“Anything yet, Mark?” Zip asked, knowing that the question was pointless. If Mark had found even a tiny piece of information which could be remotely connected to the situation on the asteroid, he would have spoken up.
“No, Zip,” replied Mark. “I can follow the diagrams pretty well now, and I think I understand how one part connects to another, but I can’t envision how any part of it could have burned out. I’ve tried to calculate how much power Zimbardo would have needed to generate the EMP of the size he did, but I can only guess at it. Even at my highest estimates, I can’t see how it would burn out the power supplies of a huge iron asteroid that can be used as a spacecraft. All I can imagine is that much of the power supply of the asteroid had been shut down before.”
“You mean that its reserves were not in place?”
“Something like that. We have guessed that the asteroid was a huge spacecraft. We also know that it had been stationary and abandoned—or at least unused—for eons. I suspect that the asteroid’s full power had never been accessible to Zimbardo. He was able to operate life-support systems, lights, airlocks, and so forth in his own section without drawing much power. When he tried to ‘power up’ the asteroid and move it out of orbit, he reached the limit of its available power. Then he suddenly initiated the electromagnetic pulse to fry the microwave probes, but he also fried his own system. But the asteroid must have more power than that to be able to do what it must have done in the past. You saw the power plant as well as I did! Did it look to you as if Zimbardo could have burned that whole thing out with one EMP, no matter how intense?”
“Makes sense, Mark. Where, then, is the rest of the power?”
Mark looked up at Zip with a wan smile. “If you want to find it, you can help me look through these papers, if you want.”
“All right, I will,” said Zip, and sat down. Mark handed him a stack of paper, showed Zip what to look for, and went back to his own study.
Joe remained on the flight deck, keeping careful watch on the instruments. He preserved the Star Ranger’s course precisely so that there would be no unnecessary delay in meeting the runaway asteroid. Before him was a scattering of white stars in the blackness. A few large ones stood out.
“Mark would love this,” Joe thought, but he didn’t bother his friend.
The best minds of Starlight Enterprise and Space Command had been working for more than twenty-four hours on the problem of diverting the runaway asteroid, and had not even been able to restore power. Twenty-five ships had docked inside the landing area, and more than 300 men were inside the facility. Some had been detailed to explore and take an inventory of what was found, others had been ordered to provide temporary light and power using portable equipment from the ships, and still others worked under Jesus Madera-Cruz in the desperate attempt to restore power to the asteroid.