Joe heard an acknowledgment in his headphones. "I've just had word from the Shed," he explained carefully, "that there may be some guided missiles coming up from Earth to smash us as we meet. You're still higher than we are, and they ought to be starting. Can you pick up anything with your radar?" The voice from the Platform said: "_We have picked something up. There are four rockets headed out from near the sunset-line in the Pacific. Assuming solid-fuel rockets like we used and you used, they are on a collision course._" "Are you doing anything about them?" asked Joe absurdly. The voice said caustically: "_Unfortunately, we've nothing to do anything with._" It paused. "_You, of course, can use the landing-rockets you still possess. If you fire them immediately, you will pass our scheduled meeting-place some hundreds of miles ahead of us. You will go on out to space. You may set up an orbit forty-five hundred or even five thousand miles out, and wait there for rescue._" Joe said briefly: "We've air for only four days. That's no good. It'll be a month before the next ship can be finished and take off. There are four rockets coming up, you say?" "_Yes._" The voice changed. It spoke away from the microphone. "_What's that?_" Then it returned to Joe. "_The four rockets were sent up at the same instant from four separate launching sites. Probably as many submarines at the corners of a hundred-mile square, so an accident to one wouldn't set off the others. They'll undoubtedly converge as they get nearer to us._" "I think," said Joe, "that we need some luck." "_I think_," said the caustic voice, "_that we've run out of it._" There was a click. Joe swallowed again. The three members of his crew were looking at him. "Somebody's fired rockets out from Earth," said Joe carefully. "They'll curve together where we meet the Platform, and get there just when we do." The Chief rumbled. Haney clamped his jaws together. Mike's expression became one of blazing hatred.