Stanton pulled himself to the hatch in the hub. "Meet me in Control, Mel. I want to talk to you." * * * * * Walter Stanton belted himself to his desk chair and pulled out the letter from De La Rue, reading it again. He felt a surge of nostalgia at the Old Man's quaint English; the Secretary-General's white-hot internationalism had never impelled him to improve his languages. But there was nothing quaint about the content of the letter.... Mel Cramer shuffled in with the strange gait that they had all developed within days of arriving in space. Automatically he snapped his safety belt to a grommet on Mel's desk, then sat on the top. "What's on your mind, Walt?" "This...." Walter Stanton handed him the letter. "Torrance brought it. I guess De La Rue didn't have enough to go on to send a dispatch, so he wrote the letter." Mel Cramer read the letter swiftly, smiling first at the whimsical phraseology and then suddenly frowning. He whistled. "Sounds bad, Walter, sounds bad...." "Torrance said Sandia Base is on a 24 hour alert." "God," Mel said desperately. "I wish Marge would leave that place. Why can't she move to the country somewhere?" "She feels like Lynne, probably.... That if we're here, the least she can do is stay as close as possible...." "As close as possible," Mel said bitterly. He lit a cigarette. "Walt, have you heard anything about my relief?" Walter Stanton felt a stab of anger at his friend. Professionally ambitious, Mel had fought for his job as Platform Fighter Pilot; now, with the decline of Space One in the eyes of the military, he probably had his eyes on other fields. Carefully controlling his voice, he said: "No, Mel. Nothing's come in. Why?" Mel Cramer shrugged. "I don't know.... They said three months, that's all. And it's been nearly fourteen weeks...." He laughed. "Kind of feel like the world's passing me by. Joke, Walter." Walter Stanton took back the letter and folded it carefully. Then, on second thought, he lit a match and burned it. "I asked you in for advice, Mel," he said carefully, watching the flickering flame. "You bet. Shoot." "If it starts, what are the wheels going to do?" "The brass?" Mel laughed. "You asking me? I'm just a light colonel." "You're the senior military man aboard. All I want is your opinion." Mel's brow furrowed. For a long moment he was silent, and Walter Stanton heard the ceaseless whine of the ventilators. _Space Two, when and if it's built_, he thought irrationally, _had better have ventilators that don't cry like a cat in heat._ "Well, Mel?" "I think," Mel Cramer said thoughtfully, "they'll suggest that we evacuate." * * * * * Walter Stanton slapped his hand on the desk and swung in his chair. "I knew it! Can't they see? Can't they see at all?" "Walter," Mel said quietly. "Let's face it. From a military standpoint, Space One is a failure."