of course, can use the
landing-rockets you still possess. If you fire them immediately, you
will pass our scheduled meeting-place some hundreds of miles ahead of
us. You will go on out to space. You may set up an orbit forty-five
hundred or even five thousand miles out, and wait there for rescue._"

Joe said briefly: "We've air for only four days. That's no good. It'll
be a month before the next ship can be finished and take off. There are
four rockets coming up, you say?"

"_Yes._" The voice changed. It spoke away from the microphone. "_What's
that?_" Then it returned to Joe. "_The four rockets were sent up at the
same instant from four separate launching sites. Probably as many
submarines at the corners of a hundred-mile square, so an accident to
one wouldn't set off the others. They'll undoubtedly converge as they
get nearer to us._"

"I think," said Joe, "that we need some luck."

"_I think_," said the caustic voice, "_that we've run out of it._"

There was a click. Joe swallowed again. The three members of his crew
were looking at him.

"Somebody's fired rockets out from Earth," said Joe carefully. "They'll
curve together where we meet the Platform, and get there just when we
do."

The Chief rumbled. Haney clamped his jaws together. Mike's expression
became one of blazing hatred.

Joe's mind went rather absurdly to the major's curious, almost
despairing talk in his quarters that morning, when he'd spoken of a
conspiracy to destroy all the hopes of men. The firing of rockets at
the Platform was, of course, the work of men acting deliberately. But
they were--unconsciously--trying to destroy their own best hopes. For
freedom, certainly, whether or not they could imagine being free. But
the Platform and the space exploration project in general meant benefits
past computing for everybody, in time. To send ships into space for
necessary but dangerous experiments with atomic energy was a purpose
every man should want to help forward. To bring peace on Earth was
surely an objective no man could willingly or sanely combat. And the
ultimate goal of space travel was millions of other planets, circling
other suns, thrown open to colonization by humanity. That prospect
should surely fire every human being with enthusiasm. But something--and
the more one thought about it the more specific and deliberate it seemed
to be--made it necessary to fight desperately against men in order to
benefit them.

Joe swallowed again