Kemp, one of the two American privates, took the torch and waited for
orders. "We need a hole six feet across and twenty feet deep," Rip told
him. "Go to it."
"How about direction, sir?" Kemp asked.
"Straight down. We’ll take a bearing on an overhead star when you’re in a
few feet."
Dowst inscribed a circle around the X he had made and stood back. Kemp
pushed the striker button and the torch flared. "Watch your eyes," he
warned. The Planeteers reached for belt controls and turned the rheostats
that darkened the clear bubbles electronically. Kemp adjusted his flame
until it was blue-white, a knife of fire brighter by far than the sun.
Koa stepped behind Kemp and leaned against his back, because the flame of
the torch was like an exhaust, driving Kemp backward. Kemp bent down and
the torch sliced into the metal of the asteroid like a hot knife into ice.
The metal splintered a little as the heat raised it instantly from almost
absolute zero to many thousands of degrees.
When the circle was completed, Kemp adjusted his torch again and the flame
lengthened. He moved inside the circle and cut at an angle toward the
perimeter. His control was quick and certain. In a moment he stood aside
and Koa lifted out a perfect ring of thorium. It varied from a knife edge
on the inner side to 18 inches thick on the outer edge.
In the middle of the circle there was now a cone of metal. Kemp cut around
it, the torch angling toward the center. A piece shaped like two cones set
base to base came free. Since the metal cooled in the bitter chill of
space almost as fast as Kemp could cut it, there was no heat to worry
about.
Alternately cutting from the outside and the center of the hole, Kemp
worked his way downward until his head was below ground level. Rip called
a halt. Kemp gave a little jump and floated straight upward. Koa caught
him and swung him to one side. Rip stepped into the hole and Santos gave
him a slight push to send him to the bottom. Rip knelt and sighted upward.
Kemp had done a good job. The star Rip had chosen as an overhead guide was
straight up.
He bounced out of the hole and as Koa caught him he told Kemp to go ahead.
"Dominico, here’s your chance. Get tools and wire. Find a timer and
connect up the ten kiloton bomb. Nunez, bring it here while Dominico gets
what he needs."
Kemp was burning his way into the asteroid at a good rate. Every few
moments he pushed another circle or spindle of thorium out of the hole.
Rip directed some of the men to carry them away, to the other side of the
asteroid. He didn’t want chunks of thorium flying around from the blast.
The sergeant-major had a sudden thought. He cut off his communicator,
motioned to Rip to do the same, then put his helmet against Rip’s for
direct communication. He didn’t want the others to hear what he had to
say. His voice came like a roar from, the bottom of a well. "Lieutenant,
do you suppose there’s any chance the blast might break up the asteroid?
Maybe split it in two?"
The same thought had occurred to Rip on the _Scorpius_. His calculations
had showed that the metal would do little more than compress, except where
it melted from the terrific heat of the bomb. That would be only in and
around the shaft. He was sure the men at Terra base had figured it out
before they decided that A-bombs would be necessary to throw the asteroid
into a new orbit. He wasn’t worried. Cracks in the asteroid would be
dangerous, but he hadn’t seen any.
"This rock will take more nuclear blasts than we have," he assured Koa. He
turned his communicator back on and went to the edge of the hole for a
look at Kemp’s progress. He was far down, now. Pederson was holding one
end of a measuring tape. The other end was fastened to Kemp’s shoulder
strap.
The Swedish corporal showed Rip that he had only about eight feet of tape
left. Kemp was almost down. Rip called, "Kemp. When you reach bottom, cut
toward the center. Leave an inverted cone."
"Got it, sir. Be up in two more cuts."
Dominico had connected cable to the bomb terminals and was attaching a
timer to the other end. Without the wooden case, the bomb was like a fat,
oversized can. It had been shipped without a combat casing.
"Koa, make a final check. You can untie the landing boat, except for one
line. We’ll be taking off in a few minutes."
"Right, sir." Koa glided toward the landing boat, which was out of sight
over the horizon.
It was nearly time. Rip had a moment’s misgiving. Had his figures or his
sightings been off? His red hair prickled at the thought. But the ship’s
computer had done the work, and it was not capable of making a mistake.
