"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[pg 088] 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 - Earthbound!
There was something else that Rip didn't add, although he knew the Planeteers would realize it in a few minutes. Probably some of them already had thought of it.