Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet Read online

  CHAPTER SIX - RIP'S PERSONAL PLANET

  Rip rechecked his space suit before putting on his helmet. The air sealwas intact and his heating and ventilating units worked. He slapped hisknee pouches to make sure the space knife was handy to his left hand andthe pistol to his right.

  Koa was already fully dressed. He handed Rip the shoulder case thatcontained the plotting board. Santos had taken charge of Rip's astrogationinstruments.

  A spaceman was waiting with Rip's bubble. At a nod, the spaceman slippedit on his head. Rip reached up and gave it a quarter turn. The lockingmechanism clamped into place. He turned his belt ventilator control onfull and the space suit puffed out. When it was fully inflated he watchedthe pressure gauge. It was steady. No leaks in suit or helmet. He let thepressure go down to normal.

  Koa's voice buzzed in his ears. "Hear me, sir?"

  Rip turned the volume of his communicator down a little and spoke in anormal voice. "I hear you. Am I clear?"

  "Yessir. All men dressed and ready."

  Rip made a final check. He counted his men, then personally inspectedtheir suits. The boats were next. They were typical landing craft, shapedlike rectangular boxes. There was no need for streamlining in the vacuumof space. They were not pressurized. Only men in space suits rode in theungainly boxes.

  He checked all blast tubes to make sure they were clear. There were smallsingle tubes on each side of the craft. A clogged one could explode andblow the boat up.

  Koa, he knew, had checked everything, but the final responsibility washis. In space, no officer or sergeant took anyone's word for anything thatmight mean lives. Each checked every detail personally.

  Rip looked around and saw the Planeteers watching him. There was approvalon the faces behind the clear helmets, and he knew they were satisfiedwith his thoroughness.

  At last, certain that everything was in good order, he said quietly,"Pilots, man your boats."

  Dowst got into one and a spaceman into the other. Dowst's boat would staywith them on the asteroid. The spaceman would bring the other to the ship.

  Commander O'Brine stepped through the valve into the boat lock. A spacemanhanded him a hand communicator. He spoke into it. Rip couldn't have heardhim through the helmet otherwise. "All set, Foster?"

  "Ready, sir."

  "Good. The long-range screen picked up a blip a few minutes ago. It'sprobably that Connie cruiser."

  Rip swallowed. The Planeteers froze, waiting for the commander's nextwords.

  "Our screens are a little better than theirs, so there's a slim chancethey haven't picked us up yet. We'll drop you and get out of here. Butdon't worry. We have your orbit fixed and we'll find you when the screensare clear."

  "Suppose they find us while you're gone?" Rip asked.

  "It's a chance," O'Brine admitted. "You'll have to take spaceman's luck onthat one. But we won't be far away. We'll duck behind Vesta or another ofthe big asteroids and hide so their screens won't pick up our motion.Every now and then we'll sneak out for a look, if the screen seems clear.If those high-vack vermin do find you, get on the landing boat radio andyell for help. We'll come blasting."

  He waved a hand, thumb and forefinger held together in the ancient symbolfor "everything right," then ordered, "Get flaming." He stepped throughthe valve.

  "Clear the lock," Rip ordered. "Open outer valve when ready."

  "Get Flaming, Foster!"]

  "Get Flaming, Foster!"

  He took a quick final look around. The pilots were in the boats. HisPlaneteers were standing by, safety lines already attached to the boatsand their belts. He moved into position and snapped his own line to a ringon Dowst's boat. The spacemen vanished through the valve and the massivedoor slid closed. The overhead lights flicked out. Rip snapped on his beltlight and the others followed suit.

  In front of the boxlike landing boats a great door slid open and air fromthe lock rushed out. Rip knew it was only imagination, but he felt for amoment as though the bitter cold of space, near absolute zero, hadpenetrated his suit. Beyond the lights from their belts he saw stars, andrecognized the constellation for which the space cruiser was named. Asuperstitious spaceman would have taken that as a good sign. Rip admittedthat it was nice to see.

  "Float 'em," he ordered.

  The Planeteers gripped handholds at the entrance with one hand andlaunching rails on the boats with the other and heaved. The boats slidinto space. As the safety lines tightened, the Planeteers were pulledafter the boat.

  Rip left his feet with a little spring and shot through the door. Directlybelow him the asteroid gleamed darkly in the light of the tiny sun. Hisfirst reaction was, "Great Cosmos! What a little chunk of rock!" But thatwas because he was used to looking from the space platform at the greatcurve of Terra or at the big ball of the moon. Actually the asteroid wasfair-sized when compared with most of its kind.

  The Planeteers hauled themselves into the boats by their safety lines. Ripwaited until all were in, then pulled himself along his own line to theblack square oL the door. Koa was waiting to give him a hand into thecraft.

  The Planeteers were standing, except for Dowst. Rip had never seen anold-type railroad or he might have likened the landing boat to a railroadbox car. It was about the same size and shape, but it had huge "windows"on both sides and in front of the pilot--windows that were not enclosed.The space-suited men needed no protection.

  "Blast," Rip ordered.

