It was devised for periods of long study.
"Anything yet, Mark?" Zip asked, knowing that the question was
pointless. If Mark had found even a tiny piece of information which
could be remotely connected to the situation on the asteroid, he would
have spoken up.
"No, Zip," replied Mark. "I can follow the diagrams pretty well now,
and I think I understand how one part connects to another, but I can't
envision how any part of it could have burned out. I've tried to
calculate how much power Zimbardo would have needed to generate the EMP
of the size he did, but I can only guess at it. Even at my highest
estimates, I can't see how it would burn out the power supplies of a
huge iron asteroid that can be used as a spacecraft. All I can imagine
is that much of the power supply of the asteroid had been shut down
before."
"You mean that its reserves were not in place?"
"Something like that. We have guessed that the asteroid was a huge
spacecraft. We also know that it had been stationary and abandoned-or
at least unused-for eons. I suspect that the asteroid's full power had
never been accessible to Zimbardo. He was able to operate life-support
systems, lights, airlocks, and so forth in his own section without
drawing much power. When he tried to 'power up' the asteroid and move
it out of orbit, he reached the limit of its available power.
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