"This is the cause of our troubles." He resolved the image with the remote, turned it once more to show three similar but lesser tower structures spread across the bottom, an irregular tripod.
"The concept of a gravity or 'tractor' beam is nothing new. It has usually been used from ship to ship, or from static base to ship. Its principals to date have either been magnetic, the creation of artificial gravity, or kinetic, scrambling an object's own momentum to bring it down. What we have here is the first case, a gravity beam, though on a scale, and utilizing principles that are altogether new. The towers at the bottom of the structure are pointed at neighboring bodies, and serve only to hold the station in place. The central tower, the one doing all the damage, is pointed directly at Marcum-Lauries. That is why she won't engage her second orbit. That's why internal pressures are ready to blow her apart. She is being pulled by three sources at once, as well as by the thrust of her own rotation….. We have eighty-six hours at the most."
He re-lighted the room, and for a time there was silence. Then as the shock wore off, the questions began to come. He answered them with growing impatience.
"I don't know how it is possible, vice-minister, but it is….. The Soviets confirm our theories….. Where would they get the money and technology? Where do you think? No we cannot be sure. But if it isn't the German States then I don't know anything. No, the Commonwealth won't help us; why should they? The Soviets are powerless to intervene."
"But if the Commonwealth knew what the Cantons were doing—-"
"They would applaud it. They are in the midst of a right wing resurgence themselves. And the propaganda sent out against us has been most convincing."
"They say we kill our babies," came a grim voice near the front.
"We let the seriously handicapped and terminal disorder cases die of their own affliction. It is an act of mercy." A doctor.
"I know that as well as you," said Dobrynin. "But to them we kill our babies, just as we are atheists who believe in nothing, because we discourage religious extremes. That is all meaningless now. They will think what they will. We have no time to change their minds."
"We are overlooking the obvious," said a general, standing. "What about military action, an attack on the base? Our forces beat them back from Khrushchev well enough."