Problem En Route

Poul Anderson, "The Children of Fortune." See here.

Changing sounds indicate a problem with the ion blast of the spaceship;

solar emissions of charged particles affect the electrostatic fields which direct the blast;

a few positive ions strike the tube walls;

on the shadow side of the ship, some of these ions lose all kinetic energy, acquire electrons from solar radiation and cling to the walls;

this ice crust in the tubes generates vapors that disturb the blast;

the tubes are eaten through (by the disturbed blast?);

rotating the ship would heat every side equally and boil out the ice but rotation cannot be done while blasting and rotating in free fall would take too long;

they will have to stop the jets, clean out the tubes and mount electric coils to deflect solar ions;

they can fall free for twenty four hours;

if the job is not completed quickly enough, then the ship will fall into the sun.

Suddenly, we are reading a very different kind of sf narrative. The book has quickly moved away from the problems of post-nuclear survival - because of a single mutant.