Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet by Harold L. Goodwin (free reads .TXT) π
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- Author: Harold L. Goodwin
Read book online Β«Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet by Harold L. Goodwin (free reads .TXT) πΒ». Author - Harold L. Goodwin
"The gases go through tubes," O'Brine went on. "A little nuclear material also leaks into the tubes. The tubes get coated with carbon, Foster. They also get coated with nuclear fuel. We use thorium. Thorium is radioactive. I won't give you a lecture on radioactivity, Foster. But thorium mostly gives off the kind of radiation known as alpha particles. Alpha is not dangerous unless breathed or eaten. It won't go through clothes or skin. But when mixed with fine carbon, thorium alpha contamination makes a mess. It's a dirty mess, Foster. So dirty that I don't want my spacemen to fool with it.
"I want you to take care of it instead," O'Brine said. "You and your men. The deputy commander will assign you to a squadroom. Settle in, then draw equipment from the supply room and get going. When I want to talk to you again, I'll call for you. Now blast off, Lieutenant, and rake that radiation.[pg 035] Rake it clean."
Rip forced a bright and friendly smile. "Yes, sir," he said sweetly. "We'll rake it so clean you can see your face in it, sir." He paused, then added politely, "If you don't mind looking at your face, sirβto see how clean the tubes are, I mean."
Rip turned and got out of there.
Koa was waiting in the passageway outside. Rip told him what had happened, mimicking O'Brine's Irish accent.
The sergeant-major shook his head sadly. "This is what I meant, Lieutenant. Cruisers don't clean their tubes more'n once in ten accelerations. The commander is just thinking up dirty work for us to do, like I said."
"Never mind," Rip told him. "Let's find our squadroom and get settled, then draw some protective clothing and equipment. We'll clean his tubes for him. Our turn will come later."
He remembered the last thing Joe Barris had said, only a few hours before. Joe was right, he thought. To ourselves we're supermen, but to the spacemen we're just simps. Evidently O'Brine was the kind of space officer who ate Planeteers for breakfast.
Rip thought of the way the commander had turned red with rage at that crack about his face, and resolved, "He may eat me for breakfast, but I'll try to be a good, tough mouthful!"
Commander O'Brine had not exaggerated. The residue of carbon and thorium on the blast tube walls was stubborn, dirty, and penetrating. It was caked on in a solid sheet, but when scraped, it broke up into fine powder.
The Planeteers wore coveralls, gloves, and face masks with respirators, but that didn't prevent the stuff from sifting through onto their bodies. Rip, who directed the work and kept track of the radiation with a gamma-beta ion chamber and an alpha proportional counter, knew they would have to undergo personal decontamination.
He took a reading on the ion chamber. Only a few milliroentgens of beta and gamma radiation. That was the dangerous kind, because both beta particles and gamma rays could penetrate clothing and skin. But the Planeteers wouldn't get enough of a dose to do any harm at all. The alpha count was high, but so long as they didn't breathe any of the dust it was not dangerous.
The Scorpius had six tubes. Rip divided the Planeteers into two squads, one under his direction and one under Koa's. Each tube took a couple of hours'[pg 037] hard work. Several times during the cleaning the men would leave the tube and go into the main mixing chamber while the tube was blasted with live steam to throw the stuff they had scraped off out into space.
Each squad was on its last tube when a spaceman arrived. He saluted Rip. "Sir, the safety officer says to secure the tubes."
That could mean only one thing: deceleration. Rip rounded up his men. "We're finished. The safety officer passed the word to secure the tubes, which means we're going to decelerate." He smiled grimly. "You all know they gave us this job just out of pure love for the Planeteers. So remember it when you go through the control room to the decontamination chamber."
The Planeteers nodded enthusiastically.
Rip led the way from the mixing chamber through the heavy safety door into the engine control room. His entrance was met with poorly concealed grins by the spacemen.
Halfway across the room Rip turned suddenly and bumped into Sergeant-major Koa. Koa fell to the deck, arms flailing for balanceβbut flailing against his protective clothing. The other Planeteers rushed to pick him up, and somehow all their arms and hands beat against each other.
The protective clothing was saturated with fine dust. It rose from them in a choking cloud, was[pg 038] picked up, and dispersed by the ventilating system. It was contaminated dust. The automatic radiation safety equipment filled the ship with an ear-splitting buzz of warning. Spacemen clapped emergency respirators to their faces and spoke unkindly of Rip's Planeteers in the saltiest space language they could think of.
Rip and his men picked up Koa and continued their march to the decontamination room, grinning under their respirators at the consternation around them. There was no danger to the spacemen since they had clapped on respirators the moment the warning sounded. But even a little contamination meant the whole ship had to be gone over with instruments, and the ventilating system would have to be cleaned.