Kemp tossed up the last section of thorium and then came out of the hole
himself, carrying his torch.
Rip inspected the hole, saw with satisfaction it was in almost perfect
alignment, and ordered the bomb placed. He bent over the edge of the hole
and watched Trudeau pay out wire while Dominico pushed the bomb to the
bottom. The Italian made a last minute check, then called to Rip. "Ready,
sir."
He dropped into the hole and inspected the connections himself, then
personally pulled the safety lever. The bomb was armed. When the timer
acted, it would go off.
Back at ground level, he turned up his communicator. "Koa, is everything
ready at the boat?"
"Ready, sir."
The Planeteers had already carried away the torch and its fuel and oxygen
supplies. The area was clear of pieces of thorium.
Rip announced, "We’re setting the explosion for ten minutes." He leaned
over the timer, which rested near the lip of the hole, took the dial
control in his glove and turned it to position ten. He held it long enough
to glance at his chronometer and say, "Starting now!" Then he let it go.
Wasting no time, but not hurrying, he and Dominico returned to the landing
boat. The Planeteers were already aboard, except for Koa, who stood by to
cast off the remaining tie line. Rip stepped inside and counted the men.
All present. He ordered, "Cast off." As Koa did so and stepped aboard, he
added, "Pilot, take off. Straight up."
The landing boat rose from the asteroid. Rip counted the men again, just
to be sure. The boat seemed a little crowded, but that was because the
rear compartment took up quite a bit of room.
Rip watched his chronometer. They had plenty of time. When the boat
reached a point about ten miles above the asteroid, he ordered, "Stern
tube." The boat moved at an angle. He let it go until a sight at the stars
showed they were about in the right position, 90 degrees from the line of
blast and where they would be behind the asteroid as it moved toward the
new course.
He looked at his chronometer again. "Two minutes. Line up at the side if
you want to watch, but darken your helmets to full protection. This thing
will light up like nothing you’ve ever seen before."
It was a good thing space cruisers depended on their radar and not on
sight, he thought. Usually spacemen opened up visual ports only when
landing or taking a star sight for an astro-plot. The clear plastic of the
domes had to be shielded from chance meteors. Besides, radar screens were
more dependable than eyes, even though they could pick up only solid
objects. If the Consops cruiser happened to be searching visually, it
would see the blast. But the chance had to be taken. It wasn’t really much
of a chance.
"One minute," he said. He faced the asteroid, then darkened his helmet,
counting to himself.
The minute ticked off slowly, though his count was a little fast. When he
reached five, brilliant, incandescent light lit up the interior of the
boat. Rip saw it even though his helmet was dark. The light faded slowly,
and he put his helmet back on full transparent.
A mighty column of fire now reached out from the asteroid into space. Rip
held his breath until he saw that the little planet was sheering off its
course under the great blast. Then he sighed with relief. All was well so
far.
Someone muttered, "By Gemini! I’m glad we’re out here instead of down
there!"
The column of fire lengthened, thinned out, grew fainter until there was
only a glow behind the asteroid. Rip took his astrogation instruments and
made a number of sights. They looked good. The first blast had worked
about as predicted, although he wouldn’t be able to tell how much
correction was needed until he had taken star sights over a period of five
or six days.
"Let’s go home," he ordered.
Back on the asteroid, a pit that glowed with radioactivity marked the site
of the first blast. Rip ordered it covered as much as possible with the
thorium that had been taken from the hole. While the men worked, he
plotted the lines for the second blast, found the spot, and put Kemp back
to work on a new hole.
Two hours later the second blast threw fire into space. In another three
hours, with the asteroid now speeding on its new course, Rip set off the
explosion that blasted straight back and gave extra speed.
Three radioactive craters marked the asteroid. Rip checked the radiation
level and didn’t like it a bit. He decided to set up the landing boat and
their supplies as far away from the craters as possible, which was on the
sun side. They could move to the dark side as they approached the orbit of
earth. By then the radioactivity from the blasts would have died down
considerably.
He was selecting the location for a base when Dowst suddenly called.
"Lieutenant! Lieutenant Foster!"