The men in the cramped commander's quarters stirred slightly, wincing at the transit time. The other figures could not be readily personalized; but each of them could visualize himself sweating out three hours of stellar bombardment, the effects of which would not be known accurately until the Belt was entered. And each could visualize ultimately Marship III as a whirling, shredded mass, spouting synthetic atmosphere, and glowing redly from rampant and uncontrolled fusion. "On the fuel?" the commander asked of Eastburn. "Anything new on that?" "Deceleration definitely out," the engineer replied firmly. "We couldn't afford the drain needed later to catch Mars on her way around. From what I gather of the problem, acceleration wouldn't do anyway, but that's even more impossible. It would increase setdown consumption." "Hollender and I've calculated the fuel drain required to circumnavigate the clusters. It came close, close enough to make you want to cry. But not close enough. The wall of the clusters happens to be too spread out and in near-perfect line with our point of rendezvous with Mars. If we'd spotted them sooner, we could have hurdled 'em with a few spurts of the guide jets. By the time we got it figured, we'd already passed the critical point by 23 minutes. That's how close it was. "The fuel was figured for this trip with very little margin, and we used some margin already because of that lovely instrument error on takeoff. I'd be a lot happier if we had a fusion system with fewer limitations, like the ones they're working on now." "We agreed to this firing system and realized its risks--all because we'd rather not wait for the ones in development," Hiller reminded. "We're comfortably powered, anyway, provided we follow our original firing schedule. So, that means we enter the Inner Belt at our present velocity without changing course." Merrick spoke up, ruffling the red hairs that partially covered his shiny scalp. "Back track here a minute, you boys went over that rapid. I think I get everything but the velocity business. We connect with the Belt at two m.p.s.? Sounds like optimistic but bad arithmetic to me." Screwing up his mouth, he squinted at Hollender. Hiller found himself laughing, and it felt good. "Pardon our dynamics-centered minds," he said. He unsnapped his ballpoint from his pocket and placed it over the air blower grill. "Say the horizontal braces on this grill running parallel are the clusters' paths at 12 m.p.s. My ballpoint's the ship at 15, traveling in the same direction as the clusters. In that case, _we_ would collide with the particles, overtaking them at three m.p.s. right?" Merrick nodded. "I see that, but--" "Okay," Hiller went on. "Now suppose we crossed the Belt at right angles to the paths." He moved the ballpoint straight up the grill. "They'd sock us at 12 m.p.s.," Merrick deduced. "So, what you're getting at is the angle--"