y radiation effects could become
serious.

He reflected quickly on the possible temperature range of the missile
components. The missile had been launched from Central Asia, at night,
in January. There was no reason to suppose that the warhead had been
temperature-controlled during the pre-launch countdown. Thus it probably
was at the ambient temperature of the launch site. If it had been fired
in the open, that might be as low as minus 70 deg. F. Had it been fired from
a shelter, that might be as high as 70 deg. F. To leave a safety margin, he
decided to reject only those objects outside the range plus or minus
100 deg. F. There were two fragments at 500 deg. F. He rejected these as
probably fragments of the engine. Six more exhibited a temperature of
near minus 320 deg. F. These probably came from the liquid oxygen tanks.
They could be rejected. That eliminated eight of the objects on the
screen. He had nineteen to go. It would be a lot slower for the rest,
too.

* * * * *

He switched on a radar transmitter. The screen blanked out almost
completely. The missile had included a micro-wave transmitter, to act as
a jammer. It must have been triggered on by his approach. It obviously
hadn't been operating while the ship was maneuvering into position. Had
it been transmitting then, the autopilot would simply have homed on it.
He switched the radar to a different frequency. That didn't work. The
screen was still blank, indicating that the jammer was sweeping in
frequency. He next tried to synchronize his radar pulses with the
jammer, in order to be looking when it was quiet. The enemy,
anticipating him, had given the jammer a variable pulse repetition rate.
He switched off the transmitter, and scanned the radar antenna manually.
He slowly swung it back and forth, attempting to fix the direction of
the jammer by finding the direction of maximum signal strength. He found
that the enemy had anticipated him again, and the jammer's signal
strength varied. However, he finally stopped the antenna, satisfied that
he had it pointed at the jammer. The infrared detector confirmed that
there was something in the direction the antenna pointed, but it
appeared too small to be the warhead.

He then activated the manual piloting controls. He started the fuel
pumps winding up, and swung the ship to point normal to the
line-of-sight to the jammer. A quick blast from the rockets sent the
image of the jammer