.

Now, belatedly, the sirens of the Shed screamed their alarm, and choppy
yappings set up as the siren wails rose in pitch. Over by the exit
pistols cracked. Something fell with a ghastly crash not ten feet from
where Joe ran. It was a man's body, toppled from somewhere high up on
the structure that was the most important man-made thing in all the
world. A barbaric war whoop sounded among the echoes of other tumult.

A Security man shot, and one of the running figures toppled and slid,
his burden--which must certainly be a bomb--rolling ridiculously. There
had been two trucks that plunged through the swing-up door. They had
raced for the spaces under the Platform at the exact time when the floor
would be clear, because all work had stopped. Under the Platform, the
trucks were to have been detonated. At the very least, they would have
rent and torn it horribly. They might have broken its back. And surely
one truck should have made it. But there should not have been machine
guns ready trained to shoot. Now the load of desperate men from the
overturned survivor scurried for the Platform with parts of its cargo.
If they could fight their way inside the Platform, they could blast its
hull open, or demolish its controls or shatter its air pumps and its
gyros and turn its air tanks into sieves. Anything that could be damaged
would delay the take-off and so expose the Platform to further and
perhaps more successful attack.

There were more pistol shots. A group of men fought their way out of the
incoming screening rooms and raced for the center of the Shed. (Later,
it would be found they had slabs of explosive inside their garments, and
detonation caps to set them off.) Somewhere another door opened, and
Security men came out with flickering pistols, Major Holt leading them.
He had started out to fight off the truck-borne attack, but he was bound
to be too late. Joe's followers were trying to take care of that. The
scuttling men from the incoming rooms were Major Holt's first prey. They
were shot as they ran.

Joe stumbled and fell and he heard guns crackling. As he scrambled up he
pitched into a running figure that snarled as Joe hit him. And then he
was fighting for his life.

This was under the Platform and in the middle of confusion many times
confounded. Joe caught a wrist that held a gun. He knew his assailant
had a bomb slung over one shoulder and right now had one hand free for
combat. Joe instinctively tried to b