tense. flight director russert watches as skavlem mutters into the mike.
the telemetry has come in. russert puts it up on the common viewscreen. ship status and all the failures are displayed. it's a disaster.
borokovski is laboring to install windows on a 50-year-old computer from the museum. schlissel and the tech watch, kibbutz. it crashes. again.
there's a general buzz of animated scientific debate. one voice cuts through -
on all the pim's her return trajectory is plotted. she's to come all the way across the day side, enter night, begin acceleration and slingshot around the backside of mars and head home.