"Then," interjected Bayne, "as the planetoid takes its place in prime space without orbital velocity ... and only some 4,000,000 miles from 40 Eridani C ... we clear out. Fast. 40 Eridani C is an M6 star ... surface temperature only about 3,000 Centigrade. It's small ... smaller than Sol, because it has shrunk. But under its semi-solid crust there are trillions of tons of matter that will burst free as soon as anything cracks the surface tension. Our bomb should act as a fuse to light one of the biggest fire-crackers ever imagined."
"One thing," said Ivy to Strike, "whoever pilots the skeeters ... and I presume you intend to handle one yourself ... will have to be extremely careful. As soon as our planetoid exists in prime-space it will have a planetoid's mass and gravity. Don't be caught with your jets cold. I'd miss you, Strike."
Celia Graham interrupted the conference to tell them that the equipment was ready, and the ship in position. Strike looked around at the suddenly tense faces of his companions. He didn't like to think what failure might mean to them ... to Terra and the whole Solar Combine. He rose to his feet purposefully.
"Let's go," he said.
The skeeterboat dove out of the valve trailing its cable. Strike glanced back through the rear port to see the second shark-like shape close behind. Even banged up as he was, Cob would let no one take the second boat but himself. Strike's smile was broad. Good man to have around, that Coburn Whitley.
Ahead lay the tiny world that had been selected for annihilation. It was a black blot on the star-spangled darkness of space. A thirty mile sphere, it floated serenely along its orbit ... an innocuous chunk of matter that here was just that ... and elsewhere would be the most fearful bomb ever guided by the hand of man.
Strike looked back at the glowing shape of Old Aphrodisiac. She lured him like a familiar scene, a friendly voice. In all this alien vastness, only his beloved ship was safety.
He looked around for Cob's skeeter. It was barely visible now, some twenty miles away as it fanned out to take up its position at the south pole of the planetoid.
The tiny world drew near, and Strike veered to find his own station. Jockeying the skeeterboat carefully, he found the proper spot marked by the beacons that fanned out from the Cleopatra's prow and stern.
Cob signalled from the opposite pole that he, too, was ready. This, as they said in the flicks, was it.