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Updated: May 24, 2025
The world turned over on its axis with unfailing regularity, and nights followed mornings and mornings followed nights according to well-established precedent. One man turned up in Bootstrap with radiation burns, but he had not offered himself for check over at the hospital. He was found dead in his lodging.
If they were set to atom-dust the whole Shed an' everybody in it, they wouldn't stop at four more murders." Joe fished for a pop bottle. "Mike said something like that back at the Shed," he observed. "Yeah. But you were the one who figured things out. You'd be first target. Haney and Mike and me we'd be hard to knock off in a crowd in Bootstrap. But you and her headed off by y'selves.
In theory, therefore, the members of welders and pipe-fitters and steel-construction and electrical and other unions should have retired gracefully to Bootstrap.
Then he recognized the two seated figures. They were the pilot and co-pilot, respectively, of the fateful plane that had brought him to Bootstrap. He went over to their table. The pilot nodded matter-of-factly. The co-pilot grinned. Both still wore bandages on their hands, which would account for their remaining here. "Fancy seeing you!" said the co-pilot cheerfully. "Welcome to the Hotel de Gink!
They filled the rear of the car entirely. It started off swiftly across the field, swerving to the roadway that led to the highway out of Bootstrap to the Shed. It sped out that long white concrete ribbon, and the desert was abruptly all around them. Far ahead, the great round half-dome of the Shed looked like a cherry-pit on the horizon. "It's good to be back!" said the Chief warmly.
He got up and began to dress, in Major Holt's quarters back of that giant steel half-globe called the Shed, near the town of Bootstrap. He felt queer because he felt so much as usual. By all the rules, he should have experienced a splendid, noble resolution and a fiery exaltation, and perhaps even an admirable sensation of humility and unworthiness to accomplish what was expected of him today.
From its top a plume of falling water jetted out. "The dam's for irrigation," said Sally professionally, "and the Shed gets all its power from here. One of Dad's nightmares is that somebody may blow up this dam and leave Bootstrap and the Shed without power." Joe said nothing. He drove on up the trail as it climbed the canyon wall in hairpin slants. It was ticklish driving.
"You want me to look at him," he said. The Major nodded. "Yes. Afterward, get a radiation check on yourself. It is hardly likely that he was ah carrying the stuff with him last night, in Bootstrap. But if he was ah you may need some precautionary treatment you and the men who were with you." Joe realized what that meant.
In the few minutes before Bootstrap loomed near, they filled the bottom of the cabin with blankets. Especially around the pilots' chairs. And there was a mound of blanketing above the actual place where the grenade might be. It made sense. Soft stuff like blankets would absorb an explosion better than anything else. But the pilot thought the grenade might not blow. "Hold fast!" snapped the pilot.
Joe and Sally rode in the Major's black car, and the other three in the jalopy they'd rented for the afternoon. On the way into the canyon below the dam, they stopped at the parked car their would-be assassins had come in. They removed its distributor and fan belt. The other men returned to the powerhouse with their shotguns and the fire axe, and telephoned to Bootstrap.
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