"We may have to do better than that," admitted Joe wrily.

"True enough. You may." The major paused. "You're well aware that there
are--ah--people who do not altogether like the idea of the United States
possessing an artificial satellite of Earth."

"I ought to know it," admitted Joe.

The Earth's second, man-constructed moon--out in space for just six
weeks now--didn't seem nowadays like the bitterly contested achievement
it actually was. From Earth it was merely a tiny speck of light in the
sky, identifiable for what it was only because it moved so swiftly and
serenely from the sunset toward the east, or from night's darkness into
the dawn-light. But it had been fought bitterly before it was launched.
It was first proposed to the United Nations, but even discussion in the
Council was vetoed. So the United States had built it alone. Yet the
nations which objected to it as an international project liked it even
less as a national one, and they'd done what they could to wreck it.

The building of the great steel hull now out there in emptiness had been
fought more bitterly, by more ruthless and more highly trained
saboteurs, than any other enterprise in history. There'd been two
attempts to blast it with atomic bombs. But it was high aloft, rolling
grandly around the Earth, so close to its primary that its period was
little more than four hours; and it rose in the west and set in the east
six times a day.

Today Joe would try to get a supply ship up to it, a very small
rocket-driven cargo ship named Pelican One. The crew of the Platform
needed food and air and water--and especially the means of self-defense.