Her fingers flew and molded the beautiful curve of a jaw where there
had been none. Next, plastissue lips were applied.
Nona was soon hiding in half a hundred places.
And one more....
[Illustration]
* * * * *
The orbit of Neptune was far behind and still the asteroid was
accelerating. Two giant gravital units strained at the core of
Handicap Haven. The third clamped an abnormally heavy gravity on the
isolated world. Prolonged physical exertion was awkward and doubly
exhausting. Hours turned into a day, but the units never faltered.
"Have you figured it out as precisely as you should?" asked Docchi
easily. "You share our velocity away from the Sun. You'll have to
overcome it before you can start going back."
The general ignored him. "If we could only turn off that damned
drive!"
Engineer Vogel shrugged sickly. "You try it," he suggested. "I don't
want to be around when you do. It sounds easy: just a gravital unit.
But remember there's a good-sized nuclear pile involved."
"I know we can't," admitted the general, morosely looking at the
darkness overhead. "On the other hand, we can take off and blow this
rock apart from a safe distance."
"And lose all hope of finding her?" taunted Docchi.
"We're losing her anyway," Cameron commented sourly.
"It's not as bad as all that," consoled Docchi. "Now that you know
where the difficulty is, you can always build another computer and
furnish it with auxiliary senses. Or maybe build into it the facts of
elementary astronomy."
Cautiously, he shifted his frail body under the heavy gravity.
"There's another solution, though it may not appeal to you. I can't
believe Nona is altogether unique. There must be others like her.
So-called 'born' mechanics, maybe, whose understanding of machinery is
a form of empathy we've never suspected. Look hard enough and you may
find them, perhaps in the most unlikely or unlovely body."