IN ANY CASE, THE GOOD NEWS, IF IT COULD BE SO CALLED, WAS THAT the reactor and the engine basically worked. The improvements Larz had made to the robots’ mining programs had led to fewer rocks in the hoppers, and fewer jammed augers, during the L1 burn. Since then, Nats had been crawling around in the hoppers identifying rocks that had sneaked in anyway, and pushing them away from the augers. The damage to the fuel rod would have been a major catastrophe by Old Earth standards—had it happened on an earthbound reactor. Here, it was messy, and had already been fatal to a few. But everything still worked. Yes, the New Caird expedition would be bringing a radioactive disaster right into the middle of the Cloud Ark, but once they drew close enough they would jettison the reactor and let it fall into the atmosphere.