ergeant-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?"

"