No s.p.a.ceman answered, but Koa's meaning was clear. No s.p.a.ceman 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 s.p.a.cemen, 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 s.p.a.ce cruiser now was spinning on its axis through s.p.a.ce 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" also could 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 s.p.a.ceman. "Show him, Nelson."

Rip followed the s.p.a.ceman through a maze of pa.s.sages, growing more weightless with each step. The closer to the center of the ship they went, the less he weighed. He was pulling himself along by plastic pull cords when they finally reached the door marked "Commander."

The s.p.a.ceman 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 s.p.a.ce Commander Keven 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 enroute.

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 a.s.sume you know nothing. Foster, the designation SCN means s.p.a.ce 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 new 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 s.p.a.ce. But that isn't all it does."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You're a Planeteer. I Don't Like Planeteers."]

"You're a Planeteer. I Don't Like Planeteers."

Rip had an idea what was coming, and he didn't like it. Nor did he like Commander O'Brine. It was not until much later that he learned that O'Brine had been on his way to Terra to see his family for the first time in four years when the cruiser's orders were changed. To the commander, whose a.s.signments had been made necessary by the needs of the Special Order Squadrons, it was too much. So he took his disappointment out on the nearest Planeteer, who happened to be Rip.

"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 s.p.a.cemen to fool with it.

"I want you to take care of it instead," O'Brine said. "You and your men.

The deputy commander will a.s.sign 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. 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, sir-to see how clean the tubes are, I mean."

Rip turned and got out of there.

Koa was waiting in the pa.s.sageway 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 s.p.a.cemen we're just simps. Evidently O'Brine was the kind of s.p.a.ce 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!"

CHAPTER THREE - 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 sc.r.a.ped, 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 sc.r.a.ped off out into s.p.a.ce.

Each squad was on its last tube when a s.p.a.ceman 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.cemen.

Halfway across the room Rip turned suddenly and b.u.mped 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 arms and hands beat against each other.

The protective clothing was saturated with fine dust. It rose from them in a choking cloud, was 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. s.p.a.cemen clapped emergency respirators to their faces and spoke unkindly of Rip's Planeteers in the saltiest s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.cemen 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.