Once every two hours it circled the earth
completely, spinning along through space like a mighty wheel of steel and
plastic.
Through a telescope on Earth the platform looked to be a lifeless, lonely
disk, but within it, hundreds of spacemen and Planeteers went about their
work.
In a ready room at the outer edge of the platform, a Planeteer officer
faced a dozen slim, black-clad young men who wore the single golden
orbits of lieutenants. This was a graduating class, already commissioned,
having a final informal get-together.
The officer, who wore the three-orbit insignia of a major, was lean and
trim. His short-cropped hair covered his head like a gray fur skull cap.
One cheek was marked with the crisp whiteness of an old radiation burn.
"Stand easy," he ordered briskly. "The general instructions of the
Special Order Squadrons say that it's my duty as senior officer to make a
farewell speech. I intend to make a speech if it kills me--and you, too."
The dozen new officers facing him broke into grins. Maj. Joe Barris had
been their friend, teacher, and senior officer during six long years of
training on the space platform. He could no more make a formal speech
than he could breathe high vacuum, and they all knew it.
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