Shed. It
was carefully scrambled before transmission, but it was a heartening
sight. The Shed on the TV screen appeared a place of swarming activity.
Robot hulls were being made. They were even improved, fined down to ten
tons of empty weight apiece, and their controls were assembly line
products now. And there was the space flight simulator with men
practicing in it, although for the time being only robots were taking
off from Earth. And there was the Moonship.

It didn't look like the Platform, but rather like something a child
might have put together out of building blocks. It was built up out of
welded-together cells with strengthening members added. It was 60 feet
high from the floor and twice as long, and it did not weigh nearly what
it seemed to. Already it was being clad in that thick layer of heat
insulation it would need to endure the two-week-long lunar night. It
could take off very soon now.

The pictured preparations back on Earth meant round-the-clock drudgery
for Joe and the others. They wore themselves out. But the storage space
on the Platform filled up. Days and weeks went by. Then there came a
time when literally nothing else could be stored, so Joe and his crew
made ready to go back to Earth.

They ate hugely and packed a very small cargo in their ship. They picked
up one bag of mail and four bags of scientific records and photographs
which had only been transmitted by facsimile TV before. They got into
the space tug. It floated free.

"_You will fire in ten seconds_," said a crisp voice in Joe's
headphones. "_Ten ... nine ... eight ... seven ... six ... five ... four
... three ... two ... one ... fire!_"

Joe crooked his index finger. There was an explosive jolt. Rockets
flamed terribly in emptiness. The space tug rushed toward the west. The
Platform seemed to dwindle with startling suddenness. It seemed to rush
away and become lost in the myriads of stars. The space tug accelerated
at four gravities in the direction opposed to its orbital motion.

As the acceleration built up, it dropped toward Earth and home like a
tumbled stone.

10

There was bright sunshine at the Shed, not a single cloud in all the
sky. The radar bowls atop the roof--they seemed almost invisibly small
compared with its vastness--wavered and shifted and quivered. Completely
invisible beams of microwaves lanced upward. Atop the Shed, in the
communication room, there was the busy quiet of absolute intentness.