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Updated: May 24, 2025
It was the equivalent of the interviews extracted from fliers after a bombing raid, and it was necessary, but Joe was very tired. Wearily, he said, "Start your questions. I'll try to answer them." They arrived in Bootstrap some forty-six hours after the crashing of their ship. Joe, at least, had slept nearly thirty of those hours.
"Somebody else may have been burned in any case," said the Major detachedly. "I am going to issue a radioactivity alarm and check every man in Bootstrap for burns. It is ah very likely that the man who delivered it to this man is burned, too. But you will not mention this, of course." He waved his hand in dismissal. Joe turned to go.
Get him a long-distance telephone connection to the Kenmore Precision Tool Company. Let him talk. Then bring him to me again." He disappeared. Sally tried to smile at Joe. She was still quite pale. "That's Dad, Joe. He means well, but he's not cordial. I was in his office when the report of sabotage to your plane came through. We started for Bootstrap.
The lanky man Haney growled at him. "Tonight, then, in Bootstrap. Now get back to work!" The stocky man picked up his tools. He was trembling. Haney turned to Joe and said ungraciously: "Much obliged. What's up?" Joe still felt queasy. There is rarely any high elation after one has risked his life for somebody else. He'd nearly plunged two hundred feet to the floor of the Shed with Haney.
I'll bet on it." But he was wrong. The others went out of the storeroom and back into Sid's Steak Joint, and the Chief politely thanked the proprietor for the loan of his storeroom for a private fight. Then they went out into the neon-lighted business street of Bootstrap. "What do we do now?" asked Joe. "Where you sleeping?" asked the Chief hospitably. "I can get you a room at my place."
So Joe and Sally drove back to Bootstrap with the other car following closely through all the miles that had to be covered in the dark. Halfway back, they met a grim search party in cars, heading for the dam to begin their man hunt in the morning. After that, Joe felt better.
"About five months ago," said the co-pilot, "there was an Army colonel wangled a ride to Bootstrap on a cargo plane. The plane took off. It flew all right until twenty miles from Bootstrap. Then it stopped checking. It dove straight for the Shed the Platform's being built in. It was shot down. When it hit, there was an explosion." The co-pilot shrugged. "You won't believe me, maybe.
Somewhere a record shop fed repetitious music to the night air. There was movement and crowding and jostling, but the middle of the street was almost empty save for the busses. There were some bicycles, but practically no other wheeled traffic. After all, Bootstrap was strictly a security town. A man could leave whenever he chose, but there were formalities, and personal cars weren't practical.
The floor became dotted with figures moving toward the doors through which men went out to get on the busses for Bootstrap. Nothing happened. More long minutes passed. The shift brought out by the busses was going through the check-over process in the incoming screen room.
The plane went on, descending. Joe craned his neck, and then he was ashamed to gawk. He looked ahead, and far away there were white speckles that would be buildings: Bootstrap, the town especially built for the men who built the Space Platform. In it they slept and ate and engaged in the uproarious festivity that men on a construction job crave on their time off. The plane dipped noticeably.
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