"I'll let you judge that for yourselves after you hear what's back of those orders for preparation I gave. First I want to hear from Hollender. What's the latest and most accurate you can give me now on density of the particles, particle proximity, and our relative velocities?"
The astronavigator unfolded a paper taken from his shirt pocket. "Well, I have three results on density because of observation problems. I'll give you the average. Mean density comes out to 7.8, lower than I first figured. Roughly on proximity, 1800 yards, and that's more bunched than I estimated. They're clustered, and that's about it," he shrugged.
"Now, on relative velocities," he continued, "I could get it pretty close, knowing ours is a constant power-off glide. We exceed the clusters' orbital velocity by three m.p.s. But our angle of intersection with the Belt will reduce any actual impact to about two m.p.s. In other words, particles would be overtaking us at about that speed."
Hiller nodded. "That's about the way I worked it out. One more thing, Dave: the depth of the cluster band."
"The part we have to worry about's only a little over a hundred-thousand miles in depth. The rest is scattered asteroid strays and shouldn't bother us. We'll be three hours maybe in transit through the stuff."
The men in the cramped commander's quarters stirred slightly, wincing at the transit time. The other figures could not be readily personalized; but each of them could visualize himself sweating out three hours of stellar bombardment, the effects of which would not be known accurately until the Belt was entered. And each could visualize ultimately Marship III as a whirling, shredded mass, spouting synthetic atmosphere, and glowing redly from rampant and uncontrolled fusion.
"On the fuel?" the commander asked of Eastburn. "Anything new on that?"
"Deceleration definitely out," the engineer replied firmly. "We couldn't afford the drain needed later to catch Mars on her way around. From what I gather of the problem, acceleration wouldn't do anyway, but that's even more impossible. It would increase setdown consumption."
"Hollender and I've calculated the fuel drain required to circumnavigate the clusters. It came close, close enough to make you want to cry. But not close enough. The wall of the clusters happens to be too spread out and in near-perfect line with our point of rendezvous with Mars. If we'd spotted them sooner, we could have hurdled 'em with a few spurts of the guide jets. By the time we got it figured, we'd already passed the critical point by 23 minutes. That's how close it was.