t
one-half revolutions per minute in the first sixty seconds of
operation. We will hold that spin until balance is complete, when the
spin will slowly be raised to two revolutions per minute, giving .15
gee on the rim deck.

"All loose components and materials should be secured. All personnel
are advised to suit up, strap down and hang on. We hope we won't shake
anybody too much. Mark and counting."

Almost immediately on the announcement came another voice over the com
line. "Hold, hold, hold. We've got eighteen hundred pounds of milling
equipment going down Number Two shaft to the machine shop, and we
can't get it mounted in less than twenty minutes. Repeat, hold the
countdown."

"The man who dreamed up the countdown was a Brain," Bessie could hear
Mike muttering over his open intercom, "but the man who thought up the
hold was a pure genius."

"Holding the countdown." It was Bessie's official voice. "It is T
minus thirty and holding. Why are you goons moving that stuff ahead
of schedule and without notifying balance control? What do you think
this is, a rock-bound coast? Think we're settled in to bedrock like
New York City? I should have known," she muttered, forgetting to flip
the switch off, "my horoscope said this would be a shaky sort of day."

Chad Clark glanced up from his position at the communications console
across the bridge from Bessie, to where her shiny black hair, cut
short, framed the pert Eurasian features of the girl that seemed to be
hanging from the ceiling above him.

"Is it really legal," he asked, "using such a tremendously complicated
chunk of equipment as the Sacred Cow for casting horrible scopes?
What's mine today, Bessie? Make it a good one, and I won't report you
to U.N. Budget Control!"

"Offhand, I'd say today was your day to be cautious, quiet and
respectful to your betters, namely me. However," she added in a
conciliatory tone, "since you put it on a Budget Control basis, I'll
ask the Cow to give you a real, mathematicked-out, planets and houses
properly aligned, reading.

"Hey, Perk!" Her finger flipped the observatory com line switch. "Have
you got the planets lined up in your scopes yet? Where are they? The
Sacred Cow wants to know if they're all where they ought to be."

Out in the observatory, designed to swing free on the north polar axis
of the big wheel, Dr. P. E. R. Kimball, PhD, FRAS, gave a startled
glance at the intercom speaker.

"I did not realize that you wo