 Why is the distorter drive so dangerous?
"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? There was even serious discussion of destroying Earth out of hand, while it is still possible. They had headed for that planet confidently and unsuspectingly, using the ion drive. On the distorter drive, they had returned to Earth as swiftly as they had departed. 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.
 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.