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"I'm not worried," Rip replied and wished it were true. He looked up at the Connie again. It was getting larger. The cruiser was within a few miles of the asteroid. As Rip watched, fire spurted from the cruiser, and it moved with gathering speed toward the asteroid's horizon. He watched the exhaust trail, wondering why the Connie had blasted off. "He has something up his sleeve," Koa muttered.
If he could put the asteroid even closer to the sun, the boat problem would become worse, until even a small velocity change in the wrong direction could leave a boat in the terrible position of not having enough thrust for a long enough time to keep from being drawn into the sun. But to change the asteroid's orbit was dangerous!
The disintegrating rays which had been burning at the Sandra had been snapped off with the sheathing of invisibility; in that one wild second of impact, all the asteroid's functioning mechanism had been destroyed.
He's trying to make a break!" Two guards appeared at the lock almost instantly, but it was too late. Already she was straining at her magnetic cable moorings; then the exhaust flared, and the little scout ship leaped away from the orbit-ship, moving out at a tangent to the asteroid's orbit, picking up speed, moving faster and faster.... In toward the orbit of Mars.
A little less than four seconds to reach his objective, he reckoned; a little more than one second for Tantril to release the asteroid's disintegrating rays as he had threatened; therefore about two and a half seconds for the Sandra to be exposed to those rays. The chance that her defensive web could resist them for that long would decide it.
He had planned on the asteroid's change of orbit. In a minute at most they would be back on the rock. His propulsion tube flared out, and he released it. It would travel along with him, but his hands would be free. 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!
He slid the craft across the asteroid's surface to the side away from the Connie, going slowly enough that they could watch the enemy's every move. "Here he comes," Rip snapped, and braced for acceleration. The landing craft shot to safety as the cruiser's nose jet flamed. Dowst was just in time. Tiny sparks from the edge of the fiery column brushed past the boat.
The asteroid's far more powerful than we. And Jupiter only knows what new offensive resources Ku Sui may have given it: I had no time to study the several strange mechanisms I saw in its control room. Then, no nearby patrol ship would help us if we were attacked, for to them our enemy would be invisible, and they'd think us crazy." He paused.
A lonely, barren little world, with its single, primitive race of spindly beings timid, frail beings, half-human, half insect. We took him there Maida and Georg, Elza and I. He anticipated his dislike of the asteroid's slight gravity, and demanded weighted shoes so that he might walk with the normal feeling of Earth and Venus. "You give me too much freedom," he told us solemnly.
Trained to shipboard routine and the sudden emergencies of space, they needed but little time to return to full wakefulness. In staccato sentences the new situation was outlined to them. "The asteroid's gone. That means danger to everything here. We will have to evacuate. Ban, wake all the men, including Ku Sui and his assistants, then come to me for further orders.
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