to the top
of the Shed?"

"If you want to," he agreed without enthusiasm.

He followed when she went to a doorway--with a security guard beside
it--in the sidewall. She flashed her pass and the guard let them
through. They began to walk up an inclined, endless, curving ramp. It
was between the inner and outer skins of the Shed. There had to be two
skins because the Shed was too big to be ventilated properly, and the
hot desert sunshine on one side would have made "weather" inside.
There'd have been a convection-current motion of the air in the enclosed
space, and minor whirlwinds, and there could even be miniature
thunderclouds and lightning. Joe remembered reading that such things had
happened in a shed built for Zeppelins before he was born.

They came upon an open gallery, and there was a security man looking
down at the floor and the Platform. He had a very good view of all that
went on.

They went around another long circuit of the slanting gallery, dimly
lighted with small electric bulbs. They came to a second gallery, and
saw the Platform again. There was another guard here.

They were halfway up the globular wall now, and were visibly suspended
over emptiness. The view of the Platform was impressive. There were an
astonishing number of rocket tubes being fastened to the outside of that
huge object. Three giant cranes, working together, hoisted a tube to the
last remaining level of scaffolding, and men swarmed on it and fastened
it to the swelling hull. As soon as it was fast, other men hurried into
it with the white pasty stuff to line it from end to end. The tubes
would nearly hide the structure they were designed to propel. But they'd
all be burned away when it reached its destination.

"Wonderful, isn't it?" asked Sally hopefully.

Joe looked, and said without warmth, "It's the most wonderful thing that
anybody ever even tried to do."

Which was true enough, but the zest of it had unreasonably departed for
Joe for the time being. His disappointment was new.

Halfway around again, Sally opened a door, and Joe was almost surprised
out of his lethargy. Here was a watching post on the outside of the
monstrous half-globe. There were two guards here, with fifty-caliber
machine guns under canvas hoods. Their duties were tedious but
necessary. They watched the desert. From this height it stretched out
for miles, and Bootstrap could be seen as a series of white specks far
away with hills behind it.

Ultim