chief looked startled. Haney asked: ā€œLaying off men yet?ā€

ā€œNot you,ā€ Sally assured him. ā€œDefinitely not you. You four have the very top super-special security rating there is! I think youā€™re the only four people in the world my father is sure canā€™t be reached, somehow, to make you harm the Platform.ā€

Mike said abruptly: ā€œYeah. The Major thought he had headaches before. Now heā€™s really got ā€™em!ā€

Mike hadnā€™t seemed to be listening. Heā€™d acted as if he were feverishly absorbing the feel of being inside the Platformā€”not as a workman building it, but as a man whose proper habitat it would become. But Joe suddenly realized that his comment was exact. Thereā€™d been plenty of sabotage to prevent the Platform from reaching completion. But now it was ready to take off in two days. If it was to be stopped, it would have to be stopped within forty-eight hours by people with plenty of resources, who for their own evil ends needed it to be stopped. These last two days would contain the last-ditch, most desperate, most completely ruthless stepped-up attempts at destruction that could possibly be made. And Major Holt had to handle them.

But the four at tableā€”five, with Sallyā€”were peculiarly relaxed. The matter theyā€™d handled had been conspicuous, perhaps, but it was still only one of thousands that had to be accomplished before the Platform could take off. But they had the infinitely restful feeling of a job well done.

ā€œNo more welding,ā€ said Haney meditatively, ā€œand our job on the gyros finished. What are we gonna do?ā€

The Chief said forcefully: ā€œMe, Iā€™m gonna sweep floors or something, but Iā€™m sure gonna stick around and watch the take-off!ā€

Joe said nothing. He looked at Sally. She became very busy, making certain the others did not want more to eat. After a long time Joe said, with very careful casualness, ā€œCome to think of it, I was getting loaded up with astrogation theory when I had to stop and pitch in on the gyros. Howā€™s that sick crew member, Sally?ā€

ā€œIā€”wouldnā€™t know,ā€ answered Sally unconvincingly. ā€œHave some more coffee?ā€

Joe made his face go completely expressionless. There was nothing else to do. Sally hadnā€™t said that his chances looked bad for making the crew of the Platform when it went out to space. But Sally had ways of knowing things. She would be sure to keep informed on a matter like that, because she was wearing Joeā€™s ring and it would have taken a great deal of discouragement to keep her from finding out good news to tell him. She didnā€™t have any good news. So it must be bad.

Joe drank his coffee, trying to make himself believe that heā€™d known all along he wasnā€™t going to make the crew. Heā€™d started late to learn the things a crew member ought to know. Heā€™d stopped at the most crucial part of his training to work on the gyros, which were more crucial still. Heā€™d slept a day and a half. The platform would take off in forty-eight hours. He tried to reason carefully that it was common sense to use a man who was fully trained from the beginning for a place in the crew, rather than a latecomer like himself. But it wasnā€™t easy to take.

Mike the midget said suddenly: ā€œI got a hunch.ā€

ā€œShoot it,ā€ said the Chief, amiably.

ā€œI got a hunch I know what kind of sabotage will be tried nextā€”and when,ā€ said Mike.

The others looked at himā€”all but Joe, who stared at the wall.

ā€œThere hasnā€™t been one set of guys trying to smash the Platform,ā€ said Mike excitedly. ā€œThereā€™s been four or five. Joe found a gang sabotaging the pushpots that didnā€™t think like the gang that blackmailed Braun. And the gang that tried to kill us up at Red Canyon may be another. There could be others: fascists and commies and nationalists and crackpots of all kinds. And they all know theyā€™ve got to work fast, even if they have to help each other. Get it?ā€

Haney growled.

ā€œIā€™ll buy what youā€™ve said so far,ā€ said the Chief. ā€œSure! Those so-and-sos will all pile in everything they got at the last minute. Theyā€™ll even pull together to smash the Platformā€”and then double-cross each other afterward. But whatā€™ll they do, anā€™ when?ā€

ā€œThis time theyā€™ll try outright violence,ā€ said Mike coldly, ā€œinstead of sneaking. Theyā€™ll try something really rough. For sneaking, one timeā€™s as good as another, but for really rough stuff, thereā€™s just one time when the Platform hasnā€™t got plenty of guys around ready to fight for it.ā€

The Chief whistled softly.

ā€œYou mean change-shift time! Which one?ā€

ā€œThe first one possible,ā€ said Mike briefly. ā€œAfter every shift, things will get tighter. So my guess is the next shift, if they can. And if one gang starts something, the others will have to jump right in. You see?ā€

That made sense. One attempt at actual violence, defeated, would create a rigidity of defense that would make others impossible. If a successful attempt at violent sabotage was to be made, the efforts of all groups would have to be timed to the first, or abandoned.

