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‘VALLEY FORGE.’ THIS IS NEAL.”
    “Yeah,” Lowell burst out. “What the hell’s taking so long? How am I going to fix this craft? Where am I headed?”
    “COMING UP NOW,” Neal answered.
    But then another voice, more official-sounding, came on:
    “LOWELL, THIS IS ANDERSON.”
    His voice had a solemn but patronizing tone.
    “LOWELL, IF YOU CONTINUE AS YOU ARE, YOU’LL HIT THE NORTHEASTERN QUADRANT OF SATURN’S OUTER RING AT THREE . . . 0 . . . TWO TOMORROW.”
    Smiling faintly but sounding angry, Lowell demanded, “So what does that mean?” To himself, he added, “As if I didn’t know. It means finis. Kaput. The end!”
    “WE . . . WE DON’T THINK YOU’LL MAKE IT THROUGH, LOWELL,” Anderson said gently. “YOU GOT ANY FAMILY . . . ?”
    “No . . .”
    “WELL . . .” Anderson went on, “IT’S A BAD ANGLE AND THESE SHIPS AREN’T MADE TO SHOOT THE RAPIDS. THE PLAN IS TO FIND WHERE THE EXPLOSION CHOPPED THE MAIN BUSS AND REROUTE IT. YOU’LL HAVE TO DO SOME CUTTING.”
    Lowell waited a moment then said, “Okay.”
    “WE TRACKED A BUNCH OF CARGO MODULES OFF YOUR STARBOARD SIDE,” Anderson went on. “WE FIGURE MAYBE ONE OF THE GYRO TANKS UNDER THE FLOOR CUT LOOSE. IT MAY HAVE EXPOSED THE MAIN BUSS DUCT, IF WE’RE LUCKY.”
    Lowell was getting faint. “I’ll check it out,” he managed, then turned to drag himself down a corridor to its end and to a door marked in bold black lettering:
    EMERGENCY
OPERATING ROOM
CAUTION
WATCH YOUR STEP
    Lowell stood for a dazed moment, numbly staring at this information, then pushed inside.
    The room was a cold, ceramic white. The walls, ceiling, and floor, where rectilinear scuppers converged at a single chromium drain, glistened.
    Directly in front of Lowell stood his own operating table. Above it rested a huge light.
    Lowell took a few steps forward, staring at the slab. He fingered the equipment familiarly, then began to prepare dressings and instruments. He was weak and trembling, but managed to assemble the necessary supplies to suture his severed artery.
    At length he pulled himself up onto the operating table and lay back against the contoured backrest. His breath came in shudders through stretched lips.
    He managed to pull the instruments and dressings nearer and began to cleanse the wound, but fatigue was overwhelming him and he couldn’t even hold his head forward long enough to see what he was doing.
    Lowell rested a moment, then slowly raised himself off the operating table. He stood, wavering, then headed for the door.
    Seconds later he hobbled down the corridor holding his injured leg before him. He made it into Drone Control, then reaching the console, pulled a manual from a drawer. Leafing through it he stopped at a heading which read:
    MAINTENANCE DRONES
OPERATION
AND
PROGRAMMING
    Lowell pulled out a circuit card and inserted it under the microscope. He looked into the scope to inspect the microscopic view of an integrated circuit. He watched a microprobe enter from the side and deftly cut a tiny, threadlike wire, then scratch away a small, blue-gray resistance disc. Wires were deftly severed and rerouted.
    He saw complex block diagrams, 3-D spatial flow charts, and circuits displayed in digital form.
    Lowell’s hand moved across the screen and broad strokes of the light pen scattered lines into abstract patterns of pulsing luminosity—then bold, decisive forms appeared from the tip of Lowell’s swiftly moving pen.
    Lowell looked up to see, in a drone control panel, one of the little robots about to perform its familiar task of welding over a micro-meteoroid impact dent, when suddenly it retracted its manipulator arm and stood erect and motionless.
    Through the microscope, Lowell watched a logic terminal block—tiny tweezers lifted a pin from its socket and replaced it in another.
    The drone still had not moved.
    Two other drones, beyond the first one, stood at attention, silhouetted by stars shining behind them.
    Lowell replaced the last cover