He went trudging back to the wrecked gyros. His friends were gone, leaving a scrawled memo for him. They had gone to pick out the machine tools for the work at hand.
He continued to check over the wreckage, thinking with a detached compassion of that poor devil Braun who was the victim of men who hated the idea of the Space Platform and what it would mean to humanity. Men of that kind thought of themselves as superior to humanity, and of human beings as creatures to be enslaved. So they arranged for planes to crash and burn and for men to be murdered, and they practiced blackmail--or rewarded those who practiced it for them. They wanted to prevent the Platform from existing because it would keep them from trying to pull the world down in ruins so they could rule over the wreckage.
Joe--who had so recently thought it likely that he would die--considered these actions with an icy dislike that was much deeper than anger. It was backed by everything he believed in, everything he had ever wanted, and everything he hoped for. And anger could cool off, but the way he felt about people who would destroy others for their own purposes could not cool off. It was part of him. He thought about it as he worked, with all the noises of the Shed singing in his ears.
He started and turned. Sally stood behind him, looking at him very gravely. She tried to smile.
"Dad told me," she said, "about the check-up that says you're all right. May I congratulate you on your being with us for a while?--on the cobalt's not getting near you?--or the rest of us?"
"I'm going inside the Platform," she told him. "Would you like to come along?"
"Naturally! My gang is off picking out tools. I can't do much until they come back."
He fell into step beside her. They walked toward the Platform. And it was still magic, no matter how often Joe looked at it. It was huge beyond belief, though it was surely not heavy in proportion to its size. Its bright plating shone through the gossamer scaffolding all about it. There was always a faint bluish mist in the air, and there were the marsh-fire lights of welding torches playing here and there. The sounds of the Shed were a steady small tumult in Joe's ears. He was getting accustomed to them, though.