"Dr. Kimball. Please report to the bridge. Dr. P.E.R. Kimball. Please report to the bridge immediately."
Then he turned to Bessie. "Ask the Cow for an orbit computation from the time of the ... er ... meteor last night."
Under Bessie's practiced, computer-minded fingers, the answer wanted came quickly—a displayed string of figures, each to three decimal places, accompanied by a second display on the captain's console showing the old equatorial orbit across a grid projection of the Earth's surface to a point of departure over the mid-Atlantic where it began curving ever farther north, up across the tip of South America, very slightly off course.
The captain glanced at the display of Hot Rod and its taut-cable, and realized with a sickening sense of unreality that no jet action on Hot Rod could have caused it to lead the station in this northerly direction; and that instead it was placidly trailing behind. It was now farther south of the Space Lab than its original position; but their orbit had been displaced to the north.
Perk appeared beside the console, but the captain ignored the astronomer for a moment longer, while he leaned back thinking.
What could be the answer? A leak in the Space Lab itself? That would give acceleration; minor, not to have triggered an alarm—it should have triggered an alarm—but acceleration. Sufficient for the off-orbit shown? He did a brief calculation in his head. It wouldn't take much. Very little, for the time that had passed—Very well, then. He put down a leak in his mind as a possibility. Now, water or air? It could be either, if his reasoning this far were correct. He looked up.
"Have the Cow display barometric readings for each section of the rim and for each compartment in the central hub," he said briefly to Bessie; and to the astronomer, "Dr. Kimball, take that side seat at the computer console and check our progress on this orbital deviation," and he gestured at the display on his screen.
Perk moved to the post with only a nod.
The barometric displays held constant, with only fractional deviations that might have been imposed by the spin of the big wheel, or error in the instruments themselves. Balanced against temperature readings, they worked out to possible fractions of gain or loss so small as to be insignificant, indicating only the inaccuracies of measurement that inevitably occur in comparing the readings of a number of instruments.