not getting near you?—or the rest of us?"
Joe did not know exactly what to say.
"I'm going inside the Platform," she told him. "Would you like to come
along?"
He wiped his hands on a piece of waste.
"Naturally! My gang is off picking out tools. I can't do much until they
come back."
He fell into step beside her. They walked toward the Platform. And it
was still magic, no matter how often Joe looked at it. It was huge
beyond belief, though it was surely not heavy in proportion to its size.
Its bright plating shone through the gossamer scaffolding all about it.
There was always a faint bluish mist in the air, and there were the
marsh-fire lights of welding torches playing here and there. The sounds
of the Shed were a steady small tumult in Joe's ears. He was getting
accustomed to them, though.
"How is it you can go around so freely?" he asked abruptly. "I have to
be checked and rechecked."
"You'll get a full clearance," she told him. "It has to go through
channels. Me—I have influence. I always come in through security, and I
have the door guards trained. And I do have business in the Platform."
He turned his head to look at her.
"Interior decoration," she explained. "And don't laugh! It isn't
prettifying. It's psychology. The Platform was designed by engineers and
physicists and people with slide rules. They made a beautiful
environment for machinery. But there will be men living in it, and they
aren't machines."
"I don't see—"
"They designed the hydroponic garden," said Sally with a certain scorn.
"They calculated very neatly that eleven square feet of leaf surface of
a pumpkin plant will purify all the air a resting man uses, and so much
more will purify the air a man uses when he's working hard. So they
designed the gardens for the most efficient production of the greatest
possible leaf surface—of pumpkin plants! They figured food would be
brought up by the tender rockets! But can you imagine the men in the
Platform, floating among the stars, living on dehydrated food and
stuffing themselves hungrily with pumpkins because that is the only
fresh food they have?"
Joe saw the irony.
"They're thinking of mechanical efficiency," said Sally indignantly. "I
don't know anything about machinery, but I've wasted an awful lot of
time at school and otherwise if I don't know something about human
beings! I argued, and the garden now isn't as mechanically efficient,
but it'll be a nice place for a man to go into. He won't smell pumpkin
plants all the time, either. I've even gotten them to include some
flowers!"
They were very near the Platform. And it was very near to completion.
Joe looked at it hungrily, and he felt a great sense of urgency. He
tried to strip away the scaffolding in his mind and see it floating
proudly free in emptiness, with white-hot sunshine glinting from it, and
only a background of unwinking stars.
Sally's voice went on: "And I've really put up an argument about the
living quarters. They had every interior wall painted aluminum! I argued
that in space or out of it, where people have to live, it's
housekeeping. This is going to be their home. And they ought to feel
human in it!"
They passed into one of the openings in the maze of uprights. All about
them there were trucks, and puffing engines, and hoists. Joe dragged
Sally aside as a monstrous truck-and-trailer came from where it had
delivered some gigantic item of interior use. It rumbled past them, and
she led the way to a flight of temporary wooden stairs with two security
guards at the bottom. Sally talked severely to them, and they grinned
and waved for Joe to go ahead. He went up the steps—which would be
pulled down before the Platform's launching—and went actually inside
the Space Platform for the first time.
It was a moment of extreme vividness for him. Within the past hour he'd
come to think detachedly of the possibility of death for himself, and
then had learned that he would live for a while yet. He knew that Sally
had been
Joe did not know exactly what to say.
"I'm going inside the Platform," she told him. "Would you like to come
along?"
He wiped his hands on a piece of waste.
"Naturally! My gang is off picking out tools. I can't do much until they
come back."
He fell into step beside her. They walked toward the Platform. And it
was still magic, no matter how often Joe looked at it. It was huge
beyond belief, though it was surely not heavy in proportion to its size.
Its bright plating shone through the gossamer scaffolding all about it.
There was always a faint bluish mist in the air, and there were the
marsh-fire lights of welding torches playing here and there. The sounds
of the Shed were a steady small tumult in Joe's ears. He was getting
accustomed to them, though.
"How is it you can go around so freely?" he asked abruptly. "I have to
be checked and rechecked."
"You'll get a full clearance," she told him. "It has to go through
channels. Me—I have influence. I always come in through security, and I
have the door guards trained. And I do have business in the Platform."
He turned his head to look at her.
"Interior decoration," she explained. "And don't laugh! It isn't
prettifying. It's psychology. The Platform was designed by engineers and
physicists and people with slide rules. They made a beautiful
environment for machinery. But there will be men living in it, and they
aren't machines."
"I don't see—"
"They designed the hydroponic garden," said Sally with a certain scorn.
"They calculated very neatly that eleven square feet of leaf surface of
a pumpkin plant will purify all the air a resting man uses, and so much
more will purify the air a man uses when he's working hard. So they
designed the gardens for the most efficient production of the greatest
possible leaf surface—of pumpkin plants! They figured food would be
brought up by the tender rockets! But can you imagine the men in the
Platform, floating among the stars, living on dehydrated food and
stuffing themselves hungrily with pumpkins because that is the only
fresh food they have?"
Joe saw the irony.
"They're thinking of mechanical efficiency," said Sally indignantly. "I
don't know anything about machinery, but I've wasted an awful lot of
time at school and otherwise if I don't know something about human
beings! I argued, and the garden now isn't as mechanically efficient,
but it'll be a nice place for a man to go into. He won't smell pumpkin
plants all the time, either. I've even gotten them to include some
flowers!"
They were very near the Platform. And it was very near to completion.
Joe looked at it hungrily, and he felt a great sense of urgency. He
tried to strip away the scaffolding in his mind and see it floating
proudly free in emptiness, with white-hot sunshine glinting from it, and
only a background of unwinking stars.
Sally's voice went on: "And I've really put up an argument about the
living quarters. They had every interior wall painted aluminum! I argued
that in space or out of it, where people have to live, it's
housekeeping. This is going to be their home. And they ought to feel
human in it!"
They passed into one of the openings in the maze of uprights. All about
them there were trucks, and puffing engines, and hoists. Joe dragged
Sally aside as a monstrous truck-and-trailer came from where it had
delivered some gigantic item of interior use. It rumbled past them, and
she led the way to a flight of temporary wooden stairs with two security
guards at the bottom. Sally talked severely to them, and they grinned
and waved for Joe to go ahead. He went up the steps—which would be
pulled down before the Platform's launching—and went actually inside
the Space Platform for the first time.
It was a moment of extreme vividness for him. Within the past hour he'd
come to think detachedly of the possibility of death for himself, and
then had learned that he would live for a while yet. He knew that Sally
had been
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