u haven't heard the half of it," said the co-pilot. "The Air
Transport has lost nearly as many planes and more men on this particular
airlift than it did in Korea while that was the big job. I don't know
how many other men have been killed. But there's a strictly local hot
war going on out where we're headed. No holds barred! Hadn't you heard?"

It sounded exaggerated. Joe said politely: "I heard there was
cloak-and-dagger stuff going on."

The pilot drained his cup and handed it to the co-pilot. He said: "He
thinks you're kidding him." He turned back to the contemplation of the
instruments before him and the view out the transparent plastic of the
cabin windows.

"He does?" The co-pilot said to Joe, "You've got security checks around
your plant. They weren't put there for fun. It's a hundred times worse
where the whole Platform's being built."

"Security?" said Joe. He shrugged. "We know everybody who works at the
plant. We've known them all their lives. They'd get mad if we started to
get stuffy. We don't bother."

"That I'd like to see," said the co-pilot skeptically. "No barbed wire
around the plant? No identity badges you wear when you go in? No
security officer screaming blue murder every five minutes? What do you
think all that's for? You built these pilot gyros! You had to have that
security stuff!"

"But we didn't," insisted Joe. "Not any of it. The plant's been in the
same village for eighty years. It started building wagons and plows, and
now it turns out machine tools and precision machinery. It's the only
factory around, and everybody who works there went to school with
everybody else, and so did our fathers, and we know one another!"

The co-pilot was unconvinced. "No kidding?"

"No kidding," Joe assured him. "In World War Two the only spy scare in
the village was an FBI man who came around looking for spies. The
village cop locked him up and wouldn't believe in his credentials. They
had to send somebody from Washington to get him out of jail."

The co-pilot grinned reluctantly. "I guess there are such places," he
said enviously. "You should've built the Platform! It's plenty different
on this job! We can't even talk to a girl without security clearance for
an interview beforehand, and we can't speak to strange men or go out
alone after dark--."

The pilot grunted. The co-pilot's tone changed. "Not quite that bad," he
admitted, "but it's bad! It's really bad! We lost three planes last
week. I g