to the touch. It was startling how heavy
his arms and legs felt, and how much of an effort even sitting erect
was. But he began to remember Mike's adventure, and managed to grin
feebly. It was the only thing worth a smile in all the things that had
happened.

Because Mike's landing had been quite unlike the others. Joe and the
Chief landed near the edge of a jungle. Haney landed in a canebrake. But
Mike came floating down from the sky, swaying splendidly, into the
estate of a minor godling.

He was relatively unharmed by the shaking-up he'd had. The strength of
muscles depends on their cross-section, but their weight depends on
their volume. The strength of a man depends on the square of his size,
but his weight on the cube. So Mike had taken the deceleration and the
murderous vibration almost in his stride. He floated longer and landed
more gently than the rest.

Joe grinned painfully at the memory of Mike's tale. He'd come on board
the rescue destroyer in a towering, explosive rage. When his
ribbon-parachute let him down out of the sky, it deposited him gently on
ploughed fields not far from a small and primitive Hindu village. He'd
been seen to descend from the heavens. He was a midget--not as other
men--and he was dressed in a space suit with glittering metal harness.

The pagan villagers greeted him with rapture.

When the searching-party found Mike, they were just in time to prevent a
massacre--by Mike. Adoring natives had seized upon him, conveyed him in
high state to a red mud temple, seemingly tried to suffocate him with
evidences of their pride and joy at his arrival, and dark-skinned
maidens were trying hopefully to win his approval of their dancing. But
the rescue-party found him with a club in his hand and blood in his eye,
setting out furiously to change the tone of his reception.

Joe still didn't know all the details, but he tried to concentrate on
what he did know as he put his uniform on again. He didn't want to think
how little it meant, now. The silver space ship badge didn't mean a
thing, any more. There weren't any more space ships. The Platform wasn't
a ship, but a satellite. There'd never been but two ships. Both had
ceased to exist.

Joe walked painfully forward in the huge, roaring plane. The motors made
a constant, humming thunder in his ears. It was not easy to walk. He
held on to handholds as he moved. But he progressed past the bunk space.
And there was Mike, sitting at a table and