The communicator paused, then continued. "One thing more, Foster. The Connies know how badly we want that asteroid, but they also know we don’t want it enough to start a war. Got that?" "Got it," Rip stated wryly. "I got it good. Thanks for the warning, Terra base. Foster off." "Terra base off. Stay out of high vack." Fine advice, if it could be taken. Rip stared up at the brilliant stars, thinking fast. The Connie would have almost an hour’s lead on the space patrol cruisers. In that hour, if the Connie were willing to pay the price in blasted snapper-boats, Consops would have the asteroid. And Terra base had made it clear that the space patrol would not try to blast the Connie cruiser and take back the asteroid, because that would mean war. Added together, the facts said just one thing: they had one hour in which to think of some way to hold off the Connies for an additional hour. The Planeteers were clustered around him. Rip asked grimly, "Any of you ever study the ancient art of magic?" The Planeteers remained silent and tense. "Magic is what we need," Rip told them. "We have to make the whole asteroid disappear, or else we have to conjure up a space cruiser out of the thorium. Otherwise, we have a little more than an hour before we’re either prisoners or dead!" CHAPTER THIRTEEN - PERIL AT PERIHELION Sergeant-major Koa had made no comment since notifying Rip of the call from Terra base. Now he asked thoughtfully, "Lieutenant, can the Connie launch boats this close to the sun? Won’t the sun’s pull suck them right in?" Corporal Pederson scoffed, "Naw, Koa. If sun’s gravity be that strong, it pull us in, too." "Not quite, Pederson," Rip corrected. "Koa is on the right track. The pull of the sun is pretty strong. But I don’t think it’s strong enough to capture boats." He had figured the asteroid’s orbit to pass as close to the sun as possible while maintaining a margin of safety. He had wanted to use the sun’s gravity to pick up speed. His regular star sightings had told him several days before that the sun was dragging them. But Koa had started a train of ideas running through Rip’s head. If they could get close enough to the sun so small boats would be unable to break free of its gravity, the Connie wouldn’t dare send a landing force. The powerful engines of a cruiser could break loose from Sol’s pull, but not the chemical jets of a cruiser’s boats. Rip got his instruments and pulled out a special slide rule designed for use in space. He had Koa stand by with stylus and computation board and take down figures as he called them off. He recalculated the safety factor he had used when deciding how close to put the asteroid to the sun, then took quick star sights to determine their exact position. They were within a few miles of perihelion, the point at which they would be closest to Sol.