"I'm not threatening you," Kevin said, "but if you fouled that machinery to assure your prediction about the rocket, I'll see that you hang. Do you realize that gyroscope was the only control we had over the motion of this space station? Whatever it does now is the result of the moon rocket's pull. We may not live to see that rocket again."
As though verifying Morrow's words, the lights dimmed momentarily and returned to normal brilliance. A frightened voice came from the squawkbox.
"Hey, chief! This is power control. We've lost the sun!"
Anderson looked out the port, studied the slowly wheeling stars.
"Mother of God," he breathed. "We're flopping ... like a flapjack over a stove."
And the power mirrors were on only one face of the space station, mirrors that collected the sun's radiation and converted it to power. Now they were collecting nothing but the twinkling of the stars.
The vital light would return as the station continued its new, awkward rotation, but would the intermittent exposure be sufficient to sustain power?
"Shut down everything but emergency equipment," Morrow directed. "When we get back on the sun, soak every bit of juice you can into those batteries." He turned to Gordon and McKelvie. "Won't it be interesting if we freeze to death, or suffocate when the air machines stop?"
Worry replaced anger as he turned abruptly away from them.
"We've got a lot of work to do, Bert," he said crisply. "See if you can get White Sands."