If we were ducking missiles from an enemy,
I'd get orders from the commander. But to duck asteroids, there's no
problem. I go over them by firing the steam tubes along the bottom of the
ship. That way, you feel the acceleration on your feet. If I fired the
top tubes, the ship would drop out from under those who were standing.
They'd all end up on the overhead."
Rip watched for a while longer, then wandered back to Commander O'Brine.
He was getting anxious. At first the task of capturing an asteroid and
moving it back to Earth had been rather unreal, like some of the problems
he had worked out while training on the space platform. Now he was no
longer calm about it. He had faith in the Terra base Planeteer
specialists, but they couldn't figure out everything for him. Most of the
problems of getting the asteroid back to Earth would have to be solved by
Lt. Richard Ingalls Peter Foster.
A junior space officer suddenly called, "Sir, I have a reading at
two-seventy degrees, twenty-three degrees eight minutes high."
Commander O'Brine jumped up so fast that the action shot him to the
ceiling. He kicked down again and leaned over the officer's 'scope.
Rip got there by pulling himself right across the top of the chart table.
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