"Well, at least you boys put papers down." she quipped. Indeed, much of the carpeting was covered by white paper, and it's a good thing, since Dan's painting prowess was less then exemplary. The extra G's didn't help, as it pulled some of the paint onto the floor before it reached the target. Dan had to remind himself to aim high, to compensate. A large cone sat in the middle of the room, with 80% of its surface a bright metallic silver. A small section on the far side retained its original red, and Dan repositioned himself to finish the job.
"Yes Mom," Dan laughed, "we're being careful."
"What exactly are you painting, and why?"
Garvin explained while Dan sprayed. "Do you remember your ancient history? At the dawn of technology, the public was still scientifically and politically illiterate. They watched reality tv and worshiped mythical gods. Naturally, within this knowledge vacuum, public opinion was auctioned off to the highest bidder. Thirty second tv ads convinced people to vote for a candidate, because he was a man of faith, or a fearless leader, or whatever."
"Sounds horrible." said Nancy.
"Yes. And as a corollary, government policy was also for sale. One of the foolish boondogles of the day was called Strategic Defense. This was a system that was suppose to protect an entire continent from nuclear weapons. It used lasers, and particle beams, and kinetic weapons, and it went on for decades at great expense. A few scientists pointed out, year after year, that each defensive layer could be defeated by inexpensive countermeasures. In other words, a mirror is cheaper than a laser. But nobody read Science News or Scientific American, so the money kept flowing into the defense contractors' coffers, who then contributed to the republican national committee, who purchased tv ads, which fooled the public - and the cycle began anew."
"Ok - what's the point?"
Dan walked around the cone twice, then sat back down on the couch exhausted while Garvin continued. "this is the nose cone for our medium yield missile. It took me a while to get it off. I don't think NASA expected us to disassemble and reassemble their nuclear weapons."
"You didn't expose yourself to radiation, did you?"
"No, no. It's just the nose cone, designed to shield the warhead from atmospheric reentry. Don't worry, I had my geiger counter with me, and it read normal. But with the G forces, it took Dan and I working together to haul it up here. We're spraying it with a silver metallic paint, which, fortunately, was in supply room 1. This paint was one of the early countermeasures to strategic defense. It reflects 99% of the incoming electromagnetic energy, across the entire spectrum - from microwaves to xrays. This will keep the warhead safe as it moves in behind the dish and enters the beam."
"Of course." said Nancy. "I'm glad we have a techno-historian on board."
Garvin picked up a device that looked like an oversized hair dryer, or an undersized cannon, and plugged it into the wall. "What's that?" Nancy asked.
"It's a heat gun. I didn't think we had one on board, but I called up the manifest and there it was, in the back of supply room 2. It's like a glorified hair dryer, but much hotter, and louder, so you might want to go get some breakfast. The paint will be dry by the time you're done."
"Ok." agreed Nancy. "Just don't set the papers on fire."
"It doesn't get that hot." chuckled Garvin as he switched on the device. It did indeed make a racket, so Nancy went into the kitchen and closed the door. "Cereal." she thought as she pulled a large cube of milk from the deep freeze. With a little help from the microwave, the milk soon became a warm liquid, which she then had to chill down to an appetizing temperature. It was a lot of work for cereal, but you couldn't do this at all in zero gravity, and she was sick and tired of breakfast bars, so this was a nice change of pace. After breakfast she returned to the lounge, and her friends, and the cone, were gone. Apparently they were fitting it back on the missile. She began to roll up the papers, carefully, trying not to spill any paint. This took a while, since the papers covered most of the floor. Finally she held a neat bundle of folded papers in her arms, with the excess paint trapped inside. She tossed it down the shoot towards the trash compactor, which was almost full. "Maybe I'll dump our trash out onto the probe before we leave." Nancy thought with satisfaction. She turned to see Garvin and Dan, back from their mission. They flopped into recliners, exhausted. Everything was work. "I can put these things away if you like." she offered, pointing to the spray can and the heat gun.
