oard for
this."

Rip was enjoying himself thoroughly. "I don't think so, sir. The
regulations are very clear. They say, 'It is the responsibility of the
safety officer to insure compliance with all safety regulations both by
complete instructions to personnel and personal supervision.' Your safety
officer didn't instruct us and he didn't supervise us. You better run him
up before the Board."

The deputy commander made harsh sounds into his respirator. Rip had him,
and he knew it. "He thought even a stupid Planeteer had sense enough to
obey radiation safety rules," he yelled.

"He was wrong," Rip said gently. Then, just to make himself perfectly
clear, he added, "Commander O'Brine was within his rights when he made us
rake radiation. But he forgot one thing. Planeteers know the regulations,
too. Excuse me, sir. I have to get my men decontaminated."

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."

In a few moments they were all standing under the chemically treated
water, washing off the contaminated dust. Rip paid special attention to
his hair, because that was where the dust was most likely to stick. He had
it well lathered when the water suddenly cut off. At the same moment, the
cruiser shuddered slightly as control blasts stopped its spinning and left
them all weightless. 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."

Corporal Nels Pederson spoke up in a soft Stockholm accent. "Never mind,
sor. Ve'll get back at them. Ve alvays do!"

While the _Scorpius_ decelerated and started maneuvering for a landing,
Rip did some rapid calculations. He knew the acceleration and deceleration
rates of cruisers of this class measured in terms of time, and part of his
daily routine on the space platform had been to examine the daily
astro-plot which gave the positions of all planets and other large bodies
within the solar syste