The platform, of course, was that artificial satellite of Earth which was four thousand miles out and went around the planet in a little over four hours, traveling from west to east. It had been made because to break the bonds of Earth's gravity was terribly costly in fuel--when a ship had to accelerate slowly to avoid harm to human cargo. The space platform was a filling station in emptiness, at which the moon-rocket would refuel for its next and longer and much less difficult journey of two hundred thirty-odd thousand miles. The stewardess came up the ramp, moving briskly. She stopped and glanced at each passenger in each chair in turn. When Cochrane turned his open eyes upon her, she said soothingly: "There's no need to be disturbed. Everything is going perfectly." "I'm not disturbed," said Cochrane. "I'm not even nervous. I'm perfectly all right." "But you should be drowsy!" she observed, concerned. "Most people are. If you nap you'll feel better for it." She felt his pulse in a businesslike manner. It was normal. "Take my nap for me," said Cochrane, "or put it back in stock. I don't want it. I'm perfectly all right." She considered him carefully. She was remarkably pretty. But her manner was strictly detached. She said: "There's a button. You can reach it if you need anything. You may call me by pushing it." He shrugged. He lay still as she went on to inspect the other passengers. There was nothing to do and nothing to see. Travellers were treated pretty much like parcels, these days. Travel, like television entertainment and most of the other facilities of human life, was designed for the seventy-to-ninety-per-cent of the human race whose likes and dislikes and predilections could be learned exactly by surveys. Anybody who didn't like what everybody liked, or didn't react like everybody reacted, was subject to annoyances. Cochrane resigned himself to them. The red light-letters changed again, considerably later. This time they said: "_Free flight, thirty seconds._" They did not say "free fall," which was the technical term for a rocket coasting upward or downward in space. But Cochrane braced himself, and his stomach-muscles were tense when the rockets stopped again and stayed off. The sensation of continuous fall began. An electronic speaker beside his chair began to speak. There were other such mechanisms beside each other passenger-chair, and the interior of the rocket filled with a soft murmur which was sardonically like choral recitation.