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Though trembling under the strain of conversing with this machine on which his life depended, he did not overlook a single point. "But the asteroid's gravital pull would hold us close to it," he said. "Is there a way of breaking free from it?" "You'll find the space-suits are equipped with small generators and gravity-plates which I helped Ku Sui develop.
Hour after hour and day after day, for a week the Sandra tracked on through the boundless leagues, the waxing sunlight beating steadily on her starboard bow and her silent gravity-plates and singing generators bringing Earth ever nearer.
It's all done now yes, its gravity-plates too, for see, it's turning." "And fast!" murmured Friday. The body was rotating around its longer axis at about twice the speed of an Earth-watch's second hand. Now the dome was sliding under, out of their sight, the craggy rock belly coming up to take its place.
Then, somewhere there were the mighty gravity-plates batteries which motivated the asteroid and held it controlled in space. The dynamos. Two men, working swiftly, might wreak an unholy amount of damage in little time; in the resulting confusion anything might happen. If!
"Yes," he responded, "the plan. Ban stations a man to keep watch on Tantril's ranch, while we go back to your laboratory, Eliot, where you'll make the devices and repair the gravity-plates of my suit. Then, four nights from now, if the watcher's seen no one arrive, Ban, Friday and I return and lie in ambush round Tantril's ranch. Awaiting Dr. Ku.
The Earth-clock on the wall ticked on; seconds built minutes, and the minutes passed. The asteroid was only ten miles astern. "Eliot," said Carse quietly, "get me one of your infra-red glasses." He took over the controls again. Carefully he varied the forward repulsion and sent current to the side gravity-plates, and slowly the Sandra answered by rotating, longitudinally, reversing her position.
Switching on the helmet gravity-plates to swift repulsion, the three soared out of the trees, soared up on a straight, inclined line for the dome on the asteroid, a steady, rapid climb that soon raised them one mile, a second and a third, where they leveled off and sped straight ahead. Now they could look right into the dome. Rapidly the port-lock that was their objective grew in size.
I picked it from the rest because of certain mineral qualities, and had this air-containing dome constructed on it, and these buildings inside the dome. Then, with batteries of gravity-plates inserted precisely in the asteroid's center of gravity, I nullified the gravital pull of Mars and Jupiter, wrenched it from its age-old orbit and swung it free into space.
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