blessing to the Platform. In fact, there was no danger that this
commander of the Platform would crack up under stress as Sanford had.

But it was too bad that he hadn't brought some long-range guided
missiles with him.

Joe's ship had brought up twenty tons of cargo and twenty tons of
landing rockets. The second ship brought up twenty tons of landing
rockets for Joe, and twenty tons of landing rockets for itself. That was
all. The second trip out to the Space Platform was a rescue mission and
nothing else. Arithmetic wouldn't let it be anything else. And there
couldn't be any idea of noble self-sacrifice and staying out at the
Platform, either, because only four ships like Joe's had been begun, and
only two were even near completion. Joe's had taken off the instant it
was finished. The second had done the same. The second pair of
spaceships wouldn't be ready for two months or more. The ships that
could be used had to be used.

So, only thirty-six hours after the arrival of the second rocketship at
the Platform, the two of them took off together to return to Earth.
Joe's ship left the airlock first. Sanford was loaded in the cabin of
the other ship as cargo. Lieutenant Commander Brown stayed out at the
Platform to replace him.

Obviously, in order to get back to Earth they headed away from it in
fleet formation. They pointed their rounded noses toward the Milky Way.

The upward course was an application of the principle that made the
screen of tin cans and oddments remain about the Platform. Each of
those small objects had had the Platform's own velocity and orbit.