Spaceship and Platform moved on toward a meeting place. The ship moved a
trifle faster, because it was climbing. The speeds would match exactly
when they met. The small torpedo-shaped shining ship and the bulging
glowing metal satellite floated with a seeming vast deliberation in
emptiness, while the most gigantic of possible round objects filled all
the firmament beneath them. They were 200 miles apart. It seemed that
the huge Platform overtook the shining ship. It did. They were only 50
miles apart and still closing in.

By that time the twilight band of Earth's surface was nearly at the
center of the planet, and night filled more than a quarter of its disk.

By that time, too, even to the naked eye through the ports of the
supply-ship the enemy rockets had become visible. They were a thin skein
of threads of white vapor which seemed to unravel in nothingness. The
vapor curled and expanded preposterously. It could just be seen to be
jetting into existence from four separate points, two a little ahead of
the others. They came out from Earth at a rate which seemed remarkably
deliberate until one saw with what fury the rocket-fumes spat out to
form the whitish threads. Then one could guess at a three-or even
four-stage launching series, so that what appeared to be mere pinpoints
would really be rockets carrying half-ton atomic warheads with an
attained velocity of 10,000 miles per hour and more straight up.

The threads unraveled in a straight line aimed at the two metal things
floating in emptiness. One was small and streamlined, with inadequate
landing-rockets clamped to its body and with stubby fins that had no
possible utility out of air. The other was large and clumsy to look at,
but very, very stately indeed in its progress through the heavens. They