Find the Needle!
Rip walked into the squad room with a copy of the orders in his hand.
After one look at his face, the Planeteers clustered around him. Santos
woke those who were sleeping, while Rip waited.
"We have our orders, men," he announced. Suddenly he laughed. He couldn't
help it. At first he had been completely overcome by the responsibility
and the magnitude of the job, but now he was getting used to the idea,
and he could see the adventure in it. Ten wild Planeteers riding an
asteroid! Sunny space, what a great big thermonuclear stunt!
Koa remarked, "It must be good. The lieutenant is getting a real atomic
charge out of it."
"Sit down," Rip ordered. "You'd better, because you might fall over when
you hear this. Listen, men. Two days ago the freighter _Altair_ passed
through the asteroid belt on a run from Jupiter to Mars." He sat down,
too, because deceleration was starting. As his men looked at each other
in surprise at the quickness of it, he continued, "The old bucket found
something we need--an asteroid of pure thorium."
The enlisted Planeteers knew as well as he what that meant. There were
whistles of astonishment. Koa slapped his thigh. "By Gemini! What do we
do about it, sir?"
"We capture it," Rip said. "We blast it loose from its orbit and ride it
back to Earth."
He sat back and watched their reactions. At first they were stunned.
Trudeau, the Frenchman, muttered to himself in French. Dominico, the
Italian, held up his hands and exclaimed, "Santa Maria!"