That was what young Emily Testa had compared it to. A dynamo. We could draw power from our motion if we ever had to—buying electricity and paying for it in orbital momentum. It was a solution in search of a problem, for we already had all the power we needed.

The image wouldn’t leave my mind, though. I could almost see the double-ended kite, right there in front of me… a dynamo. We didn’t need a dynamo. What we needed was the opposite. What we needed was…

“I think we should recess,” I said suddenly, interrupting Dr. Woke in the middle of a sentence. It didn’t matter. My job wasn’t diplomacy. It was miracle-working.

“Susan, would you show our guests to some rooms? We’ll all meet again over supper in my cabin, if that’s okay with you gentlemen?”

Woke nodded resignedly. I think he had hoped to go back down right away in Pacifica. Colonel Bahnz smiled. “Dr. Rutter, will you be serving Slingshot with dinner?”

“It’s traditional,” I replied, anxious to get rid of the man.

“Good. It’s one of the reasons I came up today.” Bahnz’s grin seemed friendly enough, but there was an undertone to his voice that I understood only too well.

I waited until they had left, then turned to Ishido. “Don, go fetch Emily Testa and meet me in the power room in five minutes.”

“Sure, chief. But what…?”

“There’s something I want to try. Now shake a leg!”

I kicked off down the hallway, looking for a computer terminal. I don’t think I touched the floor twice in fifty yards.

5

For all of our Spartan lifestyle, there are a few places the crew had tried to make “posh.” One is the main lounge. Another is the “Captain’s Cabin.” My digs were given that name when the Foundation first had the idea of setting up a tourist hotel. They figured making a big deal out of dinner in my quarters would give a visit more of the flavor of a Caribbean cruise.