ne centimeter per second squared. So?"

"Ah, so, honorabu copton! Is somesing rike five hundred times as great
as gravitationar attraction, is not so?"

"Sukiyaki, my dear chap, sometimes your brilliance amazes me."

Well, at least it meant that there would be no loose rubble on the
surface. It would have been tossed off long ago by the centrifugal
force, flying off on a tangent to become more of the tiny rubble of the
belt. Perhaps "flying" wasn't exactly the right word, though, when
applied to a velocity of less than one centimeter per second. _Drifting_
off, then.

"What do you think, Jules?" said St. Simon.

"Waal, Ah reckon we can do it, cap'n. Ef'n we go to the one o' them thar
poles ... well, let's see--" He leaned over and punched more figures
into the calculator. "Ain't that purty! 'Cordin' ter this, thar's a spot
at each pole, 'bout a meter in diameter, whar the gee-pull is _greater_
than the centry-foogle force!"

Captain St. Simon looked at the figures on the calculator. The forces,
in any case, were negligibly small. On Earth, where the surface gravity
was ninety-eight per cent of a Standard Gee, St. Simon weighed close to
two hundred pounds. Discounting the spin, he would weigh about four
ten-thousandths of a pound on the asteroid he was inspecting. The spin
at the equator would try to push him off with a force of about two
tenths of a pound.

But a man who didn't take those forces into account could get himself
killed in the Belt.

"Very well, Jules," he said, "we'll inspect the poles."

"Do you think they vill velcome us in Kraukau, _Herr Erzbischof_?"

* * * * *

The area around the North Pole--defined as that pole from which the body
appears to be spinning counterclockwise--looked more suitable for
operations than the South Pole. Theoretically, St. Simon could have
stopped the spin, but that would have required an energy expenditure of
some twenty-three thousand kilowatt-hours in the first place, and it
would have required an anchor to be set somewhere on the equator. Since
his purpose in landing on the asteroid was to set just such an anchor,
stopping the spin would be a waste of time and energy.

Captain St. Simon positioned his little spacecraft a couple of meters
above the North Pole. It would take better than six minutes to fall that
far, so he had plenty of time. "Perhaps a boarding party, Mr. Christian!
On the double!"

"Aye, sir! On the double it i