The planet had been evacuated. The heads of the geological and mining crews, along with military, scientific and governmental heads from the three colonies, were huddled together in a briefing room aboard the space station 'Lynx'. Dobrynin stood behind the podium and signaled for quiet, wanting desperately to get started. If only he could get his hands to work at something. He tapped the quiet buzzer impatiently. "Gentlemen, please. We haven't much time." Those still standing were seated, and the last rustle of voices died away. All eyes went forward. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you the spot we're in," he began. "You all know that ML One is in trouble. What you don't know is why. I have just learned myself, and it is hard to believe. But it's true. The orbit of Marcum-Lauries is being tampered with from outside. The problem is man-made." Expressions of shock and disbelief. TIMID FOOLS, thought Dobrynin, THAT IS ALL FOR THE GOOD. THAT WE CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT. But there were others who said nothing: the miners, the workers. They, too, only wanted to know what could be done. He dimmed the lights and switched a graphic onto the wall-screen behind him: a binary system, the elliptical figure-eight of the planet's orbit encircling two nearly identical suns. He pointed to the lower right junction of the crossover point. "Here is where she lies now. Every 304.62 earth years, she completes her orbit around the first sun, in this case Lauries, and passing the equilibrium point between the two, begins to circle the second in the opposite direction. There is a period of instability as she lies between the pull of both; but nothing like this. Then slowly the pull of the first sun grows less, she engages her second orbit, and geological activity becomes more stable. All quite simple. There are several examples of it just in the part of the galaxy we know." "So how can a man change it?" came a voice. "One man can't, obviously. But many men, with much planning and outside help, can and have." He expanded the graphic, receding the orbit and two suns to a lower corner. Then tracing with the pointer a straight line away from the planet's trajectory, he projected near the center of the screen a miniature (but still too large for scale) image of the enemy station that Percy had photographed in ultraviolet and sent back to them. This he enlarged, until it filled all the screen. Again expressions of dismay, and this time few kept silent. Its already ominous outline distorted by the ultraviolet, it looked like the huge, black and irregular hull of an ancient aircraft carrier, with something like an enormous radar dish mounted securely to the corrugated deck. As he rotated the image its high, central tower was pointed directly at them.