would have. Just a
moment. We'll estimate its size by the thrust it's giving the ship,"
he added, and turned to Bessie.

"Ask the Cow whether we're getting thrust on the ship; and if so, how
much. Wait a minute," he added, "if you ask for thrust on the ship,
she'll say there isn't any because Hot Rod would be pulling us, not
pushing. And if you ask her for the thrust on Hot Rod, she hasn't got
any sensors out there.

"Hm-m-m. Ask her if we have added any off-orbit velocity; and if so
how much."

* * * * *

The computer displayed the answer almost as soon as she received the
question.

"Well," said Mike, "that's not too large a hole. Ask her how ... let's
see ... how many pounds of thrust that velocity represents. That way
we don't confuse her with whether it's push or pull."

The Cow displayed the answer, six hundred forty pounds of thrust.

"O.K.," said Mike. "Thanks." Then to the captain and the scientist and
Security officer who were waiting beside him: "The puncture is
obviously small enough to serve as a jet, rather than to have let the
nitrogen out in one _whoosh_, since that would have given you far more
than six hundred forty pounds of thrust. Therefore, it will probably
be quite simple to patch the hole.

"Nitrogen is obviously escaping, but it wouldn't be worth a man's life
to send him out into that flare-storm to patch it. We may even have
enough nitrogen aboard to replace what we lose.

"The best I can figure," he said, "is that the meteor must have hit
the orientation servos and thrown them off for a bit. We'll have to
wait till after the flare to make more than an educated guess, though.

"We shouldn't be too far off-orbit by the time the flare's over,
either, even with that jet constant. It'll take quite a bit of work,
but we should be able to get her back into position with not too many
hours of lost worktime.

"Except for Thule, I'd say we got off fairly light.

"Yes," he added grimly, "it looks like that's what your saboteur was.
Rather an effective saboteur, but you'll have a hard time putting him
up against a firing wall."

Having satisfied himself as to existing conditions, Mike excused
himself shortly and went back to the engineering quarters, but his
mind was no longer on Ishie's strange device. He glanced rapidly at
the instruments regulating the power flow to the wheel, then stretched
out comfortably on the acceleration couch and in minutes was asl