Joe pulled his thoughts back from satisfied imagining. It hadn't
occurred to him that it was remarkable that he should be allowed to
accompany the gyros from the plant to their destination. His family firm
had built them, so it had seemed natural to him. He wasn't used to the
idea that everybody looked suspicious to a security officer concerned
with the safety of the Platform.
"Connections? I haven't any," said Joe. Then he said, "I do know
somebody on the job. There's a Major Holt out there. He might have
cleared me. Known my family for years."
"Yeah," said the co-pilot drily. "He might. As a matter of fact, he's
the senior security officer for the whole job. He's in charge of
everything, from the security guards to the radar screens and the
jet-plane umbrella and the checking of the men who work in the Shed. If
he says you're all right, you probably are."
Joe hadn't meant to seem impressive. He explained: "I don't know him too
well. He knows my father, and his daughter Sally's been kicking around
underfoot most of my life. I taught her how to shoot, and she's a better
shot than I am. She was a nice kid when she was little. I got to like
her when she fell out of a tree and broke her arm and didn't even
whimper. That shows how long ago it was!" He grinned. "She was trying to
act grown-up last time I saw her."
The co-pilot nodded. There was a brisk chirping sound somewhere. The
pilot reached ahead to the course-correction knob. The plane changed
course. Sunshine shifted as it poured into the cabin. The ship was
running on automatic pilot well above the cloud level, and at an
even-numbered number of thousands of feet altitude, as was suitable for
planes traveling south or west. Now it droned on its new course,
forty-five degrees from the original. Joe found himself guessing that
one of the security provisions for planes approaching the Platform might
be that they should not come too near on a direct line to it, lest they
give information to curious persons on the ground.
Time went on. Joe slipped gradually back to his meditations about the
Platform. There was always, in his mind, the picture of a man-made thing
shining in blinding sunlight between Earth and moon. But he began to
remember things he hadn't paid too much attention to before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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