"Nobody ever goes there," Merrill put in. "There's some mystery about it—"
"We're going there ... if the ship holds together long enough. Just a minute and I'll figure your course. Sure you're in shape to handle the controls?"
Merrill limped to the instrument panel and began closing switches. "I hope you know what you're doing," he said roughly. Currents of vibration pulsed through the ship. With maddening slowness, the liner came out of her spinning drift and began to pick up speed. Norman ran through a list of figures and the third officer set the automatic controls.
A grotesque figure in radiation armor stood in the doorway.
"We're moving," it said through its amplifiers.
"This is Failles—radiation engineer—in charge of the men aft. We're trying to make Hidalgo."
"You'll never make it," Failles prophesied. "I came to report that the bulkheads are giving way."
Norman barked orders. "Merrill, keep an eye on the controls. Harald, you keep one on Merrill. And try to make contact with Scorpio. Tell them we're trying to make Hidalgo, to pass the word on to those freighters. Failles, I'll go with you and see what's up."
As Norman followed the nightmarish figure of Failles down the spiralling companion ladder, his mind worked feverishly to remember what he knew about Hidalgo. It was one of the minor planets, probably of the Trojan group originally, but its eccentric orbit and extreme inclination to the ecliptic stamped it as a rogue. At aphelion its distance from the sun was 9-1/2 units (nearly the orbit of Saturn) and its inclination 43-1/2 degrees. Three and a half years after perihelion it approached Jupiter's orbit closely. Astronomical speculation was that its perturbations of orbit were caused by this near approach to Jupiter.
Norman came out of his reverie. Failles had stopped at a locker and gestured toward it. Radiation armor. Norman got the bulky garment from the locker and struggled into it.