"Do you two still think I'm pulling a quisling?" I drew my automatic and handed it to Howard. "Put that away, quick. Now listen. We're going to whip these cave bastards. Don't ask questions, just answer, and make it fast. How do you run the air blower pump up to full capacity?" Howard looked puzzled but not quite so uncertain of me. He gave me brief explicit instructions. "And what would the effect be?" I asked. "About a hundred-and-twenty-mile gale through the whole ship," he answered. As he talked I was handing him the extra clips for my gun and he was stowing them in his pockets. Even Nessa looked hopeful now. I flicked a glance every second or two at the huddling Neanderthals. There were a dozen of them here; the others were stationed throughout the satellite. "Now," I said, "what would make this metal moon vibrate?" "Vibrate? Nothing--wait. If you extended the solar mirrors, it wouldn't exactly vibrate, but it would move. The mirrors are under the hub, and extending them while we're on the ground would lift the wheel gradually up, likely tilt it, unless the mirror system broke under all this weight." "Can you extend them?" "Yes." "Okay. Check your watch. 1:36 a.m. In ten minutes, you will have eluded these apes and you'll start the mirror mechanism. Take Nessa if you possibly can. When you've done it, come a-blasting." "What?" "Start gunning the apes." Then Skagarach called to me, and I went over to him. "My brother's mad," I said. "I mean he's angry about this." "What carrier of the dark blood wouldn't be?" said Skagarach loftily. I said, "I think he'll come around to us eventually." Trutch had come to my side again, frowning angrily at me. Skagarach said, "Let him alone, you fool, he's all right. Go watch his brother." And Trutch hulked over to Howard and Nessa. I turned to Bill Cuff, "How soon do we take off?" "As fast as the other musters can couple the rockets to the station," he said. "Shouldn't be too long. Why?" "I was thinking maybe we could watch them at it." "How?" "On the viewplates back there," I said, jerking a thumb over my shoulder. "At least two or three of us could watch." The wheel had been closed and sealed by the air locks, but by opening the small view ports we would be able to see all around us, while we sat before screens that transferred the ports' vistas to us in the cabin. Skagarach said, "Come with us," and he and Bill Cuff strode off. I kept pace with them, hoping the rest of the job would be as easy as this. We passed through two sections of the wheel and entered the viewing room and took seats before the scanners. Bill fiddled with the dials as I cast a look at the next door, some dozen feet from where I sat. Just beyond it was the air blower pump. I checked the time. I had six minutes. * * * * *