The chief analyst took less than the estimated ten minutes for his next
set of figures. Commander O’Brine called personally while Rip was still
searching for the right landing boat ports. The voice horn bellowed, "Get
it! Lieutenant Foster. The mass measurements are correct. This is your
asteroid. Estimated twelve minutes before we reach it. Your data will be
ready by the time you get back here. Show an exhaust!"
Rip found Koa and the men and asked the sergeant-major for a report.
"We’re ready, sir," Koa told him. "We can get out in three minutes. It
will take us that long to get into space gear. Your stuff is laid out,
sir."
"Get me the books and charts from the supplies," Rip directed. "Have
Santos bring them to the chief analyst. I’m going back and figure our
course. No use doing it the hard way on the asteroid when I can do it in a
few minutes here with the ship’s computer."
He turned and hurried back, hauling himself along by handholds. The ship
had stopped acceleration and was at no-weight again. As he neared the
analysis section it went into deceleration, but the pressure was not too
bad. He made his way against it easily.
The chief analyst was waiting for him. "We have everything you need,
Lieutenant, except the orbital stuff. We’ll do the best we can on that and
have a good estimate in a few minutes. Meanwhile, you can mark up your
figures. Incidentally, what power are you going to use to move the
asteroid?"
"Nuclear explosions," Rip said, and saw the chief’s eyes pop. He added,
"With conventional chemical fuel for corrections."
He felt rising excitement. The whole ship seemed to have come to life.
There was excited tension in the computer room when he went in with the
chief. Spacemen, all mathematicians, were waiting for him. As the chief
led him to a table, they gathered around him.
Rip took command. "Here’s what we’re after. I need to plot an orbit that
will get us out of the asteroid belt without any collisions, take us as
close to the sun as possible without having it capture us, and land us in
space about ten thousand miles from earth. From then on I’ll throw the
asteroid into a braking ellipse around the earth and I’ll be able to make
any small corrections necessary."
He spread out a solar system chart and marked in the positions of the
planets as of that moment, using the daily almanac. Then he put down the
position of the asteroid, taking it from the paper the chief analyst
handed him.
"Will you make assignments, Chief?"
The chief shook his head. "Make them yourself, Lieutenant. We’re at your
service."
Rip felt a little ashamed of some of the unkind things he had said about
spacemen. "Thank you." He pointed to a spaceman. "Will you calculate the
inertia of the asteroid, please?" The spaceman hurried off.
"First thing to do is plot the orbit as though there were no other bodies
in the system," Rip said. "Where’s Santos?"
"Here, sir." The corporal had come in unnoticed with Rip’s reference
books.
Rip had plotted orbits before, but never one for actual use. His palms
were wet as he laid it out, using prepared tables. When he had finished he
pointed to a spaceman. "That’s it. Will you translate it into analogue
figures for the computer, please?" He assigned to others the task of
figuring out the effect Mercury, the sun, and earth would have on the
orbit, using an assumed speed for the asteroid.
To the chief analyst he gave the job of putting all the data together in
proper form for feeding to the electronic brain.
It would have taken all spacemen present about ten days to complete the
job by regular methods, but the electronic computer produced the answer in
three minutes.
"Thanks a million, Chief," Rip said. "I’ll be calling on you again before
this is over." He tucked the sheets into his pocket.
"Any time, Lieutenant. We’ll keep rechecking the figures as we go along.
If there are any corrections, we’ll send them to you. That will give you a
check on your own figures."
"Don’t worry," Rip assured him. "We’ll have plenty of corrections."
Deceleration had been dropping steadily. It ceased altogether, leaving
them weightless. O’Brine’s voice came over the speaker. "Get it! Valve
crews take stations at landing boats five and six. The Planeteers will
depart in five minutes. Lieutenant Foster will report to central control
if he cannot be ready in that time."