"I want to take an RJ-37 up there to Number Four and use it to put the satellite back in a safe orbit. It'll have to be done quickly or we'll lose the satellite and a few thousand square miles of Earth." Loch paused again, turning the idea over in his mind. MacIlheny said nothing; he knew how the mind of Paul Loch worked. Finally, Loch said: "Tell you what; get the Government to underwrite the insurance, and we'll give you the RJ-37 at cost. Fair enough?" MacIlheny nodded. "Get her ready. If the President won't okay the insurance, we'll have to pay the extra tariff. We absolutely can't afford to lose that satellite." "It'll be ready in half an hour," Loch promised as he cut off. MacIlheny began punching the code numbers for Washington, but the phone rang before he was through. _Pure luck_, MacIlheny thought to himself as the President's face came onto the screen. "Evening, Fitz," said the President of the United States. "Good evening, Mr. President." "Fitz, I understand you're having a little trouble with one of your satellites. The Naval Observatory tells me it's in a collision orbit of some kind. Where will it come down?" MacIlheny shrugged. "I don't know, sir. It'll depend on how much resistance it offers to the atmosphere at that altitude, and that will depend on how badly it was torn up by the meteor." "I see. What do you propose to do?" "I'm going to try to get one of Commercial's RJ-37's up there to put her back on course. I don't want to lose a twelve-million-dollar space station." "I can understand that, but--" The President looked off his screen suddenly as though someone had attracted his attention. "Hold the line a minute, Fitz," he said. And the screen went blank. MacIlheny waited. When the President came back, he wore a frown on his face. "The French government has been informed of what has happened. They want to know what we intend to do." "Did you tell them, sir?" "Not yet, but I will. But there are going to be other governments interested pretty quickly. Nobody wants something like that falling down on their heads. We may have to send up a hydrogen bomb and blow it out of existence if you can't get it back into a safe orbit." "I know." He paused. "Mr. President, I have an idea. Suppose we load the RJ-37 with a thermonuclear warhead. If we can't change the orbit of the satellite, we'll blast her." A slow grin spread across the face of the Chief Executive. "Very neat, Fitz; it'll also mean the government will have to underwrite the full insurance cost of the RJ-37 if you have to detonate the bomb." MacIlheny grinned back. "It will, at that. But don't worry, Mr. President; I won't set off the warhead unless I absolutely have to. I want to save that satellite--not destroy it." "All right, Fitz. I'll call White Sands and authorize the whole project. And I'll try to keep the foreign governments happy." "Fine, sir. We'll know more after her first passage through perigee. If her orbit changes too much--"