A passenger rocket!

Logan tried to weave a logical fabric from threads of confused thought.Cape Steinbeck, the space storage centre at the tip of the Florida Keys. A dead section. Like Cathedral. Like Molly. Like Washington. All stages on the Sanctuary line. Steinbeck, where the rockets and the missiles were mothballed when space flight was abandoned. Yet they were using a rocket- which meant Sanctuary must be in space. But how? Where? The planets in the solar system would not support life. The stars had never been reached. How?

Ballard met them. 'The abandoned space station near Mars. It's a small colony now, still crude, cold and hard to live on. But it's ours, Logan. Yours now. The jump for Argos is Darkside- on the Moon'.

They boarded the rocket. The port sealed itself.

A great shuddering noise possessed the rocket. Logan felt himself danced by energies and tremors; Jess was smiling at him; a weight pushed him down. He closed his eyes.

Ballard watched the tide of orange envelop the lower stage of the rocket. The needlecraft poised, rose ponderously, gaining speed as it left Earth. faster now. A thunder- as it began its long run down the Atlantic Range, safe from the eyes of men.

Ballard turned, a tall, lonely figure blending with the night, and walked back over the cold ground.

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