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news first by a millisecond if we have to pay out."
    Jackie took a deep breath. "Fire laterals."
    The side reaction thrusters fired. They were powered by the central reactor, as long as reaction mass was available. The wavering pale line of superheated gases stood straight out at a tangent to each "tuna-can" chord. To protect the bottom of the cans, the side thruster vents were actually mounted a short distance farther out.
    Slowly, majestically, the Nobel began to spin. "Rotation started. Stresses all at predicted levels. No unexpected readings. Keep it going, guys." A.J. was in his professional voice now, which she found immensely comforting. A pain in the ass he could be, but his skill and his ego combined to make him the best man for a job like this. He wouldn't let anything go wrong; it would be a personal insult.
    "Up to an interior acceleration of one-tenth g . . . closing in on a revolution per minute . . . still all green, no signs of stress. Wobble within acceptable limits. Might need to trim weight a bit on one side, though, I think someone missed a couple kilos somewhere . . . almost there . . .  now !"
    The superfluous command coincided exactly with the automated cutoff of the thrusters. Nobel spun with massive dignity, generating exactly one-third gravity within its linked habitat cans. "How are we doing, A.J.?"
    "Nobel , all green. You're well within tolerances. Minimal precession at this time. Orbital alignment optimum for main drive test."
    Jackie took a deep breath. The next set of maneuvers would stress the Nobel to the maximum that any ordinary conditions would demand. If she survived that, she'd be fully spaceworthy and Jackie Secord would be the chief engineer for the only independent nuclear-powered vessel in existence. "Captain, all systems appear to be ready. We are going to try a main-drive burn."
    "Very good then, Chief," came the cheerful Australian tones of Bruce Irwin. As the first man to ever land (however disastrously) a manned vehicle on Mars, and one of the few interplanetary-qualified pilots, he'd been top of the list when Glendale was looking for someone to command Nobel .
    Well, actually, second from the top. Glendale had first offered the job to Jackie, to which she'd replied: "Jesus, no. I'm an engineer, and I don't want to move to management. I'll stay here in charge of keeping everything running."
    Jackie brought her focus back to the here-and-now. "Right, let's see what our lady's got. Nike , now that we're spinning fine, Nobel is going for a full main-engine burn. Figuring on one to lift us up in orbit a bit, say twenty seconds at full."
    The entire set of maneuvers was meant to take only about sixty seconds of full burn. Nobel was lightly fueled right now, with only about a hundred tons of reaction mass—enough for two hundred seconds of Nobel 's maximum million-pound thrust at an ISP of around one thousand. The light load was important; by having a minimum of reaction mass on board, the effective acceleration of Nobel was maximized, which maximized the strain of the maneuvers. There was no point in testing her at low thrust if she'd break at high thrust, especially since high stress would, obviously, occur when the vessel was low on fuel—toward the end of a journey and therefore potentially as far away from help as it was possible to imagine.
    "Understood, Nobel. Nike is standing by to initiate rescue in case of emergency."
    "We surely do appreciate that, mate. Not that I have any experience with emergencies while flying, mind." Bruce's tone sobered. "Check course vector."
    "On target, Captain," A.J. said after a minute . "Radar scans show all clear, not that there's ever anything to hit out here. And Joe isn't on board this time to jinx everything."
    "True enough. All stations, report in. Everyone strapped in for full acceleration?"
    The full acceleration wasn't actually the problem, as even with a million-pound thrust the Nobel couldn't exceed about a