Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet | Page 7

not used to no-weight. Didn't mean to
grab you. Here, I'll help you back to your post."
He whirled the helpless spaceman like a bag of feathers and slung him through the air.
The force of the action only flattened Koa against the ceiling, but the hapless spaceman
shot forward head first and landed with a clang against the bulkhead. He didn't hit hard

enough to break any bones, but he would carry a bump on his head for a day or two.
Koa's voice floated after him. "Great Cosmos! I sure am sorry, spaceman. I guess I don't
know my own strength." He kicked away from the ceiling, landing accurately at Rip's
side. He added in a hard voice all could hear, "They sure are a nice gang, these spacemen.
They never say anything about Planeteers."
No spaceman answered, but Koa's meaning was clear. No spaceman had better say
anything about the Planeteers! Rip saw that the deputy commander and the safety officer
had appeared not to notice the incident. Technically, there was no reason for an officer to
take action. It had all been an "accident." He smiled. There was a lot he had to learn
about dealing with spacemen, a lot Koa evidently knew very well indeed.
Suddenly he began to feel weight. The ship was going into rotation. The feeling increased
until he felt normally heavy again. There was no other sensation, even though the space
cruiser was now spinning on its axis through space at unaltered speed. The centrifugal
force produced by the spinning gave them an artificial gravity.
Now that he thought about it, Brennschluss had come pretty early. The trip apparently
was going to be a short one. Brennschluss--funny, he thought, how words stay on in a
language, even after their original meaning is changed. Brennschluss was German for
"burn out." It was rocket talk, and it meant the moment when all the fuel in a rocket
burned out. It had come into common use because the English "burn out" could also
mean that the engine itself had burned out. The German word meant only the one thing.
Now, in nuclear drive ships, the same word was used for the moment when power was
cut off.
Words interested him. He started to mention it to Koa just as the telescreen lit up. An
officer's face appeared. "Send that Planeteer officer to the commander," the face said.
"Tell him to show an exhaust."
Rip called instantly to the safety officer. "Where's his office?"
The safety officer motioned to a spaceman. "Show him, Nelson."
Rip followed the spaceman through a maze of passages, growing more weightless with
each step. The closer to the center of the ship they went, the less he weighed. He was
drawing himself along by plastic pull cords when they finally reached the door marked
COMMANDER.
The spaceman left without a word or a salute. Rip pushed the lock bar and pulled himself
in by grabbing the door frame. He couldn't help thinking it was a rather undignified way
to make an entrance.
Seated in an acceleration chair, a safety belt across his middle, was Space Commander
Kevin O'Brine, an Irishman out of Dublin. He was short, as compact as a deto-rocket, and
obviously unfriendly. He had a mathematically square jaw, a lopsided nose, green eyes,
and sandy hair. He spoke with a pronounced Irish brogue.

Rip started to announce his name, rank, and the fact that he was reporting as ordered.
Commander O'Brine brushed his words aside and stated flatly, "You're a Planeteer. I
don't like Planeteers."
Rip didn't know what to say, so he kept still. But sharp anger was rising inside of him.
O'Brine went on. "Instructions say I'm to hand you your orders en route. They don't say
when. I'll decide that. Until I do decide, I have a job for you and your men. Do you know
anything about nuclear physics?"
Rip's eyes narrowed. He said cautiously, "A little, sir."
"I'll assume you know nothing. Foster, the designation SCN means Space Cruiser,
Nuclear. This ship is powered by a nuclear reactor--in other words, an atomic pile.
You've heard of one?"
Rip controlled his voice, but his red hair stood on end with anger. O'Brine was being
deliberately insulting. This was stuff any Planeteer recruit knew. "I've heard, sir."
"Fine. It's more than I had expected. Well, Foster, a nuclear reactor produces heat. Great
heat. We use that heat to turn a chemical called methane into its component parts.
Methane is known as marsh gas, Foster. I wouldn't expect a Planeteer to know that. It is
composed of carbon and hydrogen. When we pump it into the heat coils of the reactor, it
breaks down and creates a gas that burns and drives us through space. But that isn't