Metafire

"OK." Angela spoke up. "You've put a killer satellite on us. Explode it if you will, but I will tell you that we have that situation in hand. In a matter of days your killer satellite will be neutralized, and we will be out of reach. At that point, if George is going to explode New Boston, he will."

"We can agree with that." Ferguson said. "Go on. What do you propose?"

"The capsule that we put the bomb in is still manned, right?"

"Go ahead. We're listening."

"I assume that it needs resupply. Suppose, for safety, you require that resupply requires us to turn down the inertial sensitivity on the nuclear bomb trigger, say for thirty minutes. But that, instead, we turn off the inertial sensitivity for that time. George supplies the code that lets me change the bomb's movement sensitivity, but I change it a lot, rather than just a little. Then, you will have at least a few minutes to move the bomb away from New Boston. I will turn the sensitivity so far down, that you could use one of these little killer satellites of yours to blow Bluebird away from New Boston.

"You might even neutralize the nuclear bomb that way although I doubt it. It will go off. But there should be enough time for the explosion to be safely far away."