"I would rather commit overkill than be killed," said Lem. He touched his holopad, and a holo of Chubs's head appeared. "Back us up five more kilometers, Chubs."
"Yes, sir."
"And give me the latest on our area scans. I want to be certain there aren't any ships close enough to see what we're about to do here."
"Rest easy, Lem," said Chubs. "We're all by our lonesome. El Cavador was closest, but they're long gone now. We're not even picking them up on our scans anymore."
"Good," said Lem. "Then let's get started. Send out the sensors."
"Sensors away," said Chubs.
Lem watched out the window as the sensors flew away from the ship in a burst of propulsion, heading toward the asteroid, a long anchor line unspooling behind each one. The sensors, once in position, would record every aspect of the explosion for later analysis.
"Sensors are in place," said Chubs.
"Fire the glaser," said Lem.
"Yes, sir."
Lem clicked off his holopad and waited in silence with Benyawe and Dublin. After a moment it began. The asteroid exploded outward into large chunks, which quickly exploded again into smaller chunks, racing outward in a growing sphere of destruction. The large fragments continued to burst again and again, getting smaller and smaller, the cloud getting thicker, wider, more massive, moving outward with incredible speed. Now four times bigger than the original size of the asteroid. Five times. Six.
"Hmm," said Dublin.
Eight time
s.
Benyawe looked confused. "I think perhaps it would be wise to..."
"Jettison the sensors!" Lem yelled into his headset. "Fire retros. Maximum power. Back us up now!"
The sensors were cut away. The ship backed up suddenly. Lem, Dublin, and Benyawe were thrown forward into the observation glass. The sphere kept growing. Lem pushed himself up from the glass and watched as the sphere engulfed the sensors he had jettisoned, which instantly exploded into smaller and smaller pieces. But the cloud didn't stop there. It grew more, now a massive ball of dust and particles and gravel. It reached the spot where the ship had been positioned, then grew farther still, expanding outward, the dust getting thinner now.
Then finally it stopped. The particles within the field were small enough and far apart enough that the gravity field was too weak to sustain itself and dissipated into nothing. All was quiet. Lem stared out the window, eyes wide, heart racing. Had he not given the order instantly, if he had waited for dithering Dublin to make a decision, the field would have reached the ship and they all would have been torn to pieces.
He whirled around to Dublin, furious. "I thought you said we were in the clear."
"I ... I thought we were," said Dublin. "Several of us did the math."
"Well your math is kusi! You almost killed us all!"
"I know. I'm ... I'm sorry. I'm not sure how we could've gotten that wrong."
"Benyawe told me we couldn't predict the gravity field," said Lem. "I see now I should have listened to her instead of you. You are excused, Dr. Dublin."
Dublin looked helpless, his face red with embarrassment. Lem watched the man leave then turned to Benyawe. "Is it over? Are we clear?"
She was tapping at her holopad. "It appears to be. Our sensors aren't as good as those we jettisoned, but it seems as if the field is gone. I'd want to do more analysis before giving a definitive answer, though." She looked at Lem, her voice shaky. "If you hadn't reacted so quickly--"
Lem spoke into his headset. "Stop the retros. Bring us to a full stop."
The ship slowed. Lem pushed himself away from the glass and looked out at the massive cloud of dust that was once an asteroid.
"You can't blame Dublin for this," said Benyawe. "Not completely."
"Oh?"
"If we had done more tests on pebbles as this mission was designed to do, Dublin would have had more data and been more accurate in his calculations."