newly-imposedinertial pattern.
Forty pounds to the square inch six hundred forty pounds over thesurface of the block, the plastic did its best to assume the motionthat the warped laws of its existence said that it already had.
It was only one times ten to the minus five of a gravity that the fourby four by half inch piece of carefully machined plastic presented tothe sixty-four million pound mass of Space Lab One.
But the force was presented almost exactly along the north-south axisof the hub of the ship, and in space a thrust is cumulative andmomentum derives per second per second.
The Confusor churkled quietly as the piece of plastic exerted its tinymass in a six hundred forty pound attempt to take off towards thenorth star. And, since the piece itself was rigidly mounted to itsframe, and the frame to the ship, the giant bulk of five million cubicfeet of water, thirty-two million pounds of mass; and the matchingmass-bulk of the ship itself, responded to the full mosquito-sizedstrength of the six hundred forty pound thrust, and was moved--afraction of a fraction of a fraction of a centimeter in the firstsecond; a fraction of a fraction in the second; a fraction....
* * * * *
On the bridge, the com officer had completed transmitting thecaptain's detailed report of the evacuation to the hub-shield areacaused by the solar flare.
On another line, under Bessie's ministrations, the computer wasfeeding the data obtained by the incomplete equipment in theobservatory in its automatic operation.
The captain himself was finishing a plastic-bottle of coffee, while hewrote up his log.
It was exactly nine minutes since the Confusor had come into fulloperation.
The fractions of fractions of centimeters had added on the square ofthe number of seconds; and the sixty-four million pounds of mass ofSpace Lab One has moved over thirteen meters.
Trailing the wheel ten miles off, was the atomic pile, directlyattached to its anchor tube.
Tightening, each with a whanging snap too tiny to be remarked withinthe mass of the ship, were the cables that attached the various itemsof the dump to their anchor finger.
But still free on the loose one hundred meter cable that attached itto its anchor, and which had had fifteen meters of slack when theship first began its infinitesimal movement, was Project Hot Rod.
Nine minutes and twenty-three seconds. The velocity of the wheel withits increasing mass of trailing items, was five point four sixcentimeters per second. The nearly four million pound mass of Hot Rodwas slowly being left behind.
The cable tautened the final fraction of a centimeter. Its tug was notfast, but was unfortunately applied very close to the center ofgravity of the entire device, since most of Hot Rod's weight wasconcentrated in and around the control room.
Five point four six centimeters per second. Four million pounds ofmass.
If the shock had been direct, it would have equaled two point eightmillion ergs of energy, created by the fractional movement of themighty mass of the ship against Hot Rod.
But the shock was transmitted through the short end of a long lever.The motion at the beam director mirror, a full diameter out from theeight thousand foot diameter balloon that was Hot Rod, was multipliednearly sixteen thousand times. Hot Rod rolled on its center ofgravity, and its beam-director mirror swung in a huge arc. Sixteenthousand centimeters per centimeter of original motion. Eight hundredand seventy-three meters in the first second, before the trackingservos took over and began to fight back.
* * * * *
Hot Rod fought at the end of its tether like a mighty jellyfish hookedon the end of a line.
Gradually the swings decreased. Four hundred meters; two hundredmeters; one hundred meters; fifty meters; twenty-five meters--and ithad come back to a nearly stable focus on the sun.
But the beam director had also been displaced, and vibrated.Internally, the communications beam to Thule Base had beeninterrupted; and the fail-safe had not failed-safely.
The mighty beam had lashed out. The vibrations of the directing mirrorbegan placing gigantic spots and sweeps of unresistible energy acrossthe ice cap of Greenland, in an ever-diminishing Lissajous pattern.
By the time the servos refocused the communications beam on Thule,there was no Thule; only a burnt-out crater where it had been.
Slowly, but surely, the giant balloon settled itself to the task ofburning a hole through the Greenland ice cap at a spot eighty milesnorth of that now-burnt-out Thule Base that had originally beenplanned as a test of its accuracy; and to the simple task of holdingthat focus in spite of the now steady, though infinitesimalacceleration under which it joined the procession headed by Lab One.
Now that the waves of action and reaction from the shock energy of itssudden start had subsided, Hot Rod's accuracy was proving greatindeed; and its beam focus was proving as small as had beenpredicted.
But the instruments that would have measured those facts no longerexisted.
In the engineering control center of Space Lab One, the Confusorchurkled quietly and continued to pit its mosquito might against itsnow nearly seventy-eight million pound antagonist, as the protons andelectrons of the plastic that was center to its forces did theirinertial best to occupy that position in space towards the north starin which the warped fields around them forced them to belong--themosquito strained its six hundred forty pound thrust against its giantin the per second per second acceleration that was effective only inthe fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a centimeter in the firstsecond, but that compounded its fractions per second.
* * * * *
On the quiet bridge, the captain looked up as the Com Officer said,"Thule Base, sir," and switched on his mike.
"Hot Rod has been sabotaged," a frantic voice on the other end of thebeam shouted in his ear without formalities. "She's running wild. Killher! Repeat, Hot Rod is wild! Kill Hot Rod! Kill--" the mike went deadas Captain Andersen switched to the morgue intercom.
"Hot Rod crew," he said briefly. "Report to the bridge on the double.Repeat. Hot Rod crew. The bridge. On the double."
As he switched off the intercom, the communications officer spokeurgently. "Captain. I've lost contact with Thule base."
"Keep trying to raise them," Captain Andersen said. He turned toBessie. "Give me a display of the Hellmaker," he said; then, almost tohimself, "There's still a flare in progress out there. We've got tokill it without sending men into that--"
He cut himself off in midsentence, as the computer displayed both HotRod, swaying gently as she fought out the battle of the focus throughits final moments, and a telescopic view of Greenland, a tiny, glowingcoal of red showing at the center of her focus.
Through the door nearly catapulted the first of the Project HotRodders, followed almost on his heels by twelve more.
"Where is Major Elbertson?"
"In sick bay, sir. He got a big radiation dose--"
The captain flipped the intercom key.
"Calling Major Elbertson in sick bay. Report to the bridge on thedouble, no matter what your condition. This is the captain speaking."
The intercom came alive at far end.
"This is Dr. Green, Captain Andersen. Major Elbertson is unconscious.He cannot report for duty. He was extremely ill from exposure toradiation and we have administered sulph-hydral, antispasmodic, andsedative."
Nails Andersen turned to the project crew.
"Which of you are Security officers?"
Three men stepped forward.
"Are all the project members here?"
"No, sir," said one. "Eight of our men are in sick bay."
"Very well," said the captain. "Now hear this, all of you. There is asaboteur--maybe more than one, we do not know--among you. There is notime to find out which of you it is. However, he has managed to leaveProject Hot Rod operational while unattended. You are to turn it off,and to prevent the saboteur from stopping you. Do you understand?"
A voice in back--a rathe
r high voice--spoke up. "Of course it'soperational," it said. "We left it operational."
"You ... WHAT?"
"We left it operational. It's under Earth control. The control centerat Thule is in charge, sir."
"Who are you?" the captain asked.
"Hot Rod communications officer, sir. I turned it over last thingbefore we shut down. Under the instructions of Dr. Koblensky. That'sthe shutdown procedure."
"Where's Dr. Koblensky?"
"Out. Out like a light," said another voice. "He got a good dose. Ofradiation. The medics put him out."
"Who's senior officer here?"
"I'm Dr. Johnston." It was a man in front. Rather small,pedantic-looking. "I'm Dr. Koblensky's ... well, assistant." The wordcame hard as though the fact of an assistantship were at the leastdistasteful.
"Who's senior in