strained. He was tall and lean and spare, and a good man in any sort of
trouble. Mike blazed excitement. Mike was forty-one inches high and he
was full-grown. He had worked on the Platform, bucking rivets and making
welds and inspections in places too small for a normal-sized man to
reach. He frantically resented any concessions to his size and he was as
good a man as any. He simply was the small, economy size.

"Hiya, Joe," boomed the Chief. "All set? Had breakfast?"

Joe nodded. He began to ask anxious questions. About steering-rocket
fuel and the launching cage release and the take-off rockets and the
reduction valve from the air tanks--he'd thought of that on the way
over--and the short wave and loran and radar. Haney nodded to some
questions. Mike said briskly, "I checked" to others.

The Chief grunted amiably, "Look, Joe! We checked everything last night.
We checked it again this morning. I even caught Mike polishing the
ejection seats, because there wasn't anything else to make sure of!"

Joe managed a smile. The ejection seats were assuredly the most unlikely
of all devices to be useful today. They were supposedly life-saving
devices. If the ship came a cropper on take-off, the four of them were
supposed to use ejection-seats like those supplied to jet pilots. They
would be thrown clear of the ship and ribbon-parachutes might open and
might let them land alive. But it wasn't likely. Joe had objected to
their presence. If a feather dropped to Earth from a height of 600
miles, it would be falling so fast when it hit the atmosphere that it
would heat up and burn to ashes from pure air-friction. It wasn't likely
that they could get out of the ship if anything went wrong.