officer didn't instruct us, and he didn't supervise us. You'd 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,
sir. We'll get back at them. We always 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 astroplot, which gave the positions of all planets and other
large bodies within the solar system.

There was only one possible destination: Mars.

Rip's pulse quickened. He had always wanted to visit the red planet. Of
course, he had seen all the films, audio-mags, and books concerning it,
and he had tried to see the weekly spacecast. He had a good idea of what
the planet was like, but rea