But the Platform was in motion now. It was a hundred yards beyond the Shed wall. Two hundred. Three.... It slowly gathered speed. A half-mile from the Shed it was definitely clear of the ground. It left a trail of scorched, burnt desert behind....
It moved almost swiftly, now. Two miles from the Shed it was fifteen feet above the earth. Three miles, and a clear strip of sunlight showed beneath it. And it was still accelerating. At four miles and five and six....
It was aloft, climbing with seemingly infinite slowness, with all the hundreds of straining, thrusting, clumsy pushpots clinging to it and pushing it ever ahead and upward.
It went smoothly toward the east. It continued to gain speed. It did not seem to dip toward the horizon at all. It went on and on, dwindling from a giant to a spot and then to a little dark speck in the sky that still went on and on until even Joe could not pretend to himself that he still saw it. Even then there was probably a tiny droning noise in the air, but nobody who had watched the take-off could possibly hear it.
Then Joe looked at Sally and she at him. And Joe was grinning like an ape with excitement and relief and triumph which was at once his own and that of all his dreams. Sally’s eyes were shining and exultant. She hugged him in purest exuberance, crying that the Space Platform was up, was up, was up....
At sundown they were waiting on the porch of the Major’s quarters behind the Shed. The Major was there, and Haney and the Chief and Mike and Joe. The Major’s whole look had changed. He seemed to have shrunk, and he looked more tired than any man should ever be allowed to get. But his job was done, and the reaction was enough to explain everything. He sat in an easy chair with a glass beside him, and he looked as if nothing on earth could make him move a finger. But nevertheless he was waiting.
Sally came out with a tray. She gravely passed around the glasses and the cakes that went with them. Then she sat down on the porch steps beside Joe. She looked at him and nodded in friendly fashion. And Joe was inordinately approving of Sally, but he felt awkward at showing it too plainly in her father’s presence.
Mike said defiantly: “But still it woulda been easier to get it up there if it’d been built for guys like me!”
Nobody contradicted him. He was right. Anyhow every one of them felt too much relaxed and relieved to enter into argument.