Sitting up, he reached into the bunk cupboard and poured a drink. Now that Bleck was temporarily emotionally neutralized and the brains uncertain, it was time to follow up with a little rationality to substantiate his position. Anyway, he wanted verification and cross-checking of his plans. He _could_ be way off base. Over the ship's speaker system he summoned Merrick, Eastburn, and Hollender to his quarters. They arrived promptly, almost too promptly, as if they had been waiting. It was probably obvious to them, as it was to him, the problem called for more than one man's calculation. Nothing was said while he splashed out drinks. The men spread over the floor where they could find room and left him the bunk. They were evidently going to let him say something first, so he didn't disappoint them. "I don't think I'm surprising any of you when I say we're pushing through the clusters, regardless of Bleck's nerves," he began. "What's probably on your mind is my motive. You may understandably feel Bleck, no matter how badly he expressed his point of view, may have something. Sure, maybe my pride is driving me ahead. Maybe I'm being as emotional in wanting to buck the clusters as Bleck is in wanting to run. "I'll let you judge that for yourselves after you hear what's back of those orders for preparation I gave. First I want to hear from Hollender. What's the latest and most accurate you can give me now on density of the particles, particle proximity, and our relative velocities?" The astronavigator unfolded a paper taken from his shirt pocket. "Well, I have three results on density because of observation problems. I'll give you the average. Mean density comes out to 7.8, lower than I first figured. Roughly on proximity, 1800 yards, and that's more bunched than I estimated. They're clustered, and that's about it," he shrugged. "Now, on relative velocities," he continued, "I could get it pretty close, knowing ours is a constant power-off glide. We exceed the clusters' orbital velocity by three m.p.s. But our angle of intersection with the Belt will reduce any actual impact to about two m.p.s. In other words, particles would be overtaking us at about that speed." Hiller nodded. "That's about the way I worked it out. One more thing, Dave: the depth of the cluster band." "The part we have to worry about's only a little over a hundred-thousand miles in depth. The rest is scattered asteroid strays and shouldn't bother us. We'll be three hours maybe in transit through the stuff." * * * * *