It was only one times ten to the minus five of a gravity that the four by four by half inch piece of carefully machined plastic presented to the sixty-four million pound mass of Space Lab One.
But the force was presented almost exactly along the north-south axis of the hub of the ship, and in space a thrust is cumulative and momentum derives per second per second.
The Confusor churkled quietly as the piece of plastic exerted its tiny mass in a six hundred forty pound attempt to take off towards the north star. And, since the piece itself was rigidly mounted to its frame, and the frame to the ship, the giant bulk of five million cubic feet of water, thirty-two million pounds of mass; and the matching mass-bulk of the ship itself, responded to the full mosquito-sized strength of the six hundred forty pound thrust, and was moved—a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a centimeter in the first second; a fraction of a fraction in the second; a fraction....
On the bridge, the com officer had completed transmitting the captain's detailed report of the evacuation to the hub-shield area caused by the solar flare.
On another line, under Bessie's ministrations, the computer was feeding the data obtained by the incomplete equipment in the observatory in its automatic operation.
The captain himself was finishing a plastic-bottle of coffee, while he wrote up his log.
It was exactly nine minutes since the Confusor had come into full operation.
The fractions of fractions of centimeters had added on the square of the number of seconds; and the sixty-four million pounds of mass of Space Lab One has moved over thirteen meters.
Trailing the wheel ten miles off, was the atomic pile, directly attached to its anchor tube.