"Gentlemen," Walter Stanton said quietly, "this is it. Mel, we were wrong. We weren't the first target. Neither was Sandia. They just bombed New York." There was deathly silence for a long moment, while each man riffled through his thoughts. "Christ!" somebody swore. "I've been advised by Ground Control to stand by to evacuate. Cargo One is refueling to take us off." An angry babble broke out around the table. Velez, the tiny Brazilian astronomer, jumped up angrily. "Evacuate? But the Platform! What happens to it?" Stanton shrugged. "Uncorrected perturbations build up, and eventually it either skids off into space or falls into the atmosphere and burns. Or maybe," he said bitterly, "we're supposed to jettison it ourselves. Sink it in space before we leave, like a crew abandoning a submarine." Velez went white. "But the effort in building this; the time of the thousands of scientists and billions of dollars; what becomes of them?" "They apparently consider the Platform a sitting duck, and are kind enough to take a chance on evacuating us." Howard, a grey, unemotional power plant expert, a grim man whom Walter Stanton barely liked, sat back and folded his hands. He spoke with dogged emphasis. "This project has taken the best of science for the last four years. It has held up research in other fields, and justifiably so. I do not propose to let four years of mankind's progress go spinning off into space alone, war or no war, Russians or no Russians. I shall not leave it. I'm a civilian, and I refuse to go. Is that clear?" Walter Stanton stifled a wild impulse to laugh at the thought of Howard spinning alone and infinitely through space. Suddenly he liked the man. "Any other comments?" Velez bristled like a bantam rooster. "I shall stay with Senor Howard." Walter Stanton set his jaw. "If I give the word, we'll evacuate, all of us. _If_ I give the word." He glanced down the row of faces. "I'm toying with the idea of allowing volunteers to stay." There was a chorus of assent. With a chill, Walter Stanton remembered Petrovski. He glanced at him and the big Russian, blond and bespectacled, arose ponderously and leaned on the table. "Gentlemen.... Could I speak?" "Go ahead, Ski," somebody said. "I ... I do not know whether those people who rule my country are capable of destroying this ... this marvelous thing. I do not know whether they would _want_ to destroy it...." He took off his glasses and polished them fiercely. "But if you would allow me.... If it could be arranged ... I should like to stay...." Walter Stanton, touched, cleared his throat. He spoke quietly. "And if it were turned into a weapon against your country?" Petrovski looked as if he were about to cry. "If my country tries to destroy this wonderful thing of science.... Then it is no more my country.... And I would still like to stay...." "Yes," said Stanton, a little embarrassed. "Well, we'll see...."