mb. Santos, remove two heads
from your rockets and wire them to explode on electrical impulse. Kemp,
we'll want the tube just a fraction of an inch wider than a rocket head.
Get your torch ready."

He took the stylus and began calculating. He talked as he worked, telling
the Planeteers exactly what they were up against. "I'm figuring out where
to put the charge so it will do the most good, but my data isn't
complete. If our homemade bomb goes off, I don't know exactly how much
power it will give. If it gives too much, we'll be driven so close to the
sun we'll never get free of its gravity."

Bradshaw, the English Planeteer, said mildly, "Don't worry, Lieutenant.
If it isn't the solar frying pan, it's Connie fire."

A chorus of agreement came from the other Planeteers. "What a crew!" Rip
thought. "What a great gang of space pirates!"

He finished his calculations and found the exact place where Kemp would
cut. A few feet away from the spot was a thick pyramid of thorium. That
would do, and they could cut into it horizontally instead of drilling
straight down. He pointed to it. "Let's have a hole straight in for six
feet. And keep it straight, Kemp. Allow enough room for a lining of
nuclite. Koa, cut a sheet of nuclite to size."

Kemp's torch already was slicing into the metal. Rip asked, "Can you weld
with that thing, Kemp?"

"Just show me what you want, sir."

"Good." Rip motioned to Trudeau. "Frenchy, we'll need a strong rod at
least eight feet long."

The French Planeteer hurried off. Rip consulted his chronometer. Less
than ten minutes had passed since the call from Terra base.

He went over his plan again. It had to work! If it didn't, asteroid and
Planeteers would end up as subatomic particles in the sun's photosphere,
because he had calculated his blast to drive the asteroid past the limit
of safety. It was the only way he could be sure of putting them beyond
danger from Connie landing boats or snapper-boats. The Connie would have
only one chance--to bring his cruiser down.

If he tried that, Rip thought grimly, he would get a surprise. The second
nuclear charge would be set, ready to be fired. The Connie cruiser was
so big that no matter how it pulled up to the asteroid, some part of it
would be close enough to the charge to be blown into space dust. No
cruiser could survive an atomic explosion within five hundred yards, and
the Connie would have to get closer to the nuclear charge than that.

Domini