, but surrounded by the waters
that had made life's beginnings possible on Earth, and the continuance
of life possible in space. Man might some day live in space almost
totally without water, but for now they had brought a bit of the
mother waters with them.

Sitting in complacent control of these overall complexities that must
be met with automatic accuracy was the Starrett Analogue/Digital
Computer, Optical Wave type 44-63, irreverently referred to by the
acronymically-minded as Sad Cow, though more frequently as the Sacred
Cow, or simply Cow.

Most of the computer's intricate circuits were hidden behind the
bulkhead in a large compartment between the control center and the
south polar lock; but it was from this console in the control center
that her operation was keyed.

From this position, every function of the wheel was ordered.

This was the bridge.

Spaced equally around its thirty-two-foot ring-shaped floor were the
computer's console where Bessie presided; the com center in charge of
Communications Officer Clark; and the command console where Captain
Naylor Andersen, commanding officer of Space Lab One had his formal,
though seldom-occupied post.

At the moment, Nails Andersen was present, black cigar clamped firmly
between his teeth; hamlike Norwegian hands maneuvering a pencil, he
was making illegible notes on a scrap of paper--illegible to others
because they were in his own form of shorthand that he had worked out
over the years as he tried to make penciled notes as fast as his
racing mind worked out their details.

Whether Nails were politician or scientist would be hard to say.
Certainly his rise through the ranks of U.N. Bureaus had been rapid;
certainly in this rise he had been political, with the new brand of
politics that men were learning--world, rather than national politics.
Certainly, also, he was a scientist; and certainly he had used his
political abilities on the behalf of science, pushing and slashing at
red-tape barriers.

Nails was more than most responsible for the very existence of U.N.
Space Lab One, and Project Hot Rod besides. He was also a sponsor of
many other projects, both those that had been done and those that were
yet to be done.

The justification of a space project in these times was difficult
indeed; for no longer could nations claim military superiority as a
main reason for pushing forward across the barriers of the inner
marches of space; for spending billions i