He decreased the magnification of Hot Rod so that the entire project showed. Mike arrived first, almost skidding to a stop at the captain's console, Ishie right behind him. "The saboteur--seven men that I believe to be saboteurs--are aboard Hot Rod," the captain told him crisply. "Can they activate it?" "Captain, there's no saboteur...." Mike began, but the captain interrupted. "Gentlemen, I'm not asking you to be the judge of that. If they are saboteurs, is there any way that they can activate Hot Rod?" "Oh, they could have storage batteries aboard, I suppose." Mike didn't even pretend to be excited. "Then we will assume they have, Mr. Blackhawk." The tone of the captain's voice told Mike he'd better darned well believe in those saboteurs or tell the captain the truth--and that quickly. "Now, assuming Hot Rod can be activated, we will also assume that their first aim will be to control the wheel. They would, therefore, aim at the hub and issue an ultimatum." "They might aim at a target on Earth, and issue an ultimatum to us." Mike would play the game. "No. We would refuse such an ultimatum. They would aim at us. Can you prevent that?" Mike thought hard. He'd better come up with an answer to that one, saboteurs or no. "If they shot through the hub, they'd hit our shielding water and explode the hub-hull. That would wreck the wheel, and they'd need the wheel. The only place they could safely shoot us would be the passenger spokes, and that would take some pretty fine target shooting--with only one laser bank. They could do it though," he said thoughtfully. "Assume, Mr. Blackhawk, that if they couldn't hit the passenger spokes, they'd be willing to destroy the wheel in order to gain control. Is there any way to prevent that?" Mike stood completely silent for almost a minute. Then he grinned. "Sure," he said. "If we turned the rim towards Hot Rod, they couldn't fire into the rim without hitting that shielding--and that would create an explosion, even from their smallest possible shot, that would almost inevitably take Hod Rod with it. If we turn the lab so that only the rim is towards Hot Rod, it's suicide to shoot us." "You will swing the rim of the wheel into that alignment as rapidly as it can possibly be done." The captain's voice practically lifted the two men off the bridge, and they were on their way to the engineering quarters with every appearance of the urgency they should have felt if they had not known who--or rather what--was the real saboteur. * * * * * Then Mike heard Ishie's soft voice from behind him, slightly breathless. "At that, you'd better swing the rim and swing her fast, Mike. The captain sure 'nuff believes in his saboteurs, and it's just possible they're real." O.K., thought Mike, and really moving now he reached the engineering quarters a good ten strides ahead of his companion.