They sped toward the asteroid and John said, “do you see the reddish knob on the left side?”
“Yes.”
“Hit just underneath it.”
Billy rocketed the Argent into the asteroid, using the stronger shoulder edge of the Argent to deliver the blow. The contact shook the ship and the hull groaned, but the asteroid shot away, knocking a dozen others into each other, and those into more.
The impact had pushed the Argent in a direction the robot couldn’t anticipate, and it fell behind as it dodged ricocheting boulders. Koothrappally watched the moving boulders and asteroids outside and sweat ran down his forehead as he calculated dozens of equations and variables at once. Stones, boulders, and asteroids the size of hills and larger, sped through the ether and collided with others all around them in every direction. Some collided and ricocheted apart only to knock another dozen into similar flight throughout the asteroid field. Koothrappally wiped the sweat from his face. So many combinations of impact and angle, it is too much to calculate!
Edgar said, “The gold robot’s coming again, fast!”
Billy worked his way through the field darting left and right, up and down like some space rabbit running from a wolf. He glanced at the mathematician beside him, but didn’t say anything. John took a deep breath, pointing in the distance. “Two asteroids of the size you require are flying toward each other and will collide with a great deal of force, quite possibly fracturing one, or both at impact.”
“All right, I’ll have to time it right.”
John asked, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to lead that damned robot towards that point and shoot the Argent between the asteroids right before they impact.”
Avi grabbed his head and cried, “We will be most squished!”
John said, “They are travelling towards each other at considerable speed, Billy! I cannot calculate the velocity you need to acomplish this.”
Billy focused ahead, spying the two huge mountains of rock hurtling through the smaller asteroids, knocking stones everywhere as they sped towards an impending colossal impact with each other. John said, “Did you hear me? I cannot calculate the figures needed for you to pilot us between them and out the other side before these flying mountains collide.”
Billy gave John a quick smile as a trickle of sweat ran down his sideburn onto his cheek. “I guess I’ll have to wing it, then, amigo. Everybody hold tight!”
The two asteroids were enormous in the viewing window, blotting out almost everything else as they sped through the ether in a collision course. Billy pushed the Argent faster, then faster still as they approached.
Edgar said, “That robot’s maybe fifty yards behind!”
Billy watched the two asteroids speeding toward each other and he feathered back on his speed, gauging everything at once. A piece of rock the size of a watermelon splanged off the Argent’s nose.
Edgar said, “His forehead’s beginning to glow again!”
Billy cut hard right, then left, and got back on his path. It was enough, as Edgar said, “The forehead’s not glowing now.”
The two asteroids roc
keted toward each other at an incredible speed, and Billy’s nerves tingled his scalp from the stress. The masses loomed in front of the Argent, closing fast. The gap between them was narrowing, narrowing, narrowing, until there was only a sliver of blackness between the two asteroids.
“The Gold Man just closed more on us, Billy!” Edgar said.
John Koothrappally looked through the viewing window and yelled, “We’re not going to make it!”
Avi screamed, and Ekka pulled Dakota’s and Bixie’s heads to her as if to protect them. Pat spat and said, “Dammit!”
Billy shoved the Argent to maximum speed and the craft shuddered. The transmogrifier screamed as the ship shot forward. Billy tickled the controls to drop the ship lower and he held his breath as they whizzed under the front edge of the asteroids so close together he thought the belly of the craft would scrape the bottom asteroid while the roof scraped the top rock.
Billy’s hands perspired as he tried to guage everything at once.
Edgar yelled, “The robot’s thirty yards behind us!”
A deep rumble came from behind them and Billy chanced a quick glance to the rear. His stomach went cold. The edges of the two asteroids crashed together behind them, and the two mountain-sized pieces of stone crushed against each other as the rest of their mass came together.
Billy looked ahead, and it was like he was in the throat of some mountain-sized monster and looking out as the creature’s upper and lower stone jaws closed far in front of him.
Edgar said, “The Gold Man’s head is glowing!”