The deputy commander met Rip at the door of the radiation room. Above the respirator, his face looked furious.
"Lieutenant," he bellowed. "Haven't you any more sense than to bring contaminated clothing into the engine control room?"
Rip was sorry the deputy commander couldn't see him grinning under his respirator. He said innocently, "No, sir. I haven't any more sense than that."
The deputy grated, "I'll have you up before the Discipline Board for this."
Rip was enjoying himself thoroughly. "I don't think so, sir. The regulations are very clear. They[pg 039] say, 'It is the responsibility of the safety officer to insure compliance with all safety regulations both by complete instructions to personnel and personal supervision.' Your safety officer didn't instruct us and he didn't supervise us. You better run him up before the Board."
The deputy commander made harsh sounds into his respirator. Rip had him, and he knew it. "He thought even a stupid Planeteer had sense enough to obey radiation safety rules," he yelled.
"He was wrong," Rip said gently. Then, just to make himself perfectly clear, he added, "Commander O'Brine was within his rights when he made us rake radiation. But he forgot one thing. Planeteers know the regulations, too. Excuse me, sir. I have to get my men decontaminated."
Inside the decontamination chamber, the Planeteers took off their masks and faced Rip with admiring grins. For a moment he grinned back, feeling pretty good. He had held his own with the spacemen, and he sensed that his men liked him.
"All right," he said briskly. "Strip down and get into the showers."
In a few moments they were all standing under the chemically treated water, washing off the contaminated dust. Rip paid special attention to his hair, because that was where the dust was most likely to stick. He had it well lathered when the water suddenly cut off. At the same moment, the[pg 040] cruiser shuddered slightly as control blasts stopped its spinning and left them all weightless. Rip saw instantly what had happened. He called, "All right, men. Down on the floor."
The Planeteers instantly slid to the shower deck. In a few seconds the pressure of deceleration pushed at them.
"I like spacemen," Rip said wryly. "They wait until just the right moment before they cut the water and decelerate. Now we're stuck in our birthday suits until we landβwherever that may be."
Corporal Nels Pederson spoke up in a soft Stockholm accent. "Never mind, sor. Ve'll get back at them. Ve alvays do!"
While the Scorpius decelerated and started maneuvering for a landing, Rip did some rapid calculations. He knew the acceleration and deceleration rates of cruisers of this class measured in terms of time, and part of his daily routine on the space platform had been to examine the daily astro-plot which gave the positions of all planets and other large bodies within the solar system.
There was only one possible destination: Mars.
Rip's pulse quickened. He had always wanted to visit the red planet. Of course he had seen all the films, audio-mags, and books on the planet, and he had tried to see the weekly spacecast. He had a good idea of what the planet was like, but reading or[pg 041] viewing was not like actually landing and taking a look for himself.
Of course they would land at Marsport. It was the only landing area equipped to handle nuclear drive cruisers.
The cruiser landed and deceleration cut to zero. At the same moment, the water came on.
Rip hurriedly finished cleaning up, dressed, then took his radiation instruments and carefully monitored his men as they came from the shower. Private Dowst had to go back for another try at getting his hair clean, but the rest were all right. Rip handed his instruments to Koa. "You monitor Dowst when he finishes. I want to see what's happening."
He hurried from the chamber and made his way down the corridors toward the engine control room. There was a good possibility he might get a call from O'Brine, with instructions to take his men off the ship. He might finally learn what he was assigned to do!
As he reached the engine control room, Commander O'Brine was giving instructions to his spacemen on the stowage of equipment that evidently was expected aboard. Rip felt a twinge of disappointment. If the Scorpius had landed to take on supplies of some kind, his assignment was probably not on Mars.
He started to approach the commander with a question about his orders, then thought better of it.[pg 042] He stood quietly near the control panel and watched.
The air lock hissed, then slid open. A Martian stood in the entryway, a case on his shoulder. Rip watched him with interest. He had seen Martians before, on the space platform, but he had never gotten used to them. They were human, still....
He tried to figure out, as he had before, what it was that made them strange. It wasn't the blue-whiteness of their skins nor the very large, expressionless eyes. It was something about their bodies. He studied the Martian's figure carefully. He was slightly taller and more slender than the average earthman, but his chest measurements would be about the same. Nor were his legs very much longer.
Suddenly Rip thought he had it. The Martian's legs and arms joined his torso at a slightly different angle, giving him an angular look. That was what made him look like a caricature of a human. Although he was human, of course. As human as any of them.
Rip saw that other Martians were in the air lock, all carrying cases of various sizes and shapes. They came through into the control room and put them down, then turned without a word and hurried back into the lock. They were all breathing heavily, Rip noticed. Of course! The artificial atmosphere inside the space ship must seem very heavy and moist to them after the thin, dry air of Mars.
The lock worked and the Martians were
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