"About a hundred-and-twenty-mile gale through the whole ship," he answered. As he talked I was handing him the extra clips for my gun and he was stowing them in his pockets. Even Nessa looked hopeful now. I flicked a glance every second or two at the huddling Neanderthals. There were a dozen of them here; the others were stationed throughout the satellite.
"Now," I said, "what would make this metal moon vibrate?"
"Vibrate? Nothing—wait. If you extended the solar mirrors, it wouldn't exactly vibrate, but it would move. The mirrors are under the hub, and extending them while we're on the ground would lift the wheel gradually up, likely tilt it, unless the mirror system broke under all this weight."
"Can you extend them?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Check your watch. 1:36 a.m. In ten minutes, you will have eluded these apes and you'll start the mirror mechanism. Take Nessa if you possibly can. When you've done it, come a-blasting."
"What?"
"Start gunning the apes."
Then Skagarach called to me, and I went over to him. "My brother's mad," I said. "I mean he's angry about this."
"What carrier of the dark blood wouldn't be?" said Skagarach loftily.