 Why is the distorter drive so dangerous?
"It was only decided yesterday, back on Earth, that I would be the one to make the trip here. What I meant was that I expected someone from Earth to break through our blockade and come here. "If you wanted someone from Earth to come here to see you, why did you put the cordon around Earth? And why did you drop a planet-buster in the Pacific Ocean, and tell us that it was triggered to go off if we tried to use the distorter drive? When you showed up in the spaceways, it was decreed that you had to be stopped at once. There was even serious discussion of destroying Earth out of hand, while it is still possible. The Star Seeker had been built in space, about forty thousand kilometers above the Earth. Then, after several impatient days of careful study and calculation, the distorter drive had been activated, for the first time in Earth's history, and, for the twelve, the stars had winked out. They had built the drive—a small machine, as drives go—but they had never dared to try it, close to a planet. To do so, said their theory, would usually—seven point three four times out of 10—destroy the ship, and everything in space for thousands of miles around, in a ravening burst of raw energy. They had headed for that planet confidently and unsuspectingly, using the ion drive. These ships had rapidly and competently englobed the Star Seeker , and had then tried to herd it away from the planet it had been heading toward. Although far within the dangerous influence of a planetary mass, they had again activated the distorter drive, and they had beaten the odds. On the distorter drive, they had returned to Earth as swiftly as they had departed. You knew that you could have destroyed not only yourself, but also all who live on that planet. You could also have wrecked the planet itself and the ships and those of my own race who manned them. "We can't tolerate wild and warlike races running free and uncontrolled in the Galaxy. Even if you could get down to the bottom of the ocean and tamper with the bomb, you would only succeed in setting it off, and that's what the Sunda had been in favor of in the first place. From what you had already done, I suspected it wouldn't be long before one of you amazing Earthlings would dream up some device or other, head out into space, and show up on our planet.
 The distorter drive has a seventy-three percent chance of destroying everything around it for thousands of miles.
 The distorter drive has a seventy-three percent chance of destroying everything around it for thousands of miles.  The distorter drive has not been thoroughly tested.  The distorter drive is powered by a nuclear reactor.  The distorter drive is radioactive.