  A pulse of fire spurted from the top of each boat, driving thembottom-first toward the asteroid.

  "Land at will," Rip said.

  The asteroid loomed large as he looked through an opening. It was rocky,but there were plenty of smooth places.

  Dowst picked one. He was an expert pilot and Rip watched him withpleasure. The exhaust from the top lessened and fire spurted soundlesslyfrom the bottom. Dowst balanced the opposite thrusts of the top and bottomblasts with the delicacy of a man threading a needle. In a few moments theboat was hovering a foot above the asteroid. Dowst cut the exhausts andRip stepped out onto the tiny planet.

  The Planeteers knew what to do. Corporal Pederson produced hardened steelspikes with ring tops. Private Trudeau had a sledge. Driving the firstspike would be the hardest, because the action of swinging the hammerwould propel the Planeteer like a rocket exhaust. In space, the law thatevery action has an equal and opposite reaction had to be remembered everymoment.

  Rip watched, interested in how his men would tackle the problem. He didn'tknow the answer himself, because he had never driven a spike on anairless, almost gravityless world and no one had ever mentioned it to him.

  Pederson searched the gray metal with his torch and found a slender spurof thorium perhaps two feet high a short distance from the boat. "Here's ahold," he said. "Come on, Frenchy. You, too, Bradshaw."

  Trudeau, carrying the sledge, walked up to the spur of rock and stood withhis heels against it. Pederson sat down on the ground with the spurbetween his legs. He stretched, hooking his heels around Trudeau's ankles,anchoring him. With his gloves he grabbed the seat of the Frenchman'sspace suit.

  Bradshaw took a spike and held it against the gray metal ground. TheFrenchman swung, his hammer noiseless as it drove the tough spike in. Afew inches into the metal was enough. Bradshaw took a wrench from hisbelt, put it on the head of the spike and turned it. Below the surface,teeth on the spike bit into the metal. It would hold.

  The rest was easy. The spike was used to anchor Trudeau while he droveanother, at his longest reach. Then the second spike became his anchor,and so on, until enough spikes had been set to lace the boat down againstany sudden shock.

  The boat piloted by the spaceman was tied to the one that would remain andthe Planeteers floated its supplies through a window. It took only a fewmoments, with Planeteers forming a chain from inside the boat to a spot alittle distance away. Even the heaviest crates weighed almost nothing.They passed them from one to the other like balloons.

  "All clear, sir,"
Koa called.

  Rip stepped inside and made a quick inspection. The box was empty exceptfor the spaceman pilot. He put a hand on the pilot's shoulder. "On yourway, Rocky. Thanks."

  "You're welcome, sir." The pilot added, "Watch out for high vack."

  Rip and Koa stepped out and walked a little distance away. Santos andPederson cast the landing boat adrift and shoved it away from the anchoredboat. In a moment fire spurted from the bottom tube, spreading over thedull 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 briefflares from its exhausts. In a few moments the sparkling blast ofauxiliary rocket tubes moved the spaceship away. O'Brine was putting alittle distance between his ship and the asteroid before turning on thenuclear drive. The ship decreased in size until Rip saw it only as a dark,oval silhouette against the Milky Way, then the exhaust of the nucleardrive grew into a mighty column of glowing blue and the ship flamed intospace.

  For a moment Rip had a wild impulse to yell for the ship to come back. Hehad been in vacuum before, but only as a cadet, with an officer in charge.Now, suddenly, he was the one responsible. The job was his. He stiffened.Planeteer officers didn't worry about things like that. He forced his mindto the job in hand.

  The next step was to establish a base. The base would have to be on thedark side of the asteroid, once it was in its new orbit. That meant atemporary base now and a better one later, when they had blasted thelittle planet onto its new course. He estimated roughly the approximatepositions where he would place his charges, using the sun and the starCanopus as visual guides.

  "This will do for a temporary base," he announced. "Rig the boatcompartment. While two of you are doing that, the rest break out therocket launcher and rocket racks and assemble the cutting torch. Koa willmake assignments."

  While the sergeant-major translated Rip's general instructions intospecific orders for each man, the young lieutenant walked to the edge ofthe sun belt. There was no atmosphere, so the edge was a sharp linebetween dark and light. There wasn't much light, either. They were too farfrom the sun for that. But as they neared the sun, the darkness would betheir protection. They would get so close to Sol that the metal on the sunside would get soft as butter.

  He bent close to the uneven surface. It was clean metal, not oxidized atall. The thorium had never been exposed to oxygen. Here and there,pyramids of metal thrust up from the asteroid, sometimes singly, sometimesin clusters. They were metal crystal formations. He guessed that once,long ages ago, the asteroid had been a part of something much bigger,perhaps a planet. One theory said the asteroids were formed when a planetexploded. This asteroid might have been a pocket of pure thorium in theplanet.

  There would be plenty to do in a short while, but meanwhile he enjoyed thesensation of being on a tiny world in space with only a handful ofPlaneteers for company. He smiled. "King Foster," he said to himself."Monarch of a thorium space speck." It was a rather nice feeling, eventhough he laughed at himself for thinking it. Since he was in command ofthe detachment, he could in all truth say this was his own personalplanet. It would be a good bit of space humor to spring on the folks backon Terra.