ā€œI couldā€”uhā€”set up a sort of smoke screen,ā€ said Mike. ā€œWeā€™ll fake weā€™re going to smash somethingā€”and let those saboteurs find it out. Theyā€™ll see it as a chance to do their stuff with us to run interference for them.ā€”Sally, does your father sure-enough trust us?ā€

Sally nodded.

ā€œHe doesnā€™t talk very cordially, but he trusts you.ā€

ā€œOkay,ā€ said Mike. ā€œYou tell him, private, that Iā€™m setting up something tricky. He can laugh off anything his security guys report that Iā€™m mixed up in. Joeā€™ll see that he gets the whole picture beforehand. But he ainā€™t to tell anybodyā€”not anybodyā€”that something is getting framed up. Right?ā€

ā€œIā€™ll ask him,ā€ said Sally. ā€œHe is pretty desperate. Heā€™s sure some last-minute frantic assault on the Platform will be made. Butā€”ā€”ā€

ā€œWeā€™ll tip him in plenty of time,ā€ said Mike with authority. ā€œIn time for him to play along, but not for a leak to spoil things. Okay?ā€

ā€œIā€™ll make the bargain,ā€ Sally assured him, ā€œif it can be made.ā€

Mike nodded. He drained his coffee cup and slipped down from his chair.

ā€œCome on, Chief! Cā€™mon, Haney!ā€

He led them out of the room.

Joe fiddled with his spoon a moment, and then said: ā€œThe crewman I was to have subbed for if he didnā€™t get wellā€”he did, didnā€™t he?ā€

Sally answered reluctantly: ā€œY-yes.ā€

Joe said measuredly: ā€œWell, thenā€”thatā€™s that! I guess it will be all right for me to stick around and watch the take-off?ā€

Sallyā€™s eyes were misty.

ā€œOf course it will, Joe! Iā€™m so sorry!ā€

Joe grinned, but even to himself his face seemed like a mask.

ā€œInto each life some rain must fall. Letā€™s go out and see whatā€™s been accomplished since I went to sleep. All right?ā€

They went out of the Platform together. And as soon as they reached the floor of the Shed it was plain that the stage had been set for stirring events.

The top five or six levels of scaffolding had already been removed, and more of the girders and pipes were coming down in bundles on lines from giraffelike cranes. There were some new-type trucks in view, too, giants of the kind that carry ready-mixed concrete through city streets. They were pouring a doughy white paste into huge buckets that carried it aloft, where it vanished into the mouths of tubes that seemed to replace the scaffolding along the Platformā€™s sides.

ā€œLining the rockets,ā€ said Sally in a subdued voice.

Joe watched. He knew about this, too. It had been controversial for a time. After the pushpots and their jatos had served as the first two stages of a multiple-rocket aggregation, the Platform carried rocket fuel as the third stage. But the Platform was a highly special ballistic problem. It would take off almost horizontallyā€”a great advantage in fueling matters. This was practical simply because the Platform could be lifted far beyond effective air resistance, and already have considerable speed before its own rockets flared.

Moreover, it was not a space ship in the sense of needing rockets for landing purposes. It wouldnā€™t land. Not ever. And again there was the fact that men would be riding in it. That ruled out the use of eight- and ten- and fifteen-gravity acceleration. It had to make use of a long period of relatively slow acceleration rather than a brief terrific surge of power. So its very special rockets had been designed as the answer.

They were solid-fuel rockets, though solid fuels had been long abandoned for long-range missiles. But they were entirely unlike other solid-fuel drives. The pasty white compound being hauled aloft was a self-setting refractory compound with which the rocket tubes would be lined, with the solid fuel filling the center. The tubes themselves were thin steelā€”absurdly thinā€”but wound with wire under tension to provide strength against bursting, like old-fashioned rifle cannon.

When the fuel was fired, it would be at the muzzle end of the rocket tube, and the fuel would burn forward at so many inches per second. The refractory lining would resist the rocket blast for a certain time and then crumble away. Crumbling, the refractory particles would be hurled astern and so serve as reaction mass. When the steel outer tubes were exposed, they would melt and be additional reaction mass.

In effect, as the rocket fuel was exhausted, the tubes that contained it dissolved into their own blast and added to the accelerating thrust, even as they diminished the amount of mass to be accelerated. Then the quantity of fuel burned could diminishā€”the tubes could grow smallerā€”so the rate of speed gain would remain constant. Under the highly special conditions of this particular occasion, there was a notable gain in efficiency over a liquid-fuel rocket design. For one item, the Platform would certainly have no use for fuel pumps and fuel tanks once it was in its orbit. In this way, it wouldnā€™t have them. Their equivalent in mass would have been used to gain velocity. And when the Platform finally rode in space, it would have expended every ounce of the driving apparatus used to get it there.

Now the rocket tubes were being lined and loaded. The time to take-off was growing short indeed.

Joe watched a while and turned away. He felt very good because heā€™d finished his job and lived up to the responsibility heā€™d had. But he felt very bad because heā€™d had an outside chance to

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