t materials. But there was one chance in fifty
that they wouldn't be safe, just because the materials were so abundant.
No sane man would risk a two-per-cent chance of destroying Earth and all
its people, yet those reactions should be tried. In a space ship some
millions of miles out in emptiness they could be. Either they'd be safe
or they would not. But the only way to get a space ship a safe enough
distance from Earth was to make a Space Platform as a starting point.
Then a ship could shoot away from Earth with effectively zero gravity
and full fuel tanks. The Platform should be built so civilization could
surge ahead to new heights!

But despite these excellent reasons, it was the Platform's enemies who
really got it built. The American Congress would never have appropriated
funds for a Platform for pure scientific research, no matter what
peacetime benefits it promised. It was the vehemence of those who hated
it that sold it to Congress as a measure for national defense. And in a
sense it was.

These were ironic aspects Joe hadn't thought about before, just as he
hadn't thought about the need to defend the Platform while it was being
built. Defending it was Sally's father's job, and he wouldn't have a
popular time. Joe wondered idly how Sally liked living out where the
most important job on Earth was being done. She was a nice kid. He
remembered appreciatively that she'd grown up to be a very good-looking
girl. He tended to remember her mostly as the tomboy who could beat him
swimming, but the last time he'd seen her, come to think of it, he'd
been startled to observe how pretty she'd grown. He didn't know anybody
who ought to be better-looking.... She was a really swell girl....

He came to himself again. There was a change in the look of the sky
ahead. There was no actual horizon, of course. There was a white haze
that blended imperceptibly into the cloud layer so that it was
impossible to tell where the sky ended and the clouds or earth began.
But presently there were holes in the clouds. The ship droned on, and
suddenly it floated over the edge of such a hole, and looking down was
very much like looking over the edge of a cliff at solid earth
illimitably far below.

The holes increased in number. Then there were no holes at all, but only
clouds breaking up the clear view of the ground beneath. And presently
again even the clouds were left behind and the air was clear--but still
there was no horizon--and the