re were seven gleaming hulls in launching
cages and the unholy din of landing pushpots outside the Shed. They came
with hysterical cries from their airfield to the south, and they flopped
flat with extravagant crashings on the desert outside the eastern door.

By the time the pushpots had been hauled in, one by one, and had
attached themselves to the launching cages, Joe and Haney and the Chief
and Mike had climbed into the cabin of the one ship which was not a
drone. There were now seven cages in all to be hoisted toward the sky. A
great double triangular gore had been jacked out and rolled aside to
make an exit in the side of the Shed. Nearly as many pushpots, it
seemed, were involved in this launching as in the take-off of the
Platform itself.

The routine test before take-off set the pushpot motors to roaring
inside the Shed. The noise was the most sustained and ghastly tumult
that had been heard on Earth since the departure of the Platform.

But this launching was not so impressive. It was definitely untidy,
imprecise, and unmilitary. There were seven eighty-foot hulls in cages
surrounded by clustering, bellowing, preposterous groups of howling
objects that looked like over-sized black beetles. One of the seven
hulls had eyes. The others were blind--but they were equipped with radio
antennae. The ship with eyes had several small basket-type radar bowls
projecting from its cabin plating.

The seven objects rose one by one and went bellowing and blundering out
to the open air. At 40 and 50 feet above the ground, they jockeyed into
some sort of formation, with much wallowing and pitching and clumsy
maneuvering.

Then, without preliminary, they started up. They rose swiftly. The noise
of their going diminished from a bellow to a howl, and from a howl to a
moaning noise, and then to a faint, faint, ever-dwindling hum.

Presently that faded out, too.

8

All the sensations were familiar, the small fleet of improbable objects
rose and rose. Of all flying objects ever imagined by man, the launching
cages supported by pushpots were most irrational.

The squadron, though, went bumbling upward. In the manned ship, Joe was
more tense than on his other take-off--if such a thing was possible. His
work was harder this trip. Before, he'd had Mike at communications and
the Chief at the steering rockets while Haney kept the pushpots balanced
for thrust. Now Joe flew the manned ship alone. Headphones and a mike
gav