“We must manufacture millions of tiny probes and release these into space in a systematic fashion over many millions of cubic miles. Their design is quite simple. The laboratories and manufacturing centers of organizations like Starlight Enterprise, Nolan Mining Enterprise, and other companies can create these probes in vast quantities very quickly, using robotic techniques. Each probe will have gravity instrumentation. Using the microwaves naturally occurring in space, they will be connected by a vast neural network and thus act as a single instrument, with all data being fed back to various information centers. “With the data from these probes we should be able to detect any massive objects in places where they shouldn’t be. Certainly a large asteroid cannot be hidden. The very size of the asteroid with which Zimbardo threatens our planet will work in our favor, since detecting such a large object can be achieved easier and sooner than if he sent, for example, a number of small asteroids such as those that struck Mars.” “Where will the probes be deployed, Dr. Hoshino?” asked Richard. “Our time is short, very short indeed, if we have to manufacture, launch, and deploy the probes in time to locate and then destroy the asteroid. Even if we produce millions of probes, as you have said, we have millions of cubic miles of space to search through. In the time available, even trillions of the little probes can’t help much. Theoretically, the asteroid can be _anywhere_. There are asteroids inside the orbit of Mercury and outside the orbit of Jupiter. But I suspect that you already have an idea where we are to search.” The President answered. “When Zimbardo sent his first message to Mars, evidence of his tampering with the Martian communication system was discovered. This allowed us to trace how his tampering was done and therefore where the signal came from--at least in a general direction. After he sent his second message, the one to Earth yesterday evening, the signal was traced again. We have learned that his base is moving toward Earth and we have an idea of the speed his base is moving and its direction. The information the Starmen provided confirms what we had learned through our investigations. “Of course, our figures are somewhat imprecise, and we still have a lot of searching to do, but we have an excellent chance of locating him. It is highly logical that the asteroid he harnessed is from a place in the Belt close to his own asteroid. From what the Starmen reported, he just didn’t have time to locate an asteroid as large as he claims to have launched toward Earth from any place too distant from his own base. The probes will therefore be cast in a net in the space between Earth and the area of the Asteroid Belt in which the pirates’ asteroid was found.”