  "Yep, I was boss of a whole world, once. Made myself king. Emperor of allthe metal molecules and king of the thorium spurs. And my subjects obeyedmy every command." He added, "Thanks to Planeteer discipline. Thedetachment commander is boss."

  He reminded himself that he'd better stop gathering spacedust and startacting like a detachment commander. He walked back to the landing boat,stepping with care. With such low gravity a false step could send him highabove the asteroid. Of course that would not be dangerous, since the spacesuits were equipped with six small compressed air bottles for emergencypropulsion. But it would be embarrassing.

  Inside the boat, Dowst and Nunez were setting up the compartment. Sectionsof the rear wall swung out and locked into place against airtight seals,forming a box at the rear end of the boat. Equipment sealed in the sternnext to the rocket tube supplied light, heat, and air. It was a simple butnecessary arrangement. Without it, the Planeteers could not have eaten.

  There was no air lock for the compartment. The half of the detachment noton duty would walk in, seal it up, turn on the equipment, and wait untilthe gauges registered sufficient air and heat, then remove their spacesuits. When it was time to leave again, they would don suits, open thedoor and walk out, and the next shift would enter and repeat the process.Earlier models had permanent compartments, but they took up too much roomin craft designed for carrying as many men and as much equipment aspossible. They were strictly work boats, and hard experience had showedthe best design.

  The rocket launcher was already set up near the boat. It was a simpleaffair, with four adjustable legs bolted to ground spikes. The legs held amovable cradle in which the rocket racks were placed. High-geared handcontrols enabled the gunner to swing the cradle at high speed in anydirection except straight down. A simple, illuminated optical sight wasall the gunner needed. Since there was no gravity and no atmosphere inspace, the missiles flashed out in a straight line, continuing on intoinfinity if they missed their targets. Proximity fuses made this a remotepossibility. If the rocket got anywhere near the target, the shell wouldexplode.

  Rip found his astrogation instruments set carefully to one side. He tookthe data sheets from his case and examined them. Now came the work offinding the exact spots in which to place his atomic charges. Since thecomputer aboard ship had done all the mathematics necessary, he neededonly to take sights to determine the precise positions.

  He took a transit-like instrument from the case, pulled out the legs ofits self-contained tripod, then carried it to a spot near where he hadestimated the first charge would be placed. The instrument was equippedwith three movable rings to be set for the celestial equator, for the zeromeridian, and for the right ascension of any convenient star. Using aregular level would have been much simpler. The instrument had one, butwith so little gravity to activate it, the thing was useless.

  The sights were specially designed for use in space and his bubble was noobstacle in taking observations. He merely put the clear plastic againstthe curved sight and looked into it much as he would have looked through atelescope on earth.

  As he did so, a hint of pale pink light caught the corner of his eye. Hebacked away from the instrument and turned his head quickly, looking atthe colorimeter-type radiation detector at the side of his helmet. It wasglowing.

  An icy chill sent a shiver through him. Great, gorgeous galaxies! He hadforgotten ... had Koa and the others? He turned so fast he lost balanceand floated above the surface like a captive balloon. Santos, who had beenstanding near by to help if requested, hooked a toe on a ground spike,caught him, and set him upright on the ground again.

  "Get me the radiation detection instruments," he ordered.

  Koa sensed the urgency in his voice and got the instruments himself. Ripswitched them on and read the illuminated dial on the alpha counter.Plenty high, as was natural. But no danger there--alpha particles couldn'tpenetrate the space suits. Then, his hand clammy inside the space glove,he switched on the other meter. The gamma count was far below the alpha,but there were too many of the rays around for comfort. Inside the helmet,his face turned pale.

  There was no immediate danger. It would take many days to build up a doseof gamma that could hurt them. But gamma was not the only radiation. Theywere in space, fully exposed to equally dangerous cosmic radiation.

  The Planeteers had gathered while he read the instruments. Now they stoodwatching him. They knew the significance of what he had found.

  "I ought to be busted to recruit," he told them. "I knew this asteroid wasthorium, and that thorium is radioactive. If I had used my head, I wouldhave added nuclite shielding to the list of supplies the _Scorpius_provided. We could have had enough of it to protect us while around ourbase, even if we couldn't be protected while working on
the charges. Thatwould at least have kept our dosage down enough for safety."

  "No one else thought of it, either, sir," Koa reminded.

  "It was my job to think of it, and I didn't. So I've put us in a timesqueeze. If the _Scorpius_ gets back soon, we can get the shielding beforeour radiation dosage has built up very high. If the ship doesn't comeback, the dosage will mount."

  He looked at them grimly. "It won't kill us, and it won't even make usvery sick. I'll have the ship take us off before we build up that muchdosage."

  Santos started. "But, sir! That means ..."

  "I know what it means," Rip stated bitterly. "It means the ship has got toreturn in time to give us some nuclite shielding, or we'll be thelaughingstock of the Special Order Squadrons--the detachment that started ajob the spacemen had to finish!"