his helmet. It was
glowing.

An icy chill sent a shiver through him. Great, gorgeous galaxies! He had
forgotten ... had Koa and the others? He turned so fast he lost balance
and floated above the surface like a captive balloon. Santos, who had been
standing 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. Rip
switched them on and read the illuminated dial on the alpha counter.
Plenty high, as was natural. But no danger there--alpha particles couldn't
penetrate 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 dose
of gamma that could hurt them. But gamma was not the only radiation. They
were in space, fully exposed to equally dangerous cosmic radiation.

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

"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. That
would 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 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. "It won't kill us, and it won't even make us
very sick. I'll have the ship take us off before we build up that much
dosage."

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

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

CHAPTER SEVEN - EA