Major Holt came across the floor of the Shed. It took him a long time to walk the distance from the Security offices to the launching cage. When he got there, he looked impatiently around. His daughter Sally came out of nowhere and blew her nose as if she'd been crying, and pointed to the data board. The major shrugged his shoulders and looked uneasily at her. She regarded him with some defiance. The major spoke to her sternly. They waited. The cranes brought in more pushpots and set them up against the steel launching cage. The ship had been nearly hidden before by the rocket tubes fastened outside its hull. It went completely out of sight behind the metal monsters banked about it. The major looked at his watch and the group about the data board. They moved away from it and back toward the ship. Joe saw the major and swerved over to him. "I have brought you," said the major in an official voice, "the invoice of your cargo. You will deliver the invoice with the cargo and bring back proper receipts." "I hope," said Joe. "_We_ hope!" said Sally in a strained tone. "Good luck, Joe!" "Thanks." "There is not much to say to you," said the major without visible emotion. "Of course the next crew will start its training immediately, but it may be a month before another ship can take off. It is extremely desirable that you reach the Platform today." "Yes, sir," said Joe wrily. "I have even a personal motive to get there. If I don't, I break my neck." The major ignored the comment. He shook hands formally and marched away. Sally smiled up at Joe, but her eyes were suddenly full of tears. "I--do hope everything goes all right, Joe," she said unsteadily. "I--I'll be praying for you." "I can use some of that, too," admitted Joe. She looked at her hand. Joe's ring was on her finger--wrapped with string on the inside of the band to make it fit. Then she looked up again and was crying unashamedly. "I--will," she repeated. Then she said fiercely, "I don't care if somebody's looking, Joe. It's time for you to go in the ship." He kissed her, and turned and went quickly to the peculiar mass of clustered pushpots, touching and almost overlapping each other. He ducked under and looked back. Sally waved. He waved back. Then he climbed up the ladder into Pelican One's cabin. Somebody pulled the ladder away and scuttled out of the cage. The others were in their places. Joe slowly closed the door from the cabin to the outer world. There was suddenly a cushioned silence about him. Out the quartz-glass ports he could see ahead, out the end of the cage through the monstrous doorway to the desert beyond. Overhead he could see the dark, girder-lined roof of the Shed. On either side, though, he could see only the scratched, dented, flat undersides of the pushpots ready to lift the ship upward. "You can start on the pushpot motors, Haney," he said curtly.