Oversight Number One. Hell, why count 'em? This one in itself could be fatal. The gyros were never meant to counteract that kind of gyration. Maybe a couple of impacts, yes. After that, they could burn out.
Somebody opened the door of a boiler factory and shut it in a millisecond. The reverberation surprisingly proved slight.
The commander peered closely at the damage guide. A short dark line near the stern: it had taken him a second inspection to find it. He had been looking for a crater.
"Crease over the firing chambers," he reported, then shifted his attention to the indicator. The needle faltered at 18 as the gyros kicked in harder and fell toward 16 again.
"What's the condition of the gyro motors, Art?" Hiller asked.
"Warming up," was the answer, "They're going to have to run full to do any good at all."
"How about using the jets once in a while," Hiller suggested. "Too hard on the fuel?"
"Once in a while, it wouldn't be," the engineer replied. "Constantly steadying a spinning ship this big with the guide jets would take more fuel than we could spare."
Hiller swiftly considered the few possibilities there were. Burning out the gyros was a risk he could not take. Going over the fuel margin was out of the question. And the alternative to these—spinning until they left the Belt.