the Platform--that was on one side of Earth--and sometimes below it. It
was about 300 miles under the Platform when it reflected urgent,
squealing radar frequency waves to a complex proximity fuse in the
climbing rocket. The rocket couldn't tell the difference between a
sardine can and a Space Platform.

It exploded with a blast of pure brightness like that of the sun.

The Platform went on its monotonous round about the planet from which it
had risen only weeks before. Sanford was strapped in a bunk and fed
through a tube, and on occasion massaged and variously tended to keep
him alive. The men on the Platform worked. They made telephoto maps of
Earth. They took highly magnified, long-exposure photographs of Mars,
pictures that could not possibly be made with such distinctness from the
bottom of Earth's turbulent ocean of air.

There was a great deal of official business to be done. Weather
observations of the form and distribution of cloud masses were an
important matter. The Platform could make much more precise measurements
of the solar constant than could be obtained below. The flickering radar
was gathering information for studies of the frequency and size of
meteoric particles outside the atmosphere. There was the extremely
important project for securing and sealing in really good vacua in
various electronic devices brought up by Joe and his crew in the supply
ship.

But sometimes Joe managed to talk to Sally.

It was very satisfying to see her on the television screen in personal
conversation. Their talk couldn't be exactly private, because it could