ction--withdrew itself. A man floated through the
opening and landed on the ship's hull; another man followed him.

"Chief," said Joe, "and Haney. Will you open the cargo doors?"

The two swaying figures moved to obey, though with erratic clumsiness.
Sanford called sharply: "Don't touch the hull without gloves! If it
isn't nearly red-hot from the sunlight, it'll be below zero from
shadow!"

Joe realized, then, the temperature effects the skin on his face
noticed. A part of the spaceship's hull gave off heat like that of a
panel heating installation. Another part imparted a chill.

Sanford said unpleasantly, "You want to report your heroism, eh? Come
along!"

He clanked to the doorway by which he had entered. Joe followed, and
Mike after him.

They went out of the lock. Sanford suddenly peeled off his metal-soled
slippers, put them in his pocket, and dived casually into a four-foot
metal tube. He drifted smoothly away along the lighted bore, not
touching the sidewalls. He moved in the manner of a dream, when one
floats with infinite ease and precision in any direction one chooses.

Joe and Mike did not share his talent. Joe launched himself after
Sanford, and for perhaps 20 or 30 feet the lighted aluminum sidewall of
the tube sped past him. Then his shoulder rubbed, and he found himself
skidding to an undignified stop, choking the bore. Mike thudded into
him.

"I haven't got the hang of this yet," said Joe apologetically.

He untangled himself and went on. Mike followed him, his expression that
of pure bliss. He was a tiny man, was Mike, but he had the longings and
the ambitions of half a dozen ordinary-sized men in his small body. And
he had known frustration. He could prove by mathematics that space
exploration could be carried on by midgets at a fraction of the cost and
risk of the same job done by normal-sized men. He was, of course, quite
right. The cabins and air and food supplies for a spaceship's crew of
midgets would cost and weigh a fraction of similar equipment for
six-footers. But people simply weren't interested in sending midgets
out into space.

But Mike had gotten here. He was in the Space Platform. There were
full-sized men who would joyfully have changed places with him,
forty-one inch height and all. So Mike was blissful.

The tube ended and Joe bounced off the wall that faced its end. Sanford
was waiting. He grinned with more than a hint of spite.

"Here's our communications room," he s