Capture and Drive!
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' 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,
and 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 balance--but flailing
against his protective clothing. The other Planeteers rushed to pick him
up, and somehow all their hands beat against each other.
The protective clothing was saturated with fine dust. It rose from them
in a choking cloud and was picked up and dispersed by the ventilating
system. It was contaminated dust. The automatic radiation safety
equipment filled the ship with an earsplitting buzz of warning. Spacemen
clapped emergency respirators to their faces and spoke unkindly of Rip's
Planeteers in the saltiest space language possible.
Rip and his men picked up Koa and continued the 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 say, 'It is the responsibility of the
safety officer to insure compliance with all safety regulations by both
complete instructions to personnel and personal supervision.' Your safety
officer didn't instruct us, and he didn't supervise us. You'd 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 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 land--wherever that may be."
Corporal Nels Pederson spoke up in a soft Stockholm accent. "Never mind,
sir. We'll get back at them. We always 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 astroplot, 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 concerning it,
and he had tried to see the weekly spacecast. He had a good idea of what
the planet was like, but reading or 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. 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 spaceship must seem very heavy and moist to them,
after the thin, dry air of Mars.
The lock worked, and the Martians were replaced by others. They, too,
deposited their cases. But these cases were bigger and heavier. It took
four Martians to carry one, which meant they weighed close to half a ton
each. The Martians could carry more than double an earthman's capacity.
When the lock worked next time, a Planeteer captain came in. He breathed
the heavy air appreciatively, fingering the oxygen mask he had to wear
outside. He saluted Commander O'Brine and reported, "This is all, sir. We
filled the order exactly as Terra sent it. Is there anything else you
need?"
O'Brine turned to his deputy. "Find out," he ordered. "This is our last
chance. We have plenty of basic supplies, but we may be short of
audio-mags and other things for the men." He turned his back on the
Planeteer captain and walked away.
The captain grinned at O'Brine's retreating back, then walked over to
Rip. They shook hands.
"I'm Southwick, SOS Two. Canadian."
Rip introduced himself and said he was an American. He added, "And aside
from my men, you're the first human being I've seen since we made space."
Southwick chuckled. "Trouble with the spacemen? Well, you're not the
first."
Talking about assignments wasn't considered good practice, but Rip was
burning with curiosity. "You don't by chance know what my assignment
is, do you?"