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.Very, very far away there were mountains, but he suddenly realized the remarkable flatnessof the ground over which they were flying.From the edge of the world, behind, to the very edge of thesefar-distant hills, the ground was flat.There were gullies and depressions here and there, but no hills.Itwas flat, flat, flat.The plane flew on.There was a tiny glimmer of sunlight.Joe strained his eyes.The sunlight glinted fromthe tiniest possible round pip on the brown earth.It grew as the plane flew on.It was half a cherry stone.It was half an orange, with gores.It was the top section of a sphere that was simply too huge to havebeen made by men.There was a thin thread of white that ran across the dun-colored range and reached that half-ball andthen ended.It was a highway.Joe realized that the half-globe was the Shed, the monstrous[Pg 23]building made for the construction of the Space Platform.It was gigantic.It was colossal.It was the moststupendous thing that men had ever created.Joe saw a tiny projection near the base of it.It was an office building for clerks and timekeepers andother white-collar workers.He strained his eyes again and saw a motor truck on the highway.It lookedextraordinarily flat.Then he saw that it wasn t a single truck but a convoy of them.A long way back, thewhite highway was marked by a tiny dot.That was a motor bus.There was no sign of activity anywhere, because the scale was so great.Movement there was, but thethings that moved were too small to be seen by comparison with the Shed.The huge, round, shininghalf-sphere of metal stood tranquilly in the midst of emptiness.It was bigger than the pyramids.The plane went on, descending.Joe craned his neck, and then he was ashamed to gawk.He lookedahead, and far away there were white speckles that would be buildings: Bootstrap, the town especiallybuilt for the men who built the Space Platform.In it they slept and ate and engaged in the uproariousfestivity that men on a construction job crave on their time off.The plane dipped noticeably. Airfield off to the right, said the co-pilot. That s for the town and the job.The jets there s an airumbrella overhead all the time have a field somewhere else.The pushpots have a field of their own,too, where they re training pilots.Joe didn t know what a pushpot was, but he didn t ask.He was thinking about the Shed, which was thegreatest building ever put up, and had been built merely to shelter the greatest hope for the world s peacewhile it was put together.He d be in the Shed presently.He d work there, setting up the contents of thecrates back in the cargo space, and finally installing them in the Platform itself.The pilot said:  Pitot and wing heaters? Off, said the co-pilot. Spark and advance  [Pg 24]Joe didn t listen.He looked down at the sprawling small town with white-painted barracks and abusiness section and an obvious, carefully designed recreation area that nobody would ever use.Theplane was making a great half-circle.The motor noise dimmed as Joe became absorbed in hisanticipation of seeing the Space Platform and having a hand in its building.The co-pilot said sharply:  Hold everything!Joe jerked his head around.The co-pilot had his hand on the wheel release.His face was tense. It don t feel right, he said very, very quietly. Maybe I m crazy, but there was that sandy-haired guywho put his hand up in the wheel well back at that last field.And this don t feel right!The plane swept on.The airfield passed below it.The co-pilot very cautiously let go of the wheel release,which when pulled should let the wheels fall down from their wells to lock themselves in landing position.He moved from his seat.His lips were pinched and tight.He scrabbled at a metal plate in the flooring.Helifted it and looked down.A moment later he had a flashlight.Joe saw the edge of a mirror.There weretwo mirrors down there, in fact.One could look through both of them into the wheel well.The co-pilot made quite sure.He stood up, leaving the plate off the opening in the floor. There s something down in the wheel well, he said in a brittle tone [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]