ng. The space wagons were tiny. If
they had to travel long distances to recover erratic ships coming up
from Earth----

Joe forgot all about Lieutenant Commander Brown and his memo when the
mail was distributed. Joe had three letters from Sally. He read them in
the great living compartment of the Platform with its sixty-foot length
and its carpet on floor and ceiling, and the galleries without stairs
outside the sleeping cabins. He sat in a chair with thigh grips to hold
him in place, and he wore a gravity simulation harness. It was
necessary. The regular crew of the Platform, by this time, couldn't have
handled space wagons in action against enemy manned rockets. Joe meant
to stay able to take acceleration.

It was just as he finished his mail that Brent came in.

"Big news!" said Brent. "They're building a big new ship of new
design--almost half as big as the Platform. With concreted metal they
can do it in weeks."

"What's it for?" demanded Joe.

"It'll be a human base on the Moon," said Brent relievedly. "An
expedition will start in six weeks, according to plan. As long as we're
the only American base in space, we're going to be shot at. But a base
on the Moon will be invulnerable. So they're going ahead with it."

Joe said hopefully:

"Any orders for me to join it?"

Brent shook his head. "We're to be loaded up with supplies for the Moon
expedition. We're to be ready to take a robot ship every round.
Actually, they can't hope to send us more than two a day for a while,
but even that'll be eighty tons of supplies to be stored away."

The Chief grumbled, but somehow his grumbling did not sound genuine.
"They're going to the Moon--and leave us here to do stevedore stuff?"
His tone was odd. He looked at a letter he'd been reading and gave up
pretense. He said self-consciously: "Listen, you guys.... My tribe's got
all excited. I just got a letter from the council. They've been having
an argument about me. Wanna hear?"

He was a little amused, and a little embarrassed, but something had
happened to make him feel good.

"Let's have it," said Joe. Mike was very still in another chair. He
didn't look up, though he must have heard. Haney cocked an interested
ear.

The Chief said awkwardly, "You know--us Mohawks are kinda proud. We got
something to be proud of. We were one of the Five Nations, when that was
a sort of United Nations and all Europe was dog-eat-dog. My tribe had a
big pow-wow about me. There's a