Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet | Page 9

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