"No." replied Dan. "I know exactly where they came from, which box on which shelf. Give me a few minutes and I'll put them back."
"Fair enough."
"But thank you for cleaning up after us. You did a nice job." Dan surveyed the carpeting. "I don't see a drop of silver anywhere, and it would definitely show up against the brown."
"You did all the hard work; cleaning up was the least I could do."
"As soon as I program the guidance computer, we'll be ready to go." Garvin was still a little bit short of breath.
"Take your time; another hour won't make any difference. Remember, we only need a 90 degree suborbital arc, from here to the back of the probe. And there's no air to worry about, a simple ballistic trajectory."
"Right. And I'll put the recon satellite in a longer arc so it flies over the dish and crashes on the far side."
"Perfect. One more thing though - don't detonate the bomb in the focus of the dish."
"But that's the perfect place."
"Yes, from an engineering point of view it is. But before the dish melts and collapses, all that light will be sent straight back to Arcot. They'll see the flash, and they'll know we destroyed their dish. I don't want to give them that information. Place the bomb off focus, near the side of the dish."
"I understand. Don't know why I didn't think of that."
"It came to me last night, when I couldn't sleep. Now, let's finish our movie."
Last night's movie, Interplanetary Attraction, was not a documentary on gravity and newtonian mechanics. Instead, it was a romantic story about a man on Earth and a woman on Mars, who spent 3/4 of the movie trying to get together. It was definitely a chick flick, but Dan liked it too, so he hit resume. Garvin watched out of the corner of his eye, but the computer on his lap held most of his attention. He was programming the guidance parameters for the missile and the recon satellite. Fortunately, NASA provided a precise mass for the probe. After checking his work three times he set the computer to the side and watched the end of the movie. The two lovers were finally on their way to the moon, where they would meet, and fall into each other's arms.
They ate a quiet lunch together, then returned to the lounge, so they could watch the action on the big screen. Nancy pressed launch, and the missile roared away from the ship, with the recon satellite two minutes behind. For ten minutes there wasn't much to see, except the gray of the metal surface below. A black dot indicated the position of the missile, but it was simulated, based on telemetry. You couldn't actually see that small projectile against the darkness of space. Soon the dish appeared over the horizon, and it gradually became a fully formed structure, complete with an external framework to maintain the proper shape. "If I'd seen that before," commented Nancy, "I would have had you place the bomb outside the dish, in amongst those struts."
"It'll be all right." assured Garvin.
The black dot sailed across the edge of the dish and disappeared inside. Nine seconds later a brilliant white flash exploded out of the top of the dish, like a living breathing monster. It melted the bottom of the dish, the gimbals, and the supporting structure. As the recon satellite flew over head, the upper third of the dish, still intact, crashed onto the surface of the probe and broke into several large pieces, each about a hundred yards across. The sections were red hot, plainly visible against the dark background of the probe's surface. The center of the image was still glowing white, a pool of melted metal about three feet thick. As pixels on a screen, it was a thing of beauty, abstract art in technicolor. Eventually ground zero slid off the screen, as the satellite flew past the far side of the dish. The featureless silver-gray surface returned, and rose to meet the camera, which was losing altitude. The crash landing marked the end of the show, and the screen went blank.
"Nicely done." commented Nancy. "Nicely done. In 6,000 years the Arcots will lose contact with their probe. Perhaps they will assume it was successful, and leave us alone."
"That's a long shot, isn't it?" asked Dan.
"Perhaps. But it's our only shot. If the Earth stops transmitting to Arcot at the time of the probe's impact, maybe they'll buy it. As you say, they weren't expecting us to come out and inspect their probe, so if they've tried this before, they were probably successful. I think they're overconfident. But that's tomorrow's problem. For now, we've got to deflect this thing, as soon as possible. Let's start getting our gear together, whatever we can carry on our backs in 2 G's. We enter the probe tomorrow morning."