the Platform's hull. The second ship made contact in two hours and
seventeen minutes from take-off. It arrived with its own landing rockets
intact, and it brought a set of forty-foot metal tubes for Joe's ship to
get back to Earth with. But those landing rockets and Lieutenant
Commander Brown constituted all its payload. It couldn't bring up
anything else.

And Lieutenant Commander Brown called a very formal meeting in the huge
living space at the Platform's center. He stood up grandly in full
uniform--and had to hook his feet around a chair leg to keep from
floating absurdly in mid-air. This detracted slightly from the dignity
of his stance, but not from the official voice with which he read two
documents aloud.

The first paper detached Lieutenant Commander Brown from his regular
naval duties and assigned him pro tem to service with the Space
Exploration Project. The second was an order directing him to take
command and assume direction of the Space Platform.

Having read his orders, he cleared his throat and said cordially, "I am
honored to serve here with you. Frankly, I expect to learn much from you
and to have very few orders to give. I expect merely to exercise such
authority as experience at sea has taught me is necessary for a tight
and happy ship. I trust this will be one."

He beamed. Nobody was impressed. It was perfectly obvious that he'd
simply been sent up to acquire experience in space for later naval use,
and that he'd been placed in command because it was unthinkable that he
serve under anyone without official rank and authority. And he quite
honestly believed that his coming, with experience in command, was a