United States or Montenegro ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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."
"Nobody deserves less consideration than me and Mason. And well, you know yourself, sir, that we were pretty good spacemen at one time. You picked us for the first trip out to Tara with you." Connel nodded. "And well, sir, the main thing is about Jardine and Bangs. I know we're going to be sent to the prison asteroid and we deserve it.
Rather than sit idle he snapped on the reader but, although facts and figures were dunned into his ears he really heard very little. He couldn't apply himself not with a new specter leering at him from the bulkhead. The dangers of the space lanes were not to be numbered, death walked among the stars a familiar companion of all spacemen.
The bad feeling between spacemen and the Special Order Squadrons had started about eighteen years ago, when the cruiser Icarus had taken the first Planeteers to Mercury. He reviewed the history of the expedition. The spacemen's job had been to land the newly created Special Order Squadron on the hot planet. The job of the squadron was to explore it.
In a matter of seconds the four spacemen were rocketing over the jungle toward the Polaris. Presently they came to an enormous dust cloud that had mushroomed out over the trees. It was so thick Tom found it difficult to pilot the small craft. "Any danger of radioactivity in this dust, sir?" asked Astro. "Always that possibility, Astro," answered Connel. "We'll know soon enough!"
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 spacemen to fool with it. "I want you to take care of it instead," O’Brine said. "You and your men.
I want to compliment you on the way you've handled yourselves these past few months. You boys are real spacemen!" He saluted and disappeared down the ladder leading to the exit port. "And that," said Roger, turning to his unit-mates, "is known as the royal come-on for a dirty detail!" "Ahhh, stop your gassing, Manning," growled Astro.
The waiting group recovered balance and faced the valve. Rip knew that spacemen in the inner lock were making fast to the Connie, setting up the airtight seal. It wasn't long before a bell sounded, and a spaceman opened the inner valve. Two men in space suits were waiting, and beyond them the outer valve was joined by a tube to the outer valve of the Connie ship.
But before too long, both Truman Bethurum and George Adamski had to move over. Daniel Fry, an engineer, stepped in. At a press conference to kick off the International Saucer Convention in Los Angeles, Fry told how he had not only contacted the spacemen two years before Adamski and Bethurum, he had actually ridden in a flying saucer.
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."
Word Of The Day