"So," said Talley, "since their pilots need to practice landings, the trucks get them off the ground. They go up to fifty thousand feet, just to give their oxygen tanks a chance to conk out on them; then they barge around up there a while. The advanced trainees shoot off a jato at top speed. It's gauged to build them up to the speed they'll give the Platform. And then if they come out of that and get back down to ground safely, they uncross their fingers. A merry life those guys lead! When a man's made ten complete flights he retires. One flight a week thereafter to keep in practice only, until the big day for the Platform's take-off. Those guys sweat!"
The pilot grunted. The co-pilot--Talley--spread out his hands.
"It is that bad! Every so often one of them comes down untidily. There's something the matter with the motors. They've got a little too much power, maybe. Sometimes--occasionally--they explode."
"Jet motors?" asked Joe. "Explode? That's news!"
"A strictly special feature," said Talley drily. "Exclusive with pushpots for the Platform. They run 'em and run 'em and run 'em, on test. Nothing happens. But occasionally one blows up in flight. Once it happened warming up. That was a mess! The field's been losing two pilots a week. Lately more."
"It doesn't sound exactly reasonable," said Joe slowly. He put a last forkful in his mouth.
"It's also inconvenient," said Talley, "for the pilots."
"It'd be sabotage," he said curtly, "if there was any way to do it. Four pilots killed this week."
A pushpot, outside the building, hysterically bellowed its way across the runway and its noise changed and it was aloft. It went spiraling up and up. Joe stirred his coffee.
There were thin shoutings outside. A screaming, whistling noise! A crash! Something metallic shrieked and died. Then silence.
Talley, the co-pilot, looked sick. Then he said: "Correction. It's been five pushpots exploded and five pilots killed this week. It's getting a little bit serious." He looked sharply at Joe. "Better drink your coffee before you go look. You won't want to, afterward."
Joe saw the crashed pushpot half an hour later. He found that his ostensible assignment to the airfield for the investigation of sabotage was quaintly taken at face value there. A young lieutenant solemnly escorted him to the spot where the pushpot had landed, only ten feet from a hangar wall. The impact had carried parts of the pushpot five feet into the soil, and the splash effect had caved in the hangar wall-footing. There'd been a fire, which had been put out.