dred-ton rocket to get a full-sized man to the
moon," he said with sudden flippancy, "but a guy my size could do the
same job of stranglin' in a fifty-ton job. Counting how much easier it'd
be to get back, with atmosphere deceleration, I could make a trip, land,
take observations, pick up mineral specimens, and get back--all in a
sixty-ton rocket. That's just ten per cent of what it'd cost to take a
full-sized man one way!"

He stamped his foot. Then he said coldly: "Haney, sittin' still you're a
sittin' duck!"

The comment was just. Joe knew that Sally was on the lakeward side of
this small island, and that there were impenetrable rocks between her
and the mainland. But Haney sat crosslegged where he could watch the
mainland, and he hadn't moved in a long while. If someone did intend to
commit murder from a distance, Haney was offering a chance for a very
fine target. He moved.

"Yeah!" said Mike with fine irony, reverting to his topic. "I could show
you plenty of figures! There are other guys like me! We've got as much
brains as full-sized people! If the big brass had figured on us small
guys, they coulda made the Platform the size of a four-family house an'
it'd ha' been up in the sky right now, with guys like me running it.
Guys my size could man the ferry rockets bringin' up fuel for storage,
and four of us could take a six-hundred-ton rocket an' slide out to Mars
an' be back by springtime--next springtime!--with all the facts and the
photographs to prove 'em! By golly----"

Then he made a raging, helpless gesture.

"But that's just the big picture," he said bitterly. "Right now, right
at this minute, we could make it easy to finish the Platform the way
it's building in the Shed! There are ferry rockets building somewhere
else. You know about them?"

Sally said apologetically: "Yes. I know there'll be smaller rocket ships
going up to the Platform. They'll carry fuel and stores and exchanges
for the crew. Yes, I know there are ferry rockets building."

"Those ferry rockets," said Mike sardonically, "carry four men, plus two
replacements for the crew. They'll carry air for ten days. But put four
of us small guys in a ferry rocket! _We'd_ have air and grub for two
months, almost! Pull out the pay load and put in a hydroponic garden and
communicators and we'd _be_ a Platform, right then! Send up another
ferry rocket to join us, and it could bring guided missiles! The ferry
rockets could be finished quicker than