Kemp’s torch already was slicing into the metal. Rip asked, "Can you weld with that thing, Kemp?" "Just show me what you want, sir." "Good." Rip motioned to Trudeau. "Frenchy, we’ll need a strong rod at least eight feet long." The French Planeteer hurried off. Rip consulted his chronometer. Less than ten minutes had passed since the call from Terra base. He went over his plan again. It had to work! If it didn’t, asteroid and Planeteers would end up as subatomic particles in the sun’s photosphere, because he had calculated his blast to drive the asteroid past the limit of safety. It was the only way he could be sure of putting them beyond danger from Connie landing boats or snapper-boats. The Connie would have only one chance—to bring his cruiser down on the asteroid. If he tried that, Rip thought grimly, he would get a surprise. The second nuclear charge would be set, ready to be fired. The Connie cruiser was so big that no matter how it pulled up to the asteroid, some part of it would be close enough to the charge to be blown into space dust. No cruiser could survive an atomic explosion within five hundred yards, and the Connie would have to get closer to the nuclear charge than that. Dominico reported that the bomb had been dismantled. Rip went to it and examined the raw plutonium, being careful to keep the pieces widely separated. This particular bomb design used five pieces of plutonium which were driven together to form a ball. Rip made a quick estimate. Two were enough to form a critical mass. He would use two to blast into the sun and three to blast out again. He would need the extra kick. There was only one trouble. The pieces were wedge shaped. They would have to be mounted in thorium in order to keep them rigid. Only Kemp could do that. They had no cutting tool but the torch. Santos appeared, carrying a rocket head under each arm. They had wires wound around them, ready to be attached to an electrical source. Rip hurried back to where Kemp was at work. The private was using a cutting nozzle that threw an almost invisible flame five feet long. In air, the nozzle wouldn’t have worked effectively beyond two feet, but in space it cut right down to the end of the flame. Kemp had his arm inside the hole and was peering past it as he finished the cut. "Done, sir," he said, and adjusted the flame to a spout of red fire. He thrust the torch into the hole and quickly withdrew it as pieces of thorium flew out. A stream of water hosed into the tube would have washed them out the same way. Rip took a block of plutonium from Dominico and handed it to Kemp. "Cut a plug and fit this into it. Then cut a second plug for the other piece. They have to match perfectly, and you can’t put them together to try out the fit. If you do, we’ll have fission right here in the open."