swing south, be it ever so few degrees south, our mosquito is
overpowered and can only drag us clear to Earth-center on a closing
spiral, which would eventually lead us to crash somewhere in the
southern hemisphere, a good many orbits from now.

"I hope," he said, "reversing the magnetic field will indeed reverse
our little mosquito's thrust." He moved toward the Confusor.

"Hold it," said Mike. "The displacement in orbit won't be very much,
at least on the first few go-arounds, will it? and if we switch it
now, somebody'll start getting suspicious of this magneto-ionic
effect. The effect that's doing all this. A sudden reversal might not
be in its character, if it had a character. And anyhow, we don't want
to give another jerk on Hot Rod. We might jerk something loose this
time. We've already wiped out Thule Base--and there's no use adding
scalps to an already full belt."

"O.K.," said Ishie. "Then now, I think it is time that we presented
our formal drawings to the captain; and I think that when we present
them we will suggest that we start work immediately on construction,
even while he is checking out our drawings through his experts, so
that the project will not be delayed."

* * * * *

On the bridge, the captain received the drawings with relief.

"Thank you, gentlemen. If these prove out, you may have saved the
satellite by the rapidity of your work. Dr. Kimball calculated that
our present acceleration will take us dangerously close to the Van
Allen belt in about three orbits, and I need not tell you what that
would mean."

Ishie spoke up immediately. "In that case, captain, perhaps Mr.
Blackhawk and I had better start construction on this device
immediately, without waiting for you to complete the check-out. That
may save us invaluable time."

"Of course," said the captain. "What assistance will you need?"

"Of the greatest priority," replied Ishie gravely, "is access to the
machine shop. The solar flare should be about wearing itself out."

"Oh ... of course. It may be." The captain's face was slightly red as
he realized he had not thought to check this point. "Bessie, ask the
computer...."

"Yes, sir," she answered quickly, and returned shortly. "The computer
says the radiation count is down to ten M.R. above normal."

"It's a fairly low reading, even if it is above the Cow's normal-safe
mark. That reading could go on for hours, which we may not have,"
commented