liberate way to dump cargo to destruction. A
metal-bound box. Over the edge of the cargo space floor. A piece of
machinery, visible through its crate. A box marked _Instruments_.
_Fragile_. Each one checked off. Each one dumped to drop a thousand feet
or more. A small crated dynamo. This item and that. A crate marked
_Stationery_. It would be printed forms for the timekeepers, perhaps.
But it wasn't.

It dropped out. The plane bellowed on. And suddenly there was a burst of
blue-white flame on the desert below. The box that should have contained
timecards had contained something very much more explosive. As the plane
roared on--rocking from the shock wave of the explosion--Joe saw a
crater and a boiling cloud of smoke and flying sand.

The co-pilot spoke explosively and furiously, in the blasting uproar of
the motors. He vengefully marked the waybill of the parcel that had
exploded. But then they went back to the job of dumping cargo. They
worked well as a team now. In no more than minutes everything was out
except the four crates that were the gyros. The co-pilot regarded them
dourly, and Joe clenched his fists. The co-pilot closed the clamshell
doors, and it became possible to hear oneself think again.

"Ship's lighter, anyhow," reported the co-pilot, back in the cabin.
"Tell 'em this is what exploded."

The pilot took the slip. He plucked down the microphone--exactly like
somebody picking up an interoffice telephone--and reported the waybill
number and description of the case that had been an extra bomb. The ship
carrying the pilot gyros had been booby-trapped--probably with a number
of other ships--and a bomb had been shipped on it, and a special
saboteur with a private plane had shot at it with rockets. The pilot
gyros were critical devices. They had to be on board the Platform when
it took off, and they took months to make and balance. There had been
extra pains taken to prevent their arrival!

"I'm dumping gas now," said the pilot into the microphone, "and then
coming in for a belly landing."

The ship flew straightaway. It flew more lightly, and it bounced a
little. When gas is dumped one has to slow to not more than one hundred
and seventy-five knots and fly level. Then one is supposed to fly five
minutes after dumping with the chutes in the drain position--and even
then there is forty-five minutes of flying fuel still in the tanks.

The ship swept around and headed back for the now far-distant field. It