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A pushpot, outside the building, hysterically bellowed its way across the runway and its noise changed and it was aloft. It went spiraling up and up. Joe stirred his coffee. There were thin shoutings outside. A screaming, whistling noise! A crash! Something metallic shrieked and died. Then silence. Talley, the co-pilot, looked sick. Then he said: "Correction.
"Off," said the co-pilot. "Spark and advance " Joe didn't listen. He looked down at the sprawling small town with white-painted barracks and a business section and an obvious, carefully designed recreation area that nobody would ever use. The plane was making a great half-circle.
But don't tell me you're going to fly a pushpot!" "I hadn't figured on it," admitted Joe. "Are you?" "Perish forbid," said the co-pilot amiably. "I tried it once, for the devil of it. Those things fly with the grace of a lady elephant on ice skates! Did you, by any chance, notice that they haven't got any wings? And did you notice where their control surfaces were?" Joe shook his head.
He nodded yet again to the co-pilot, and they swung up and in the pilots' doorway. Joe followed. They settled in their places in the cabin. The pilot threw a switch and pressed a knob. One motor turned over stiffly, and caught. The second. Third. Fourth. The pilot listened, was satisfied, and pulled back on the multiple throttle. The plane trundled away.
A light plane came careening around the great curved outer surface of the Shed. It landed and taxied up to the door. It swung smartly around and its side door opened. A bandaged hand waved at Joe. He climbed in. The pilot of this light, flimsy plane was the co-pilot of the transport of yesterday. He was the man Joe had helped to dump cargo. Joe climbed in and settled himself.
Because very, very cleverly they'd managed to get a bomb in the plane disguised as cargo. They got the men who'd done that, later, but it was rather late." Joe said dubiously: "But would one bomb destroy the Shed and the Platform?" "This one would," said the co-pilot. "It was an atom bomb. But it wasn't a good one. It didn't detonate properly. It was a fizz-off." Joe saw the implications.
They were trying to realize a dream men have dreamed for decades the necessary space platform that would be the dock, the wharf, the starting point from which the first of human space explorers could start for infinity. The idea that anybody could want to halt such an undertaking made Joe Kenmore burn. The co-pilot painstakingly crushed out his cigarette.
So they're doing what they can to keep the world as it's always been equipped with just one moon and many armies. And they're doing plenty, if you ask me!" "I've heard " began Joe. "You haven't heard the half of it," said the co-pilot. "The Air Transport has lost nearly as many planes and more men on this particular airlift than it did in Korea while that was the big job.
That night, at 8:30P.M., the Houston to Miami DC- 7B had been "abeam" of New Orleans, out over the Gulf of Mexico. There was a partial moon shining through small wisps of high cirrus clouds but generally it was a clear night. The captain of the flight was back in the cabin chatting with the passengers; the co-pilot and engineer were alone on the flight deck.
At 9:27P.M. on December 5, an Air Force C-47 transport was flying at 18,000 feet 10 miles east of Albuquerque. The pilot was a Captain Goede. Suddenly the crew, Captain Goede, his co-pilot, and his engineer were startled by a green ball of fire flashing across the sky ahead of them.
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