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With any gravity or air resistance at all, the Italian couldn’t have carried even one. Rip smiled as Dominico glided along. He looked as though the tubes were floating him over the asteroid, instead of the other way around. Santos took the radiation detection instruments and the case with the astrogation equipment from Koa.
Rip disconnected and turned up his helmet communicator, repeating the conversation to his men. Koa came and stood beside him. "Lieutenant, how do we set off this next charge?" There was only one way. When the time came to blast, they would be too close to the sun to take to the boats. The blast had to be set off from the asteroid.
He watched closely as the asteroid drew nearer and estimated they would land with plenty of room to spare. Then he saw something else. The blast had started the asteroid turning! He reacted instantly. Turning up his communicator he yelled, "Koa! The rock is spinning! Cut the prisoners loose, grab the equipment, and run for it! You’ll have to keep running to stay in the shadow.
Koa, he knew, had checked everything, but the final responsibility was his. In space, no officer or sergeant took anyone’s word for anything that might mean lives. Each checked every detail personally. Rip looked around and saw the Planeteers watching him. There was approval on the faces behind the clear helmets, and he knew they were satisfied with his thoroughness.
How are you, Koa? Am I interrupting a private talk?" "No, Major," Koa replied. "We're just passing the time. Want me to leave?" "Stay here," Barris said. "This concerns you, too. I've been reassigned. My eight years on the platform are up, and that's all an instructor gets. Now I'm off for space on another job." Rip knew that instructors were assigned for eight-year periods.
He cut the metal out in great triangular bars, angling the torch from first one side, then the other. Koa came and stood beside Rip. "I haven’t seen the Connie’s exhaust for a while, sir. Looks like they’ve stopped decelerating. We can’t see them at all." "Meaning what?" Rip asked. He thought he knew, but he wanted Koa’s opinion. "They’re in free fall now, sir.
They stared at him. He added quickly, "Supplies came aboard at Marsport. We'll get the clue when we open them. Headquarters must have known the method when they assigned us and ordered the equipment they thought we'd need." Koa stood up. He was the only one who could have moved upright against the terrific deceleration.
It made a sort of sense to Rip when he thought about it. Little fights here and there were better than a full war among the planets. Koa suddenly gripped his arm. "Sir! Look up!" The short hairs on the back of Rip’s neck prickled. Far above, blackness blotted out stars in the shape of a spaceship. The Connie had arrived! Rip ordered urgently, "Kemp! Stop cutting.
Koa stepped behind Kemp and leaned against his back, because the flame of the torch was like an exhaust, driving Kemp backward. Kemp bent down, and the torch sliced into the metal of the asteroid like a hot knife into ice. The metal splintered a little as the heat raised it instantly from almost absolute zero to many thousands of degrees.
At first he had been completely overcome by the responsibility, and the magnitude of the job, but now he was getting used to the idea and he could see the adventure in it. Ten wild Planeteers riding an asteroid! Sunny space, what a great big thermo-nuclear stunt! Koa remarked, "It must be good. The lieutenant is getting a real atomic charge out of it." "Sit down," Rip ordered.
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