"You look magnificent," he told his reflection acidly.
The radiation-proof armor looked as though it had been chrome plated.
But de Hooch knew better than that. He knew exactly what had happened. He was nicely plated all over with a film of mercury, which had amalgamated itself with the metallic surface of the suit. He was thoroughly wet with the stuff and no amount of water and detergent would take it off.
There was something wrong with Number Two Reactor, all right. It had leaked out some of the Mercury 203 that Ferguson and Metty had been making.
He thought a minute. It hadn't been leaking out just before he opened the door in the firewall, because Willows would certainly have noticed the bright mercury line when he checked with the spectroscope. The stuff must have been released when the pressure dropped.
He walked back to the anteroom and looked at the sampling chamber. There were a few droplets of mercury around the inlet.
Thus far, the three pressure explosions had wrecked about everything that was wreckable, he thought. No, not quite. There was still the chance that the whole station would go if he didn't get back into the control room and stop that "powers of two" chain. The detonation of Instantanium 512 would finish the job by doing what high-pressure helium could never do.
He glanced at the thermometer. The temperature behind the firewall had risen to two-forty Centigrade. It wasn't supposed to be above two hundred. It wasn't too serious, really, because a little heat like that wouldn't bother a Ditmars-Horst reactor, but it indicated that things back there weren't working properly.
He turned away and walked back to the decontamination chamber. There must be some way he could get the mercury off the suit—because he couldn't take the suit off until the mercury was gone.