At the same time, she will
enter a program that will allow the system to read the gravitational
forces attendant upon every object within its range. The known
asteroids and other heavenly bodies and the scheduled flights of
spacecraft will be filtered out. What will be left will be the
positions of unknown craft and any uncharted natural objects." As he
spoke, the web began to shimmer in dozens of places, each the site of
an object with enough mass to ripple the gravitational-detecting field
of the net.
"Ah! Now the known ships are being filtered out," Richard observed as
many of the ripples disappeared. In a moment, he leaped to his feet.
"There it is! There it is!" he shouted. He ran to the screen. "Look!
Here are the pirates' ships that attacked Robert's freighters
yesterday!" He pointed to a small ripple in the pattern and scanned the
readings at the bottom of the screen. "Yes, eighteen ships. Here are
their masses provided down here. And over here," his finger swept
across the screen to a large ripple in the upper center, "is the
asteroid coming our way!
"Computer! Extrapolate the course of this object"-he gave the
particulars-"and provide information on its trajectory."
In eight seconds the voice of the computer spoke. "Object is a natural
body of approximately 20,625 trillion tons, currently traveling at a
rate of approximately 280,000 miles per hour.
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