And then the roaring of the pushpot engines achieved an utterly impossible volume. The whole interior of the Shed was misty now, but shining in the morning light.
And the Platform moved.
At first it was a mere stirring. It turned ever so slightly to one side, pivoting on the ways that had supported it during building. It turned back and to the other side. The vapor thickened. From each jet motor a blast of blue–white flame poured down, and the moisture in the earth was turning into steam and stray wood–blocks into acrid smoke. The Platform turned precisely and exactly back to its original position, and Joe's heart pounded in his throat, because he knew that the turning had been done with the gyros, and they had been handled by the pilot gyros for which he was responsible.
Then the Platform moved again. It lifted by inches and swayed forward. It checked, and lurched again, and went staggering toward the great opening before it. A part of its base gouged a deep furrow in the earthen floor.
The noise increased from the incredible to the inconceivable. It seemed as if all the thunders since time began had returned to bellow because the Platform moved.
And it floated and bumped out of the Shed. It staggered toward the east. Its keel was perhaps, at this point, as much as three feet above the ground, but the jet motors cast up blinding clouds of dust and smoke and even those afoot could not be sure.
There was confusion. The smoke and vapor splashed out in every possible direction. Joe saw frantic movement, and he realized that the uniforms and the frock coats were scrambling to escape the fumes. The khaki–tinted specks which were men seemed to run. The frock coats ran. The carefully–thought–out brighter specks which were women ran gasping and choking from the smoke. One stout figure toppled, scrambled up, and scuttled frantically for safety.
But the Platform was in motion now. It was a hundred yards beyond the Shed wall. Two hundred. Three…. It slowly gathered speed. A half–mile from the Shed it was definitely clear of the ground. It left a trail of scorched, burnt desert behind….
It moved almost swiftly, now. Two miles from the Shed it was fifteen feet above the earth. Three miles, and a clear strip of sunlight showed beneath it. And it was still accelerating. At four miles and five and six….
It was aloft, climbing with seemingly infinite slowness, with all the hundreds of straining, thrusting, clumsy pushpots clinging to it and pushing it ever ahead and upward.
It went smoothly toward the east. It continued to gain speed. It did not seem to dip toward the horizon at all. It went on and on, dwindling from a giant to a spot and then to a little dark speck in the sky that still went on and on until even Joe could not pretend to himself that he still saw it. Even then there was probably a tiny droning noise in the air, but nobody who had watched the take–off could possibly hear it.
Then Joe looked at Sally and she at him. And Joe was grinning like an ape with excitement and relief and triumph which was at once his own and that of all his dreams. Sally's eyes were shining and exultant. She hugged him in purest exuberance, crying that the Space Platform was up, was up, was up….
* * * * *
At sundown they were waiting on the porch of the Major's quarters behind the Shed. The Major was there, and Haney and the Chief and Mike and Joe. The Major's whole look had changed. He seemed to have shrunk, and he looked more tired than any man should ever be allowed to get. But his job was done, and the reaction was enough to explain everything. He sat in an easy chair with a glass beside him, and he looked as if nothing on earth could make him move a finger. But nevertheless he was waiting.
Sally came out with a tray. She gravely passed around the glasses and the cakes that went with them. Then she sat down on the porch steps beside Joe. She looked at him and nodded in friendly fashion. And Joe was inordinately approving of Sally, but he felt awkward at showing it too plainly in her father's presence.
Mike said defiantly: "But still it woulda been easier to get it up there if it'd been built for guys like me!"
Nobody contradicted him. He was right. Anyhow every one of them felt too much relaxed and relieved to enter into argument.
Haney said dreamily: "Everything broke right. Everything! They got in a jet stream like they expected, and it gave 'em three hundred miles extra east–speed. They were eight miles up when the pushpots fired their jatos, an' twelve miles up when the pushpots let go—they musta near broke their pilots' necks when they caught their motors again! And the Platform's rockets fired just right, makin' flames a mile long, an' they were goin' then—what were they makin'?"
"Who cares?" asked the Chief peacefully. "Plenty!"
"Six hundred from the pushpots," murmured Haney, frowning, "an' three hundred from the jet stream, and then there was the jatos that all let go at once, an' then there was eight hundred from the earth rotatin'―"
"They had ten per cent of their rockets unfired when they got into their orbit," said Mike authoritatively. "They were two thousand miles up when they passed over India and now they're four thousand miles up and the orbit's stable. This is their third round, isn't it?"
"Will be," said the Chief.
Joe and Sally sat watching the west. The Space Platform went around the Earth from west to east, like Earth's natural moon, but because of its speed it would rise in the west and set in the east six times in every twenty–four hours.
Major Holt spoke suddenly. The austerity had gone out of his manner with his energy. He said quietly: "You four—you gave me the worst scare I've ever had in my life. But do you realize that that sabotage attempt with the two truck–loads of explosive—do you realize that they'd have gotten the Platform if it hadn't been for that crazy trick you four planned, and the precautions we took because of it?"
Joe said depreciatingly: "It was just luck that they happened to pick the same time, and that Haney was up there with those machine–gunners at the right moment. It was good luck, but it was luck."
The Major said effortfully: "There are people called accident prones. Accidents happen all around them, and nobody knows why. You four—perhaps Joe especially—are not accident prones. You seem to be something antithetic to accidents. I would hesitate to credit your usefulness to your brains. Especially Joe's brains. I have known him too long. But—ah—Washington does not look at it in exactly the same way."
Sally touched Joe warningly. But her face was very bright and proud. Joe felt queer.
"Joe," said the Major tiredly, "was an alternate for membership in the Platform's crew. But for penicillin, or something of the sort that made a sick man get well quickly, Joe would be up there in the Platform's orbit now. His—ah—record in the instruction he did take was satisfactory. And—ah—all four of you were very useful in the last stages of the building of the Platform. Again Joe especially. His—ah—co–operation with higher authorities has produced—ah—very favorable comments. So it is felt that he should have some recognition. All of you, of course, but Joe especially. So―"
Joe felt himself going white.
"Joe," said the Major, "is to be offered an appointment as skipper of a ferry rocket, carrying supplies and crew reliefs to the Platform. His rocket will carry a crew of four, including himself. His—ah—recommendations for membership in his crew will have considerable weight."
There was a buzzing in Joe's ears. He wanted to cry and to dance, and especially right then he would have liked very much to kiss Sally. It would have been the only really appropriate way to express his emotions.
Mike said in a fierce, strained voice: "Joe! I can do anything a big elephant of a guy can do, and I only use a quarter of the grub and air! You've got to take me, Joe! You've got to!"