point where they did not even notice any longer
that they were weary. And their mental processes were not at all normal,
so that they were quarrelsome and arbitrary and arrogant to the men with
the flat-bed trailer who came almost reverently to move their work. They
went jealously with the thing they had rebuilt, and they were rude to
engineers and construction workers and supervisors, and they shouted
angrily at each other as it was hoisted up a shaft that had been left in
the Platform for its entrance, and they were very far from tactful as
they watched with hot, anxious eyes as it was bolted into place.

It would be welded later, but first it was tried out. And it moved the
main gyros! They weighed many times what the pilot gyros did, but even
when they were spinning the pilot gyros stirred them. Of course the
main-gyro linkage to the fabric of the Shed had to be broken for this
test, or the gyros would have twisted the giant upon its support and all
the scaffolding around it would have been broken and the men on it
killed.

But the gyros worked! They visibly and unquestionably worked! They
controlled the gigantic wheels that would steer the Platform in its
take-off, and later would swing it to receive the cargo rockets coming
up from Earth. The pilot instrument worked! There was no vibration. In
its steering apparatus the Platform was ready for space!

Then the Chief yawned, and his eyes glazed as he stood in the huge gyro
room. And Haney's knees wobbled, and he sat down and was instantly
asleep. Then Joe vaguely saw somebody--it was Major Holt--holding Mike
in his arms as if Mike were a baby. Mike would have resented it
furiously if he had been awake. And then suddenly Joe didn't know what
was going on around him, either.

There was a definite hiatus in his consciousness. He came back to
awareness very slowly. He was half-awake and half-asleep for a long
time. He only knew contentedly that his job was finished. Then, slowly,
he realized that he was in a bunk in one of the Platform sleeping
cabins, and the inflated cover that was Sally's contribution to the
Platform held him very gently in place. Somehow it was infinitely
soothing, and he had an extraordinary sensation of peacefulness and
relaxation and fulfillment. The pilot gyros were finished and in
position. His responsibility to them was ended. And he had slept the
clock around three times. He'd slept for thirty-six hours. He was
starving.

Sally had evid