Rip Foster Rides the Gray PlanetGoodwin, Harold L. (Harold Leland)
Science
Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet
Goodwin, Harold L. (Harold Leland)
Science fiction; Space flight -- Juvenile fiction
"Okay. I’ll make it short. Then you can catch the Terra rocket and take
your eight earth-weeks leave. You won’t really know what I’m talking about
until you’ve batted around space for a while. All I have to say adds up to
one thing. You won’t like it, because it doesn’t sound scientific. That
doesn’t mean it isn’t good science, because it is. Just remember this:
when you’re in a jam, trust your hunch and not your head."
The twelve stared at him, open-mouthed. For six years they had been taught
to rely on scientific methods. Now their best instructor and senior
officer was telling them just the opposite!
Rip started to object, then he caught a glimmer of meaning. He stuck out
his hand. "Thanks, Joe. I hope we’ll meet again."
Barris grinned. "We will, Rip. I’ll ask for you as a platoon commander
when they assign me to cleaning up the goopies on Ganymede." This was the
major’s idea of the worst Planeteer job in the Solar System.
The group shook hands all around; then the young officers broke for the
door on the run. The Terra rocket was blasting off in five minutes, and
they were due to be on it.
Rip joined Flip Villa and they jumped on the high speed track that would
whisk them to Valve Two on the other side of the platform. Their gear was
already loaded. They had only to take seats on the rocket and their six
years on the space platform would be at an end.
"I wonder what it will be like to get back to high gravity?" Rip mused.
The centrifugal force of the spinning platform acted as artificial
gravity, but it was considerably less than earth’s.
"We probably won’t be able to walk straight until we get our earth-legs
back," Flip answered. "I wish I could stay in Colorado with you instead of
going back to Mexico City, Rip. We could have a lot of fun in eight
weeks."
Rip nodded. "Tough luck, Flip. But anyway, we have the same assignment."
Both Planeteers had been assigned to Special Order Squadron Four, which
was attached to the cruiser _Bolide_. The cruiser was in high space,
beyond the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn doing comet research.
They got off the track at Valve Two and stepped through into the rocket’s
interior. Two seats just ahead of the fins were vacant and they slid into
them. Rip looked through the thick port beside him and saw the distinctive
blue glow of a nuclear drive cruiser sliding sternward toward the
platform.
"Wave your eye stalks at that job," Flip said admiringly. "Wonder what
it’s doing here?"
The space platform was a refueling depot where conventional chemical fuel
rockets topped off their tanks before flaming for space. 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?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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