"Sure. This secrecy is for your own protection. You risk court-martial
otherwise."
Hulse suppressed a retort.
* * * * *
"O.K., here's the word." Blades met the transmitted glare with an
almost palpable crash of eyeballs. "We decided, Mr. Chung and I, that
any missile rig as haywire as yours represents a menace to navigation
and public safety. If you can't control your own nuclear weapons, you
shouldn't be at large. Our charter gives us local authority as peace
officers. By virtue thereof and so on and so forth, we ordered certain
precautionary steps taken. As a result, if that war head goes off, I'm
sorry to say that NASS _Altair_ will be destroyed."
"Are you ... have you--" Hulse congealed. In spite of everything, he
was a competent officer, Blades decided. "Please explain yourself," he
said without tone.
"Sure," Blades obliged. "The Station hasn't got any armament, but
trust the human race to juryrig that. We commandeered the scoopships
belonging to this vessel and loaded them with Jovian gas at maximum
pressure. If your missile detonates, they'll dive on you."
Something like amusement tinged Hulse's shocked expression. "Do you
seriously consider that a weapon?"
"I seriously do. Let me explain. The ships are orbiting free right
now, scattered through quite a large volume of space. Nobody's aboard
them. What is aboard each one, though, is an autopilot taken from a
scooter, hooked into the drive controls. Each 'pilot has its sensors
locked onto your ship. You can't maneuver fast enough to shake off
radar beams and mass detectors. You're the target object, and there's
nothing to tell those idiot computers to decelerate as they approach
you.
"Of course, no approach is being made yet. A switch has been put in
every scooter circuit, and left open. Only the meteorite evasion units
are operative right now. That is, if anyone tried to lay alongside one
of those scoopships, he'd be detected and the ship would skitter away.
Remember, a scoopship hasn't much mass, and she does have engines
designed for diving in and out of Jupe's gravitational well. She can
out-accelerate either of our vessels, or any boat of yours, and
out-dodge any of your missiles. You can't catch her."