A hypospray tingled against Rip's arm. The drug penetrated, caught a quick lift to all parts of his body through his bloodstream. Consciousness slid away.
Chapter Nineteen - Spacefall
Rip was never more eloquent. He argued, he begged, and he wheedled.
The Aquila's chief physician listened with polite interest, but he shook his head. "Lieutenant, you simply are not aware of the close call you've had. Another two hours without treatment and we might not have been able to save you."
"I appreciate that," Rip assured him. "But I'm fine now, sir."
"You are not fine. You are anything but fine. We've loaded you with antibiotics and blood cell regenerator, and we've given you a total transfusion. You feel fine, but you're not."
The doctor looked at Rip's red hair. "That's a fine thatch of hair you have. In a week or two it will be gone and you'll have no more hair than an egg. A well person doesn't lose hair."
The ship's radiation safety officer had put both Rip's and Santos's dosimeters into his measuring equipment. They had taken over a hundred roentgens of hard radiation above the tolerance limit. This was the result of being caught unshielded when the last nuclear charge went off.