mixing trucks still pouring out
their white paste for the lining of the rocket tubes, and their product
went up and vanished into the gaping mouths of the giant wire-wound
pipes.

Presently Joe went into the maze of piers under the Space Platform
itself. He came to the temporary stairs he had reason to remember. He
nodded to the two guards there.

"I want to take another look at that gadget we installed," he said.

One of the guards said good-naturedly: "Major Holt said to pass you any
time."

He ascended and went along the curious corridor--it had handgrips on the
walls so a man could pull himself along it when there was no weight--and
went to the engine room. He heard voices. They were speaking a
completely unintelligible language. He tensed.

Then the Chief grinned at him amiably. He was in the engine room and
with him were no fewer than eight men of his own coppery complexion.

"Here's some friends of mine," he explained, and Joe shook hands with
black-haired, dark-skinned men who were named Charley Spotted Dog and
Sam Fatbelly and Luther Red Cow and other exotic things. The Chief said
exuberantly, "Major Holt told the guards to let me pass in some Indian
friends, so I took my gang on a guided tour of the Platform. None of 'em
had ever been inside before. And----"

"I heard you talking Indian," said Joe.

"You're gonna hear some more," said the Chief. "We're the first war
party of my tribe in longer'n my grandpa woulda thought respectable!"

Joe found it difficult to restrain a smile. The Chief took him off to
one side.

"Fella," he said kindly, "it bothers you, this business, because it
ain't organized. That's what this world needs, Joe. Everything figured
out by slide rules an' such--it's civilized, but it ain't human! What
everybody oughta be is a connoisseur of chaos, like me. Quit worryin'
an' get outside and pick up that security guy the Major was gonna send
to meet you!"

He gave Joe an amiable shove and rejoined his fellow Mohawks, each of
whom, Joe noticed suddenly, had somewhere on his person a twelve-inch
Stillson wrench or a reasonable facsimile to serve as a substitute
tomahawk. They grinned at him as he departed.

At the bottom of the flight of narrow wooden steps there was a third
security man. He greeted Joe.

"Major Holt told me to pick you up," he observed.

Joe walked to one side with him. Major Holt had promised to send a
first-class man to meet Joe at this place, with orders t