Metafire

Andrei went back over to the capsule containing the Plutonium bombs. They had obtained, from the Americans, a power assembly that could take raw Plutonium as a source. It utilized the heat from the near critical mass of Plutonium. Andrei and the other Ukranian physicists knew how inefficient this was, but they also knew that it was the only safe method of establishing a power source from the Plutonium. Without the power source, they would die very quickly in space. The power source was to be their warmth, their air, their computer contact with Earth, and their humanity...to the end.

Even with a pre-fabricated assembly, and even with Sporkin, who had designed it, it would take several days to bring up the power system. The problem was not only dealing with so dangerous a substance as Plutonium, in close quarters, but also of structuring a power delivery system for capsules intended to have power delivered from the outside, not the inside. It wasn't an impossible task. But it was a tedious and exacting task. Anybody working on it had to be well rested. The group had to take their time and not make mistakes.

It was for this reason that the Metafire colony was in no more hurry than Ferguson and the FBI to begin the banishment into space. With two levels of censor, the standard FBI censors and Jill, the Metafire colonists could maintain only the barest contacts with their customers during the days that followed.