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Updated: May 2, 2025
In a moment fire spurted from the bottom tube, spreading over the dull metal and licking at the feet of the Planeteers. Rip watched the boat rise upward to the great, sleek, dark bulk of the Scorpius. The landing boat maneuvered into the air lock with brief flares from its exhausts. In a few moments the sparkling blast of auxiliary rocket tubes moved the spaceship away.
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.
In a short time the Scorpius was balanced with nose tubes counteracting the thrust of stern tubes, ready to flash into space again at a second’s notice. Rip watched, puzzled. The cruiser was miles away. Why didn’t it come any closer? Then, suddenly, it erupted a dozen fiery streaks. "Snapper-boats," someone gasped. Rip jerked fully awake.
That would at least have kept our dosage down enough for safety." "No one else thought of it, either, sir," Koa reminded him. "It was my job to think of it, and I didn't. So I've put us in a time squeeze. If the Scorpius gets back soon, we can get the shielding before our radiation dosage has built up very high. If the ship doesn't come back, the dosage will mount." He looked at them grimly.
The newer nuclear drive cruisers had no need to stop. Their atomic piles needed new neutron sources only once in a few years. The voice horn in the rocket cabin sounded. "The SCN Scorpius is passing Valve Two, landing at Valve Eight." "I thought that ship was with Squadron One on Mercury," Rip recalled. "Wonder why they pulled it back here?"
Mercury, however, loomed larger and larger. They would pass close to the hot planet. O’Brine recalled Rip to the Scorpius and handed him a message. The commander sighed. "Looks like I’ll never get to earth long enough to see my family." Rip sympathized. "Tough, sir. Perhaps the cargo from Titan will be scheduled for Terra." "That’s what I hope," O’Brine agreed. "Well, here’s where we part.
We are going into no-weight. Prepare to stay in no-weight indefinitely. Rotation stops in two minutes." Rip realized why the order was given. The Scorpius could not maneuver while in a gravity spin, and O'Brine wanted to be free to take action if necessary. The voice horn came on again. "Now get it again. The ship may maneuver suddenly. Prepare for acceleration or deceleration without warning.
"I ought to be busted to recruit," he told them. "I knew this asteroid was thorium and that thorium is radioactive. If I had used my head, I would have added nuclite shielding to the list of supplies the Scorpius provided. We could have had enough of it to protect us while around our base, even if we couldn't be protected while working on the charges.
O'Brine was operating as expected. Rip was having trouble keeping his vision from blurring. He leaned against the rocket launcher, and his glove caressed one of the sharp noses in the rack. He heard his own voice before the idea had even taken full form. "Santos! Do you hear me? Santos! Get the Scorpius! Fire before it comes to a stop. And don't miss!"
There were two bombs each of five KT and ten KT. Commander O'Brine looked at the amazing assortment of stuff. "Does that check, clerk?" The spaceman nodded. "Yes, sir. I found another notation that says food supplies and personal equipment to be supplied by the Scorpius." "Well, vack me for a Venusian rabbit!" O'Brine muttered. He tugged at his ear.
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