t we're
doing--at least, I hope we do.

"But let us make a second set of drawings that is somewhat different,
though of a simpler shape and design, on which other scientists aboard
can speculate, and which can be sent to Earth to confuse the
confusion."

* * * * *

The two went to work with a will, and as the two sets of drawings
emerged, they were indeed different. The set from which they would
actually work was only mildly described as sketchy. The papers looked
like the notations a man makes for himself to get the figures he will
set into a formalized pattern as it takes shape, before throwing his
penciled figurings into the wastebasket.

The second set was exact; created with drawing instruments on Mike's
drafting board, and each of the component circuits would have created
an effect that would have interlocked in the whole, but it would take
the most erudite of persons to figure each into its effect, and its
effect into the whole, and the effect of the whole was somewhat that
somebody might someday figure out--but would possibly cancel a
magneto-ionic effect if such existed. The drawings looked extremely
impressive.

As the second set of drawings neared completion, Ishie glanced at the
clock, then turned to the Cow's vocoder.

"How soon will Space Lab One reach the northernmost point of her
present orbit and begin a swing to the south?" he asked.

Mike looked puzzled, but the Cow answered, "In ten minutes,
thirty-seven seconds. At precisely 05:27:53 ship time."

"I think," said Ishie, "we'd best put a switch on our magnetic field
so that we can reverse the field and the thrust."

"Why?" asked Mike.

"Because," Ishie explained, "when we reach the top of our course
northward, then the thrust of the Confusor and Earth's gravity come
into conflict, moving our entire orbit off-center and bringing us
closer to the pole. In not too many orbits, that eccentricity in our
orbit might pull us into the Van Allen belt. We can't afford that.
Now, if we reverse the thrust at the right time, our orbit will be
enlarged and we stay out of troubled spaces."

Mike was still puzzled. "I don't see how that works," he said. "Why
wouldn't we just go off in a spiral on our present thrust?"

"The acceleration of Earth is a much greater influence," Ishie tried
to make it clear, "than our little mosquito here. As long as they work
together, things go well. But when Earth dictates that we will now