(eng) Murray Leinster by To the Stars 01- Space Platform

Author:To the Stars 01- Space Platform [Platform, To the Stars 01- Space]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

8

Nevertheless, the afternoon began splendidly. Joe dunked the bottled soft drinks in the lake to cool. Then he and Sally ate and talked and laughed. Joe, in particular, had more than the usual capacity for enjoyment today. He’d been through twenty-four hours of turmoil but now things began to look better. And there was the arrangement with Sally, which had a solid satisfactoriness about it. Sally was swell! If she’d been homely, Joe would have liked her just the same—to talk to and to be with. But she was pretty—and she was wearing his ring. She’d wrapped some string around the inside of the band to make it fit.

The only trouble was that Joe was occasionally conscious of the heavy weight in his right-hand coat pocket.

But they spent at least an hour in contented, satisfying, meaningless loafing that nobody can describe but that everybody likes to remember afterward. From time to time Joe looked ashore, when the weight in his pocket reminded him of danger.

But he didn’t look often enough. He was pulling the chilled soft-drink bottles out of the lake when he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. He whirled, his hand in his pocket....

It was the Chief, with Haney and Mike the midget. They were striding across the rocky small peninsula.

Haney called sharply: “Everything okay?”

“Sure!” said Joe. “Everything’s fine! What’s the matter?”

“Mike had a hunch,” said the Chief. “And—uh—I remembered I worked on the job when this dam was built twelve-fifteen years ago.” He looked about him. “It looked different then.”

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